ratllu

i help 

[wishuponastarion]

"oh sorry, i guess i was infodumping again" - sad, shy, apologetic

"you sly dog, you got me monologuing" - cool, strong, confident

[ratllu]

i would make an advice post about executive function but unfortunately i havent figured it out yet. testing methods later. not rn though ill do it later. probably

[prokopetz]

It kind of bugs me that Tumblr has seized upon “taking everything literally” as the Defining Neurodivergent Experience™ – not only because it’s actually pretty uncommon, but also because it’s erasing an enormous variety of other frequent communication style issues, including but not limited to:

Having your brain stubbornly seize upon the first interpretation that happens to pop into your head as the Only Possible Interpretation, regardless of whether it’s literal or figurative  

Easily identifying several possible interpretations of a statement, but having absolutely no ability to parse for context and identify which of those interpretations is most plausible  

Being confronted with a statement that has Implications, then getting thrown for a loop when it turns out that the speaker wasn’t considering any of that and really did just mean it literally  

Perfectly understanding a statement’s intended meaning, but getting annoyed with the speaker anyway because they didn’t phrase it Correctly, seriously, are you the only person here who gives a shit about the goddamn Rules?

[ratllu]

GOOD blog bro props on the blog big fan

*sonic the hedgehog voice* NICE BLOG

THANKS bro thanks for the ask bro appreciate it thabnks

-rat voice- THANK YOU

[inkskinned]

fucking hate it when the stuff everybody says "actually works" does actually work.

hate exercising and realizing i've let go of a lot of anxiety and anger because i've overturned my fight-or-flight response.

hate eating right and eating enough and eating 3 times a day and realizing i'm less anxious and i have more energy

hate journaling in my stupid notebook with my stupid bic ballpoint and realizing that i've actually started healing about something once i'm able to externalize it

hate forgiving myself hate complimenting myself more often hate treating myself with kindness hate taking a gratitude inventory hate having patience hate talking to myself gently

hate turning my little face up to the sun and taking deep breaths and looking at nature and grounding myself and realizing that i feel less burdened and more hopeful, more actually-here, that i am able to see the good sides of myself more clearly, that i am able to see not only how far i have to grow - but also how much growth i have already done & how much of my life i truly fill with light and laughter and love

horrible horrible horrible. hate it but i'm gonna do it tho

[ratllu]

real quick reminder that there is no “right way” to be productive. there are ways that work for you as an individual, and there are ways that work better for others. you’re only doing something the “wrong way” if what you’re doing isn’t working 

[e-the-village-cryptid]

that fun adhd time when you get so understimulated you have to do jumping jacks while listening to most obnoxious 2012 electronic dance music you can find on 1.25x speed and it’s still not enough

[ratllu]

understimulation tips!

alright man im gonna be honest here. a lot of my tips are just “video gam” but BEAR WITH ME okay this is just what’s helped me :)

1. fast paced video games. i’ve never been a huge fan of first-person shooters, but games along those lines are generally very stimulating along with requiring a high amount of awareness and focus. you need to be super engaged to do well, and really trying to do well is just addicting. i’d recommend overwatch mostly because it’s the only one im good at ($20-40), valorant (it’s free!!!), and call of duty warzone- i havent played it but ive heard that it’s fun (also free)!!!

2. we’re still on games btw. compete with yourself. games like 2048, tetris, friday night funkin can be pretty fast and require focus, but the main difference is that it’s more score based instead of “dont die” based. they aren’t as intense, but theyre some of the MOST engaging things i’ve found is that beating my own score can and will keep me entertained for hours and UGH i love it sm. there’s not really much i have to say but i cant emphasize enough how much these have helped keep me stimulated. going for higher and harder scores on FnF in particular is just. just trust me bro. ive spend so much time on MILF hard mode that i cant probably do it with my eyes closed 

3. do something that requires precision, focus, and concentration. bad example, but i like to paint my nails. i’m not very coordinated so i mess up a lot, and when i retry and try to be more precise than i was the first time, it ends up being a pretty arduous process!! it keeps me engaged, which is good :D. for other people, finding a harder and more meticulous task might be best lmao

4. memorize stuff!! lyrics, lists- u name it. this is in a similar vein to 3. for example, my friend can sing all of godzilla by eminem flawlessly because everytime he gets bored he’ll go back to fine tuning his lyric memorization and i like to memorize songs in languages that i dont know (specifically russian i love russian music. japanese is my second go-to it’s just so good). things like digits of pi, every country (and their flag), the alphabet backwards, the periodic table, and every god in various forms of mythology (like every egyptian, norse, or greek god) are viable options. it sounds boring but i swear it’s actually SO fun. the next thing im gonna focus on is national anthems because right now i only know america, canda, russia, and japan’s!!!!!!! 

5. use movies and shows instead of video-formatted social media. this one might just be a me thing, but whenever i go on youtube while im understimulated, unless im watch cocomelon, ill find myself getting super impatient at the pacing of it all. it just gets me frustrated which makes me anxious which gets me angry which gets me uncomfortable which 

that is all i have also for u village cryptid pls enjoy <3 and also!! remember to take yourself seriously!! a lot of people dont really understand that boredom and understimulation with adhd can be SO uncomfortable that it feels almost like physical pain. i get it man! have lovely day rat signing off now gn

[e-the-village-cryptid]

thank you so much for putting all this together! the lyric memorization is definitely something I can add to my listen-to-fast-music-and-jump routine, usually if I’m super understimulated I need to move more than video games will allow but I’ve used memorization as a coping strategy for other stuff in the past so would definitely love to try it for this!

[ratllu]

hehe

[howtomusicmajor]

How to Handle Having TOO MUCH To Do

So let’s say you’re in the same boat I am (this is a running theme, have you noticed?) and you’ve just got, like, SO MUCH STUFF that HAS to get done YESTERDAY or you will DIE (or fail/get fired/mope). Everything needs to be done yesterday, you’re sick, and for whatever reason you are focusing on the least important stuff first. What to do!

Take a deep breath, because this is a boot camp in prioritization.

Make a 3 by 4 grid. Make it pretty big. The line above your top row goes like this: Due YESTERDAY - due TOMORROW - due LATER. Along the side, write: Takes 5 min - Takes 30 min - Takes hours - Takes DAYS.

Divide ALL your tasks into one of these squares, based on how much work you still have to do. A thank you note for a present you received two weeks ago? That takes 5 minutes and was due YESTERDAY. Put it in that square. A five page paper that’s due tomorrow? That takes an hour/hours, place it appropriately. Tomorrow’s speech you just need to rehearse? Half an hour, due TOMORROW. Do the same for ALL of your tasks

Your priority goes like this:

5 minutes due YESTERDAY

5 minutes due TOMORROW

Half-hour due YESTERDAY

Half-hour due TOMORROW

Hours due YESTERDAY

Hours due TOMORROW

5 minutes due LATER

Half-hour due LATER

Hours due LATER

DAYS due YESTERDAY

DAYS due TOMORROW

DAYS due LATER

At this point you just go down the list in each section. If something feels especially urgent, for whatever reason - a certain professor is hounding you, you’re especially worried about that speech, whatever - you can bump that up to the top of the entire list. However, going through the list like this is what I find most efficient.

Some people do like to save the 5 minute tasks for kind of a break between longer-running tasks. If that’s what you want to try, go for it! You’re the one studying here.

So that’s how to prioritize. Now, how to actually do shit? That’s where the 20/10 method comes in. It’s simple: do stuff like a stuff-doing FIEND for 20 minutes, then take a ten minute break and do whatever you want. Repeat ad infinitum. It’s how I’ve gotten through my to do list, concussed and everything.

You’ve got this. Get a drink and start - we can do our stuff together!

[allydsgn]

WOAH THIS SOUNDS HELPFUL. I’M GOING TO TRY THIS IMMEDIATELY. Also, I made a chart for myself, but if anyone else wants it for reference (or if this is wrong and I misread you can tell me) here it is:

[thelibrarianxhes]

Keep for me

[poprocksromance]

Sleep tip for the neurodivergent: While I agree that putting my phone away for an hour before bed is not ever gonna happen, I do intentionally have a slowdown period. Like how you can’t go from sprinting on a treadmill to a sudden standstill, your brain does need to calm down before bed.

For me, this means no loud noises or “fast” activities in the hour before sleep. I crawl into bed with my pets and read fanfic/ebooks or troll through Tumblr before listening to some lady on YT gently tell me to relax when actively trying to fall asleep.

No fast or loud activities means no TikTok/YouTube shorts/videos that require energy from me, especially in quick bursts. No TV shows or movies either. I also avoid strenuous activity and don’t do any house chores that aren’t part of my bedtime routine. My little autistic brain loves being primed for things so once my bedtime routine goes into motion and I crawl into bed, as long as I don’t get too sucked into what I’m doing, sleep is easy.

I recently talked to someone with ADHD and she has been sleeping like a mess and never goes to bed at normal hours. Part of it was that she hasn’t been giving her brain any ability to slow down to sleep. Please be gentle to your brain.

[thealienmoth]

I do that too! It works way better then just no phone at all :)

[ot3]

the one twitter feature that tumblr desperately needs is polls. i need to be able to gather Data from you clowns. it’s not the same to have to embed an external link because then that data is tainted by only applying to the type of clowns to click an external link just to answer a poll question. 

[ihavealavalamp]

[ihavealavalamp]

some context.

when i started university i really struggled with writing essays and doing assignments because my adhd ass was really just not suited for that kind of environment (i didnt even want to go to uni for this purpose, but we wont get into that). i got so stupidly desperate that i was like “okay. this essay needs to get done, i need to fuckin Push myself into doing this.” and the best solution i had was to play a song on repeat to push myself into finishing the essay as fast as possible so that i didnt have to listen to the song anymore, and i don’t know my exact reasoning, but the song of my choosing was Don’t Stop Me Now by hit british rock band Queen. i guess i just thought it would be a funny choice at the time. anyways so it worked! i hauled ass getting that essay done with like 1000 words or so in under an hour, citations and all. i handed that bad boy in with not a lot of faith in myself cause it was so rushed, but whaddya know, i got it back and the mark was the best mark on an essay i had ever gotten throughout me entire essay-writing career!

so obviously. i continued doing this. every time i had an essay to do i would procrastinate it until the last possible minute and then just throw on a ten hour version of Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen and let freddie mercury take the wheel. the most notable was a huge research essay with citations that was a final project of an english class last summer, 2500 words. i can hardly remember the topic. i think it was something to do with vaccinations. i wrote it all within two hours right before midnight on the due date and handed it in thinking it was gonna make me fail the course and i got it back a week later with an 80%. by all means this was a terrible practice but it never failed me so i never learned. however i did not predict the consequences here, and the consequence was that i essentially accidentally trained my brain to activate into Essay Mode whenever i heard the song Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen. including when i don’t actually have any essays to write. i hear the song and it activates something within me that wants to write about the effect that capitalism has on the advancement of art movements, or the validity of some classical writer’s opinions on academia. and it’s hell. im just chilling in the cafe with some friends minding my own business and it comes on the radio freddie mercury himself manifests inches away from my ear like “TONIGHT…” and it feels like the chemical makeup of my brain just takes a heel turn. it’s terrible. once i was procrastinating an essay and my friend came over and knew this fact about me and started playing it on her phone while i begged her to spare me and it Worked and i got the essay done in an hour.

anyways ive been doing this for two years now.  i never reread them. i just put the song on and black out for two hours and i never remember the content of what i wrote, i just hand it in and hope for the best and it somehow has never failed me. i WISH it failed me then maybe i’d have some better habits in academia and better advice for my friends who have trouble with essays. but i really dont so this is just how i get through uni at this point. and like idk if it’s something that’s just really useful for other people with adhd, but apparently it works great for my adhd friends as well. somethin about association. who knows.

so yeah tldr. i accidentally conditioned myself to only write essays at record speed and high quality when listening to hit song Don’t Stop Me Now by british rock band Queen and it’s the only thing that has gotten me this far in university.

[sandersstudies]

Manager: So can you talk to me a bit about your strengths and weaknesses?

Me: *literally just describes ADHD symptoms*

[sandersstudies]

“Yeah my weakness is that I’m very sensitive to criticism but it can be a strength because it means I consider the feelings of others when criticizing or coaching them and make sure I always offer encouragement and positive reinforcement.”

“One of my weaknesses is that I often hop from task to task and sometimes get my wires crossed or miss a step, but the same setting makes me thrive in a fast-paced environment.”

“One of my weaknesses is that I can sometimes talk too much or dominate a conversation, but it becomes a strength when I’m in a position to connect with customers and I’m able to encourage conversation comfortably.”

[soaplantro-deactivated20250112]

okay now THIS is a viable strategy for me. everyone else is like “just lie lol” which is actually good advice but also anxiety inducing as hell

[therodentfairy]

Him.

[ratllu]

ihm.

[theconcealedweapon]

When you have too many rules, some of which are critically important and some of which are completely random like this, people become less likely to know which rules are important and are therefore more likely to break the important rules.

"Don't throw your toys at other people." is an important rule. But if a child is punished for that and also for lining up their toys, they won't know that it's wrong to throw toys at people because the rules will seem random.

[strangerthanyou011]

being neurodivergent is all fun and games until someone is slightly critical of you and you suddenly feel physically ill

[geekinator]

If there was one thing I could get neurotypicals to understand it would be this:

The thing that is frustrating you about me is frustrating me far more than it could ever frustrate you. I know when I’m not functioning. I know when I’m falling short. I know when I’m falling apart. I also know that it takes a lot to regain the confidence of someone else once it has been lost, so I know I’m going to have to work harder than ever, and that is an exhausting thought for me, more than you could possibly imagine. It’s not your problem. I know that, and I don’t expect any special treatment. I’m not stupid. Just know that I know.

[thisblogdeactivated]

holding my boob for emotional support

[ratllu]

FUN FACT!!!! the reason it’s so comforting is because doing that especially triggers your brain to release oxytocin, the same hormone that’s released when we cuddle or express physical affection with others, and the release of this chemical helps relieve stress, lower blood pressure, slow your heart rate, and is just really really comforting/grounding in general. hold breast to be less stressed amiright