JATP HEADCANONS: ADHD edition.
Alright beautiful people, I have feelings and thoughts and projections and I am ready to share. I present:
Reggie and Luke both have ADHD with different sub-class presentations.
Reggie is ADHD and Dyslexic. His more of the inattentive sub-type, but definitely shows hyperactive traits. He loves to read - he loves stories, especially action and adventure - but it takes him a LONG time to get through books, because he reads so slowly.
I have a headcanon that Alex used to read to him whenever he was having a particular bad ADHD episode or feeling over-stimulated due to his parents arguing. I think it started because they had the same reading assignment and Reggie’s parents were going at it again and Reggie came over to Alex’s for a quiet reading space - it wasn’t happening at home - but he’s still distracted. So Alex tells him to shut up and listen and he just reads out loud while Reggie follows along with his own copy. They’re both too shy to admit that it becomes a favourite thing to do together, but it begins to happen frequently.
Luke also has ADHD and is on the ASD spectrum. He’s more impulsive-hyperactive than Reggie, but his hyper-fixations are intense and last for years at a time. The ADHD and ASD make it really hard for him to understand the feelings of others.
Both Reggie and Luke suffer from bad RSD (rejection sensitivity disorder) episodes.
Reggie’s are quieter, but they’re particularly bad whenever Luke and Alex are with their SOs. Reggie starts feeling rejected and then he gets angry at himself for feeling that way - his friends are allowed to be in love with other people.
Alex is usually the first to notice when Reggie slips into these quiet, angry-at-himself moods and tries to keep Reggie in the loop as much as possible. Reggie feeling bad is the only thing that can draw Luke away from his fixation/crush on Julie, but it usually takes a little longer for him to catch on.
To make him feel better, Alex will schedule some quality time together - with Luke, too, if he’s able to rise out of his hyper-focus fog (which Alex has come to understand - it’s not that Luke doesn’t want to spend time with them, it’s just that it’s physically painful to pull himself away from things when he’s so deep in them).
Alex and Reggie will hang out at the local mall and make each other laugh by doing ghost stuff - like messing with shoppers by moving their food, photobombing selfies, or just hovering objects just slightly to make people double take.
One of the things that makes Reggie laugh the hardest is when Alex pretends to interview people. He’ll hop up onto the check-out counter and hold his make-believe microphone in their faces, asking them how they feel about the current climate of the world or who Justin Bieber really is.
One time, Alex and Reggie are just sitting around chatting when Reggie notices a middle-aged, tired-looking women over Alex’s shoulder get up from her seat with her purse still on the chair next to her. As she walks away, Reggie jumps up and grabs the purse, hurrying to drop it into one of her shopping bags before she can get away. The woman, of course, doesn’t notice, but Alex is just doubled-over with love because his brother is just such a genuinely good person and he loves him so much.
“Are you okay?” Reggie asks, when he returns, because Alex is pinching his nose, with his eyes squeezed shut. Alex just puts a hand on his shoulder and nods. He brings Reggie in for a hug and Reggie has no idea what’s happening but he loves Alex’s hugs so he just goes with it.
When Luke feels rejected, it’s usually because he feels like his friends are getting bored or tired of him - that’s partly why he pours so much energy into the band and their music. If he doesn’t keep writing new songs or coming up with new melodies, he silently fears they’ll grow tired of him. He has a very black and white view of balance and he fears that if he stops giving his friends 110% of his energy, they’ll decide that putting up with his behaviour just isn’t worth it. He’s a lot to handle and he knows it.
When Alex returns from meeting Willie for the first time and Luke makes the comment about drumming being ‘so nineties,’ this is an example of his RSD coming into play. He’s so certain that Alex will walk away from the band (and him) for something ‘better’ that he immediately puts all his faith in the hurting feelings and throws up his walls - even though he has no evidence for it. His reaction is very much ‘you don’t want us? Well, we don’t want you either,’ even though that is VERY much not the case.
Alex usually understands this, but it doesn’t stop the comment, and the intent behind it, from wounding him.
Alex learns the best way to make Luke feel better is to really engage with his current hyperfixation - just to let Luke really go off about his feelings about whatever he’s doing. That’s cool though, because it’s usually music (it’s always music) and Luke’s passion is infectious at the best of times.
After an hour or so (more like four or five), Luke suddenly realises what’s been happening and he gets kind of embarrassed. He doesn’t admit it, but he does suddenly shut down and gets defensive - feeling like Alex has been playing him.
Alex doesn’t let him stay this way for long and forces him to re-engage by giving his own heart-felt monologue about whatever it is they’ve spent the last four hours talking about or doing. This helps Luke lighten up and relax and by the end of the day, he feels better. He doesn’t say thank you to Alex, but he does give him this look that’s full of love and gratitude and makes Alex’s heart skip a little.
In return, Reggie and Luke’s gift to Alex is to give him time alone, some space to do his own thing. They manage their own feelings and turn in towards each other, keeping each other entertained and engaged for long enough that Alex gets to spend some time with Willie or gets to go for a walk without worrying about the emotional wellbeing his friends.
He knows both struggle with insecurity in their friendships and he appreciates that they trust him enough to know that he’ll always come back to them, because he loves his brothers and he’d never, ever, walk away from either of them.
