To the neurotypicals that try to understand that having ADHD means not applying all neurotypicals expectations, I love and appreciate you and this post isn’t directed towards you. Y’all keep being the beautiful heroes we need.
To the neurotypicals that can’t seem to understand what struggling with ADHD is like, allow me to say it must be nice having a brain that can tolerate focusing on one thing uninterrupted for times at length without your brain feeling like it’s having pins and needles jabbed into, set on fire, and then danced on by a squad of monkeys on jackhammers due to the lack of stimulation. In the ADHD brains desperation and attempt to flee from this agony, any semblance of control of thoughts is now lost as it flees to some ascendant realm, where, finally free and at peace the ADHD brain breaths a sigh of relief only to be brought back 5 minutes later with the realization that you have no idea what just happened in the world around you. Only that your brain is once again on a rack steadily being stretched to the breaking point, and the cycle repeats itself until you give up because there’s no way you’re benefitting from whatever you’re trying your damnest to pay attention to. And without establishing a working coping mechanism the ADHD brain now falls into depression, unable to perform functionally, and if you thought the story ends there allow me to introduce you to Emotional Dysregulation. *slaps roof of brain* you see, this bad boy (or girl, or whichever flavor of the beautiful gender rainbow you identify with) can fit so much emotion in it. What should be a small spark of an emotion immediately jumps into a wildfire instead, consuming my brain and throwing it into a frenzy. Because when they were making my brain in the brain factory they ran out of the emotion scale slider, and instead decided to make do with an on and off switch instead. (And screw them, if they were gonna do that they coulda just left the amygdala our entirely) So emotions go from one extreme to the other. Meaning my brains repeated failures quickly spiral into depression and feelings of helplessness. I CANT FUNCTION LIKE THAT.
That’s what an ADHD brain trying to pay attention to a single source of information feels like.
So when I multi task, it’s not because I’m trying to be offensive, or disrespectful, it’s me doing it for both of our benefits, because that’s the only way my broken brain works and the only way I can keep my scotch-taped together hunk of pudding that I call a brain together. If you have a problem with that please provide me with a new functional brain (pretty please with a cherry on top?) or go royally screw yourself.
/rant