Recently someone I know on shared a video on facebook of some woman, who I promise is not qualified to be talking about ADHD, saying it wasn’t real and I forced myself to watch the whole thing and it was filled with ignorance and misinformation and I was fucking pissed off, which usually is what fuels my long ranty posts on my fb. Anyway I made a list of things I go through because I was so mad. ANYWAY HERES MY LIST.
Know what having ADHD is like?
-It's interrupting people all day because your brain can't sit on something for too long bc it'll forget and you have literally no control over it. -It's having to ask someone to repeat what they said eight times only to slowly have to piece it together an hour (or days) later. -It's reading something over and over wondering if you're not understanding or if its really that weird of a sentence. -It's talking when you have nothing to say and wishing to the adhd gods above that they'll finally let you shut up. -it's learning to say nothing because you hate yourself for talking too much. -It's being in the *middle of a sentence* and forgetting what you're even talking about. (this is the worst I do it so freaking often) -It's going quiet and spacey and thinking about everything all at once, which feels like thinking about nothing at all because you can't focus even in your own head. -It's hating yourself. -It's having friendships that feel like they mean *nothing* to you, although you try to convince yourself otherwise. (This one confuses you because you know its a meaningful friendship and you try your hardest to be a good friend always but you also know you struggle with *feeling* like its meaningful) -It's hyperfocusing until your eyes go fuzzy you're so exhausted. -It's not being able to solve a really simple puzzle because your brain sees the right answer but also its convinced theres a different way to do it. -It's feeling like your chest is going to cave in because you couldn't be perfect, which you know is unreasonable but you feel it anyway. -It's failure to control and regulate your emotions at random. -It's not being able to eat certain foods because the texture makes your skin crawl and you can't even chew it it's such a strong repulsion. -It's having sensory overloads. -It's getting up at 2 am because you cant sleep and cleaning, organizing, and rearranging the space under your sink in the bathroom instead. -It's having no self worth. -It's thinking about something for so long that you pick it a part and rationalize every aspect of it until you can understand wholly or firmly decide it's a good decision or mind-frame or whatever because you have an unwavering NEED to find rationality and logic in everything. -It's hating the way sheets feel on your toes and sleeping under blankets only for your whole life. -It's being hungry because you haven't eaten anything in almost 24 hours and pacing around the kitchen thinking to yourself "I'm not really that hungry" just because you can't decide what to eat. (This is how you got here in the first place.) (Sometimes you settle for a soda instead but since the headache is bad enough you usually force yourself to make a decision.) -It's having people who know nothing about adhd saying that "its not real" and thinking its an illness only children can have. -It's not knowing for 15 years that you didn't 'figure it out' but that you were on medication and it was helping you, you didn't know that you don't out grow it- the symptoms just change.
It. Is. Real.
Here have some more, Tumblr.
-It’s going to class and doing the best you can and still failing the class three times in a row, even if you do tutoring, study with the aids, and try everything to be prepared. -it’s knowing exactly what you want to say but never being able to put the pieces together to accurately convey the concept. -It’s rewatching an episode several times because you’re watching it but your brain is 900 lightyears away. -It’s wandering aimlessly around your house for and hour and fourteen minutes and thirty two seconds. This includes: sitting in your room for two minutes, getting up and walking into the living room and watching the news (standing 3 feet from the tv) with your mom for five minutes, going into the kitchen for twenty minutes (still watching tv as you try to decide if you’re hungry or not), going into the laundry room to get soda, walking back upstairs to sit in your room for three minutes, getting up and doing your hair in the mirror 11 different ways before deciding this was a waste of time (why did you do it anyway?) effectively throwing away eight minutes, sitting in your room for six minutes then getting up and sitting in your nieces room, where you sat all day babysitting, and look at the guinea pigs for two minutes, going back upstairs and sitting in your room for twelve minutes, walking around doing nothing for one minute, going back into the kitchen for another ten minutes, going to stand in the room with your mom, looking around for something to ??? you’re not even sure why you’re there, for three minutes, then you turn and take five steps in the direction of the stairs and stop again for another minute, finally you walk up stairs and back to your room and stay there. -It’s getting caught in a loop of thinking about the same thing at the same time every day for days on end, you pick the thing apart and figured it out (mostly anyway) almost on the first day so why you’re still thinking about it is a mystery.
I think that’s all I’m going to add, but yeah these are me-things that I consider related to my adhd.
But go ahead and tell me adhd isn’t real.
