#unhinged tips

[togetherjournalprompts]

Unhinged ADHD Tips & Tricks #6

Another tip so soon?! Why yes, mis amigos! Because I’m thinking of it and I don’t want to forget it.

Who hates chores? I do! We ALL do! It makes my brain go BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR and I dOn’T lIkE iT! This tip is the one that ensures I look crazy because I talk to myself while practicing my voice acting.

Make the chores an integral part of a story. Play pretend! You’re not you! You’re someone else!

Dead serious here. When I’m having trouble with doing my chores, I start a story where I’m the main character.

Sometimes, I’m the Drowish father picking up after young child before I go to work. I know it needs to be cleaned because my Elvish wife is suffering from PPD, and hasn’t been herself lately. She refuses to go to the doctor for help, so I do what I can. I reduced my hours at work to support her more, but most of the time, I make sure the house is tidy and our son is taken care of.

Other times, I’m a young Sky Elf, a servant in a Dragonborn household. This is the only life I’ve known, so cleaning comes easy. But somehow, I feel there’s more out there. There has to be more to life than this. But I know if I’m to try to make my escape, I need to finish my assigned tasks for the day. The Master of the house inspects all of our work at the end of the day. If I don’t do a good job, I’ll be punished and locked away, and my chance for escape is ruined for today.

One game I suggested to my daughter was this one: I’m a prisoner in the evil warlord’s castle and he’s making me clean his castle. He likes to boast how he caught me, and how easily he controls me. But little does he know that I’m plotting his downfall. I just have to lull him into a false sense of security by keeping his lair clean. Ohhhhh if he only knew how much I hate his guts. Let him just wait until I get my revenge.

During this, I absolutely do voices(I love to do them while I’m reading to Andy, she’s very much entertained by them). It makes it more entertaining for me, and it completes the illusion that I’m not me doing my chores. I like to play the adultier adult(The Drowish Father) the most. He’s my favorite character. It helps, and it makes it more fun.

[trials-of-a-spirit-worker]

Me: Hmmm time to clean~ what should I do with my empty medicine bottles? I mean they're pretty useless now.

Little inner witch gremlin: Use them as curse jars.

Me:

Just be sure to get rid of your name and stuff on the label before you do this.

[togetherjournalprompts]

Unhinged ADHD Tips & Tricks #3

This one is more about working with your distraction as opposed to trying to reign it in. Reigning it in doesn't really work for me. It distracts me even more. So here's what you do:

Let yourself jump from task to task

When I have a day that I have set aside for cleaning, I rarely ever stick with just one task at a time. I do some stuff in my bedroom and ope! Time to get these boxes out of here. So I take the boxes out, and maybe I see dishes need done on my way back. I get about halfway done when I see something on the counter that needs to be put in the bathroom. When I get there, I realize the sink needs wiped down. I clean until I remember oh right, I like to do the towels once a week. So I take the towels to the laundry room.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Does everything get done this way? Usually, no. But was it cleaner than before? Most of the time, yes. It depends on if I started a deep clean and managed to lose motivation before finishing. At least this way, it doesn't feel so overwhelming to be in the house I'm living in. It may not look cleaner, but I know I got a lot of partial tasks done, which makes it feel cleaner.

It doesn't have to be 💕perfect💕 It honestly just has to be cleaner than it was before.

[togetherjournalprompts]

Unhinged ADHD Tips & Tricks #9

I had almost forgotten what this one was supposed to be, but a quick jaunt back to my Tumblr feed helped me remember!

It was a post by a med-student(I think, please don't quote me on who exactly) about how most problems come down to lack of fiber. That part wasn't the important part, but the next bit was because it's what I do a majority of the time.

💕Use liquid supplements💕

People with ADHD tend to have nutrient deficiencies. It couldn't be because we forget to eat during hyperfocus, sleeping issues, generally poor appetite, generally poor food choices(though in this economy? how can we afford the good choices), or our brain is just screwing with our body's signals that we're hungry/full(/sarcasm, it's all of those).

Now, I try my best. But during my off weeks, the ADHD tax is just too high. I *could* do a home-cooked meal and prepare fruits and veggies, but during my off weeks, most of that sits in the fridge and goes bad. No thanks. Freezer meal it is. So to make sure I have most of my vitamins/minerals/fiber, I use liquid supplements.

Most of the water bottles I mentioned I carry around on a regular basis have some form of supplement in it. I'm not doing the iron one right now because my hematocrit is high, but I usually use vitamin D(because me and the sun have an agreement. I don't go outside, it doesn't turn me into a lobster), and fiber.

It's easier than vitamin gummies(because I have to have a whole routine that involves the kitchen and I can't set that up at the moment), it's more pleasant then the vitamin pills. And I can tailor my supplements for what I need in the current time frame.

[togetherjournalprompts]

Unhinged ADHD Tips & Tricks #1

I'm tired of pretending my tricks don't range from just a wee bit unhinged to wtf, so im just gonna call it what it is.

Today's trick!

That song you've had on repeat because of the 💫vibes💫? Use the vibes to get something done.

I listened to Loser Baby from Hazbin Hotel for 3 days straight. It was the only song I listened to unless I had my daughter with me. I switched to the album for about 30 minutes before I stuck it back on repeat for another couple of days.

Those moments when you're vibing, take advantage of it. The dopamine is right there! The song is giving it to you. Just keep vibing and listening, but let it enable you to also get the laundry that's been sitting there the last month

[togetherjournalprompts]

Unhinged ADHD Tips & Tricks #8

I have a ton of hobbies. So many. It’s incredible how many random hobbies and projects I have lying around. It’s great and fun, but also a pain because I’ll want to get into something and I’ll get the equipment to do it. I’ll pursue it for a few months before the dopamine is gone and now I’m stuck with all this stuff that I may never use again.

HOWEVER!

My interests are cyclical, meaning I will eventually come back to it, or something similar. So here’s the unhinged tip I’ve got today.

That random hobby you bought things for and are now no longer interested, keep the stuff

I’m serious, if you have the space to keep it. Try to keep it around. Organize it so it fits, but you never know if the desire to make resin stuff will come back with a vengeance(as my hobbies often do). Would you rather pay the ADHD tax of rebuying all the equipment over again,(Because we know it either got donated, or sold off for cheap, and now rebuying is very likely more expensive), or be pleasantly surprised that you don’t have to even dust it off because it was safe and sound in a box?

My two big ones are usually crochet and sewing. Crochet costs come in yarn, 100%. Some of my yarns are indie dyed, some are 100% wool, some are bougie fiber mixes, and of course I have some cheap stuff. I don’t want to give the natural yarns I have away only to realize it would be perfect for a project later the same year. As for sewing, what good would it do to get rid of my sewing things(like my sewing machine and my serger) only to spend 100s in new equipment?

Keep the hobby stuff. Use it for dopamine later on.

[togetherjournalprompts]

Unhinged ADHD Tips & Tricks #7(I think)

I dunno how this one is gonna go over because it involves taking off the mask.

All of us with chronic illness, neurodivergence, mental illness, disability, etc know about the mask. For those that aren’t in the loop, the mask I’m talking about is the person we’ve been conditioned to be. It’s the person that doesn’t info dump, has manageable stimming, the person who smiles, and makes small talk. The mask is the person like the “customer service” persona, but for all public life.

Me? I hate that guy. I spent years being that guy, and honestly, fuck that guy.

Let yourself stim when you need to

I’ve spent the better part of a few years breaking down that sumbitch pretending to be me. And y’know what makes the day much more bearable? Stimming.

My most common one is just popping my lips, or just humming badly(on purpose). I snap my fingers a lot too, but one of my big noticeable ones is a walking one. I’ll be walking through the store, just doing business things(>cough< playing with the fish) with my hands up by my ears, snapping away. My torso will rock side to side, and I’ll either be making nonsensical noises, singing badly(again, fully on purpose), or talking to one of the employees.

I’ve also noticed that, lately, the rocking side to side is a big one. Sometimes it’s just my head, other times my entire upper body will get into it. I dunno why, it feels good and that apparently means I need to do it until I get sick of it. It appeases the brain goblin, and sometimes that’s all that matters.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that most people don’t seem to care. I’ve done The Walk ™ in full view of the customers because I’ve started to stop caring what perfect strangers think, and no one has mentioned it. At all. If they’ve mentioned it to my assistant manager, she sure hasn’t told me. I’ve stimmed while meeting with sales reps, I’ve stimmed while having a meeting with our CPA. No one cares. And I’ll admit, maybe I’ve been incredibly lucky to have most people around me not really seem to care that I’m being my weird little self out in public. I think the most I’ve gotten is “what the heck was that noise? Do it again” and I have to tell them that I’m sorry, I don’t control the noises and they’re not terribly replicable if I’m actively thinking about it. I doubt anyone believes me when I tell them honestly that I can’t repeat most of the nonsensical noises. But the beauty of it is that I’ve finally learned to be comfortable with that part of myself, so I don’t care.

[togetherjournalprompts]

Unhinged ADHD Tips & Tricks #4

Or is it #5? I dunno, and I’m about to clean out my car to take everyone to the zoo. So let’s get into this one!

Every ADHDer I know has that one chore they absolutely hate. It’s tedious, it actually feels physically painful to complete it, and it’s laundry. Nah, just kidding, but that does seem to be the most common one. My girlfriend’s least favorite chore is dishes, and let me tell you, I’d trade with her any day of the week so long as I’d never have to do laundry again. If she didn’t live half-way across the world……

ANYWAY!

Today’s tip is laundry specific:

Put your clothes right side out in your hamper to make doing the laundry seem easier

Weird? Yes, of course.

But this little trick helps me feel like laundry is a much easier mountain to tackle. The most tedious part is having to turn all of the laundry I carelessly threw in the hamper right side out again. Fine brain! Be that way! Now I just take my shirt off and turn it back(cause my shirts always end up inside out when I take them off) before throwing it in the hamper. I also started doing this with my socks and underwear because screw having to turn each individual sock right side out again. Nuh uh.

Part of why this works is because it’s taking the work and breaking it up into smaller pieces over a longer period of time. It makes the whole order feel much less tedious