#writing adhd

[charlugeist]

Reel thing I made when I have multiple stories but keep neglecting the others like unwanted children

[arcadian-litterateur]

Was thinking how much I'd like there to be more representation for people with ADHD who aren't on the spectrum who still stim bc I stim quite a bit but I have ADHD not autism and there just seems to be a lot of erasure of ADHD people who have behaviors that are deemed non-ADHD because they are labeled as only autistic behaviors.

So I guess I gotta write it myself.

[purplespaceace]

very few characters actually have adhd in media, and when they do, what people mean by that is just that they fidget a lot, not that they have adhd. the only character with adhd I can think of where I’ve watched/read it and I’ve gone, “oh, this character actually has adhd” is Jake peralta from Brooklyn 99. so, here’s my take on how to write adhd, with examples from Brooklyn 99.

I’ll do the best I can to separate them into three categories; the three things people look for in adults with ADHD, which are rejection sensitivity dysphoria, an interest-based nervous system, and emotional hyperarousal.

I’ll also randomly bold and italicize bits so people with ADHD can actually read it.

Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, or RSD

Rejection sensitivity dysphoria makes people with ADHD overly sensitive to criticism, even if they perceive a rejection and there actually isn’t one. Their emotions are also very strong generally. Because of RSD, people with ADHD become people-pleasers and can develop anxiety because they’re so eager to please.

For me, RSD makes me cry an embarrassing amount for any little reason. in your writing, make your characters overdramatic, criers, and/or people-pleasers. They’ll have trouble saying no. They may also be over competitive, as their perceived rejection may include losing.

how does Jake show this in b99? When Jake comes up with a catchphrase and Rosa says it’s terrible, jake is far more hurt than he should be. He hates losing, and he gets overly upset whenever someone says they don’t like him or don’t trust him, etc. he’s also a people pleaser who has trouble saying no.

An interest-based nervous system

An interest-based nervous system includes hyperfocuses and an inability to pay attention. It stems from the fact that we can’t make as much dopamine as neurotypicals. This means that while neurotypicals get dopamine after completing a task, people with ADHD don’t. That means that people with ADHD don’t have any reason to do tasks, especially those they don’t like. This leads to executive dysfunction—people with ADHD will know they have to or want to do something, but they can’t seem to do it. people with ADHD hyperfocus on things that bring them dopamine. I was obsessed with warrior cats for three years. But hyperfocuses can also last a short amount of time—I’ll have a drawing idea in the middle of class and won’t be able to concentrate on anything else before I finish it. this is where our impulsiveness comes from. we can leap into things we think will give us dopamine without thinking, which can lead to injury. We also tend to tell people personal things they don’t want to hear because of this, and don’t have very good boundaries. We sometimes say whatever comes into our head, which can also result in us being rude on accident. Our voices can also get very loud or we can interrupt people frequently because we’re so impulsive. When people with ADHD hyperfocus, they can forget about anything else. I’ll forget to eat if I’m busy reading a Wikipedia article about feminism in the 1850s, and won’t go to the bathroom or drink water either. It’s also important to note that taking away distractions doesn’t help, because we can do things like pick at our skin and daydream—something that people with ADHD do a lot of. Because of executive dysfunction, people can call people with ADHD lazy or irresponsible.

people with ADHD can also be extremely indecisive because ADHD affects our executive functioning, and making decisions requires planning and prioritizing, and task initiation, which are both executive functions!

people with ADHD also have poor memory for important things, but tend to remember random bits of trivia. Poor memory leads to object permanence problems, which means people with ADHD can forget to call a friend back for weeks, forget that they need to read library books in a closed cabinet, or forget that the vegetables they got will go bad. People can sometimes say that people with ADHD don’t care about anything because of this.

people with ADHD can also be prone to depression because of under or overstimulation. Boredom feels painful for people with ADHD. If we’re overstimulated, we can experience sensory overload—if things are too bright or too loud, if too many things are touching us at once—often it’s not because the thing is too intense, but because too many things are happening at once.

We also have something some people call dolphin brain, where we jump from one thing to another. From the outside, it looks really random, but I find that when I’m talking to another neurodivergent communication is generally easier. For instance, someone with ADHD might see a bee at a baseball field and tell their team about the time they saw whales at seaworld because their little brother was also stung by a wasp there. people will see no connection on the outside, but it makes perfect sense to the person with ADHD.

people with ADHD can also be overachievers, either because they hyperfocus on schoolwork or their RSD makes it so that failing at something isn’t an option. people with ADHD can also be very controlling and stubborn, probably because we hyperfocus on something and cant handle it being any different, and any change to our plans can be seen as rejection.

we can also have a hard time ordering our thoughts or doing stuff like math in our head. a lot of the time I number my thoughts like, 1. this reason, 2. this reason, etc. even if theres only two or sometimes I just need the 1. as a transition for my brain. when I don’t write it down or organize it like that it feels like I’m trying to grasp ropes that have been covered in oil (it’s not going to happen) and then my brain gets all jumbled and I have to restart at the beginning. this is probably just me, but it feels the same way when I’m reading long paragraphs of something uninteresting, or even short bits of historical documents because the way they phrase things is really pompous and hard to process.

also, stuff like caffeine calms us down and helps us focus. people who don’t take medication (me) often drink coffee or caffeinated sodas to focus.

another random tip, but if your character with ADHD also is genderfluid or genderflux, they might have a hard time figuring out their gender sometimes, because we can be known to have a hard time putting our feelings into words or our brains will just go, “nope, not thinking about that right now” and move on, which can be pretty frustrating.

people with adhd also have a trait called time blindness, where we have no idea how long something takes and therefore can’t manage our time very well. this often results in us being late or just sitting around the house because we got ready way too early.

we also have something called consequence blindness—we do things and are completely unaware of the consequences. if I don’t brush my teeth, I get cavities. but I don’t think about that when I’m deciding I’m too tired to brush my teeth.

in b99, jake regularly stays up all night solving cases and watches documentaries on random topics. He’s also very distractible—when they’re trying to find the person who sent Captain Holt death threats in the train yard, Jake says he and captain holt should take a train trip together sometime. Jake says that he’ll forget Amy if they don't work together because he’s like a goldfish.

Emotional hyperarousal

This is the only thing people tend to include when writing characters: the fidgeting. People with ADHD tend to need more stimulation than others, so we’ll do things like draw during class and chew on pens.

people with ADHD can also have apd, or auditory processing disorder. we tend to watch shows with subtitles on and may take a second to process what you’re saying, or hear it wrong. The subtitles thing may be partially do to creating just the right amount of stimulation, but if I don’t have subtitles, me and my other friends with ADHD will watch tv with the volume turned up very high. People with ADHD also can have a hard time interpreting other people‘s tone and have a hard time controlling their own. They can be bad at social cues and have poor manners because we don’t pick up on that stuff.

people with ADHD also tend to observe everything or nothing at any given time, mostly based on the amount of stimulation they have—if they dont have a lot in their main task, they’ll need to take in something else at the same time. Likewise, if I’m hyperfocusing on something I often don’t notice anything else, like if someone asks me a question.

in b99, Jake fidgets with things a lot. In the intro, he’s picking up and examining a figurine on his desk, likely because he was bored with paperwork or some other task.

[lilpressedflower]

ADHD things to happen to me in a single day <3

- got out of the house, realized I forgot a mask once I was already walking down the street

- arrived to college, realized I forgot my pendrive (which I needed to work. In the only class of the week I Really Need the pendrive)

- convinced my friend to go with me to buy something, realized we took the wrong street when we got to a friend's house who lives aprox 20 minutes away. We did not realize before. I have lived in the same city my whole life.

- got home, started doing things on my list only to wind up cleaning unnecessary parts of my room right before my friend arrived

- I'm sure there's more but like. I just found this funny and useful. For characters and fanfic and stuff. Plus most of these (if not all) happened in just half the day. And they're all moderately Big ones, not little ones like "I talked about a completely different topic in the middle of a sentence" or "I walked up and down the stairs only to realize I forgot what I went looking for". Big Funny ones.

- for the pals out there writing Jesper and lance and Leo and (other) ADHD characters

[trippy-writer]

Idk about you guys but I’m started to think that the whole “write what you want” and “there are no rules in writing” are 🧢 🧢🧢🧢

[algumaideia]

Writing Neurotypical characters

This is my attempt (and problaby failure) to help autistic, adhd and other neurodivergent folks write neurotypical characters. 

I just would like to say that I’m highschooler and this post is based on the research I did about autism during the pandemic. Since autism is type of neurodivergence I know better I’ll only compare neurotypical behavior to autistic behavior.

Anyway, let’s begin.

Interests

When you reasearch about autism it will normally appear that autistic people have few interests, normally one, if much three or four. But I don’t think this is the biggest different, but how different autistic people and neurotypical feel about their interests. My little brother has 3 main interests, video games, animes and drawing. But he likes more the activity than the subject, if that makes any sense. When he likes an anime he enjoys it while watching, but then as soon he finishes it he goes to the next. He can talk about it a little with his friends, however it is just that. There isn’t that emotional link with the anime. He doesn’t want to watch it again. When a NT likes a show it will finish to watch it and then that’s it. A lot of people don’t like to rewatch things. The most the person will do is to search to fanarts, online discussions, or rewatch some especific episodes sporadically.

Social Interaction

I saw a post sometime ago where the person said that the way she tried to write a NT character was something like that:

I do so much eye contact and look I understand all social rules.

I know the person was exaggerating, however in my opinion what makes conversations and social intereaction easier to NTs aare the understading of context, circunstances, nonverbal clues and how those things change the meaning of what is said. Not only that, but we usually process those things subconsciously. We don’t take some time to analyze the body language, the tone of voice and the situation, it just happens?? Sometimes it is necessary to think more about it, but it isn’t that deep analysis. 

Sensory stuff

Unless it is something extreme it normally doesn’t bother neurotypicals. I mean we have a better time in ignoring those kind of stuff. Of course this changes a little to person to person.  But it is easier to us to do so, we don’t stress about it that much. For example: transforming the annoying sounds in a kind of background sound; I can read in the middle of my classroom chaos, but my friends can’t. 

This wasn’t the best post ever, but I tried. I hope this can be helpful to someone. 

Best regards, 

Me.

Ps. Good lucky to you neurodivergent people who try to write neurotypical characters without having any resource

[princegirassol]

Questions for ADHD people

I’m trying to write some characters with ADHD so it’d be great if people could answer these. 

You can reply, reblog, dm me, whatever. Anything helps! If I said or phrased anything in an insensitive or wrong manner, please let me know and I will correct it! 

I also have been reading some books on the theme, but I thought it’d be nice to talk to people. :D

Character questions:

.What would you like to see in an ADHD character? 

. What aspects of living with ADHD do you wish were more present in ADHD characters?

. What things would you like an ADHD character to struggle with?

.What things would you like an ADHD character to exceed, be good at etc?

.What do you dislike to see in an ADHD character?

.How would you like other characters to respond to the ADHD characters’ strugles?

.What stereotypes do you particularly hate in ADHD characters?

General questions:

.What are you some of your most recurring hyperfixations?

.How do you usually seek stimulum?

.What are some techniques that help you with memory problems?

.What are some techniques that help you with emotional regulation?

.What are some techniques that help you with mood swimgs?

Is there anything  else you’d like to say on the topic? Something that particularly sticks out about the adhd experience, something meaningful for you etc? Speak up! :D

EDIT: People have been asking and YES I STILL NEED ANSWERS!! auhhusa I posted this yesterday ( 31/10/2020 ) but I’ll probably never delete this post and I’d love to keep getting answers every once in a while! 

Plus this might be useful to other people looking for resources. :) So, please keep your answers coming!!

[msmkcreates]

Hey also I give everyone permission to write ADHD and Demisexual characters and experiences as long as it isn't harmful stereotypes, and feel free to message me if you want my perspective on what it's like

If anyone gives you shit about it you can tell them I said it was okay and they can come yell at me i will fight them with my fists