that-adhd-explorer -> that-adhd-roverscout
Went from explorer to roverscout a few weeks ago, so supposed I’d change the name to reflect that!

#extradirty

Kiana Khansmith
macklin celebrini has autism

Love Begins
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Today's Document
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trying on a metaphor
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Sweet Seals For You, Always
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@that-adhd-roverscout
that-adhd-explorer -> that-adhd-roverscout
Went from explorer to roverscout a few weeks ago, so supposed I’d change the name to reflect that!
[on the verge of having a complete breakdown] i need to make some kind of list or perhaps sort things into categories
I feel as though in the past few years it's becoming more common for me to be interrupted while I'm speaking, and I can't help but wonder if more people are losing a sense of conversational rhythm due to communicating more and more digitally and less and less in person.
When you communicate digitally you don't have to worry about finding the natural rhythm of the conversation, you're not taking away someone else's ability to finish their thought or make their point if you send a message to them while they're still typing. I'm not here to scare monger about the kids and their phones, but it's important that you don't let your skill of finding a conversational rhythm, if you have that skill, atrophy, lest you speak over someone and take away their ability to complete their thought and make their point.
But I also realize that it's really important to specify what I mean by interrupting someone.
When someone says that interrupting is really normal and not considered rude in their community or culture, what they're actually talking about is what's known in linguistics as "cooperative overlap", that or simultaneous talking. Here's an example of cooperative overlap and/or simultaneous talking that you might see in a culture where this is normal and acceptable:
Person A: So guess where I went today? I went to the -
Person B: Oh let me take a wild guess! You went to the shoe store again didn't you?
Person A: That's right, and I got a -
Person C: Oh come on, don't tell you got another pair!
Person A: You know it baby!
Now let's compare that to a different style of interruption, what I like to call "steamrolling"
Person A: So guess where I went today? I went to the -
Person B: UGH did you guys catch the game last night?
Person C: Yeah the refs sucked!
Now, what differences can you see between the first example, aka "cooperative overlapping" vs the second "steamrolling" example?
For one, in the first example Person A is still allowed to make their point, tell their story, and finish their thought. They're not being silenced or completely derailed, and most importantly their conversation partners still seem interested and engaged in what they have to say. In the second example, Person A is being completely derailed and stripped of their chance to finish their thought and make their point, which is unfair to Person A, which is what makes "steamrolling" disrespectful even in many cultures and communities where "cooperative overlapping" would be acceptable.
Now, conversational overlap isn't for everyone, and that's okay, but it makes it awkward and tricky when someone from a community or culture that uses conversational overlap talks to someone who is from a culture that doesn't. For example:
Person A: So the other day I went to -
Person B: Oh my god did you go to that one store?
Person A: Um, no, I went to the movies, and I saw -
Person B: OH did you see that new creepy movie about the aliens?
Person A: No, can I please just finish my story?
Person B: Oh, uh, sorry
Neither person will probably feel great after this conversation. And I'm not here to condemn either conversational styles. I understand why some people see cooperative overlap as a more engaging and exciting conversational style, but I also understand why some people find it frustrating. My mother's family has a cultural background big on conversational overlap, but my father's side of the family ehhh not so much, so I personally grew up seeing these two conversational styles clash a lot.
If you're person A in the above conversation who doesn't like conversational overlap, that's totally fine, I'm personally not a big fan of it either only because I have a terrible memory, so when someone disrupts my flow I usually end up completely forgetting what I want to say. Just try to recognize the difference between cooperative overlap vs steamrolling. If someone is just trying to cooperatively overlap with you, patiently and politely tell them something along the lines of "sorry I have a terrible memory so if I don't finish I'll forget what I'm trying to say". But it's generally a good idea to be more patient and understanding with conversational overlap than steamrolling.
If you're someone who cooperatively overlaps and you encounter someone who isn't a fan of it, try not to take it personally, maybe like me they have a horrible memory and will forget what they're trying to say if they get side tracked.
But what I meant earlier about conversational rhythm is that too often a lot of interrupting comes from not realizing the other person wasn't finished speaking.
For example, personal A wants to say "so the other day I went hiking, and I saw a fox" some people might not recognize when person A is actually finished speaking, typically they assume as soon as they've heard a complete clause that means the thought is finished, so the conversation goes like
Person A: So the other day I went hiking -
Person B: OH I went hiking a few weeks ago with my girlfriend but it was so slippery out!
Person C: Oh how is your girlfriend doing by the way?
Person B: She's doing great! How's your partner doing?
Do you see how this style of interruption, unlike cooperative overlap, also derails Person A and deprives Person A of a chance to finish what they want to say? It's not quite steamrolling, and often just comes from a lack of rhythm or understanding. As a general rule, if you want to avoid interrupting someone, pause for a few seconds after you think they're finished in case they aren't actually finished. This way you avoid accidentally depriving someone of the chance to finish what they want to say and completing their thought.
We should never be too eager to assume someone has finished making their point because you never know what someone might actually be trying to say, and if you cut someone off before they make their point you can miss important context. For example:
Person A: I don't think I see stray cats here -
Person B: AHA BULL FUCKING SHIT! I totally saw a stray cat the other day!
Person A: I was going to say as much as in other places if you had let me finish?
Or:
Person A: I hate when it's hot out. When I was a kid it was usually around 25 or 30 degrees Celsius in the summers -
Person B: OH come one don't be such a wimpy little baby! 25-30 degrees isn't even that warm! I've totally seen WAY hotter summers than that!
Person A: Uh, that's what I was going to say if you'd let me finish, the summers were pretty mild when I was a kid, but they're a lot hotter now . .
Do you see how in both conversations Person B was too eager to assume Person A had finished making their point and ended up missing important context? If person B had only paused and waited for Person A to finish making their point, they wouldn't have ended up making an ass of themselves to put it frankly. This style of interruption can make you come across as eager to dominate and "one up" other people, which frankly a lot of people find obnoxious and exhausting. This is different than cooperative overlapping because it comes from a place of wanting to correct or one-up your conversation partner, rather than play and/or build into what they're saying, which is why I'd argue it's closer to steamrolling.
Good conversational rhythm ideally means everyone is allowed to finish their thought and make their point, whether or not that includes overlapping or even simultaneous talking. If you're not sure someone has finished their thought, pause a few seconds to make sure they've had the chance to complete their thought, less you miss important context. OR, if you do interject, it should be about building/playing into what they're saying rather than derailing/steamrolling them.
What's important to keep in mind is that it's often a matter of power and respect when someone is or isn't allowed to finish their thought and make their point. If someone is unable to finish their thought or make their point before getting steamrolled, they're going to feel like their input to the conversation isn't valued or important, and that's never a good feeling.
One common excuse I get when I call out people who chronically interrupt me (and I'm talking steamrolling me, not something innocuous like trying to cooperative overlap with me) is they always try to pull the excuse "but I just have a bad memory so I have to interrupt you or else I'll forget what I wanted to say!"
Which to me just shows that their interruption does come from a place of a lack of consideration for others, because what about the person already speaking? What about me forgetting what I was already in the middle of saying?
I also have a bad memory, and most of the time when people interrupt me (steamroll style) I end up forgetting what I was trying to say. So why does their right to say what they want to say before they forget it take priority over me finishing what I was trying to say before I forget it?
Autistic trauma is so devastating and yet so corny. You'll be doing everything perfectly normal in public but someone will sneer at you and you'll spend an hour agonizing over yourself like "fuck what if no one told me it was Don't Wear Yellow Thursday"
I watched Hannah Gadsby’s TED talk on autism & life. I really enjoyed.
But I was struck most with the clarity & simplicity of how she puts things. Luckily, some people in the comments quoted some of them so I didn’t have to write them down. Here are 3 of them.
adhd paralysis sucks bcuz im just sitting there and my brain is like
YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME
no work done no rest gained. literally no point of this at all
just wanted to share these executive dysfunction comics i am so sorry to whoever drew them these have been saved on my phone for like 6 years
“If you have time to be on social media, you also have time for…” “If you have time to watch Netflix, you also have time for…” Yeah, but do I have the energy for it? Do I have the emotional and mental capacity for it? Am I pain-free enough for it? Can I focus on it? Can I do it without leaving my bed? Can I safely do it without risk of (physically or emotionally) injuring myself by pushing past my boundaries?
scouts of tumblr
give me your scout stories. it can be a funny/interesting/scary, anything! i’ll start (fyi i live in sweden)
cows randomly appeared where we set camp
like 4 in the morning some reindeer loitered around our tents and made loud reindeer noises (they’re domesticated)
THIS DUMB ASS SELF-DOMESTICATED DEER IN JAPAN SNUCK UP BEHIND ME AND TOOK A SIP FROM MY JUICE!! FUCK YOU DEER I DIDNT WANT YOUR SALIVA
some dude trying to fling himself in to this giant may 1st bonfire, being stopped meters from it
last days of world scout jamboree(wsj) japan some of us swedes were at a forest and it only had ONE electric outlet for us to charge our stuff. somehow with the power of friendship and sharing we were charging about 50-70 appliances at the same time. no we did not burn it down.
idiot boy thought he could get away with sexual assault (groping) and got promptly deported back to his country (wsj)
fucking…. wsj…. “hey are you trading your backpack? i’ll trade you my soul for you backpack” “backpack are you trading your backpack i want a kånken i’ll trade you my soul, my virginity, my 6 scarves-”
I’m a Dutch scout (have always been in co-ed groups).
I started as a cub, became a scout and rose through the ranks, becoming a assistant patrol leader and then a patrol leader. A patrol is a small group of members, the PL and APL being the leaders of it and chosen by the adult leaders from members within that patrol. Patrols are such an important thing in the scouts agegroup that the first priority is feeling part of the patrol, the troop coming second.
I’m now an explorer and have been part of the club for around six or seven years.
- “What do you MEAN you cheated on the dropping by hitchhiking do you know how unresponsible that is you’ve got KIDS in your group and it’s DARK-“ (not said towards me)
- Just… making makeshift tents with tarps for the (bi?-)annual 3 day camp where we help foresters maintain the campsite and moors and such… Lying just outside the covered place where the fire is, in the grass at night, looking up at a gorgeous cloudless night sky without light pollution…
- That time we did the Annual Northern Pentecost Camp while there was a lightning storm warning. The whole weekend it either rained or was bone dry, no in between. It stormed immensely. We had to use two metal pegs per hole in order for the tent not to blow away. The camp was on a flat military terrain. It was an amazing experience.
- Generally the Pentecost Camp’s themes and getting way too much into the storyline and in character.
- YELLS! Troop yells, subcamp yells, all of them!
- Long evenings around the campfire, sometimes talking and singing, sometimes all in silence, reflecting and listening to music.
- Singing the beaver (agegroup 5-7) song together at meetings with the whole club!
- The absolute adrenaline of overflight day! (people transfer to the next agegroup and if they want to, go off a zipline as a symbolic representation. There’s games and a big fire pit and bread and marshmallow roasting and it’s always really great)
I’ll add more when I think of it but yeah, scouts ♥️
My doctor and therapist: now with this autism + ADHD diagnosis you need to learn to unmask because masking all the time will make you burn out again and feel like shit
Other people: well it's just interesting how after getting the diagnosis you suddenly start behaving like that I mean I'm not saying you're faking it's just funny how you suddenly cannot be normal like you were before
THIS IS SO TRUE!
bUt yOu nEveR hAd a pRoBLem wiTH this bEfOre?!
BITCH I have spent 35 years thinking I was just inherently bad at being a person, now I find out I have a disability? That it’s actually (checks notes) NOT THIS HARD FOR EVERYONE?! What the fuck do you mean other people aren’t getting distracted because they can hear the electricity?! Yeah I think I’m gonna give myself a break actually. The microwave IS too loud, now fuck off.
Not telling your kid they have a learning disability, chronic illness, mental illness etc. so they can “feel normal” actually does the opposite. They will not feel normal if they do not have the context to understand that their normal will be different from that of their peers.
The amount of times I’ve heard a parent say something like “I’m just not going to tell my son he has ADHD, I want him to feel normal.” HE DOES NOT. HE DOES NOT FEEL NORMAL. HE IS WONDERING WHY HE IS STRUGGLING AND COMING TO THE CONCLUSION HE IS AN IRREDEEMABLE FAILURE.
Since my son and I are on opposite ends of this particular spectrum, I'm curious to see how other neurodivergents experience temperature. Are you..
short sleeves/sleeveless all year neurodivergent
hoodie/sweater all year neurodivergent
dressing according to weather neurodivergent
changing multiple times a day bc it's either too warm or too cold neurodivergent
other/nuance
I'm bald/neurotypical/see results
My theory of adhd management is that in order to focus there are 4 things that need to be sufficiently occupied:
Eyes
Ears
Hands (or body)
Brain
And if you aren’t occupying them enough or there’s too many things demanding the use of one, it’ll start to wreck havoc on your ability to do things.
So for example, listening to a podcast. This occupies your ears and brain as you focus on both listening and processing what you hear, but it leaves your hands and eyes completely without anything to do. If you tried to sit down and just listen to a podcast by itself you’d probably get unbearably bored and stop doing it.
But if you pair that activity with something that uses your hands and eyes, like a craft, household chore, or commute, suddenly you’re fully plugged in and can in fact focus better on both tasks than you could if you tried doing them separately.
It’s also why you can’t listen to a podcast while doing homework; you’re trying to use your brain for two different tasks. To occupy your ears while doing homework (which is already using eyes, brain, and hands) you need something for your ears that doesn’t require your brain: music. Specifically music that doesn’t use too much brain power, which is why some people prefer instrumentals or songs in other languages.
Hyperfixation and sensory overload change this by moving the threshold for how much sensory input you need to be able to function. If I’m extremely focused on a craft project (eyes, hands, brain) I might not even need something for my ears; my interest in the project makes up for it. If i’ve had a very overwhelming day, trying to listen to an audiobook while I do some stretches could be too much to process. My brain needs a break.
Video games, which pretty much universally occupy all 4 areas, are basically instant, easy focus wrapped up in a neat little bow. No wonder adhd-havers tend to love them.
If you’re struggling with a task, try looking at which areas it occupies and which are left unattended. Then try to find something enjoyable to fill those gaps, and see if that helps.
sometimes you just have to let yourself be a bit neurodivergent.
i hate going out, it gives me a lot of anxiety and sensory input that i dont like, and i am often forced to talk to people.
so i do this thing on more difficult days, or sometimes just for fun, where i "bring a fictional character with me". i walk and imagine Fictional Character walking next to me. they talk to me, reassure me, hype me up, whatever i need them to do.
today dean winchester came christmas shopping with me. he went over the list with me of stuff i needed to get, told me i was doing a good job every time i finished in a certain shop, reminded me to take a deep breath when i got a little overwhelmed.
and yea. its kinda silly. and i know its just me talking to myself in a different voice, but it Works! especially since all of my special interests/hyperfixations tend to be tv/movie related.
so do what you gotta do to Get Shit Done. stop holding yourself to neurotypical standards. if you need Fictional Character to tell you you're doing a good job, do it! if you need Favourite Singer to walk you to school, do it! yea it might feel silly but you're literally fighting against your own brain to get stuff done every single day. you can have a little self indulgent daydream, as a treat.
this is your gentle reminder to stop fighting against your adhd and instead structure your life around it
buy a pack of chapsticks and put one in the pocket of all of your coats and jackets because you always forget to bring one and chapped lips is sensory hell
leave important things where you can see them. if they go in a box or a drawer you will forget they exist
put any appointments or deadlines in your phone calendar As Soon As you get them. set a reminder for a week before, a day before, an hour before, as many as you need as often as you need them.
when that little voice in your head says "i dont need to write that down, ill remember it" that is the devil talking!!! write it down anyway!!
plan for down time. have a few hours at the end of every day to just do fun stuff like engage in your hyperfixations. even if you didnt get all of your work done that day, have the rest anyway. you probably spent the whole day beating yourself up for not doing what you Should be doing, so you still need the break.
if you never eat vegetables because its too much effort to chop and cook them, get the frozen or canned shit. it doesnt go off for ages and you just have to microwave it. theres no point buying fresh vegetables if they just keep going off and being left to rot in the bottom of your fridge
if you struggle to decide what to have for dinner every day, take the decision out of it. choose a set of meals and eat those on rotation until you get sick of them, then choose some new ones and do it again.
its not stupid if it works! our brains literally have a chemical deficiency. you are allowed to accommodate yourself. go forth and stop making your life more difficult than it has to be because "this shouldn't be this hard". it is hard, so make it easier.
Please remember that some ADHDers cope with their traits by becoming efficient.
My husband has combined ADHD, with very strong hyperactivity traits, executive function difficulties, strong time blindness, and memory issues.
To cope, he has become obsessed with being on time, writing everything down, sticking reminders everywhere etc. Not because it is a solution (it's not, he's rarely on time anywhere) but because years of trauma have made him terrified of forgetting.
He may have to go to the shops just to pick up some items. He will iron his clothes, be showered and dressed by 6am, but not go until 11am.
It looks like he's being proactive. But he's actually just scared himself into getting ready. He forgets his medications, to shower, to eat... Unless if there are consequences. Then he becomes a nervous wreck to simulate that he's under control.
we are so ableist about memory. people with good memory take for granted the fact that they can recall as much as they can, and use that to taunt, guilt and threaten people with memory issues. many neurotypes and mental illnesses cause memory lapses. traumatic brain injuries can cause memory lapses. brain cancer can cause memory lapses.
even if your memory is good, it's not right to guilt someone because they can't remember something. trust me, people with memory problems are desperately trying to remember: it's just that we literally can't. it is a very literal "i can't remember".