There's a bunch of adhd advice out there that's like "people with adhd tend to work better under deadlines due to the anxiety so here are ways to artificially induce a stress response in order to get you to get work done" and it's like well what if I don't want to be stressed out all the time in order to function
hey loves, I’ve been reading through the comments and loads of people are asking how to not fall into this pattern because that’s all they know. so, here’s some advice from Auntie Pan who’s been in the trenches (stress-caused disabilities and chronic illnesses).
context: grew up in an abusive, controlling home, escaped to uni, had a prolonged mental breakdown, became a teacher and worked in a dysfunctional school with amazing kids and nightmare management for years. I did not realise I have adhd and autism for a long time. (You might even be able to scroll back through this blog to find the time around which I did realise lol.)
ANYWAY, things that have helped me because my body can no longer handle any kind of stress without flaring up:
If you’re doing anything that requires you to do a lot of prep before you begin the actual thing (e.g. cooking, deep cleaning a room, moving house), mise en place. That’s a fancy french way of saying get everything ready before you begin. So if I’m cooking idk spaghetti carbonara, that means fry and chop the bacon, separate the egg yolks from the whites, put water in the kettle, put dry spaghetti into a pan. Once everything’s ready, it reduces the mental load and means I can focus on the actual cooking and any clean up that I can do along the way. H/t to @ms-demeanor for this, you changed my life!
the Might As Well rule. This one works really well for me but you gotta be careful otherwise you’ll get sucked into the Vortex. Basically, let’s imagine you’re in the bathroom, brushing your teeth. You notice that the extra roll of toilet paper has been used. instead of thinking, “I’ll get to that later”, and then forgetting about it until you sit down on the bog (no judgement, we’ve all been there), you think “Might As Well put an extra roll while I’m here!” This tends to help with the little tasks that build up over time. This Does Not Work for big tasks.
Leading on from no.2, Do It Immediately/ASAP really helps me too. My current boss will email me on a Friday and say, ‘don’t reply to this now! Leave it til monday!’ But she and i both know that if i leave it til monday, I will forget and get stressed and this will make me Very Ill. So, instead, the moment i receive the email, I’ll either schedule in replying to it as soon as I’m done with my current thing, OR I’ll reply to it immediately.
Anything that can’t be actioned immediately, i mark as Unread. Anything Unread in my inbox is a future action, and i check those Unread emails/texts/whatevers Every. Day. To make sure whether today is the day i have the info to action it. (This also means i have to stay on top of my inbox. I read all my emails and then mark them accordingly. I’m also brutal with unsubscribing)
The House Always Wins. Both in a literal sense, because i am in a constant battle with keeping my house clean, and i know now that I’ll never get it as clean as i want it. It’s impossible, i no longer have the energy or stamina to vacuum and scrub everything. But also just in a life sense. I’m never going to achieve things to perfection, and perfect is the opposite of done. And getting things done is that much more important when you have limited energy and strength. Accept that you often have to half-arse life in order to Full-Arse the few things that really matter to you.
Have multiples of everything, everywhere. I wear support gloves, so i need to have handcream at every sink and everywhere i sit down in the house. I try to keep it unobtrusive, but it means i don’t have to trek upstairs just to moisturise my hands. Gum, phone chargers, pens and pencils, water bottles, hand sanitizer, whatever you need.
Work with people, even if it’s online. Body doubling actually works. Also I’ve found that if I’m working on assignments, taking myself to a library or study area that isn’t my bedroom helps so much.
Show off! Tell people on here or elsewhere in your life about the fact that you’ve just written 100 words! Or that you’ve cleaned the fridge and that’s a really big deal for you. Celebrate your wins, no matter how small.
Basically, you’re aiming to reduce the mental load as much as possible. Wear the same types of clothes all the time to minimise the amount of laundry. Eat the same three lunches so decision fatigue doesn’t take over.
All of this takes time to implement and it is cumulative, but i hope it helps. Reading the comments on this post, i finally understand why adhd is comorbid with so many other conditions. let’s take care of each other <3
For anybody looking for resources from someone dealing with actual ADHD, I have an incomplete but ever growing list of ADHD tips, tools, and suggestions on my website.
A lot of the pages on that site are adapted from my tumblr posts, for instance I'm adapting this post about car repair projects with ADHD into a guide on project management and completion with ADHD.
(Red links are stuff that I've got planned but haven't published for reasons that are probably clear to anyone looking for ADHD advice online)
Thank-you to all of my new Internet stranger friends for being so gracious about having my post shoved onto your dashboards. I loved reading all of your kind tags and comments! Both Martin and Bosco have been gone for several years now but for 24 hours, they felt very present in my life. I greatly appreciate this gift. ❤️
Thank you to everyone who commented in their tags or messaged me. Indeed, today is “Martin and Bosco Day”. I originally whimsically blazed this photo on 13 July 2022. I never expected Martin and Bosco to travel so far and make so many new friends. The experience has been such a gift for me.
I guess I'm still suffering the after effects of the heatwave, because I can't get the words in order, so I'll ramble through a thought that won't leave me alone:
In the immediate aftermath of Buck's withdrawals, he feels exposed and stripped, from having spent who knows how long, under the scrutiny of his team. He can't look at any of them, without thinking of all the vulnerable things they've witnessed him do. Things he didn't get to choose whether or not he wanted to share.
He makes it through a single day (and sleepless night), alone in his house, before he gets in his car and drives to Tommy's place. He's lucky and Tommy is home. It's awkward, standing there on his doorstep. They aren't exactly jumping over each other to speak.
Buck asks if he can come in and Tommy says yes. They continue the silence in Tommy's living room. Tommy doesn't know about any of it and Buck isn't eager to tell him. For the first time, he has a choice in whether he wants to share it — he doesn't.
His eyes keep drifting to the hallway that leads to Tommy's bedroom. He looks at Tommy. He knows he should ask, he knows showing up here is crazy, he knows he can't just go lie on his ex-boyfriend's bed. It would be a shitty thing to do, just waltz in, like he's entitled to any of it.
But he does it anyway. He walks down the hallway and pushes the bedroom door open. The bed is unmade, like it always was. He can see Tommy looking from the living room. It sits heavy in his chest, whatever this feeling is. Knowing he's not entitled to any of this. He can't just show up in Tommy's life whenever he wants to.
But he can't not do it. He opens the door the rest of the way, toes off his shoes and climbs into Tommy's sheets. He cries almost instantly. His whole body feels like his skin has been peeled off, but Tommy's sheets are soft and slept in. Everything smells like him. There's not phantom smell of vomit, no anxiety sweat. The sheets smell like Tommy's skin.
Any moment now, Tommy will come through the door and ask him what the fuck he's doing, ask him to leave, and he'll have every right to, because his crazy ex-boyfriend keeps taking advantage of the fact that he loves him.
Tommy never said, but Buck knows that Tommy loves him. Buck was afraid of jumping the gun and didn't say it first.
Tommy appears in the door, but he doesn't look angry or outraged or anything like it. His brows are furrowed in what looks like concern; an expression Buck is all too familiar with at the moment.
Tommy climbs onto the bed and lies down beside him. He doesn't say anything, doesn't demand anything. All he does is lie close and thumb a tear off Buck's cheek. Buck gathers a handful of the sheets and presses them to his face. They're already wet, but he doesn't know what else to do.
Tommy touches the back of his head and Buck's whole body curls up in what feels a lot like fear. Tommy holds on a little firmer. His thumb presses up behind Buck's ear, rubbing gently. A sob rips its way out of his throat, only slightly muffled by the sheets.
Tommy stays. His hand is warm and steady. Buck doesn't know how long he cries for. It feels like forever. There is still the occasional hiccup, when he moves the sheet away from his eyes. He looks at Tommy through the wet clumps of his eyelashes. He hasn't looked himself in the mirror in weeks. He knows he's halfway to a scraggly beard, but he doesn't know what it looks like.
He's holding the sheets against his mouth. The words are warm and humid, when he says, "I'm sorry."
"I've got you," Tommy says. He has no idea what's going on, has no idea why Buck is even here, yet that's the first thing he says. Buck can hardly bear it.
"I know you do," every word shakes on the way out. Buck knows he's a horrible person, knows he's taking advantage again, but he knows. He knows Tommy has him and he knows he means it. "I'm sorry."
Tommy pulls him forward, wet sheets and all, and tucks him against his chest. His arms feel like they did the last time he held Buck, and like every time before it. He feels solid and real in ways nothing else has for over a year.
Tommy doesn't ask for an explanation; not because he doesn't want one, but because he's giving Buck a choice. Tommy spent six months telling him you don't have to do that every single time someone asked him to do something. Every favour, every everything. Buck had brushed it off, hadn't understood the significance. He does now.
"I fucked up," he breathes into Tommy's chest.
With no context, Tommy says, "It'll be OK." Tommy hasn't been to therapy, but he carries strong beliefs about the world and the people in it. Death is the only thing you can't come back from, as he so eloquently and morbidly put it one time. And the thing is, Buck believes him. When Tommy says it'll be OK, it will. Maybe not the way you imagine it will, but things will work out.
Buck stays. They both do. In the bed, at first. Then the kitchen, where Tommy makes him eat, and drink water until he feels sick. He stays the night. And another night. Tommy doesn't ask, all he does is stay. He asks about the here and now. Are you hungry? Are you tired? Wanna go for a walk? He excuses himself to the backyard and makes a phone call. Buck assumes he's calling out of work, but Tommy doesn't say. Tommy doesn't offer, doesn't ask, he just does it.
Buck's phone is slowly filling up with text messages and missed phone calls. After two nights' sleep in Tommy's bed, he's rested enough that the reality of the situation hits a little harder. He's effectively gone missing right after a detox, as much as he's been answering the texts, saying he's fine. Tommy asks if he's missed a shift. Buck says he's on leave. Tommy doesn't ask for any more information than that.
The only call he ends up returning is Maddie's. He keeps it brief, says he's with Tommy. It sticks in his throat on the first try, but the second makes it out. "I'm safe." Maddie is still worried. He doesn't want to give her details, but she won't let up. "It's quiet here," he swallows. "I just need it to be quiet." He doesn't know why that resonates with her, but she eases up and says she'll let the others know.
After he hangs up, he looks at Tommy. The guilt sits heavy in his throat. Tommy is taking time off to be here. He's wearing Tommy's clothes, he's eating his food, he's taking up space in his home.
Tommy thumbs a tear off his cheek and says, "I've got you."
"I keep asking you to do stuff," he sniffles.
"I can be mad about that later," Tommy says, as if that's an option. "Whatever this is, whatever you're going through, this is more important." He ends it there, doesn't demand to know what this is.
Buck vows to explain it, to tell Tommy everything he wants to know, and to apologise a whole heck of a lot, but for now, he sits in Tommy's house, in the quiet, where no one is demanding anything, and taking up space doesn't come with a price.
its actually easy to de-enshittify your digital experience all you need to do is install this browser extension and this browser extension and this browser extension and input this custom script into the advanced box and go into your system settings and reconfigure all these options you didnt know existed and change your entire workflow and switch to this alternative operating system and this alternative web browser and this alternative chat client and this alternative word processor and this alternative- sorry that one turned out to be malware delete that one okay now double check your task manager for unwanted background processes and element block these ads and invest in a good VPN and append all your searches with AI blocking keywords and wait a few years until everything you just did becomes shitty too so you can do it all over again okay kitten. its literally that easy.
The Only Adventure Left by @rcmclachlan (RC_McLachlan on AO3)
Summary:
His mother blinked slowly. "I never should have answered the phone."
That didn't make sense, because their phone had been ringing off the hook all week and his mother was always the one to answer.
"I knew it was going to be bad," she said softly, slowly, almost like she was talking in her sleep. "I had the most horrible feeling in my gut when the phone rang. I've felt it before—I knew what it was. I should've just let the answering machine take it. I never should have picked up."
More than two decades later, when Buck's phone starts vibrating as he's ruining the lamination of another batch of would-be croissants, he understands what his mother had meant that day.
Every atom in his body is straining toward the phone, but he can't unlock his hands from the death grip they have on the rolling pin in order to reach for it.
i like that tumblr suggested this to me, like, you’ll love this isabelle. you’ll love these jiggling cubes. and for once, tumblr was right. i do love them.
blakekathryn
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stormborns
turnnoffyourmind
