OK, I’ve seen enough of these comments that I need to make the first rule.
Do not make condescending comments like “This is just normal things everyone does, not your self-diagnosed ADHD.” or “Everyone has ADHD now /s”
This is a meme community for ADHD people, not your personal soapbox. We don’t care why you think we find these relatable.
Making comments like these is causing those posting these memes to be discouraged, and dismissing their lived experiences. Don’t be that person.
Just for the record, not every ADHD person is the same. I don’t identify with all of these memes, nor do I think they’re all necessarily ADHD-related. But even as someone with ADHD, I recognize that not every reacts the same way and I don’t know all the possible symptoms of it. And If I, with diagnosed ADHD can’t know that, you, a random lemming, certainly don’t know either!
Likewise, if you find most of these memes relatable, you might have ADHD, or you might have Autism, or both! These two are close cousins, their symptoms overlap and they have a high comorbidity with each other. Relating too much with ADHD memes is a typical first step which led a lot of people to realizing they had it! Feel free to read up on the ADHD symptoms and get diagnosed if you think it’s currently affecting your life significantly.
That said, anyone making this sort of comments, is gonna get a one-week ban from this community for party pooping. If you want to complain that “everyone has ADHD now” or some shit, go do it elsewhere. Naturally we use common sense. It’s OK to ask questions in good faith.
As always, this is a “fuck around and find out” rule. We’ll know it when we see it.
PS: Since we added a new rule, I could also use some mods to enforce it. If any of you is up for this, lemme know. I will only add people who I’ve seen interact with this or other ADHD communities positively.
And here’s an extremely relevant meme to lighten the mood:
Also should be underlined that ADHD is sometimes called an “invisible handicap” because a lot of the symptoms are just much worse versions of things neurotypicals deal with too.
Example: everyone can have trouble motivating themselves for a task they’re not passionate about. With ADHD’s innate dopamine deficiency,it can be literally impossible without proper coping tools and/or meds, sometimes no matter what.
A possibly useful analogy would be that sometimes the hill that someone neurotypical has to climb is a mountain for someone with ADHD or similar challenges. Not every neurotypical person understands that their hill can be a mountain or that the person with ADHD can only scale it with the right tools, guidance and a lot more effort.
I want to highlight this part. Part of the executive dysfunction is that intrinsic rewards don’t feel rewarding OR reward too much.
Filling out paperwork can be a short 10 minute task, but nuerotypical individuals are rewarded with a small dopamine hit for simply finishing it. I don’t get any. So anything else that is slightly more interesting captures my attention and energy. In my experience, I get a dopamine hit for avoiding the boring mandatory thing, not so much whatever the thing distracting me is. This quickly snowballs out of control and a 10 minute task took all day.
Likewise, things that are very interesting to me (video games, hobby stuff, the Wikipedia hole) can trigger a lot of reward and I end up hyperfocusing.
Adderall helps by reducing the power of those interesting things and increases the reward for doing mundane things.
I’ve given this some thought, because I do seem to get satisfaction out of completing tasks, but no motivation to start them in order to get the finishing satisfaction. Or giving up half way through a task when I’ve lost interest. On the other hand, avoidance leads to adrenaline, and that gets me moving. I think that’s where the neuro compensation lies. Not the lack of satisfaction that the task is complete (although mostly I just feel relief not satisfaction), it’s the adrenaline replacing the dopamine.
Yep. Procrastination and then completing whatever the task was gives me the craziest “high.”
I’m not an adrenaline junkie, I will not parachute, or bungee, hanggliding is out, hell I have a rough time on boats and planes.
But Procrastination is the best when it works out.
Oh no. That explains it. I’ve got 15.5 hours to submit two masters level papers in a language foreign to me. I’m halfway through with one of them and… here
Update: I got one done but not sent, I’m going to engage in shenanigans regarding the other My fiancé’s feeling very overwhelmed by the stress I’ve been radiating since yesterday morning. I’m going to send them, have a drink, and go to bed in preparation for the second paper tomorrow.
Yeah, that sounds like my experience too, including the games and Wikipedia parts lol. I stay away from TV Tropes completely 😁
My dad would always say things about how getting these small tasks done should feel good. They just make me tired and anxious because I can’t focus on them to finish quickly
On the flipside, when you find that truly motivation-worthy thing. You can give it the attention it deserves. This is how great art/inventions/ideas happen.
Which is why pretty much every famous inventer/artist/scientist is adhd/sperg.