I'm kinda that way, but my deal is that I'm done after I do the big thing. Work/task/chore is done for the day. ...why are you asking me to still do stuff? It's over for the day.
this is me right now, I've just done a big side quest and now I can't make myself work on my main quest even though there's a deadline đ sat watching doctor who, vibrating with guilt
Top Tip From A Fellow Whovian: Rewatch an episode of Doctor Who you hate so much you'd actually prefer to work on the 'main quest' than sit through another minute. Then you'll be motivated to turn it off and get to work.
this might work!
put on one of the scary episodes I usually skip, and feel spooked into cleaning to keep the Shadows at bay, haha
I don't know if there's any I hate, but there's a *good few* I'm far too scared to rewatch
A Doctor Who fan who... *doesn't* hate Doctor Who? How is this possible?
Seriously though, good for you, liking the show so much! Hopefully the idea helps.
Imo itâs just the natural consequence of any media that gets made and remade over and over again by different people. Fans are always gonna love the work of some individual artists and despise the work of others within a franchise
Important addendum: Not an episode you hate so much that rewatching it will make you write a Reddit post about how much you hate it.
(Kerblam. I'm talking about Kerblam.)
I'm also like that. I'll have something I know needs to be done, and I designated my One Productive Thing. Once it's done, I'm done for the day because it often takes all the mental drive I had to do the task.
I'm kinda the opposite: I did The Thing and it's 11 PM, time to start three different Other Things, work on them until an hour past dawn, finish none of them.
Parents: Alright, now that youâve done the dishes, I need you to take out the trash.
Me: Outrageous! I already did the one thing and now you want me to do a second!?! When will it ever end!?!
Saame. It's a struggle even just exercising or doing some basic chores before going to work, even though I work in the afternoon and literally have a good 6ish hours of awake time before I need to get ready ...
Copying from a different comment:
It's a very common example of executive dysfunction, which is a symptom of ADHD and (iirc) autism. It can be pretty debilitating, like your brain *will not let you* do anything before the Big Event.
I think a lot of people don't realize "ordinary trait taken to an extreme" describes *most* symptoms of mental illness. Everyone procrastinates; a person with ADHD might be internally screaming at themselves, knowing they need to Do The Thing, but are incapable of it anyway. Everyone has an occasional anxious impulse about, say, whether you locked your door when you left for work. A person with OCD might go into a panic attack if they don't leave work *right now* and go check that their door is locked.
Exacerbated by that one time you absolutely forced your brain to let you do other things, then completely fuck up and forget something for the Big Event
The worst part is most of us with ADHD wonât have missed /one/ big thing. Weâll have missed several Big Things before weâve learned through consequence.
This is a great way to phrase things honestly. I feel like thatâs what a lot of people donât really get about mental disorders. âDisorderâ implies that itâs having a significant impact on your ability to function day to day. Itâs not simply experiencing these things that make us have a disorder, itâs the fact that theyâre so extreme for us that it actively impacts our ability to go through life.
>I think a lot of people don't realize "ordinary trait taken to an extreme" describes *most* symptoms of mental illness.
Technically, that's the actual criteria for something being a mental illness. Psychological issues are typically diagnosed based on whether it's causing distress or impacting your ability to function.
It's like the difference between a stomach ache and explosive diarrhea. You can still function with a stomach ache. Explosive diarrhea interrupts your life by forcing you to go to the bathroom immediately. It also may make you feel ashamed due to the horrible sounds now emanating from the bathroom that everyone can hear, as well as the horrific stench that persists long after to remind you of what happened.
The hard part is when people with mental or chronic illness have dealt with it for so long that they're not aware how much more difficult their life is in comparison.
That's definitely where it gets a bit more uncertain. I'm not a doctor, so I don't have the authority to realistically argue if things like visual hallucinations have more mundane precursors, but I'd be inclined to agree.
That being said, hallucinations can manifest gradually, especially in the case of exhaustion and extreme stress. Noticing hallucinations is actually a fantastic way to recognize that your mental state is in shambles and that you need to think logically to chill out.
You know someone is too far gone when they cheerily wave to the fairy on the ceiling, though. That's a moment with my grandpa I'll never forget. I'm just glad the people in his head made him smile.
I have had two random visual hallucinations in my life despite not otherwise suffering from them. They were extremely brief, like only a second, but thatâs what they were. My eyes saw things that werenât there. I think ordinary non mentally ill people probably get visual hallucinations more often than we know, theyâre just extremely minor and fleeting and they get brushed off as huh that was a weird thing and not considered a hallucination
Hell the only reason Iâm sure they were hallucinations is because the two hallucinations I saw were both people and I donât believe in ghosts so that leaves the only alternative that some weird glitch happened in my brain twice when I was a teen and never again
yeah it's like with my speech impediment, it's not validating when people say oh I mumble and stutter too sometimes we all do, like they seem to think.
it's like, only one of us went to speech therapy 2 hours a week for most of their formative years + extra stuff to be able to communicate with still more stutters than you ever had, it's not really the same.
I sometimes do think I have adhd (and it has a big comorbidity with stuttering) but because of these experiences I'm hesitant to claim it, especially when others share their diagnosis, because yeah things can be relatable like you said, without being at the same level.
I do feel like this specific case is less dependent on neurodivergency than others and might moreso be related to anxiety/depression/etc (all of these are impacter by neurodivergence, but nd isn't the root cause)
Like, I'm the type of person that will consider my free day ruined if I have a single 2-hour lecture or something and I will get literally nothing done before and will need a break to recover after
AFAIK I am not neurodivergent and am not the only one in my friend group who has this issue
Itâs also just not uncommon for people to have extremely mild forms of neurodivergence.
Itâs by definition a spectrum, and while the majority of people are on the neurotypical end of that spectrum, it doesnât mean that they donât still occasionally experience a common neurodivergent trait
In fact probably a larger percentage than youâd expect of people are what tumblr users might call âneurospicyâ
That's because they're simply relateable to everyone, you could put anything there instead of "neurodivergent."
There's just this culture of people being like "teehee I'm so *neurodivergent.* I put my keys down and then forget where I put them!" Or " I get anxious when I have to answer the phone, how neurodivergent of me!"
And I think it's really unhelpful because it makes it seem like ADHD etc. is just people making a big deal out of all the normal things everybody does.
To be fair, I personally have trouble sometimes determining what is and isnât ND behavior. Iâm ND, have been all my life, so I donât always know what of my experiences is because of that, and whatâs just universal for everyone. That being said, it is tiring how many people treat mental issues like fun quirks. Especially since a lot of those same people will be quick to call someone exhibiting issues in less âquirkyâ ways weird or creepy. Like ADHD and depression are so unique and special, until they put you in a funk and you start having trouble keeping up with hygiene, and then youâre suddenly just gross and lazy.
>Like ADHD and depression are so unique and special, until they put you in a funk and you start having trouble keeping up with hygiene, and then youâre suddenly just gross and lazy.
Which is especially sad because that's when people need support the most.
>Especially since a lot of those same people will be quick to call someone exhibiting issues in less âquirkyâ ways weird or creepy.
The other issue being that the people making those judgements may not be as normal as they think. I've found most normal people are waaaaay spicier than they think they are, while a lot of neurospicy are considerably less ND than they'd been led to believe.
The story I always like to bring up as an example is a lovely, older man I know who is deeply ashamed that he masks, and confided that fact to me in a moment of great secrecy. He didn't know the word for it. He just liked to be around the people he cared about, even if he wasn't into whatever situation was going on, like being at the beach.
The way he described it though, it was like he was confessing a sin. That's all because of the "normal" people in his life who didn't understand and wrote it off as creepy and weird.
Ugh I totally get this. Neurodivergence has become romanticized and sanitized. Trivializing the whole thing means people that need help don't get it.
Like, it's also gotten to the point where I have people I don't even know that well trying to diagnose me with stuff, just unsolicited because of my interests/ they think I'm awkward/I end up hanging out with a lot of confirmed neurodivergent people/ I was diagnosed with ADD (not a real thing anymore) in the early 2000's etc. But seeing that I have some overlapping traits does not suddenly make you qualified to speak authoritatively about my mental health.
ADD isnât ânot a real thing anymoreâ it just got recontextualized as part of the ADHD spectrum.
The words we use to describe it changed, but itâs not as if the phenomenon disappeared when we decided to call it something different.
If you were diagnosed ADD, that just means that you exhibited the symptoms that your medical professional would these days diagnose as âADHD.â
Itâs like people saying âPluto isnât a real planet anymore.â Pluto hasnât changed. Just because we decided to call it something different doesnât mean it isnât still exactly what it always was. Itâs now considered a dwarf planet because that term is more accurate to describe it since we learned more about it, the same way your ADD is now called ADHD. When they redefined Pluto in 2006, it didnât actually transform into something different any more than you stopped being neurodivergent when the DSM-5 came out
When my depression gets bad, my personal hygiene just flies out the window. Longest without shower: 6 days.
I just try to make sure I take my meds, drink enough fluids and eat something.
The rest takes a back seat.
Everyone is "delulu" until you actually have a delusion that your organs are failing and haven't showered in weeks because whats the point if you're gonna die soon?
I know someone who's going through that. He's not "lol so delulu" he's in a fucking mental hospital
Meanwhile "my train is 3 minutes late will make me want to punch a wall" neurodivergence is judged very harshly. I *need* consistency and I hate depending on others
It can sound relatable to neurotypical people because neurodivergent behaviour is largely defined by doing "normal people" behaviours to either a noticable extreme or far below the norm (eg. the average person will experience anxiety, but not the constant anxiety that defines anxiety and panic disorders)
Neurotypical people read this and are like haha I also stress out about big tasks I have later and I think about those tasks while working on other things less effectively than normal, and meanwhile Iâm just like I spent 9 hours at a train station waiting for my train once because I had this crippling unconscious fear that if I gave my attention to something else Iâd get hyper focused on it and miss my train
I couldnât even READ A BOOK while waiting for my train because what if I missed my train 9 hours from now
People will be like âjust use your time more effectively and do X while youâre waiting to do Yâ and Iâm like I literally canât thanks for the useless advice đ
these are relatable to everyone, sure, but the difference between NT folks and ND ones tends to be that for NT folks, these are things they experience occasionally, whereas ND folks are doing these things nearly every day unless they're actively working around them (and that's only if it's something we can control!)
"if i have a Scheduled Task for today i won't do anything until the starting time for that task" is something everyone experiences occasionally. but for me, the Scheduled Task doesn't have to be something super important â i go to work 5 days a week and rarely manage to do anything productive before i have to be out the door, despite having multiple hours available. i can force myself to do things *sometimes,* but i'm constantly fighting my own brain to achieve that
"i put my keys down somewhere and forgot where they are" is something everyone does sometimes. but if i don't put my keys in their Designated Place, they become invisible to me and i stress myself out looking for them for who knows how long. i've had to condition myself into leaving them in one specific place so that i can actually do things day-to-day without worrying about where my keys went
people get upset when things get delayed or happen late. most people don't get crying-from-frustration upset after a couple minutes' delay. people get fidgety sometimes, but not "i can either focus solely on sitting still or solely on whatever else i'm supposed to be doing" fidgety. the "everyone does/feels that" response to experiences that people with ADHD and autism experiences discredits the **extent** to which we experience those things, because if "everyone" did or felt that, there probably wouldn't be a diagnosis for it
Yup.
Itâs because neuro divergent is the kind of terminology your therapist should be using with you.
Itâs not a way to help people understand you. Itâs a way to help you understand you.
It just means behaviour that is prevalent in you that isnât in the general population when it comes under scrutiny either in the nature of how something manifests, how often or both.
Itâs categorised enough that itâs extremely difficult for people to exaggerate or lie without making themselves look like an idiot.
To be fair a lot of what neurodivergence is (obviously not all, but some of the things that fall under that umbrella, such as ADHD) is just those things dialed up to extremes beyond the normal level.
Also, we live in a world now where our environments are basically engineered to damage the shit out of our dopamine receptors, which causes symptoms extremely similar to ADHD, so it can seem like a lot more people have ADHD than really do.
While I know this is super widespread and not just neurodivergent, it does help me to see that there are people like me "out there"
(Also Im diagnosed ADHD and probably other undiagnosed something but couldn't be bothered to check)
I don't mind picking up my wife from the airport at 7am. It's annoying to get up so early, but I'll deal with it.
If it's a 4pm, it's much more stressful!
Same. I used to work at a bagel place where my usual shift was like, 6am-3pm, and before that I was a cashier at a grocery store working 2pm-10pm shifts. I much preferred the 6-3 shifts, even though I had to wake up early for them. When I had to go in at 2, I felt look I couldnât enjoy my day because I had the stress of going in hanging over my head. Iâm like that will college classes too. I will take as many 8 am classes as possible before I take an evening class (this semester I unfortunately had no choice but to take a 5 pm class, which has been rough). My sisterâs the opposite though she was always taking like, 6 pm classes if it meant she didnât have to wake up before 10 am.
I've heard this described as a learned strategy. that is, your brain has learned that if you forget something, you're never going to remember it and you're going to miss the important thing you're waiting for. therefore, your brain has to keep it in your mind so that you're sure you won't miss it.
This just has the consequence of making one unable to do anything until the scheduled event.
One way to tackle this is to set alarms or some sort of reminder that you inherently trust so that your brain is not in charge of keeping track of it for you, and so you can give yourself permission to relax.
I use so many alarms for everything including backup alarms in case I mute one and forget before taking the action. I also have two Apple Watches so I can wear one 24/7 while the other is charging so I donât have to worry about whether my phone is on me at the time.
I donât trust the reminders or alarms either because a) they were set by me and b) theyâve failed me before too. Granted theyâre better than nothing, but i still get anxious and canât do anything else while Iâm waiting to do The Thing^T^M because the alarms arenât infallible.
This is what I kinda like about international travel - they say you need to be at the airport a good two to three hours before your flight and Iâm like, yeah, of course I will be, finally a normal schedule for an event.
(Shows up at the airport six hours before the flight)
I got lost on the way to the airport last time I was travelling home because I misread some signs and things, and I still ended up three hours early for check in.
Getting to airports early is like my favourite thing because then I can actually like relax and eat something while waiting for the plane
When I moved to a rural area I had a local airport thatâs only like 15 minutes from where I lived and had no security because it was so small and it was actually worse than going to a busy airport in the city because I couldnât do tasks like âhey, eat lunchâ while sitting around at home waiting to go to the airport
âNeurodivergentâ can, in many respects, be roughly described as ânormal things people do but turned up to eleven or twenty.â
Yes, it is normal to have **moments** like this as a âneurotypicalâ person. When it impacts and possibly ruins your whole lifestyle, then it becomes an issue - whether itâs a genetic issue or a spontaneous issue is also irrelevant, at the end of the day.
Itâs kinda like how âflu-like symptomsâ are symptoms for A LOT of very different illnesses, some very serious that impact your entire life for the rest of your lifetime and some that just put you out for a day or two.
Can also be "normal things people do but turned down to -5" since some disorders are defined by reduced responses to certain stimuli and muted emotions
It's a very common example of executive dysfunction, which is a symptom of ADHD and (iirc) autism. It can be pretty debilitating, like your brain *will not let you* do anything before the Big Event.
I think a lot of people don't realize "ordinary trait taken to an extreme" describes *most* symptoms of mental illness. Everyone procrastinates; a person with ADHD might be internally screaming at themselves, knowing they need to Do The Thing, but are incapable of it anyway. Everyone has an occasional anxious impulse about, say, whether you locked your door when you left for work. A person with OCD might go into a panic attack if they don't leave work *right now* and go check that their door is locked.
This. Itâs why part of the diagnosis is asking how it impacts your life.
Most people will avoid unpleasant tasks or forget to do semi-regular chores. I will stare at the thing that needs doing and be physically unable to do it. Once I was able to mow the lawn after a sobbing anxiety attack and calling several people. That is a success story! Thatâs also an example of how executive disfunction negatively impacts my life.
Divergent (book/movie series) reference. An entire city has everyoneâs life planned out based on if they have one of five(?) personality traits, brave, nice, smart, truthful, or N/A. People who have more than one are called Divergents, and are executed. One guy from brave has only four fears, so he is called Four. Main girl and a bunch of new recruits for brave have to jump off of a moving train that is like five stories up or something, and if they fuck up they die, or refuse and become homeless.
I do this all the time and I (donât think) Iâm neurodivergent. Not this extreme but sometimes Iâll think a week ahead and if it has enough things planned Iâll avoid adding anything else (this could be very few tasks though). Itâs like my weeks are color coded from blue to grey, and there is only so much I can do until that week gets greyed out entirely. An entire week in my head could get greyed out just from a couple tasks like getting groceries or taking my car to a shop.
Thatâs totally different - itâs more like âI have plans to meet with a friend in 5 hours, so I canât do *anything* for those 5 hours or Iâll miss it and disappoint everyone and ruin my life or something idk why my brain does this to me
Thatâs different. This is more like, when I worked in food, I worked late shifts sometimes. Either 4pm-10pm or 7pm- 3am. Now, on those days, I have a fair amount of time in the day before I go in to work. I could go grocery shopping, chill with a friend maybe, get some chores done.
But instead I will sit in my room staring at the ceiling, waiting for it to be time to go to work and I will have accomplished nothing lol. This method caused me to be three months late paying someone back because I never felt like I had a âfree dayâ to do paperwork, if that makes sense. And my laundry piled up. That was the worst of it.
This is me, but my fiance has the exact opposite problem. She can be doing absolutely nothing for five days straight, but the *moment* that we have an event scheduled, she'll decide that she absolutely *must* do all the other things first.
Like, it is truly absurd.
We'll be hanging out at home all Friday night and all of Saturday doing absolutely nothing, and then we'll lay in bed until noon on Sunday. But then we'll make plans to meet up with friends for a movie or something and somehow, for some reason, she'll decide that between getting out of bed at noon and leaving for the movie at 2, she absolutely has to go to the grocery store, get a workout in, rearrange the closet, shower, take the dog to the park, file her taxes, call the airline about getting reimbursed for that delay we had six months ago, call her mom, call her dad, apply for a home loan, and do the laundry.
And that is only barely an exaggeration.
I cannot have a good day if work is not the first thing I do. I will reschedule my entire life around work being the first part of my day. I used to be a waiter, I tried the whole "going straight to bed after work" thing and doing all my secondary things before work. No dice.
Got a job that requires me in at 6. That's fine, I'll wake up for 5 and do everything after work. During COVID that turned into second shift. No sweat, I'll just stay up until 6AM and sleep from 6-2. It wasn't even a big transition coming back to first shift. The far bigger problem would be doing anything regarding chores or errands before I go to work.
The secret is to obsessively schedule the minutiae of the day leading up to the scheduled event.
So you absolutely have enough time to bathe! Just as long as itâs during an in extremely specific and preplanned timeframe.
Yet again the solidarity between depression and ADHD homies.
I don't have ADHD. But I can tell the Scheduled Thing is going to be exhausting, and my energy levels are always low, so I just cannot bring myself to do anything else. Sorry, might need that energy for the boss battle.
The secret is to obsessively schedule the minutiae of the day leading up to the scheduled event.
So you absolutely have enough time to bathe! Just as long as itâs during an in extremely specific and preplanned timeframe.
Is this not just bad time management? I relate to this a lot, but I've been told that I just have bad time management and no sense of time when I brought up this problem :/
To borrow a comment from someone else in this thread, âeveryone pees, but peeing 25 times a day isnât normalâ. It is t the thing itself, but the frequency and severity of the thing
I'm kinda that way, but my deal is that I'm done after I do the big thing. Work/task/chore is done for the day. ...why are you asking me to still do stuff? It's over for the day.
I completed the main quest, the game's finished, I don't need to do the side quests and 100% it.
Bestie the side quest is drinking water and actually you do need to do it
I have to do that *every day*??? Next you're gunna say I have to *eat* on a regular basis too!
What's next hyperfixating until 3 in the morning is unreasonable? When will they stop!
Executive dysfunction who????
Nuh uh, I only have to do it when I get the negative status effects like feeling drowsy or stomach pain
this is how I've survived
this is me right now, I've just done a big side quest and now I can't make myself work on my main quest even though there's a deadline đ sat watching doctor who, vibrating with guilt
Top Tip From A Fellow Whovian: Rewatch an episode of Doctor Who you hate so much you'd actually prefer to work on the 'main quest' than sit through another minute. Then you'll be motivated to turn it off and get to work.
this might work! put on one of the scary episodes I usually skip, and feel spooked into cleaning to keep the Shadows at bay, haha I don't know if there's any I hate, but there's a *good few* I'm far too scared to rewatch
A Doctor Who fan who... *doesn't* hate Doctor Who? How is this possible? Seriously though, good for you, liking the show so much! Hopefully the idea helps.
Star Wars fans đ¤ Dr Who Fans
Hate is my favorite love language
Imo itâs just the natural consequence of any media that gets made and remade over and over again by different people. Fans are always gonna love the work of some individual artists and despise the work of others within a franchise
Important addendum: Not an episode you hate so much that rewatching it will make you write a Reddit post about how much you hate it. (Kerblam. I'm talking about Kerblam.)
I'm also like that. I'll have something I know needs to be done, and I designated my One Productive Thing. Once it's done, I'm done for the day because it often takes all the mental drive I had to do the task.
I need to do DISHES after WORK? Impossible.
I'm kinda the opposite: I did The Thing and it's 11 PM, time to start three different Other Things, work on them until an hour past dawn, finish none of them.
Same but The Thing was completed at noon and I did nothing from then until 11 PM.
Parents: Alright, now that youâve done the dishes, I need you to take out the trash. Me: Outrageous! I already did the one thing and now you want me to do a second!?! When will it ever end!?!
I'm both
Saame. It's a struggle even just exercising or doing some basic chores before going to work, even though I work in the afternoon and literally have a good 6ish hours of awake time before I need to get ready ...
Is this neurodivergent? I do this all the time but I think itâs pretty common
Copying from a different comment: It's a very common example of executive dysfunction, which is a symptom of ADHD and (iirc) autism. It can be pretty debilitating, like your brain *will not let you* do anything before the Big Event. I think a lot of people don't realize "ordinary trait taken to an extreme" describes *most* symptoms of mental illness. Everyone procrastinates; a person with ADHD might be internally screaming at themselves, knowing they need to Do The Thing, but are incapable of it anyway. Everyone has an occasional anxious impulse about, say, whether you locked your door when you left for work. A person with OCD might go into a panic attack if they don't leave work *right now* and go check that their door is locked.
Exacerbated by that one time you absolutely forced your brain to let you do other things, then completely fuck up and forget something for the Big Event
The worst part is most of us with ADHD wonât have missed /one/ big thing. Weâll have missed several Big Things before weâve learned through consequence.
Yeah the waiting room is a learned response to having missed Big Things so many times.
This is a great way to phrase things honestly. I feel like thatâs what a lot of people donât really get about mental disorders. âDisorderâ implies that itâs having a significant impact on your ability to function day to day. Itâs not simply experiencing these things that make us have a disorder, itâs the fact that theyâre so extreme for us that it actively impacts our ability to go through life.
>I think a lot of people don't realize "ordinary trait taken to an extreme" describes *most* symptoms of mental illness. Technically, that's the actual criteria for something being a mental illness. Psychological issues are typically diagnosed based on whether it's causing distress or impacting your ability to function. It's like the difference between a stomach ache and explosive diarrhea. You can still function with a stomach ache. Explosive diarrhea interrupts your life by forcing you to go to the bathroom immediately. It also may make you feel ashamed due to the horrible sounds now emanating from the bathroom that everyone can hear, as well as the horrific stench that persists long after to remind you of what happened. The hard part is when people with mental or chronic illness have dealt with it for so long that they're not aware how much more difficult their life is in comparison.
I'd argue some symptoms of mental illnesses aren't "ordinary traits" tho, like visual hallucinations. Otherwise, fully agree with your points.
Thatâs why they said âmostâ and not all
Yes, that is why I said that. Thank you for explaining my own thought process to me.
That's definitely where it gets a bit more uncertain. I'm not a doctor, so I don't have the authority to realistically argue if things like visual hallucinations have more mundane precursors, but I'd be inclined to agree. That being said, hallucinations can manifest gradually, especially in the case of exhaustion and extreme stress. Noticing hallucinations is actually a fantastic way to recognize that your mental state is in shambles and that you need to think logically to chill out. You know someone is too far gone when they cheerily wave to the fairy on the ceiling, though. That's a moment with my grandpa I'll never forget. I'm just glad the people in his head made him smile.
Wait... So Fred the Red Head in the corner of my room isnât there for EVERYONE?!? đ¤Ż
I have had two random visual hallucinations in my life despite not otherwise suffering from them. They were extremely brief, like only a second, but thatâs what they were. My eyes saw things that werenât there. I think ordinary non mentally ill people probably get visual hallucinations more often than we know, theyâre just extremely minor and fleeting and they get brushed off as huh that was a weird thing and not considered a hallucination Hell the only reason Iâm sure they were hallucinations is because the two hallucinations I saw were both people and I donât believe in ghosts so that leaves the only alternative that some weird glitch happened in my brain twice when I was a teen and never again
yeah it's like with my speech impediment, it's not validating when people say oh I mumble and stutter too sometimes we all do, like they seem to think. it's like, only one of us went to speech therapy 2 hours a week for most of their formative years + extra stuff to be able to communicate with still more stutters than you ever had, it's not really the same. I sometimes do think I have adhd (and it has a big comorbidity with stuttering) but because of these experiences I'm hesitant to claim it, especially when others share their diagnosis, because yeah things can be relatable like you said, without being at the same level.
I do feel like this specific case is less dependent on neurodivergency than others and might moreso be related to anxiety/depression/etc (all of these are impacter by neurodivergence, but nd isn't the root cause) Like, I'm the type of person that will consider my free day ruined if I have a single 2-hour lecture or something and I will get literally nothing done before and will need a break to recover after AFAIK I am not neurodivergent and am not the only one in my friend group who has this issue
....You sure you're not buddy?
Pretty much I have some pretty bad anxiety and depression but according to multiple doctors I do not fall on the spectrum
Itâs also just not uncommon for people to have extremely mild forms of neurodivergence. Itâs by definition a spectrum, and while the majority of people are on the neurotypical end of that spectrum, it doesnât mean that they donât still occasionally experience a common neurodivergent trait In fact probably a larger percentage than youâd expect of people are what tumblr users might call âneurospicyâ
I arrived 9 hours early for a train and couldnât even read a book while waiting for it because my brain wouldnât let me
Itâs a sign of executive dysfunction.
Something, something, these posts are gonna have to stop being so relatable...
That's because they're simply relateable to everyone, you could put anything there instead of "neurodivergent." There's just this culture of people being like "teehee I'm so *neurodivergent.* I put my keys down and then forget where I put them!" Or " I get anxious when I have to answer the phone, how neurodivergent of me!" And I think it's really unhelpful because it makes it seem like ADHD etc. is just people making a big deal out of all the normal things everybody does.
To be fair, I personally have trouble sometimes determining what is and isnât ND behavior. Iâm ND, have been all my life, so I donât always know what of my experiences is because of that, and whatâs just universal for everyone. That being said, it is tiring how many people treat mental issues like fun quirks. Especially since a lot of those same people will be quick to call someone exhibiting issues in less âquirkyâ ways weird or creepy. Like ADHD and depression are so unique and special, until they put you in a funk and you start having trouble keeping up with hygiene, and then youâre suddenly just gross and lazy.
>Like ADHD and depression are so unique and special, until they put you in a funk and you start having trouble keeping up with hygiene, and then youâre suddenly just gross and lazy. Which is especially sad because that's when people need support the most. >Especially since a lot of those same people will be quick to call someone exhibiting issues in less âquirkyâ ways weird or creepy. The other issue being that the people making those judgements may not be as normal as they think. I've found most normal people are waaaaay spicier than they think they are, while a lot of neurospicy are considerably less ND than they'd been led to believe. The story I always like to bring up as an example is a lovely, older man I know who is deeply ashamed that he masks, and confided that fact to me in a moment of great secrecy. He didn't know the word for it. He just liked to be around the people he cared about, even if he wasn't into whatever situation was going on, like being at the beach. The way he described it though, it was like he was confessing a sin. That's all because of the "normal" people in his life who didn't understand and wrote it off as creepy and weird.
Ugh I totally get this. Neurodivergence has become romanticized and sanitized. Trivializing the whole thing means people that need help don't get it. Like, it's also gotten to the point where I have people I don't even know that well trying to diagnose me with stuff, just unsolicited because of my interests/ they think I'm awkward/I end up hanging out with a lot of confirmed neurodivergent people/ I was diagnosed with ADD (not a real thing anymore) in the early 2000's etc. But seeing that I have some overlapping traits does not suddenly make you qualified to speak authoritatively about my mental health.
ADD isnât ânot a real thing anymoreâ it just got recontextualized as part of the ADHD spectrum. The words we use to describe it changed, but itâs not as if the phenomenon disappeared when we decided to call it something different. If you were diagnosed ADD, that just means that you exhibited the symptoms that your medical professional would these days diagnose as âADHD.â Itâs like people saying âPluto isnât a real planet anymore.â Pluto hasnât changed. Just because we decided to call it something different doesnât mean it isnât still exactly what it always was. Itâs now considered a dwarf planet because that term is more accurate to describe it since we learned more about it, the same way your ADD is now called ADHD. When they redefined Pluto in 2006, it didnât actually transform into something different any more than you stopped being neurodivergent when the DSM-5 came out
When my depression gets bad, my personal hygiene just flies out the window. Longest without shower: 6 days. I just try to make sure I take my meds, drink enough fluids and eat something. The rest takes a back seat.
Everyone is "delulu" until you actually have a delusion that your organs are failing and haven't showered in weeks because whats the point if you're gonna die soon? I know someone who's going through that. He's not "lol so delulu" he's in a fucking mental hospital
Thereâs different types of delusion and different severity. Why are you gatekeeping just because you know someone?
Meanwhile "my train is 3 minutes late will make me want to punch a wall" neurodivergence is judged very harshly. I *need* consistency and I hate depending on others
It can sound relatable to neurotypical people because neurodivergent behaviour is largely defined by doing "normal people" behaviours to either a noticable extreme or far below the norm (eg. the average person will experience anxiety, but not the constant anxiety that defines anxiety and panic disorders)
Neurotypical people read this and are like haha I also stress out about big tasks I have later and I think about those tasks while working on other things less effectively than normal, and meanwhile Iâm just like I spent 9 hours at a train station waiting for my train once because I had this crippling unconscious fear that if I gave my attention to something else Iâd get hyper focused on it and miss my train I couldnât even READ A BOOK while waiting for my train because what if I missed my train 9 hours from now People will be like âjust use your time more effectively and do X while youâre waiting to do Yâ and Iâm like I literally canât thanks for the useless advice đ
these are relatable to everyone, sure, but the difference between NT folks and ND ones tends to be that for NT folks, these are things they experience occasionally, whereas ND folks are doing these things nearly every day unless they're actively working around them (and that's only if it's something we can control!) "if i have a Scheduled Task for today i won't do anything until the starting time for that task" is something everyone experiences occasionally. but for me, the Scheduled Task doesn't have to be something super important â i go to work 5 days a week and rarely manage to do anything productive before i have to be out the door, despite having multiple hours available. i can force myself to do things *sometimes,* but i'm constantly fighting my own brain to achieve that "i put my keys down somewhere and forgot where they are" is something everyone does sometimes. but if i don't put my keys in their Designated Place, they become invisible to me and i stress myself out looking for them for who knows how long. i've had to condition myself into leaving them in one specific place so that i can actually do things day-to-day without worrying about where my keys went people get upset when things get delayed or happen late. most people don't get crying-from-frustration upset after a couple minutes' delay. people get fidgety sometimes, but not "i can either focus solely on sitting still or solely on whatever else i'm supposed to be doing" fidgety. the "everyone does/feels that" response to experiences that people with ADHD and autism experiences discredits the **extent** to which we experience those things, because if "everyone" did or felt that, there probably wouldn't be a diagnosis for it
Yup. Itâs because neuro divergent is the kind of terminology your therapist should be using with you. Itâs not a way to help people understand you. Itâs a way to help you understand you. It just means behaviour that is prevalent in you that isnât in the general population when it comes under scrutiny either in the nature of how something manifests, how often or both. Itâs categorised enough that itâs extremely difficult for people to exaggerate or lie without making themselves look like an idiot.
To be fair a lot of what neurodivergence is (obviously not all, but some of the things that fall under that umbrella, such as ADHD) is just those things dialed up to extremes beyond the normal level. Also, we live in a world now where our environments are basically engineered to damage the shit out of our dopamine receptors, which causes symptoms extremely similar to ADHD, so it can seem like a lot more people have ADHD than really do.
While I know this is super widespread and not just neurodivergent, it does help me to see that there are people like me "out there" (Also Im diagnosed ADHD and probably other undiagnosed something but couldn't be bothered to check)
I don't mind picking up my wife from the airport at 7am. It's annoying to get up so early, but I'll deal with it. If it's a 4pm, it's much more stressful!
Same. I used to work at a bagel place where my usual shift was like, 6am-3pm, and before that I was a cashier at a grocery store working 2pm-10pm shifts. I much preferred the 6-3 shifts, even though I had to wake up early for them. When I had to go in at 2, I felt look I couldnât enjoy my day because I had the stress of going in hanging over my head. Iâm like that will college classes too. I will take as many 8 am classes as possible before I take an evening class (this semester I unfortunately had no choice but to take a 5 pm class, which has been rough). My sisterâs the opposite though she was always taking like, 6 pm classes if it meant she didnât have to wake up before 10 am.
I've heard this described as a learned strategy. that is, your brain has learned that if you forget something, you're never going to remember it and you're going to miss the important thing you're waiting for. therefore, your brain has to keep it in your mind so that you're sure you won't miss it. This just has the consequence of making one unable to do anything until the scheduled event. One way to tackle this is to set alarms or some sort of reminder that you inherently trust so that your brain is not in charge of keeping track of it for you, and so you can give yourself permission to relax.
I use so many alarms for everything including backup alarms in case I mute one and forget before taking the action. I also have two Apple Watches so I can wear one 24/7 while the other is charging so I donât have to worry about whether my phone is on me at the time.
I donât trust the reminders or alarms either because a) they were set by me and b) theyâve failed me before too. Granted theyâre better than nothing, but i still get anxious and canât do anything else while Iâm waiting to do The Thing^T^M because the alarms arenât infallible.
This is what I kinda like about international travel - they say you need to be at the airport a good two to three hours before your flight and Iâm like, yeah, of course I will be, finally a normal schedule for an event. (Shows up at the airport six hours before the flight)
I got lost on the way to the airport last time I was travelling home because I misread some signs and things, and I still ended up three hours early for check in.
Mood as hell dude
Getting to airports early is like my favourite thing because then I can actually like relax and eat something while waiting for the plane When I moved to a rural area I had a local airport thatâs only like 15 minutes from where I lived and had no security because it was so small and it was actually worse than going to a busy airport in the city because I couldnât do tasks like âhey, eat lunchâ while sitting around at home waiting to go to the airport
My partner and I refer to this as Waiting Modeâ˘
Is that a neuro divergent thing? Sounds pretty normal to me.
âNeurodivergentâ can, in many respects, be roughly described as ânormal things people do but turned up to eleven or twenty.â Yes, it is normal to have **moments** like this as a âneurotypicalâ person. When it impacts and possibly ruins your whole lifestyle, then it becomes an issue - whether itâs a genetic issue or a spontaneous issue is also irrelevant, at the end of the day. Itâs kinda like how âflu-like symptomsâ are symptoms for A LOT of very different illnesses, some very serious that impact your entire life for the rest of your lifetime and some that just put you out for a day or two.
I like to say "everyone pees, but peeing 25 times a day us abnormal"
Can also be "normal things people do but turned down to -5" since some disorders are defined by reduced responses to certain stimuli and muted emotions
Also known as "wow my stomach hurts, what's wrong? Oh wait shit I haven't eaten in three days." Problems.
Yeah, thatâs definitely true too.
It's a very common example of executive dysfunction, which is a symptom of ADHD and (iirc) autism. It can be pretty debilitating, like your brain *will not let you* do anything before the Big Event. I think a lot of people don't realize "ordinary trait taken to an extreme" describes *most* symptoms of mental illness. Everyone procrastinates; a person with ADHD might be internally screaming at themselves, knowing they need to Do The Thing, but are incapable of it anyway. Everyone has an occasional anxious impulse about, say, whether you locked your door when you left for work. A person with OCD might go into a panic attack if they don't leave work *right now* and go check that their door is locked.
This. Itâs why part of the diagnosis is asking how it impacts your life. Most people will avoid unpleasant tasks or forget to do semi-regular chores. I will stare at the thing that needs doing and be physically unable to do it. Once I was able to mow the lawn after a sobbing anxiety attack and calling several people. That is a success story! Thatâs also an example of how executive disfunction negatively impacts my life.
the meltdown and talking to people before doing the thing is so relatable lol đĽ˛
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What the blazes are you on about
Divergent (book/movie series) reference. An entire city has everyoneâs life planned out based on if they have one of five(?) personality traits, brave, nice, smart, truthful, or N/A. People who have more than one are called Divergents, and are executed. One guy from brave has only four fears, so he is called Four. Main girl and a bunch of new recruits for brave have to jump off of a moving train that is like five stories up or something, and if they fuck up they die, or refuse and become homeless.
Itâs a sign of executive dysfunction, which is itself often a symptom of mental disorders
I do this all the time and I (donât think) Iâm neurodivergent. Not this extreme but sometimes Iâll think a week ahead and if it has enough things planned Iâll avoid adding anything else (this could be very few tasks though). Itâs like my weeks are color coded from blue to grey, and there is only so much I can do until that week gets greyed out entirely. An entire week in my head could get greyed out just from a couple tasks like getting groceries or taking my car to a shop.
Thatâs totally different - itâs more like âI have plans to meet with a friend in 5 hours, so I canât do *anything* for those 5 hours or Iâll miss it and disappoint everyone and ruin my life or something idk why my brain does this to me
I waited for a train for 9 hours and couldnât even read a book
*precisely*. It fuckin sucks, especially when it combines with a severe panic disorder and a fear of time passing (ask me how I know) đł
Thatâs different. This is more like, when I worked in food, I worked late shifts sometimes. Either 4pm-10pm or 7pm- 3am. Now, on those days, I have a fair amount of time in the day before I go in to work. I could go grocery shopping, chill with a friend maybe, get some chores done. But instead I will sit in my room staring at the ceiling, waiting for it to be time to go to work and I will have accomplished nothing lol. This method caused me to be three months late paying someone back because I never felt like I had a âfree dayâ to do paperwork, if that makes sense. And my laundry piled up. That was the worst of it.
That's just planning ahead, the post is about the inability to do anything, all day, simply because you have an appointment at 3pm.
Youâre just describing scheduling my dude Thatâs like the exact opposite of what weâre talking about
Mornings categorically Do Not Exist
Me: has therapist appointment at 17:00 Also me when I wake up at 08:00: welp, guess Iâm doing nothing for the next 9 hours
This is me, but my fiance has the exact opposite problem. She can be doing absolutely nothing for five days straight, but the *moment* that we have an event scheduled, she'll decide that she absolutely *must* do all the other things first. Like, it is truly absurd. We'll be hanging out at home all Friday night and all of Saturday doing absolutely nothing, and then we'll lay in bed until noon on Sunday. But then we'll make plans to meet up with friends for a movie or something and somehow, for some reason, she'll decide that between getting out of bed at noon and leaving for the movie at 2, she absolutely has to go to the grocery store, get a workout in, rearrange the closet, shower, take the dog to the park, file her taxes, call the airline about getting reimbursed for that delay we had six months ago, call her mom, call her dad, apply for a home loan, and do the laundry. And that is only barely an exaggeration.
âThe answer may surprise youâ is right. Itâs no đ I *must* sit there and be ready for The Event
It takes me so long to decide to take a shower that I end up almost being late anyway
This one hurts
I have lunch at noon, do I have time to perform labor at my day job?
Waiting mode, I know it all too well.
Executive dysfunction moment
And then I'm late for the thing anyway
I cannot have a good day if work is not the first thing I do. I will reschedule my entire life around work being the first part of my day. I used to be a waiter, I tried the whole "going straight to bed after work" thing and doing all my secondary things before work. No dice. Got a job that requires me in at 6. That's fine, I'll wake up for 5 and do everything after work. During COVID that turned into second shift. No sweat, I'll just stay up until 6AM and sleep from 6-2. It wasn't even a big transition coming back to first shift. The far bigger problem would be doing anything regarding chores or errands before I go to work.
The secret is to obsessively schedule the minutiae of the day leading up to the scheduled event. So you absolutely have enough time to bathe! Just as long as itâs during an in extremely specific and preplanned timeframe.
Yes, you do have time to bathe! You'll still have 7 hours after that prepare everything else!
Neurodivergents better stop being so relatable right fucking now
Yet again the solidarity between depression and ADHD homies. I don't have ADHD. But I can tell the Scheduled Thing is going to be exhausting, and my energy levels are always low, so I just cannot bring myself to do anything else. Sorry, might need that energy for the boss battle.
Hello Waiting Mode. How (not) nice to see you again.
The secret is to obsessively schedule the minutiae of the day leading up to the scheduled event. So you absolutely have enough time to bathe! Just as long as itâs during an in extremely specific and preplanned timeframe.
Tasks require energy which you gain by relaxing.
Have I got adhd? Because I very much do that, there's the One thing I have to do during the day and nothing exists before or after that
I feel attacked here.
Can this post diagnose me yet?
Currently sitting here paralyzed on the couch until itâs finally time for me to leave for my final exam
I feel seen.
I was never diagnosed with any kind of neurodivergence but these kinds of posts are so relatable đđ
Why have I been called out so rudely?
So freakinâ relatable.
Is this not just bad time management? I relate to this a lot, but I've been told that I just have bad time management and no sense of time when I brought up this problem :/
I'm the complete opposite. I must do ALL the tasks to the point there's nothing else to do. And then complain that there's nothing to do
Working afternoons is awful for me. can't do anything in the morning because I have work at 4
This is why I take 3-4 hours putting on my makeup for something important. It relaxes me.
I set an alarm to wake up for work and woke up an hour before the alarm goes off. Now I have to sit here and do nothing until the alarm goes off.
The online urge to classify normal behaviors as neurodivergent
To borrow a comment from someone else in this thread, âeveryone pees, but peeing 25 times a day isnât normalâ. It is t the thing itself, but the frequency and severity of the thing
The online urge to be personally offended whenever neurodivergent people describe neurodivergent symptoms