i thought you guys would find this thread i wrote interesting
This is not just feminist BS. A LOT of medical conditions are studied more in men. I have read multiple recherche papers on everything from Autism to heart disease where they only studied men for some reason but almost none when they only studied women, with the exception of diseases that only women can get. So basically if you are a women and you share the same problem as a man the data is inherently skewed.
A lot of medical conditions are also studied mostly on WHITE men which makes it even more exclusive category. Psychology research mostly done on Western students as well which are a very specific and very different category of people from everyone else.
So we have most of our research which affects the well-being of all of us done mostly on White Western males with higher education. Just think about it.
if you aren’t stimulated for even a second you’re incredibly bored
boredom is literally painful
it’s worse than death
worse than e v e r y t h i n g
feelin that sweet Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria™ any time you get teased or insulted
when you’re listening to music you always tune it out eventually
not picking up on social cues At All
actually, what are social cues?
can’t regulate attention
not interesting = not worth paying attention to
hyperfocus for hours
“wAIT ITS 4 PM WHAT THE F U C K”
did i forget to eat again
The Thoughts go from point a to point g in less than one (1) fuckin sentence
*someone says a thing* what *person repeats thing* what *person repeats thing again and you still don’t hear them but dont ask what again in case they think ur weird*
or, alternatively
*someone says a thing* what *person starts to repeat said thing; you reply less than a second after they start*
using subtitles all the time so you don’t have to go back twenty times to determine What The Fuck someone said
“sorry i tuned you out for that entire sentence can you repeat that”
needing e x t r e m e l y s p e c i f i c d i r e c t i o n s
EXTREMELY POOR VOLUME CONTROL TBH
tfw that thing u were working on falls apart and u cant redo it bc u already did it and that would be boring
long blocks of text are Extremely Hard to Read
ur fuckin brain works 12 times as fast as everyone elses. for every ADHD person it’s somethin different. for me it’s puns. ill choke on my own laughter at a pun an Entire Second before anyone else even gets it
RAMBLING
The Leg Bounce™
Disassociation
that ADHD feel when you
^^ that one is a True Marker of an ADHD person. only ADHD people understand.
Reblogging because I think this is super helpful
!!!!! PSA that the hyperactive stuff on here (always needing to Do Something, ccaann’‘tt bbee bboorreed, etc) can wind up masked almost totally by maladaptive daydreaming, which, when you think about it, is actually a marvelous way to begin INSTANTLY doing something interesting without even having to get up and go somewhere else. Once you internalize your need for stimulation and start watchin’ the ol’ headmovies, you might LOOK like a very patient person who has no trouble sitting still when it’s required or staying on-task for extended periods of time despite setbacks and delays, but only from the outside. Inside there are tabs open with music videos and etc. playing, and you’re probably glancing back at reality only when necessary. You might look at sensation-seeking symptoms like hyperactivity and think “can’t relate” when, really, you’re just ready to return to your interior hyperactivity at a moment’s notice.
@ everybody who can’t just slip out of reality when boredom threatens and who has to instead find something to entertain themselves with irl, my heart goes out to you and everyone around you because holy fuck
I wonder how many writers and other creatives are ADHD. I mean, that whole “Occupy the brain with invented narratives, characters, dialogue, and wotld-building” thing was my refuge as a child, and has become my happy place as an adult.
I’d write all day, every day, if I could arrange my life for that. Coping technique turned profession. Unfortunately, the Day Jobbe sucks up most of my creative energy, alas.
Others out there like me?
I had a teacher in high school who pulled me aside one day and thanked me for being so attentive in class, and all I could think was, “bitch I am on year three of a Harry Potter OC fanfic, I have not heard a single word you’ve said in weeks.” So, yeah, maybe.
(A couple years ago I turned up positive on an ADHD screening, but I wasn’t jittery and I don’t forget appointments so my therapist said nah, probably not. But I’m finally getting my anemia treated, and I’m starting to wonder if maybe ADHD comorbid with depression and iron deficiency, compensated for by years of refining my note-taking and planner systems, doesn’t explain an awful lot.)
Just so you know, ADHD and ADD are no longer separate diagnoses- there’s just ADHD, and subtypes (primarily inattentive, primarily hyperactive, combined). That means there’s tons of us ADHD people who aren’t hyper physically and may even struggle with fatigue and brain fog pretty badly.
Some more exciting ADHD things include:
– I have lost this thing. When did I lose it? Where did I lose it? Did I ever have it in the first place?
– ‘I’m calling because you missed yo-’ FUCK
– the overwhelming need to be stimulated combined with getting tired of everything quickly and lacking physical energy/ the ability to concentrate
– saying offensive or inappropriate things and then when people are like ‘what are you thinking?’ being like ‘i honestly could not tell you’
– your brain is like one of those shopfront windows with all the TVs playing different channels. at least one of them is a song.
– ‘okay you can’t leave the exam hall until 1PM, so if you finish early you’ll just have to sit there’ haha death would be kinder
– poor emotional regulation. feelings are Very Hard To Handle By Yourself and you might break things when angry, hurt yourself when sad etc
– step one: join club or society. step two: learn everything there is and volunteer for as much responsibility as possible. step three: lose interest completely and ghost or quit, ignoring desperate/confused emails and hating yourself
– “something i thought has distressed me, but i can’t remember what. let me sit down and unpack the last five minutes of mental conversation.”
“!!!!! PSA that the hyperactive stuff on here (always needing to Do Something, ccaann’‘tt bbee bboorreed, etc) can wind up masked almost totally by maladaptive daydreaming, which, when you think about it, is actually a marvelous way to begin INSTANTLY doing something interesting without even having to get up and go somewhere else. Once you internalize your need for stimulation and start watchin’ the ol’ headmovies, you might LOOK like a very patient person who has no trouble sitting still when it’s required or staying on-task for extended periods of time despite setbacks and delays, but only from the outside.“
HAHAHAHAH omg I should have seen this 15 years ago
ADHD is reading the first post in this thread, skipping all the commentary, and rebloggingbit anyway
My input is ADHD is TALKING CONSTANTLY AND UNABLE TO STOP
As someone who’s been maladaptive daydreaming since I was 3/as long as I can remember
It is EXACTLY why I write/draw/get so passionate about stories
But it’s also why as a kid no one saw blatant ADHD- I can be patient and calm but my mind is constantly on high speed daydreaming and creating and writing and it can still be very hard to focus/cope with mental exhaustion
Putting something down because you’re done with it and have it CEASE TO EXIST. You don’t put away the jam that’s less than a foot from the fridge because your mind has already moved onto something else.
Getting an idea and having it be The Only Thing You Can Think About for the next however long it takes for you to go to sleep and (hopefully) reset.
some of the stuff on that list looks more autistic than adhd, but they often coexist. i’m the poster boy for adhd and also the more verbal and sensory kind of autism, and they really bleed into each other. am i failing to absorb any information from your ted talk because i’m glitching out from adhd, or because i’m losing speech processing from autism?
all i can do is take my concerta and see whether the situation improves. if not, it was probably autism. 😛
are you ready for the latest in research-based [ingroup] demographic stereotypy? this one’s a doozy.
In our clinical practice, adults with IQ scores in and above the superior range have sought evaluation and treatment for chronic difficulties with organizing their work, excessive procrastination, inconsistent effort, excessive forgetfulness, and lack of adequate focus for school and/or employment. They question whether they might have an attention deficit disorder, but often they have been told by educators and clinicians that their superior intelligence precludes their having ADHD.
Typically, these very bright individuals report that they are able to work very effectively on certain tasks in which they have strong personal interest or intense fear of immediate negative consequences if they do not complete the task at once. Yet they are chronically unable to make themselves do many tasks of daily life they recognize as important but do not see as personally interesting at that moment. When provided treatment appropriate for ADHD, these very bright individuals often report significant improvement in their ability to work effectively while their medication is active.
yes. so. how would you like a summary of my educational career?
Clinical interviews with patients in this study indicated that individuals with high IQ who have ADHD may be at increased risk of having recognition and treatment of their ADHD symptoms delayed until relatively late in their educational careers because teachers and parents tend to blame the student’s disappointing academic performance on boredom or laziness, especially as they notice the situational variability of their ADHD symptoms.
Like most others with ADHD, these individuals have a few specific domains in which they have always been able to focus very well, for example, sports, computer games, artistic or musical pursuits, reading self-elected materials. Parents and teachers tend to assume that these very bright persons could focus on any other tasks equally well, if only they chose to do so. These observers do not understand that although ADHD appears to be a problem of insufficient willpower, it is not (Brown, 2005).
Many also reported that they often demonstrated considerable prowess in performing specific tasks in which they had little positive personal interest but did experience considerable fear of immediate negative consequences if they did not complete that particular task by some external deadline. Often subjects described this as a character trait, “I’m just a severe procrastinator” or “I always work best under pressure.”
that’s not all.
In an unpublished study of 103 treatment-seeking adults with IQ 120 or more diagnosed with ADHD, Brown and Quinlan (1999) found that 42% had dropped out of postsecondary schooling at least once, although some did eventually return to complete a degree. Those data together with this present study suggest that individuals with high IQ and ADHD, despite their strong cognitive abilities, may be at significant risk of educational disruption or failure due to ADHD-related impairments of EF.
and now?
Biederman et al. (2006) […] found that adults with ADHD who self-reported elevated levels of EF impairments on the CBS tended to be significantly more impaired on measures of global functioning, had more comorbidities, and held lower current socioeconomic status than did those with or without ADHD who scored below the median on that scale. […]
¯_(ツ)_/¯
So, like, I don’t know how many of you-all this stuff describes, but it was awfully familiar to me and what my life has been like, so I wanted to share it since it’s an actual freaking pattern for us ADHDers who are also “gifted.”
-J
Well. That 40% dropout statistic certainly makes me feel better…
I was gonna put this all in tags but then I realized I had at least a paragraph of rant going on here: The longer I live, the more I realize that mental disorders in highly intelligent people are often labeled as “lazy” or “a personal failing,” or straight-up ignored. Even when the person in question comes up to doctors/parents/teachers/authority figures and says outright, “I think I have a problem and I would like help!”
I’m not saying “oh poor little geniuses boo hoo,” I’m saying that our society has this insidious idea that mental disability can only present itself through decreased intelligence, which leads to people who have serious disabilities but good grades having no help or support throughout their education and sometimes into adulthood as well. I’ve seen it in people with ADHD, I’ve seen it with depression, I’ve really seen it with ASD, I’ve seen it with trauma/ptsd, the list goes on.
Nearly every person I know who was labeled a gifted/talented student in childhood also struggled with a mental disorder that went completely undiagnosed, despite causing severe problems in their life. A good report card is not proof of mental health.
I identify with this far too much for it to be coincidence
This is every fight I had with my father growing up. (Where growing up also includes much of my adulthood.)
Went to college classes when I was 10. Dropped out of high school. Last IQ test I ever took, I had a score of 121.
just moving along like everyone else 