They Would Be Best Friends (and Destroy Things Together)

So my therapist has been helping me get to grips with my ADHD, and also the concept that I’m not shit at being an adult, I just can’t do things the way everyone has always told me to do them. Like every single “organize your life” books have always left me wanting to cry with frustration, and after I got hold of a copy of Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD by Susan Pinsky I realized that was because they primarily focus on “aesthetic” over “function”. And the function of most standard “organize your life books” is to “make things look Show Home Perfect”.

So the standard “hide all your unsightly things by doing xyz” may look nice for the first week or so, but by the end of the week it’ll look like a tornado made of pure inhuman frustration ripped through the house as I try to find the fucking advil.

To give you an example of the kind of hell I’ve been fumbling my way through the last 20 odd years: dishes will be washed and left in the drying wrack but never put away. Which means I can’t wash more dishes, which means dishes pile up, which means I can’t make food, which means I don’t eat, which means my CFS gets worse, which means I don’t have the energy to put the dishes away, and so on so forth until I have a meltdown, cry to ETD (who also likely has ADHD but has never had it confirmed) about how I can’t cope with life, and then we fix it for a while, but inevitably end up back at square one within about a week.

Pinsky’s solution to this was “remove an obstacle between you and your goal, if that means taking all the doors off your kitchen cabinets to make things easier, so be it.”

And lemme tell you, fucking revolutionary.

Laundry never ends up in the hamper??? why???? is it a closed hamper??? Remove the lid. Throw it out the window. Clothes are now miraculously finding their way into the hamper??? Rejoice????

Mail ends up spread out over every available flat surface? Put a sorting station right where your mail arrives. Put a shredder or “junk” basket under it. Shred or dump the junk immediately. Realize you only actually have two real letters that need attention, feel less overwhelmed, pay your bills on time.

Like I’m not saying this book is miraculous, but it did help me realize that I was effectively torturing myself by trying to conform to certain ideals of “perfect house keeping”, and presenting a certain image rather than just allowing myself to live in my space as effectively as possible. And why? Why was I doing that? Cause people with different lives and capabilities are perceived as the norm? Fuck that. If this was a physical problem I wouldn’t be forcing myself to conform to an ableist standard, so why am I doing it with this?

My lived space will never look a certain way, and that’s okay. It will never look show home perfect, and that’s okay. It will likely always be cluttered and eclectic where nothing matches, and that’s okay. Sometimes I will have odd socks on because sorting them out required too much mental energy, and that’s okay. Actually fuck sorting socks, just buy all your socks in the same color. Problem solved. Boring sure, but also one less thing to do, which means more time to hyper fixate on fun things. Which really, what else is my life for if not to write screeds and screeds of vampire shit posts, I ask you.

ADHD Terminology

I use a lot of terms on this blog that are used widely throughout the ADHD and mental health community, but I’ve realized that a lot of people don’t quite know what these words mean. So I’m gonna go ahead and define a few! Let me know if you need any other terms defined and I’ll add them.

Hyperfocus- hyperfocus is a state of absolute and complete focus that ADHD people face. During a hyperfocus session, we will often cut off completely from the rest of the world and think only about the task we are focused on while we completely disregard any family trying to get our attention, or the need to eat, or the need to go to the restroom, etc. 

Hyperfixation- a hyperfixation is an intense interest that someone with ADHD finds complete and utter comfort in, and usually just talking about it can trigger a state of hyperfocus. We will often steer the conversation towards these topics without even realizing it because they are in our minds so often, and we will usually feel a need to know anything and everything we can about our hyperfixation(s). These are similar to special interests in the autism spectrum community. NOTE: only people with ADHD can have hyperfixations! If you do not have ADHD, then you do not have the capacity to have any hyperfixations, even if you really really like something. This label is specific to ADHD at this point in time, just as the term special interest is specific to the autism spectrum community.

Neurodivergent- used to describe a person with a mental disorder/disability. Often shortened to ND

Neurotypical- used to describe a person without a mental disorder/disability. (and is often used to describe a person without a specific disorder when speaking within a certain community, though this is not widespread and most people do not agree with this use). Often shortened to NT

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD)- an intense and all encompassing feeling of emotional pain/sensitivity felt by ADHD people in response to rejection or perceived rejection. I hope to have a full post about RSD soon! I’ll link to it here once it’s completed.

ADHDers- people with ADHD

Actually ADHD- a blog on tumblr!! They do wonderful work and I highly recommend checking them out. It’s run by a group of people that have ADHD and want to help others learn about it and understand. You can visit their blog here and their website here. This term has also been taken up by the ADHD community as a tag to indicate that someone actually does have ADHD, particularly when talking about ADHD. This is the same for other mental health issues as well, such as Actually Tourette’s and Actually Autistic. If someone tags their posts like this, then they’re telling you that they have that disorder.

Self diagnosis/dx- self diagnosis, often abbreviated to self dx, is the act of diagnosing oneself with an illness or disorder, either of the mental or physical variety, without consulting a medical professional. This is often incredibly frowned upon, as in most cases this diagnosis is made is a rash manner within a situation where medical advice is very readily available, but it also often takes places in a circumstance where a doctor is not available. This might be a result of a lack of insurance, a lack of support from parents, or countless other circumstances that make a true diagnosis difficult, or impossible, to obtain.

had an angel on my shoulder but the devil always won

She's not my oc but you know what i mean

Imagine my reaction when someone commissioned me to draw Thel Vadam' ✨ It was like a dream come true xd he's one of my fav characters from the HALO franchise. He's so damn cool and OP <3 <3

miles is taller than 42-miles because of his spider bite. This is like when your younger brother have a grow spurt and now are slightly taller than you.

Ok but obiwan ended up enabling kid luke by being his guardian angel. Like imagine if you're a reckless kid who got into all sorts of trouble but you somehow got miraculously saved every single time. Like you fall off a cliff and black out but then suddenly you're safe back in your home. You pick a fight with a slaver and your ass is about to be whooped when suddenly the slaver trips and falls and hits his head. Add the teenage 'nothing can hurt me I am invincible' mindset and the 'tatooine is so boring that I'm going to strap a rocket booster to my speeder and see what happens' recklessness and you get a guy who don't give a shit. Like a guy who, when told about the force, decides to throw caution into the wind and trust in the force about everything. The you're going to die be afraid be afraid fear that emanates from darth vader and also palpatine means nothing to luke because he experienced that fear and survived x 100. Obiwan unknowingly fostered a 'whatever happens everything will turn out alright' kinda optimism in luke tbh.

REBLOG IF... YouTubers make you happy

I printed it as a poster lol

Important! Let’s help Tyler!

Tyler is looking to accomplish his mom’s bucket list.

Watch video here: https://youtu.be/Iug57dXNoJQ

He recently made a video explaining that his mom was just diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that is highly aggressive. All he wants to do is help complete her bucket list and spend as much time as he possibly can with her. He asks that we just share this video to help make that happen

If you don’t know, Tyler is also someone who is all about spreading love and positivity. He uses his phrase SmileAlways to do so much like we have done with PMA.

As a community we can help Tyler accomplish this. Please spread his video out as much as you can or reblog this. Anything to help this man out. He is so deserving of being able to do this for his mom and I know as a community we can do that.

Sorry the tags aren’t completely in line with the subject matter but this is important as he is a friend of Mark, Seán, and Ethan.

holy trinity