Hey look, a birdie! (How to function with ADHD.)

[Clues_Of_Blue]

As someone only recently diagnosed with ADHD, I'm still getting my head around what aspects of this crazy critter are thanks to that, and what I can do about it. It was always apparent to me that I was incredibly forgetful compared to others around me, and I've driven many a manager nuts with my tendency to bounce between tasks constantly (mostly they just ran with it because I'm actually pretty competent if left to my own processes and - very importantly - deadlines to work to), so I have a few strategies for working around it after 40-odd years. That said, I'd love to hear from others with ADHD about how you've managed the condition and how you wade through the daily drudgery. Of course I'm equally happy to share any tricks I've worked out for myself.

Blue.

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey Therising,

Engaging the ol' imagination is definitely bringing a bit of life back to us on the heels of a really difficult time. It really is the little things that make life bearable, isn't it? We've been doing a thing where he draws a simple, random shape and I draw around it an in it to make it into a character or a scene of some sort. It's a fun exercise to connect us and work with our respective energy levels.

Interesting idea about teaching about imagination at school. I'm not sure the people making the curriculum have the imagination themselves to manage that - seems a stretch for them to picture a student even questioning the validity of a piece of information they are taught...

Did you really think imagination was just for kids? If that were so, who makes all the books and movies and music we consume? People build careers on imagination and bring joy or peace or commiseration or vicarious realisation of things they can't do in real life. As you say, the impact it has on life is tremendous. In those more obvious ways and the less apparent but just as real ways we don't think of - like the inventions of Tesla. That quote is interesting. I guess I don't see it in a directly spiritual sense, but I guess the universe is giving us all those things to work with. The physical realities around us prompt questions - how to change a thing that isn't good, how to improve upon a thing that is, or combine other things we like, even how to get rid of things we don't like (i.e. a condemned building, or a big debt). Your words remind me that I have used my imagination more than I give myself credit for - I'm big on problem solving and where perseverance alone doesn't serve, thinking around corners often fills the breach.

I love your thoughts on how the things we see and used were first imagined. It's a really great way to look at things. Maybe the chair I have is a bit derivative in concept, but the first chair - the concept realised from an idea to sourcing materials, the tools to work them and how to make it all into a functional object. Imagination involved in every step.

I'm glad my reflections on managing time are helpful. I've bumped my old thread on minimalism after we talked about that, though it's a good subject here too - it's great for helping to manage ADHD. I agree about having "raisers" in our lives. It seems our conversations point us both in an upward direction, and that's great.

Blue.

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Want to get this discussion moving again. Those of us dealing with ADHD know it influences absolutely everything about life, how we do practical things, how we process emotion and trauma, how we so deeply need creativity and spaces that aren't bombarding us with sensory input. Staying well in hard times means managing ADHD as well as all the normal stuff, and how we do the normal stuff looks different with ADHD - especially when we are stressed like ol' Blue is now.

[ecomama]

Gosh Blue, you're a CHAMPION. Thanks for reviving this thread. 

You brought up something that I hadn't realised before... how ADHD can effect how we process trauma. Makes sense. 

I realised the stuff about emotional regulation / dysregulation. 

The whole sensory thing is REAL. I can barely stand bright sunlight (now) and need sunglasses anywhere and any time of the year outside. I also wear a hat to even walk to the car. I have 3 broad rimmed hats lol, even one in my car to walk across car parks at work and shopping centres. 
I also find noises effect me. I know a loud bang will trigger PTSD, but I also "need" some level of sounds to help me sleep nowadays. We live near a major artery road that has sirens going alot! I seldom hear them... whoever is on the phone with me hears them before I realise they're there. 

Also the happy noises children make is happy for me, no matter how loud. Though if a baby is crying longer than 1 minute, it effects me so deeply that it stimulates my breast milk production. It's a definite thing. I can't even hold a crying baby for same reason. Same with crying dogs... this just happens without my control but clearly it's the way my brain is wired to have that happen. 

My ADHD diagnosis was very recent but I knew I must have it. When I was a toddler, it took 2 adults to hold me still so I would stop long enough to go to sleep. Then wake often. Sleep has been a challenge. The traumas have had a hand in this, peaceful sleep is elusive and seldom happens. Usually bad dreams wake me. 

Any tips you have would be great Blue! 

Love EM

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey EM,

Dunno if I'm a champion, but I'll take it. 😄

In all my readings about ADHD I did find we operate very differently on an emotional level (as well as every other level). As far as trauma goes, we a) cop a bunch more of it from a bunch more sources because people ain't too kind to those of us who are different, and b) we process it differently. I'll try not to put everyone in the bucket, my ADHD could look different to yours, but there are some key things I experience.

One is that I start every day from a place of stress, even when I try not to. Why? Because I know all the stuff I have to do and I'm worried about remembering and organising it. Because before I've even had breakfast I've forgotten and remembered and forgotten and remembered a good half dozen important things (like take my coffee with me before I sit down to eat). Because I've gotten distracted and lost track of time and I'm suddenly rushing to get somewhere on time (with no guarantee of success). Because ADHD can come with spacial awareness probelems and certainly comes with impatience, so I'm clumsy and that adds an extra layer of forgetfulness and distraction. Dropped a container on the floor? Gotta wash it. Again. Brilliant. What was I meant to be doing? Back to my point - this is my baseline. Add a stressful event to that high stress baseline, I'm angry. Add trauma, oh boy! It's a lot to manage.

Then there is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, apparently common in people with ADHD. It is what it sounds like. Take a bit of perceived rejection, add some dysregulated emotions, kaboom! You got one very unhappy person. Again, add real rejection and a nice little layer of trauma, both of which tend to come thick and fast in the life of a neurodiverse person, you have yourself one heavily triggered human.

The sensory stuff is another matter, we differ a bit on what bothers us. For me it's mostly noise and clutter I struggle with, but bright lights and movement don't do me any favours if I'm already feeling overloaded. I have some thoughts on managing that, but I think I'm running out of words.

I want to discuss sleep, too, that's a real thing. The ADHD mind does not know silence or stillness. Apparently that's not standard. It's a blessing and a curse. Another thing to dive more deeply into in a future post.

Blue.

[ecomama]

There's more lol... sensory issues are not exclusive to people with ADHD and can occur without other diagnoses. 

Pretty common with Autism I've seen. Hence Alexa and I had Assessments for ASD also. 

CLOTHING! All my clothing has to have a certain "feel" to it. And bedding AND towels and most definitely socks lol. 

Do you think "object permanence" goes hand in hand with ADHD? 
I have this issue. So do many of my children. 
Yvette doesn't, she can remember everything and we all often use her as our "go to" if we can't remember ANY THING. 

I can give a chronology of an event as long as someone else reminds me of the event. All events are pinpointed in my mind around, mostly, my children's birthdays, no matter which birthdays they are. 

I digress as per. 

I find I have to leave things OUT to remind me to do them eg I needed to bake Banana Bread for a work lunch yesterday. So when I knew that's what I had to do, I took the loaf pans out of the cupboard, lined them with baking paper and left them on the bench to remind me. A funny segue is that my kids saw the loaf pans and asked when the banana bread would be ready THREE TIMES before yesterday lol! So I baked 4 lots of 2 Banana Breads in the past week. Gettin' through those frozen bananas AND my chicken's eggs lol. 

Talk soon
Love EM

[ecomama]

Hey Blue.. posting at the same time again. Hope that doesn't muck with your head for order. It would me, just sayin' lol. 

Ofcourse you're a CHAMPION, heck everyone knows that! Sheesh. 

SNAP on your first paragraph. Same. But I doubt I have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Indeed I've ALWAYS been so different to my peers (as I concluded very early on we are all different to each other, so just accepted that). But I'd been born overseas, our house burnt down, we lived in metal shack, I wore all my friends' clothing they donated to me for YEARS after our home was lost. I was really into dancing lessons and performing - OH SO DIFFERENT. I was from a single parent family... I could not have been MORE different to those peers to a point. 

So I didn't care much at all. I just got on with getting stuff done. 
It hurt if friends were nasty ofcourse but I was kind of "meh yeah people are nasty" probably because my mother was nasty & my father didn't give a hoot (absent & self involved, CLEARLY). I literally just shrugged off rejection & made friends elsewhere... they always came crawling back - similarly to bfs / husbands lol. 
By then I was "boundaried UP" with the exes. Not so much friends, just some. Mostly they matured enough to remain friends. "They" lol. 

Second paragraph, ME TO A T. 
My work mornings are SO well structured because they HAVE to be. I have taught the kids to be almost 100% independent with getting ready to go anywhere and get peeved inside if they're not prepared, but I deal with this patiently. I've been described as "having the Patience of Job" from the Bible lol! 
My position at work requires me to have never ending patience, and about 99% of time I do. 

My Counsellor has helped me thru the impatience with myself. The honest truth is that you and I should be so proud of ourselves. We could be, I guess, if we could go there? 

Love EM

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Yup, looks like we're posting at the same time. It does throw me off a bit, but I have ways of dealing with it.

No, sensory sensitivity isn't exclusive to neurodiverse people - I do think it's more common, though. I hear you about clothes, my socks and undies in particular have to be just right! And I have a special hatred for how hats and gloves feel. I like how some look/function, but I just hate wearing them so much. My hands aren't great because I won't wear gloves to garden or do dishes or anything.

Object permanence... yes! ADHD = rubbish working memory. We forget stuff if we're not looking at it. I relate to that banana bread story. I have to leave stuff out, notably meds, and if there's any clutter at all (sometimes even without that) just looking in another direction for a few seconds puts it totally out of my mind. I forget medication as often as I remember it, possibly more.

I don't assume you have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, I was thinking more of stuff you said about your younger kids reacting to things said by the older ones. I don't think I have it either, I was getting on a bit before I had any acceptance to compare the baseline rejection to. You know what I mean. But where I just went off and did my own thing, my sister could never handle it. She sees rejection everywhere, even where it isn't. That's apparently a commonly co-occurring (not universal) thing with ADHD.

Yeah, I've had to structure work mornings carefully. My little birds have added some chaos to that, but at least to a moderately predictable degree. I have patience for them, and for LM. Not so much for everyone else. I've always said "if patience is a virtue, I'm a virtue short".

Impatience with ourselves? Oh boy, I have that in spades! Dealing with that is a work in progress. I lost traction with that, feeling very frustrated that my diagnosis and research, if anything, yielded worse results for managing my ADHD than winging it on my own without knowing I had it. I'm stepping back from that research for the most part now, and know I must be a pioneer in learning more about how to make life work with ADHD. That is fortifying my spirit and my patience with myself somewhat.

Kind thoughts,

Blue.

[ecomama]

Hey Blue

Thankyou for bringing up Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria... as per I don't process new information quickly, it takes me DAYS or even weeks / months / years lol to see what that info IS and how it fits. 

You saying how your sister see rejection everywhere... snap with Yvette. This a LOT to do with demon (not that it rejected or abandoned us... we WANTED it to leave our lives completely!)... more to do with friends at her work AND rumours. I ALWAYS question a person's motivation to tell me Stuff. I've brought this to Yvette's attention about the rumours she heard. In the workplace (and everywhere I think) rumours can be SO destructive! 

I take that destruction as a sign to bump off into another path.. 

Oh dear Blue... got some unhelpful advice from my psych friend this morning lol... if she ONLY knew!
WE KNOW that LISTS can only help us x much. Sure we've prob got a million more experiences with lists that our non ADHD counterparts, it drives me crazy. 
I NEED them but even these get SO confusing. 

I found another way to look at the mountain of work to do today. Poo first yep! THE most disgusting jobs first. 
Pet poo is THE most disgusting thing to me. Dealing with this is a whole system in itself! YUCK. 
Garbage bins next. (All the while thinking "Is the tank water being managed well atm? I need to go see and move the dripping hose... then start the washing machine if it is. If not I have to set a phone reminder saying TANK WATER" that's just one system running simultaneously to the others, the oven, stove, dishwasher.. list goes on in my head). 

Then a surprise call up for me to drive one of the kids to work for a shift they decided to cover (alot of ppl taking days off) or an early call up because they're going into work early. So that's min 30 mins in the car. 
This puts me off my tracks and direction for the day. 

This just happened so I'm off now! Sorry no time for our other threads..

Love EM

Got another call this morning which takes up my night tonight. 

[Clues_Of_Blue]

I hear ya, it can take me a while to process some things, too. You say demon didn't reject/abandon you guys, but I put it to you that someone being physically present but acting in a destructive way is absolutely rejection and emotional abandonment. Yvette may have RSD or may be responding normally to trauma. Could be both. I think RSD would be best identified by how much of the rejection is perceived but not particularly apparent rather than real.

I've really had to examine my own stuff. Whilst I don't much care about acceptance from the general populace, there are particular people/situations to which I respond intensely to rejection (i.e. not hearing from my siblings re current life circumstances - I don't care that my parents have said nothing, I'm used to that, but my siblings are usually better than that - it bites). I see pretty clear relationships between my reactions and specific past traumas so I don't believe RSD is among my alphabet soup of problems. That said, I have no doubt at all my ADHD is behind the sheer intensity of my reactions to some of this stuff.

I will extrapolate from that that the advice was about writing lists. Yes, they only help so much. I have them everywhere. On my phone, on sticky notes, on the fridge, in writing pads. Oftentimes the same things crop up across two or more lists - I have to write stuff as I think of it, or it's just gone. Then there's too much written. And each new list supercedes the last by dint of being most recently thought on, as prioritising what's more important is next to impossible. It's all important, that's why I'm stressed and forgetting everything!

That paragraph about poo really shows the ADHD thought flow perfectly. You're jumping from thing to thing, the connections between them are kinda loose, I see chaos and overwhelm. That's my head 24/7. It's exhausting! And that's before we even tackle things like cleaning up the poo! On that subject, I too like to get the worst job out of the way first, the rest doesn't seem so bad after that. You're not the only one with poo to deal with, either.

You said re driving your offspring to work: "This puts me off my tracks and direction for the day." That's what spontaneous changes do to me. I try to plan as much as possible. I imagine that's very difficult for you with such a full household and a lot falling on your shoulders.

Take care of yourself, friend.

Blue.

[Clues_Of_Blue]

I've been wondering about my way of thinking, how I seem to manage to make negative associations and triggers out of just about everything, and how much it has to do with my ADHD. I did some poking around and various sources suggest I'm on the right track, that the negative memory bias is significantly stronger with ADHD than without it, though it exists in all of us to some extent as a protective measure to stop us repeating things that have gone bad. From that reading I came up with this really interesting tidbit about how working memory figures into the equation:

"In order for the good moments to outmanoeuvre the negativity bias, they have to be installed in the brain’s neural structures. This process requires holding the thought in the working memory long enough to be picked up by short-term memory structures and then transferred to the long-term memory. Of course, people with ADHD, by definition, typically struggle with working memory challenges. Therefore, this transfer doesn’t occur as frequently as we would like, if at all. So the key issue here is “long enough.“ While there is no research to give us a specific time for this, “long enough” usually means holding a positive emotion, desire, action or outcome to actually feel it–to reflect on it and let it sink in."

The article went on to suggest things like making sure to celebrate successes, even in small ways. Specifically to try and be conscious of positive things, to slow down and process that they've happened. I'm sure I'm not the only person with ADHD to lose those moments in the flurry of activity to negate or manage negative things, or just in the thought-flow about the negatives and what to do next, etc. The impulsive movement or thinking pulls our focus away and the positive doesn't make it to short or long term memory.

Another useful thing I found for people who care for someone with ADHD (and let's maybe try this with ourselves) is openly recognising good things about that person (or ourselves) and what they are doing right. Even small things, like remembering something we usually forget, or getting somewhere on time (not a strong point in we with time-blindness).

I'm putting this here as much for my own reference, but hope it can be useful to others reading.

Blue.