Same, I was like how is this limiting her future any more than the stick she found that looked like a gun and so she stopped doing homework to run around with a stick. I found this really cool stick one time when I was younger and thought my friend would enjoy it, so i walked over to his house but my mom ended up driving by while I was walking and had pizza in the car, so I hid the stick somewhere, and never found it. But while I was looking, I did end up noticing a brick in my neighbor's house was loose, so I rang on their doorbell but they never answered, so that's how I got the brick, it was a pretty cool brick, a sort of terracotta feel to it, which made me think about how the terracotta army is like 5000 years old, they buried it and it wasn't found for like 4800 years, so I think someone will find that stick eventually, probably less than 4800 years, but they'll probably think it was a pretty cool stick too.
Bruh, this is me too. Every time I try to tell a story, I wind up going on off on several tangents, and a story that should've taken like 5 minutes to tell ends up going on for 45 minutes 😂
I always feel like I'm telling the story backwards, because I start and realize that they might need context or backstory to fully enjoy what I'm about to talk about, but then the backstory needs context so I explain all the things that will make what I was going to say make sense, but then I realize I'm giving way too much detail, panic because they're surely getting board waiting for me to get to the point and I end up saying nevermind.
YES! And I also end up saying “where was I going with this?” multiple times during the storytelling. People say that they love hearing me tell stories, but I think they must be lying. I mean, I think my stories are fascinating, but they can’t possibly be as interesting to other people as they are to me.
Dude, I'm 36, and I JUST found out that I have ADHD, I can never just tell a story. I have to tell all 18 background and side stories that no one cares about 🫠
65 here and relate so well to this story. It’s how I think and find solutions to complex problems. Thread may have given me the diagnosis that didn’t exist when I was in school.
Everytime me and my dad talk about stuff, we start with one topic, go to PCs for like 3 hours, then other stuff only after 6 hours of talking to get back to the original topic which was what to we want to eat lol
I drive my husband bonkers with this and you'd think he would be more understanding bc he also has ADHD but he presents so differently than me. I have to externalize and talk thru all the stuff in my brain. But his lips are constantly silently moving bc he is talking to himself and he will often start talking to me and forget that he had half of the conversation in his head before he brought me into it - that drives me nuts so I guess that makes us even lol.
One day my friend looked over at me and said, "You know what our problem is?? We digress." Touché. Tou-f#@$in'-ché. I ask my husband "Wait why was I talking about this?" like four times a week, easy. He jokes that we watch shows and movies "in installments" because I always pause them to tell some super important story I've forgotten about by the time I'm finally done talking. Bless his heart, though... Every time I apologize he just tells me that he loves to hear my voice, or he's always happy to know about anything that's important to me. He's a saint.
We started Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War yesterday. Thirty seconds in I was like "They got the measurements of the OK Corral wrong," and he was like, here we go... He paused it and just turned so he was facing me instead of the TV with this expectant look on his face like he was settling in for a story and I was like, "Oh, that's all." Blew his f@$#in' mind.
That's because we adhd-ers have a decided lack of pruning when our brains are in the first stages of development. The neurons in our brains have quite literally more connections to each other. It's also why we're really good at connecting ideas & concepts that would never occur to the 'typicals. It's why we're good at problem solving & thinking out of the box, but suck at being concise.
(We have a much better underatanding of the neurology of it all now-it's why I hate the name."adhd". It's based on old theories about adhd that we now know are completely false. It's not my name, & I forget the creator's name-Connor DeWolf maybe?-who came up with it, but he proposed: Dopamine Attention Variability Executive disfunction. I'm cool with telling everyone I'm DAVE, but until then, I'm sticking with neuro[spicy/sparkly]. How's that for an inconcise tangeant)?
I always start in one place, change topics several times, never finish any of the stories I started telling in the process of telling the first story, then completely forget where I started and look like an idiot when everyone can literally see my gears stop turning the moment I realize I have no idea what I’m even talking about anymore 😂
Seriously how did I not notice that it went off topic and I sterted thinking I need to help find sticky !!! Has she made posters ??? Also we need a picture of the brick that sound like a friend
When you say something out loud, and you get the "Where the heck did that come from?" And you give a detailed description of how your brain bounced around 20 different topics to get to. "Did you know that eggplants contain nicotine, and the original varietal did look like an egg"
I didn't see anything wrong with it. Isn't that how everyone thinks? 😆
But in all seriousness I'm always surprised that I seem to be the only ADHDer that can't drive. I just get so overwhelmed by all the things I have to pay attention to if I go more than 30km/h or if there's more than 2 other cars in my periphery.
I went on a trip with friends last weekend, dudnt tske my meds. At dinner, I was telling them that i like to trybon jobs, new tiwn and such in my head. Like, would i like making terracotta floor tiles? Who designed the chandelier? I can upholster those benches. Ooh! baking!
They shook their heads, acknowledging they think im a weirdo but still love me.
I was like, this is why Im so tired and yet get nothing accomplished.
That's not adhd. That's just curiosity. Every young person is like this. But I can't help feeling that young folks now think tlits cool to think they have adhd
I mean, I do most definitely have ADHD, and, while yes the story is curiosity at its base, the sporadic thought pattern and loss of focus is kinda hallmark to ADHD and was the point of what I said.
Lol I'm a fucking software developer dipshit, I managed my way through college, in pretty sure I can manage to drive. We're not mentally ill, we just think differently from whoever decided on 40 hour work weeks and tried to force unnatural stucture in a chaotic world.
Gist of the problem, my friend, gist of the problem!
Funny story: I wasn't diagnosed until I was 65. By that time, I had started and run a successful business, raised a well-rounded human, gone back to school, and earned a BA, an MFA, and was in my second year of coursework for my PhD. (Im third year at the moment)
Oh, and like you, I drive just fine!!😊 And I believe that our particular neurodiversity likely made us leaders back before the decision was made to cookie cutter everyone into the same mold. Hell, we're STILL leaders, whether normies recognize it or not!
I'm sorry to hear that. Driving has always been one of those things I've loved, so I've always been good at it. It's always meant freedom to me, so my heart goes out to you for what you must be going through.
In an effort to educate rather than insult you are misunderstanding likely as you think people mostly have similar cognitive functioning.
ADHD doesn't impact muscle memory activities, lots of the coping techniques are making things routine/muscle memory so you don't have to think about doing them.
Driving is a muscle memory activity, you don't have to think about how to drive a car. When i'm driving im crazy attentive to whats going on on the road, I am constantly checking my mirrors and am a hardcore asshole about people using the left lane for passing. Where it manifests is not getting too focused on driving and not getting off when I need to, I usually keep GPS on all the time on alert mode so I get a beep if I miss a turn/exit. Longer trips this problem is worse, I used to drive an hour to work and at least a couple of times a month would miss my exit.
I can be attentive while driving because I stick on a podcast or audio-book to keep my unconscious brain occupied. The easiest way to describe ADHD IMHO is imagine your internal monologue but its constantly using its outdoor voice so its hard to focus on anything else.
Treatment is about turning the volume down on that motherfucker. Its like having a neighbor having a loud shouting match at 3am when all you want to do is sleep. The shouting match is usually about something absurd like the building materials used in early American protestant churches. Then they come over and demand you resolve the conflict.
Of course they think it’s cool. That’s why nearly all young people today want to be medicalized and then tell everybody about it. I see it daily. Psychiatrists generally agree that ADD/ADHD is HEAVILY OVERDIAGNOSED.
You kinda gave yourself away there as not knowing what the fuck you're talking about. ADD isn't diagnosed anymore. It's not even a disorder in the DSM. What you're attempting to refer to, is Inattentive type ADHD, so go away before you manage to make yourself look even more stupid
Not to mention that women are so under diagnosed that they are usually given the diagnosis of GAD/MDD and medicated for those way before getting the correct diagnosis. By then, they have GAD/MDD on their record and they are often questioned about those for many years after being correctly diagnosed with ADHD.
Source- 26 when I diagnosed with GAD/MDD, spent 4 years on depression meds that made me even more tired and depressed. After the third night on a low dose anxiety meds I had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and my blood pressure dropped too quickly and I hit my head on the side table, never took that again.
I was 30 when I moved to a new city and spoke with a new psychiatrist who also had ADHD. He asked if I had ever been given the ADHD questionnaire, I hadn’t. He mentioned a few things that were hallmarks of ADHD and welp, a month later I had a diagnosis. After starting a low dose medication, talking to a psychologist, my new psychiatrist and examining my life and how much would have been different. If I’d have had the right tools to understand and know that what works for others might not be what worked best for me, I wouldn’t have had to fight so hard to fit in, to work so hard at things that seemed easy for others. I was no longer anxious or depressed.
I was mad as hell.
And the more women my age and older who have gone through the exact same thing is astounding and heartbreaking. Because our hyperactivity often isn’t physical, it’s internal. Minds always racing, a million thoughts that are never completed before remembering something else, stories that go off the rails, and often circle back an hour or more later.
Thankfully the anger has faded, I ended up with headaches from the meds, so I am currently unmedicated, but I’ve embraced my brain and the journeys every conversation takes me and my friends on.
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u/SpiralPreamble 5d ago
Alana has ADHD, she's not a fucking invalid. Quit coddling her.