Ad(HD)ventures

ADD and ADHD are no longer considered seperate things according to the DSM-I believe ADD has been renamed as a subtype of adhd but i forget the exact term

anyway the point is yes definitely!!

Borderline Personality Disorder is an entire disorder by itself and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria is an overwhelming uncomfortable and upsetting reaction to rejection.

you might have both! adhd has a high comorbidity with a whole lotta things. Or the BPD stuff could be what you’re dealing with; this is a really good conversation to have with your psychiatrist as soon as possible. Best of luck with figuring out your brain, E! 

I bet it would feel like a bit of a whirlwind, yeah! I can’t say I remember getting tested, since I was very young when it happened, but my understanding of how it works is it’s all basically just a lot of back-and-forth “what symptoms do you experience?” “this and this and this”, and then they ask if you feel you have it well enough under control that you don’t need any medication or if you’d rather try them out to see if they help, and the doctor can additionally get you special allowances that the school’s gotta adhere to in order to help you out further. (for example, i always got extra time on tests if i needed it, even standardized tests! i dont remember if that included the ACT/SATs, mind you, but the state mandated standardized BS tests that happened up thru tenth grade i got extra time on.) 

basically getting a professional diagnosis just means you’re gonna figure out of medication will help you and give you access to some other tools that’ll potentially help you really thrive! ouo/ 

Sounds like it!

ADD can make your thoughts jumbled either from struggling to focus on a single thing or jumping from topic to topic one right after another. Sometimes it can blur your thoughts completely and make it difficult to find something to focus on, or fill your day with racing thoughts. It can also blur and warp your perception of time.

I’m not the one who made the post, but I’ve been given the go ahead to deal with responding to this, so! 

Friend, I totally get where you’re coming from. Your heart is in the right place, and I appreciate that, and I agree that it’s good to be careful. The thing is, the post itself wasn’t like…claiming that it is absolutely 100% ADHD only. 

That post was originally created in October of last year, and I’m going to directly quote it here: 

“ok rejection sensitive dysphoria is for right now as far as we know, ADHD specific, though there have been discussions in a ton of communities over how it is possible some BPD [borderline personality disorder, not bipolar] sufferers experience it as well. But until thats really delved upon, right now, it is ADHD specific. [research changes constantly and alters all we know]”

this section of text was meant to represent exactly what you’re saying here, that research is constantly changing! Back in October, the studies that had (to my knowledge; maybe they were around longer and I just missed it, I don’t actually know) recently gone up about RSD were all primarily if not entirely focused on ADHD, and between that and this being an ADHD blog, we made that post based around ADHD. However, the post’s purpose was to describe the symptom itself, not to yell THIS IS AN ADHD ONLY THING IF YOU DONT HAVE ADHD YOU CANT EXPERIENCE THIS!!!! far from it, in fact! the post was made in response to someone asking what it is, that’s all.

i’d also like to point out too that this blog is not run by psych majors or psychologists or anything of the sort; currently we’re just three twenty-somethings with google and a lifetime of experience to draw from (and in my case my mother’s experience as well). we draw comics and give advice, and that’s about it. 

so, tl;dr, we appreciate that your concern comes from a well meaning place but the post in question was written like over half a year ago and was never meant to state that rsd is definitely always only going to be adhd, it was just meant to explain what rsd is because a lot of people who suffer from it have no idea that it isn’t their fault 

and that’s all we wanted to change! just help inform people that this is an Actual Thing That Happens so that they can better gear themselves up to cope when it hits! 

I do have some tips for processing, at least; I know I tend to try and talk things over with people if I’m having trouble working through it. In my case, it tends to work best if I do this with someone over text, typically online, since I’m especially bad at auditory processing; but whatever works best for you might be good! Whether you have to write/draw things out until they make sense in your head, rephrase what’s been stated in a way that makes sense to you, talk it out with peers, and so on and so forth! The main thing is you gotta give your brain a chance to go over things one more time, and try and get it sorted out into something a bit more organized than the brain soup that tends to happen w/ ADHD

If your parents won’t work with you at all, I’d suggest maybe mentioning it to your teachers, at the very least? They won’t be able to give you official benefits like extra time on standardized tests and the like, not without an official diagnosis, unfortunately, but you might be able to at least work out some other help with them. I’d go for teachers you know you get along with first, if you do this, since they might be more open to listening to you on this in the first place. 

For fidgeting, I know I used to click/flick around a pen a lot or spend a ton of time doodling while listening to lectures; that’s a thing I know talking to teachers about might help, if you clarify with them that doing this stuff isn’t you ignoring them, it’s your way of paying attention while multitasking. 

Really, though, it’s pretty awful on your parents to reject ADHD as a possible diagnosis. >:T 

If your school has a counsellor you can talk to, that might not hurt, either; it might come down to you needing to shove actual research in your parents’ faces or getting another adult to talk to them about this, but I know that’s not an option for everybody. I got through high school with medication; I know caffeine helps some people with ADHD, so if that helps, that’s an option maybe? I remember my mom tells stories about how she did a lot of her best thinking while long-distance running, and that was a way to get energy out of her and try to focus better, but that might not work for everyone, either. 

ADHD is really hard to deal with without any sort of medication/accommodation, unfortunately. Do any followers have suggestions they can offer that I can’t think of? 

Sorry for taking a while to get to this one!

I honestly haven’t heard anything in particular about this, and I asked my psychiatrist last time I saw him, and he wasn’t sure either (but noted that he’s not an expert on ADHD specifically, he’s just the guy who signs off on my prescriptions). I can see it happening, though; anxiety tends to often happen with ADHD, and depending on how your sleep schedule goes, that could definitely result in possible severe nightmares. 

Any of our followers heard or experienced anything like this? I know I personally don’t tend to remember many of my dreams, but the handful of nightmares I really remember over the course of my life had a way of sticking with me pretty vividly. 

Sorry for taking so long to get to this! 

It might help to write down a list of the things you’re having issues with before talking to your doctor? It can help boost confidence a bit to feel really prepared, and plus that way you don’t have to worry about forgetting anything important! 

Your doctor should want what’s best for you, and will likely be glad to hear about any concerns you have! Finding the right medication can take a few tries; I was originally on Aderall and that wound up having some kind of serious side effects that really made it a bad fit for me, but our second try with Concerta turned out much  better! 

Good luck!

I had a kinda similar situation when I was in high school, and I think I might be able to offer some suggestions.

I know I was never able to get my homework done /at home/, but I WAS able to get it done at school, either the day it was assigned or during a free period before it was due. I mean, that doesn’t apply as much to stuff like big research essays and so on, but daily homework I tried to always get done during study hall and the like. It’s a sort of brain-association thing that happens, you can sort of trick your brain into learning to focus more in certain environments. So what I guess I’m saying is: maybe try and set up a particular space where studying/working on homework is the ONLY thing you do? Whether that place be in a public space, somewhere at school, a room in your house you don’t usually use, or, heck, at a friend’s house - maybe being part of a study/homework group would help add on the extra incentive of peer pressure, in kind of the same way you can fight executive disfunction and get yourself to clean your living space by having a friend come over to pressure urself into going OK SOMEONE ELSE IS GONNA BE HERE I RLY GOTTA CLEAN!! 

i get where this problem starts, though, man. it sucks being a rly smart kid in grade school because you never learn good study/homework habits and it bites you in the butt later :c i hope some of what i’ve said helps! any of our followers have any other tips for fighting boredom and getting homework done? 

Mod HappiKatt

EDIT: i think you’re the same anon from that last ask, i just noticed, oops

me and my mom both have adhd, too, but see. to me that just makes me all the more irritated at her, because my mom definitely understood that if i was struggling with a thing, it was either because i’d been having an adhd problem and couldn’t focus, or i’d legit not understood a concept in class. just because she was apparently able to wrangle her adhd enough to always focus in class doesn’t mean you’re exactly the same!  adhd isn’t the same for everyone who has it, and that’s important to know, too! 

hey anon im gonna fight your mom 

this is a super relatable and frustrating series of events and im sorry you’re constantly experiencing it, but jfc!!! does your mom just not understand that focusing is literally not something that ppl with adhd can consistently do at will??? and even if adhd wasn’t a factor, if you’re asking, then obviously you didn’t learn it in class, and sure that could be because you weren’t paying attention, but it might also just be that you didn’t understand it! refusing to help you at all is the absolute WORST response to you asking for help that she could’ve done and im gonna fIGHT HER 

im also gonna fight RSD. just, all RSD ever. because RSD is the worst. meet me behind starbucks, RSD. 

That’s fantastic!! I know I think of it as being a problem of inertia a lot, too; oftentimes once I do get started I can finish a thing just fine, but getting started can be SUCH a huge struggle that it’s far easier said than done. I’m rly happy for you anon :D :D :D

it’s DEFINITELY an adhd thing to be either 100% organized or an absolute mess, so what you’re talking about sounds like it, yeah! I know I have a similar problem; every now n then i’ll actually get everything all sorted out and nice and neat, but it never stays that way for long and things get messy again pretty quickly.