Just as confused as you

A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.

Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic?  She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing.  But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great.  She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success.  So - what gives?

His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear.  Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles.  He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses.  You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on.  Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered.  He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit.  That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.

I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way.  I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did. 

It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this.  But no one ever told me.  I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes.  No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.

I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed.  I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to.  No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to.  I guess I just didn’t know.  I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.

I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.

I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.

you go to the well to get some water, and here’s Miriam’s boy, staring at the sky, completely still. his expression is unreadable. you hazard a hello and ask how he’s doing, and he slowly, unblinkingly, lowers his gaze on you (he’s 8 and is missing his frontal teeth, not that this is making you any less uncomfortable) and says “I cannot speak of the state of my being, Nathan son of Saul, my brother, but rejoice for the water you shall take today will be as pure as the soul of the children of Heaven”

*sees J boy, 8 yo, staring at you from across the street*

kid JC, coming home at twilight, a single white dove following him and chirping with weirdly human-like precision:

 moth̫́er,̦͌ ̮̉i h͙̉av͔̽e ͓͗b̘̃r̞̓o̮͘u̲̒gh̟͒t̺́ you a do̗͐ṽ͙e̢͘ ͈̾m͒͢a͈̽dē̝ ỏ̘f ͈̓c̆͜l͔̂aỷ͇ aṋ̑d̳̿ g͢͞i̹̾fted̖͡ ̻͐it ͓͂w̖̿it̎͜h t̥̃h͙͒e ̨̒m̧̂i̡̍ŗ͒â̫cḷ̔è̤ ̛̻of̞̅ l̘̈i̛̦fè̳

Miriam: ! that’s my little boy :) now let’s go get ready for dinner :) 

her husband Yosef, a carpenter who only marginally got signed up for this: 

 I remember essentially nothing from before 2-3 years ago. 

I don’t remember my parent’s birthday or wedding anniversary (my dad’s was last week it seems, and I didn’t know till my mom called me yesterday, seriously.. I even wrote it down and missed it). 

I don’t remember the name of the characters or story from my favorite novel.

And yes, its cause of the ADHD.

Memory problem is an inattentive symptom and affects people with ADHD-PI more often (but can affect PH people too).

ADHD directly affects two kinds memory: Working and Short Term memory.

While the two are used interchangeably, there is a distinction: working memory involves manipulating the stored information while short term memory is purely storage.

Doing sums in your head? That’s working memory.

Remembering a phone number? That’s short term memory.

And ADHD is the reason you have difficulty with both.

Here’s the thing though.. various processes in your brain turn short term memory into long term memory. But as we have difficulties with short term memory, it creates difficulties in long term memory.

It makes sense if you think about it.. if you have difficulty focusing/ concentrating on the task at hand, it will not be absorbed into your brain and you’ll have difficulty recalling it later. 

Now good news is that your memory can be improved (meds can boost your memory but it is temporary unlike coping mechanisms). As you can guess, I CAN actually remember things that happened after 2-3 years ago. How? I learnt mindfulness, which helped me improve my concentration and active listening skills. It takes a fuck tonne of energy and effort but my memory is probably a few times better than it used to be.. not as much as when I’m on meds, but atleast 40-50% of it and its not temporary like the meds. 

- to the people who can remember every aspect of a situation from a random wednesday in 2013 but regularly forget their families’ faces - to the people with great short term memory but awful long term memory - to the people with that the other way round - to the people who hear “if its important to you, you’ll remember it” when the only things u remember are completely unimportant - to the people who’s brain seems to flip a coin on whether information they’re taking in will stick or not - to the people who hear “your memory cant be bad because you remember [X], so you must be lying when you say you cant remember [Y]” - to the people who cant retain information on their hyperfixation/special interest even though they really want to, and even though they “should” be able to - to the people who can remember that there’s something they want to remember, but not what that thing is

Get excited someone messaged you first, and immediately say something impulsive/stupid. Don't know when to stop.

OR

When we talk about neurodiverse (ND) conditions* like ADHD and autism, we’re talking about differences in how the brain processes information as opposed to the brain being in a state of illness. Our brain tissue is healthy, but the functioning of the brain is different.

The result of these differences in functioning results in differences in strengths and weakness for ND people.

These strengths and weaknesses are generally not unique to individuals with these conditions but instead exist along a Bell curve of natural human variation. Most people exist somewhere in the middle of the Bell curve (of course!) and will occasionally experience ND traits from time to time.

This is because ND traits are human traits, and we are all human.

If you never experience any of these traits, it means you are on the other far end of the Bell curve rather than in the average middle. 

The difference between someone who is in the middle of the Bell curve and someone who qualifies for a ND diagnosis is that ND people

Have a significant number of these traits;

Are affected by these traits in every area of their life or almost every area of their life on a daily or near-daily basis;

Have symptoms, behaviours, or problems are unexpected for someone of their age or intelligence;

Cannot overcome these symptoms by just “trying” or persisting;

Have had these problems since childhood;

May spend a great amount of effort and energy in trying to “keep up” and “be normal”; 

Experience these symptoms regardless of stress levels, lack of sleep, other mental health conditions, or external factors;

Experience significant problems and suffering for them across multiple areas of their life on a daily or near-daily basis;

Feel as though they are struggling due to these symptoms on a daily or near-daily basis;

Feel the world isn’t designed for people like them and doesn’t accommodate them;

Experience significant impairment in social, school, or work performance because of these difficulties.

While the idea that “everyone gets these things…” is somewhat true, it doesn’t take into account the frequency or severity of the problem for ND people, or acknowledge how intrinsic such functioning is to an individual’s brain. 

When we say we struggle with these traits, we’re talking about how we live with this struggle as a significant aspect of our lives, not just merely that we have experienced a trait that most other people have experienced too. Our experience is about the frequency and severity of the thing, and how we have to constantly plan for it. We’re talking about what it’s like to live life far from the centre of the Bell curve.

When someone is trying to express what it is like to live with a processing difference, is not sympathetic to say that you know what it is like when you don’t, or to insist that everyone has the same thing. It is far better to ask questions to help the other person to open up, or to ask how you can help or make adaptations for them. 

If you don’t have a diagnosis but still genuinely believe that these problems are typical for everybody, you might want to consider that you might qualify for a diagnosis yourself.

It’s hyperfixating on something and then having that thing be your entire life for a week. You know everything about it and want to tell everyone.

It’s not knowing when to keep things to yourself. You give away too much information and tell people things you probably shouldn’t.

It’s not knowing how loud you’re actually being and someone having to tell you to quiet down.

It’s going on and on and on about one thing to the point where it annoys the people around you.

It’s not understanding long instructions and having trouble comprehending reading.

It’s stumbling over words and trying to tell someone something but you just. can’t. form. a. coherent. thought or. sentence. So you end up stuttering and not being able to talk.

It’s being impulsive and doing things you shouldn’t.

It’s putting off tasks because for some reason you just can’t do it.

It’s not being able to hear or comprehend what someone is saying the first time so they have to repeat it for you.

It’s getting random bouts of rage when someone does something that upsets you but you can’t control it.

Me: *learns that RSD is a symptom of my ADHD*

My ADHD: