Memoirs of the spectrum

Chalene: We have very different brains.

Bret: Yes, we do. Very different.

Chalene: And we're gonna show you.

This is a SPECT, S-P-E-C-T of my husband's brain. This is his brain during focus of a--at a task that takes concentration. This is showing blood flow to the different areas of his brain when he has to focus and concentrate.

And this...is mine.

When I have to focus and concentrate on something I find boring, my brain literally goes to sleep.

Okay, when I was having that test, I knew I was being tested. So I was concentrating as hard as I possibly could. I was trying to focus, and that's what happens in the brain of someone with ADHD.

So when we say our brains work differently, we literally...

The Loop - opening and closing the same three websites in succession for 15 minutes at a time before realizing that there’s not going to be anything new or worth doing on those websites (my three are Tumblr, Youtube and Wikipedia)

The Ack - seeing you have a new message and, though you have no evidence that it’s anything even remotely noteworthy let alone negative, feel intense dread and procrastinate looking at the message for 30 minutes/5 hours/a week

The Shimmy - changing sitting/laying positions every 5 minutes because god dammit i’m not going to be able to focus on whatever task i need to do if I feel any unwelcome physical sensation

The Ol’ Razzle Dazzle - making a hot beverage for yourself and then putting it down slightly out of reach and then not drinking it until 45 minutes later when it has already gone cold

The Bellwether - scrolling on Tumblr and getting the urge to google something/look up something on Wikipedia, but you keep scrolling and forget what you wanted to look up so you frantically scroll back to the thing that prompted you to think about looking the other (un)related thing up in the first place

The Bop - earnestly insisting that you’re not anxious because the other person sees your leg bouncing and thinks that you’re about to go postal

The Poison Dart - hearing someone say something problematic out loud and freezing because, while you want to correct them gently, you also feel intense dread and RSD that if you even so much as suggest dissent the person will immediately and commensurately stab you to death or snap their fingers and open a trapdoor to hell beneath you

The Ghost Breath - realizing you haven’t texted your friend back/at all/in 3 weeks and thinking “Hmmm, I need to do that” and then you don’t do it and much more time passes by 

The Stim Package - eating an entire family-sized bag of chips in one sitting because having something to chew on helped you concentrate, at least a little

The Bullfrog - going to get something that you don’t use often but you know exactly where it is and then it’s not there and you just keep going back to that spot 5 more times before realizing you lost it or it’s somewhere else completely different (like, not even in the same building)

The Morning Mist - regularly forgetting what recent life events actually happened and which ones were from extremely vivid dreams

The Seesaw Rivet - feeling like a wounded child who is about to get in trouble during every interaction you have even as you are entering your mid-to-late-20s and genuinely wondering when that pattern is ever going to stop if ever

.

.

This.

time is meaningless.

which means if i have one (1) thing that i need to do, my brain has to block the entire day out for it.

which means that even if it’s technically a “day off” if i have one (1) important obligation–even if it’s only gonna take like 2 hours out of hte day–my brain doesn’t count it as a “day off” so i don’t actually get to use it to decompress from everything else

“ADHD tip! i use this one more than any other one by far. (except, for white board of course)” [smiles and there is a heart emoji on the screen]

“if there’s something you have to do but you’ve avoided starting doing it, think of the smallest amount of time that you know you can force yourself to do, and set a timer for that amount, and do it for that amount of time. and then once the timer’s up, you can stop.”

“now you might be thinking, [higher-pitched voice] hey eric i have ADHD i’m supposed to be wanting to complete stuff and stuff, why would i want to quit in the middle of a task?! well i would say not starting a task at all is a much bigger problem than not completing it. and, once you’ve started it it’s much easier to keep going.”

“for example, i needed to clean my kitchen yesterday, and i could not get myself to start doing it. but i thought, i can definitely clean my kitchen for three minutes. so i started a timer for three minutes and started doing the stuff. and when the timer was up, i thought well, i... i can do another three minutes. and so i did. and then when that was up, i was like, goin’. and if you stop after the initial timer goes off, you succeeded in your goal of doing the thing for that amount of time!”

[yelling] “use those timers!!!”

[username @heygude appears on screen.]