Mia’s Blog

THATS AN ADHD TNING?

To be clear, Visual Snow is a neurological condition that affects your visual processing and creates static over your vision. Research into its causes is still preliminary, but it seems that the part of the brain the controls how we process light is hyperactive in people with the condition. ADHD is a somewhat common co-morbidity (co-existing condition), but it is not caused by ADHD or any other neurodivergence. Please be careful about referring to it as a type of neurodivergence. Neurodivergence can be used to refer to things that are distressing to have, but its point was to give people a way to express that society’s enforced normalcy around functioning is what makes things extra difficult. It is supposed to be an empowering term for people with certain conditions. I find empowerment from using it to describe my ADHD, I do not find empowerment from using it for my Visual Snow. The impacts of visual snow do not function in this same way as other neurovigerence. It is a neurological condition that impacts your use of sight. It is quite distressing to have and can severely impact people’s lives. Some people may find it useful to classify their visual snow as neurodivergence, but I know many others including myself who do not. Two of the other most co-morbidities include tinnitus and migraines. Again, you do not have to have any of these to have visual snow, but having them can help back up a diagnosis. For example, I have ADHD and tinnitus but none of the other things. 

There are some good gifs and videos online that illustrate what it looks like. I’ll include my personal favourites below. The above image out of context is quite misleading because the negative space, floaters, squiggles and swimming dots are things that can be part of it but are not necessarily. The only consistent element of visual snow is the flickering and dense static over your vision. If you only see static over walls or the sky or in select situations then you do not have visual snow. It must also be present 24/7 for it to be classified as visual snow.

Please, please be careful about spreading misinformation about this or throwing this condition around. Sufferers of visual snow have spent decades trying to get it recognised as an official diagnosis, which only happened in 2011-2012. It is super hard to get a diagnosis. It used to be associated with migraines and or was seen as a form of psychosis until the early 2010s. It has recently begun to be referred to as Visual Snow Syndrome as since becoming recognised in the medical field this is its formal designation. Visual Snow suffers will often use this term in place of Visual Snow because of its perceived legitimacy in medical fields. We know now that the numbers of who has this condition are higher than previously thought, which means it is likely that there are people on this site who have it and don’t know it. But please make sure you do serious research before adopting this diagnosis or throwing the term around.

If you do feel that you have visual snow and you would like to ask more questions, or be pointed towards some good reading materials and/or support pages, please feel free to message me. I’ve dedicated a lot of time to researching this condition and staying up to date on research. I also fought long and hard to get a formal diagnosis and am always happy to help people struggling with this (even if it’s just a mutual rant about the biomedical system). 

Here are some useful gifs (the first two are closest to what mine looks like, minus the windscreen wiper part obviously - that’s to show it in contrast): 

Here are some more severe examples:

And here is a much less severe example (for reference I can barely make out that there is anything going on with this picture): 

Now here is something that is quite common but often confused with visual snow (known as Blue Field Entoptic Phenomenon), is usually occurs when you look at the sky: 

This is closer to what someone would see if they had visual snow (you can get both):

RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE. 

When I was at one of my lowest (mental) points in life, I couldn’t get out of bed some days. I had no energy or motivation and was barely getting by.

I had therapy once per week, and on this particular week I didn’t have much to ‘bring’ to the session. He asked how my week was and I really had nothing to say.

“What are you struggling with?” he asked.

I gestured around me and said “I dunno man. Life.”

Not satisfied with my answer, he said “No, what exactly are you worried about right now? What feels overwhelming? When you go home after this session, what issue will be staring at you?”

I knew the answer, but it was so ridiculous that I didn’t want to say it.

I wanted to have something more substantial.

Something more profound.

But I didn’t.

So I told him, “Honestly? The dishes. It’s stupid, I know, but the more I look at them the more I CAN’T do them because I’ll have to scrub them before I put them in the dishwasher, because the dishwasher sucks, and I just can’t stand and scrub the dishes.”

I felt like an idiot even saying it.

What kind of grown ass woman is undone by a stack of dishes? There are people out there with *actual* problems, and I’m whining to my therapist about dishes?

But my therapist nodded in understanding and then said:

“RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE.”

I began to tell him that you’re not supposed to, but he stopped me.

“Why the hell aren’t you supposed to? If you don’t want to scrub the dishes and your dishwasher sucks, run it twice. Run it three times, who cares?! Rules do not exist, so stop giving yourself rules.”

It blew my mind in a way that I don’t think I can properly express.

That day, I went home and tossed my smelly dishes haphazardly into the dishwasher and ran it three times.

I felt like I had conquered a dragon.

The next day, I took a shower lying down.

A few days later. I folded my laundry and put them wherever the fuck they fit.

There were no longer arbitrary rules I had to follow, and it gave me the freedom to make accomplishments again.

Now that I’m in a healthier place, I rinse off my dishes and put them in the dishwasher properly. I shower standing up. I sort my laundry.

But at a time when living was a struggle instead of a blessing, I learned an incredibly important lesson:

THERE ARE NO RULES.

RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE!!!

“They’ll laugh at me & tell me I’m just lazy”

“I’ll probably just exaggerate and make them think I have ADHD”

“I just wasn’t trying hard enough”

“Others have it much worse, I’m just looking for an easy way out”

“I can manage if I really try (and am constantly burnt out)”

“I’m not hyperactive (shakes leg, chewing gum and can’t stop playing with earrings)”

“I just have to keep trying and I can become normal one day”

“I can focus sometimes, so clearly I’m just not trying all the time”