#adhd child

Me: Makes sense.

Them: In order to combat this, it might help to try and force yourself to do the opposite of what you actually want to do.

Me: ¿What?

Them: If you need to do homework, FORCE yourself to sit on the couch and scroll TikTok.

Them: Tell yourself “this is what I’m SUPPOSED to be doing right now.”

Them: Your brain will get disengaged and bored and seek something new, so it’ll break hyperfocus.

Them: This gives you the ability to go do something else.

Them: So if you’re trying to sleep, focus your attention on something else - force yourself to scroll TikTok or chat with people instead.

Them: It doesn’t help everyone, but it works for some of us, some of the time.

Me: ....Alright, fine, I’ll give it a shot.

Me: *focuses my attention on writing (aloud to self)*

Me: *tells self “I don’t need sleep; I have 4 hours till I need to get up for work, that’s plenty of time to write stories.”*

My brain, which frequently stays awake to write stories & won’t let me sleep: [insert penguin meme]

Brain: Well, now ¡I am not doing it! 🙅‍♂️

Brain: *knocks me to sleep because it doesn’t wanna be /forced/ to write*

Me: .....Well. This might actually work for me.

((note we’d been running about 3 hours sleep a night for days already because brain fixated on writing when we said “I need sleep now”))

---

If this will help anyone else, have it. It might help you do things you actually want to do.

Apparently the ADHD brain’s rebellion streak isn’t just against others. It’s also against itself.

I don’t know if this helps other neurodivergence or maybe mental illness but if you want to try ¡you’re welcome to! If your brain is also rebellious, this might help you out, ADHD or not.

Hi ihr Lieben!

Heute außnahmsweise mal auf Deutsch. Ich habe auf meinem Blog einen Post mit Ideen zusammengestellt, um ADHS-Kinder (und neurotypische Kinder), während der Zwangsschließungen zu beschäftigen. Teilt also bitte fleißig, damit möglichst viele Eltern den Post sehen!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi dearies!

Like, the way we move our mouth is different.

I’ve been trying to figure out what’s different for awhile & I think I caught something?

Neurotypicals use more muscles to make the same sound.

Like, the reason nd (especially autistic) people struggle with slurring, stuttering, & facial expressions is because we physically use less muscles?

Because you have facial muscles that move to make sounds, like if you said the words in this post aloud; everyone regardless of neurotype uses muscles

But neurotypicals seem to use at least a couple more face muscles (esp in their cheeks?)

I was watching TikToks & I’m like 99% sure this songwriter is neurotypical because of how he speaks—

Someone made a TT awhile ago that said nd people speak different so they could spot who’s nd

& we’ve been looking for hints, because wha’d’you mean you just know?

But every time we check, it seems like every creator with “ADHD”/“Autistic Creator”/“Tourette’s” somewhere in their bio does speak differently.

We use different neural (brain) pathways so I guess it follows we use different muscles &/or less muscles to make the same sound

Maybe that’s why people say “you don’t look autistic” - because you’ve learned to mask & strain your muscles to literally talk like they do.

(This is okay to reblog & reply to, including if you’re a neurotypical who knows neurodivergent people & noticed this - it’s not a rhetorical question 😅)

Fellow neurodivergent people - have you noticed this too?

~~ on how to recognize & cope with executive dysfunction & gaslighting ~~

Context: We made a post (¿Aiden I think posted it? I wasn’t front—) about ADHD and battling executive dysfunction a bit ago that’s gaining some traction. We got a question related to that post that I’m here to help with.

(I’ll address this towards the person who asked & address their specific concerns, but it can be for anyone who needs to hear it or would be helped by this, & you’re welcome to reply if you want me to expand on something that helps you personally.)

Original question:

[Image ID: “Help, what if my brain has adapted to know that if the only thing in my way is myself, it means there’s nothing in the way?

My logical reasoning and emotions clash a lot over who makes the decisions, and the one time logic always wins is the situation where I’m supposed to take advantage of how my emotions always win

My thoughts always follow this type of pattern:

(emotions) what if my problems aren’t from executive dysfunctioning at all? What if I’m actually just lazy?

(reasoning) that’s just self invalidation! It’s not like I don’t want to do the work, I understand the importance of school

(emotions) but I always justify everything I do; I can never accept my faults

(reasoning) that’s human nature; no one intentionally makes terrible decisions!” (/end ID)]

** Why I’m responding & who I am **

My name is Spirit, my pronouns are he/they, and I’m a protector in our system. I’m also our psychology researcher - one part of my role as a psychological protector is to look into psychology and turn what I find into something accessible and soothing for others. Psychology—mental disorders, and neurodivergence especially (currently called “abnormal psychology”)—is one of my favourite subjects, even to the point of hyperfixation and potentially a special interest. I like to help people, especially people who struggle with the things I do a lot of research on. I’ve done mounds of research on ADHD and executive dysfunction especially (I have a lot of info on specific symptoms I can share if people are interested to hear), since our body is diagnosed with ADHD and I wanted to be able to help us succeed despite its difficulties.

** Intro-y Thing **

I’m going to give you the technical jargon and specific details of this, then break down what that means so it makes sense, and how to use that information (Terms/What’s Happening), and from there lead into what you can do about this (Helpful To Know/Questions To Ask Yourself). Feel free to jump around between sections and/or read (& reread) this over the course of several days, because it’s a lot.

So there are a couple things at play here - Imposter Syndrome, and (self) gaslighting.

** Terms/What’s Happening **

Imposter Syndrome is that voice in your head telling you that you aren’t allowed to take credit for your accomplishments because “I took longer than I should’ve” or because “someone else helped me”, and also the voice trying to tell you that it isn’t actually executive dysfunction. It might be helpful to imagine Imposter Syndrome as someone you love saying those things about themselves, because usually with loved ones (friends, family, etc.) your first instinct is to reassure and comfort them. Imposter Syndrome is, more often than not, a byproduct of gaslighting - you feel like a fraud because people told you that you were/accused you of being one.

People are not born to hate themselves and think themselves fake.

Imposter Syndrome is amplified when you’re masking. Masking gives the Imposter Syndrome a microphone and some lights to create big shadows (/metaphor), which makes it seem much bigger and more true than it really is. That’s because you think if you can do these things when people hover and force you to, then you should be able to on your own, so instead of trying to work with your brain you end up fighting it and beating yourself up (/met), which makes you struggle even more.

When it comes to your brain realizing that ‘if there is nothing in my way, and only I’m stopping me’, if the thought stopped there it would be empowering, because you can step out of your own way and just do the thing. This works when you’re choosing to not do something, or afraid to start because you’re afraid to fail (remember, birds don’t just fly - they fall down, then get up, & you don’t learn without making mistakes to learn from). But you’re extending this logic to things you actually aren’t stopping/choosing to stop - to your executive dysfunction. You are not your executive dysfunction, therefore you are not actually the one stopping you.

As far as the dialogue itself, the back and forth you described, that’s not actually your emotions speaking. The emotion there is actually self invalidation stemming from invalidation from others. You are taught to invalidate yourself by others, and this isn’t something you do consciously, so (naturally) many people mistake this for your own inner voice and emotions. The technical term for this is gaslighting - so let’s talk about what gaslighting is, and what self-gaslighting is.

Gaslighting as a term stems from a movie where a man dims the gas lights in his house to a lower level, and when a woman he’s living with points out that the lights are dimmer he insists they’re not, and he keeps insisting this for so long that she starts to question if she was right and her own perception of reality, and to think she’s crazy.

The point of gaslighting is to erase others’ experiences as a form of manipulation, so you (1) can’t be held accountable for something (because it “never happened”), (2) don’t have to meet a person’s needs or desires (insist they don’t want it or that you already gave them it & they must have lost it), or (3) you can have control, or some combination of those three. At its core, gaslighting is replacing someone’s reality and facts with your own perception and lies.

When it comes to executive dysfunction (from depression, anxiety, autism, ADHD, etc.), gaslighting is used often by parents and authority figures who (1) don’t understand you have executive dysfunction (non malicious), (2) don’t “believe” in executive dysfunction (usually non malicious & often stems from people who also have it & never got accommodations, not that that excuses it), or (3) don’t want to do any work to accomodate you so they just deny you have executive dysfunction.

Here are some examples of ableist gaslighting you may have heard (& I’ll include the gaslight-y phrases you’ve learned to say to yourself too, reframed as if said by someone else):

“You’re just lazy.”

“If you just tried harder and applied yourself, you could do it.”

“It’s really not that hard.”

“I don’t wanna hear any excuses; stop justifying your laziness.”

“You can never accept your faults.”

“ADHD/autism isn’t a real thing.”

“Well if you can scroll through social media, you can obviously get your homework done.”

“If you have the energy to [insert thing you’re doing or thing they assume you want to do], you have the energy to [insert task they expect you to prioritize, like chores or school].”

& for broader society gaslighting, you’ve probably heard “no one listens to that song anymore”, “everyone loves xyz!”, “no one wears that”, “all black people are criminals”.

Why are these gaslighting?

Well, in part because they make very broad, often racist/classist/ableist/etc. generalizations. But also because they erase the real-life experiences and facts of the reality of the person or group they’re directed at, and replace it with whatever is convenient for the company/person/etc. that’s doing the gaslighting. That’s the essence of gaslighting. Many people are gaslit without realizing it, because it’s a normalized form of psychological abuse (yes, it’s abuse).

It’s effective manipulation because even if you reject it the first time because you *know* that school (or whatever it is) is actually important to you, it still gets internalized, especially when you’re 0-25 years old (yes, all the way to 25, because our brains are still developing). So this leads to self-gaslighting - “I’m stupid”, “I must just not like school/care about this project”, “I’m so lazy”, which will carry all the way to your grave if you let it.

And even when it’s you saying it to yourself, it’s still inherently the voices of others. If you pay attention to that voice, it probably sounds like your mom, your teacher, an ex-friend, maybe even someone currently in your circles (but hopefully not). It might be helpful to envision that voice as a parrot, or some other visualization that you can either ignore completely or argue with (because what your reasoning is doing in that dialogue is fighting the self gaslighting - the reasoning is your own inner voice, your true authentic experience speaking).

** Helpful To Know/Questions To Ask Yourself **

Are you lazy, procrastinating, understimulated/overstimulated, or experiencing executive dysfunction? How can you tell the difference?

Laziness is a conscious choice. It’s when you don’t want to do something, don’t care if it gets done or who has to do it if you don’t, and choose to not do it. You lounge on the couch and watch your frazzled and overworked housemate/roommate clean for you. The important factors here are (1) you actively choose to not do the thing because you don’t want to do it and (2) you don’t feel any guilt. You don’t feel bad, or shame yourself (tell yourself you’re a bad friend/partner/etc.), or apologize repeatedly, or think you’re useless. You probably don’t even feel lazy, and if you do you don’t care that you’re lazy.

Procrastination is putting off a task that you want to do, because you’re afraid of failure/criticism or because you’re a perfectionist, or because you have low self-esteem, or because you have trouble focusing or getting started, or any number of other reasons. But the important part is you want to do the task, but tell yourself you’ll do it later/plan to do it later. Sometimes you’ll procrastinate because of executive dysfunction, or overstimulation/understimulation.

Understimulation will likely feel like depression. This is part of ADHD - it happens because the ADHD brain is low in residual dopamine, AKA base levels of the motivation and energy chemical. Non-ADHDers have two kinds of dopamine, residual (sits there ready to use) and temporary (bursts on command). Temporary dopamine hits come from things like sugar (latte/sugared coffee, sugared tea, sweets, but also things like milk that have low added sugar), caffeine (coffee, tea), compliments and encouragement, stimming (neurotypicals stim too, just less - (examples nts also do:) watching TikToks is a visual & audio stim, listening to music is an audio stim, etc.), exercise (to a level that’s safe & good for your body), eating food (especially safe foods/your favourite foods), and completing tasks, especially if that task has a reward (e.g. beating a video game level & getting cool gear). Non-ADHDers, however, because they have a base level in the middle ground (not depressed, but not manic), tend to get brief mania (excitement, joy) from temporary dopamine. ADHDers have a base level that’s low, to the point of depression and even suicidal ideation (idealizing), and 90% of our dopamine has to come from temporary hits. So we stim, we fidget, we play video games, we listen to a good song - we find the thing that gives us the biggest hit of temporary dopamine. If any of these things help, you’re likely understimulated. Doing something that gives you dopamine helps this.

Overstimulation for us usually feels like drowning. Deep water pressure, everything is echoey and distant and far off, dissociated (feeling detached from yourself (depersonalization), reality (derealization), or both), etc. This is common for both ADHD and autism, and usually happens in environments with a lot of stimuli at once (a party (bright lights, voices, loud music, smell of food or alcohol or maybe puke), a home (people yelling, dogs barking, TV running loud, bright lights, etc.), etc.). Stimming can help release this pressure, or sometimes isolating in your safe space (a dark bedroom with a weighted blanket and minimized stimuli works wonders for us). Be patient with yourself when this happens and give it time to pass, even while doing everything you can to make it stop.

Executive dysfunction is a danger response. I know that may not make sense, but hear me out.

Executive functions, when operating the way they’re supposed to, are danger assessment. They assess social danger (the possibility of being rejected, laughed at, etc. if you don’t meet a certain social standard or follow the right script) and physical danger (e.g. the possibility of being hit by a car if you run across the road). It’s a subconscious process that the brain goes through, checking off boxes. “Is this appropriate for this social context? Is this a place where I’m supposed to be formal, or can I use text speak? Is this going to get me rejected and laughed at?”; “Is this safe? Is there danger (a car, a cop, etc.) nearby? Is there a crosswalk that’s safer to use? Did I check both ways?”. Once the brain checks yes to everything good and safe, and no to everything dangerous, it gives you a ‘yea go ahead’ signal. If your brain checks no to something good and safe, or yes to something dangerous, it makes you either stop to re-evaluate, or not do the thing at all. The purpose of executive dysfunction is social survival, and emotional/physical/etc. survival. It’s the voice going “no, turning the car into oncoming traffic is unsafe”, “you can’t punch that guy, this is a Wendy’s and you need to chill”, and also the voice that tells you “doing homework is a priority, writing this story can wait and I’ll remember it later”.

So what your brain is going to do with dysfunctional executive functions is one of two things: (1) act impulsively, and do something dangerous, because it assumes ‘well, the functions system didn’t say it’s unsafe so it must be safe’, or (2) freeze.

Typically, the response you are going to notice is the freeze. It’s choice paralysis, because your brain is waiting for the executive functions to tell it which task to prioritize. It’s zoning out because your brain is waiting for your executive functions to tell you to start a task. It’s trying to go take a shower, but getting stuck on the floor in the bathroom because your brain decided it’s too dangerous to shower because the executive functions didn’t say to go ahead. You won’t consciously think “this is dangerous”, but if you can get your brain & body to feel safe and start the task, that’s the root of the freeze.

You can think of executive dysfunction like a confused little kid waiting for mom and dad to tell them it’s okay. They sit there for hours, days, maybe months (burnout), because “well, mom and dad didn’t say it’s safe, so I’m supposed to assume it’s dangerous until they say otherwise, because you never know.”

The good thing about this is you can tell the kid (executive dysfunction) what’s safe and what’s not safe consciously. You can say “alright kiddo, we’re gonna do homework now, and we’re gonna learn, and it’s safe to start.” You can consciously think through the questions the the functions system isn’t walking through to prove to executive dysfunction that it’s okay to go ahead. Stop yourself before doing something dangerous and impulsive, and walk through “could this get me hurt? Is there a safer way to do this?” so you can reassure the kid. Encourage the kid to try something new, and walk through “how is this possibly dangerous? how could this benefit me if it’s done?”. Executive dysfunction will likely listen, if you find the right words and tone for you. Because it’s like a little kid, and kids are unique, I can’t tell you for sure what will work for you. Your dysfunction might be okay just being told “it’s safe to start” or “that’s not safe kiddo” without question, or it might want you to explain how or why or to walk through the questions of executive function with them. Find what works for you.

The frustrating thing about this is it takes a lot of energy out of you (in part because your body is built to run this subconsciously with no effort from you, so being forced to do it consciously is draining). Executive dysfunction is stubborn, just like a little kid. “You’re not my real mom! :(” fits can happen. But be patient, like you’re trying to explain something to a four year old. It may not happen when you want it to happen, but eventually executive dysfunction will start to listen and cooperate with you to some extent. And when they aren’t listening, well, sit down in the darkness with them (/met) and wait them out. Love them anyway.

When it comes to calling yourself lazy on top of this, it compounds (amplifies) the problem. That kid (executive dysfunction) gets even more scared and anxious, and shuts down/freezes worse, because now they just feel like a bad kid (shame) and like they did something wrong (guilt) when they were just trying (misled but well meaning) to protect you.

And beyond that, ADHD dysfunction specifically might be trying to “protect” you from a task that won’t give you enough dopamine, or will drain your dopamine (taking levels that are already low even lower). So sometimes, giving yourself a boost of dopamine (drinking coffee/tea, watching a TikTok or listening to a good song, cuddling a pet, etc.) may solve this issue and let you get started, because now you have enough dopamine to survive the boring task without being completely defeated and drained afterwards.

** Important Points/Summary **

Basically, because you do care that the work is not getting done, you are not lazy. You might be procrastinating or experiencing executive dysfunction, or you might be understimulated/overstimulated, but you aren’t lazy. And calling yourself lazy isn’t helping you do the task, and is probably making you freeze more.

Being ADHD (or in any way neurodivergent or mentally ill) can be a struggle. The important thing is knowing when to ask for help, and when to be gentle and patient with yourself.

I hope something in this infodump/ramble helps. If you want to hear more about something, feel free to ask. I know this is a lot, & it’s okay to take a few days to process it and then come back later with questions.

We still haven't gotten her any gifts, because the one thing she really, really, really wants is a ball python. She has been hyperfixating on getting one for weeks.

We already have a Florida king snake in a 50-gallon tank that she bought with her own birthday and Christmas money she saved for a couple of years when she was 8. Now, Eldest Spawn is the Empress of ADHD and most days, would forget where her head was if it weren't firmly attached to her body. Until recently, I've been primary caregiver of the king snake. Now that she moved the tank into her bedroom, I don't know how well it's being cared for. I know she doesn't hold him often because he's not super docile and will musk when he's done being handled, which can be anywhere from 1 to 10 minutes after you pick him up.