#adhd representation

part two: you don’t come with instructions

Description: The night after everything feels like too much, Azzi Fudd finally tells Paige Bueckers what it’s like to live inside her head. Paige listens to every word and does what she always does when she loves someone: she pays attention.

In like. All of media, that I've ever seen in my entire life. By a wide margin.

I'm not gonna lie, it makes me a little emotional. It hurts, in the way that reflects the realities of having ADHD. The shitty ones. Because imo, they're mostly shitty ones.

She is bubbly and chatty and hyper creative, clearly working on multiple projects at once and falling down rabbit holes. The leap from experiencing something to wanting to do it, jumping in with both feet. As evidenced by her quick pipeline from reader -> writer.

She's impulsive. Sometimes she says or does the wrong thing socially, not because she doesn't get social cues, but because her brain moves so fast it's hard to put a filter on it. By the time she realizes she shouldn't have said something, it's already out of her mouth.

(I love that she's implied to have gotten Taash and Harding a sexy gift basket which Harding very clearly does not want. And doesn't she outright ask Harding about their sex life?? A good example of impulsiveness/lack of filter. AND also how a lot of ADHD people can have a less repressed relationship than average to sex.)

She talks too much, and can be a little annoying to others. Other characters get annoyed with how intense she is or the fact that her thoughts go really fast and all jumble on top of one another, even if they make sense to her. That she rambles.

She is hyper conscious and fearful of making small careless errors, and other people don't understand why she's so intense about checking and double checking one's work (a common coping mechanism for people with ADHD). Putting her at odds with others because she intuitively doesn't understand that how other people's brains work is different than hers, and them not understanding that about her.

But I think the biggest thing for me, where all that comes together, is how much guilt she carries around.

The way she has to work so hard, the way she's never quite doing or saying the right thing, the way she's always apologizing. She apologizes when she talks too much. She apologizes when she's too intense.

The guilt she feels over her brother's death. The guilt it's implied she carries, that she was the older sibling. That he was the one who always ended up taking care of her. Implying that she hasn't ever really been good at taking care of herself. That she couldn't step up to the role she was expected to fulfill in her family, help others the way they might've needed to. Because of the way she is.

The guilt that it might have been one of her mistakes that got him hurt.

ADHD is a debatably well-known condition, but almost never intentionally represented in media. And when it is, it's either openly mocking, based on stereotypes that don't match reality. Or it's flat. Doesn't manage to catch anything remotely near the accuracy and complexity a real, thoughtful, authentic depiction does. (Or it's specifically children who get depicted with it, not adults.)

Anyway. I love her. Half the time when I think about her, I am in danger of just breaking down and sobbing from how painfully accurate everything about her feels to me.

-🥁

Hello!

That's... not really accurate to how ADHD meds work at all. Though this would be insensitive, my main concern is the inaccuracy and the harmful misinformation that this is spreading.

First thing: ADHD medication -- like any daily medication -- isn't something that can just be taken when you want to take it. It's one thing to forget a dose every so often but deliberately missing doses on a regular basis is very harmful.

Not taking it regularly can cause the medication to be less effective for your character and can cause them to be hit worse (by their symptoms and their withdrawal) every time they miss a dose. It can also cause the medication to just... stop working for your character as they develop a tolerance for it.

I take Concerta (also known by the name Ritalin) and when I miss a dose, I certainly end up feeling it.

For me, the first thing I notice is just a weird feeling. Like something in the world is different. It's hard to describe but, to other people, I'm told that it looks like I'm spacier and in my own world.

I have a very hard time focusing and can't last more than a few minutes without spacing out -- even if I'm actively involved in a conversation. It makes it impossible for me to attend my lectures and take notes, let alone take a test or an exam.

Because I also have anxiety and several other mental conditions, this also has a major impact on them. The increased rejection-sensitive dysphoria (RSD) that I experience triggers an increase in my anxiety (even if I've taken my anxiety meds), which in turn causes an increase in my dissociative symptoms.

The brain is a complex organ -- one we don't fully understand yet. Nothing happens in isolation.

Aside from the ADHD-specific side of things, there's also the withdrawal.

While it's not as bad as the withdrawal from my venlafaxine (the meds I take for my PTSD, anxiety, depression, and dissociative disorder. Three cheers for medication that multitasks!), withdrawal from my Concerta is still not great.

When I miss a dose, I end up sleeping almost the entire day. I just can't stay awake. I also get a horrible headache that can't be touched by Advil or Tylenol and I end up with no appetite (though apparently most people experience the opposite -- an increase in appetite). I also experience an increase in my depression.

Though it will of course be different for everyone (especially if your character is on a different type of medication), what I'm getting at here is that ADHD medication doesn't work like this. You can't pick and choose when to take it.

Taking ADHD medication doesn't make you feel "slower" or have a "delayed response" or anything like that. In fact, those feelings are more likely to come from missing a dose.

Something else that needs to be considered here is that ADHD medication is constantly portrayed as being bad/evil/negative and especially as something that's only done to dull the character with ADHD and make them more "palatable" to those around them. It's shown as something that stifles their creativity and forces them to become exactly like everyone else.

This can't be further from the truth.

Although it is true that ADHD is often over-diagnosed and over-medicated, the effect that ADHD meds have on those who need them can be life-changing.

These harmful misrepresentations of ADHD medication have major consequences in the real world. Not only do they undermine the struggles of having ADHD and reinforce the idea that ADHD is just being hyper/unfocused, they also discourage people from seeking the treatment that can help them.

When I was first diagnosed, I didn't want to go on medication and my parents didn't want me to either. They thought it would make me dull and lifeless and kill my creativity. Even after I'd done my own research and decided to try it, my father spent weeks telling me that ADHD was just "western propaganda" and didn't actually exist.

I see this same attitude in teachers, other parents, and even doctors all the time.

Although some people can be quick to diagnose a child with ADHD and medicate them when there may be another cause for their behaviour, overcorrecting in the opposite direction helps nobody.

If you want to write a character with ADHD and especially one that's on medication for it, please do your research first. You don't have to have ADHD or be on medication to do that. This article [Link] discusses the impact of poor ADHD representation while this one [Link] talks about what happens when you miss a dose of ADHD medication.

In short: please don't do this. ADHD isn't just the "silly hyper can't sit still" disorder and the medication for it is an actual treatment that helps so many people. Treat it as seriously as you'd treat any other disorder.

Cheers,

Frank Frankly from Welcome Home canonically has ADHD

Let me explain. I'm diagnosed with ADHD. An extremely common phenomenon for some people with ADHD, especially before diagnosis or treatment, is caffeine affecting them differently. It can sometimes make someone with ADHD sleepy instead of wired. Frank's interaction with Poppy here is one that I've personally had with others multiple times.

Because of Frank's line here, especially when it's in contrast to Poppy's lines, I think this was intentionally written to hint at Frank having ADHD. This is honestly a very clever way to make a character ADHD coded without falling into stereotypes.

And ADHD is hella misrepresented in media and just in the general public conciseness. So here' s some ADHD MEMES if ur struggling and need to hear your not alone, from someone who also has it ❤️❤️❤️

Love you guys. You are very strong.