#explaining adhd

I've been quiet all day and huddled in the corner on my phone for a couple hours (I know its rude) due to my social battery being beyond depleted.

I explained to my nan after she asked for the third time if I was okay that my social battery is like a phone battery, the more you use it the quicker it goes down and needs time to recharge, im not used to being around other people 24/7 so mines been used super quick, with that phrase she understood and left me to it while still including me in the conversation with my grandad etc.

Some of you may have heard of the spoon concept, where one's mental capability is represented by how many spoons they have. Use up all your spoons, and your brain decides it's done for the day. Number of spoons may vary, but that's the short explanation of that.

I saw a video recently explaining the difference between fucks and spoons. Fucks being the emotional capability you have to put into any given situation.

While the video made good points, I'd like to add my own abstract concept of screws, which is representative of how well I can get my ADHD to understand the task from a normal world point of view.

Basically all situations the world puts you in require screws to be deemed 'acceptable' by society, but where everyone else has both a phillips head and a flat head screwdriver, I only have a phillips head. So if society only gives me flat head screws for a task, I might be able to improvise, but it's a toss up of how society reacts.

Spoons+fucks+phillips head screws? Shit will not only get done, it will be done so amazingly well that I will be called a genius!

Spoons+fucks+flat head screws? Shit will get done, but it'll turn into one of those scenarios at school where my teacher acknowledges that I did wonderful and creative work, however, it didn't match the rubric I was given in the slightest. I'll probably get a good enough grade that it doesn't matter, but there will be a side of lecture to go with it.

Spoons+phillips head screws, but no fucks? Shit will probably get done well, but I'm gonna complain about it the whole time.

Spoons+flat head screws and no fucks? Shit might get done, but I don't really care if it does. At best you will get a "fuck it, good enough" scenario.

Fucks+philips head, but no spoons? Shit will get done out of spite, and I will likely need excessive mental recovery afterwards.

Fucks+flat head screws, but not spoons? This will likely result in some level of ADHD paralysis. If the shit gets done, it will be in a stress induced panic at the last minute. The quality of the work is really hit or miss.

If there are no spoons AND no fucks, it doesn't really matter what kind of screws you give me. We're done, we're closed, try again tomorrow.

she was like ??? and then what happens ???

when i finally got my point across she was like “oh… things really do just disappear”

I’m sorry I don’t really have any articles to share, because most of what I say on here is things that I’ve learned from my psychology course, or that my mother has told me (she’s an autism specialist, and has training on general SEN, too)

But I’ll tell you something AMAZING to look at; How To ADHD on YouTube.

This is one of her videos that talks about how to explain ADHD, so maybe watch this one first, and I’d totally recommend all her other videos.

I think this explains it really well, and even talks about executive function, which you mentioned. I hope this is useful!!

The problem is that I’m worried about not explaining other traits o ADHD i don’t have? I mean, I want to educate on how frustrating it is sometimes when you can’t focus, but also how helpful it can be and shoot my mind is going way too fast right now I can’t really explain!!! Sorry!!! Ah… Disregard the top bit but do you think about me making a picture book about what’s its like for me having ADD? I feel kind of like I might do something wrong and would like to have different opinions…{2/2}

From September 24 2017

I think that’s a great idea! If you’re worried about people maybe over-generalizing your experience, you can include a page about how other people experience ADHD differently because we’re all different, and so this book is just about you.