#sumeriasmith

sumeriasmith

Anxiety and ADHD are conditions frequently comorbid, so it's not surprising to me that a test for the one evaluates the other. That said, if it's not too rude to mention, the _degree_ to which a surprise diagnosis for anxiety feels like a personal failure and causes you such an intense reaction is... probably due to the anxiety?

Oh, possibly. Though I begin to wonder if I’m working off a different definition of anxiety than I ought to be, like -- maybe I haven’t quite internalized the idea of anxiety in the way people are meant to. This does sometimes happen, where I think a word means one thing because it has in my personal experience, and actually it’s quite different. I mean, yes I do think I failed the Secret Being Normal Test, but I don’t see that as a flaw? It feels like a lot of people see a failure at something as evidence of being a bad person, and I just see it as a failure, with “fail” being pretty value-neutral. I don’t seem to couple failing-at-doing-something with being-a-failure in the way a lot of people seem to. 

At one point in the test I told the woman “I’m doing so badly at this it’s almost impressive” just to make a joke, and she was like “But you’re trying your hardest, right?” and I said “Well...yeah, of course” fairly baffled, and only realized later she was possibly trying to comfort me, not checking to make sure I wasn’t sabotaging the test on purpose. I don’t mind failure particularly, especially when it’s so incredibly low-stakes, this specific failure just blindsided me because unlike usually, I wasn’t aware it was happening as it happened. 

perminas

while best practice is usually to be in consistent talking therapy while taking adhd meds, you can absolutely get an assessment and find a psychiatrist - fairly easily on zocdoc! - who will not withhold medication if you don't continue therapy. i have one! she's in chicago and does telemed, even for adhd meds, if you want a recommendation!

Oh, thanks! I found a dude in the loop (near my home) who fits the bill, and the clinic seems pretty legit, but if he sets off alarm bells I may hit you back :D 

Man there is a lot of bullshit wank that pulls up on Google when you search for anything related to mental health or learning disabilities. Also there are some scaaaaaaams out there and they’re hitting up top on the algorithm, don’t love that. 

katestamps

Sending huge virtual hugs. No idea what insurance will pay for but there is also music, art and even theater therapy as opposed to just talk therapy and that may feel less awkward than traditional talk therapy if you want to go the therapy route. Also you may have more options with virtual appointments as opposed to them in your immediate area.

For a second I was like “Oh shit I could just go do theatre as therapy?” and then I realized it was probably like...theatre involving therapeutic themes, not just “working stagehand for a local production of Hairspray”. :D Which honestly sounds kind of exhausting anyway, before you introduce working through your issues, but it does explain a bit about my entire college career. 

Man. I had some art therapy in my teens in California in the 90s and that...was a whole ass real trip I had forgotten about. You couldn’t pay me to be a teenager again.  

flippedroundagain

You don't owe it to tumblr to be "well adjusted" about your own shit. It's A Lot to process! I hope the diagnosis ends up helping and that you find good care.

Well, no, but I do owe it to tumblr that, if I’m going to be public about it and tag the post with the various issues, I need to not be offensive or so fucked up I’m hurting other people. Like, not that I think this, but I’ve seen people say “I can’t have a learning disability, I’m normal” like everyone who has one is somehow a freak. If I’m going to express something like that, because nobody can be super healthy about this shit all the time, I need to find an appropriate place to put that, which isn’t “right in front of other people with the problem I’m bitching about.” 

Curufin glared harder. Celegorm was too drunk on wine and bitterness to notice. “Doriath then. Just Doriath.”

“Can we not- what was it you did last time you felt jilted? Nail a hart’s heart to her door? Write her a poem expressing your disdain? ‘O maiden shrike whose thorns have pierced my chest-’”

Celegorm coloured. “I was thirty nine.”

“Time does not seem to have improved your judgement.”

“My judgement? I judge you to be craven and complacent. We shall have no victory and no end to our oath while all the free realms lie divided, and yet you cringe in your fortress like a beaten cur, afraid to act without your master’s orders.”

Sometimes family meant knowing exactly how to hurt each other. “We can’t all have noble Huan’s courage.”

“How dare-” Celegorm’s rise was arrested by his brother’s hand upon his shoulder. Curufin shook his head, the movement clearly painful, and Maedhros stamped down the urge to send for tea or bundle him off to bed. His brothers were men grown and he was not scolding them over windows broken in their games or a refusal to eat their vegetables.

“That was unkind of me,” he said, without apologising. “You’ve certainly united the realms, albeit in hatred of us. If I could applaud you, be assured I would.”

Curufin smiled his thin, furious smile at that and Maedhros was glad of his silence. He could not talk rings around Curufin as he did Celegorm, who said sullenly, “If we had succeeded you would sing a different song.”

“I like to think I would oppose any plan involving abduction, imprisonment, and the blackmailing of the victim’s kin but perhaps I flatter myself. Morality aside, you did not succeed.” Maedhros Fëanorion would stop at that. He could see his brothers’ grief in their shadowed eyes and the weary set of their shoulders, and the greater part of him wished to offer what comfort he could for those that they had loved and failed and lost. But he was not just their brother. “You’re both confined to your quarters until I’ve settled matters with our kin.”

That roused his brothers’ ire again. “You aren’t our father to send us to bed without supper,” Celegorm snarled.  

“No indeed. I am your liege lord and it is only for the love I bear you that I haven’t had you whipped.”