The Captain's Scribbles

‘bad’ is so terrifying, ‘bad’ is wrecking, and the ability to apply self-compassion to things deemed ‘bad’ is beyond amazing, to understand not everything in life will be ‘good’ and that’s okay

essays, art, novels, school, relationships, anyone out there starting things when they are terrified of the arbitrary metric of the result… I am so fucking proud of you, you are so brave and strong

You pile ‘bad’ on top of ‘bad’, one ‘bad’ at a time and eventually you will reach the top. And your staircase will get you to a higher place. It’ll be beautiful.

But the lazy itself is a choice. It’s in the definition of the word. You’re lazy so you buy food pre-made rather than make your own. It’s nothing negative.

To me, it’s no longer lazy when someone wants to do something, but can’t or is stopped by a barrier, psychological or otherwise. I want to get up and shower, I know I will feel better after, not getting up makes me feel physically ill and yet I can’t even stand up from the chair. It makes me feel progressively worse. I really want to, but I can’t get my body to move.

It’s unfair to label me as lazy, it’s not my choice and I find it distressing enough without being labeled as such.

For context, you can have executive dysfunction and be lazy too. For me, executive dysfunction is one of the hardest to cope with symptom of ADHD. It paralyzes me so much that sometimes I can’t even go to the toilet because I can’t get up off the chair. I want to play a game but I can’t get myself to start it. I’m also lazy about plenty of stuff lol. I’m too lazy to cook for example. It’s not something I enjoy, and although I could do it, and I have done it, it’s not my thing, and it’s not a necessity. I can recognize and admit it. It’s my own choice. My boyfriend cooks instead because it’s something he enjoys. Prior to meeting him, I was eating prepackaged foods, not because I couldn’t cook, but because I had no interest in it. I’m lazy about going out after working all day. I can do it, I sometimes do it, but the majority of time, I don’t want to do it, because I prefer relaxing and watching TV. I know it would be healthy for me to go out more, but I don’t, by choice.

This sort of mindset should become more popular because there’s a staggering amount of people who think putting others under pressure is the only way to solve problems and that’s simply not true.

I do think it shouldn’t be associated with the word ‘revenge’ though, because people have weird ideas about it. It gives the impression that it’s a conscious choice people make out of spite, that they could just... not make lol.

Most of my art was vent art. It was indeed my “Identity”, but only because my identity was, in essence, suffering. I was in pain constantly with no way to let it out and no one to talk to. 

But it’s not about that type of accommodation and I don’t think these people get that. It’s not all about “Being able to see without glasses despite having nearsightedness”, but rather about the difference between having nearsightedness, and being placed at the back of a class, with no glasses, and being placed at the front of a class. The disability doesn’t disappear, It’s still very much there, but the debilitating factor is changed.

You unfortunately need experience to be able to stay open-minded though. A lot of people don’t ever find out what it’s like to live under different circumstances, so they embrace the idea that if something is unfixable, then it will remain debilitating regardless of circumstances. It’s simply not true.

I’m not arguing that memory loss or emotional dysregulation are going to simply stop being problems we deal with. I’m very familiar with these myself. But your circumstances will dictate whether they become debilitating or not.

My ADHD as a whole was disabling to the point where I wasn’t functional at all, when I lived with my parents, before being diagnosed. I was automatically painted as lazy and incapable, for not adjusting to a set of expectations that everyone assumed was “the norm”. My efforts were not seen as efforts, but rather, as a lack of interest and care. It was damaging. 

I lived under the idea that this situation would never improve no matter what. Because ultimately, if I was the problem, how would a change in environment help with anything, right? My brain was the source of the problems, not the inherently unreachable expectations placed upon me, so these problems would remain problems indefinitely. Right?

Ha, wrong. I learned this when I moved out. I moved in with someone who would actually listen, someone who directly countered my ADHD. I live with someone whose response to me being unable to do chores on any given day is “It’s okay, you’re tired, you’ve done plenty today, just rest. These chores can wait, and if they can’t, I’ll do my best to handle them”. 

I live with someone whose response to a bad spell of emotional dysregulation is offering me both space and concern + care, rather than dismissal or an equally overblown reaction, or judgement. Getting extremely emotional and being given space to process it, while equally receiving care, is powerful. It’s the difference between “Stop overreacting, you’re ridiculous” and “I know you’re upset, can I get you anything, some food? Tea?” 

These small changes affect how debilitating ADHD can be. I still have these problems. I still deal with it daily, it’s a part of my life. But they’re no longer distressing, they don’t make my life a living hell anymore. My ADHD didn’t change. My environment did.

ADHD symptomatology is directly affected by the environment. I can vouch for this. Growing up between 4 walls, often with a lack of direct care and shared-experiences (most parents nowadays are absent due to working schedules, or too tired to bother during their free time) will intensify them and so will unrestricted access to ‘pointless’ entertainment like scrolling on social media. The more “freedom” someone has, the harder it is and the more apparent the ADHD will become. The lack of guidance and care means most people will build poor coping mechanisms, to add to it. 

There’s a reason why you can be medicated and still struggle. Even with the physical aspect treated, poor coping mechanisms still hinder progress.

If you consider a different, less artificial environment, such as... say, a tribe, where a child is usually surrounded by multiple adults at a time, is directly included in most activities (since it’s not a situation where adults would “go to work” where they’re “not allowed” to bring children), and has ample opportunities to do actually stimulating activities like running around barefoot, dancing, exploring and just getting dirty (as opposed to loafing on a chair or in a bed, eyes glued to a screen)... Well, you get a different scenario.

Also consider how most modern children are expected to spend their most sensitive years in the schooling system. It’s very unnatural to be expected to wake up before sunrise in order to spend the majority of your day locked up in a horribly understimulating (or overstimulating) room with 10-30 other unrelated children, essentially forced to sit in a chair the entire time. Compare it with the tribal type of raising children, where learning is mostly physical, through following example set by the family, not by a clinical stranger, and finalized with actual results, not in the form of “marks”, but in the form of, for example, a successful hunt. “Marks” have no purpose outside of the schooling system, so for the majority of a person’s early years, there’s no real feelings of purpose and accomplishments. You don’t learn how to be an adult until you’re wildly thrown into it. 

So you know how you can't make yourself put your hand down on a hot stovetop? There's a part of your brain that stops you from doing that? That's what Neurodivergent Can't Do Task Mode™ feels like

Even if we want to do it, there's a barrier stopping us from doing it, and it's really hard to override

And why does our brain see the task as a hot stovetop? Because when neurotypicals finish a task, they get serotonin, but we don't get that satisfaction after completing a task. A neurotypical wouldn't get serotonin from putting their hand on a hot stovetop, it would just hurt. When we can't do a task, it's because our brain knows that the task will hurt (metaphorically) and wants to avoid that.

It's not that we're choosing not to do the task, it's that our brain is physically preventing us from doing it.

Neurotypicals can and should reblog but please don't add anything

Tumblr shouldn’t be glorified or anything, but any community where people can discuss something freely from their POV is a great informational source if you have the smarts to weed through it. It also happens to have a format that promotes an easy way to do so as well, in the form of reblogs and likes and tags. If you find a post with a large amount of notes, where people with an actual diagnosis confirm that information, it’s fairly easy to assume that it has a certain credibility. 

I don’t usually respond to schnazz like this, but ADHD-wise, Tumblr and similar communities are great, and actually much better than many other sources. Why? Because “officially”, ADHD has mostly been associated and studied @ young boys. Adult ADHD is still not acknowledged in many parts of the world. Girls with ADHD go undiagnosed really often. 

I’m female and I was diagnosed at 23. No one ever suspected ADHD (not even myself, even though I looked into it multiple times). You know why? Because it’s hardly ever documented. It looks different from “official sources”. I got diagnosed precisely thanks to Tumblr and similar communities, for sharing actual life experiences. Because I stumbled across posts similar to this, dug deeper, and realized that wow, it’s all accurate. All of it. 

i dont know ive never had social anxiety 

sorry i cant help

I had both. The social anxiety diminished as I grew up, but was very accentuated when I was younger.

For me, the main difference is that social anxiety (like all anxieties and phobias) is emphasized by expectation, while RSD by reaction. 

I would be extremely anxious about going to the shop and interacting with the cashier, or going to the park and being seen by people. Severe social anxiety in class during school years, which meant I was terrified of everyone even if they had never given me a reason to be. I constantly expected something bad to happen.

The biggest thing... social anxiety can be “avoided”. I don’t mean that it’s easy or anything, but you can just... withdraw and avoid. You can avoid going to the shop, or going to school. It’s really unhealthy to do so, but you can. 

RSD can’t. RSD is a reaction, it’s being told “You have funny ears” and processing it as “you have the ugliest ears on the planet and everyone will make fun of you hahahahaha”. It’s someone telling you “I love you” every day, then accidentally skipping a day, and all you can think of is “they hate me now, I must’ve done something wrong”, proceeding to overthink on every single thing you’ve done to deserve that. 

For me, RSD comes out of nowhere. I can be incredibly happy, feeling good, and someone does something minor that I perceive as rejection. Maybe I’m pestering someone excitedly and they tell me gruffly “Please stop, I don’t like this” and to me it feels like a direct attack on me, as though they’re actually telling me “I don’t like you, change yourself or I will leave”.

Also important to know that the child/teenager body and brain are simply different. There’s a lot of things going on in there. Both medication and therapy is likely to be way different into adulthood, so if something failed during that time, consider giving it a try later on. This is especially because most children and teenagers have no control in their lives. Being asked to follow guidelines only further infringes on that. It’s hard.