agshsgshsh target audience ❤️

Money-saving tips adapted for people w/ ADHD:

1. Convince yourself that the future is Real and numbers have meaning

i did that and it gave me anxiety what’s the next step

migraine, self care, and accountability

Today is Migraine O’clock

it is such a type of migraine that I had to call in sick at work. Manager not happy, probably cause of how soon to my shift it was. If it becomes a thing, I’ll see if I need to reopen my case file with ODSP, and I’ll take to my social worker. Cause trying to shame me for taking care of myself, not okay. I got a thing about seeking medical care for myself I’m trying to work on, so yeah no. 

Anyways. This particular migraine is slooooooow to respond to pain meds combined with scrambling my sight and cognitive stuff a bit, and giving me some dizziness. Not terribly bad, but not something I’d want to be driving or working with. 

So, I am taking a slow day. A kind, self-care day. Probably not seeing Venom like I had planned (never mind cognitive processing, let’s not risk flashy-lights setting off another migraine).  There’s a few things I need to get done today, but I’m going to be kind to myself as I get them done.

Done:

1) replace light bulb

Doing:

2) laundry

To Do:

3) pick up meds

4) buy - tooth brush and body lotion

5) optional - buy white face paint from dollar store

6) recycle cans

7) put dishes into dishwasher

Oh, there’s more than I expected… but that’s because I broke down “tidy up” into separate tasks. There’s other stuff I want to do. But that’s stuff I’ll get to at some point anyways. 

Done:

1) replace light bulb

7) put dishes into dishwasher

Doing:

2) laundry

To Do:

3) pick up meds

4) buy - tooth brush and body lotion

5) optional - buy white face paint from dollar store

6) recycle cans

Done:

1) replace light bulb

7) put dishes into dishwasher

2) laundry

3) pick up meds

4) buy - tooth brush and body lotion body wash

5) optional - buy white face paint from dollar store walmart

6) recycle cans

Doing:

To Do:

TA DA!!!! 

migraine, self care, and accountability

Today is Migraine O’clock

it is such a type of migraine that I had to call in sick at work. Manager not happy, probably cause of how soon to my shift it was. If it becomes a thing, I’ll see if I need to reopen my case file with ODSP, and I’ll take to my social worker. Cause trying to shame me for taking care of myself, not okay. I got a thing about seeking medical care for myself I’m trying to work on, so yeah no. 

Anyways. This particular migraine is slooooooow to respond to pain meds combined with scrambling my sight and cognitive stuff a bit, and giving me some dizziness. Not terribly bad, but not something I’d want to be driving or working with. 

So, I am taking a slow day. A kind, self-care day. Probably not seeing Venom like I had planned (never mind cognitive processing, let’s not risk flashy-lights setting off another migraine).  There’s a few things I need to get done today, but I’m going to be kind to myself as I get them done.

Done:

1) replace light bulb

Doing:

2) laundry

To Do:

3) pick up meds

4) buy - tooth brush and body lotion

5) optional - buy white face paint from dollar store

6) recycle cans

7) put dishes into dishwasher

Oh, there’s more than I expected… but that’s because I broke down “tidy up” into separate tasks. There’s other stuff I want to do. But that’s stuff I’ll get to at some point anyways. 

Done:

1) replace light bulb

7) put dishes into dishwasher

Doing:

2) laundry

To Do:

3) pick up meds

4) buy - tooth brush and body lotion

5) optional - buy white face paint from dollar store

6) recycle cans

I had so much fun at pride and I got tons of compliments on my sweater which was lovely

[first image: a pale skinned person with tattoos and a shaved head wearing a black top and skull leggings and a rainbow sweater smiling while holding onto a rollator walker while standing on a grassy field where tents are set up.

second image: the same person has their back to the camera showing a floor length sweater that has a circle of leaf-like shapes in the center that are each a color of the rainbow. Surrounding this is a circle of red then a circle of orange and so on to the outermost circle which is grey. Their rollator is off to the side and they are using one hand to steady themselves.]

Ugh. From a means of sensory stimulation for people with autism spectrum disorders and similar syndromes to a fad, and it’s only getting worse. I can’t see any benefit from these. #fidgetspinner #autism #autismspectrum #aspie #aspergers

Just because you don’t see one doesn’t mean it’s not helpful, it’s just not helpful to *you*. I got a spinner to see what the big deal is, and I kinda use it as a timer. I clocked it to spin for about 3 minutes if I get it going fast, so I spin it on my desk and “race” it when I do some tasks. It’s kinda fun, but I prefer a Tangle for stimming. [OP’s picture is a rack of fidget spinners and cubes]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with fidget toys becoming more widespread and mainstream. It means that I can fidget in peace when in public. It means that self-dx'd people, people who don't know they are divergent, and well, anyone, can stim. Because *everyone stims*

I honestly think that we would eliminate one of the major causes of ableism if we stopped basing people’s worth off how much revenue they generate.

I posted this image yesterday, but I understand that the font may be difficult to read, so here is the text:

What skills are affected by executive functioning issues?

• Task Initiation (your ability to get started on something)

• Emotional Control (your ability to manage your feelings)

• Working Memory (your ability to hold info. and use it to complete a task)

• Flexibility Control (your ability to roll with the punches)

• Planning and Prioritizing (your ability to come up with the steps to reach a goal)

• Self Monitoring (your ability to keep track and evaluate your performance on regular tasks)

• Impulse Control (your ability to stop and think before acting)

• Organization (your ability to keep track of info. and things)

No amount of self care is going to make me neurotypical

A Hyperfocusing Problem

With the whole “autism and ADHD combo” I’ve got going on, it’s either ‘all the focus’ or ‘none of the focus’. I hyperfocus when I read books. Although it can be a bit of a shock when I get so involved in a story, and then it ends so quickly. Or, what I THOUGHT was 'so quickly’. In reality, it’s been three to four hours, I reaaallllyyy have to pee, and I’m so hungry that I could eat everything in my house. But hey, if it’s a good book, it’s worth it xD

I don’t understand all the hate for self-diagnosis. A lot of what I’ve seen seems to be based on severe misunderstandings of the diagnostic process. As someone who has self-diagnosed and later received the same diagnoses from psychiatric professionals I want to explain what each process was like.

When I was 13 I started having severe mood swings. I would be suicidally depressed for weeks at a time then have a week where I barely slept, was all over the place, and full of energy. Then at 15 I started hallucinating. I had been seeing a psychiatrist off and on since I was 9 and consistently since 13. When the hallucinations began my doctor basically just gave me meds to make them stop but didn’t know what was going on. 

Fast forward 6 years to when I was 21. Despite two stints in a psych ward and experience with almost every antipsychotic available at the time, I still hadn’t received a diagnosis aside from mood disorder NOS (the psych fields way of saying “we know SOMETHING is going on we just don’t know what”). I was done waiting for answers so I began researching what was going on with me. 

After hours and hours spent researching and reading up on every form of psychotic disorder we have a name for, I reached the conclusion that I was schizoaffective. I had read the entire DSM IV. I had researched through multiple sources. I had spent hours at a time over the course of several weeks reading and learning to try to find out what was wrong with me. 

A few months later, I was sent to a different psychiatrist because mine had given up on trying to figure out what was going on. This new psychiatrist sat down with me for 1 hour and asked me questions about childhood, my hallucinations, and my mood swings. After the hour was up, he diagnosed me with schizoaffective disorder. I never told him about my self diagnosis so he wasn’t biased by that. 

I spent many hours over several weeks researching and comparing my traits to that of different disorders. I contemplated my lived experience in relation to a variety of disorders before self diagnosing. My psychiatrist spent only one hour with me before diagnosing. 

Similarly, about a year ago I started suspecting that I have ADHD. I read up on the diagnostic criteria, read accounts from many people with ADHD, talked with friends who have been diagnosed, and more. I thoroughly researched ADHD and reflected about my experiences. I eventually remembered the six hours of psychological testing I went through in high school that showed that it was likely I had ADHD but was refused a diagnosis because I had good grades.

When I talked to my psychiatrist about the suspicion I had ADHD and explained my symptoms, she just said ok and wrote me a prescription. That was it. No extensive testing or psychological evaluation.  Just a five minute conversation.

Diagnosis isn’t always some elaborate event in which the psychiatrist truly gets to know their patient and considers all options before diagnosing. Often times it’s a quick process based on limited information. While someone self-diagnosing may be incorrect, so might the professional. Misdiagnosis is common among psych professionals. They are not magical beings who are always correct. Just as someone may incorrectly self-diagnose due to ignoring information or misconstruing experience, a psychiatrist can be wrong because they are working with what the patient tells them. If a patient is not fully honest or the professional is not truly listening, a patient can be misdiagnosed which, when coming from a medical professional, can actually be dangerous. Misdiagnosis from a professional can lead to incorrect medications which can at best not treat anything while causing side effects and at worst worsen a person’s condition. An incorrect self-diagnosis is unlikely to have serious consequences. 

Also, you can have both