This is weird bevause ive had this exact thought before
Actually it really does help to paint the picture
This is weird bevause ive had this exact thought before
Actually it really does help to paint the picture
So I have a character who either has ADD or ADHD but I don't know which to use. I know that there is one type of ADHD which tends to affect focus and executive function more as opposed to hyperactivity. What's the difference between the two?
The big difference you need to know between the two is that “ADD” is no longer a recognized diagnosis in the DSM-5! See here for more info: http://scriptshrink.tumblr.com/post/154477404711/demystifying-the-dsm-v-adhd
Can a traumatic brain injury cause a person to develop ADD like symptoms or partial epilepsy?
Yep. TBIs can cause a whole host of problems that can resemble ADHD, and seizures in the wake of a TBI are very common.
Fucking preach.
(I’m going to do a Part 2 later, on actually working with the staff on recovery goals, but right now I have to do my chore (see below))
Let me start by saying a little about myself, for perspective: I’m 28, cis female, asexual and aromantic. I was diagnosed with depression at a young enough age that I can’t actually remember if if was before or after starting elementary school, and with ADHD a few years later, and I’ve been on meds for them (immensely helpful) ever since. I was diagnosed with Aspergers in high school. For almost three years, I’ve lived in a group home run by a local non-profit. I haven’t lived in a facility of this sort run by anyone else, so I can’t tell you anything about the spectrum of experiences different facilities afford.
The organization that runs my group home has three levels of care:
(I started in level three but moved to level two because I couldn’t handle keeping things clean by myself, to a degree that it could have caused trouble for the organization if there had been an inspection.)
I know a lot of people don’t like labels like ‘high functioning,’ but these levels of care do roughly correspond to those kind of descriptions. The people in the 24-hour house are often those most clearly unable to take care of themselves.
To be in the program I’m in, you have to be on disability, and like most of the others, the organization is my Representative Payee, meaning they receive my checks and give me an allowance. I usually have about $150 to work with a month, plus a little over $100 in food stamps. This has to cover food and other expenses like most toiletries. I have yet to figure out how the people who smoke (not allowed in the house, but so common on the side porch that the neighbors once complained) afford it.
Everyone pays for their own lunch and dinner, but most people participate in the group meal for dinner, paying for food for everyone one night a week. I don’t, because I’m a vegetarian and they always have some sort of meat. I think the requirements are that there be a protein, a vegetable, and a starch. People tend to make the same few low-effort things over and over, like chicken nuggets or spaghetti with meat sauce. Vegetables are usually boiled. Staff may help people cook depending on their ability to handle it on their own.
There are three staff members, though on most days only one or two are there at a time. They’re usually quite young, with bachelor’s degrees only. I don’t know how much they make, but from discussions with my therapist (employed by the same non-profit) I know it’s basically peanuts. House staff don’t often stick around for more than a year in my experience. Of the three who worked here when I arrived, one left to take a supervisory position with another organization, one went back to school, and one finished additional schooling and switched to working for tech support, which apparently pays better. There’s also a supervisor, who is in charge of several different houses and comes by at least once a week to coordinate things with the house staff and check in with residents. One of the house staff is kind of in charge of the others, but not by much. This person also takes care of logistical stuff like office and cleaning supplies and doesn’t work weekends.
As part of the program, everyone is required to get out of the house and do a “meaningful activity” on at least three days every week. What that means may vary according to the person. For example, spending time at the library would count for most of my housemates, but not for me, since I’d be doing the exact same thing I would at home (reading, browsing and writing), only without the occasional video games. Most people make use of the classes and activities offered by the non-profit at the same building where the therapist’s and psychiatrist’s offices are.
Activities include cooking class (more focused on producing “dollar lunch” for people who are around that day than actual teaching), gardening in the greenhouse (plants are sometimes sold at the annual craft fair to raise money for the organization), yoga and a group that goes to various events and locations of interest in the community. We have several good museums nearby that they visit sometimes. Counselors in the “life skills” area that runs most of these classes have a lot of turnover too, though not as much as group home counselors, and the available classes sometimes change depending on the skills of the current batch. I’m very lucky that we have a guy with a creative writing background who runs a writing group. It’s just a prompt and then sharing and commenting at the end, but he gives good feedback. I just worry that he’s being gentle with me the way I know he does with other clients (not untruthful, mind you, just careful).
Of special note is the art program. This isn’t art therapy, as the woman who runs it makes very clear. It’s actual art classes. The teacher has a degree in (I think) fine arts. There’s a more basic class, where there are specific projects assigned, and a more self-directed studio class you have to be invited to. Even in the more basic one, you can pursue your own interests if the project isn’t doing it for you. Until recently, a small local gallery donated wall space for us to display and sell our art, but now that the owner is retiring the teacher is looking for someplace new. And people do sell art, and for amounts of money that really make a difference when you’re on disability. One of my pieces sold for $120, which was a very nice cushion for the grocery bill. I kept only about two thirds of that, because I used the studio’s materials. It would have been 85% if had used only my own materials.
Socially, the house is pretty dead. There’s no conversation over dinner, though there sometimes is in front of the TV.
Entertainment-wise, it’s pretty much just that TV. It has a very basic cable package, and is on nearly constantly. There are some books around, but I’ve never seen anyone else reading. I think the books may have been left behind by people who moved out. We still have VHS that no one has gotten rid of, too. There’s also a Wii, but I’ve never seen that used either. One other person says he has a laptop, but I’ve never actually seen it. An older woman has an iPad, which she likes to watch videos on. We have one person whose English is quite poor, so her main entertainment is music from her home region. The staff and both used to play youtube videos for her, but now she has an iPod. I gather that she had a lot of money left over after a year or so of not doing anything with it but buying groceries.
The house itself is pretty big, and I gather that it’s one of the newer ones the organization owns. It’s a coed arrangement, with the guys having three rooms upstairs and two of them having to share, while the women on the main floor and the basement all have their own rooms. I’ve got the basement room at the moment, having switched with someone who was having more difficulty that usual and who the staff wanted closer to them. Bathrooms are shared except for the basement one, which I have to myself. There are two other bathrooms on the main floor, one for two clients and one for the remaining female client and the staff. There’s also one upstairs for the guys. The guys aren’t supposed to use any of the women’s bathrooms on pain of cleaning the whole thing, but it happens anyway because it’s more convenient to the living room.
There’s free internet but it’s not exactly great. The bandwidth on the guest network that clients have access to is terrible (250kps downloads per device, throttled) and about a year ago they started turning it off from 10pm to 6am. This is the same at every house, apparently, and apparently done because people somewhere were staying up all night online.
A few other tidbits:
[Thank you for sharing your personal experiences! -Shrink]
I had a stroke/CVA due to Traumatic Brain Injury as a child. This caused half my body to be temporarily paralyzed and me to have to relearn everything, including speaking, walking, moving the right side of my body, running, writing, using scissors, etc. I also had emotional difficulties because of it including an inability to control my emotions and tears when upset, migraine headaches as often as twice a week, aphasia (difficulty finding words), in addition to switching handedness, and potentially gender identity (as there was a sudden change in the gender I saw myself as between pre-stroke and post-stroke). i have also have depression, anxiety, ADHD, and executive dysfunction, all of which could potentially be exasperated by childhood stroke (and are recommended for screening of children who have had strokes in ongoing care, as they are more common in stroke cases). An Individualized Education Plan was also necessary, as it took me as long as four times as long to complete tests and homework and in-class activities. If anyone has any questions regarding strokes and their affect effects, I can help answer them as I experienced them.
Thank you for sharing your personal experiences! - Shrink
can my character have adhd inattentive type *and* auditory processing disorder? or are they mutually exclusive?
“Auditory processing disorder” isn’t actually in the DSM 5 - it’s something diagnosed by audiologists and is not universally accepted as a diagnosis.
From what I can tell, it seems possible that both conditions can be diagnosed at once. However, they likely would not have received both diagnoses from the same doctor.
Hello! What would happen if my MC is suddenly taken off her medication? What are the side effects and how will it effect her mentally? Thank you!
This is too vague for me to answer.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of medications that can be taken for mental illnesses. Each of them has their own side effects.
Generally speaking, “return of whatever it was treating” is the result, the same way you’d expect people with thyroid, heart or insulin troubles to have immediate issues going off their meds, too. But @scriptshrink is right, it is really important even “just” with psychiatric meds to know EXACTLY what medication it is and what it’s used for/the context, because they vary A LOT. To give an idea of HOW important it is to mention what medication and what it’s for, let me point out four very different medications I’ve been on before for very different reasons, and how very different the level of “MUST KEEP TAKING” is and the variance you’d get from “suddenly” going off Citalopram (Celexa) is used to treat depression. I was on this for several years. Accidentally skipping a day was not unheard of for me (because I have ADHD which is…not good for remembering to take things), and understandably if I recall, I was particularly bad on those days, but because my depression was never Major Depression (i.e. never suicidal level) it was still not like code red or whatever. So it’s possible that a mild antidepressant for a mild case of depression won’t produce ~dramatic~ symptoms, IF by “going suddenly off it” you mean she just accidentally skips a dose or even two. Heck, sometimes if I only skipped one day, I didn’t even notice a psychological difference. However, when my doctor agreed to take me off it entirely, to switch to something else, both he and my pharmacist FIRMLY agreed I had to “wean off” - this is common with antidepressants, you basically reduce the dose by small amount, get yourself acclimated to that, and then reduce it again, repeat until your body is completely used to not using it.
It took at least three weeks (possibly four?) to do this when I went off my citalopram, and it was a pain because the first reduction was “reduce to 75% of dose” and they were tiny pills - I had to cut them in half with my own pill cutter, and then cut some of the halves in half to get the “half + quarter” for the first few days (cutting a half of a pill into another half when it’s tiny is about as easy as it sounds). Then it was down to a half dose for a bit. Then it was down to “quarter dose” for a bit, then it was “quarter dose every other day” for a few days, and then it was stopped. Yes, that’s seriously what the pharmacist had me doing, because they warned it’s dangerous to go off an antidepressant suddenly and completely. (The upside is this forced me to get a weekly pill counter which turned out to be a good idea in general, so!) OH sidebar: medication side effects are key too if you’re writing somebody going off a medication! Citalopram tends to act as a blood thinner (which is a side effect), so when I started weaning off it, at one point (either at 75% dose or 50% forget which) I suddenly realized I had FREAKING CIRCULATION in my hands again! Seriously, I spent several years constantly wanting to wear gloves because the circulation in my hands was so bad on that med that they were ALWAYS cold, it’s part of the reason I wanted to go off it, because it wasn’t apparently literal “anemia” but it kind of felt like it, and it wasn’t really helping much anymore anyway. This was a positive thing about going off it and I bet a “sudden” stop would have the same effect. Strattera (atomoxetine) is used for ADHD - I am still on this. I was prescribed it for a couple years in HS, quit for a bit and used nothing for a while, then couldn’t bear the symptoms and went back on it during college, which was years ago. Lucky for you I know what it’s like to accidentally not-dose for a day or two AND go off it suddenly for longer! If I skip this for only a day usually my ADHD symptoms get more annoying, and the next day the side effects of the meds (occasional upset stomach, grogginess, and very rarely a weird temporary lack of sensitivity/numbness in my skin, especially my face) will be worse especially if I don’t take it with enough food. But that’s about it - unfortunately I’ve noticed if I take it too late in the day I hyperfocus on something and cannot sleep so if I forget it I just gotta put up with the side effects more the next day; hopefully I got good sleep before skipping a dose or it’s worse symptom-wise. If I skip it for more than a day though… good lord NO THAT IS HEEEEELLL. My ADHD is so bad if I’m off it for a couple days, which makes me anxious, emotional control is lessened so I get cranky and have trouble sleeping which makes it all worse. I’ve had to go off for as many as three days at a time while waiting for a shipment of it to come in, it was terrible! And when I went off it for months back in HS? I lived with it for a bit but then eventually I got so that my thoughts felt like they were slipping from my grasp. I could not focus on ANY of them, not even on one that I enjoyed or found interesting. I couldn’t even decide “what do I want to do at the moment” it was like my thoughts were dry sand slipping through my hands. I am not sure since it was years ago but I may even have dissociated a little because my thoughts were so hard to connect with that EVERYTHING felt hard to connect with? And I could see it happening and register that it was the ADHD and it was frustrating. That was when I decided I HAD to go back on meds it was way too necessary. Going from medicated ADHD to unmedicated ADHD is awful because you’re never “not” ADHD, but it’s SO much worse off. (also, I immediately start having more sleep issues when I haven’t been taking my Strattera - because the “groggy” side effect actually helps me sleep at the end of the day if I take it in the right period of day) Xanax is a medication I sometimes take for anxiety. Here we get into a very new territory, because Xanax is STRONG stuff and despite the label saying I can take it up to “every 12 hours”, my Xanax was prescribed specifically for “use during panic attacks”. (I’m actually on another more regulatory anti-anxiety to help manage this too, a thing I take every day, but it’s not something I have a lot of experience in going off of, so I’m not listing it). This is explicitly not even meant to be taken by me every day, unless I’m already having daily panic attacks (which I think I’m usually not these days, thank goodness). If I went “suddenly off” my Xanax, I’d be…no worse off than normal? Normal for me anyway - which means I can still get a panic attack and get worked up and it’s all kinds of bad, but day to day it won’t effect me, since I don’t TAKE it day to day. I don’t even take it arguably for every panic attack, because some of them are brief and feel “silly” to waste a Xanax on (I usually take it when it feels REALLY bad and I know I can’t disengage from the thing triggering the attack, or I find myself fixating on stressful things that continue to trigger it) . Sometimes I go weeks without taking one. PS: If you’re writing a character who takes an “occasional” medication for when they have panic attacks, make sure you first understand what a panic attack IS. It’s not always what you think, many people experience them as flashes of anger or aggression (because aggression, rather understandably, can be a defense mechanism in reaction to fear - just like how a scared animal might claw or bite, you know?) - and they can be hard to recognize if they do tend to experience them like that, even if you KNOW you experience them like that, because you might think you’re just “angry” and only later realize it’s a deeper freakout that’s making you want to lash out, and not just “this thing/person pissed me off!” or “I’m really cranky, ugh”. (Yes, this also means it’s harder if you get menstrual cycles to tell “cranky because hormones” from “cranky because anxiety”, especially since they can overlap or exacerbate each other) PPS: When you have a panic attack and take something like Xanax btw in my experience it either makes you a little numb and possibly groggy (it did this the first time around, to me - and by numb I don’t mean psychologically I mean my skin felt numb, especially in my face. But I was weirdly functional! I actually got writing done and stuff, it was…not bad, I was glad I took it) or - OR, it’s surprisingly “normal”. The point of Xanax for a panic attack after all is to level you closer to “normal” as opposed to what IIRC is called hyperarousal. You might still be stressed, but you’ll feel less out of control and will be less bothered by it than before the Xanax kicked in. An example of this - the second time I took Xanax was when I KNEW I was going to have to spend the day with someone who triggers a lot of anxiety responses in me, I took it shortly after finding this out and the rest of the day went from “I WANT TO EITHER EXPLODE OR KILL SOMETHING” to “well this person is frustrating and unpleasant for me to be around, but I’m okay and can do the things I need to do”. It’s a huge difference. HUGE. I was surprised though because the second time I took it - which was weeks I think after the first dose - I didn’t feel numb at all in my skin, I didn’t feel weird at all, just “less bothered than normal about this person”, which made me honestly just feel… “normal”. :) Bless whomever discovered/invented this stuff, I don’t use it very often because I’m told overuse can lead to dependency, but much like my asthma inhaler, when I NEED it, it’s a godsend :) Melatonin is an OTC supplement thing used to help you fall asleep. This is also a whole other ballgame from any of the above as it is kind of in between “only in emergencies” and “you really shouldn’t go off this, especially suddenly”, at least for me. Melatonin you see acts IIRC by adding “sleep hormones” to your system? I have a lot of trouble falling asleep most nights and often don’t get good sleep on my own (interesting side bar: this is super common in people with ADHD, we tend to take hours to fall asleep and sleep very lightly when we do get it. Not universal, but really common because of busy busy brains!). So I use this to help me fall asleep a little bit faster and even more importantly, sleep more deeply/soundly when I do sleep. If I don’t get my melatonin? Eh…some nights I’m fine-ish taking a while to sleep but still getting it? Most others it’s CAN’T SLEEP UGH for so long. :\ I tend to take 5mg most nights and it really helps. But unlike the other meds on this list an opposite bit of advice holds true: you are NOT supposed to take it too consistently! Like it’s not as heavy as Xanax or whatever, it’s just a thing to make your own body fall asleep relatively naturally, but. The bottle actually recommends you take a break at least once a month so that you don’t basically over-acclimate your brain to the extra hormone floods every night, or it could lose effectiveness! So it’s kind of like old-school birth control - you stay on for a few weeks, off for a few days, on for a few weeks again ;)
This also means that while I’d have my same old trouble sleeping again, it wouldn’t have a massive effect on me to go “suddenly off” the melatonin, because it actually ADVISES you to go suddenly off it for a few days every so often anyway and I already sometimes skip it or forget to take it some nights. :P Now, I will say if I went off ALL my meds at once for several days to a week or more, it would be very unpleasant. At best, I’d be anxious, irritable, have MASSIVE trouble focusing, likely have trouble sleeping or falling asleep, etc. But so long as nothing too stressful was happening…it’d be hellish a little but I could…survive it? I don’t know I’d be functional enough to do much, and would not be fun to be around, but like, I wouldn’t stop eating or whatever? There’s people with Major depression who take meds for it, or a few other disorders or conditions, that might have much more issues though, because the return of THEIR symptoms would be even worse or at least more noticeable. Again, anti-depressants don’t tend to be something you just “suddenly go off of”, you’re usually supposed to wean off them. My advice to the asker is to 1.) have their character’s symptoms or conditions in mind, and google “medication for [x condition or symptom]” if they don’t already have one in mind, to get a list of ones used for that, assuming any exist 2.) You can usually research a drug once you know it’s name! At very least, you’ll be able to know what it’s usually prescribed for, and common interactions or side effects. Google the drug name, you’ll get things like Wikipedia pages and websites like rxlist and drugs.com that let you research interactions (I think at least one of those also lets users review drugs, so you can get personal stories too in a way) 3.) When you’re armed with the name of the drug, you can probably ask a pharmacist (who are trained in this kind of thing) what it would be like for a person to be on this medication for X time and then “suddenly stop taking” it, too. If nothing else I’m pretty sure they know how to look this up. :)
Thank you for this amazing addition to this post! Wow!
I do want to clear up one thing though: it’s absolutely possible to have Major Depression without having suicidal ideation - it’s not a requirement for diagnosis.
Hi, I have a general question for writing characters with ADHD. Would an ADHD character generally have issues with self-awareness? eg. determining the source feelings and desires that motivate their (sometimes impulsive) behaviors? This particular character I'm writing's fatal flaw is a lack of self-awareness throughout the story, and I don't want to wrongly attribute it to the fact that he has ADHD if self-awareness is not a common problem for people living with it. Thanks!
The Scriptshrink consultants answer!
I can only say for me personally, but often times I have no idea why I want to do the impulsive thoughts when I’m not on my medication.
ADHD and self-awareness are not necessarily related. It also might depend on whether they are medicated and the medication is a good fit or not. Those who are medicated and medicated properly aren’t going to have as many issues as someone not medicated or medicated improperly.
Age is also a factor. Children are going to be less self-aware than adults, especially in the case of impulsiveness. When I was off my meds (or the medication wasn’t working well) as a child, I was not very self-aware at all. On my meds, I was a lot more self-aware though, at least when I wasn’t a zombie due to ill fitting medication. As an adult, there isn’t much difference in my self-awareness when I’m off my meds and when I’m taking them.
Even if you do relate the two though, in order to be technically correct, do NOT say the ADHD is the cause or the only factor. Instead, say it is a contributing factor or ADHD contributes to his lack of self-awareness. But PLEASE do not say it is the cause. As for other contributing factors, consider age, personality, and life experiences that could have any affect on his self-awareness. Personality can be a huge factor. Also, his current circumstances could be playing a role too.
Sometimes? But I also have multiple disorders so I generally don’t know if it’s depression, mania, anxiety or ADHD or all of them) stopping me or making me do things. Also ADHD isn’t just impulsivity- executive dysfunction is a big part of it!
An anon added:
For the ADHD anon, I can offer a bit of insight. I'm 17 with pretty severe ADHD, and I fidget a lot. Like, a LOT. I tend to fidget by picking it my skin, especially my cuticles. Most of the time I'm aware of what I'm doing and I know it's not good, but I don't have the will to stop, even when scolded. Also, I personally have not seen a difference in my level of fidgeting while medicated or unmedicated. I hope that helps a bit!
Hi, I have a general question for writing characters with ADHD. Would an ADHD character generally have issues with self-awareness? eg. determining the source feelings and desires that motivate their (sometimes impulsive) behaviors? This particular character I'm writing's fatal flaw is a lack of self-awareness throughout the story, and I don't want to wrongly attribute it to the fact that he has ADHD if self-awareness is not a common problem for people living with it. Thanks!
The Scriptshrink consultants answer!
I can only say for me personally, but often times I have no idea why I want to do the impulsive thoughts when I’m not on my medication.
ADHD and self-awareness are not necessarily related. It also might depend on whether they are medicated and the medication is a good fit or not. Those who are medicated and medicated properly aren’t going to have as many issues as someone not medicated or medicated improperly.
Age is also a factor. Children are going to be less self-aware than adults, especially in the case of impulsiveness. When I was off my meds (or the medication wasn’t working well) as a child, I was not very self-aware at all. On my meds, I was a lot more self-aware though, at least when I wasn’t a zombie due to ill fitting medication. As an adult, there isn’t much difference in my self-awareness when I’m off my meds and when I’m taking them.
Even if you do relate the two though, in order to be technically correct, do NOT say the ADHD is the cause or the only factor. Instead, say it is a contributing factor or ADHD contributes to his lack of self-awareness. But PLEASE do not say it is the cause. As for other contributing factors, consider age, personality, and life experiences that could have any affect on his self-awareness. Personality can be a huge factor. Also, his current circumstances could be playing a role too.
Sometimes? But I also have multiple disorders so I generally don’t know if it’s depression, mania, anxiety or ADHD or all of them) stopping me or making me do things. Also ADHD isn’t just impulsivity- executive dysfunction is a big part of it!
What are some of the major differences between autism and ADD/ADHD? Stuff like impulse control, executive function issues, stimming etc are pretty common to both of them, and i know a good handful of autistic people (myself included) who got misdiagnosed as ADD/ADHD as a kid. And the fact that the two can be comorbid just makes it more confusing
eokay so first of all: i have both. so of course i cannot distinguish between both, because both are “me”. so i’m making the distinction by what i read more often in ADHD or autism contexts.
the things i’m listing are not diagnostic criteria, just things that i have seen talked about often. you might not relate to all of them even if you have ADHD / autism. additionally, having one or a few traits of something does not mean you definitely have it, but if you go “yes! that’s me!” at most or all of them, you might check the thing out more thoroughly.
there’s a summary at the end
impulsivity. i get an idea and then i immediately drop whatever i am doing (often quite literally) and do the other thing. for example: i am preparing a sandwidch. i am in the process of putting butter on the bread. then i think: i want tea. in that same second i drop the knife, on the floor, turn around to the water boiler and switch it on. then i realize that dropping the knife was probably not such a good idea because it’s dirty now.
getting distracted. not by anything specifically, just.. anything. for example, i opened this ask and wanted to answer. then i got distracted for 15 minutes and forgot all about it until i accidentally opened this tab again. i described this in this slightly funny post: my general idea of functioning is getting distracted often enough so that i eventually come back to the thing i was originally doing.
constantly forgetting what you were just doing or thinking. this is pretty much what leads to both being easily distracted and impulsivity. it’s more than just forgetting. it is completely forgetting about the idea of a thing possibly occurring. you’re having an intense, captivating tumblr chat with someone and then you go to the bathroom and it is gone from your brain. you go bake some cookies, read a book, cut your hair, and when you come back to the computer it’s ohhhhh shit i was having a conversation until i suddenly disappeared… 3 hours ago.
being unable to sit still ever. it is more than just stimming. it is stimming 120% of the time. it is doing multiple stims at the same time always. i CAN not sit still. it does not happen. i am unable to not stim.
hyperfocusing randomly. like what i am doing with this post right now. i started typing and then i got completely caught up on it and now i cannot stop and i forget the time and anything else i was going to do because this post is my world now and i. must. finish.
hyperactivity. i cannot describe this better than ALALAL ALALALA KLHADFUILSDHFJKUIEF!!!!!!!!!! LKSKSHALALALAL!!!!!!!!! it’s jumping around the room. running up the walls. sitting upside-down on your chair while screaming from laughter. spamming your twitter with 200 tweets that just say “CACTUS!!!!!!!!!! MOLAR TOOTH!!! CACTUS!!!!!!!” while laughing your ass off.
losing every object. always. misplacing objects that you were actually using just now. pencils, headphones, jewellery, coffee cup, everything. where is my phone that i was using 20 seconds ago? i have no idea. 3 hours later i find it in the laundry basket. or on some door handle. losing ridiculously large objects that you cannot possibly lose and being unable to locate them for hours. objects that i have misplaced inside a 40 square meters apartment: laundry basket, mattress, chairs, tables, small oven, computer, and many others. you get the idea.
forgetting plans and appointments and everything really. i recently learned that some people can actually keep complex plans in their heads. a fellow autistic explained me that he can remember everything he needs to do and lie it down neatly in his mind. i don’t think every autistic is as good with that as he is, but most people have some sort of idea what their next big tasks are. i don’t. i don’t even know where i wrote them down. i also forget appointments because even if i remember that i have plans for wednesday, that does not automatically mean that i realize when wednesday is happening.
addiction to distraction and entertainment. boredom is torture, and i don’t mean that as an exaggeration. sitting in a waiting room drives you up the wall, sometimes quite literally. forgetting your phone is not just irritating and means you have to read the cereal box. no. you build a tower out of the cereal boxes and jump on the table. when the party is going slow you collect all the paper flyers and fold 100 airplanes and shred the rest of the flyers to pieces. not being able to concentrate without loud music in the background.
sensory hypersensitivities. not just getting distracted or annoyed by bad sensory input, but actually getting hurt and deeply uncomfortable. not being able to even sit near someone with deodorant on. starting to cry whenever you get cold. ripping your shirt off because the tag was too scratchy.
sensory hyposensitivities. not being able to feel the pain from scratches. not being able to enjoy music unless it is ridiculously loud drumming against your ears, while not being hard of hearing. only being able to calm down when something is pressing against your ribcage so hard you can hardly breathe. enjoying bright flickering lights right against your eyeballs.
the bliss that stimming is. it is not just “something that feels pleasant”. it is something that makes you feel whole. it is something that puts you in a place where everything is good and right and the right stim fills you up with pure bliss. you soak it up like a sponge and you feel like you’re flying and it’s the best thing. it clears your mind and soothes your soul.
the overwhelm of sensory overload. you literally cannot function in a loud, crowded area. sensory overload makes you forget how to think. you immediately shut down or meltdown. you become helpless. you can not get yourself out of this situation safely. you get lost. you are unable to figure out a way to get out of the situation. you can get in real danger because of sensory overload if you do not have help or luck.
auditory and visual processing difficulties. needing subtitles for every movie you watch, even though you are neither Deaf nor hard of hearing. constantly going “what? say that again? HUH?? i can’t hear you over that noise!” while everyone around you is conversing easily. being unable to decipher an image quickly. being unable to read maps or flowcharts.
trouble with verbal communication. you might be nonverbal sometimes or always. you might have problems saying the right words. you might rely on scripting heavily, that means you have fixed rules of what to say in which situations. you might be unable to react if your script stops working because someone says something unexpected. you might be unable to say what you mean because you cannot find words fast enough. you might say things that you do NOT mean because you have heard them somewhere so the words are more easily found.
trouble with nonverbal communication. not being able to read tone of voice, facial impressions and allistic body language. constantly being misinterpreted because you make the “wrong” body language or facial impressions or tone. not being able to recognize irony and jokes because you can’t take the subtle hints that people give about them. not being able to interpret emojis and emoticons. not being able to recognize the difference between “hello”, “hello!” and “hello…”. coming off across as “rude”, “weird”, “scary” or something else that you are not.
being unable to figure out social rules and conventions. why do you always have to answer “fine” to the question “how are you?”? why does a person think that i hate them just because i do not like talking to them? why do people think i like them just because i was talking to them? which people do you call by their first name and which by their last name? why do people laugh about me just because i hugged my teacher? nobody laughs when i hug my friend.
relying on sameness, rules, schedules and rituals. no, i cannot drink tea out of the coffee cup. it Does Not Work. i cannot sleep without my squishy pillow. i cannot wear my Outside clothes inside. when i make a plan, things have to go EXACTLY as planned or i melt down. i cry when i lose my favourite stim toy. it can also mean: having to do the same things every day at the same time. getting overwhelmed by changes. not being able to function in an unfamiliar schedule. not being able to do things out of order. not being able to sleep with the Wrong sheets. not being able to eat from red dishes. and many others.
needing to fidget or stim. being unable to concentrate or calm down without moving or specific sensory input. not being able to function properly when not allowed to stim. shutting or melting down when not being able to stim.
special interests or hyperfixations. “special interest” is the autism term and “hyperfixation” is the ADHD term. it means fixating on a certain subject so intensely that you can hardly think about anything else. some people learn subjects very deeply in a very short time. it means getting caught up in it. it’s what you think about in every second. like being in love, only with a subject instead of a person.
living in a fantasy world. retreating into a safe space to escape from a world that is not very kind to us. hyperfixating on a story or a fantasy world or dreamworld as an interest, either as a refuge or as a special interest or both.
trouble with socializing. being ridiculed for being “weird”. being unable to function well in social situations because of your specific disabilities. having a hard time maintaining friendships and other social relationships.
appearing eccentric. dressing and behaving in unusual ways. having unconventional interests and hobbies. being unable to connect with most other people, being the “different” person in most groups. having social positions such as the “class clown” or “the outcast” - entertaining everyone else or distancing yourself from everyone else.
appearing childlike or younger than you are. never getting rid off childlike behaviours. stimming and fidgeting because you like it or because it helps. not caring about how you look. having hobbies and interests that are seen as “childish”. impulsive actions that appear childlike. behaviour that is seen as childlike.
executive dysfunction. being unable to do things even though you really want to do them. being unable to start tasks or switch tasks. being unable to recall what you know in an unfamiliar situation. being unable to figure out the steps necessary for completing a task.
reactions to over- and understimulations. you might start to fidget or stim. you might try to get away or get angry or cry because things are too much or because there’s not enough stimulation. you might fall asleep in class because it’s too little stimulation. you might cry in class because it’s too much stimulation.
meltdowns / shutdowns. having reactions that are stronger than is deemed appropriate to negative things like adverse sensory input, emotional stress, etc. that means breaking down crying from small things, having rage fits over small things going wrong, or on the other side completely shutting down, flopping on the floor, freezing in place etc. in case of under- or overstimulation or emotional stress.
developing anxiety or depression. social or generalized anxiety as well as depression are common in people with ADHD and autistics because we often get bullied, our disabilities are often exploited to hurt us, and we may get excluded, ridiculed and hurt on a regular basis. we might despair because we never seem to fit in. we might overcompensate and overtax ourselves in order to appear “normal”. we might burn out as a result.
creativity and unconventional thinking. getting ideas that nobody else has. making connections nobody else would even think of. being good at finding similarities, patterns, and differences.
daydreaming and spacing out. shutting down or simply daydreaming your way through situations that you cannot function in because of your specific disabilities. forgetting what you were doing and just dreaming away. getting lost in thoughts. dissociating from adverse sensory input. escaping from the reality that is hard to bear or just getting distracted.
getting caught up in a task. hyperfocusing on a thing that you are doing or being unable to initiate the end of an action. being unable to interrupt your train of thought or action. being unable to switch tasks.
i don’t claim completeness for this list. so.
more ADHD than autism:
more autism than ADHD:
both autism and ADHD:
so that got a lot more elaborate than i was planning… anyway. i hope it answers your question, anon
-lhmod
LOL. J/K Let me tell you one thing about having a non-linear neuro-type. Every day is different. Some days, you’re on top of the world, ma! You have superpowers! Legit. And other days those same functions that made you feel so AMAZING yesterday, have turned on you and you feel so incapacitated you might as well be hooked up to a ventilator. My brain moves hella fast so sometimes I seem like I’m rambling, but truth is I’ve skipped a few steps in the physical world, so bear with me. You’ll probably notice this post jumps around- and I’ve left it a bit like that to show you what my brain is like. Enjoy. (I have edited it to make it slightly more readable.)
Hey guys! I submitted a post on how my brain works with ADHD! I’m reblogging here so if anyone has questions they know where to reach me- I’m 100% open to people who genuinely wanna know more. (Not today trolls, not today.)
Thanks again for the submission! Followers, if you have questions, send ‘em @theoremofwhat ‘s way.
LOL. J/K Let me tell you one thing about having a non-linear neuro-type. Every day is different. Some days, you’re on top of the world, ma! You have superpowers! Legit. And other days those same functions that made you feel so AMAZING yesterday, have turned on you and you feel so incapacitated you might as well be hooked up to a ventilator. My brain moves hella fast so sometimes I seem like I’m rambling, but truth is I’ve skipped a few steps in the physical world, so bear with me. You’ll probably notice this post jumps around- and I’ve left it a bit like that to show you what my brain is like. Enjoy. (I have edited it to make it slightly more readable.)
First diagnosis was Tourette’s Syndrome, then ADHD, both in grade school. OCD tendencies, but not enough for a full diagnosis. Diagnosed with Asperger’s in high school. Because I answered some questions oddly, I’ve also been checked for schizophrenia and manic-depressive, and I can officially say that as of then, I do NOT have either of those.
Unless I’m having a specific type of really bad day, I don’t feel disabled. I feel like the world is wrong. People don’t state things clearly, and they expect me to read their mind on what they want me to do. There are so many arbitrary rules that you’re expected to intuitively know, and not only are those rules silly, some I feel are actively dumb or even morally wrong. Like, not talking to strangers because it’s “weird”. There is only one person in the entire universe who was NEVER a stranger to you, and that’s the woman who conceived you; everyone else was once a stranger.
Throughout grade school and high school, I didn’t like taking my medication (for the ADHD, I think). Part of it was how it was first given to me: they’d crush the pill, mix it with those little packets of jam, and have me eat that (to this day, I still can’t stand strawberry jam because it reminds me of that disgusting taste). The more important reason, though, was that the medication felt imposed on me. Like they were trying to make me “normal”, and I react quite negatively to that. My grade 8 teacher told me that her husband needed to take heart medication, and he’d end up in a lot of trouble if he didn’t, but I could see enough differences between those situations, and I didn’t buy it. I still think that was a horrible reason to give someone.
In university, I eventually stopped taking my meds. Nobody could force me to, so I didn’t. Things didn’t work out so well with all of that: second semester of second year, I failed every single course, and I’d already been on academic probation, so I was out. Not much relevant for this blog to say about the next few years.
I started taking my meds again when I was going for my full driver’s license. It was my choice, and even if I hadn’t been able to experience a difference, I could see from its effects: with my meds, I had a hard time concentrating on boring things, but without them, I literally could not concentrate on anything I found boring.
My tics bother me sometimes, but almost never more than “having the hiccups” would bother me. Sometimes they affect my breathing rhythms so I can’t speak, and that’s annoying, but it isn’t common. When I get really stressed, I’ve had it that I start ticcing up so hard I literally can’t get up, and the muscle contractions are painful, but when I’m in a situation where that’s happening, my emotional suffering has most of my attention.
If there’s anything else that’d be useful or what, just ask me. Hope that might be helpful to someone.
[Thank you so much for sharing! - Shrink]
I actually got diagnosed after a college psychology class and by having a sibling with pretty severe ADD. The psych class laid out the sx and mentioned that it may be genetic, so I brought it up to our mutual pediatrician and he agreed since my grades suffered when I actually need to concentrate to study (unlike in high school). As a calm, smart kid with an obsession with reading, all of my signs were overlooked until adulthood. (including me, 4 people in my family are now confirmed ADD/ADHD)
In reference to the ask about being diagnosed with ADHD. Thank you for sharing, anon!
why are all attention deficit disorders now grouped under ADHD? It seems a little ridiculous to say ADHD with hyperactivity or ADHD with just inattentiveness? Wouldn't it have made more sense to group it under ADD umbrella?
There are a couple things here with this ask that make it really inappropriate for this blog.
Sorry anon. I’m not the right person to come to about this.
Hi, not sure if this is the right 'script family' blog to ask this of, but I have two adult male identical twin characters who spent their adolescent years apart. I'm planning for one to have ADHD and the other to have depression, but I'm wondering if this would be possible? Or is it more likely they'd both have one/both mental health issues rather than one each?
It is indeed possible! One of the preferred methods of studying the causes of mental illness are called “twin studies”. Basically, psychologists look at identical and non-identical twins to see how often they share the same diagnoses.
ADHD is incredibly likely to coincide in identical twins, but the rate is not 100% - it’s around 82%. So it’s definitely possible for one of your characters to have ADHD and the other not!
Depression also has a high rate of coinciding in identical twins (around 76%), BUT when the twins are raised apart, the rate drops to around 67%. The rate drops because there is a definite environmental component to developing depression.
So it’s definitely possible! Go forth, and write your story!