sometimes people ask me how i seem to be able to 'do so many things'.
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sometimes people ask me how i seem to be able to 'do so many things'. i say i have the type of #adhd that feels like this:
- instead of feeling like i can go 200 miles per hour randomly distributed in a single place or project
- with time, coaching, training, and better sleep (undiagnosed sleep apnea made it even worse), i now have the kind where i feel i can go up to 200 miles per hour across 3-4 things at a time
- things i'm not interested in are still very very hard to do
- so at some point i decided i will only do the things i'm very very interested in (took a while to get to a place where i could do that)
- now that i'm there, as long as i am able to shift my 200 mph focus consistently across the 3-4 buckets of projects
- eventually i'll do a few pretty fun things!this is a difficult topic to talk about because everyone experiences this differently, and no one should ever say 'see, this adhd person can still do things' as a way of weaponizing it against another person with a different experience. that's also ableist
for me it also helped when i stopped thinking about the 'all the things i can't do because i suck stupid adhd' and more of 'ok my brain works differently how can i trick my silly brain'. even with that, veering too much into 'my adhd is my superpower' is also super ableist
at the end of the day, i like doing all of these things not out of a 'i have to do this or i suck', but because i feel truly compelled to expend my energy on the many many things i care about!
but if i had to do things i didn't like and people told me i sucked all the time for not being able to do the things i didn't like, it would probably be a very different experience.
-
sometimes people ask me how i seem to be able to 'do so many things'. i say i have the type of #adhd that feels like this:
- instead of feeling like i can go 200 miles per hour randomly distributed in a single place or project
- with time, coaching, training, and better sleep (undiagnosed sleep apnea made it even worse), i now have the kind where i feel i can go up to 200 miles per hour across 3-4 things at a time
- things i'm not interested in are still very very hard to do
- so at some point i decided i will only do the things i'm very very interested in (took a while to get to a place where i could do that)
- now that i'm there, as long as i am able to shift my 200 mph focus consistently across the 3-4 buckets of projects
- eventually i'll do a few pretty fun things!this is a difficult topic to talk about because everyone experiences this differently, and no one should ever say 'see, this adhd person can still do things' as a way of weaponizing it against another person with a different experience. that's also ableist
for me it also helped when i stopped thinking about the 'all the things i can't do because i suck stupid adhd' and more of 'ok my brain works differently how can i trick my silly brain'. even with that, veering too much into 'my adhd is my superpower' is also super ableist
at the end of the day, i like doing all of these things not out of a 'i have to do this or i suck', but because i feel truly compelled to expend my energy on the many many things i care about!
but if i had to do things i didn't like and people told me i sucked all the time for not being able to do the things i didn't like, it would probably be a very different experience.
@skinnylatte This diversity in how people experience this and what works for them in particular is also why it's ableist as fuck to expect everyone to do their best work within a framework that is imposed from outside, above.
Like a nine to five schedule, being in an office at a particular time, etc.
-
sometimes people ask me how i seem to be able to 'do so many things'. i say i have the type of #adhd that feels like this:
- instead of feeling like i can go 200 miles per hour randomly distributed in a single place or project
- with time, coaching, training, and better sleep (undiagnosed sleep apnea made it even worse), i now have the kind where i feel i can go up to 200 miles per hour across 3-4 things at a time
- things i'm not interested in are still very very hard to do
- so at some point i decided i will only do the things i'm very very interested in (took a while to get to a place where i could do that)
- now that i'm there, as long as i am able to shift my 200 mph focus consistently across the 3-4 buckets of projects
- eventually i'll do a few pretty fun things!this is a difficult topic to talk about because everyone experiences this differently, and no one should ever say 'see, this adhd person can still do things' as a way of weaponizing it against another person with a different experience. that's also ableist
for me it also helped when i stopped thinking about the 'all the things i can't do because i suck stupid adhd' and more of 'ok my brain works differently how can i trick my silly brain'. even with that, veering too much into 'my adhd is my superpower' is also super ableist
at the end of the day, i like doing all of these things not out of a 'i have to do this or i suck', but because i feel truly compelled to expend my energy on the many many things i care about!
but if i had to do things i didn't like and people told me i sucked all the time for not being able to do the things i didn't like, it would probably be a very different experience.
@skinnylatte
This is a perfect reflection of my lived experience. As always, it's bittersweet to know someone else fully understands. -
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