Just your typical procrastinating 20 year old canadian nerd. I'm not on here a lot bc uni has me stressing. If I am on here, I'm probably avoiding studying or writing a report...like I am as I write this.
Most of the fandoms I have unwisely entered can be found on my tag page.
Oh and if you're thinking, wow what a really weird url, it was my pottermore username and I've always liked the sound of it :)
Just as the phrase “what the entire fuck” implies the existence of fractional fucks, the phrase “what the absolute fuck” implies the existence of both positive and negative fucks (or else there would be no need for an absolute value operation). Taken together with the phrase “what the actual fuck” (which implies the existence of imaginary fucks), we may thus conclude that fuckery is isomorphic with the complex field.
I remember all the Doctor Who fanfics I used to read where Rose often got badly stereotyped as a damsel in distress whom the Doctor had to swoop in and save and smooch but the way I remember Doctor Who 90% of their relationship was the Doctor just setting Rose loose on people who had done something to offend them and sitting back giggling in the corner as she shouted
my adhd ass: pls im begging you… it took me 4 hours just to get into this hyperfocus… if i have to pick up my stuff and move elsewhere it’ll reset … i plead for my life pls shut up i can barely even concentrate even when its quiet
executive dysfunction is telling yourself for two and a half hours that you need to shower bc you smell like your workplace and you absolutely Cannot do Anything Else until you shower, doing Any Other Thing before showering is illegal!!! but you still haven’t for some reason??? you’ve just been sitting on your bed in a towel scrolling tumblr for 2+ hours thinking “I need to shower right now immediately” and growing increasingly frustrated that you are still not clean and you haven’t eaten or done your laundry either
ok actually no I’m reblogging this because a) I am clean now (and I smell amazing, thank you), and b) I had a heckin Realize and I wanted to share it with y’all in the hopes it’ll help someone else with a brain like mine.
I figured something out about myself a long time ago– it’s only just now occurred to me that I was in fact solving a problem caused by executive dysfunction, and I haven’t been implementing this solution lately because my brain went “that’s a relatively new term to me and therefore a Different problem that requires a Different solution”. thanks a lot, brain.
anyway, long long ago, before I knew these fancy schmancy Official words, the problem, as I phrased it to myself, was such:
sometimes I get Stuck. I was doing something, or on my way to doing something, and then… I just. got stuck.
“Stuck” looks like refreshing my feed or dashboard repeatedly. or it looks like staring at a spot on the wall. or chewing my fingernails. or picking at a stubborn sticker. all the while, my brain drifts through various unrelated topics I wouldn’t be able to recall if asked. sometimes I can get Stuck for hours before realizing I am Stuck. sometimes I get so Stuck that I go to bed that way (feeling especially bad for being unproductive) and I have to just reset everything by sleeping.
one day I asked myself, “why is this happening? why am I stuck, right now, at this moment in time?” the answer, as it turns out, was pretty simple: I was trying to make a decision, and I got distracted. I haven’t moved forward because I haven’t answered that one question or made up my mind.
let me rephrase this in terms of executive dysfunction: many people have expressed that it feels like knowing you need to do a thing but not feeling “ready” to do it. many with ADHD may also be familiar with the feeling of needing things to be “just so” before you embark on a task- you need your setup to look a certain way, or you need to set a timer, or have the right music playing, etc.
when I get Stuck it’s often because I got lost somewhere in that setting-up process, and my brain took the opportunity to nyoom off into Distraction Town.
getting myself Unstuck is solved, 95% of the time, by tracing my steps back to the original decision I was trying to make- often something small and inane- and then troubleshooting from there. (out loud! verbal processing is totally punk.)
“what was I trying to do?”
“was I trying to decide between two things?”
(the answer’s usually yes.)
“what were they?”
“okay, let’s decide.
“okay, that’s settled. let’s move on.”
and then I am free as a bird to nyoom in the direction of The Thing I Wanted To Do All Along, in the amazingly disorganized, scattered, yet rapid-fire way that I do many things.
so!!! in the case of my first post, where I hadn’t showered for 2 hours? turns out I had been trying to decide what music to listen to in the shower. (another hack: my chances of getting Stuck while showering decrease by 75% if I have music playing to help me keep track of time.) I couldn’t immediately make up my mind, got lost in thought, got distracted, and drifted. once I stopped and asked- “why am I stuck?”- then I remembered- “oh yeah! I wanted to listen to music”- and then decided- “I want to listen to Daft Punk’s Discovery album”- I was finally heckin able to shower. and also eat, and also throw my clothes in the dryer.
and may I add I only zoned out once, during the slow part of “One More Time.” :P
I’m not saying this is a foolproof method. sometimes I don’t have a reason for being stuck, and that’s okay! I’m also not saying this is how every adhd brain works. it’s just how my brain works, and I’m sure there’s at least a few who can relate. for those few, I hope this helps!!
this is very helpful! phrasing it as “stuck” makes a lot of sense and gives a name to that horrible abstract feeling
this is long but 1000% worth reading
i’ve had issues with this for a while and it’s pretty much felt like an endless cycle with no escape– let’s hope this works for me and you guys too!
ad(h)d culture is being diagnosed and then thinking that ad(h)d is only about attention issues and living years of your life thinking you’re just weird until you finally do more intense research and realize that most of your problems are actually less known symptoms of ad(h)d
Or the alternative, being a girl with ADHD and not getting diagnosed until you’re in your 20s, having your diagnosis based primarily on the “less known symptoms,” and having your mind entirely blown as your psychiatrist just explains your entire life for you in like half an hour.