Recently I was talking with a friend and he asked about my health. I said that I have knee issues and probably have ADHD, which makes my life really hard. He proceeded to argue with me and say that my procrastination (et cetera1) is just the normal nature of being human and is not a health issue. After trying to explain that it is really killing me, probably because the many years of things that I’m procratinating have built up so much that I am completely crushed by it all. The weird thing is that this is the third friend who has reacted this way when I try to explain how hard life is for me. I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m looking for empathy and tips for how to exist in this world where I almost always feel like I am on the wrong planet.
A clue that it might be AuDHD rather than ADHD is the only time I’ve thought that “I have found my people” was when I was in mathematics graduate school.2 I still feel like those are my people, but unfortunately I’m no longer serious about studying or doing mathematics (but still love it).
Because of these unpleasant conversations with these
three friends,3 I’ve decided to no longer tell people
about this aspect of me
(unless they bring it up first
or
happen to
read
Terminology
- ADHD
- AuDHD
- Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
- Neuro
- merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neurodivergent
- wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity (includes discussion of the word “allistic”)
- merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neurotypical
- dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/allistic
Videos
- www.youtube.com/@ruriohama/videos
- www.youtube.com/@thepsychdoctormd/videos
- www.youtube.com/@HealthyGamerGG/videos
- (lots more will show up in your YouTube timeline after you look at the above three)
Symbols
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Neurodiversity_symbols
Mastodon toots tagged #audhd
Thanks to idotj's Mastodon embed timeline widget for making it possible to embed these toots.Endnotes
Inability to accomplish anything unless there’s a hard-core deadline, spacing out while in the midst of a conversation, leaving stuff out in my home because otherwise it’s out of sight and out of mind, searching for productivity tools and strategies, drinking caffeine and turning on lights to try to focus, etc. ↩︎
I read somewhere that a lot of people in academia are “on the spectrum” and realized that maybe that’s why I like academia and academics. ↩︎
These are close friends who I’ve known for decades and would probably do anything for me. They just do not believe there is such a thing as ADHD or AuDHD. ↩︎