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bpd trash

@borderlinebeau / borderlinebeau.tumblr.com

kaley. 27. california. she/her.
main blog: @juptierre
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theprideful

why autistic/adhd people may not ask for help

  • i’m not sure where to start and i don’t even know what questions to ask that would help me understand any of this
  • i want to ask you but i’m deathly afraid that you will hate my guts and resent me forever
  • i feel stupid and embarrassed for not knowing/understanding this
  • i wasn’t paying attention/i zoned out/you were talking too fast while going over this
  • “oh my god are you serious? it’s obvious, weren’t you paying any attention?” thanks for confirming i’m as stupid as i feel, appreciate it
  • i forgot about this deadline and i should’ve done it sooner but now it’s too late and awkward to say anything
  • your criticism will cast me into despair
  • i have no idea how to articulate my concerns so i will sit here silently until i can
  • i feel horrible about not doing it and not asking you initially and so i’m avoiding talking about it in the hopes that i will miraculously and suddenly understand it instead of doing the walk of shame to your office and risking the chance that i’ll piss you off and ruin your night
  • i’m working up the confidence to ask you
  • i’m formulating in my head a way to ask that doesn’t make me sound like i didn’t care enough to do it sooner, and that i actually have the willingness to do it, and that doesn’t place any blame on anyone except maybe me

autistic/adhd people feel free to add on! obviously this will vary from person to person, but this is my personal experience as an autistic and adhd person. if you’re neurotypical, please don’t try to offer tips for how to get around this because i can almost guarantee it will not be helpful :)

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Here’s the thing. Practical self-care, such as showering, feeding yourself, talking a walk, cleaning your space, getting rest, ect. will not solve every problem you have. Especially the big, serious ones. But it will solve a ton of smaller problems that are building up, adding to your stress, and using the energy you need to cope with those big serious problems.

You can feel as awful as you want, just eat a sandwich first.

Those tags are AMAZING. Someone finally identified what felt so hard about this to me. It ISN’T a victim complex. It’s an expression of profound frustration and pain.

The un-fun self care is really no more than this: giving the “soft animal” of your body (thx Mary Oliver) what it needs to survive. To take actions to give it the basics, so the body itself feels a little better. That alleviates enough some days to feel pretty okay.

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having a genuinely garbage memory might not be the worst part of living with ADHD, but it may be the most embarrassing

"look, i'm genuinely sorry that i've apparently had this exact same emotional breakthrough with you two times, but also: i am having it again right now"

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podsolfairy

with adhd/autism it’s funny like. people will call you weird all your life, people will bully you for your “outlandish” behaviour, people will criticize literally everything you do as “not normal”, BUT THE SECOND YOU GET DIAGNOSED (or suggest you might have it) they’re like “huh what but you’re so normal, you’re literally the most normal person I’ve ever seen, you’re literally so normal and absolutely nothing is wrong with you? why would you have that now all of a sudden???”

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adhd is so embarrassing ur basically like “I have to have fun right the fuck now or I’m throwing myself off the roof” 90% of the time and you also have very little control over this

This was the single most important thing for me to start understanding re: my undiagnosed ADHD, and it's the thing no one tells you except other ADHD sufferers. My brain's reward system is so broken that boredom rapidly becomes indistinguishable from a depressive episode. There's no healthy, normal ability to experience something as simply being a little dull--as soon as my brain isn't getting regular hits of stimulation, I start clawing at the walls. This is what makes working in a structured environment and initiating tasks so difficult for me, not malice or other character flaws.

boredom rapidly becomes indistinguishable from a depressive episode

Oh my god. Thank you for this. This explains it PERFECTLY. Growing up neurotypical people were acting like doing something boring was a minor annoyance and I couldn't grasp that because it was a Whole Fucking Thing for me that included physical pain in my chest.

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portiaadams

Hi I was today years old when I realized some people truly don’t have to think about every single thing they do. They don’t have to have an imaginary set of rules (I’m not allowed to put on my bra until I’ve brushed my teeth) to function.

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akindplace

These are a compilation of tweets I found and saved on my phone as reminders for when I feel like I need to feel validated or reminded that I am a worthy person no matter what and I thought you guys might need those too (part 5)

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thoradvice

tips to get your life back on track after a breakdown™

  • sleep. your body needs to rest. the average panic attack takes as much energy as running a half-marathon. let yourself rest. take a 20 minute nap. any longer and you’ll hit your REM cycle, and you’ll wake up worse off. after, you’ll feel so much better.
  • clean something. literally anything. a plate, a drawer, the whole mf bathroom. it doesn’t matter how much or how little. it’ll make you feel more in control, and it’ll make your surroundings more appropriate for recovery.
  • get some fresh air. even just opening your window for a few hours will help. if you feel up to it, take a walk. take your dog. pick some flowers. cloudgaze. even just sit in your garden for a bit. your body will thrive off of non-stale air. 
  • eat and drink. I know for some people, myself included, this is Hard. it’s alright if all you can manage is a granola bar, or some cereal. anything is progress and will fuel your body. drink water if you can, but anything apart from alcohol will hydrate you.
  • take a shower. I have clinical depression. have done since I was 12. I know how hard it is to take a shower. but it fucking helps. if you don’t do anything else off this list, do this. it’ll help more than you know.
  • talk to someone. I can’t stress this enough. humans are social creatures! we crave interaction. even the most introverted introvert needs to talk to someone. call your mom. text a buddy. skype your brother. chat to your local cashier. anything !! you’ll feel less alone, and hopefully get some good serotontitty flowing.
  • do something fun! same as above, it’ll make u feel so much bette, and provide a distraction. some good options are writing, drawing, watching a movie, dancing - anything you enjoy!
  • be kind to yourself. it’s okay if you relapsed, or if you had a bad day, or anything else. treat yourself gently. you wouldn’t so harsh to a friend in your situation. it’s gonna be okay.

if you can’t do all of these, it’s okay. there are better days ahead. this, too, will pass.

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Ok so I've found a way to describe what Neurodivergent Can't Do Task Mode™ feels like to neurotypicals

So you know how you can't make yourself put your hand down on a hot stovetop? There's a part of your brain that stops you from doing that? That's what Neurodivergent Can't Do Task Mode™ feels like

Even if we want to do it, there's a barrier stopping us from doing it, and it's really hard to override

And why does our brain see the task as a hot stovetop? Because when neurotypicals finish a task, they get serotonin, but we don't get that satisfaction after completing a task. A neurotypical wouldn't get serotonin from putting their hand on a hot stovetop, it would just hurt. When we can't do a task, it's because our brain knows that the task will hurt (metaphorically) and wants to avoid that.

It's not that we're choosing not to do the task, it's that our brain is physically preventing us from doing it.

Neurotypicals can and should reblog but please don't add anything

(Sorry/not sorry about the random bolding, it makes it easier for us to read)

Oh that’s a great example. It’s not even really a metaphor in some cases. Because this is exactly what some of our brains are doing. For one reason or another the brain thinks that the task in question is dangerous or harmful and the mechanism keeping us from doing it is a survival mechanism.

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ms-demeanor

I am but a horse rearing away from a suspicious paper bag while neurotypicals laugh at me for reacting sensibly to environmental threats.

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i say ‘anyway’ and ‘so like’ to start sentences the entire day as if i were havin the same conversation even though i am speaking to totally different people and the truth is i am having one conversation it is just a constant dialogue with me and the universe and whatever victims it offers me

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adhd is basically just stepping over that one thing you’ve been meaning to put away for 6 months for you’re entire life.

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In one of my ADHD groups, a question about motivation and inability to start came up. This is one of the comments:

"Mel Robbins (who is also ADHD) talks about 54321-go. She wrote a whole book on it, but its mainly as soon as you think of something or have / want to do something, you count down from 5 to 1 then MOVE YOUR BODY TOWARDS WHAT EVER IT IS YOU NEED TO DO before your brain can talk you out of it. There loads of neuroscience why this works and before I was diagnosed I used this technique all the time. From getting out of bed, to getting a shower, to reading, stopping scrolling, stopping watching tv to literally everything if I needed to. I still do. It really helps me. And like you say, once you get started its okay, and then the dopamine kicks in. She did a talk on it, I think if you google it will come up. Also, tyrosine and theanine is good for me too. Hope this helps."

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I looked it up and I'm going to try it.

https://kaizenlife.org/2018/01/20/the-5-second-rule-54321-go/

Tried this before I even finished reading it and now I am out of bed

Good news, it worked on me too.

Now I have something to measure against executive dysfunction, chronic fatigue, dyspraxia, hypertonia, etc. If I do the countdown, twice, and I still can't move, I can focus on the physiological disabilities to see what else is impairing me.

I'll give it a try. 😅💖

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air-so-sweet

hot adhd tip: if you are being productive and shit and you want to continue being productive DO NOT SIT DOWN. "oh im gonna take a five minute break and get back to it-" no you wont king. you will automatically lose all motivation the second you sit down.

Truth in satire.

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