OK, I’ve seen enough of these comments that I need to make the first rule.
Do not make condescending comments like “This is just normal things everyone does, not your self-diagnosed ADHD.” or “Everyone has ADHD now /s”
This is a meme community for ADHD people, not your personal soapbox. We don’t care why you think we find these relatable.
Making comments like these is causing those posting these memes to be discouraged, and dismissing their lived experiences. Don’t be that person.
Just for the record, not every ADHD person is the same. I don’t identify with all of these memes, nor do I think they’re all necessarily ADHD-related. But even as someone with ADHD, I recognize that not every reacts the same way and I don’t know all the possible symptoms of it. And If I, with diagnosed ADHD can’t know that, you, a random lemming, certainly don’t know either!
Likewise, if you find most of these memes relatable, you might have ADHD, or you might have Autism, or both! These two are close cousins, their symptoms overlap and they have a high comorbidity with each other. Relating too much with ADHD memes is a typical first step which led a lot of people to realizing they had it! Feel free to read up on the ADHD symptoms and get diagnosed if you think it’s currently affecting your life significantly.
That said, anyone making this sort of comments, is gonna get a one-week ban from this community for party pooping. If you want to complain that “everyone has ADHD now” or some shit, go do it elsewhere. Naturally we use common sense. It’s OK to ask questions in good faith.
As always, this is a “fuck around and find out” rule. We’ll know it when we see it.
PS: Since we added a new rule, I could also use some mods to enforce it. If any of you is up for this, lemme know. I will only add people who I’ve seen interact with this or other ADHD communities positively.
And here’s an extremely relevant meme to lighten the mood:
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Also should be underlined that ADHD is sometimes called an “invisible handicap” because a lot of the symptoms are just much worse versions of things neurotypicals deal with too.
Example: everyone can have trouble motivating themselves for a task they’re not passionate about. With ADHD’s innate dopamine deficiency,it can be literally impossible without proper coping tools and/or meds, sometimes no matter what.
A possibly useful analogy would be that sometimes the hill that someone neurotypical has to climb is a mountain for someone with ADHD or similar challenges. Not every neurotypical person understands that their hill can be a mountain or that the person with ADHD can only scale it with the right tools, guidance and a lot more effort.
a lot more effort
I want to highlight this part. Part of the executive dysfunction is that intrinsic rewards don’t feel rewarding OR reward too much.
Filling out paperwork can be a short 10 minute task, but nuerotypical individuals are rewarded with a small dopamine hit for simply finishing it. I don’t get any. So anything else that is slightly more interesting captures my attention and energy. In my experience, I get a dopamine hit for avoiding the boring mandatory thing, not so much whatever the thing distracting me is. This quickly snowballs out of control and a 10 minute task took all day.
Likewise, things that are very interesting to me (video games, hobby stuff, the Wikipedia hole) can trigger a lot of reward and I end up hyperfocusing.
Adderall helps by reducing the power of those interesting things and increases the reward for doing mundane things.
I’ve given this some thought, because I do seem to get satisfaction out of completing tasks, but no motivation to start them in order to get the finishing satisfaction. Or giving up half way through a task when I’ve lost interest. On the other hand, avoidance leads to adrenaline, and that gets me moving. I think that’s where the neuro compensation lies. Not the lack of satisfaction that the task is complete (although mostly I just feel relief not satisfaction), it’s the adrenaline replacing the dopamine.
Yep. Procrastination and then completing whatever the task was gives me the craziest “high.”
I’m not an adrenaline junkie, I will not parachute, or bungee, hanggliding is out, hell I have a rough time on boats and planes.
But Procrastination is the best when it works out.
Oh no. That explains it. I’ve got 15.5 hours to submit two masters level papers in a language foreign to me. I’m halfway through with one of them and… here
Update: I got one done but not sent, I’m going to engage in shenanigans regarding the other My fiancé’s feeling very overwhelmed by the stress I’ve been radiating since yesterday morning. I’m going to send them, have a drink, and go to bed in preparation for the second paper tomorrow.
My dad would always say things about how getting these small tasks done should feel good. They just make me tired and anxious because I can’t focus on them to finish quickly
Yeah, that sounds like my experience too, including the games and Wikipedia parts lol. I stay away from TV Tropes completely 😁
Can we somehow ban these types of useless comments from real life too? Because I get them all the time and it’s annoying as fuck. I basically comprise a list in my head of people I will no longer talk to about my personal struggles because they find a way to make it about them.
If I have to hear another random person say “everyone is diagnosed with ADHD these days”…
The problem with ADHD imo is that it’s studied surprisingly poorly so diagnosis is a crapshoot.
Like bloody hell I was told at a young age “You have ADHD, take these pills” then years later it was “Wait no misdiagnosis you have Autism not ADHD stop taking pills” and it fucked me up hard
And only recently the doctors figured out you can have BOTH ADHD and Autism and guess what I had both.
Not me taking a dig at other people with ADHD, I just think the diagnosis system is a dumpster fire because of stuff like the aforementioned “Autistic people can’t have ADHD” which fucked me up for YEARS.
Sorry I just needed somewhere to rant/vent about my own problems tbh
honestly the diagnosis system is rancid even at a surface level, oh okay i have one too few symptoms to qualify guess i can go fuck myself and will the other symptoms away then
Do you welcome adhd-symptoms people too ? The specialist I seen told I wasn’t adhd ‘classical’ as my symptoms was too weak before my long-term (until death) disorder made them worse.
We welcome everyone, even if they don’t have ADHD. I just don’t want people to be putting down others in the comments
Hello there! I’m feeling called out here as I made one such comment a couple days ago.
Even though I did ask what was special about those things and complain about self diagnosed people, I hope it was clear that I did so out of genuine curiosity rather than trolling or whatnot.
I also wish to tell you that the community’s answers - implying, as you do here, that I may relate because I also suffer from adhd or related - got me intrigued enough to start digging and I am now on track to proper clinical triage, as if confirmed that would explain a lot about my life, and if confirmed and treated it could be one of the greatest turning points of my adulthood.
So my point - those comments may not be all aggressive and maybe a ban would be a disproportionate response (it would surely have had a wholly different effect on me). Perhaps you could consider a link to this post instead (think automod linking to faqs on Reddit?) and using bans in case of clear offensiveness and recidivism?
No it wasn’t about you. The people acting like this have received a ban. Your comments were ok as it was curious you had an open mind.
I am very glad this lead you to a breakthrough. This is why ADHD memes are so important.
Yo, the db0! Good to see that you feel strongly about this and are (imo) on the right side of the discussion.
I recently joined this place and this post makes me very optimistic about it.
Have a good one
When did I become notorious enough to earn a “the”? 😅
Good question! I have read about your instance a couple times I think and that kind of makes you a small celebrity in my book. :)
I can mod. I just need clear and specific guidelines and instructions.
I died a little Inside when even my doctor said we all have a little autism.
I don’t do a lot of commenting but I just wanted to say thank you for putting your foot down on this. It is incredibly disheartening to keep hearing stuff like that. It discourages people from sharing and learning. It dismisses people’s lived experiences and troubles.
Personally I started to have suspicions about a year ago and it wasn’t due to these memes. It was due to real struggles I am having. I hit rock bottom and just got fed up with my crap amd was finally done running from my problems. I never self disgnosed but i atumbled upon an rlarticle o. Adhd when i was trying tonfogute out why inwas so much fail and it resonated so i started reading and then found these communities which I did relate too way to much. And now as of about a month ago I have a diagnosis. The memes did help encourage me to seek help but they where not the sole reason.
Anyways, if someone relates and it encourages them to seek help I see that as a win even if it turns out they don’t have adhd. And even though many people frown on it “self diagnosis” is a first step for many in seeking an official diagnosis. I really don’t understand this mentality of people dismissing ADHD or gatekeeping it. It’s not like people just want to have ADHD. People are here because they either have it, a loved one has it or they may have suspicions.
I just felt like I wanted to say something because this stuff has really been bothering me. Thabk you for trying to keep this a safe space for us all. Much respect.
