Reddit ADHD Snippets

Let me unpack some of the subtle and vicious ways ADHD undermines our relationships

Before we dive in:

This might get uncomfortable. I’m unpacking some deep stuff here. If you’re in a really sad place, I suggest coming back when you feel better <3
All of this comes from my experience. That means that I’m painfully aware of how this feels. It also means this might not describe you and your experience.
I share this to help people suffer less. If we understand what’s going on, we gain power to change it. But understanding these things sometimes hurts too. I’m with you, we’re in this together!

So what about ADHD makes relationships especially hard?

tl;dr: ADHD cripples the part of our brain responsible for social interaction.

ADHD cripples a part of our brain called the prefrontal cortex (also called the frontal lobe).
To quote Wikipedia: “This brain region has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behavior.” [source]

But what does this look like in practice?

Social incompetence fuels shame, abandonment issues, and codependent tendencies.

Growing up, I didn’t understand when I said or did something insensitive. This sent my peers strong signals that I am an unsafe person, so they backed off.
This confused me, because nobody told me what I did. I began to feel ashamed of myself.
This also fueled fear of abandonment, which set me up for codependent tendencies: the few people who didn’t run away, I latched on to and smothered. Eventually they left too, compounding abandonment issues.
I suspect this is why RSD and ADHD often come together.

Inattention sends the message that we don’t care.

My ADHD-PI meant things like eye contact and thoughtful listening came very difficult. People understandably received this as I’m uninterested and don’t care about what they’re saying.
I would frequently interrupt people mid-sentence because I couldn’t wait long enough for a break in the conversation to say what I wanted.
I didn’t understand the rhythm of conversation, and I couldn’t remember what I wanted to say long enough to wait for an appropriate time. This feels insulting to the other person, who then withdraws.
The “common sense” people talk about — a lot of that boils down to instinctive observations that the frontal lobe handles. So without it, we miss out on all those subtle cues: body language, tone, word choice, facial expressions.

With ADHD, it’s easier to misunderstand people, and for them to misunderstand us.

Largely due to our crippled frontal lobe, it’s hard to identify exactly what we are trying to say, and what others are saying to us.
Relationships are built on clear, consistent communication.
Simple example:
- Wife: Looks like we’re out of milk.
- Me: I’m headed to the store today. [forgets to pick up milk]
- Wife: Did you get the milk?
- Me: [ashamed] no, I never said I would pick up the milk. [technically true!]
- Wife: Yes you did! (sigh) [she reasonably inferred from my first reply that I would pick up the milk, even though I never said it directly]
- [argument ensues]
Another example: My wife and I start talking about what we’re going to do this evening. We discuss several options, their pros/cons, and how things might work out. In all the conversation, we never actually, conclusively settle on what we’re doing, and each of us walk away thinking we agreed to a different plan. That evening does not go well.

Disorganized, impulsive, and unhygienic people seem unsafe.

Of course, they don’t know we’re that way because of a neurological condition. But it triggers the same instinctual avoidance.
The worst part: it’s understandable. I wouldn’t want to hang out with the 8-year-old me, who brushed his teeth once a week and rarely washed his hands after using the restroom.
Our impulsiveness may seem dangerous to others, so we might get labeled as “bad kids” early on.

Flaking out breaks trust and puts people off.

Again, understandable. If I’m late to the third date in a row, she might reasonably assume I don’t really like her.
Worst of all, it breaks my trust in myself. If I can’t trust myself, I can’t trust anyone else, and relationships are built on trust.

We can’t process conversations in real-time, so we look awkward.

Since the part of our brain responsible for social interaction is crippled, we compensate with other parts of our brain that aren’t as well-adapted to the role. This means we can do it, just not as fast as everyone else.
This means we often can’t say what we really mean, or pause awkwardly, or suddenly lose our train of thought.
This often leads to public shame and bullying, worsening our fear of social interactions.

We can’t muster the patience and energy to maintain social norms, so we seem careless or cold.

We have a hard time with anything that takes focus, but doesn’t produce short-term reward. Many social norms fall into this category.
For example, my grandparents frequently reminded me how much they would have appreciated a thank-you card for the countless Christmas/Birthday checks they mailed me.
People like kind surprises, gifts, notes, etc. All of this takes executive planning that we often lack.

Social success depends on the ability to plan ahead, which we can’t.

Most functional people need to plan things out ahead of time. But if we can’t keep a schedule, we effectively exclude ourselves from these gatherings.
If we do attend them, we may arrive unprepared, fueling embarrassment.

We may come across easily frustrated because we can’t focus.

I didn’t realize until I started treatment that I become angry when I’m overwhelmed with stimulus.
Inability to filter out noise is just another way of saying inability to focus.
When I can’t focus, I get angry, which sends the wrong message to whoever I’m talking to.

We usually come across as mostly normal, so people don’t treat us with the same compassion they would if we had other handicaps.

Down’s syndrome, Parkinson’s, and other handicaps send clear signals to others that often provokes a compassionate response.
People with ADHD, however, appear normal enough, so we don’t trigger that same compassion. They assume we should be able to plan, focus, and wait, so when we don’t, we incur their judgment. And our own.

Dealing with ADHD takes time and focus off developing our own identity.

Ever hung out with someone who just goes along with what everyone else wants? Who never has an original idea or opinion or interest? Not very fun to be around. That was me.
Healthy relationships take healthy people. Healthy people have developed their sense of preferences, likes, dislikes, hobbies, etc. These become the common bonds that hold people together.
For many reasons, we often don’t ever have the time and space to develop these things. We never truly become a person. And it takes people to form relationships.
Developing identity takes time, money, energy, planning, focus, and support — all of which we frequently lack due to ADHD’s effect on our whole family system growing up.
For example: If I can learn guitar, I build self-confidence, and a skill that builds bridges into relationships. I can start or join a band, play for family, release stress, and boost my attractiveness to a mate. But learning guitar takes focus, attention, and dedication that ADHD robs me of.

Not understanding why all this happens, or what to do about it, compounds into shame.

When people encounter this kind of behavior, they often don’t know what to say or do, other than back off.
This means we lack critical insight into what’s causing these suddenly-gone relationships.
This means we feel powerless to improve things.
This means we lose hope, and accept the idea we are broken in some unknown, un-fixable way (another way of saying: shame).

Shame devastates self-esteem.

Self-esteem is the basis for how we treat others.
If I can’t trust myself, and nitpick everything I do, I’m going to have a really hard time trusting and not nitpicking others.
If I can’t trust and constantly nitpick others, nobody will want to hang out with me.
Without self-esteem I retreat into all kinds of coping behavior that further isolates me:
- I might become hyper-critical of everyone around me as a way of drawing attention off my failures
- I might become codependent, desperate for validation and approval from others
- I might numb out into drug abuse, or other compulsive behavior like overeating, spending, gambling, risky sex, etc.

So what can we do about it?

This is my approach so far.

Get diagnosed and build a good treatment plan with help from a professional. Everything depends on this. It will take more time and effort than we all prefer, but nothing happens until this does.
Drown yourself in the facts about ADHD. This helped stop the shame cycle more than anything for me. You’re not broken in some un-fixable way. Your’e not a worthless incompetent loser. You suffer from a neurochemical imbalance that has decades of research and scientific backing. I found audiobooks therapeutic. Ned Hallowell’s books gave me encouragement early on.
Work on showing yourself kindness every day. Maybe that’s too much at first—start by trying not to actively berate yourself. Point out whatever you see yourself doing well, and make a big deal about it. End your day with journaling or private reflection on the day’s successes. Think small: I didn’t overreact to that stressful situation as bad as I did last time. I didn’t procrastinate paying my bills quite as long this month compared to last month. I spent 3 hours mindlessly online instead of 5. I made that one phone call I needed to.
Surround yourself with supportive people. Find a therapist, friend, pastor, CHADD group, or online community that understands your struggle and offers encouragement. Sometimes borrowed self-esteem is what we need until we can fuel self-esteem on our own.
In safe relationships, let them know what’s going on. For the people who would understand, you can tell them something like “hey, I want you to know my ADHD sometimes sends the wrong messages. If I come across as uninterested, distant, or angry, will you let me know?”
Celebrate victories. So you remembered your nephew’s birthday in time to get him a present? Get yourself a present too! Call your support circle and celebrate with them. It’s a big deal, even though it may seem laughably small. It’s not.
Write letters or emails. This slows down the social interaction to a pace that we can work better at. It’s not a total substitute for face-to-face connections, but it can help smooth things over and keep the relationship on an even keel.

How do I know whether my behaviour is due to ADHD or laziness?”

Laziness is saying, “Eh, I need to do this but I don’t feel like it right now, so I won’t.” It is a choice. It’s not a moral failing as such, though people often treat it as such. (Sometimes, it is perfectly ok to be enticed by a warm sunny afternoon and just bask in that rather than doing anything ‘productive’. It’s ALLOWED. We are not machines. Anyway, machines often get breaks too, to prevent overheating or to get maintenance or an oil change or to recharge its battery or what have you.)

ADHD is any of:

I want to do this. I am telling myself to do this. My body is literally not responding to the command.

I want to do this. I just have to finish this one thing here. Three hours later, I remember that I was going to do this. Whoops.

I want to do this. On my way to beginning to do this, I notice something else, often something small, that needs to be done and take care of it. Three hours later, I remember that I was going to do this. Oh well, at least fifteen other little things got done.

I want to do this. I also have thirty-seven other things on my list of things to do. I stare at the list, physically or just in my head, and am paralyzed trying to figure out what to do first.

I want to do this. However, I have tried and failed so many times (in all those other ways) that I have given up in despair because I know I won’t succeed at it. I’m not even going to try. It is the last one that, I think, has people thinking they’re lazy - it’s a choice, right?

But it is not laziness. It’s not a deliberate choice. It’s despair, even if buried so we don’t REALIZE it’s despair.

Laziness does exist, contrary to what a lot of people say - but it is a hell of a lot rarer than society has made us believe. And it isn’t always a moral failing, anyway.

Repeat this after me as many times as you need to: there is no such thing as being lazy or stupid. Those are made up concepts. They don’t exist. You’re struggling with productivity, and that’s okay and normal even if you DON’T have ADHD. Your worth and value as a human are not based on how much you get done, it’s based on if you’re a kind person who makes the lives of people around you better simply by existing and being yourself.

That being said, we do live in a society, and there are times when you NEED to get things done. That can be hard with ADHD. There are a lot of reasons ADHD makes doing things harder, but usually the biggest one is that your brain simply doesn’t work the way other people’s brains work. It’s like your brain is a PC and you’re trying to run programs written for iOS or make a smoothie with it or something. Of course your brain feels stupid and inefficient doing that, you’re working against what your brain is naturally good at instead of with it. The best thing you can do for yourself is start experimenting with different organizational methods and ways of doing things. Struggle with remembering appointments? Try a different calendar system. See if writing it down in a physical place helps, or if an app with little alarms built in is better. I work really well with visual cues and really poorly the more things I’m trying to hold in my head at once because I don’t have something external prompting me, so I use kanban-like systems for everything at work and in my personal life. Take time to learn these things about yourself and set up whatever it is you’re doing - school, a job, managing grocery shopping, WHATEVER - in a way that works with your brain rather than against it. What you’re probably going to find is that you’re actually a very, very hard worker who comes across as lazy because you’re working so hard just to exist day to day and you’re fucking tired. You’ve been going through the tutorial on boss mode. Give yourself permission to stop doing that and find a way to make your life easier. That’s not “lazy” or “stupid” or whatever word you’ve been taught to associate with that because people like to try and shame other people into doing things in ways that make them comfortable rather than caring about what doing things their dumb way puts other people through, it’s smart and it’s the best thing you can do for yourself.

Guilt factor. Most people who “aren’t getting things done” because of a mental issue like ADHD, Executive Dysfunction, depression, etc. are usually ridden with guilt for procrastinating the task, even if on the surface it’s a pretty simple task or even something for your benefit or enjoyment.

People who are genuinely lazy do not care about the consequences of putting the task off and will often willingly not do a task because it’s easier to just ignore it and just take the punishment or let someone else deal with the consequence. My sister was lazy and inconsiderate, so it was easier for her to never pick up after herself and allow her siblings to get screamed at for trashing the house, and I was usually the one that had to pick up after her if we wanted to avoid being grounded or screamed at because of my sister. She was the golden child, so it was always everyone else’s fault in my mom’s household.

“It’s so simple, why do I keep pushing it off?” “It only takes (short amount of time), why am I being so lazy?” “I HAVE to get the kitchen clean, I don’t want my parents visiting a disaster.” “I’m literally procrastinating eating dinner, something my body NEEDS in order to function, wtf is wrong with me?”

Worrying about the effect it has on yourself and others and still not being able to just “do the thing” is a telltale sign it isn’t strictly laziness at play. However it can become laziness if you consistently use “Oh it’s just my ADHD” to excuse putting something off constantly. You can only say “Ohhhh Silly Depression~” so many times before people won’t accept said Depression when you haven’t showered in 2 weeks despite numerous people telling you to please shower to the point they’re ready to catch you with the garden hose the second you walk outside, clothes or not, because you’re not caring about how you not showering is affecting other household members. This is personal experience from another sibling of mine that would say it’s their depression despite being begged to get a shower to the point I’ve locked him in the bathroom and told he’s not coming out until I hear the shower running for at least 15min. I get where people come from, as I have the same mental health issues, but I encourage people to never use it as a crutch to excuse behaviors that others can’t, because it becomes a nasty habit to break, and needs professional help at that point.

Not being able to properly express your feelings and thoughts is one of the worst and least spoken of disadvantage of AD(H)D:

I can expand on this if people start seeing it, but I thought I might try and help. As someone who’s generally considered a competent and sometimes eloquent intolocutor, a good trick is to “pull on a thread.”

You have 20 different tangents all pulling in their own directions.

Consciously focus on ONE question. Slow yourself, close your eyes and take a breath while you focus with your mind’s eye on the question: “What is the most important concept?” Or “what do I most need to communicate?”

Whatever the main concept that comes to mind, consciously focus on the END goal instead of the tangents. What do you want this person(s) you’re talking to to understand?

Established a starting concept and a specific end goal should help to focus your usual flurry of thoughts in a productive way. Instead of going everywhere, with some practice you may find your skittering thoughts mostly start to travel along the path you’ve laid out.

Pull the thread. Grab one of your thoughts from the starting point and quickly test if it’s going in the right direction, or even if you can see it to the end. When you find one that does, then start to talk along this line until you reach the goal. Every time you have to tie in a new thread, ask yourself whether it’s both necessary to include and can be said in a timely, succinct manner.

It’s okay to bring the conversation to a dead halt and continue when you’ve collected your thoughts while you learn to use the process. Eventually you’ll he able to navigate the process by instinct/feeling with much briefer pauses, or learn to incorporate the pauses into an effective communication style.

It takes practice to get the gist of it, but when you get a handle on it, it really feels like you’re holding the entirety of your thoughts in your hands, ready to pour them in exactly the way you want.

What ways do you mask?:

Idk how helpful this will be, but I’ll share my experience.

So before I was diagnosed, I had a lot of dissociation. I didn’t really put it together that I had adhd because for me, most of the hyperactive symptoms showed up in anxiety over performing social etiquette well, spiraling over emotionally distressing situations or when hormones were intense near my period. I was really depressed because there was just so much overwhelm in my brain all the time that I didn’t know how to process it.

That all being said, I’ve been in therapy for the past two years working on regulating my nervous system, IFS/parts work therapy (integrating conflicting parts of myself), and EMDR to try to heal the memories that have been haunting me and affecting my daily life. I’ve also been doing yoga for the past year. All of which had helped ground me and calm my nervous system and mind before I even started to consider meds. I also just got back into swing dancing, which really helps me get out playful fidget energy in a social and playful space.

I think on a mental level, I’ve been trying to just be patient and make peace with my mind for a long time. Just trying to accept how I feel, accept what comes up, and let it exist. I’ve always been a pretty sensitive and thoughtful person so it makes sense to me that I’d be up to practice that self care became a special interest of mine.

All that to say: -I have a get-all-my-energy-out hobby

-I have a grounding hobby (Both of which I schedule consistently so I don’t get stuck feeling gross and tense in my body)

-I accept that my brain does things and I can just observe it, I try to be patient with myself (My therapist said once, “thoughts can be true or untrue, helpful or unhelpful.” I don’t have to listen to all the thoughts. Some of them are trying to help but not all of them know how in a healthy way.)

-I don’t think I really expect a lot from myself either. And I think that’s mostly because I started my therapy journey when my mom died and that was such a “i have to accept that I’m not ok and I don’t have energy to mask” period of my life that I just had to accept who I was and where I was at.

-therapy also helped a ton.

To others ADHD looks like the “inconsiderate asshole disease,” but for us ADHD is the “Watch yourself being an inconsiderate asshole even though you really don’t want to disease.”:

I have time blindness, but my boss doesn’t know that, they just know I’m late for work everyday.

I have a shitty memory, but my family doesn’t know that, they just know I don’t keep my promises.

My sleep schedule is fucked, but my roommate doesn’t know that, they just know that I sleep till noon.

I’m lousy with dates and times, but my partner doesn’t know that, they just know I forgot their birthday.

There is a difference between intention and behavior, when people see someone behaving in a bad way they assume that person is doing so because they have bad intentions, it’s a logical thing to do, we ask ourselves “Would I behave that way? And if so, what would motivate me to behave that way?” and we come up with an answer, but it’s an answer that applies to us more than it applies to the person we’re trying to understand.

Allow me to try to put on neurotypical pants for a moment here: I’m your boss and you’re late for your shift, as always, I smile at you and think to myself…

Boss: “What is their problem? I care enough about my job to set an alarm, go to bed on time, get up on time, I don’t have an issue budgeting breakfast, getting dressed, showering, and driving, it’s easier than balancing a checkbook. In the 21st century there’s no excuse for being late, so either they don’t care enough about this job to get to work on time, or they don’t respect me [the boss -ed.] enough to show up for their shift when I need them, after all those are the only reasons I can think of that I would be late everyday. What an inconsiderate asshole!”

Our boss sees a behavior, in this case us being late for our shift, and then goes on to explain that behavior in the context of their lived experience and cognition… so unless they have a lived experience of ADHD they’re not going to have a context for understanding and explaining our behavior in a way that is true to us.

And yet, justifications, explanations, and rationalizations aside, we did still leave our boss in a shitty spot, even if our behavior wasn’t motivated by apathy or malice the fact remains that our behavior did harm or caused inconvenience to another person; we’re not blind to the consequences of our behavior, the injury we do, if anything we’ve got a front row seat for the fire.

What’s worse is that until we get a diagnosis, and sometimes even after the fact, we too struggle to understand our behavior. We don’t have the necessary context to explain why we behave the way we do, so in that vacuum of knowledge we listen to others’ explanations, if only because they do accurately explain and predict our behavior. Those explanations?

“Well let’s see here, you’re lazy, you’re stupid, and you refuse to change your behavior no matter how much harm you do to others… I’d say you’re a jerk. A lazy, stupid, recalcitrant jerk, to be precise. If you weren’t lazy you’d be working harder, if you weren’t stupid you wouldn’t make so many mistakes, if you weren’t a jerk you wouldn’t be hurting people, and if you were interested in not being a jerk you’d have changed yourself by now.”

So we hear their explanation and fill in our own blanks with it. Nobody else has an explanation for our behavior, no other explanation that we know of aligns as well with our behavior as “lazy, stupid, recalcitrant jerk” does. We take that explanation to heart and begin treating ourselves the same way that we would treat a lazy, stupid jerk who keeps hurting the people we care about.

This is the supreme irony of ADHD, or one of them, anyway, there have gotta’ be at least seven: When we hurt someone unintentionally we hurt ourselves, too, we beat up on ourselves for our behavior at least as much as others do, and so not only do we harm another person we have the temerity to feel depressed about it. “I really hate that I forgot to do the assignment” doesn’t ring true on our fourth fuck up, even though for us the fourth fuck up is four times worse than the first. The deeper we are into our ADHD the fewer and less people want to be around us, what’s worse in some ways is that their response is often completely understandable, rational, and justified.

If you remember every detail about your wedding except the date of your anniversary,you and your beloved are gonna’ have a bad time.

That’s it, that’s the post. In all outwardly demonstrable ways the Venn diagram showing my behavior contrasted against the behavior of an inconsiderate asshole is a single, atomically thin circle.

“A fool who persists in their folly soon becomes wise.”

I don’t like hurting people but I’m pretty fucking good at it.

I also have these sorts of problems, and I’ve found that it’s important to do these things once you recognize the issue.

Find a way to make it better, this can be as simple as having a calendar on your wall, or as complicated as a day by day planner or putting reminders and calendar notifications on your phone. I personally have any recurring event in my phone calendar, and it reminds me every morning for a week before the event. For important dates, it reminds me once in the morning, and once at noon. Any time someone asks me to perform a task, I set a reminder 30 and 15 minutes before I should do the task. If it is a large task that is done in segments, I distribute it out over time.

My partner got upset with me for not cleaning (for the 1000th time) today and it triggered a huge spiral of self hatred. I had no explanation for him other than being lazy and self-centered… which is truly not how I would describe myself, but I can’t go running to my undiagnosed ADHD every time I fuck up (4-5x a day, but sometimes more). I just fail so much and I really crumble when it starts to negatively impact others.

I hate hurting people so much. I can’t do promises. I literally say to people I love, I’ll try to do it but it’s possible I’ll forget. I’m putting on so much effort so as not to hurt other that in the end I’m forgetting to live. I’m so anxious about the mountain of things I need to do that I don’t even give myself free time. I feel all I do is apologize.

Tell the people in your life, “I know I have [problem], in an effort to make it better, I am trying [solution], I appreciate you being patient with me as I try to improve.

OP, please read this. I am 33f and got my diagnosis six months ago.

It helped me understand myself and it was so liberating to find out that I’m not a failure.

My mom once said “Well, people can’t be proud of all of their children in the end… Apparently.” referring to the fact that she is proud of my brother. He is my only sibling. My heart sunk. I’ve lived through the hell of not being able to be a functional unit of society and taking the blame for doing it intentionally even though THIS IS NOT THE CASE.

Getting my diagnosis helped me at least predict what I’m going to screw up in some cases and take steps in advance. People with ADHD have some skills though - like we’re better at finding shortcuts, we know when a conventional way of doing something is lame, and basically feeding off the rush of deadlines. Neurotypicals get stressed out in these situations. I am much more efficient at cleaning my home (however rarely that happens) than my family because I switch the purposes of products. Instead of discarding a favorite t-shirt that cannot be bleached and has a stain on a white part of it, I would just put toilet bleach gel only on the stain and my mom would be mindblown. Just an example. Yesterday we had a flood at home (rental apartment) and I handled it like a fucking pro while all of my neighbors (it affected the whole building) were running like headless chickens blaming each other. I put out a dumpster fire last week. Not going to lie, I love the rush of it.

In the same time, I lost my job because of always being late with assignments and “not willing to learn from my mistakes”. I would make the same mistake twice and would be labeled lazy and stupid to the point where I was fired. It was not for me. In the beginning, I was given a whole library of documents to learn from and it hurt to even think of opening it. Admin jobs are not for me, and I had to struggle with this my whole life so far because my parents pushed me into working in admin fields. Their argument was that those jobs are good for a woman who intends to have a family one day. And I wanted to be a vet or an ER nurse. Or a paramedic. Anything that requires dealing with crisis situations.

At this point I am jobless and have a degree in Economics. So what am I going to do? Well, this time I will bust my ass until I find a crisis handling job. I’ll even go through a course if needed. I am always late for events I don’t want to attend. It’s not even time blindness. It’s going into paralisys mode until it’s too late. Then a panic attack and then inventing a lie about why I am late. Because people always want reasons. As if a reason fixes a fact. I’m not allowing people to impose guilt on me for stuff like that anymore. I will sleep until I need to because in the end, the most important thing for me is that I am feeling alright and adequate in the end, and not what my stupid roommate will think. In a while I might not even live with that roommate (if I was in your situation).

In fact, I live with my fiance. He is neurotypical and he learns from me every day. It was extremely difficult in the beginning three years ago but he got to know me and found out that I’m not this way intentionally. Together, we looked for ways to deal with this and that is how I got the correct doctor and my diagnosis. He supports me and has my back in front of my family and he helps me concentrate on my good sides. We feel like superheroes together. If you don’t have a person like that in your life yet, you can still do it on your own. Just know that being late for work is not always a minor inconvenience for your colleagues. Sometimes it is crucial that you are on time. So even if that means you can’t do anything else before work because of concentrating on not being late, even if that’s the only thing you can do before work… Do it and don’t be late. Put your whole self in planning how not to be late for work on a particular day. Hyperfocus on it. Once you know what it takes, repeat. This does not mean you will be always on time. It means that you will be late fewer times in your everyday life.

Focus on one habit at a time and build yourself an educational course for fixing bad habits like that. I know they’re not habits but still. AND NEVER FIX EVERYTHING OTHERS TELL YOU TO! This is critical. Just because someone doesn’t like you walking on your toes around the house, if that is what you need to do, fucking do it and show them the finger. Same goes for sleeping in late and “wAsTiNg YoUr DaY” like this, fuck them. Find yourself a job that appreciates your abilities. Don’t aim only at “respected” fields. You might be a great restaurant server that helps their regulars have a better day. A builder, great at their craft, a chef, a taxi driver… Anything YOU would find rewarding. You take care of you. You owe it to yourself for all the years of self bashing because of stupid norms you didn’t conform to.

I truly hope this helps you realize our “perfectly regulated and scheduled” society is not so perfect after all. Just because you’re not like everyone else around you doesn’t mean you’re a failure.

Of course it doesn’t matter what your intentions are or who you see yourself as- other people will always judge you by your actions. I do not talk to my family and I forget about them all the time. Since I’ve moved out to California, many relatives have died and I have almost no concept of them. When I went home to see grandma there were many stories that I no longer remembered.

The big thing is managing expectations and being honest with other people. It’s OK to tell them “I won’t remember that,” “I don’t care,” or “no.” Normalize it now, no one’s going to do it for you. You don’t have to spend your life as a square peg slamming against a round hole trying to be like everyone else. If you don’t focus on your strengths and acknowledge (and be loud about) your shortcomings then no one will know who you are and they will think you’re just a dick.

You will lose at the neurotypical game. You are built for a more chaotic world where we need to focus on what’s in front of us. Go to the woods, you’ll notice every animal or weird rock around you. Even now in the digital world we’re better at pattern matching and upsetting our existing framework. Plan for who you are.

I’m sick and tired of being told I’m making excuses when I’m just trying to explain my thought process to people:

I hate when people ask why you’ve done something, so you explain it, then they say “that’s just an excuse.”

So I often tell people, “Sounds like you’re confusing an excuse for an explanation you don’t like.”

Written on September 18, 2024