The night I was born, the attending nurse turned to my mother with a weird expression on her face. She noted that I had long delicate fingernails, and already a head of black hair; that a trail of fine baby hairs ran down my spine. “In the old days, you know, they’d have said she was a werewolf.” she told my mother. Mom, exhausted, laughed it off. It became a family story to tell later on–born on Halloween night, and a werewolf to boot! “In the old days,” Mom would laugh, “they’d have drowned you.”
It didn’t become a bitter story until she disowned me for being queer. “Why can’t you just choose to be straight?” she said. “I did. Why do you feel like you have to stand out like this?” In the old days, they would have drowned me. Now I had to find a way to keep my head above the waves.
In Hal Schrieve’s YA novelOut of Salem, everyone is treading water with a secret to keep. High school freshman Z’s just found out that they’re nonbinary–just in time to get into a car wreck with their entire family from which only they emerged, battered and freshly undead. Their classmate Aysel is Muslim, in 1990’s rural Oregon where anything but Christianity is a sure way to be ostracized–and she’s a werewolf, unregistered, which could easily be a death sentence if she gets caught. Their friend Tommy is constantly being accused of being either gay or an actual fairy, and while neither of those things is true, it doesn’t matter to his abusers. Even seeming just a little bit out of the norm is enough to put a target on his back.
ADHD is cool because my inability to choose between two cereals made me almost cry in a grocery store
alright so this is a pretty simple statement, as in there’s not a lot said, it’s not three words, so I’m gonna try and make my reply as short as possible.
So, I have ADHD, and a part of ADHD is emotional dysregulation. It’s really difficult for me to regulate my emotions/my emotional reactions, in other words.
When I can’t choose between two types of cereals, it stresses me out and, unlike neurotypical people, I am unable to stop that stress from snowballing into anxiety, panic, and a general sense of dread. It’s a weird response, for sure, but it’s my response, and it’s how my ADHD manifests.
It’s not the poster-child of ADHD, it’s not a situation people will point to and say, “That is typical ADHD behavior,” but, y’know, that’s okay. It’s my ADHD behavior, and I define it that way because I know my ADHD and I know how it affects me.
Indecisiveness is a common problem for people with ADHD. Obviously each ADHDer has their own unique experience of the disorder, but this struggle isn’t unrelated to the disorder and clearly it resonates with a lot of us. And that makes perfect sense. Let’s think about it.
Impulsiveness: You might think this symptom would make it easy to make an instant decision but when you are confronted with a ton of options it actually it can be much more like realizing you want a bunch of different things and now it’s harder to pick just one. Wow that option looks exciting I really like the sound of that… But this is an old favorite of mine and I’ll miss it if I go with something else… And I’ve always wanted to try that thing will I regret it if I don’t?… I want so many things but I must choose only one and now I’m confused
Hyperfixation: ADHD is largely due to an inability to regulate focus. Which means we can also get really focused on something for a prolonged period of time. Such as the pros and cons of several options. The chicken is good but I had chicken for lunch, pasta could be good if they hold the capers, I haven’t had chili in a long time but I don’t know whether it would be really spicy here or not. On and on and on. Well past when others are done we still are thinking through every little thing.
Difficulty Planning: Without time blindness and with the ability to more readily form a long term plan someone who does not have ADHD may feel confident in deciding one thing in relation to others, reasoning that this falls in line with their long-term goals or for smaller day-to-day choices deciding that next week they’ll get the other option. ADHDers often live more in the moment, but we are aware of the future. It’s What do I want most now?…I want to go with what makes me happy, but what about the most practical option? What is the truly best option for me and how do I even tell? Thinking this through doesn’t come as naturally to me.
Low Self-Esteem & Self-Doubt: ADHDers almost universally have issues with their self-image from years of being judged for being different than everybody else. Naturally we begin to doubt ourselves and thus our choices. And many of us cope by trying to pretend we don’t care or by trying way to hard to please someone else, or both. This leads us to trouble choosing too. I’m so worried I’ll make the wrong choice and ruin everything like I always seem to do. I don’t trust myself so how can I make a decision?...What makes the most sense in order to fit in with the culture? I have trouble figuring this out sometimes. Will I look silly if I do what I love?… I want to make everyone else happy, everyone has their own preferences, but deep down I want something totally different. I’ve got to make sure everyone is pleased with me I hate being a disappointment. I’ve got to make the absolute best choices for everyone on everything. I’m stuck because it’s nearly impossible. And what about that thing I like just this once, but no. Or maybe. Well I guess everyone likes this generic thing. Wait no, Dave said he thought it was gross. Ahh! This choice reflects on me and I must make sure it is excellent.
All of that is plenty stressful without having to deal with emotional dysregulation and low stress tolerance. But ADHDers frequently deal with those symptoms as well.
Emotional Dysregulation & Low Stress Tolerance: The pressure of a situation where you know a choice must be made can be a lot. And after a long day, or in a stressful environment like a bright store or crowded restaurant, or in front of people that you like and want to think highly of you, or for a whole host of other reasons you can end up feeling all !!!!
PETA: They’d rather spend their money on publicity campaigns than on the animals in their care. PETA killed 73.8% of the animals in their care in 2015 (x)
FCKH8: Is a for-profit company that exploits oppressed groups for money. They’re also wildly uninformed, and spread misogyny, cissexism and bi/panphobia, as well as stealing their posts/designs (x)
Autism Speaks: They spend most of their money on researching a way to eliminate autism, heighten the stigma against autism and don’t have a single autistic person on their board (x)
Please support other, better charities, and feel free to add any others you can think of to this.
Susan G. Komen for the Cure: CEO makes insane amounts of money, they deny a lot of requests for wigs/help with treatment/etc., and have attempted to sue other charities that use the color pink as part of their anti-breast cancer campaign. ( xxx )
The Salvation Army: They promote the hatred of LGBT+ people, work with fundamentalist Christian groups to support conservative politics and rip off and exploit workers. ( xxx )
Wounded Warrior: They take money that should be spent on veterans and blow it on huge opulent parties for the company bigwigs. 26 million in 2014 alone wasted! ( xxx )
^ Important reminder to NOT waste any money donating to these groups
Reblogging because of the added info about Wounded Warrior.
A good way to know if a nonprofit you’re donating to is allocating their money in the right way is to check out their Charity Navigator rating: http://www.charitynavigator.org
Signal boosting, the bell ringers are out in force, and this info is too important.
ah yes, tumblr is “banning porn”, you know, “““porn”““, like that one time they had their bots tag basically all lesbian and trans blogs as ““““““porn”““““. i truly trust the clowns who run this website to not literally fuck this up in the most heinous way imaginable while desperately begging for apple to restore their shitty app
Cannot recommend WDHDT highly enough. I’ve found it helpful not just for romantic relationships, but also for growing up w a “unexplainable/uncontrollable” dad.
IT HAS ALSO BEEN REALLY HELPFUL FOR UNDERSTANDING ONLINE MOB HARASSMENT.
So if you’ve ever been bombarded w threats to be raped/killed, (so…if you’re a minority and you’ve been on the Internet for a while), this book might be useful for getting clarity around the whole entitled, abusive mindset that drives certain kinds of people to behave that way. And by “getting clarity”, I mean (for me) being able to go “oh, that’s what’s happening” and not really feel scared anymore. Or angry, or drawn out into it, or anything.
And if you’re still standing around going “but how does something like GamerGate happen?” or “but why do men hit their wives?” or whatever – please read that book and learn something.
^^^^ truth WDHDT is fantastic at cutting down MRA bullshit and calling it what it really is
Please consider reading these. WDHDT is really, really helpful. And I know some of you are struggling with abusive relationships, friendships, families, etc. You’re not alone. There is help.
Yo. This family holiday, please, please take care of yourself. You aren’t there to be anybody else’s cushion.
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents
Reading any of these books does not mean you don’t love your parents or family. It’s just self care for helping you cope and not repeat the behaviors.
All the books in this thread are great; adding this one because it was the most helpful to me. Free pdf here
toxic parents is the book i checked out from the library last january that REALLY SINCERELY helped kickstart my road to recovery. even if you are not a victim of abuse, they are invaluable reasources, but help pass them around so people who have been abused can have access to material that actually, genuinely, sees them and provides them with concrete help
ForLoveFromFear 