tfw someone just steals feelings out of your brain and puts them to words : adhd

[–] [email protected] 5 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

While I have empathy, the reason we're in the state of recognising and intervening with neurodiversity is the work that educators, parents and researchers have done over the past sixty years. Pleae recognise this for the progress it represents.

People do the best with what they have and what they know. No it's not your fault. Neither is it your parents or teachers when they don't have the knowledge or tools to help them. There is a solid chance that they were as lost, frustrated and confused as you. Or they're simply shitty people..

In 50 years time there will be another condition that we don't know about now, for which we are not providing accommodation, which causes kids harm, that your kids will look back on and be absolutely shocked, like why the fuck was this ever tolerated and how could we not know. Obesity? Usage of social media? Assessment?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago

I wholeheartedly support this viewpoint.

I was diagnosed with ADHD at 38 and to say my life was a mess beforehand would be a massive understatement. Without making this too long, I’ve had between 50-60 jobs and would lose them from just not turning up if I couldn’t get out of bed or just being confrontational with people if they treated us like shit etc.

In the 3 years since my diagnosis and medication I managed to train to be a software developer and landed my dream job doing it for a living.

The horrible thing to think about is if I didn’t luck myself into working for Apple at the Genius Bar, I wouldn’t have been diagnosed. They gave free healthcare (UK, we have the NHS but mental health is underfunded and the wait times for things like this would be over a year). Apple literally changed my life; not just with the diagnosis, but with helping people see their potential.

The hardest part of a late diagnosis which still to this day it’s hard to let the past be the past, but it’s the what ifs, what if I got diagnosed earlier etc. the amount of money I’ve spent on weed, Xanax, coke, and messing about with friends (most of which likely have ADHD, due to being very similar and people in these drug circles all have that in common) I could have my own house and be set and only need to work part time (still done think I’m built for a 9-5 and still get depressed over the hours).

All this said, I don’t blame anybody for the late diagnosis. Like you say people were working with the knowledge they had at the time and although my issues perfectly aligned with ADHD and the content in this post, people just didn’t know enough back then and it is what it is.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Most of the drug users and smokers are above average intelligence. Most of the intelligent people are depressed.

Great job world.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yep. I've had substance abuse problems and severe depression my whole life. I've had people telling me I have "genius" intelligence but I can't do some of the most basic tasks like paying bills and managing finances and making any plans for my future whatsoever.

But I know quantum physics! Lots of use for that shit, right?? I can't count the number of job interviews where the hiring manager asked me about interactions between quarks and the strong nuclear force.

As an aside my therapist just diagnosed me as autistic, as a middle-aged man that's a whole basket of cats I don't know what to do with yet.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

My man I feel for you there so much it hurts.

Interviews in jobs suitable to my intelligence level:

"Wow that's quite some knowledge! But have you been doing only this and nothing else for 15 years with certified evidence of steady infinite progression with no stopping?"

Interviews for jobs I might have a shot at:

"So on your availability here I notice you said Monday through Friday but can I pull you for holidays and weekends on short notice anyway? We work hard and play hard like a family here heh heh...So what is your definition of 'solid gold standard servitude in worship of The Customer?'"

[–] [email protected] 111 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It took me ages to realise this. People with ADHD are always portrayed as lazy but they don’t struggle with hard work, they struggle with boring work. Before I knew I had ADHD I always found I was getting in trouble for not finishing boring work so I always used to prioritise tasks by how much fun they were and start with the most boring. I just ended up getting nothing done.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 2 days ago (9 children)

Then they also get mad when you find an easier way to accomplish the same thing in a fraction of the time or even automating it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

This is when you learn to just not tell anyone that you're saving time and pretend it takes as long as everyone else lol

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (4 children)

This reminds me of a punishment homework thing I was given in my youth, I had to write out something a bunch of times, which was a shit punishment to begin with and only happened once in like, grade 3 or something. Maybe even grade 1 when we were learning to write, idk. Maybe it wasn't a punishment (it felt like one).

Instead of writing the letter "i" at the start of every line like I was supposed to, I just put a long line down the page to be that letter on every line.

The only part of this that I remember to this day is that I got it back with that line circled in red and the word "lazy!" Written next to it, with points off of the assignment for it.

That's literally the only thing I recall about it, that finding an "easy" way to write the same letter across multiple lines was lazy, therefore I'm lazy and worthless. I don't even remember if I passed or failed it, because that was less important to my young mind than being called lazy for simply trying to optimize my working time.

I dunno, but at this point I kind feel like that teacher was a bit of an asshole.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 days ago (11 children)

"Why didn't you show your work, so I can see how you think?"

Because I did it in my head and got the right answer. This isn't about you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

Lol I hated this too, I really did. But like a lot of answers here, I can appreciate it somewhat now. Especially when trying to learn to code.

I think learning to break down problems might even be MORE valuable to people like us with ADHD, even if we hate it, because we tend to intuit our way through things by the seat of our pants.

Also sometimes I got really lucky and arrived at the correct answer in a bizarre and inconsistent way.

In the end, it's very valuable to be able to communicate your process to others. Even if it's irritating and awful to get through.

I also wonder if those like myself, who really REALLY hated math until my brain started to appreciate it in my adult years, just gnash our teeth at these memories because it made us feel stupid when we struggled to keep up with that slow, methodical raw-logic stuff...

EDIT: I can see you were the polar opposite of myself, ridiculously GOOD at math but found it a waste of time showing how you got there. That makes sense. I have zero idea what that's like lol.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 23 hours ago

I wouldn't have minded it nearly as much, had they not accused me of cheating on the exam. That sticks in the craw.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

It’s funny, because in high school, I remember getting poor marks on proofs - and HATING them - because I was like “this is so fucking obvious jesus tap dancing christ” and just… skipped lots of steps.

Fast forward to college and logic theory: that ended up being one of my favorite classes, because machine theory and problem reduction is a fascinating domain, and FAR more interesting than “prove this shape is the shape we say it is” or whatever vapid bullshit they had us doing in high school.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ok but forcing me to show my work was one of those things I hated until I was extremely grateful for it. I didn’t need to show my work to prove my answer was correct in elementary school, but it was a slow drift from “I can do it in my head with ease” to “I need to document my steps so I can check where the error occurred”. Also “it’s not enough to be correct, you need to be correct with evidence” is the reality for people who do math for a living

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Best I can do is lots of evidence proving I'm incorrect...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Better than no evidence

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (21 children)

The "show your work" is about checking if you understand the logic in getting the answer. We had lots of questions out of 5. Right answer was only worth 1 mark, the other 4 were the steps and reasoning. This type of setup punishes those that skip right to the answer, or have memorized answers. But rewards those that show they know the concepts

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 2 days ago (7 children)

Add the extra layer of my mother not appreciating my interests and thinking what I now do for a living was a waste of time... And a dash of expecting me to somehow just be able to perfectly do chores they never taught me how to do when I was young. Yes, this is the first time I've ever mopped a floor at 17 years old. How the fuck is that my fault?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Shit, sounds a lot like my mom. She always complained I never helped with chores, but she never asked or told me to do any. Worse, whenever I did anything, like washing the dishes, instead of saying "thanks", she would tell me to stop because she'd do it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

I remember this progress as a kid. Nothing was taught until after I did something wrong. It ended up discouraging me from trying, because every time I did something that I thought was "right," my mom complained about it.

At first the rule was "put dirty dishes in the sink."

Then when I put dishes in the sink, the complaint became, "Why did you put dishes in the sink without washing them?"

So then I learned to wash dishes, and set them in the drying rack. To which my mom would complain, "Why are there dishes in the drying rack? You should put them away."

Okay, so I washed and put dishes in the cabinets. "Why are the dishes all wet?"

...

How about teaching kids each step beforehand, instead of complaining that they don't magically know/do everything?

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