Take it from someone who thought they could educate their family into understanding: people who think it's fake have their minds made up. If they somehow have the capacity to change their opinion, it won't be because someone challenges their belief, especially not someone who they see as "looking for an excuse."
Strangely enough, because I have ADHD, if I need to pee really badly, I can still ignore it and go back to sleep. I’ll be in a bad way when I wake up hours later though.
It would be easier if I could get up to pee, but brain wants to stay comfy
I'm at the age for prostate/urinary tract issues, so it's best not to push things.
In fact, I'm already dealing with them on account of 40ish years of doing exactly what you describe, not just for sleep but for a wide range of activities and circumstances.
In the end I feel it's better not to hold it if you don't need to, whether or not one has a prostate to be concerned about. Those parts just seem to wear out faster...
That are the worst kind of people to be convinced, adults who have ADHD but don't want to accept it, they have all the biases to not believe ADHD is real, first of all nothing that you do is weird, it's normal to them, and even if theoretically it's weird they had all their lives to explain themselves that is normal because they wanted to believe they are normal. Second if you have ADHD then they do have ADHD too, so every point supporting "ADHD is real" is perceived as an attack. And third every single thing that is difficult with ADHD has been "solved" or ignored by them with a huge effort and somehow that means that you can do it too, if you get a diagnosis and get a magic pill that will solve it all* it means all that effort was useless, all the work they did to have a normal life was a silly effort, so no, adhd is not real and they are normal and shut up.
Most of my father's family have ADHD and a big part of them is like this, it's super weird
*Obviously I know it's not like that but they usually believe it is
I can slam a few Monsters at work and crash when I walk in the door. But if I drink redbull I’m up all night. Caffeine doesn’t affect me but all that Vitamin B in redbull sure does the trick! (Most of the time 😅)
That has nothing to do with ADHD , some people just react differently to coffee . Some get sleepy , some inatentive , some just get anxious but it's irrevelant if you have ADHD or not .
Caffeine is a stimulant which behaves much like other ADHD medications, just to a lesser degree. So while it's true some people react differently, it would be untrue to say it has nothing to do with ADHD because of that, when a rather large amount of people with ADHD have reported similair effects.
Make sure they see you do it, but drink a pot of coffee just before bed and then go to bed. In their mind that's impossible but nearly all of us can do it no problem.
"Man, I just cannot get a good night's sleep"
"You need to stop drinking those Red Bulls."
Oh my sweet summer child.
Also, though, fuck people that say this. You think I've never once in my life not had an energy drink in a 24-hour, or even 7-day period?
Is this actually true though? I don’t think I get very positive impacts from caffeine but it does impact my ability to sleep depending on when and how much I consume. I am not denying that for some people with ADHD it has little impact but I think you are pretty off in saying nearly all of us. I also do feel a bit confused by friends with ADHD who are drinking coffee in the PM and complaining about their sleep issues.
I don't think that's an adhd thing.
If you drink an espresso right before sleeping it will help you fall asleep because the firs short phase of coffeine is making you sleepy. If you wait too long, it will keep you awake.
I myself am like always tired so I don't care about the coffee, I can still sleep but my ticks will increase a lot when I drink too much.
For the longest time my mom believed I chose to "get" ADHD as a direct attack on her person. Even after a medical diagnosis and explanation.
Some people can't be changed
It's probably some weird form of subconscious projection, she did something stupid diet wise while pregnant, but said hope this doesn't effect the baby, you pop out with 10 fingers and the thought is gone, come 15 years later and some part of her soul remembers a sugar craze or something binge wise but her brain doesn't, so when you are diagnosed it's a "indirect" correlation she can't piece together.
Thc/nicotine/alcohol /(refined) sugar all can adversely effect a fetal brain. I wonder which one slips by in many modern cultures.
given the hereditary factors, there’s a good chance it’s also just the classic pattern of undiagnosed adhd parents in extreme denial. if you grow up believing people with adhd are spastic lazy idiot junkies and refuse to challenge that belief after it’s set in stone, then you’ll defend your ego by building walls in your mind between the reality of your symptoms and the label that fits them, and when your child who has so much in common with you does get diagnosed it threatens to tear those walls down
Your post/comment has been removed because it either contains, or is advocating for, misinformation.
Do not diagnose people you have never met. You do not have the education or the ability to ever diagnose someone you haven't met, and comments like this only serve to spread stigma and misinformation, leading to even further harm for those who need help.
I just want to say that this lack of understanding *can* change, depending on how stubborn they are. My parents are doubtful, each in their own way. They do believe I feel like there is something wrong, but they have this "just pull yourself together like everyone else" attitude.
Anyways, I started setting boundaries a couple of years ago. When they start to tell me how I am feeling (so basically gaslighting me I suppose) I tell them that **I** know how **I** am feeling and will not let them tell me otherwise. If they don't stop I just leave. Usually they throw a "ofc you run away like you always do" or something after me, but imo that's a temper tantrum and non of my business.
This actually works. At least for my parents, I'm sure there are lots of people who are to stubborn to actually listen and accept other peoples opinions. My parents still obviously struggle with accepting what I'm feeling quiet often, but they do (usually) give their best to be supporting nonethless.
I think part of it is that they realized that I am not trying to convince anybody with how I'm feeling and they did see quiet a lot how I'm suffering and they worry. So all that together with the set boundaries actually improved our relationship a lot.
Welp, this turned into a wall of text, I just wanted to give you hope.
When I try to leave my parents stupid behind they just follow me 😐
They have their own issues but because of those they decided that since they got through life just fine everyone can do it if they try.
So me failing is me not really trying.
And even when they listen they don't Listen. Once I stated 3 times in a row that I tried his "magical solution" of taking notes but it achieved nothing. My father nodded very understandingly and at the end once more told me taking notes would help...
Well at least he wasn't yelling or belittling me so progress?
Well have you tried eating healthy and exercising? /S
My mother used to do the same, my therapist then told me to just leave the house if I have to, maybe that works?
It hurts not to be understood by your own parents. Even if they only mean the best and think they are helping, it still hurts.
I can see that my parents mean well and they seem to understand a bit better how I feel now, but I don't think they'll ever truly understand. So I accepted that they may not understand me but as long as they are supportive, listen and don't try to push their ideas on me I'm happy with that. That's waaay more progress than I ever expected to be honest.
Sounds less like coming around and more like they've given up on convincing **you** that you're faking it. My family did similarly with very passive aggressive responses that I guess they thought would give the impression of understanding while still maintaining that the suggestion to "get it together" would actually help.
I just quit using the neurodivergent vocabulary and quit mentioning things that might elicit "helpful suggestions" from them.
I'm sure they are faking it at times, but if they can't actually believe me I'd rather have them constrain themself and fake understanding me instead of berating and belitteling me tbh.
The passive aggressiveness sucks though! My mother had an issue with something I said for a couple of months and she kept bringing it up and making snide remarks until I basically snapped. My comeback is usually along the lines of "yeah I can pull myself together and force myself to function as people seem to expect me to, but I'll be miserable and I'd rather not live than to live like this. So I'd rather not meet expectations if that's what it takes for me to stay alive." dunno, might be kinda toxic (?) but it's simply the truth that I've had to come to terms with myself.
Families can be so hard to deal with.
I don't consider the options of interacting with my family to be either condescension or fake smiles. I've taken the secret third option of not interacting with them (as much as possible). I completely understand the sentiment of being miserable to the point that dying is preferable, but for someone outside of this sphere, pulling the suicide card is extreme for what they can only understand as the "mild inconvenience of being slightly uncomfortable." If it works, it works, but before talking to anyone about it, I have to assess the other person's perspective to know how what I say will land.
Yeah very good point, the suicide card is hard to take back so it's better not play it without careful consideration. It does depend on the audience a lot.
if you have to expose yourself to that extreme to make a point, it’s definitely worth backing off, and if you imagine wanting to go to that extreme to make a point, that might be a sign they’re draining you even when you aren’t interacting. limiting contact is probably the only way to detach enough from them that you stop caring about the hope of winning them over.
i think, to be somewhat pessimistic, their response to the suicide card wouldn’t only be to accuse you of exaggerating and belittle you for feeling so strongly, but to use it as further ammunition—to argue that you’re unstable, you don’t know what you’re talking about, or even that you’re such a danger to yourself that you need to trust them and give them more control. i’m not at all saying that you would fall for such arguments—i’m absolutely amazed that anyone could be strong enough to enforce boundaries the way you do, and i wouldn’t even expect myself to fall for them—but if your goal is to simply get along better with them, feel more respected, and save your energy, it’s not a good can of worms to open. i don’t know enough about your parents to accuse them of necessarily being intentionally manipulative, but if they had an instinctive respect and sympathy for your experiences, they wouldn’t write over your experiences or be callous and selfish enough to throw a hissy fit over you leaving uncomfortable arguments even if it was “for your own good”.
I actually played the suicide card several times with them and it does work (at least for me). My parents aren't "bad" people, we get along pretty well, I just (used to) mask a ton (and still do but less) and they struggle to match my masked version with what I say about how I feel. I was always such an easygoing child apparently so it's hard for them to accept that holding up this easygoing version of me caused me so much pain. They feel guilty of not noticing how badly I was struggling
The first time I pulled that card caused my mother to pull the "well if it's that bad why don't you get yourself admitted to a psychiatric ward", probably expecting me to backpaddle. But that actually got me thinking and I ended up saying that I probably should look into that. We were both suprised by this I guess and both ended up crying. She was really supportive with getting everything arranged for me to go there. My stay there actually helped, not just because I got better (yay) but also because it made her realize that I do actually have to be very sick to get admitted for over 2 months and be put on medication.
My father was really shocked by that stay aswell, he just thought I'm kinda sad sometimes, not severely depressed. It took a couple more years until I got my AuDHD diagnosis and since then things are suddenly making so much sense.
oh, wow. very glad to hear you actually do have something there (and that you had a positive experience with psychiatric hospitalization—not something i’ve heard the best stories about even from other people who went voluntarily). here’s to your unmasking journey continuing to bear fruit!
if you think your parents do just need to adjust to your unfiltered self and re-learn what’s actually okay for you, one thing that might help is taking the initiative to touch base about it some time they aren’t agitated or dug-in. make it clear that you understand this is difficult and painful for them, and that when you assert your boundaries it’s for everyone’s sakes. let them heal that guilt by making sure they know you forgive them for not picking up on it, and be careful not to guilt-trip them about the continued rough edges, but no matter how distressed it makes them to see you in distress it won’t make anything better to step on your toes over it.
i really, truly hope this does work out for you. healing my relationship with my own father is something i can only dream of, and it is a sweet sweet dream… but assuming their intentions are pure, your parents still just uncannily remind me of his *intensity*. forgive me for the speculation, but your “easygoing” facade probably did develop at least in part because this is how they already reacted to your bursts of emotion even before that—not moderating their responses or their impulses, and accidentally teaching you not to provoke that for *their* sakes. given they were truly open to the psych ward (which i only got empty threats of, despite embracing the idea as you did), they might be receptive to introducing some kind of family therapist so you can all three get professional help together. you have your own battles to fight already, so there’s no shame in wanting an ally for this one
Honestly I am completely suprised by how positively my relationship with my parents developed, I always hoped and wished for it but after years of fighting with my mother and NC with my father I did not at all expect it to ever happen.
Funnily enough all of us started seeing therapists independently of each other, we all went for our own issues but it helped to improve our relationship. Well my parents still don't like each other but that's non of my business and they are NC anyways.
You actually were spot on with my reason to develop that facade. It was never an option for me to be anything but easygoing. I remember a intense convo with my mother a year ago, where she shared with me that she deliberately yelled at me at times, because it seemed like that's what I needed to get out of my rut. She was visibly shocked when I told her that this just made me pretend to by fine while actually feeling worse, just to avoid getting yelled at again. She genuinely though I just needed some though love and that she was helping me. She had no idea I was suicidal back then and tbh I'm suprised I'm still alive.
I do hope that you can find little ways to reconcile with your parents or to move on from that wish if there truly is no hope.
my mum recently sat me down again to tell me to „just try harder“. After harassing me for most of my child life and finally building strong bridge with me during adulthood years later it turns out she never quite changed her views, she just learned that id react poorly if she harassed me. I was legitimately baffled and disappointed beyond belief.
Well they will change their mind exactly because their beliefs were challenged. The problem here is that when said belief is challenged by someone they view as somewhat inferior or incompetent on the issue, it's most likely a lost cause unless you're extremely competent at defending and winning arguments, which most people aren't.
Hearts and minds are won over time, with good evidence and respect for their, no matter how flawed, point of view. If you just yell at someone that they're not correct you just give them more ammo to refute any of your claims.
I myself have to constantly remember this in order to get any kind of point across, because I have issues with emotion regulation and I often forget that something that's obvious to me may not be so to other people. Moreover they may have different opinions on controversial or other topics outcomes of which are not fully certain.
And all of that stability and control is actually a very hard thing to achieve. Especially for someone who struggles with mental health in any capacity....
Everyone is different, but I've found that being calm and concise does nothing for a recipient who thinks they know better. This is especially true for older folks who think "nobody had ADHD" in their day and even in some southern US cultures, citing sources and providing irrefutable evidence is seen as "getting smart" with them, which is condemnable and immediately invalidates your points.
Well, yeah. In your first words there is a key, I guess. I too found that citing sources is a very useless way of challenging one's beliefs if they don't receive science as a method of navigating life in general. With such people, I think it is much better to challenge them through language that they actually understand. Life experiences, anecdotes, memories of their past and their loved ones. Live examples, so to speak. But yeah, it's tough, as I said.
That might work—for some people. For me, learning of my diagnosis was hugely validating and reframed my past experiences from "I'm broken," to "I'm a square peg in the round hole of society." For others, looking back on their lives and their interactions with people that they previously considered to be within normal parameters and being asked to consider that they might have been wrong or mistaken about part or all of it, is too much. It's easier to say "it's always been this way," than to adopt any kind of progressiveness.
Yeah, I think my MIL expects my wife to be all Hunchback or in a wheelchair. She also says shit like, "Just get over it" or "Take a tylenol". It's like, if it were that easy, don't you think I'd be doing that?
We usually believe that human beings are basically logical and if you present reality in an understandable way the other people's brains will just take the information and reach the right concept, but most humans don't works like that, most humans unconsciously scan the different options, unconsciously choose the one that fits them better and then they search for reasons that leads to that conclusion.
Sadly often the truth. I dont get the mentality of putting blame on people who just want help. Sure there are tons of fucktards out in the wild who can never take responsibility for their own actions, but We also exist.
It's a complete and utter lack of sympathy/empathy. They say "it's easy for me, so since you aren't doing it, it's because you are selfish and don't want to." They cannot comprehend any other possible explanation.
Idk man, I know it’s anecdotal evidence at best, but the fact I was able to change and grow as a person from someone who was supporting “gamer gate” to someone who actively tries to make sure the people around me are seen and care for really makes me think that even the most hard-set people in this world CAN change.
I want to believe anyone can change and I want to keep fighting for everyone to be better and I want the world to change, and if I feel like it’s impossible I won’t have the motivation that it takes to make things better.
Everyone has the potential to change, but it has to come from inside. Did you change because someone adamantly insisted that what you were doing was wrong, or did you come to that conclusion yourself?
You want to drive your car down the road. You press down on the accelerator, the engine speeds up. The harder you press the accelerator, the harder the engine works. Pressing down on the accelerator is **Motivation**.
Note that I said, “the harder the engine works”, *not* “the faster the car goes”. That’s because there’s a whole subsystem that converts the engine’s power into movement of the wheels—the gearbox or transmission. The transmission is **executive functioning**.
For most drivers, the transmission works so well that you don’t really need to think about it. There’s a 1:1 correspondence between the pressure on the accelerator and the speed of the car. If you want to go faster, push harder on the pedal.
Having ADHD is like trying to drive a car with a transmission that doesn’t work past second gear. It doesn’t matter how hard you press the pedal, you’re not going to make much progress towards your destination.
Unfortunately, if you don’t know how a transmission works, it’s very, *very* easy for everyone around you to assume that your slow progress is because *you’re not pressing the accelerator hard enough*. “Look, it’s easy!” they say. “All you have to do is push your foot down! Watch me!” And they push their foot down on the pedal, and off they zoom! And it sure *looks* easy; *everyone else* doesn’t seem to be having the same problems as you. So you try it. You push the pedal down. You push as hard as you can, as far as it will go. And yet, you’re still puttering along at 20 MPH, while the engine is redlining and your leg is getting tired.
When people with ADHD have difficulty meeting goals, accomplishing tasks, getting to appointments, it’s **not** because they “lack motivation”. It’s **not** because they’re “lazy”, or because they “don’t care enough” or “can’t prioritize”. It’s because the part of their brain that converts “motivation” into “action” **literally doesn’t work the same way as yours**. “Coping skills”, “strategies”, and “tools” *can* help, but even the most skilled race car driver is going to struggle winning a race in a car with a janky transmission.
Can you show them this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/adhdmeme/s/FywJIBSRQb.
Also, can you get in to see a medical professional, that's really the only way to get properly diagnosed and treated.
I watched the best TikTok earlier about explaining paralysis/executive dysfunction by equating it to being unable to force yourself to touch something you know is hot. 10/10 demonstration, I’m gonna use it next time my family gives me shit.
Edit: [Found It](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRE2pDEv/)
Yeah, I like it a lot. It reminds me of the “Convince me this square is a square” method for anxiety, and I’ve had a lot of success with that one. Sort of forces a perspective shift.
Edit: accidentally a word
Sure! It’s an active exercise, so you need a paper with a square drawn on it. You ask them to convince you that the square is in fact a square. They role play a person with anxiety, and you redirect and deny everything, role playing the kinds of things anxiety throws at you. When I did it with my friend it went sort of like this:
Friend: Well it has four sides?
Me: Triangles have sides 🤷♀️
Friend: But they have three??
Me: Sides is sides 🤷♀️
Friend: Okay, it has four 90 degree angles.
Me: Lots of shapes have angles.
Friend: But not all 90 degree ones! Only squares can have all 90 degree angles!
Me: Circles don’t have any angles!
Friend: I didn’t say anything about circles??
Me: They’re all shapes 🤷♀️
Friend: Okay, it has four corners!
Me: Pentagons have four corners. Octagons too.
Friend: (getting frustrated) Those don’t have anything to do with this!!
At this point I stopped and pointed out their frustration, and talked about applying that thought process to things that give me anxiety. And then imagine that never goes away, and you have to have the same argument - sometimes with ~fun~ new inclusions - every time you do that task.
It was a good way to illustrate how my brain fights me about things that often don’t bother other people. Helped them understand how anxiety can be so exhausting even when nothing physical is happening.
Riiiiiiiiiiight... That's a really good exercise, actually :)
It's not relevant for me, sadly, not generally struggling with anything more than social anxiety. I get *anxious* on occasion, but nothing diagnosable, you know? So I won't ever need to explain to someone how exhausting it is, because it's not a daily occurrence :P
For what I do struggle with, though, I've taken to basically doing the 'worst case scenario' trick (which I actually learned to help deal with my social anxiety), and also writing down my conclusions from the arguments to refer back to when I feel the 'roiling mass of formless stress' coming back. There was something I had *very good reasons* to be stressed and anxious about recently, and I used that document to kind of short-circuit the anxiety process. Only works, however, when you've *actually* managed to reach a sort of equilibrium with the problem.
The 'worst case scenario' trick, btw, is a 'possibility reduction' tool. You'll be familiar, but anxiety often crops up when there are a million-and-one things that *could* happen, and they're all dogpiling you, even if they couldn't actually all happen at once.
So you visualise clearly what the *actually possible* worst-case scenario would be, and then formulate a plan of your next steps if that worst-case actually comes to pass. If you've done it right (and this trick actually works for you), then having a plan for *if the very worst actually happens* means you know you'll be able to actually tackle it. If you can tackle the very worst thing, you can tackle anything inbetween.
So I'd write down the worst-case scenario and how I'd tackle it, and any insights I had into resolving other issues, so that, as I say, when the stresses crop up, I can skip the bits I've already done.
Probably a YMMV scenario. Thanks for sharing, anyway :) Very nifty exercise :)
I saw general PDFs for families who have relatives with ADHD but I’m afraid my family would reject the points inside as excuses
Can you guys recommend something that will connect the dots in my family's mind? Or what approach should I take
It is your family’s work to be open to growth, not yours.
That said, if you need to plant seeds to help you cope with their (in my eyes) massive rejection and frustrating behavior, I hope whatever you plant blooms furiously.
My doctor said when I asked her something similar that in the age of the internet, being ignorant about a well documented psychological problem your child is facing is willfully ignorance.
Your family is one google search away from being informed, but they simply chose not to be. That's on them not you.
So unless they charge their mind about wanting to know, no amount of data will help, because they already are actively ignoring any information like that.
I think you need to figure out what types of influence your family listen to. It's not about finding the perfect meme or educational video, if they fundamentally don't believe any if it then they'll dismiss it easily.
So, who do they listen to? Is it scientific proof and evidence they want? Would they listen to successful people (in business or celebrities) if they explained how they have succeeded despite ADHD? Do they listen to religious leaders? I'm pretty sure there will be some ADHD friendly Christian writers / preachers (although I don't know any of the top of my head).
If they think it is just an excuse, giving them a more polished and articulate excuse won't change that. But maybe you can find a voice that they would believe.
If they cant take the words of a collection of memes or a well thought out presentation, maybe they will take the words of this professor. https://youtu.be/vycWIzURgZM?si=FTkNxg6lSzTbCVEd
This is the single most validating video on youtube that I have seen
I was also diagnosed as an adult, I (mistakenly) assumed you were younger.
https://archive.org/details/adhdinadultswhat0000bark. Not sure if this is more helpful, I understand how relevant and relatable memes are, but do trust the science.
[Link to study with brain scan showing brain scans of literal differences in brain functioning in ADHD brains](https://newsroom.co.nz/2021/04/08/fidgeting-boosts-decision-making/)
Someone else said to go to the YouTube Channel HowToADHD. I second this.
Lot of work involved, but you could also read/make notes from Barkley's "Taking Charge of Adult ADHD". I love that book, at least the first half. I was really hoping for a list of non-intuitive tricks (or even just structured methods) for helping manage my ADHD from the last half, which I didn't get. Instead, it was a structured guide on how to develop your own coping mechanisms and resource database. Which, you know, would have been amazing if I didn't already have that down, balls to bones.
But anyway, the first half is a structured breakdown of the seven executive functions, how they develop, how they work for non-ADHD-ers, they *effects* they have when they work, how they *don't* work for ADHD-ers, and the effects that them not working have. It also shows how each one develops out of the previous ones, and explains how faults in one section lead to faults further down the line. Just as a prime example, the first ones that develop are awareness of ourselves and our behaviours, and awareness of the responses of others. That is to say, knowing what we're doing, and seeing how others react to what we're doing. These two eventually give rise to self-inhibition - the ability to modify our own behaviour in order to achieve a certain outcome (be that for our own sake, or so that others will have *this* reaction instead of *that* reaction).
When I was growing up, my stepdad always accused me of talking to him like he was a piece of shit. *To this day* I have absolutely no idea where he got that from. To my mind, I spoke to him completely normally, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he'd be pissed off with me.
Since getting diagnosed and medicated (I was 27), and since reading Barkley, I've realised that *occasionally* my tone of voice does not *remotely* match the mood that I'm in. It tends to happen when I'm a *tiny* bit disgruntled, and all of a sudden I lay the emphasis in a sentence in the wrong place, or I put *way* more emphasis than I intended to, or maybe even just my entire tone of voice is way off-base, and I sound like I'm *furious*, or I sound *scornful*, or I sound condescending.
When I was growing up, I lacked the ability of self-reflection, so I couldn't *tell* that I was doing something that would make people mad.
Other times, typically when people's reactions were less overt, I couldn't even tell that *they* were upset, until they went off on me after days/weeks/months. I'd make a joke that I always thought of as benign and innocuous, and it turned out they'd *hated* it from the beginning. Everyone took their side, because they *obviously* hated it. I felt like the proverbial giant douche, because I never intended to upset anybody.
So, you need self-awareness and awareness of others in order to properly exercise self-inhibition - if you don't know *what you're doing*, you can't *stop doing it*. If you don't know *how other people are reacting*, you don't know that you *should stop doing it*.
But what happens when your powers of self-inhibition, your *ability* to *stop doing the thing* don't work? Well, that's when you find yourself making mistakes you've made a dozen times before, and you know you shouldn't do the thing, but *for some god-damned reason* you do it anyway. You know you're getting angry, and that you should leave the situation, but you just *can't*. You know you shouldn't make the joke *but the timing was too perfect*. You've resolved to moderate your tone *but the angry tone slips in anyway*. So even if you get *perfectly accurate* information from your self-awareness and awareness of others (a rare enough occurrence), you *still* wind up doing a behaviour you'd rather avoid, because *the tool you use to correct that behaviour doesn't work either*.
It's a very good book, and offers much more useful insights than I've just given you. It's written in easy-to-understand language, and the sections are short enough that they're manageable, with useful quick-reference bits and stuff.
I still recommend reading it as an ebook, on a computer, with an open word document on one side. Make notes as you go - try to summarise each paragraph as a single bullet point. It makes the long slog of reading *much* easier (trick I used to use for getting through lengthy documents at my old work, wish I'd developed it when I was at university), and you even have a set of notes to refer to afterwards.
Hope this helps, OP.
I hyperfixated and spent six hours writing up a google doc about all my symptoms and how they come to play in my life, and then sent it to my parents to help them better understand. While they still don’t quite get it, I noticed a significant uptick in understanding.
bro my dad who has adhd said that "i don't get why people are saying its a disability, its not" which isn't true lmao (at least from researching if its severe enough) also hes said other stuff that i'm not getting into rn :)
[Maybe this? ](https://adhdfoundation.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ADULT-ADHD.pdf) I only skimmed it of course, but it seems digestible enough to get an oversight if they're not too hard-headed to try to understand!
ADHD usually comes across as laziness and is received with the usual neurotypical fuckery. Your folks need to talk to an expert on the matter and step up their game, otherwise they'll keep sticking to their echo chamber because they had it better (and don't know better).
Best of luck with that.
https://youtu.be/PGu2-QOfLBA?feature=shared
I found this very helpful in allowing me to accept myself since I have a hard time understanding why I won’t do things. I’m keenly interested in the neurological aspect of ADHD because I feel like if I have enough facts and science then I can understand and get those around me to understand.
But as others have said, people who don’t want to support you won’t support you -it’s not about understanding, it’s about compassion. If they cannot be compassionate about your medical diagnosis that is classed as a disability then you’ve already lost the battle
Also, don’t get disheartened. When I shared my diagnosis with my family, my dad said *nothing*.
Went to visit them a few weeks later and he had quietly been looking at videos and websites so he could understand before responding.
Hang in there pal - the people that matter will get it and work to understand, the people that don’t, won’t.
But you’ve got a big community behind you.
More in the funny side, bur also somewhat explanatory:
ADHDinos has released a book with Lots of their Comics sorted by different aspects of ADHD and with some explanatory words for each chapter...
Maybe Not the best Material for stubborn parents, but i found it a very nice and lighthearted Medium for colleagues or Friends to explain my struggles.
I’m an adult, It was easy for my family to recognize my adhd because the way I am on and off my meds is night and day. I no longer have outbursts or academic issues. I’m not longer saying inappropriate things in conversation.
If your family really cares about you, then at the end of the day, you showing how it affects you and how you feel will make them listen. Having ADHD can be torture and not having people around you to support you can make it so much worse. I mean, you could bring up how ADHD is pretty much like autism, but with different features. The sad thing is that people take autism much more seriously than ADHD, despite them sharing a lot of symptoms, so it might work.
But at the end of the day, it's your family. If you're close to them and they love you back, then with time even if they can't understand, they will accept you. You're not owed to explain yourself to anyone. The right people will always be on your side, not calling you lazy for things you fight for on daily basis.
It's hard, but I believe in you. Good luck with your family! You can do this <3
You can't change people feels if they don't care enough to be open minded. Or care enough for you.
But you can always ignore them and move on. Stay strong. You got this.
I would have them take an online assessment about you. When I had my wife/family do one for me, it cleared a lot up. They answer with what they see with their own eyes, which I think can help
I have the same list “for” helping others listen and or a like a non serious one like funny stuff that you can imagine showing them but like you don’t wanna coz they may be ugly about it! So like it could help but firstly do it for you!! Not them. Do it for a resource for you! If that makes sense!!
If you genuinely think you can argue your way into convincing them to change their minds with memes then maybe get tested for autism as well, little bro.
I do not mean that in any way other than genuinely.
No, they will ignore or even think worse of you for using jokes.
Use official sources, very good source is Doctor Russel Berkeley and this playlist. Do not use memes, you will only worsen the situation.
Berkeley is a very good speaker, can throw a joke or two, he is also one of the top experts in the field. He is retired from academic work, but he runs YouTube channel where he reviews new research.
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzBixSjmbc8eFl6UX5_wWGP8i0mAs-cvY
Sit down one of your parents and tell them that this is a serious disorder that will destroy your life if you won’t get help and show them most depressing video from Berkley you can find.
I'm actually making some notes using memes and screenshots to show my psychiatrist on my first appointment. I feel like thats my way of easy communication.
My son thinks that people are using ADHD as an excuse to be idle. Don't worry, I put him in his place. I am not diagnosed, but there are sign that I am neurodivergent and I support anyone who says they may need a diagnosis, even though you shouldn't have to validate yourself to anyone.
If in doubt, share the ASRS, WEISS or DIVA assessment forms with them (explain how these form just one part of the process) and how it’s the severity and frequency that makes the disability.
Hopefully they’ll recognise that sometimes they exhibit those behaviours, but not to the same extreme you do. (Or, they will recognise potential ADHD in themselves/other family members! 😅 I got two family members to complete the “informant” forms for mine and they both clocked that other family members *also* do these things… 😅)
Don't take it from this sub bro. This place is 90% memes about things that EVERYONE DOES and only 10% are stuff that neurodivergent people do exclusively or more often
Take it from someone who thought they could educate their family into understanding: people who think it's fake have their minds made up. If they somehow have the capacity to change their opinion, it won't be because someone challenges their belief, especially not someone who they see as "looking for an excuse."
Ok but have you tried a PDF full of memes
Good point, I'll try that next time.
I convinced a guy to date me with a document full of memes soooooo
The coffee pot trick can shake their beliefs though.
Not familiar with that one
Drink a pot of coffee and go to bed. Something their "common sense" says should be impossible.
I'll go to sleep just fine, but I won't stay that way because I'll be getting up to pee ten times
Strangely enough, because I have ADHD, if I need to pee really badly, I can still ignore it and go back to sleep. I’ll be in a bad way when I wake up hours later though. It would be easier if I could get up to pee, but brain wants to stay comfy
My brain does this too! And then my kidneys start hurting a lil and I'm like "oop, I should get up now"
Be careful as you get older that ignore till last minute signal can get overridden when your getting your pants undone…
I'm at the age for prostate/urinary tract issues, so it's best not to push things. In fact, I'm already dealing with them on account of 40ish years of doing exactly what you describe, not just for sleep but for a wide range of activities and circumstances. In the end I feel it's better not to hold it if you don't need to, whether or not one has a prostate to be concerned about. Those parts just seem to wear out faster...
I agree. I shouldn't do it, but I can't stop doing it either. I'm almost 50, so it's not like I'm a spring chicken either.
Yeah it’s like I’m procrastinating going to the bathroom lol
adhd tends to be hereditary though. like my mom can do that, but she would never believe that adhd is real
That are the worst kind of people to be convinced, adults who have ADHD but don't want to accept it, they have all the biases to not believe ADHD is real, first of all nothing that you do is weird, it's normal to them, and even if theoretically it's weird they had all their lives to explain themselves that is normal because they wanted to believe they are normal. Second if you have ADHD then they do have ADHD too, so every point supporting "ADHD is real" is perceived as an attack. And third every single thing that is difficult with ADHD has been "solved" or ignored by them with a huge effort and somehow that means that you can do it too, if you get a diagnosis and get a magic pill that will solve it all* it means all that effort was useless, all the work they did to have a normal life was a silly effort, so no, adhd is not real and they are normal and shut up. Most of my father's family have ADHD and a big part of them is like this, it's super weird *Obviously I know it's not like that but they usually believe it is
Oh, I did this, but with energy drinks, except my mom has ADHD, and does the coffee pot drink so often my family thinks it's normal.
damn, can't stomach coffee :-(
Red Bull/Monster makes the same point.
That's actually genius, I've always tell people that I drink coffee to sleep, but they usually don't believe it
If it's your family they'll just say it's normal. Because for them it is, they don't realize they have it too.
Perhaps the tea-immediately-before-bed should have been the canary in the coal mine for my family having a few spicy brains. 😂
I can slam a few Monsters at work and crash when I walk in the door. But if I drink redbull I’m up all night. Caffeine doesn’t affect me but all that Vitamin B in redbull sure does the trick! (Most of the time 😅)
That has nothing to do with ADHD , some people just react differently to coffee . Some get sleepy , some inatentive , some just get anxious but it's irrevelant if you have ADHD or not .
Caffeine is a stimulant which behaves much like other ADHD medications, just to a lesser degree. So while it's true some people react differently, it would be untrue to say it has nothing to do with ADHD because of that, when a rather large amount of people with ADHD have reported similair effects.
What's that?
Make sure they see you do it, but drink a pot of coffee just before bed and then go to bed. In their mind that's impossible but nearly all of us can do it no problem.
Ah, yes. I used to drink a 6 pack of Mountain Dew Code Red before bed and slept like a log.
"Man, I just cannot get a good night's sleep" "You need to stop drinking those Red Bulls." Oh my sweet summer child. Also, though, fuck people that say this. You think I've never once in my life not had an energy drink in a 24-hour, or even 7-day period?
Sugar spikes will cause sleepiness, no?
Is this actually true though? I don’t think I get very positive impacts from caffeine but it does impact my ability to sleep depending on when and how much I consume. I am not denying that for some people with ADHD it has little impact but I think you are pretty off in saying nearly all of us. I also do feel a bit confused by friends with ADHD who are drinking coffee in the PM and complaining about their sleep issues.
My wife drinks coffee before her naps during the day. She sleeps better because of it.
Coffee naps are a thing that tend to benefit everyone though, and have been shown experimentally to be better than a normal nap
I don't think that's an adhd thing. If you drink an espresso right before sleeping it will help you fall asleep because the firs short phase of coffeine is making you sleepy. If you wait too long, it will keep you awake. I myself am like always tired so I don't care about the coffee, I can still sleep but my ticks will increase a lot when I drink too much.
I'd be way too jittery, but I'd be fighting to stay awake. That can't be normal.
For the longest time my mom believed I chose to "get" ADHD as a direct attack on her person. Even after a medical diagnosis and explanation. Some people can't be changed
It's probably some weird form of subconscious projection, she did something stupid diet wise while pregnant, but said hope this doesn't effect the baby, you pop out with 10 fingers and the thought is gone, come 15 years later and some part of her soul remembers a sugar craze or something binge wise but her brain doesn't, so when you are diagnosed it's a "indirect" correlation she can't piece together. Thc/nicotine/alcohol /(refined) sugar all can adversely effect a fetal brain. I wonder which one slips by in many modern cultures.
given the hereditary factors, there’s a good chance it’s also just the classic pattern of undiagnosed adhd parents in extreme denial. if you grow up believing people with adhd are spastic lazy idiot junkies and refuse to challenge that belief after it’s set in stone, then you’ll defend your ego by building walls in your mind between the reality of your symptoms and the label that fits them, and when your child who has so much in common with you does get diagnosed it threatens to tear those walls down
[удалено]
Your post/comment has been removed because it either contains, or is advocating for, misinformation. Do not diagnose people you have never met. You do not have the education or the ability to ever diagnose someone you haven't met, and comments like this only serve to spread stigma and misinformation, leading to even further harm for those who need help.
I just want to say that this lack of understanding *can* change, depending on how stubborn they are. My parents are doubtful, each in their own way. They do believe I feel like there is something wrong, but they have this "just pull yourself together like everyone else" attitude. Anyways, I started setting boundaries a couple of years ago. When they start to tell me how I am feeling (so basically gaslighting me I suppose) I tell them that **I** know how **I** am feeling and will not let them tell me otherwise. If they don't stop I just leave. Usually they throw a "ofc you run away like you always do" or something after me, but imo that's a temper tantrum and non of my business. This actually works. At least for my parents, I'm sure there are lots of people who are to stubborn to actually listen and accept other peoples opinions. My parents still obviously struggle with accepting what I'm feeling quiet often, but they do (usually) give their best to be supporting nonethless. I think part of it is that they realized that I am not trying to convince anybody with how I'm feeling and they did see quiet a lot how I'm suffering and they worry. So all that together with the set boundaries actually improved our relationship a lot. Welp, this turned into a wall of text, I just wanted to give you hope.
When I try to leave my parents stupid behind they just follow me 😐 They have their own issues but because of those they decided that since they got through life just fine everyone can do it if they try. So me failing is me not really trying. And even when they listen they don't Listen. Once I stated 3 times in a row that I tried his "magical solution" of taking notes but it achieved nothing. My father nodded very understandingly and at the end once more told me taking notes would help... Well at least he wasn't yelling or belittling me so progress?
Well have you tried eating healthy and exercising? /S My mother used to do the same, my therapist then told me to just leave the house if I have to, maybe that works? It hurts not to be understood by your own parents. Even if they only mean the best and think they are helping, it still hurts. I can see that my parents mean well and they seem to understand a bit better how I feel now, but I don't think they'll ever truly understand. So I accepted that they may not understand me but as long as they are supportive, listen and don't try to push their ideas on me I'm happy with that. That's waaay more progress than I ever expected to be honest.
Sounds less like coming around and more like they've given up on convincing **you** that you're faking it. My family did similarly with very passive aggressive responses that I guess they thought would give the impression of understanding while still maintaining that the suggestion to "get it together" would actually help. I just quit using the neurodivergent vocabulary and quit mentioning things that might elicit "helpful suggestions" from them.
I'm sure they are faking it at times, but if they can't actually believe me I'd rather have them constrain themself and fake understanding me instead of berating and belitteling me tbh. The passive aggressiveness sucks though! My mother had an issue with something I said for a couple of months and she kept bringing it up and making snide remarks until I basically snapped. My comeback is usually along the lines of "yeah I can pull myself together and force myself to function as people seem to expect me to, but I'll be miserable and I'd rather not live than to live like this. So I'd rather not meet expectations if that's what it takes for me to stay alive." dunno, might be kinda toxic (?) but it's simply the truth that I've had to come to terms with myself. Families can be so hard to deal with.
I don't consider the options of interacting with my family to be either condescension or fake smiles. I've taken the secret third option of not interacting with them (as much as possible). I completely understand the sentiment of being miserable to the point that dying is preferable, but for someone outside of this sphere, pulling the suicide card is extreme for what they can only understand as the "mild inconvenience of being slightly uncomfortable." If it works, it works, but before talking to anyone about it, I have to assess the other person's perspective to know how what I say will land.
Yeah very good point, the suicide card is hard to take back so it's better not play it without careful consideration. It does depend on the audience a lot.
if you have to expose yourself to that extreme to make a point, it’s definitely worth backing off, and if you imagine wanting to go to that extreme to make a point, that might be a sign they’re draining you even when you aren’t interacting. limiting contact is probably the only way to detach enough from them that you stop caring about the hope of winning them over. i think, to be somewhat pessimistic, their response to the suicide card wouldn’t only be to accuse you of exaggerating and belittle you for feeling so strongly, but to use it as further ammunition—to argue that you’re unstable, you don’t know what you’re talking about, or even that you’re such a danger to yourself that you need to trust them and give them more control. i’m not at all saying that you would fall for such arguments—i’m absolutely amazed that anyone could be strong enough to enforce boundaries the way you do, and i wouldn’t even expect myself to fall for them—but if your goal is to simply get along better with them, feel more respected, and save your energy, it’s not a good can of worms to open. i don’t know enough about your parents to accuse them of necessarily being intentionally manipulative, but if they had an instinctive respect and sympathy for your experiences, they wouldn’t write over your experiences or be callous and selfish enough to throw a hissy fit over you leaving uncomfortable arguments even if it was “for your own good”.
I actually played the suicide card several times with them and it does work (at least for me). My parents aren't "bad" people, we get along pretty well, I just (used to) mask a ton (and still do but less) and they struggle to match my masked version with what I say about how I feel. I was always such an easygoing child apparently so it's hard for them to accept that holding up this easygoing version of me caused me so much pain. They feel guilty of not noticing how badly I was struggling The first time I pulled that card caused my mother to pull the "well if it's that bad why don't you get yourself admitted to a psychiatric ward", probably expecting me to backpaddle. But that actually got me thinking and I ended up saying that I probably should look into that. We were both suprised by this I guess and both ended up crying. She was really supportive with getting everything arranged for me to go there. My stay there actually helped, not just because I got better (yay) but also because it made her realize that I do actually have to be very sick to get admitted for over 2 months and be put on medication. My father was really shocked by that stay aswell, he just thought I'm kinda sad sometimes, not severely depressed. It took a couple more years until I got my AuDHD diagnosis and since then things are suddenly making so much sense.
oh, wow. very glad to hear you actually do have something there (and that you had a positive experience with psychiatric hospitalization—not something i’ve heard the best stories about even from other people who went voluntarily). here’s to your unmasking journey continuing to bear fruit! if you think your parents do just need to adjust to your unfiltered self and re-learn what’s actually okay for you, one thing that might help is taking the initiative to touch base about it some time they aren’t agitated or dug-in. make it clear that you understand this is difficult and painful for them, and that when you assert your boundaries it’s for everyone’s sakes. let them heal that guilt by making sure they know you forgive them for not picking up on it, and be careful not to guilt-trip them about the continued rough edges, but no matter how distressed it makes them to see you in distress it won’t make anything better to step on your toes over it. i really, truly hope this does work out for you. healing my relationship with my own father is something i can only dream of, and it is a sweet sweet dream… but assuming their intentions are pure, your parents still just uncannily remind me of his *intensity*. forgive me for the speculation, but your “easygoing” facade probably did develop at least in part because this is how they already reacted to your bursts of emotion even before that—not moderating their responses or their impulses, and accidentally teaching you not to provoke that for *their* sakes. given they were truly open to the psych ward (which i only got empty threats of, despite embracing the idea as you did), they might be receptive to introducing some kind of family therapist so you can all three get professional help together. you have your own battles to fight already, so there’s no shame in wanting an ally for this one
Honestly I am completely suprised by how positively my relationship with my parents developed, I always hoped and wished for it but after years of fighting with my mother and NC with my father I did not at all expect it to ever happen. Funnily enough all of us started seeing therapists independently of each other, we all went for our own issues but it helped to improve our relationship. Well my parents still don't like each other but that's non of my business and they are NC anyways. You actually were spot on with my reason to develop that facade. It was never an option for me to be anything but easygoing. I remember a intense convo with my mother a year ago, where she shared with me that she deliberately yelled at me at times, because it seemed like that's what I needed to get out of my rut. She was visibly shocked when I told her that this just made me pretend to by fine while actually feeling worse, just to avoid getting yelled at again. She genuinely though I just needed some though love and that she was helping me. She had no idea I was suicidal back then and tbh I'm suprised I'm still alive. I do hope that you can find little ways to reconcile with your parents or to move on from that wish if there truly is no hope.
my mum recently sat me down again to tell me to „just try harder“. After harassing me for most of my child life and finally building strong bridge with me during adulthood years later it turns out she never quite changed her views, she just learned that id react poorly if she harassed me. I was legitimately baffled and disappointed beyond belief.
Same, though my family never gave the impression of change, they just made all their comments passive aggressive.
Well they will change their mind exactly because their beliefs were challenged. The problem here is that when said belief is challenged by someone they view as somewhat inferior or incompetent on the issue, it's most likely a lost cause unless you're extremely competent at defending and winning arguments, which most people aren't. Hearts and minds are won over time, with good evidence and respect for their, no matter how flawed, point of view. If you just yell at someone that they're not correct you just give them more ammo to refute any of your claims. I myself have to constantly remember this in order to get any kind of point across, because I have issues with emotion regulation and I often forget that something that's obvious to me may not be so to other people. Moreover they may have different opinions on controversial or other topics outcomes of which are not fully certain. And all of that stability and control is actually a very hard thing to achieve. Especially for someone who struggles with mental health in any capacity....
Everyone is different, but I've found that being calm and concise does nothing for a recipient who thinks they know better. This is especially true for older folks who think "nobody had ADHD" in their day and even in some southern US cultures, citing sources and providing irrefutable evidence is seen as "getting smart" with them, which is condemnable and immediately invalidates your points.
Well, yeah. In your first words there is a key, I guess. I too found that citing sources is a very useless way of challenging one's beliefs if they don't receive science as a method of navigating life in general. With such people, I think it is much better to challenge them through language that they actually understand. Life experiences, anecdotes, memories of their past and their loved ones. Live examples, so to speak. But yeah, it's tough, as I said.
That might work—for some people. For me, learning of my diagnosis was hugely validating and reframed my past experiences from "I'm broken," to "I'm a square peg in the round hole of society." For others, looking back on their lives and their interactions with people that they previously considered to be within normal parameters and being asked to consider that they might have been wrong or mistaken about part or all of it, is too much. It's easier to say "it's always been this way," than to adopt any kind of progressiveness.
I have ADHD, my wife has Lupus. This hits home hard for our parents.
It blows my mind that people will treat medical conditions as fake, just because they're virtually invisible to them.
Yeah, I think my MIL expects my wife to be all Hunchback or in a wheelchair. She also says shit like, "Just get over it" or "Take a tylenol". It's like, if it were that easy, don't you think I'd be doing that?
We usually believe that human beings are basically logical and if you present reality in an understandable way the other people's brains will just take the information and reach the right concept, but most humans don't works like that, most humans unconsciously scan the different options, unconsciously choose the one that fits them better and then they search for reasons that leads to that conclusion.
Sadly often the truth. I dont get the mentality of putting blame on people who just want help. Sure there are tons of fucktards out in the wild who can never take responsibility for their own actions, but We also exist.
It's a complete and utter lack of sympathy/empathy. They say "it's easy for me, so since you aren't doing it, it's because you are selfish and don't want to." They cannot comprehend any other possible explanation.
Idk man, I know it’s anecdotal evidence at best, but the fact I was able to change and grow as a person from someone who was supporting “gamer gate” to someone who actively tries to make sure the people around me are seen and care for really makes me think that even the most hard-set people in this world CAN change. I want to believe anyone can change and I want to keep fighting for everyone to be better and I want the world to change, and if I feel like it’s impossible I won’t have the motivation that it takes to make things better.
Everyone has the potential to change, but it has to come from inside. Did you change because someone adamantly insisted that what you were doing was wrong, or did you come to that conclusion yourself?
You want to drive your car down the road. You press down on the accelerator, the engine speeds up. The harder you press the accelerator, the harder the engine works. Pressing down on the accelerator is **Motivation**. Note that I said, “the harder the engine works”, *not* “the faster the car goes”. That’s because there’s a whole subsystem that converts the engine’s power into movement of the wheels—the gearbox or transmission. The transmission is **executive functioning**. For most drivers, the transmission works so well that you don’t really need to think about it. There’s a 1:1 correspondence between the pressure on the accelerator and the speed of the car. If you want to go faster, push harder on the pedal. Having ADHD is like trying to drive a car with a transmission that doesn’t work past second gear. It doesn’t matter how hard you press the pedal, you’re not going to make much progress towards your destination. Unfortunately, if you don’t know how a transmission works, it’s very, *very* easy for everyone around you to assume that your slow progress is because *you’re not pressing the accelerator hard enough*. “Look, it’s easy!” they say. “All you have to do is push your foot down! Watch me!” And they push their foot down on the pedal, and off they zoom! And it sure *looks* easy; *everyone else* doesn’t seem to be having the same problems as you. So you try it. You push the pedal down. You push as hard as you can, as far as it will go. And yet, you’re still puttering along at 20 MPH, while the engine is redlining and your leg is getting tired. When people with ADHD have difficulty meeting goals, accomplishing tasks, getting to appointments, it’s **not** because they “lack motivation”. It’s **not** because they’re “lazy”, or because they “don’t care enough” or “can’t prioritize”. It’s because the part of their brain that converts “motivation” into “action” **literally doesn’t work the same way as yours**. “Coping skills”, “strategies”, and “tools” *can* help, but even the most skilled race car driver is going to struggle winning a race in a car with a janky transmission.
thank you, so much.
That's a fantastic way to explain it! Definitely using this in the future
I offer you the highest honor I can grant: this free award (because I guess they brought awards back?).
Only works on the new layout. :(
Thank you so much!
To every teacher besides Mr Tanhem who wrote in my report cards "lacks motivation". # FUCK YOU
Mine was, “a brilliant mathematician with a lazy pencil”. Good on you, Mr. Tanhem.
if I had any awards Id give you all of them. this is the best explanation Ive heard.
Thank you, you're very kind.
/r/bestof material
Can you show them this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/adhdmeme/s/FywJIBSRQb. Also, can you get in to see a medical professional, that's really the only way to get properly diagnosed and treated.
The only thing wrong with that is he knew where his keys were!
Why do I feel called out?
Damn, Hall pulled that engine like it's nothing. He's a proper handyman
Damn. I feel so seen, and yet so accused at the same time.
I watched the best TikTok earlier about explaining paralysis/executive dysfunction by equating it to being unable to force yourself to touch something you know is hot. 10/10 demonstration, I’m gonna use it next time my family gives me shit. Edit: [Found It](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRE2pDEv/)
That's a pretty good one, ngl.
Yeah, I like it a lot. It reminds me of the “Convince me this square is a square” method for anxiety, and I’ve had a lot of success with that one. Sort of forces a perspective shift. Edit: accidentally a word
Ok, I'm not familiar with this one, either :P Care to share? :P
Sure! It’s an active exercise, so you need a paper with a square drawn on it. You ask them to convince you that the square is in fact a square. They role play a person with anxiety, and you redirect and deny everything, role playing the kinds of things anxiety throws at you. When I did it with my friend it went sort of like this: Friend: Well it has four sides? Me: Triangles have sides 🤷♀️ Friend: But they have three?? Me: Sides is sides 🤷♀️ Friend: Okay, it has four 90 degree angles. Me: Lots of shapes have angles. Friend: But not all 90 degree ones! Only squares can have all 90 degree angles! Me: Circles don’t have any angles! Friend: I didn’t say anything about circles?? Me: They’re all shapes 🤷♀️ Friend: Okay, it has four corners! Me: Pentagons have four corners. Octagons too. Friend: (getting frustrated) Those don’t have anything to do with this!! At this point I stopped and pointed out their frustration, and talked about applying that thought process to things that give me anxiety. And then imagine that never goes away, and you have to have the same argument - sometimes with ~fun~ new inclusions - every time you do that task. It was a good way to illustrate how my brain fights me about things that often don’t bother other people. Helped them understand how anxiety can be so exhausting even when nothing physical is happening.
Riiiiiiiiiiight... That's a really good exercise, actually :) It's not relevant for me, sadly, not generally struggling with anything more than social anxiety. I get *anxious* on occasion, but nothing diagnosable, you know? So I won't ever need to explain to someone how exhausting it is, because it's not a daily occurrence :P For what I do struggle with, though, I've taken to basically doing the 'worst case scenario' trick (which I actually learned to help deal with my social anxiety), and also writing down my conclusions from the arguments to refer back to when I feel the 'roiling mass of formless stress' coming back. There was something I had *very good reasons* to be stressed and anxious about recently, and I used that document to kind of short-circuit the anxiety process. Only works, however, when you've *actually* managed to reach a sort of equilibrium with the problem. The 'worst case scenario' trick, btw, is a 'possibility reduction' tool. You'll be familiar, but anxiety often crops up when there are a million-and-one things that *could* happen, and they're all dogpiling you, even if they couldn't actually all happen at once. So you visualise clearly what the *actually possible* worst-case scenario would be, and then formulate a plan of your next steps if that worst-case actually comes to pass. If you've done it right (and this trick actually works for you), then having a plan for *if the very worst actually happens* means you know you'll be able to actually tackle it. If you can tackle the very worst thing, you can tackle anything inbetween. So I'd write down the worst-case scenario and how I'd tackle it, and any insights I had into resolving other issues, so that, as I say, when the stresses crop up, I can skip the bits I've already done. Probably a YMMV scenario. Thanks for sharing, anyway :) Very nifty exercise :)
I saw general PDFs for families who have relatives with ADHD but I’m afraid my family would reject the points inside as excuses Can you guys recommend something that will connect the dots in my family's mind? Or what approach should I take
It is your family’s work to be open to growth, not yours. That said, if you need to plant seeds to help you cope with their (in my eyes) massive rejection and frustrating behavior, I hope whatever you plant blooms furiously.
My doctor said when I asked her something similar that in the age of the internet, being ignorant about a well documented psychological problem your child is facing is willfully ignorance. Your family is one google search away from being informed, but they simply chose not to be. That's on them not you. So unless they charge their mind about wanting to know, no amount of data will help, because they already are actively ignoring any information like that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/adhdmeme/s/NqsnWCDKc8 This guy had done some good stuff on YouTube, maybe show them that?
Ignorance is bliss. Stupid is a choice. You will need someone they respect to deliver the news. Only then will they listen.
I think you need to figure out what types of influence your family listen to. It's not about finding the perfect meme or educational video, if they fundamentally don't believe any if it then they'll dismiss it easily. So, who do they listen to? Is it scientific proof and evidence they want? Would they listen to successful people (in business or celebrities) if they explained how they have succeeded despite ADHD? Do they listen to religious leaders? I'm pretty sure there will be some ADHD friendly Christian writers / preachers (although I don't know any of the top of my head). If they think it is just an excuse, giving them a more polished and articulate excuse won't change that. But maybe you can find a voice that they would believe.
If they cant take the words of a collection of memes or a well thought out presentation, maybe they will take the words of this professor. https://youtu.be/vycWIzURgZM?si=FTkNxg6lSzTbCVEd This is the single most validating video on youtube that I have seen
https://www.adhdandyou.co.uk/assets/pdf/Parent_Leaflet_Takeda_download.pdf Does this help any?
It's a great start but I’m an adult in my 20s It also doesn’t cover the experience of ADHD well Thank you
I was also diagnosed as an adult, I (mistakenly) assumed you were younger. https://archive.org/details/adhdinadultswhat0000bark. Not sure if this is more helpful, I understand how relevant and relatable memes are, but do trust the science.
[Link to study with brain scan showing brain scans of literal differences in brain functioning in ADHD brains](https://newsroom.co.nz/2021/04/08/fidgeting-boosts-decision-making/)
If youre after a very easy to read set of comics that help ecplain adhd, try looking at ADHDalien, theres a subreddit for their comics aswell.
You know Kung Fu Panda 4? There’s a scene in there you’ll relate to when you see it lol
There’s a YouTube channel called How to ADHD. They have a how to explain adhd video
Oh thats easy you only need... SQUIRREL! LOOK?!
Dug from UP is the reason I have my username.
Username indeed checks out 🤣 well done sir.
Ma'am, but thank you. :)
if they respected you you probably wouldn't need a book
I wrote a wall of text above and now I realize it could have been this one fucking sentence...
in all fairness, i was so short im rarely convincing. Tho, i thrive on being concise, otherwise i end up forgetting or bored, or distracted.
Someone else said to go to the YouTube Channel HowToADHD. I second this. Lot of work involved, but you could also read/make notes from Barkley's "Taking Charge of Adult ADHD". I love that book, at least the first half. I was really hoping for a list of non-intuitive tricks (or even just structured methods) for helping manage my ADHD from the last half, which I didn't get. Instead, it was a structured guide on how to develop your own coping mechanisms and resource database. Which, you know, would have been amazing if I didn't already have that down, balls to bones. But anyway, the first half is a structured breakdown of the seven executive functions, how they develop, how they work for non-ADHD-ers, they *effects* they have when they work, how they *don't* work for ADHD-ers, and the effects that them not working have. It also shows how each one develops out of the previous ones, and explains how faults in one section lead to faults further down the line. Just as a prime example, the first ones that develop are awareness of ourselves and our behaviours, and awareness of the responses of others. That is to say, knowing what we're doing, and seeing how others react to what we're doing. These two eventually give rise to self-inhibition - the ability to modify our own behaviour in order to achieve a certain outcome (be that for our own sake, or so that others will have *this* reaction instead of *that* reaction). When I was growing up, my stepdad always accused me of talking to him like he was a piece of shit. *To this day* I have absolutely no idea where he got that from. To my mind, I spoke to him completely normally, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he'd be pissed off with me. Since getting diagnosed and medicated (I was 27), and since reading Barkley, I've realised that *occasionally* my tone of voice does not *remotely* match the mood that I'm in. It tends to happen when I'm a *tiny* bit disgruntled, and all of a sudden I lay the emphasis in a sentence in the wrong place, or I put *way* more emphasis than I intended to, or maybe even just my entire tone of voice is way off-base, and I sound like I'm *furious*, or I sound *scornful*, or I sound condescending. When I was growing up, I lacked the ability of self-reflection, so I couldn't *tell* that I was doing something that would make people mad. Other times, typically when people's reactions were less overt, I couldn't even tell that *they* were upset, until they went off on me after days/weeks/months. I'd make a joke that I always thought of as benign and innocuous, and it turned out they'd *hated* it from the beginning. Everyone took their side, because they *obviously* hated it. I felt like the proverbial giant douche, because I never intended to upset anybody. So, you need self-awareness and awareness of others in order to properly exercise self-inhibition - if you don't know *what you're doing*, you can't *stop doing it*. If you don't know *how other people are reacting*, you don't know that you *should stop doing it*. But what happens when your powers of self-inhibition, your *ability* to *stop doing the thing* don't work? Well, that's when you find yourself making mistakes you've made a dozen times before, and you know you shouldn't do the thing, but *for some god-damned reason* you do it anyway. You know you're getting angry, and that you should leave the situation, but you just *can't*. You know you shouldn't make the joke *but the timing was too perfect*. You've resolved to moderate your tone *but the angry tone slips in anyway*. So even if you get *perfectly accurate* information from your self-awareness and awareness of others (a rare enough occurrence), you *still* wind up doing a behaviour you'd rather avoid, because *the tool you use to correct that behaviour doesn't work either*. It's a very good book, and offers much more useful insights than I've just given you. It's written in easy-to-understand language, and the sections are short enough that they're manageable, with useful quick-reference bits and stuff. I still recommend reading it as an ebook, on a computer, with an open word document on one side. Make notes as you go - try to summarise each paragraph as a single bullet point. It makes the long slog of reading *much* easier (trick I used to use for getting through lengthy documents at my old work, wish I'd developed it when I was at university), and you even have a set of notes to refer to afterwards. Hope this helps, OP.
Have you found “adhd alien”? It’s a comic strip that’s been very good at explaining what I can’t.
I hyperfixated and spent six hours writing up a google doc about all my symptoms and how they come to play in my life, and then sent it to my parents to help them better understand. While they still don’t quite get it, I noticed a significant uptick in understanding.
How about the video with the expert using erectile dysfunction as an analogy? Great fun using that.
bro my dad who has adhd said that "i don't get why people are saying its a disability, its not" which isn't true lmao (at least from researching if its severe enough) also hes said other stuff that i'm not getting into rn :)
~~Meanwhile mine simply don't believe it's a thing that exists, So I can't go get tested and get actual treatment for it.~~
[Maybe this? ](https://adhdfoundation.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/ADULT-ADHD.pdf) I only skimmed it of course, but it seems digestible enough to get an oversight if they're not too hard-headed to try to understand!
ADHD usually comes across as laziness and is received with the usual neurotypical fuckery. Your folks need to talk to an expert on the matter and step up their game, otherwise they'll keep sticking to their echo chamber because they had it better (and don't know better). Best of luck with that.
I like the videos of howtoadhd on YouTube, she has some for family members too I think
[This one](https://www.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/s/jZyHItRqMh) I saw today and thought was pretty accurate:
https://youtu.be/PGu2-QOfLBA?feature=shared I found this very helpful in allowing me to accept myself since I have a hard time understanding why I won’t do things. I’m keenly interested in the neurological aspect of ADHD because I feel like if I have enough facts and science then I can understand and get those around me to understand. But as others have said, people who don’t want to support you won’t support you -it’s not about understanding, it’s about compassion. If they cannot be compassionate about your medical diagnosis that is classed as a disability then you’ve already lost the battle
Also, don’t get disheartened. When I shared my diagnosis with my family, my dad said *nothing*. Went to visit them a few weeks later and he had quietly been looking at videos and websites so he could understand before responding. Hang in there pal - the people that matter will get it and work to understand, the people that don’t, won’t. But you’ve got a big community behind you.
[here's a Google doc](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=lRJyAUS0iuWCSaEa)
Thanks! Very well put together! Hope others enjoy it as much as I did!
[this is from a different sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/s/KdR2hNaIPl) It might be helpful- the 14 steps apply often
And note - they *still* forget to close the cupboard.
More in the funny side, bur also somewhat explanatory: ADHDinos has released a book with Lots of their Comics sorted by different aspects of ADHD and with some explanatory words for each chapter... Maybe Not the best Material for stubborn parents, but i found it a very nice and lighthearted Medium for colleagues or Friends to explain my struggles.
I’m an adult, It was easy for my family to recognize my adhd because the way I am on and off my meds is night and day. I no longer have outbursts or academic issues. I’m not longer saying inappropriate things in conversation.
If you have instagram go to neurodivers.show yhey have plenty
If your family really cares about you, then at the end of the day, you showing how it affects you and how you feel will make them listen. Having ADHD can be torture and not having people around you to support you can make it so much worse. I mean, you could bring up how ADHD is pretty much like autism, but with different features. The sad thing is that people take autism much more seriously than ADHD, despite them sharing a lot of symptoms, so it might work. But at the end of the day, it's your family. If you're close to them and they love you back, then with time even if they can't understand, they will accept you. You're not owed to explain yourself to anyone. The right people will always be on your side, not calling you lazy for things you fight for on daily basis. It's hard, but I believe in you. Good luck with your family! You can do this <3
Have you tried just sharing the link to this sub to your family?
All I can say is good luck, mine fell neatly into the "you didn't have it as a kid so there's nothing now" category
ADHD Alien comics!!!!! You will NOT be disappointed http://adhd-alien.com/
You can't change people feels if they don't care enough to be open minded. Or care enough for you. But you can always ignore them and move on. Stay strong. You got this.
Look up the YouTube series ADHD and Me by VLDL. It's comedy but quite serious about the topic. It certainly gave me a greater understanding.
Your parents are gonna be like "just Concentrate"
The youtube channel Life Actuator has many shorts that is painful to watch because he shows so well how it is to live with adhd.
It's crazy to me how some people's families don't understand. I thought it was genetic? My entire immediate family has it Could they be in denial
But every time you start to do this, you get distracted and do not finish? I think a half finished document is perfect.
I would have them take an online assessment about you. When I had my wife/family do one for me, it cleared a lot up. They answer with what they see with their own eyes, which I think can help
I have the same list “for” helping others listen and or a like a non serious one like funny stuff that you can imagine showing them but like you don’t wanna coz they may be ugly about it! So like it could help but firstly do it for you!! Not them. Do it for a resource for you! If that makes sense!!
If you genuinely think you can argue your way into convincing them to change their minds with memes then maybe get tested for autism as well, little bro. I do not mean that in any way other than genuinely.
No, they will ignore or even think worse of you for using jokes. Use official sources, very good source is Doctor Russel Berkeley and this playlist. Do not use memes, you will only worsen the situation. Berkeley is a very good speaker, can throw a joke or two, he is also one of the top experts in the field. He is retired from academic work, but he runs YouTube channel where he reviews new research. https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzBixSjmbc8eFl6UX5_wWGP8i0mAs-cvY Sit down one of your parents and tell them that this is a serious disorder that will destroy your life if you won’t get help and show them most depressing video from Berkley you can find.
I'm actually making some notes using memes and screenshots to show my psychiatrist on my first appointment. I feel like thats my way of easy communication.
My son thinks that people are using ADHD as an excuse to be idle. Don't worry, I put him in his place. I am not diagnosed, but there are sign that I am neurodivergent and I support anyone who says they may need a diagnosis, even though you shouldn't have to validate yourself to anyone.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQJpZHvLIPk18mW-LXIlL4d-Dxn27RxJ6TdMg&s
See HowToADHD’s YouTube series. They’ve got a few videos specifically for “people who love people with ADHD”.
If in doubt, share the ASRS, WEISS or DIVA assessment forms with them (explain how these form just one part of the process) and how it’s the severity and frequency that makes the disability. Hopefully they’ll recognise that sometimes they exhibit those behaviours, but not to the same extreme you do. (Or, they will recognise potential ADHD in themselves/other family members! 😅 I got two family members to complete the “informant” forms for mine and they both clocked that other family members *also* do these things… 😅)
most of the memes here are what "normal" people experience also, so dont do that
Use publisher?
a bottle of ballentine is what i would suggest
Don't take it from this sub bro. This place is 90% memes about things that EVERYONE DOES and only 10% are stuff that neurodivergent people do exclusively or more often