Here’s something that happens to ADHD children a lot: Getting pushed beyond their limits by accident. Here’s how it works and why it’s so bad.
Child says, “I can’t do this.”
Adult (teacher or parent) does not believe it, because Adult has seen Child do things that Adult considers more difficult, and Child is too young to properly articulate why the task is difficult.
Adult decides that the problem is something other than true inability, like laziness, lack of self-confidence, stubbornness, or lack of motivation.
Adult applies motivation in the form of harsher and harsher scoldings and punishments. Child becomes horribly distressed by these punishments. Finally, the negative emotions produce a wave of adrenaline that temporarily repairs the neurotransmitter deficits caused by ADHD, and Child manages to do the task, nearly dropping from relief when it’s finally done.
The lesson Adult takes away is that Child was able to do it all along, the task was quite reasonable, and Child just wasn’t trying hard enough. Now, surely Child has mastered the task and learned the value of simply following instructions the first time.
The lessons Child takes away? Well, it varies, but it might be:
-How to do the task while in a state of extreme panic, which does NOT easily translate into doing the task when calm.
-Using emergency fight-or-flight overdrive to deal with normal daily problems is reasonable and even expected.
-It’s not acceptable to refuse tasks, no matter how difficult or potentially harmful.
-Asking for help does not result in getting useful help.
I’m now in my 30’s, trying to overcome chronic depression, and one major barrier is that, thanks to the constant unreasonable demands placed on me as a child, I never had the chance to develop actual healthy techniques for getting stuff done. At 19, I finally learned to write without panic, but I still need to rely on my adrenaline addiction for simple things like making phone calls, tidying the house, and paying bills. Sometimes, I do mean things to myself to generate the adrenaline rush, because there’s no one else around to punish me.
But hey, at least I didn’t get those terrible drugs, right? That might have had nasty side effects.
There’s a lot of overlap between ADHD traits and autism traits. Whether you meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, too, I have no idea (because I’m a random person on the Internet), but you might find ADHD resources helpful in figuring out your life challenges.
A lot of “help” for executive function skills comes from neurotypicals who are naturally good at it and lack insight into people who aren’t, which makes it spectacularly useless to the people who actually need it.
that’s me more often then i would like to admit
100 FOLLOWERS RAFFLE
HELLO EVERYONE! Thank you for following me, and supporting me & my art! It’s time for a raffle!
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Reblogs only counts (multiple reblogs are authorized and even encouraged)
No giveaway blogs please
Have your asks/submissions open so I can contact you
So, as you might’ve noticed, I’ve been having computer trouble for a while – I had to stop my writing streams because of it, and it’s been getting worse and worse until Thursday, when my laptop completely shat the bed and died. A dear dear friend has offered to build me a new computer, but I have to pay for the parts – a total that comes to $877.07
Now, what some of you might not know is that I’m disabled and on a fixed income, and if I only pay rent and don’t pay any of my other bills whatsoever, I could save the money up that way, and it would still take me until April – I’m sure all of you understand why that’s not actually a viable option.
So I’m asking for help.
I’ve gotten a ko-fi thing; there’s a link to it in the description on my tumblr, but I’m also putting it here: https://ko-fi.com/amaronith
If you want something more tangible for your help, I’ll write fic on commission, pricing and such can be discussed via email: amaronith@gmail.com
I’ll also make hats and cowls at $30(USD) each, or $40(USD) for a set, but as I will be using yarn I already have, the colors are a toss up – I can keep in mind any color preferences you might have, but again, I am only working through what I already have in stock. I work primarily in acrylic and acrylic/wool blends, and I live in a house with three cats, so please keep these things in mind if you’re going to go this route. if it helps in your choice any, I have 25 years of crocheting experience behind me.
Thank you all so much – every little bit will help!
AN UPDATE!
Holy heckin’ heck, internet.
We’ve still got a bit to go, but since posting the call for help, so many people have come forward with kind words and ko-fi things and I just – A little bit of faith in humanity restored, you know? I am so, so endlessly thankful to you all, and so proud to be part of a community who is this kind and generous.
In the spirit of keeping things as transparent as I possibly can, I made a spread sheet – it doesn’t say who gave how much or anything, these are just the numbers in relation to the goal. If you notice there are discrepancies in what you can see on the ko-fi page and here: Paypal takes a portion of the donations as a processing fee. Because Paypal. -_-
Once again, thank you to everyone who has donated, reblogged, said a kind word – you all have been so kind, so wonderful and so, so amazing. I’ll try to keep the spreadsheet updated in as close to real time as I can get, if only for my own sanity.
Thank you. Thank you.
Whoop!! Less than 350 dollars to go! I’m getting second-hand faith in humanity restored just by seeing that.
As I’ve said the past few days, folks, if you can donate or even simply reblog this post, it would be wonderful help to this amazing writerly lady here.
do you ever feel yourself slowly losing your current hyperfixation but you’re not particularly interested in anything else rn so you have nothing to fill that void and ur just bored and ready for death
backup blogging platform 