Ready for a long ace-centric metaphor about sex?
Alright, so. Coffee. I don’t drink coffee. I have no desire to drink coffee. I find people who enthusiastically go on about the flavor differences of lattes, espressos, and french press brews, both amusing and mildly baffling. All the coffee ads. Coffee jokes. Bustling coffee shops. To me, all coffee is similarly bitter and unpleasant. I have been through so many “Try this, it’s sweet! You can’t even taste the coffee!” Alas, I always can. And I’m sensitive to caffeine anyway. So, I don’t really think about drinking it when I wake up or am tired.
Yet I love the smell of coffee. I love the idea of coffee. The feeling of a warm cup taking the chill from my fingers, the cozy ritual of having a drink and chat.
I might try someone’s coffee. If they ask, if I want to please them and share in something they enjoy.
I am also perfectly capable of learning the preferences of those I care about and creating a cup for their pleasure.
But I don’t want coffee, generally speaking. I will probably make a face after trying their coffee and wash the taste out with something else. They may rush to reassure me that it is an acquired taste. And I’ll have to reply that it’s a taste I don’t particularly care about acquiring in the way they did. ‘Drink it till you like it’ will never work for me.
But that doesn’t mean I am against coffee or think people shouldn’t drink it. Doesn’t mean I’ve taken a vow to never drink any. And sure, maybe if you get one of those sugar and whipped cream disasters, more of a warm milkshake than a cup of coffee, I’ll probably be happier sipping it with you. But honestly? I’d rather smell someone else’s coffee and not be expected to drink it. I’d really rather have the heat and sweetness of my hot cocoa.
I love this
The best part is it works for ALLLL the ace spectrum! Maybe you like one specific type of coffee on rare occasions! Maybe you enjoy coffee when you’re sharing the drink with someone! Maybe you can’t even stand the smell of coffee!
This needs to be on my blog.
This is it exactly oh my god.
would also like to add – maybe you don’t even dislike coffee. but…you don’t like it either. you’ll drink it, you think it’s okay, sometimes even good, but you’ll never go out of your way to have some. you pass the aisle at the grocery store. you hang out at coffee shops for the atmosphere and you definitely get why people like it, can see the allure, but it’s just something you can live without.
Tag: oH
Anyone else get executive dysfunction but like,,, with sleeping?
I’m sleepy and and ready for bed. When am I gonna go to sleep? Heck if I know.
It’s called bedtime procrastination, and it is very much a thing! It comes up a lot with ADHD people and autistic people.
What’s the Real Lesson?
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.
#I wonder if this might potentially apply to people with autism as well?#because I haven’t been diagnosed with adhd but MAN do I fee this#and like I had the situation a lot of people went through#breezed through elementary and high school and in gifted and talented#but then college happened and I was LOST
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
fromthemindofatwentyorotherlycan:
anyone else get a fuzzy-restless feeling when you need to do something but your brain won’t focus on anything and you’re silently begging yourself to just do one thing but instead you’re scrolling tumblr even though you don’t even want to be … it’s like your head is filled with heavy electric cotton like you’re both uncomfy and unable to stop
This is the best damn description of executive dysfunction I have ever heard