Jokes aside, I'd love to figure out how to help my kid with this. Sometimes shit just isn't in the cards and it causes a lot of pain between us.
this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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It depends on what specifically you’re trying to get him to do, but something I’ve found very helpful is setting up the environment in a way that will lower the “initiation energy” of something to make it easier to start doing. YMMV on what does or doesn’t work for him, my spouse and I have found labels and organizing by task to be a huge help in making it easier to start things because now I have to devote 0% of my brain power to wandering around finding everything I need and staying on task, and I don’t need to root through drawers to find it.
Sensory adjustments to the environment might also be useful, like changing light levels, noise blocking headphones/ear plugs, or playing white noise/natural noises. And it sounds hippy dippy as fuck, but time in outdoor green spaces has been shown to improve symptoms in kids with ADHD, so if you guys aren’t regularly spending time outside or at the park it could be a good to incorporate it.
You’re already doing a lot more than many parents just by trying to understand and empathize instead of beating it out of him, so fist bump from a former neurodivergent kid. 🤜
What's helped me is a combination of physical exercise (which helps against feelings of unrest that may be bothering me) and sort of sliding into the subject, tackling the easier parts first and from there riding the dopamine wave.
But yeah, it doesn't get any easier.
I kinda... Need it to?
That's where therapy for you comes in. Gotta figure out how to get used to it, because adhd is for life.
It might help you to think of your son having adhd as being functionally the same if he was paraplegic.
ADHD isn't a chemical imbalance like depression. It's a developmental disorder where something happened to his brain while he was a fetus, and now his frontal/prefrontal cortex doesn't function correctly.
It's literally a disability, so you don't cure it, you learn to work around it.
After a half a decade or so, I do feel as if I could use some counseling. So many quick and intense feelings that I've never had to deal with before have left me feeling somewhat whiplashed - reactive and grouchy... I'll try to make room in my life for some talk therapy down the road. Meanwhile we're seeking options to help him manage his symptoms. Thanks
If your son having adhd is a struggle for you, then therapy needs to be now, not later. Otherwise there's a chance you might start resenting him, and those feelings can be hard to get rid of after they get established.
Or, at least read some self help books specifically for parents of adhd children.
My wife figured out she was on the spectrum not too long ago, and me getting therapy and reading books for people in my situation really helped with being patient and understanding.
But, I made the mistake of waiting until things became an actual problem before doing it, so it's been a struggle for me to not struggle with it.
Depending on how old your kid is, it might or it might not improve. The frontal lobe of their brain still has a lot of development left in children; right up until they’re about 25. This may improve things.
Also, please don’t be one of those parents who discounts meds. They can really help a lot. And no, they’re not addictive (in fact, people with ADHD are more likely to forget them than to use them recreationally).
Thank you. Sincerely. My parents are the ones who have been working on me, trying to play it off as no big deal and trying to scare me away from pharmaceuticals. "Everyone I knew who ever abused pills was medicated as a child," and other shit like that.
Currently he's very young, and I have heard that the presentation changes with age. I have some hope. An older friend with ADHD tells me that his memories of being this age were like that of "being a feral animal", and he marvels at what mine is capable of already. That's the frustration of it for me, he's so bright and I only get to see it a few moments at a time. I want to bask in his glow my whole life.
Or because they're tired of hearing "I just forgot". You can only say "I forgot (because Zi was overwhelmed, because the task wasn't interesting, because I got distracted, because I can't remember lists, because I do a soft reset every time I walk through a doorway)" so many times, even though it keeps being true.
This is why I love my current job and my friendship group's. In both circles "I didn't do that because I've been struggling with my ADHD" is a completely valid reason.
I mean, at work it's followed by a short "what do we do to get over that hurdle?" because obviously I can't just, not do my job.
But at least I'm not having to make shit up, and I can actually get to the root of the problem (being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world) and address it. Even if addressing it is just my boss giving me a fake deadline to put the pressure on the task.
Ugh my current boss is one of those "what's wrong with that guy calling in suck when there's work to do" guys, I hate it.
I have anxiety and on bad days like today and yesterday I'm absolutely fucking useless.
I keep getting in trouble at work for calling in sick from anxiety and I don't even know why I keep getting it. I'm sitting here with nothing to do and I'm anxious. Why is my brain like this?
I can't tell you why, but I get the exact same thing with my anxiety, and it saps my focus and motivation.
I think I saw a post on reddit along the lines of "anything worth doing is worth doing poorly", for example doing a poor job brushing your teeth is better than not brushing them at all. It's different than half assing something because you still care, you're just doing what you can do.
I've kind of adopted that philosophy because it's better to go to work and be 20% productive than not go and be zero percent and then worry about making up for lost time.
NGL, I've just accepted that it won't make sense to the neurotypicals.
I'll straight up say "sorry, my brain wouldn't let me do it" or "the guy upstairs is really fighting me right now" while pointing at my head.
Best case, they understand what I mean. Worst case, they think I'm crazy, which is a best case in and of itself.
Yeah the co-workers that think I'm "crazy" leave me alone and don't ask me to complete stuff so its a huge win.
ADD/ADHD is an executive function failure related to feedback and it’s relationship to motivation. Normies never experience that on anything approaching a regular basis. As such, trying to explain that to them is like trying to explain what the colour of the number seven smells like. They’ll be all, “well, just do it. How hard could it be?”
They’ll be all, “well, just do it. How hard could it be?”
Though sometimes that’s exactly what I need someone to tell me. To the point that I do this with some of my other ADHD friends. “Do it right now. I’ll wait.”
I promise you "Yeah I just kinda fucked it off" resonates with many more people than you'd think.
If you'd like to try and find a faster way to alienate a neurodivergent person, this is basically it.
My parents still have no clue how to regulate there comments when I mention my difficulties. They love pointing out how "pretty much everyone struggles with getting their real life taken care of."
Yeah, and I'm sure everyone else also sits there for hours at a time, lamenting themselves for not being able to get up and getting it done. It's less about the inability to get started, and more about the excruciating guilt you feel when simple tasks take hours of internal bargaining to finally get done.
The OP was talking about the feeling of needing to lie for fear others won't understand, but my suggestion is to not lie, being transparent works way more often. It works for me, anyways, and if people don't understand then that's their problem, not mine.
No idea where you dug all that shit out of, though, but good job I guess.
Unfortunately, at least for me, people very frequently make it my problem when they don't understand (or don't care). Mainly my parents. And they wonder why I don't talk to them anymore.
The point I was trying to make was that, more often than not, it doesn't matter how transparent and honest you are, a lot of people will never buy into the "I forgot again" excuse because you're supposed to "learn from your mistakes."
I'm exactly the same way as you, except it can get a lot more difficult when I add in my constant need to please everyone. It's almost not worth the effort to be honest when the people you're talking are not reciprocative of your struggles, even though they claim to acknowledge your illness.
I'm not sure there was any need to be so defensive about it, but it was on me for not properly explaining my thought process. Just trying to have a critical conversation about the problems that plague us.
seriously though it doesn't even make a lot of sense to me.
nor does forgetting the thing - like no one I work with has this problem why me
I usually just say something like "I did say I was going to do that didn't I, sorry I haven't got to it yet" and people chuckle and move on. YMMV depending on your workplace, obviously.
I'm a fan of the "haven't had a chance yet" language.
If they press me on that, I just tell them what other tasks I have on my list.
Indeed. My priorities are different to your priorities, so your number one priority is just somewhere on my list 🤷