we have created a signal support group to connect a supportive network of people struggling with cptsd, bpd and other forms of trauma. please feel free to vent, trauma dump and be together during tough times 🩷

https://signal.group/#CjQKIDyYlgFaxeDUSqLmJBwWiVzGgbtBC0exF3kew0J4A-3LEhA9q2epnMPa-nL_gmAqa2Xo

I've been diagnosed with ADHD and Autism and I'm pretty familiar with the difficulties and increased anxiety/depression in day-to-day life.

Overall, I'm doing pretty well now. If people talk to me, they would not know I experience any difficulties in life. (Although I'm currently not working). I'm not really that stressed in general, I'm doing much better socially, capable of getting things done everyday, and not feeling terribly tired every day anymore.

But sometimes, seemingly unannounced, I get these bouts of severe discomfort. It feels to me like anxiety, but it's not preceded by any worrying thoughts. (as far as I can tell).

When I feel this, I usually have to lie down or I might start coughing and vomiting. And I will not be able to get myself to do anything anymore. (not even just do something I usually enjoy.)

This can last for an hour, but sometimes it's almost a whole day. Afterwards, I seem to be perfectly fine again.

Is this something that anybody else experiences? Or is there something else going on? Everytime I go to the doctor to explain this, they don't seem to be worried and tell me that it's probably fine.

But fear for having this happen again (And it seems to happen quite frequently), is what is keeping me from making any commitments in terms of my life or work.

Hi all

It's quite common for people with adhd (and autism) to have problems with executive functioning and working memory. Which can influence a bunch of things like being able to follow steps, remembering where you left things, being able to follow a conversation, concentrating on some task, etc...

I've been diagnosed for both (autism more recently) and got to know that based on the tests of my assessment that my working memory is quite heavily impaired, but the rest of my mind works quite normal.

In day to day life, this can be rather bothersome, but I usually find some way to deal with it. But when sick, or when I had a bad sleep, suddenly I become almost incapable of basic tasks. Unable to prepare food, make appointments, or work in any way.

It's quite normal that this impacts your working memory in a negative way. (Even for neurotypicals, it's the same). But there seems to be this threshold where things become almost impossible. Where you start forgetting things you have to do only moments later.

I'm looking for ways to cope with these moments. Obviously when sick, you need rest, and eat enough. So I'm not looking to force myself to be able to work while sick. But sometimes it's so bad that I even forget to rest, forget how to cook, forget how to order food online, forget how to take care of myself. Which usually results in me being sick and worse off for a much longer time.

Things I've found that help me:

• Meditation (Incredibly difficult when sick, but every bit seems to help)
• Medication (ADHD meds seem to help a bit, if I'm using them at the moment, I seem to feel much better, even when it's mostly physical discomfort. )
• Committing skills/knowledge to long-term memory (This is difficult because usually it requires extra time and calm moments where you can focus on it. It helped me a lot for cooking. Practicing the basics makes it much easier to get cooking even if I feel terrible)

Any other suggestions as to what might be good ways to improve working memory and make sure that I stay functional to make sure I can take care of myself?

Coming out of paralysis and into power. Time to catch up on everythingggggg 🤘😎🎉

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/16044688

Brain enlargement may be linked to symptom severity in kids with autism spectrum disorder

Specifically, social and communication symptoms appear to be more severe in children who display brain overgrowth on MRI scans. Experts believe this overgrowth may be associated with alterations in the activity of the Ndel1 enzyme, which is related to embryonic neuron differentiation and migration.

Study: https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-024-00602-8

Hi everyone,

I’m reaching out to ask for advice and insights on how you manage emotional dysregulation. Lately, I’ve been finding it challenging to handle intense emotions, especially when they seem to come out of nowhere or are triggered by small things.

I know this is something that many people in the AuDHD community experience, so I’d love to hear about any strategies, tools, or practices that have worked for you. Whether it’s specific techniques, coping mechanisms, or lifestyle changes, I’m open to anything that might help.

Thank you in advance for your support and for sharing your experiences. I really appreciate hearing from others who understand what this is like.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Hi all, I just wanted to say hello. I’m an adult and came to realize in the past few years only that I’m probably on the spectrum given some of my tendencies. When I was a kid there was no label autism other than the most extreme cases. As it turns out, my son - late teens - is on the spectrum and also has ADHD. He struggles with a variety of aspects but he’s also strong and insightful. He learns about himself more all the time, and I also have the benefit of being able to relate to some of his challenges.

So I just thought I’d say hi; very glad to have discovered this community.

I’m around most of the time to comment or converse.

Best wishes to everyone, and I’m hoping to have some rewarding conversations in the future.

Steps taken:

1. Wake up
2. Pop bloons
3. Get out of bed (only when biologically necessary)
4. Take pills
5. Eat breakfast
6. Sit on toilet
7. Watch half a dozen videos on how to Do Thing
8. Rest aching back by laying down
9. Watch half a dozen videos about how to maybe not Do Thing and Do Better Thing instead (that will definitely take more than the day of work I had allowed for it, be backbreaking, and something I have never done before, but will also be more permanent and beneficial in the long run)
10. Discuss Thing with spouse
11. Nod off
12. Open Big Box Hardware Store app and put supplies in cart
13. Price compare Do Thing and Do Better Thing
14. Fret about day getting late
15. Get out of bed when absolutely biologically necessary
16. Eat dinner
17. Watch videos unrelated to Thing
18. Post about it on lemmy as I watch the sun go down

Still left to do:

1. Thing

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18216456

Hallo Leute! Ich habe meine ADHS diagnose bekommen, und darf mich jetzt wirklich als ADHSler bezeichnen.

Ich hätte Lust auf eine Austauschgruppe zu etlichen Dingen wie Medikamenten, Erfahrungen, Apps, Strategien etc.

Um etwas Datenschutz zu garantieren, würde ich sagen alle interessierten schreiben mir eine private Nachricht, mit einem lustigen Spruch und ihrem Wunsch für die Gruppe.

(Bot-Abwehr ist nervig...)

So I know that despite the classic portrayal of an autist being someone who is asexual, many of us are at the opposite end of the scale. Yet if you search for Lemmy communities, there are several for asexual folk and none for hypersexual folk. Is there any good resources for us to rant/support each other/talk about our struggles? If it were specifically for neurodivergent folk, that would be a great bonus.

My train of thought has gone down the same path hundreds of times when bored. There is no new realisation about that topic that remains to be had. And yet every time my inner monologue goes down the same well trodden path. It almost hurts at this point. I don't really choose the topic, it's usually just one I've come into contact with repeatedly and they change over the years. I commute by bus and the monologue is always at the same point at the same point in the journey. I am going crazy. How do I turn this off.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15732362

I'm curious to see the types of jobs and work fields that us audhders thrive in since a lot of jobs usually just end up burning us out.

Anyone found a way to make a steady income and not hate the job?

Image: That Would Be Great meme template

Caption: If you could just not dance down the aisles, touch everything, and tell everyone the pros and cons of all the products you see...that would be great.

I can't work on maths problems: by the time I key a calculation into my calculator I've forgotten what I was actually calculating.

When I open my phone to write an email, by the time I have the 'new email' screen open I've forgotten what I wanted to write and to whom.

When I go off looking for something in another room, I forget what I was looking for by the time I've entered it. I constantly mutter 'What was I doing? What was I doing?'

This is so debilitating -- I can't live like this. What can I do?

Sorry in advance for the wall of text! Some background...

Enter me, someone who usually gets around by bicycle or public transport. I'm about 200 miles away from anyone close (besides my partner) and the trains, while fast and convenient, are expensive and quite limited at some times of the day.

So, as a solution, I decided I'll pick up some driving lessons so I can drive to friends with a rental or my own vehicle, on much more flexible terms. Since I had some existing experience in various driving simulators (almost 200h combined), I decided why not?

Now, about the lesson.

The instructor was absolutely amazing, got me up to speed with all kinds of things I wasn't familiar with, like adjusting the mirrors, wheel and stuff.

The car is a stick shift/manual, as that's the norm here. To be honest, changing gears was the easiest part - it felt really familiar because of the simulators. However I really struggled with how much information you need to take in from around you during the actual driving, literally had to try so hard to not make my mind wander for even a second, because I'd lose track of the environment and stuff. It was dark too so that made things a little challenging.

I'd say a major stress point too is the fact that i'm operating a 2000kg SUV, not an agile 20kg bicycle.

On one hand I'm hoping things improve with time, on the other I really wish we had good, affordable public transport to begin with.

What are your thoughts?

This finding demonstrates that ASD + ADHD is neither an endophenocopy nor an additive pathology of ASD and ADHD, but an entirely different neuroanatomical pathology. In addition, ASD + ADHD displayed altered GM volume asymmetries in the prefrontal regions responsible for executive function and theory of mind compared with ASD-only.

A black and white image of a black wolf and white wolf looking at each other with what looks to be the Sun or Moon behind them. The caption above the black wolf says, "One is autistic." The caption above the white wolf says, "One is ADHD." In between and underneath both, it says, "You are over stimulated."

I'm not sure where else to vent. I don't want to seem like I'm playing the victim as everyone else in this community is having the same executive functioning issues I'm having and I don't mean to distract from those things but having to navigate these issues while being constantly reminded of my race is exhausting.

I can handle the stares from my coworkers when I head to work. I know why they're staring. I know what Black men are stereotyped as and a black dude repairing laptops in a small repair shop located in a small town is a rare sight but im used to the stares.

I can handle it when people spot me walking on the sidewalk and immediately veer straight to the road to avoid having to walk in my direction. It's funny at times that people will prioritize not having to walk next to a Black man over their own safety but this is fine in a sad way. Everyone does this. White, east asian, south asian. It doesn't matter.

What is stressful is having people hypermonitor me. I can't enter grocery stores anymore because loss prevention will always try to follow me everywhere. I've filed complaints but management doesnt care. They're wasting resources having people follow me around looking to see if i might steal but it doesnt matter. I start stimming a lot when people watch me and this makes people even more suspicious of my intentions. It's immediately obvious to most people that I'm autistic after I start doing this, but they simply don't care.

I'm also almost always lost. I have a terrible sense of direction. This constant confusion I have as to where I'm going is misinterpreted as me scheming or casing an area. I ask people around where is x and they either don't respond or nervously laugh and say they don't know.

It seems to me that the only times I'm noticed are when someone is trying to ascertain whether im a threat or not. I'm not human to most people.

I've almost been involved in fights back in high school because I get nonverbal and struggle to maintain eye contact as soon as people confront me. I'm small but I have a bigger frame so most people don't mess with me.

It's bad enough that I have both ADHD and Autism but being Black amplifies the disadvantages these disorders have to my social life to an almost unmanageable degree. I'm tired of having to navigate all of this. Even after paying for an expensive psychoeducational assessment my family still thinks I'm not autistic because I speak "like a white man". Even after I mustered up the courage to go to toastmasters, the head of that specific group asked me so many questions as to why i joined and concluded his barrage of questions with "your one of the good ones". Noone stepped in. They all silently supported what he was doing because I'm Black and "what could his intentions be?" Noone stepped in when I was called a racial slur for failing to troubleshoot a customer's complaint. My boss just made a snide remark and said "these things happen, try not to let it get to you".

The one romantic partner I had disclosed to me that her parents absolutely hated Black people. We liked the same things, I cooked her food from her culture and even learned enough of the language to follow a conversation. None of it mattered. If her parents hated just neurodivergent people I'd be okay with that but there was never any chance that we'd be anything more than gf/bf. My life is pathetic.

I can mask well enough and I've mitigated the effects of ADHD with adderall. But I will always be Black. I get annoyed when people just tell me to toughen up or "it'll get better" or "it's the anxiety talking". None of these things are true. Noone will say it but if you had a choice as to what race you could be and you knew the implications it would have wrt your social life, noone would choose to be Black. Even Africans in Africa have an inferiority complex and my own mother laments the fact that my skin isn't nearly as light as her. What the fuck?

I don't know if I'm forming a coherent post anymore. This is the first time I'm trying weed and instead of calming me down I've just been in a bad state of mind. I've gotten nothing productive done today but I'm tired of playing at such a severe disadvantage. At the very least let me not have autism and adhd so im not called retarded by the people I thought were my friends. I hate being here and I hate being me

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/5546920

As someone facing homelessness myself due to issues beyond my control, I just wanted people to know they're not alone.

These conditions are real, and people's misunderstanding - and willful refusal to understand - wrecks lives.

I hope you can get to a safe place where you can exist in your own skin in peace.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/5236945

I'm curious if anyone out there reading who lives with ADHD and/or ASD w/executive dysfunction ... when it comes to tasks that aren't just your own but that involve (or are needed by) others, for example household tasks when living with others ... do you find that you actually need consensus and/or discussion on the topic of tasks in order to get them done?

What I'm realizing is that for me, part of executive dysfunction means I don't have the internal watchdog that keeps track of stuff I need to do in relation to others, and just personally speaking I cannot rely on (or be tormented by) guilt as a way to work around the lack of a watchdog.

The one thing that does work for me is talking about it with the people involved, especially if they are people I respect or care about. Either coming to consensus, or at least maintaining shared understanding of the shared space / task list / etc. For some reason, the process of coming to a shared-state perspective on shared effort, and understanding how my responsibilities impact others and at what time others need me to have completed them, is like sprinkling magic pixie dust on the task-item in my brain that allows me to remember it exists at all once it's 5 days later in the week or whatever. I still suck at scheduling and prioritizing and whatnot, but at least I remember the damn task exists and am trying to get it done!

The reason I've figured all this out is kinda grim, long story short I ended up on my ass about 10 years ago, and lost my home about 7 years ago, and then people took me in... and those people don't do the above. They don't discuss things and they don't build consensus or shared state, they just do stuff. And it's utterly and completely paralyzing because I spent the first 3 decades of my life living with people who did discuss things that affect others around them, and now my entire repertoire of human behavior is based on the premise that people attempt to keep each other informed like this, and that's just not the case for a great number of people.

And that process of communication or shared-state rehashing, which I thought all humans engaged in because both my parents did and almost everybody I lived with early in life did, is absolutely critical to wallpapering over my lack of ability to keep track of / remember that tasks exist, especially as my level of overwhelm gets high or my energy gets low.

What really made this sink in was remembering that my dad had endless conflicts with a kid of his from another marriage when he would go to visit, because she also doesn't communicate like this, and just like me, my dad was also absolutely critically dependent on it in order to be able to do anything at all really. In fact that's how I realized that he had a very similar neurological profile to me. In some ways our behavior is starkly alike and now I understand why.

BTW, that dad who almost certainly would be diagnosed with the same dreamy 'primarily inattentive' adult ADHD that I have today, got a Ph.D., retired as a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force, and went on to lead a small college language department and then have a long retirement doing occasional work in advanced linguistics. He later decided to learn Italian, and succeeded, in his 70s. Every time in his life when he had either autonomy and resources to do his own thing, or external structure + social glue that agreed with him, he was able to excel. Without those conditions, he would drift badly and become depressed. Understanding this has helped me understanding myself. My dad was a poor parent in a lot of other ways, but his ability to succeed when he had enough pieces of the puzzle does give me hope.

At some point my partner and I tried to come up with recipes that are as hassle free as possible.

We’re both vegan, don’t really like to shop or keep track of our use what’s about to go off in the fridge, so a lot of what we cook uses frozen or canned veggies. My partner also despises having to cook, so the quicker something is to prepare the better. Luckily vegan food keeps for ages and we don’t mind eating the same thing for weeks, which means we can cook in bulk.

We wrote up some recipes that we landed on. I though I might sharing them here, in case someone can relate.

Apologies for any entries that are unfinished (title only) or unpolished.

It's exhausting because I spend a good portion of the day waiting for my mind to start working, and it's pretty inefficient. I'm trying to figure out what this is all about, like is it temporary due to burnout, Strattera, or something else.