The lighter side of ADHD
Not me buying The Shire route in The Conqueror Challenges in Spring-ish 2024 to motivate myself to go on more walks and getting a neat little medal at the end with the One Ring inside and being 70% done when I suddenly lose motivation.
The app is still waiting for me to get this challenge done and I just haven't. I hope I'll get it done this summer break because it's a lot of money to just throw out the window.
This is posted in a ADHD community, not a meme community, and nothing in it claimed these were exclusive.
You can actually do things to control impulses. I feel like this is just giving license to unhealthy coping mechanisms. ๐คทโโ๏ธ
I think the worst part is that even if you do all you can to avoid these things, they may still happen anyway.
The so-called ADHD tax is not something I am personally super affected by because I am usually too paranoid about bankruptcy to spend on much of anything outside of food, bills and necessities.
However things still happen where I lose money because I am the way that I am. There was a period where I became very into eating cucumbers and I would buy one everytime I was at the store until I realized we had six whole cucumbers in the fridge and some of them were going bad.
Things like that happen even though I hate spending money. Even if I don't mean to. They still happen.
The area where I struggle the absolute most is when it comes to structure and routine. You wouldn't believe how many systems I have tried, how strict I have been about them and how every single one of them have collapsed into rubble after a few months. I yearn for structure, routine and stability, but I can't fucking do it without help. I just can't. It is so much effort to build a house of cards and then life happens, like a gust of wind and I have to start from scratch. Every. Single. Time. You can't put the world on pause to have your feeble attempt at stability survive for longer. Shit happens. Sickness, weekends, vacations, family visits and so on. They happen and they will fuck up every attempt at structure I have every single time. My life is the closest to structured when I live the same day over and over and cut out all enjoyment and spontaneity, but that's not how life works. It took me many years to accept this. I just have to build my house of cards all the time and I have to accept that it will collapse all the time.
I imagine that those who really struggle with the ADHD tax are in similar positions. If the tax is to them what the inability to keep structure is to me, then I feel pretty bad for them. Especially if they're being told to "just do it and stop making excuses".
Thanks for sharing your perspective. From my experience there is no perfect solution, routines take time and effort to develop. You can put energy into developing routine, wake up one morning and find it doesn't work anymore. It's like trying to hit a constantly moving target.
My commentary is about the image. I view it as promoting acceptance of behaviors that are unhealthy. I resent the implication that I'm helpless to my impulses, when I have worked so hard to control them.
Not trying to invalidate anyone's experience, just sharing mine
This is exactly how I feel looking at this "meme". It's all money related and feels like it's encouraging people to say things like "oops I forgot to cancel my Amazon prime subscription, I must have ADHD haha". We live in overwhelming times, too much information everywhere, too many subscriptions, too much stuff with instant access, but nobody ever mentions that.
People used to get their news from a newspaper once a week. There weren't 10-20 "subscriptions" to keep track of. You couldn't pull a thing out of your pocket to relieve boredom or sadness or loneliness, and people couldn't contact you expecting a response within an hour. We're not used to this biologically...
To me, this meme seems to be making fun of ADHD more than anything.
Most of these replies seem to assume I have no understanding or empathy for these problems. I just don't like the image, and the implication that we have absolutely zero control over impulsive decision making.
To control impulses does not mean to cure them. My experiences as a person with ADHD are just as valid as everyone else's.
Sadly there are a ton of these kinds of things here on Lemmy. Also seems like some people want to drown in their sadness and spread it.
It's tragic, medication and therapy work. I used to think the problem wasn't my ADHD, but trying to function within societies expectations. Now I would maintain treatment, even if I didn't need to "perform" for survival.
It can get better!