I’ll check it out, I had it bad this weekend.

This was the one that made me think, oh, I might have ADHD!

Huh, I’ve always been a tea drinker rather than coffee, and I’ve always found tea more calming that coffee or caffeinated sodas. This could be why.

It could also help explain why my mother, who I’ve suspected for a while was undiagnosed, favored tea over coffee all her life and really went off the rails once she developed a caffeine allergy and stopped drinking it.

If I know long long it takes to get somewhere, I will somehow find myself leaving the house with exactly that amount of time, leaving no space for delays. This is bad. So instead I’ve started saying “I’m going to leave at this time, which is definitely more time than I need” and then not looking at a clock when I get there so I never find out how much closer I could cut it.

The other strategy is to plan to eat when I get there, before whatever it is starts. I will be motivated to get there with enough time to eat.

take a nap, me

I’ve had chronic intermittent tinnitus my whole life, can’t really say it helps me concentrate when it’s flaring up.

Edit: I went looking for samples of pink and brown noise, and the brown sample I found claims to help relieve tinnitus. Since my flare-ups are sometimes accompanied by headaches or vertigo, I’ll check it out and see if it helps me at all.

What about New Wave?

In a familiar situation (at work, getting my kids ready for school) I just look around for all the things I can see need doing and do whatever is highest priority.

In an unfamiliar situation (eg. trying to schedule back-to-school checkups) I flounder. I still look around for all the things I can see need doing, but;

• I don’t always know what needs doing

• I don’t always know how to do it

• I tend to do not the highest-priority task but the one with the lowest cost / barrier-to-entry

• I will be fighting my anxiety, related to the first two points, the whole time

I have found no software solution, premade or coded by myself personally, that beats a pen & paper bullet journal.

I recently tried one that boasted about how it used AI to help organize your tasks, but it didn’t and couldn’t do the one thing I needed it to, which is automatically populate a daily to-do list with suggested tasks.

I’m a waitress. A lot of bartenders and waitresses have ADHD or are undiagnosed but share symptoms.

Previously I’ve been a teacher and worked in childcare.

And most folks angry at religion aren’t angry at the ECUSA.

This is why I don’t watch television.

Alright! Not really familiar with the genre, but I put up a post to get you started.

The fantastic mind: This is what’s active when I read books, examine memories, do mathematics, and dream. Vision, sound, smell, texture, emotion, and kinaesthesia simulated and under some amount of control.

The word mind: Text and inflection and sound and meaning. This is what’s active when I speak or sing, whether internally or aloud (and I’m more or less constantly doing one or the other when awake, usually aloud but not always).

The reactive mind: Processing inputs, forming connections, and responding to them. This is what activates during empathic conversation, when making jokes, and during most kinds of problem-solving. Mostly below the conscious level, and the responses are left to the word mind to use or not use (in conversation), or the fantastic mind to visualize and examine (in problem-solving).

The guts: Some might call this “the intuitive mind” but mine is full of crap. It gives me anxiety about things for no good reason. It also tells me to stop what I’m doing and check on time-sensitive agenda needing my attention, so I do attend when it flares up, but it’s not great about giving direction to do something, just to stop or avoid things. It’s like a smoke detector that goes off randomly, but also when there’s smoke. No false negatives, so you keep using it, but lots of false positives.

Generally, as an introvert, the fantastic mind is active best when I’m alone or at least in calm, familiar surroundings.

The reactive mind I find somewhat draining to use but usually that’s compensated for by the results: emotional connections, jokes, problems solved, recognition at work. But I don’t really control its outputs, only whether or not I use them; if a task goes in and nothing comes out, that’s the ballgame; I might not even remember there’s a task anymore until something reminds me.

The word mind is closest to the decision-making process, and so I tend to think of it as the most “me” even though it’s not fully under my control.

And the guts, well, you know how I feel about that. It may be that the guts are the same thing as the reactive mind but acting on subconscious inputs rather than conscious ones, I suppose.

Obviously a little simplistic, but those are the four primary mental modes for me.

I love the sticky note idea! I’m going to try it as soon as I remember to buy sticky notes in four months.

Yep. Whatever project seems more interesting than what I’m doing at work, but less interesting once I get home and have options.

That’s why I turn off the oven at the same time. Even if I forget the food in there for a few minutes or a weekend or whatever, at least it’s not making the house smell bad.

I can’t see without my glasses anyway, why bother with lights?

You make it I’ll join it.

I had no idea soulseek was still around. Found some great music that way when I was using it two decades ago in college.

Other people definitely feel like you do. Not me, I view texting as asynchronous, but a lot of people have expressed to me that they get frustrated when I don’t text back promptly.

Just because you get a diagnosis doesn’t mean you need to tell anyone about it, if you’re worried about being judged. That can stay between you and your doctor and maybe your pharmacist.

Thanks for the encouragement. It’s been a year and my anxiety is a lot better now. I’ll see if I can’t get another referral and be seen again, maybe by a different psych.

Thanks, Mr. Poopybutthole. I know I can always count on you.

I went to a doctor, a psychiatrist. She told me she couldn’t assess me for ADHD because the primary symptoms I was presenting were also symptoms of an anxiety disorder, which I definitely have, and once I had my anxiety disorder under control then she could do an ADHD assessment. So I’ve been working on that for the last year and wondering.

I’m not self-diagnosed and I’ve never claimed to have ADHD. I’m also not leaving, soooooo

Enh, I dunno. I don’t have a diagnosis and maybe I don’t have ADHD. But a lot of the behavioral hacks people share here have been helpful to me, and it’s nice to see other people struggling, and succeeding, against the same problems I face.

A lot of Neal Stephenson, but especially Cryptonomicon, The Baroque series, and Anathem… though with the last it’s not so much the narrator as a lot of other main characters.

I’ve been there, I get it, but yeah, I’m not that broke anymore. My kids need clean uniforms for school and I need a clean uniform for work.

Thanks. That’s what I’ve been doing today, post-realization, is sitting with the knowledge and how it makes me feel.

I love PDA! I kiss my wife any and everywhere. I don’t need a reminder for that.

There are five people in my house. Each generates one full load of laundry every week or so. That’s two sets of PJs, four pairs of pants, seven tops, seven pairs each of underwear and socks, and a bath towel.

Add in bed linens, kitchen towels, and throw rugs, and 6-7 loads a week is not excessive. I don’t do laundry every day; I prefer to do a few loads at a time twice a week. But with a high-efficiency washer it’s not even that much water, and they are all full loads so it’s not “wasted” anyway.

Some of us are parents. Laundry never stops.

So tired! It’s exhausting, especially for my eyes.

With the book, let yourself be bored and drop it. Follow that boredom into sleep. You don’t need to read; the reading is a tool to help you relax.

The point of meditation is to stop focusing. Every time something catches your attention, ignore it. For people like us, or at least for me, this is easier in the beginning with eyes open, facing s blank wall. Any time something grabs your attention, redirect to staring at a spot on the wall. It’s a skill you learn, and it’s easier with someone standing over you watching and reminding when they see you start to look around or fidget.

Another form of meditation is by chanting a mantra; something in another language and short, ideally. In this one, you’re focused on your breathing and the mantra, saying it slowly and banishing all other thoughts besides the sound of your voice (or inner voice) and your slow, even breathing.

A third one some ND people like us coloring. Some crayons or colored pencils and a coloring book that’s more pattern than picture. Again, try not to think about anything beyond the color on the page.

With all forms of meditation, think of it like a bank, into which you’re depositing not money but calmness. So it only works if you make the deposits in advance. But once you do, if you find yourself in a situation where you’d like to be calm, reaching for the mantra, or staring at a spot on the wall, it absorbing yourself in image less color, will bring you some of the calm you banked earlier.

Meditation in the middle of the day, music in the morning, reading before bed

Like you already noticed, the things you do for fun are not relaxing. Fun is important, too, but relaxation also needs to be part of your routine. You can’t wait until you’re stressed or tired.

I fold mine on the dining room table.

I also work in a restaurant, so I’m used to eating standing up.

I just folded something yesterday that I washed two months ago.

Not well, honestly.

This game really clicked with me in a way Pokémon Go never did. I’m glad to see a community come to lemmy.

Solarpunk best instance!