As someone recently diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, one thing that’s been helping me grapple with the intense shame I have over all my “wasted potential” is accepting that potential doesn’t exist and never did.
This sounds so harsh, but please bare with me.
I procrastinated a lot growing up. I still procrastinate today, but less so. And yet, I got good grades. I could write an A+ paper that “knocked [my professor]’s socks off” in the hour before class and print it with sweat running down my face.
I was so used to hearing from teachers and family that if I just didn’t procrastinate and worked all the time, I could do anything! I had all this potential I wasn’t living up to!
And that’s true, as far as it goes, but that’s like saying if Usain Bolt just kept going he could be the fastest marathon runner in the world. Why does he stop at the end of the race??
If ANYONE could make their top speed/most productive setting the one they used all the time, anyone could do anything. But you can’t. Your top speed is not a speed you’re able to sustain.
Now, I’ve found that I do need to work on not procrastinating. Not because the product is better, even, but because it’s better for my mental health and physical health to not have a full, sweating, panicked breakdown over every task even if the task itself turns out excellently. It’s a shitty way to live! You feel bad ALL the time! And I don’t deserve to live like that anymore.
So all of this to say, I’m not wasting a ton of potential. I don’t have an ocean of productivity and accomplishments inside of me that I could easily, effortlessly access if I just sat down 8 hours a day and worked. There’s no fucking way. That’s not real. It’s an illusion. It’s fine not to live up to an illusion.
And if you have ADHD, I mean this from the bottom of my heart: you do not have limitless potential confounded by your laziness. You have the good potential of a good person, and you can access it with practice and work, but do not accept the story that you are choosing not to be all that you are or can be. You are just a human person.
WE are the poets of Tumblr. Every single one of you has impacted me over these years and I wouldn’t be the writer I am without your support. But our writing community is struggling… partly because of decisions of Tumblr, partly because of collective hurt in the world the past few years. I cannot bear to see anyone else disappear. Our community needs CPR… And it will NOT come from a Tumblr update or a lift of banned tags. We need clear and immediate triage, for blogs cut off from support, and that will come from US. Let us show new writers what it was like to walk into Tumblr years ago.
Join me in this challenge to immediately help the community! Please feel free to share, reblog, and tag writers in the comments (up to 5 per comment, or up to 50 in reblog text) to spread the word! I believe in you!
You wouldn’t think that flamingoes are extremophiles just from looking at them. It’s like somebody tried to build the vertebrate equivalent of that fungus that lives inside nuclear reactors, and ended up with a gangly pink dinosaur with a spoon for a face.
For everyone in the comments asking how flamingos are extremophiles:
Flamingos can survive in low oxygen, high altitude, high temperatures, low temperatures, high alkaline, they can and will drink boiling water and they can be completely frozen at night and still get up the next morning
Don’t fuck with flamingos
….. Didn’t know most of that
Huh… so that’s why zoos don’t put them somewhere warm during winter.
Oh yeah, this leaves out what I *did* know about them–they can also survive hypersalinity. That is, water so salty it kills practically everything else–water so salty it burns your skin.
American flamingos just drink that shit
(animal death) this is a real undoctored photograph (*though the body was stood up for the shot) of a dead flamingo on the surface of lake natron, a lake so salty and so alkaline that it’s naturally carbonated like soda and would eat through your stomach lining if you drank from it.
When this photo went viral years ago, most people assumed this poor flamingo must have been killed by the lake.
It is actually the lake where 75% of its global population are hatched. This is a photo from the same lake:
Some species of flamingo actually subsist almost entirely on a diet of bacteria! In other words, there is a species of dinosaur that eats only bacteria and lives in lakes so toxic they would kill almost anything else—and it is best known to the average person as a kitschy lawn decoration.
u know when shows like supernanny criticise the parents for allowing their child to misbehave but in a weirdly beneficial way? like they enlighten the parents to the fact that their child acts this way because of them. they picked these mannerisms up from their environment and they know no different. children are the perfect example of “what u surround yourself with is what you allow to persist”, so maybe, perhaps we supernanny ourselves? realise that all of our negative habits/manners are products of our environment and that we simply pick up what others put down. bad language, terrible boundaries, neglect, isolation - these are all habits we pick up from those that surround us. we can change these habits. we can scrap them and start new. we decide what we do with this life, which includes what we don’t wanna do. give energy to habits and mannerisms that make u feel light and airy and happy, not ones that make u feel down about yourself and reflect a negatively charged person. you are not that person. you can change. it is possible.
Such a large part of therapy depends on having some control over your life! Therapy isn’t just talking to someone and they make everything go away. They give you tools to master your problems! And if you can’t use them, they aren’t of any use. And it’s the same for meds! If they let you be more productive or creative but you have no outlet for that, the end result is the same. If your meds help you see the positives but there are no positives to see, you won’t notice the difference.
Sometimes you get the wrong tools. Sometimes there’s no space to use them. Sometimes the hardware store sucks. Try again with different tools, in different locations, at a new store.
THE SAME GOES FOR MEDICATION!! I tried meds as a teenager and they were powerless to help much due to my living situation being horrible. I thought that meant medication didn’t work for me. Now that I’m out of that situation and trying agajn I can really see a difference.
I don’t know if any of you had the same experience as me, but I tried therapy when I was a teenager living in an abusive household and thought it was a waste of time. Ultimately my biggest problems (dad) were beyond my control and no amount of coping would make them better. Now that I’m an adult with actual control over my life and don’t live with my dad anymore therapy is MUCH more helpful.
If any of you had bad experiences with therapy when you were younger it may be worth it to try again now.
Also if your parents are part of the problem, they likely will be the one picking your therapist. Which means that, like me, you might end up going to a bunch of Christian “counselors” who recommend prayer and reading your Bible, or other unhelpful types. So therapy not working for you as a teen does not mean it won’t ever work for you.
The hard truth about autism acceptance that a lot of people don’t want to hear is that autism acceptance also inherently requires acceptance of people who are just weird.
And yes, I mean Those TM people. Middle schoolers who growl and bark and naruto run in the halls. Thirtysomethings who live with their parents. Furries. Fourteen-year-olds who identify as stargender and use neopronouns. Picky eaters. Adults in fandoms. People who talk weird. People who dress weird.
Because autistic people shouldn’t have to disclose a medical diagnosis to you to avoid being mocked and ostracized for stuff that, at absolute worst, is annoying. Ruthlessly deriding people for this stuff then tacking on a “oh, but it’s okay if they’re autistic” does absolutely nothing to help autistic people! Especially when undiagnosed autistic people exist.
Like it or not, if you want to be an ally to autistic people, you’re going to have to take the L and leave eccentric, weird people alone. Even if you don’t know them to be autistic. You shouldn’t be looking for Acceptable Reasons to be mean to people in the first place. Being respectful should be the default.
This reminds me of that global warming comic, like
