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Adhd - Blog Posts
Sometimes when I'm reading fanfics I turn up the volume on my phone to hear the reading voices in my head better.
I turned up my mental volume with my phone... But why does it work?
doing all my homework in a few hour period that I was supposed to be working on over the past 3 weeks then letting myself engage in my hyperfixation as a little treat
any other neurodivergent (mainly autism and/or adhd) people unable to consume content normally.
like my dad will just?? watch something and be like "yeah that was good" then move on?? And then there's me, who will consume something, stare at a wall for a bit, and then rapidly try to consume any content I can find of it. Fanart, fanfiction, c.ai bots, memes, youtube videos... and if I can't find any I get upset. And I rewatch/reread/etc it over and over again and obsess over it for days. It's not even a hyperfixation rn I am just unable to consume media normally
also why am I the only posts on the raining knives tag since 2020 where is the fandom this comic deserves a fandom wtf it's so good I need content of it pls my little audhd brain cannot /silly
is it normal to feel antsy and excited to get on adhd medication finally after years of struggling so badly with it. like omg im going to be able to function omg i hope it works
I’m so mad.
Listening to Coconut Mall is actually helping me work and write.
Congrats, you unhinged heathens win 😭🫶
looking for a late night study buddy?
look no further than here.
hey i'm gonna work on an assignment, if you wanted to join?
Thy bitch is back!!!
Guess who just got diagnosed with ADHD anxiety and mild depression- time to see what flavor it's gonna be
It drives me fucking bananas as someone with a learning disability when someone says “just study harder.” Like I’m not already doing everything I possibly can to stay afloat. I’m already on the verge of mental collapse, if I do any more I’ll fall apart. I’m not capable of studying any harder, Karen!
@heavenly-roman Kid!Roman with ADHD ☺️ I hope you like it!
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6 year old Roman smiled as he bounced excitedly into the mindspace’s kitchen, humming to himself,
“Good morning!”
He exclaimed, startling everyone slightly,
“Good morning Ro-”
“Is breakfast ready?”
Roman interrupted Patton, looking around the kitchen.
Logan adjusted his glasses, and tried to speak, but was immediately interrupted as well,
“I smell bacon!”
Roman exclaimed, then grabbed Patton’s hand to prompt him to help get him food,
“Ro, slow down a bit,”
Logan calmly coaxed to the easily distracted child,
“There’s plenty of-”
Roman had stopped listening to Logan as he heard the tv turn on in the living room,
“Movie!”
He exclaimed excitedly, letting go of Patton’s hand, and rushing towards the other room.
Patton looked at Logan apologetically, smiling softly, then raced after Roman, when he heard him bickering with his younger brother Emile,
“I wanna watch Disney!”
Roman exclaimed, stomping his feet, his younger brother paying him no attention, just focused on the colorful screen,
“Ro, Emile got to the tv first. You need to take turns.”
Patton calmly explained to the frustrated child, who pouted,
“How about we play a game?”
Roman perked up at the mention of a game, easily forgetting about the movie,
“Dragons?!!”
He exclaimed, and Patton chuckled,
“Sure Ro, we can play Dragons.”
i love and hate having adhd because it’s really helpful when i want to multitask or be insanely efficient at shit but like i wish i hyper focused on better stuff like why am i staying up at night psychoanalyzing fictional high school basketball players from an overly predictable anime?? Why can I name every single song Nirvana ever released but not my times tables??
tumblr was made for my flavor of neurodivergence
also does anyone have brainrot as a vocal stim because i can’t stop saying “what the gyatt”
So real, esp when it's something like "we need to talk later" No, no. You don't get to do that to me, we talk now, thank you
Having to wait a long time while in short-term waiting is so exhausting. I have trouble not getting angry at people who unintentionally put me in that state.
oh so tumblr has decided to make me self aware today
“Ah sorry I’m just dumb” (having ADHD my whole life has meant that I’ve been criticised heavily for making mistakes that come part and parcel with the condition. Even the people I love most in the world have chastised me for mistakes that I spend much of my life worrying about and trying to avoid. It’s much easier to tell you I’m just a silly guy than explain to you that no matter how much effort, how much thought, how much stress I put into avoiding these same mistakes, I will keep making them over and over again. My brain is structurally built to thwart me throughout it all.)
Question for the ADHD folk cause I might have undiagnosed ADHD.
Does y'all's brains ever...skip text? Like, a lot? So much so that 80% of what you're reading is your brain filling in the gaps between what you actually read? Please tell me I'm not the only one. PLEASE.
TW
It's crazy how with a little bit of adhd and excelling grades you can convince everyone that Ur fine, even when Ur OD'ing.
Me personally, I love the fact that my boss accidentally hired staff that are ⅓ adhd survivors.
I say this as I myself am an adhd survivor.
Survivor because it's like there's a gremlin on my shoulder making me do things impulsively. I'm a survivor.
...
ANYway-
Local gamer girl and HERO @snapscube accurately summing up my ADHD experience after years of me failing to explain it to people
Watch her videos here!!!
adhd executive dysfunction sucks bcuz im just sitting there and my brain is like
YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME
no work done no rest gained. literally no point of this at all
(to everyone who reblogged, donate and share @olagaza's initiative!)
ADHD culture is saying “what?” when you heard the question someone asked you but… It didn’t fucking… Register… In the brain? And then you hear the question before they ask again and interrupt them when they’re talking because now you’re An Asshole™ who understands
The Neurodivergent Writer’s Guide to Fun and Productivity
(Even when life beats you down)
Look, I’m a mom, I have ADHD, I’m a spoonie. To say that I don’t have heaps of energy to spare and I struggle with consistency is an understatement. For years, I tried to write consistently, but I couldn’t manage to keep up with habits I built and deadlines I set.
So fuck neurodivergent guides on building habits, fuck “eat the frog first”, fuck “it’s all in the grind”, and fuck “you just need time management”—here is how I manage to write often and a lot.
Focus on having fun, not on the outcome
This was the groundwork I had to lay before I could even start my streak. At an online writing conference, someone said: “If you push yourself and meet your goals, and you publish your book, but you haven’t enjoyed the process… What’s the point?” and hoo boy, that question hit me like a truck.
I was so caught up in the narrative of “You’ve got to show up for what’s important” and “Push through if you really want to get it done”. For a few years, I used to read all these productivity books about grinding your way to success, and along the way I started using the same language as they did. And I notice a lot of you do so, too.
But your brain doesn’t like to grind. No-one’s brain does, and especially no neurodivergent brain. If having to write gives you stress or if you put pressure on yourself for not writing (enough), your brain’s going to say: “Huh. Writing gives us stress, we’re going to try to avoid it in the future.”
So before I could even try to write regularly, I needed to teach my brain once again that writing is fun. I switched from countable goals like words or time to non-countable goals like “fun” and “flow”.
Rewire my brain: writing is fun and I’m good at it
I used everything I knew about neuroscience, psychology, and social sciences. These are some of the things I did before and during a writing session. Usually not all at once, and after a while I didn’t need these strategies anymore, although I sometimes go back to them when necessary.
I journalled all the negative thoughts I had around writing and try to reason them away, using arguments I knew in my heart were true. (The last part is the crux.) Imagine being supportive to a writer friend with crippling insecurities, only the friend is you.
Not setting any goals didn’t work for me—I still nurtured unwanted expectations. So I did set goals, but made them non-countable, like “have fun”, “get in the flow”, or “write”. Did I write? Yes. Success! Your brain doesn’t actually care about how high the goal is, it cares about meeting whatever goal you set.
I didn’t even track how many words I wrote. Not relevant.
I set an alarm for a short time (like 10 minutes) and forbade myself to exceed that time. The idea was that if I write until I run out of mojo, my brain learns that writing drains the mojo. If I write for 10 minutes and have fun, my brain learns that writing is fun and wants to do it again.
Reinforce the fact that writing makes you happy by rewarding your brain immediately afterwards. You know what works best for you: a walk, a golden sticker, chocolate, cuddle your dog, whatever makes you happy.
I conditioned myself to associate writing with specific stimuli: that album, that smell, that tea, that place. Any stimulus can work, so pick one you like. I consciously chose several stimuli so I could switch them up, and the conditioning stays active as long as I don’t muddle it with other associations.
Use a ritual to signal to your brain that Writing Time is about to begin to get into the zone easier and faster. I guess this is a kind of conditioning as well? Meditation, music, lighting a candle… Pick your stimulus and stick with it.
Specifically for rewiring my brain, I started a new WIP that had no emotional connotations attached to it, nor any pressure to get finished or, heaven forbid, meet quality norms. I don’t think these techniques above would have worked as well if I had applied them on writing my novel.
It wasn’t until I could confidently say I enjoyed writing again, that I could start building up a consistent habit. No more pushing myself.
I lowered my definition for success
When I say that nowadays I write every day, that’s literally it. I don’t set out to write 1,000 or 500 or 10 words every day (tried it, failed to keep up with it every time)—the only marker for success when it comes to my streak is to write at least one word, even on the days when my brain goes “naaahhh”. On those days, it suffices to send myself a text with a few keywords or a snippet. It’s not “success on a technicality (derogatory)”, because most of those snippets and ideas get used in actual stories later. And if they don’t, they don’t. It’s still writing. No writing is ever wasted.
A side note on high expectations, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism
Obviously, “Setting a ridiculously low goal” isn’t something I invented. I actually got it from those productivity books, only I never got it to work. I used to tell myself: “It’s okay if I don’t write for an hour, because my goal is to write for 20 minutes and if I happen to keep going for, say, an hour, that’s a bonus.” Right? So I set the goal for 20 minutes, wrote for 35 minutes, and instead of feeling like I exceeded my goal, I felt disappointed because apparently I was still hoping for the bonus scenario to happen. I didn’t know how to set a goal so low and believe it.
I think the trick to making it work this time lies more in the groundwork of training my brain to enjoy writing again than in the fact that my daily goal is ridiculously low. I believe I’m a writer, because I prove it to myself every day. Every success I hit reinforces the idea that I’m a writer. It’s an extra ward against imposter syndrome.
Knowing that I can still come up with a few lines of dialogue on the Really Bad Days—days when I struggle to brush my teeth, the day when I had a panic attack in the supermarket, or the day my kid got hit by a car—teaches me that I can write on the mere Bad-ish Days.
The more I do it, the more I do it
The irony is that setting a ridiculously low goal almost immediately led to writing more and more often. The most difficult step is to start a new habit. After just a few weeks, I noticed that I needed less time and energy to get into the zone. I no longer needed all the strategies I listed above.
Another perk I noticed, was an increased writing speed. After just a few months of writing every day, my average speed went from 600 words per hour to 1,500 wph, regularly exceeding 2,000 wph without any loss of quality.
Talking about quality: I could see myself becoming a better writer with every passing month. Writing better dialogue, interiority, chemistry, humour, descriptions, whatever: they all improved noticeably, and I wasn’t a bad writer to begin with.
The increased speed means I get more done with the same amount of energy spent. I used to write around 2,000-5,000 words per month, some months none at all. Nowadays I effortlessly write 30,000 words per month. I didn’t set out to write more, it’s just a nice perk.
Look, I’m not saying you should write every day if it doesn’t work for you. My point is: the more often you write, the easier it will be.
No pressure
Yes, I’m still working on my novel, but I’m not racing through it. I produce two or three chapters per month, and the rest of my time goes to short stories my brain keeps projecting on the inside of my eyelids when I’m trying to sleep. I might as well write them down, right?
These short stories started out as self-indulgence, and even now that I take them more seriously, they are still just for me. I don’t intend to ever publish them, no-one will ever read them, they can suck if they suck. The unintended consequence was that my short stories are some of my best writing, because there’s no pressure, it’s pure fun.
Does it make sense to spend, say, 90% of my output on stories no-one else will ever read? Wouldn’t it be better to spend all that creative energy and time on my novel? Well, yes. If you find the magic trick, let me know, because I haven’t found it yet. The short stories don’t cannibalize on the novel, because they require different mindsets. If I stopped writing the short stories, I wouldn’t produce more chapters. (I tried. Maybe in the future? Fingers crossed.)
Don’t wait for inspiration to hit
There’s a quote by Picasso: “Inspiration hits, but it has to find you working.” I strongly agree. Writing is not some mystical, muse-y gift, it’s a skill and inspiration does exist, but usually it’s brought on by doing the work. So just get started and inspiration will come to you.
Accountability and community
Having social factors in your toolbox is invaluable. I have an offline writing friend I take long walks with, I host a monthly writing club on Discord, and I have another group on Discord that holds me accountable every day. They all motivate me in different ways and it’s such a nice thing to share my successes with people who truly understand how hard it can be.
The productivity books taught me that if you want to make a big change in your life or attitude, surrounding yourself with people who already embody your ideal or your goal huuuugely helps. The fact that I have these productive people around me who also prioritize writing, makes it easier for me to stick to my own priorities.
Your toolbox
The idea is to have several techniques at your disposal to help you stay consistent. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by focussing on just one technique. Keep all of them close, and if one stops working or doesn’t inspire you today, pivot and pick another one.
After a while, most “tools” run in the background once they are established. Things like surrounding myself with my writing friends, keeping up with my daily streak, and listening to the album I conditioned myself with don’t require any energy, and they still remain hugely beneficial.
Do you have any other techniques? I’d love to hear about them!
I hope this was useful. Happy writing!
Tips for ADHD Writers
(From an ADHD Writer & Spoonie)
As an ADHD author, and a spoonie (migraines) I know that a lot of typical writing "guidelines" can feel overwhelming and often don't work. I taught myself to write (results may vary) and after several decades of this; here's some of what I've learned to keep the dopamine and words going.
Throw out Genre Conventions & Boxes; Discover what stories you enjoy & write those.
There's nothing more restricting as an ADHD writer being told "this genre has to be this way." See those boxes. Break them. Find what type of stories and tropes and archetypes you enjoy writing in the types of worlds you find fun and exciting and write those. This should be fun. Writing may be hard, so give your brain the things it craves to snack on.
For example, I love writing romantic comedy with action. I love scifi and I love fantasy. I love shoving the two together. So, if I told you I feel my style is a blend of Jim Butcher action and Anne Bishop family dynamics, you might not get it. But if I said, I love the Mummy/Van Helsing, the Adam's Family, The Ocean's Series/St. Trinian's, and the Expendables, you might be getting closer. Oh, and Star Wars. Particularly the Wraith Squadron EU stuff of Star Wars. Han Solo and Bounty Hunter Wars.
2. Tackle Writing Craft Issues One Thing at a Time
All the writing guidelines and 'how to write' can be overwhelming. Turn off the noise, and choose one thing you want to work on in your story. Dialog. Description. Character Interactions. Conflict. Pacing. Whatever it is you want to work on, focus on it and only it. If you're working on dialog, then don't worry about description. If you're working on character interactions and group dynamics, don't worry about conflict.
The first "Craft" thing I remember trying to tackle was dialog. I wanted to write fun, snappy, dialog and not do question and answer responses like you see on sitcoms. It was the era of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and hopefully I made it my own later. Then I was like "I love characters, let's have fun characters." Plot and description came last for me. But I wouldn't be where I am today if I'd tried to do it all at once.
Go ahead and tackle this post bit by bit if you need to! I get it!
3. Write down all your Ideas into a paragraph synopsis outline.
Hyper fixation is great when you first get an idea. The juices are flowing, the dopamine is high and everything is all coming together. Or so you think. However, from painful experience, I know hyper fixation may not last between the 360K to 495K words of a trilogy, it might not even last past the first 80K. That's when having this synopsis paragraph outline filled with summaries and dialog snippets will be your savior. It will be able to rekindle your focus and make connections in your brain on what you were trying to do. And yes, it's okay if it's messy. You're the only one who is going to see it, and part of the dopamine thing can be making it less messy.
For example, I'm working on a vamp romcom trilogy right now. I got through the first two books and like the first 20K of the third book before my brain went "we need a break, write something else, PLEASE." then refused to focus on it for seven months. (I wrote a 'proto first draft for something else that I've been poking at for at least 10 years.) Sometimes, your brain won't want to focus on a story for years after you started it. Paragraph summary notes are your friend. And might be more important to do while you have this hyper fixation than the actual story itself. (Do what you can.)
4. Ditch word counts
There's nothing more depressing then trying to set a daily word count goal and not meeting it. Or seeing other people posting their daily word counts. Especially when you might write 50 words one day and 6000 another. Ditch this whole idea you have to write every day, because it's not feasible, and won't make your dopamine go up if you feel you 'failed' the goal or 'failed' in comparison to other people.
Writing is not about your word count all the time. It's about research. It's about idea gathering. It's about making that lore book. It's about getting all those pictures into a folder, and then sorting that folder. It's about day dreaming, and shower thoughts and the story you tell yourself before you go to bed. Or that music playlist you need to trigger your writing. Or buying the perfect candle. Making a map. It can even be scrolling tumblr b/c you might not be able to advance that story until you see something that triggers 'oh, that's what I want.' (I had this happen to a third book in a trilogy of a fairy tale sword and sorcery fantasy I was writing, it was a bit frustrating. But it's written and pubbed now.)
5. Copy and Paste what you might think is Half Assed Description
You've described something like a room or a person in your story, and you need to go back to that room (these are called key places) or person later or in the next book and you don't want to rewrite the description b/c that's not making you happy (unless description writing does that, then go you) go ahead and copy and paste it. It will save you time, and headaches trying to keep details straight.
Because as someone who doesn't see things when I close my eyes and I must define everything into words, people who can see things when they close their eyes probably think you have too much description. (Don't listen to them.) And it's okay to repeat yourself, because you are describing for you, and others like you, who need the description and reminder every once in a while what color hair and eyes and possibly skin, all these characters have and what the room looks like.
And don't be too hard on yourself. Go read Brian Jacques. If you can create a description even a third as well as Brian Jacques, you are winning. Okay, Brian Jacques wrote his books for blind children and thus described everything three times as he tried to include as many senses as possible. (Very important.) If you can hit one third of it, you are golden. (Also, he's fun. Long, as description eats up words, but fun. Err... formative years reading. Oops.)
6. Embrace writing the multiple stories/fanfics/short stories before figuring out what story you really want to tell.
Sometimes, it's not straight forward. Oh, how I wish it was. Sometimes, you end up writing what feels like thousands and thousands of words before you find in those stories kernels and ideas of the story you really want to write that you hope will make your brain shut up about that particular set of characters for a while. (Or not. Or not is okay too.) And this isn't wasted writing. There's no such thing as wasted writing. This can be part of the process.
So, the thing I wrote the proto first draft of, yeah, well, it's probably the third proto first draft and half a dozen other short stories where I figure things out. We are talking about 100s of thousands of words, at least two or three different change ups of where I want it to take place and genre types, but I would not get to the story I want to write without those other stories. And that is honestly, the most important bit, finding the story you want to tell in these bits of other stories you're writing, even if those stories never make it off your disk drive or no further than your closest beta reader.
The upside of this is, you get to know your setting and your characters really well. And so when you get to the story you want to tell, you can write that dynamic really well! On the other hand, you know them really well, and you might forget to show that dynamic in your story because you've forgotten other people haven't read the 300K words you've written over the years and don't know them very well. (This is when you need fresh eyes who have never read any of these other stories.)
7. Remember your readers are not in your head with you, and sometimes your future self isn't either.
It's okay to spell shit out. Especially if you're going for that YA audience or using a limited POV like first or 3rd limited. You can hit people over the head with the hammer. It's not 'show, don't tell,' it's show AND tell. You want to say the characters are good friends. Great! Now, go ahead and write out those fun character chewing the scenery scenes where they interact with each other and show me. If your character doesn't like interacting with other people, then you got to show me that. (Good read for this: Murderbot Diaries.) Tell emotions, write feelings. (How is their body reacting?)
This is good for you too, because you might not touch this story for months, have to go back and reread and are going "who are these people and why is the main character interacting with them?" And it might take a few paragraphs to go "Oh." So, go ahead and write it out for your future self too. (Been there. Done that. Expounded on it.)
I have had convos with my editor as I'm writing and giving her chapters, where she's like reacting emotionally and we're talking about this or that and some of it, I can't put in b/c it's limited third (and sometimes this happens with my 3rd omni stuff too,) but other stuff we end up saying, I go back to the scene and am like "okay, I should spell this out b/c obviously, I wasn't clear enough." And that's okay. I have a good relationship with my editor and really trust her, so this happens.
8. Don't worry about making it coherent for other people, unless you're going to publish (in any way shape or form.)
Look, if you are writing for yourself firstly, don't worry about structure, or pacing, or "Why do we care" stakes type of thing. Get the story out you want to tell and have fun with it.
However, if you want to publish, suddenly, all of this matters. Your story has to have some type of structure, some arc to it, a 'why do we care' type of stakes for the readers to latch onto very early on and it needs to be coherent for other readers who are again, not in your head with you. (This is why paragraph outlining can help. It can reveal the lack of this stuff before you get writing.) This is when I recommend strongly getting a development editor to help you find the beginning of your story and what the stakes/conflicts are for your characters and keep the story within your vision. (If they don't ask what your vision is, run.) And your structure just needs to exist, it doesn't have to be any 'defined' structure out of guidebooks.
9. When you get stuck have your handy 3 questions ready. What could reasonably happen next, aka what are the characters going to do? What could go wrong? And Does this Work for the Tone of my Story?
If you have trouble coming up with plots and you have no idea how to do conflicts, murphy's law is your friend. What can go wrong, will go wrong. You might come up with multiple ways things they can do and the ways they can go wrong and be like "but does this fit the outcome I want for my story, the ending I have in mind?" You might need to write them out. You might have to sit there and go "is this feasible or do I have to turn the story into pretzels to get it to work?"
Sincerely, watch the Emperor's New Groove. It didn't go through the Disney Process and every turn is "What can go wrong?" For both the protags, and the villains. At some point, generally in the third act, your characters will no longer feel as compelling if things keep going wrong for them. But in the first and second acts things can go wrong or appear to go wrong for the reader. (And then you get the dramatic reveal such as an Ocean's movie or Lucky Number Slevin.)
10. If you find it boring to write, your reader is probably going to find it boring to read. Summarize. Time Skip. It's okay!
This one is hard for me. Your story doesn't have to tell every minute of every day. Time skipping is your friend. Summarizing something that happens that isn't really plot important, they're doing this but you really don't need to show it, go ahead and summarize it. They were busy doing this, but we're at plot now!
Sometimes, that character interaction or fun going to a festival bit, or going on a date is the plot! This is called character development and your readers need to see it! Remember the type of story you're writing and figure out what the plot means for that type of story. (Hey, a romance without dates, is it really a romance?)
There's going to be times where you are going to be info dumping something you went and learned to write the book. And maybe on your third read through you realize, it's dull. And it's okay to summarize or take it out. Or sometimes, given you've read it six times, you might need to ask a beta reader "Was this boring, do I need to break this up?" Just to be sure. Because you know, yes, you will start to skim your own description and exposition. You are the one reading this book 10 times before publishing. Ack!
Or, maybe you've got the entire layout of the city/country in your head and why it is the way it is and all the politics, look, it might be relevant information, is it relevant right this second? No. Keep the story moving and put that information in context when it's important where it belongs! (See making plot paragraph summaries and writing lore books.)
Ten is a good number. In general, I also strongly recommend reading in your genres, and um, if you're writing a trilogy or a series, finish the trilogy, and write as many in the series as feasibly possible (more if they're say 50K words or so) before publishing them. This way if you find you've written yourself into a corner, or you need to make a call back but the call back you want isn't really there, you can go in and add those details or fix an ending without reader confusion issues. It can be something as simple as a plane going by overhead, or setting up foreshadowing for a later book. And you might not come up with that detail until 3 books in or know you need it and be like "crap" if you've already published. So, before you learn the hard way.
Most importantly, one spoonie to another. REST. If you need to rest, take it.
Bless and Happy writing ~ Ginny O.