Internally vs. externally

like crap I’m 90% sure the original post said shit. It’s ok, it’s the internet, you can say shit
- whenever people use elementary school swears like 'heck' and 'crap' and 'darn' it really weirds me out. vibes of smothering christian parents and ranch dressing
  
  It like to save the "big swears" for when I really fucking mean it
  
  Some people don't want to come off as really crass and aggressive. I don't understand why people get so offended by polite language. It's not a religious thing, plenty of religious people swear up a storm.
  My dad was in the army, so he was no stranger to swearing. My parents weren't strict or religious when I was growing up. I just didn't like how harsh and, frankly, how stupid swears sounded, so I decided not to use them.
  People like to say "you can swear on the internet", but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. The people on the internet are every bit as real as people off the internet and words can cause a whole lot of hurt. Why not make the internet a more friendly and inviting place?
  Does it really hurt anyone that this person edited this post to match their personality better? Why is this even a big deal?
  
  Oddly, maybe because of my super religious upbringing, crap doesn't feel the same as heck and the like. I also don't think I heard it used in cartoons that used substitute words. Crap always felt like the middle between shit and something like fiddlesticks or something.
  
  Oddly specific.
  
  I use them ironically, or at least I used to lol. Now it's just part of my dialect
- There are some social media communities where that'd get you removed, which is dumb as fuck but I can't be mad at OP because their meme got laundered through a place with shitty mods

That...feels more like depression.
Adhd, at least in my experience, is telling yourself you'll get up and make lunch "in a minute" and then that minute turns into 4 hours. It's not even a conscious decision at a certain point, it's just that changing tracks from something you want to do to something you want to do less takes a lot of effort.
- So, caveat here that I don't have ADHD myself, but I have two friends who do.
  One of my friends had a mother that was very shaming and critical when my friend with ADHD got distracted or forgot things. Like, "You're so smart I don't see why you can't Do The Thing, it should be so simple!" and "Oh, she'll forget her house keys and come crying to me to bring them to her!" (As if my friend was entitled or something--but she's actually one of the most humble and sweet people I know, I have no idea why her mom has adopted this martyr persona where things she does on her own are somehow my friend's fault. Her mother seems to struggle with anxiety, and projects it on everyone around her--she tries to deal with it by controlling everyone through passive aggressive remarks. Obviously since ADHD has rejection sensitivity sometimes, it hits my friend hard.)
  For another person in another family, it might have been different, but for my friend, because her mom was always on the, "You're so smart, why can't you Do The Thing, it's so simple!" train, the distractions and forgetfulness and stuff got rolled up with trauma because not only was her brain distracting her all the time, but when a task WAS remembered, there's a bunch of shame and trauma getting into the mix on top of the ADHD symptoms. Like, she already had tons of trouble trying to Do The Thing, but her mom made it so there was also shame and anxiety pulling her attention away on top of the baseline ADHD.
  So maybe "technically" it's depression or anxiety or whatever--but it seems a fairly common experience for folks with neurodivergance who are surrounded by family who just "can't understand" why they don't "do the thing".
  I don't have ADHD like I said, but I have C-PTSD and grew up with family that is schizophrenic (I mean this very literally--several family members formally diagnosed, etc.), so when my C-PTSD stuff goes off due to stress, my gut instinct isn't to Do The Thing to fix it, because in my experience my family was so chaotic that it honestly didn't matter if I did or didn't Do The Thing. My status of "in trouble" or "not in trouble" would be in flux according to THEIR mood, not what I actually had done, so it doesn't register on me when I'm upset that "doing the thing" might fix the bad feelings by appeasing the other person.
  So I ran into a lot of issues were my stress response makes me flee stressful things (like school homework when I was young, or cleaning, or paperwork deadlines for dr or whatever), which has a negative feedback cycle of, "Why didn't you do this, it's so easy!" kicking up shame, which makes me flee, which makes more shame, on and on and on in a shit cycle.
  My friend and I had very different home lives, but the thing we shared here was mental differences (her ADHD, my trauma from a shit home life) getting wound up with anxiety/depression that are intimately attached to the shaming others/society does if it perceives us to be "lazy" when we're actually panicking/afraid/guilty/hurting inside.
  
  As a counterpoint to the other person, I did actually read it, definitely seems like you understand us!
  
  Hey, that was probably insightful, but as someone with ADHD, just looked like a lot of words to read. I wanted to thank you for your input bc I have empathy for your efforts, but gonna be honest, I didn't read it all.
- Tô me it would be like starting lunch and then starting to clean the dishes and then 3 hours have passed and neither lunch is ready nor the dishes are done and you have to leave 30 minutes ago
- ADHD and depression are super, super comorbid though.
- This post definitely matches my adhd, and I don't have depression. Remember that not everyone's adhd is the same. This is a common issue many people with adhd face, even if it isn't your experience.
- My issue is at work, "I'll just do this one more thing", and then instead of my usual 2pm lunch, it's now suddenly 3pm which even for me is crazy late..
- People present differently. No diagnostic tool for ADHD or depression asks whether you get stuck on the couch for four hours trying to motivate yourself. It's always interpretive.

The power of medication!!! Thank fucking God for amphetamines. It's like night and day and you're not perpetually tired no matter how great your sleep is.
Every day is like that one day two months ago when you woke up feeling normal and good despite a random amount of sleep you had prior lol.
- God, maybe I do have ADHD. I’m always super stressed and always tired. I feel like a depressed Slowpoke anymore.
- god I know!! meds can be absolutely life changing, before my diagnosis and starting medication I wouldn't be able to do half the things I do now--living independently, going to school, working. Granted I also take them for narcolepsy, but the ability to overcome my adhd symptoms has been unbelievable.
  Sorry lmao, I just got excited cause someone understands the hype!!1!
  To most of my friends I probably just sound like a drug addict lmao.
- Bring constantly tired is an ADHD thing? I thought it was mostly depression related.
  
  I have Panic Disorder in remission. I sucked it up and saw a doctor after. I was loosely diagnosed with ADHD as a child which my mom ignored since it was the phase of they're just hard and full of energy you shouldn't be a parent if you can't handle it! Phase. Too prideful for government handouts too.
  I've known I had mild-moderate depression for a while prior which I self medicated in booze. General anxiety disorder since so many of them are comorbid. Never suicidal, but always felt numb and felt like I don't feel the same highs and lows as other people.
  Basically I'd been having anxiety attacks since my 20s thinking of the nothingness after death. I then had two panic attacks after heavy days of drinking prior.
  Adhd has bad executive dysfunction issues with starting tasks but I could generally finish when started. I vibrate and have to move almost always, shaking leg, playing with shit in my hands, etc.
  The tiredness comes from all of it. You get super tired and frustrated from things you have difficulty doing.
  ADHD combined type, gad, mild-moderate depression, panic disorder in remission. Took about 2 years to get my meds right and it's always a little balancing every six months now. But out of all the meds I started, Adderall and Vyvanse (fuck the generic wait period) had the most night and day effect.
  I also take shit for asthma, high blood pressure, and meds that work on all the ADHD, depression, gad.
  For people with alcohol issues, I also highly recommend Naltrexone. Curbed my drinking by a LOT. I can still be a functioning alcoholic if I wanted to be, but the default of drinking is no longer there. I just drink if I'm mind numbingly bored now.
  
  Always being tired can he caused by a wide array of things, ADHD and depression just being two of them.
  Personally I find having to force myself all day to focus on getting work-related stuff done just plain exhausting, feels like running a mental marathon day after day.
- I wish meds were like this for everyone, for me it's just "you can concentrate for like 15-20 minutes now instead of 5-10 but in turn you get the shits like you downed half a carton of rotten eggs"

Every single post I see is slowly convincing me I might have ADHD, then again it could just be me or my autism.
- I mean, ADHD is very commonly a co-morbid condition with other neurological conditions. It's more uncommon to NOT also have ADHD when you have another.
- Executive functioning problems happen in both autism and ADHD, so it could be autism related or ADHD related.
  At one point I asked my therapist, how can you tell if something is related to ADHD or autism if you're diagnosed with both or suspect both? And she was basically like 'there's not really a way to tell and it comes down to subjective judgements.'
  🤷‍♂️ I'm more of a practical person. If ADHD coping techniques or medication help you, does it matter which it technically is?
  
  Good point, it looks like a pain going through the NHS to get a diagnosis anyway so I will just keep on going as I am now
- frankly i think posts like these are more useful than super dry scary clinical descriptions
- I got diagnosed with both around the same time. It's not impossible to have both, so I'd look at some qualified doctors on YouTube and see if what they describe as ADHD is how you feel.
  
  Keyword: qualified. ADHD is an easy thing to be convinced you have, and there's a lot of people claiming to be professionals out there.

Wait, that's ADHD? 😶
I do that kinda stuff all the time. I always assumed it was somehow caused by anxiety.
- It's actually probably the single most common ADHD trait. It's the "attention deficit" in ADHD; can't force the brain to change focus from doom scrolling into whatever you actually want/need to do. The anxiety is just the side effect when the "other thing" happens to be important/urgent.
  
  I really dislike the name "attention deficit". We can totally pay attention to things, what we have problems with is controlling where the attention stays or is directed to. There's also a problem where our brain doesn't properly generate motivation from us just wanting to do something because that function became disabled with ADHD.

I have ADHD, and this just sounds like depression to me?
- Look up "ADHD and executive dysfunction".
- You are not wrong but for many the effects of ADHD can cause depression and the effects compound each other.
  In my experience the right meds can push past that initial lack of flow state and allow accomplishment of tasks. Without it depression comes because you can't understand why you aren't just getting things done. Snowball effect..
  
  This can also just be a symptom of adhd without depression being involved. There's some overlap, but it isn't exclusive to depression.
- For me ADHD makes it hard to change tasks, and depression is not caring enough to try.
- I also have adhd and this definitely sounds like adhd to me.

literally me right now. I need to get up and do something important, yet anxiety and lack of willpower has me laying down on the couch, scrolling on my phone.

How do you know what I've been doing for the past 4 hours

What helps me is to count down from 5, and when I reach 1 I stop what I'm doing and stand up.

This seems like it's not a joke, so I'll choose to take it seriously.
Throw your fucking phone in the toilet if you spend 3 hours with it trying to "convince yourself" to do something.
- I think that's a misunderstanding of how ADHD, and in fact mental illness in general, works. Perhaps for some people removing the distraction will work, but more often in my experience another will just fit in its place. The phone is not the problem, it is a symptom.
  
  The phone is not the problem, it is a symptom.
  And part of harm reduction is removing symptoms. Say, if you have a bad headache, you might not cure whatever is causing it by taking pain meds, but at least you'll function.
  
  Phones are a very powerful attention trap. I'd be curious to hear an argument of a more powerful and accessable one
- "Just be productive"-level take here. For clarification, because I see you telling others that you "are intelligent": that is a really dumb take to have.
  
  yup, getting some real "have you tried not being sick?'' energy there. people assume just because they can do something and it's logical for them, it works the same way for everyone,
  well except for the 'lazy' part, that doesn't work the same way (according to them)
  shit, even trying to explain it doesn't make sense
  
  No, not at all. "Just be bored" is my message. The effect of lying on the couch with a phone is that you're low key entertained for the whole time. That's highly damaging.
- you don't get it. imagine trying to convince yourself to eat a pile of shit. even without your phone you would procrastinate it to the beat of your ability.
- Oh you misunderstand, the same thing happens without a phone. It just turns into laying on the couch not looking at a phone for 3 hours
  
  I misunderstand nothing. Laying on the couch for 3 hours without a phone (etc) is way better.
- ADHD is a mental health condition. A disability. Would you tell a paraplegic in a wheelchair to just be healthy and stand? Have you heard the term "invisible disability?" Many mental health issues are invisible. You know the dude muttering to himself on the street needs help, if not some grace about their abilities. But the dude with ADHD trying to do a simple task but his brain is wired differently making it as hard as a paraplegic getting up and standing.. you don't know to give him grace. How would you? That's why these posts are important. Maybe people can understand what it's like. Especially this post. It's literally describing the difference in perception between individuals.
  Does that make sense?
  
  The mind is way more malleable than the body, so I think the analogy isn't perfect. But let's run with it. Let's take someone who has had a serious injury, but is not completely paralyzed and can be healed through rehabilitation. Telling them to not just sit in the wheelchair would be analogous to telling an ADHD person to stop lying in the couch with the phone for 3 consecutive hours.
  Do you understand it now?
  narrator He did not.
- Unfortunately, it's not the phone that's the issue. Blocking apps or putting my phone in focus mode only works temporarily, and I'll quickly find some other new way to procrastinate. Take away my phone, TV, books, and everything else, and I'll just suddenly need to do some pointless chores instead.
- You "take it seriously" by telling people who are struggling to destroy an expensive item? Do you want people to throw themselves in the toilet if they are doing nothing and can't manage to move?
  
  Dude, they have ADHD, not low intelligence. They can understand that the metaphor can include less drastic actions like "give it to someone else" or "sell it".