Tag: adhd

Beyond Work – Hobbies and Talking Points

All Time Hobbies

So these are the hobbies that have been around long enough that I don’t think I’m at any risk of them going anywhere.

Writing – I want to be published. I have amazing ideas. When travelling I can come up with so many details and occasionally, I can exist in that mid-point between the watching the story unfold in my head and actually being able to jot down the happenings. However, making time, sitting down and writing it?! Not happening. (Weird thing I’ve found?! I can’t think standing up. Like, I’ve tried a standing desk )
I hope that once I’m medicated, I’ll be able to sit down and get them written.

Films – They’re my comfort. The cinema was my special place and I still enjoy going, it’s just that there’s always someone not there to actually watch the movie.
From a yearly birthday treat with my mum, my introduction to Jurassic Park with my brother and the odd journey to space, the final frontier with my Dad, cinema became the anchor to my fondest memories.
Even in more recent years I’ve been to a premier, I’ve experienced life as Rebel Scum inside an abandoned Newspaper factory, and been to preview screenings with the director (M Night Shyamalan and Terry Gilliam) and got to ask them questions.

I guess I love films so much because they’re worlds that I can be part of and engage with, without feeling left out. The cinema also adds the extra buffer of it being dark, loud and the screen fills the wall. It shuts down all the thoughts (Except for when I went to see The Day After Tomorrow and I could not place the face… I even dared to press the internet button on my Nokia 3330 because I could not focus on the film. Alas, it wasn’t until my key was in my door that my brain blurted BENVOLIO to me).
Films at home, don’t have that same impact and I do sometimes end up on my phone. On IMDB and reading the trivia and making cast connections.

Hell…. can’t quite believe that I’m revealing this, but at the age of 17, when everyone my age was out clubbing and being normal, I spent nearly 2 years watching Die Hard every Friday night after The Jonathan Ross Show.
While we’re at the over sharing portion, I should also point out that every Thursday night I got the tv to myself for 30minutes. I would watch the first 30 minutes of either Jurassic Park or Beauty and the Beast. I would even use some of the time to REWIND.
If someone could tell me why I did this, I am very interested because even for me, that’s fucking weird.

Reading – I do love reading. Between 2016 and 2019 I was averaging around 100 books a year. Mostly preview books and reviewed right here. However, since Covid I’ve probably only read four or five and I’ve lost my connections to publishers that would occasionally see beautiful books and additional goodies arrive at my doorstep.
It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that there’s nothing else I can do while reading and my mind wanders.

Hobbies and ADHD

Hobbies are activities that people engage in for enjoyment, sometimes as means of decompressing, unwinding, and relieving stress. Hobbies are generally synonymous with pleasure, and this can take place by the release of dopamine “happy hormone”.

ADHD Specialist

The Abandoned Hobbies

  • Knitting (more because I cannot do it… I was gifted this ‘save the princess kit’ and all I had to do was knit a creature. She’s still there because I couldn’t follow the instructions)
  • Nail polish and painting my nails.
  • Greeting Card making. (To be fair, back in 2001/2 and all the way up to 2008, this wasn’t just me)
  • Collecting books (I became obsessed with collecting the World Book Night books from Charity shops. Didn’t want to read any of them, but the dopamine of finding a new one I didn’t own was pretty awesome)
  • Collecting geeky tees (It started with a silhouette of Benedict Cumberbatch and the most recent spurt of Qwertee purchases has its own locker-style wardrobe. Yup, right after Season 4 of Stranger Things dropped, there was a flood of designs and I was compelled to get each one. I’m still a little too fat to wear them comfortably.)
  • Turning geeky tees into a blanket (When it was clear I owned way too many tees. I sewed it by hand, which anyone knows is a bad idea. I had thought about completing the other side with my dad’s collection after he died, only upon cutting the first to size I was dusted with his flaky skin that was engrained in the threads. They had been washed many times, but I guess due to his condition …. in the bin they went.’)
  • Collecting dvds of actors (Michael Fassbender, Mark Ruffalo, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Holland were just some of the actors that were the focus of this collect. I knew when I bought two copies of Avengers Assemble – one for Tom and the other for Mark – that I had a problem)
  • Collecting hippos (They’re just in a box now. They were in my classroom and actually meant that a kid would get me something hippo related instead of chocolate at the end of the year.)
  • Dechopatch (I made Christmas Dinosaur ornaments with dechopache in 2019. I bought more to make ones for Valentine’s, Easter and Halloween… but they remain un-patch’d)
  • Jurassic park card pack (God damn it! Such a problem. I spent so much on them to get a full set that I have a second almost-full set and a massive pile of spares!)

TIPS

  • I will refer to films. A lot. It’s all I know.
  • I equally want, and not want, you to read my stuff. I feel like its the ultimate gesture, but on the other hand I’m so hyperaware that by offering you something to read is an obligation… and what if you don’t like it?!
  • Never get me to do origami. I hate it. I cannot do it and I will cry. (That said, I once spent three months mastering the art to make a lily for a Prometheus birthday gift. I messed up so many times that even though the lily was meant to be white, I used all that paper and it ended up being a weird brown colour with an apology note. So, yeah…. if I badly master origami for you, that means you’re special.)

Back to the Manual

ADHD and Relationships

The short story of it all is, I fucking suck at them.
My family circle?! It is a dot.
Boyfriends? All toxic relationships and I’m certain I was just a sex gap until someone else came along. Dates? If they manage to get me out for the first date, most have been disasters. Funny, oh painfully funny, but disasters non the less.
Best Friends? You’d have better luck playing Where’s Wally
Friends? I have some beautiful and patient friends who are very understanding, and I mean no offence to them nor am I attempting to suggest they’re not enough. However, the issue of quality over quantity is more that it’s not a choice and losing friends seems to be a vicious circle.

In relationships, the hyperactivity symptoms of ADHD can be disruptive and difficult to live with. They can lead to unresolved important family conversations and can prevent partners and family members from feeling truly relaxed and secure in their relationship.

ADHD CLININC

Although every partner brings their own sets of baggage into a relationship, a partner with ADHD may often have the following issues:

  • negative self image
  • lack of self confidence
  • feelings of shame

These issues may at first be masked by their ability to shower their beloved with romance and attentiveness, a benefit of the ADHD symptom hyperfocus. This is the ability to intensely concentrate and become fully engrossed in an activity.
But that hyperfocus inevitably shifts. When it does, a person with ADHD may seem to barely notice their partner at all. This may make the ignored partner wonder if they’re really loved. This dynamic can strain a relationship. 
The partner with ADHD might constantly question their partner’s love or commitment, which may be perceived as a lack of trust. This can drive the couple even further apart.

Healthline

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?

Well, depression. In a nutshell. 
What I desire is in direct conflict to what I have or think I can ever achieve.

I want to be loved

… but I cannot even do that for myself. What is it Ru Paul says “If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”
Not to go against Mamma Ru’s wisdom, but the challenge for me is not loving other people; I can give it away in the boatload.
I loath me. I annoy me. I hate spending time with just me. On top of that I’m not the one who is ever going to have someone call me beautiful and I only have to think about a slice of cheesecake to gain half a stone.
How the hell can I get a bloke to even tolerate me, let alone love me?

I want sex

Okay, so I want sex on my terms and not ‘just’ sex. I feel the need to clarify because whenever I have ever mentioned this to entrusted people I’m told sex is easy to get. Firstly, experience has told me this very much isn’t the case. Going out with my Liverpool based ex-best friend I have two very distinct memories. The first, while she was married, was her telling any bloke that approached us that we weren’t interested. Yup, clam whammed by my own best friend who would then go on to shame me for being single.
Fast forward to 2021 and we’re both single. But because she’s recently divorced, I’m meant to be the wing-woman, distracting the friend and not going anywhere so she can get his number.
Even with dating sites, I know being a part of someone’s spank bank is easy to achieve and I have had the 2am “come to mine right now” as a first message on Tinder from men wanting the ‘fattie’. This isn’t what I want (I don’t want someone who will encourage me to stay fat) and I do not want to settle.

All the easy to get is that people assume sex is about the orgasm and it really isn’t. I want the connection, the communication, and the fun. Going for the aim of ‘just sex’, you get none of that and, as a woman, there’s little chance of a happy ending either.

As it stands, I’m too old to be out in a club to be taken home as leftovers. Equally, the whole being able to talk to men making in near impossible to flirt let alone anything that remotely resembles a conversation. I’m fucked. In the most opposite meaning of the word.

I want a relationship

It’s been 7 years since I last went on a date. That same date became my last ‘boyfriend’. I do not have the energy for the first date routine, anxiety and the exhaustion of it not amounting to much.

I want a someone who makes me laugh, and more importantly has a laugh that I could listen to forever. The routine, the partnership, the security and openness.

Given that anytime I have anything resembling feelings for a bloke, I know he will see me fancying them as something offensive, as they should. What follows is a shame cycle for cursing the man with me wanting them yet wanting nothing more than for them to at the very least, want to be the Esmeralda to my Quasimodo. That, dear reader, has only happened once. Seriously, in my history of admitting my feelings I’ve been laughed at, told they’re not wanting a girlfriend (only to say yes to someone else less than an hour later), told to go and die, told they were having a laugh by flirting with me and informed me that telling them was a firm of sexual harassment.
The last one said, upon being told I thought he was beautiful, funny and wonderful but knowing I wasn’t good enough just wanted us to be friends. (Yes, I asked a man to be my friend and it keeps me awake often) His response was to say he was flattered but that we should only talk about work… to which he promptly ignored every single work query I had and voted the man who shouted ‘no one likes you’ to me , and caused me to request a move, as a ‘leader of the future’.

I’m dreading the next time my heart is captured by a bloke that will be just as repulsed as all of the above. It’s painful because I don’t have the rebound capacity of a Hollyoaks character, my RSD makes it really hard to bounce back at all and I’ve pretty much written off ever telling someone I like them again.

So, over the last 7 years and partly due to living alone through Covid, I’ve learned to tolerate myself and my own company. Is it lonely?! Oh fuck, it’s painfully lonely. However it is far less painful than the alternative.

I Wanted a Family

That can’t seem so shocking?! I’m a woman and I bleed once a month as a reminder that I’ve once again failed to achieve what my body was built for. It also stands as yet another social check point, I’ve failed to reach in this game of life.

Once again, other people have reminded me that there are ways and I don’t have to make it so hard on myself if it’s what I want. Well, it’s not just having a baby. I’m not that person who is biologically driven. I want a family, not an isolated womb goblin to fuck up in completely different ways to how my parents did.

What I wanted was the social norm; the man, the kids, the happiness. The ‘insert holiday here’ table and photos to look back at with fondness. I just wanted some love to call my own.

Friends

Who didn’t grow up watching Friends and hoping for a life like that? 
It’s not that I haven’t had friends, or still have friends. It’s just that I’m not very good at keeping them.

Part of ADHD means I’m someone who overcompensates. I’m a giver and unable to say no. Until I’m exhausted, and I reign in. On top of that, there’s the standard miscommunication and emotional deregulation that massively pisses people off and just as quickly as they’ve appeared in my life, they’re gone.

TIPS

  • If you are new to my life, I will always be petrified you’re going to leave me.
  • I cannot get rid of the thought that I am a monster and that’s why I’m unlovable.
  • If I fancy you, please understand I don’t want to repulse you. If I ever tell you or you find out, know that I’m not expecting a positive response, but please don’t tell me to die, laugh at me or remind me of how ugly I am.
  • If you’re a friend, I adore you. If I bail on plans, it’s because me not being there will improve the event and I know you’ll still get to go.

Back to the Manual

ADHD and Coordination

 While clumsiness and frequent injuries could result from many things—coordination difficulties, absentmindedness, etc.—one cause that’s often overlooked? ADHD.

ADHDers typically have difficulty sustaining focus, and accidents are bound to happen when people aren’t paying attention. So, for example, we’re more likely to miss or forget small details—like that box we set down in the hallway ‘temporarily’—and then end up tripping over it.

But there’s more to ADHD and clumsiness than you might think.

https://www.getinflow.io/post/accident-prone-clumsy-adhd-cause

I’m writing this with a very achy hand, a dizzy head and a heavy feeling that my day was going to be ruined before it’s even started.
Not for the first time I found myself, not 10 minutes ago, face planting the floor. Tripping on what can only be my own feet, my balance is gone and my rather mundane life is flashing before my eyes. Luckily, with some ungraceful reaching, I managed to grab the lamppost as if I were a Z rate Gene Kelly, twisting my hand and pulling some muscles along the way. I still didn’t manage to avoid a concussion of sorts; my brain feels sliced, diced and muddled up in a cocktail shaker.

Last time I remember a stumble as bad as this, it was peak time traffic just after Christmas 2023 and I fell while at the crossing the main road. Embarrassed by falling over nothing once again, I rushed to the station and away from the lovely boys who helped me off the floor and informed me my mince pie was dead.
By the time I’d gotten down onto the platform I was feeling a little sick. Put it down to the fall and potentially hitting my head on the floor. I have this stupid habit of not putting out my hands out to break my floor.
That’s when I noticed blood pouring down my hand. Three months later I still have a scar, which gives you an idea of how deep it went.

It’s not a trip around the sun without me breaking one, or both, small toes. Only yesterday I managed to stab myself in the back with a knife and, no not in the metaphorical sense; I’d put my cutlery in my bag after lunch, returned to my desk and, forgetting they were in my bag, sat down without removing the bag from my body.

These photos are from July 2019 when I was partway down my childhood stairs and I took the trip and fall way down.

WHAT THIS MEANS?

  • I’m clumsy as fuck and the very fact that I’m still alive without any major accident is quite frankly, a miracle.
  • I spill food, I cannot fold for shit and I basically walk like I’m Bambi learning to stand for the first time. At best I’m going to look like a mad scientist on the verge of a breakthrough, but mostly I’ll look like a Muppet dressed me in the dark. Would I want to look pretty and attractive? My inactive and unloved loins say yes! But any time I do try, I end up looking more like a drag queen from PoundLand. Plus… I’ll go into this in more detail in another post, but I want someone to love (I’ll settle for tolerate at this point) me for who I am, not entrap with catfishing and filters.

TIPS

  • Please laugh. If I fall, I’m begging you please find it funny. 
  • If I lose my glasses, make them your priority… I cannot see without them.
  • If it’s safe to do so, please don’t rush to get me up. Treat me like a laptop you’ve turned off and on again. I WILL be out of focus.
  • If I black out and that’s the cause of my tumble, remind me to trigger my heart monitor. The remote is on my keys.
  • Please point out food that lands on my clothes. Yes, that mostly means the shelf that is my boobs. You don’t have to point at it/them. Just tell me to check for foooooo…. omg THAT is why I wear so many patterns!

Back to the Manual

ADHD – Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD)

Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) occurs when an individual experiences intense, severe emotional pain in response to perceived rejection, criticism, or failure. This goes beyond simply disliking the experience of rejection, and the individual finds these feelings intolerable or excruciating rather than just unpleasant.

Very Well Mind

I think this is one of the worst, and most damaging, traits I have from the whole catalogue of ADHD signifiers. It’s not fun, it sucks! There’s a few different situations that can trigger RSD:

  1. Being ignored, overlooked, forgotten in a group setting.
  2. Being told I’m wrong. Not in general, because that would be egotistical, but it’s when I know I’m right in what I’ve done.

Examples

I once unfollowed an online ‘friend’ because we’d been talking about Crystal Maze. She’d incorrectly stated that the show would air on Fridays. It absolutely did not. I explained why she *perhaps* was incorrect.
She came back with a ‘you are wrong’.
Now, I knew I was right. My life growing up was so meticulous and routined that there was no way on earth that I’d 1. Be filming the show for my father and watching it, only to watch it again with him, 2. Be watching it live on a Friday.
This was because Fridays, we went food shopping. When I say “without fail”, I mean that when I was a baby and shopping happened of a morning, my brother was run over and in hospital. My dad continued to go, with my mum, food shopping.
Nope, Crystal Maze aired on Thursday nights when my dad completed a Littlewoods Pools Round. It’s the only day he worked (Thanks Thatcher), and the only way I could have watched it twice.

I spent about 30 minutes furiously typing. I even found proof (not hard with the internet) and then … I deleted it all. I didn’t see the point. However, the damage was done.
Yeah, most of you would never unfriend someone over that. But it had caused such a painful experience that I didn’t see another way forward.

In work I had to categorise things. I’d followed the instructions, I’d done the correct thing. However, I received one of the items back with a note saying that it was X, and the queue I’d placed it in was for Y (You’re not meant to send them back to the person either).
Only Y was the correct queue for X. Always had been. By that person agreeing with me that it was X, they were telling me they didn’t know that what I did was correct.
So, again, I followed work rules. I contacted their manager and explained what had happened, why it was incorrect and what the result could be. It was a relatively polite email considered my heart was pounding, blood was pounding in my ear(s) and I wanted to be sick.
Then, I got a reply. “Do not send it back to my advisor. I’m seeking advice.” … MY RJD was so bad at that point that I could no longer work and requested to take the rest of the day off. You’d perhaps think this would be the end of it?

I received another email upon next logging on, a screen cap of a conversation (the question omitted) in which the manager and someone else agree I’m wrong and that they’re going to send more items back to ‘teach me a lesson’. Which they had. four more items were in my basket and all I could do was put them back in the X queue.
Even now, reliving this, my chest is tight and my arms are tingling. My head feels fizzy and my mouth dry. Knowing I was right doesn’t change this, because I’m often told to leave it, get over it. However, I’m certain if I’d done the same thing, I’d be made to apologise (Monopoly and Scrabble)

WHAT THIS MEANS

  • As the intro suggests, criticism and rejection are rather painful for me.
  • If it’s a perceived rejection, I punish myself. I will isolate myself (something my mum used as punishment*) and I will often stop eating.
  • I can become tearful. Not necessarily because I’m sad, but more because I’m overwhelmed and frustrated.
  • I can become snappy.
  • I can become hyper-focused on a particular situation. Bring it up a lot. Like to the point of boredom a lot.

TIPS

  • If you need to tell me about something I’ve done wrong, think about why you’re doing it: for me to learn, you need help seeing my thought process, you’ve been asked to. Fine, that’s great. However, make sure your language reflects that. Reason being is that if your intention isn’t clear, I will begin to spiral and become reflective.
    If you’re needing help to resolve it, I need a clear question or instruction so I can focus on that. I always want to help, love to help.
    If you’re doing it to just point out something I’ve done wrong, please just punch me in the face because I can tell you know, it would hurt much less.
  • If it’s movies, tv or anything pop culture. Just don’t bother. People have learnt the hard way that you cannot correct me on that shit!
  • This is a big one. Please talk to me at some point after you’ve brought anything like this to my attention. Just to reassure me that you’re not mad at me for causing you more work.

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