Tag: Autism

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.

BACK TO THE MANUAL

Film Review: Please Stand By (2017)

Length: 1hr 33
Rating: 12
Release: 26.1.2018 (but is considered a 2017 film due to having its premire on 27.10.2018)
About: Wendy sees things differently: she’s fiercely independent, with a brilliant mind and a mischievous sense of hilarity. Wendy also has autism. To her, people are an indecipherable code and the world is a confusing place. Inspired by her no-nonsense caregiver, Wendy comes of age and escapes from her care home on the road trip of a lifetime to deliver her 500-page script to a screenwriting competition.

The Good

  • Dakota Fanning is wonderful in the part of Wendy, a woman on the spectrum trying to enter a script writing contest. Fanning will be able to demonstrate a detachment from her own emotions while filling you with all of the emotions.
  • Alice Eve and Toni Collette are amazing support. Eve’s role as the sister infuriated me at first, but over the course of the film I felt I had more of an understanding of the position she was in. It is through both characters that you really get an understanding of the specific challenges Wendy faces.
  • Patton Oswalt can do no wrong. He’s an absolute star in this film’s final act. His ability to connect with Wendy will give you the biggest smile and reduce you to tears of joy.

The Bad

While the film’s plot is centered around Star Trek, I’d had loved to have seen more Easter Eggs beyond casting Alive Eve as the sister. It’s a viewer expectation, but it was Trek that caught my attention and I kind of expected to see a few familiar faces along the road.

The Ugly

It felt a little like it was a film about autism rather than it being a film about a character that just so happens to be on the spectrum. It might seem like a petty thing, but its much the same way films with gay central characters have their ‘coming out’ be the focus of the plot.
It makes autism seem like something that needs to be taught, that its a new phenomenon that people need to be held by the hand when exploring. Yes, films like this have the power to inform and educate, but its more important mission is to ensure people on the spectrum have someone to look to. Its as much their film as any others.

Final Thoughts

It’s cute, geeky and will make you cry. Even though it was light on its Trek, I still enjoyed the journey. Not something I’ll rush to rewatch, but I’m glad I caught it before it left Now TV.