Thought I’d get the ball rolling as this is empty!
I’m neamhsplach, I’m undiagnosed but I’m being screened for possible ADHD and/or dyspraxia because of some issues I’ve had with work.
I love Taskmaster and never miss an episode of The Blindboy Podcast. Looking forward to chatting to you all!
Thanks for making this post! I (30NB) was diagnosed with cPSTD a little over a year ago and just this week my therapist is referring me for ASD screening. I find Discord utterly overwhelming and I like the reddit/lemmy kind of forum stuff over twitter/mastodon.
I’m looking forward to lemmy making progress! I’m a SWE and I wish I could contribute but I’m focusing on EMDR and general trauma processing right now 😕
Hi! Good luck with your ASD screening, I hope you get some progress with it.
When you say you prefer Lemmy over Discord… is it Discord in particular you have issues with? Or chat programmes in general? I generally have no problems with chat systems, but I find Discord overwhelming too.
Hi, thanks! I’ve seen occasional Slack channels that are full of animated reactions and gifs, but Discord is so, so much worse.
I love forums because it’s hard to miss something. It’s easy to ignore subforums or mark them as read, and there’s no realtime pressure. With Discord, I feel more likely to miss than catch anything. I’ve had notification badges that after 30 minutes I still couldn’t figure out how to make go away. There’s a mode to disable animations, but you can’t see them again without disabling the mode (why not a button for each gif??). I tried joining a queer Discord but everyone’s pronouns are a different font in a different color in a different size, all the time, with no way for me to simply the UI on my end. It really seems to me like it’s only popular because of mobile apps.
I’m Chris.
This sounds bizarre but I think I was diagnosed when I was a child (I remember lots of tests and conversations with professionals before being removed from mainstream education) but put it down to being a bit messed up about my toxic parents overwrought divorce. I had parents that would hide things so I wasn’t told the truth about a lot of things.
I’ve always known my brain works differently to others and on occasions its made me a target.
It was during the pandemic that it all came to a head. I felt an immense relief not working in the office, where it felt like a sensory overload of noises, smells and touch. I started reading online and finally took an online RAAD-R test but got some friends to also take it.
One scored 17, the other 65 but he said he had issues with the questions whereas mine was 189 and I was making an effort to temper my answers!
So I’m currently self diagnosed but its pretty obvious and when I get my full medical records, I’ll find out what happened when I was a kid.
Hi! I’m 40m with:
- Major depressive disorder, recurrent, in partial remission
- Post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic
- Autistic disorder
The first one I’ve known about and fought, to varying degrees of success, throughout most of adulthood. Sometimes I’m fine; content, motivated, unmedicated, truckin’ along living my best life, and other times I need to ask for help. Luckily my depressive disorder manifests as a lack of executive function and disinterest in everything, so I haven’t had any struggles with self harm or ideation.
The last few years of therapy - I thought primarily only for depression - have made me realize just how much PTSD I had from growing up. I had an awful home life as a child with two parents in way over their head, way too young, and without any good healthy coping strategies of their own. I learned to survive by:
- be afraid of everything all the time
- never ask for help
- never indicate blame
- never suggest any failings in anyone other than self
- make everyone laugh as much as possible; if they think you’re funny, they are less likely to hurt you when they’re angry
- be aware of every movement and emotion people are feeling at all times, no matter what
- be afraid. don’t forget that part.
- oh, and it’s vitally important you never, ever let people know you’re afraid, because that makes them feel bad and they’ll react by justifying your fear
So when I found out I was a high functioning autistic - it finally made everything I was feeling and trying to do throughout my entire life snap into place. I must have known that at some level I had to work 10x harder than someone without my challenges to read people. It was critical that I read people correctly at all times, and any failure could end in disaster. I was exhausted all the time around other people, because I had to be at the absolute top of my game, all of the time, or else. I use italics there because the reality is that was only true for a very small subset of two people, but what you know cerebrally and what you know in your lizard brain are two very different things.
I’ll be untangling this mess for the foreseeable future, but I’m finally starting to extend myself grace and dabbling in some exposure therapy; simple things like “I’m sorry, this isn’t what I ordered” are now possible, albeit hard.
Good on you for taking care of yourself :) I’m on my own ASD - PTSD journey too and it has been incredibly hard at times but I’m still here fighting it out :) Every small bit of progress counts.
Hey hey. I’m Tree and I’m an addict…wait wrong group.
I am one of the many with a severe deficit of attention. I look forward to relating way too hard to many of the things that will be brought up here.
I hope this becomes a very supportive and therapeutic place to complain or laugh at our various maladies. I’m looking forward to it.
I love how many ADHD folks are in here, because the alternative is doing the work we’re paid for, and the thought of that is too horrendous to contemplate.
Hello, I have aspergers/adhd (although I know aspergers isn’t officially recognized anymore, I feel that accurately communicates my situation)
My dream in life is to one day own a zoo with the purpose of teaching people not to fear snakes/reptiles in general, with the hope that people realize they’re inquisitive, thoughtful animals, not monsters.
I’m also a free software enthusiast, and an anarchist.
Hi! My neurodivergence is ADHD. The same goes for my wife and two kids. We participated in a little study at one point looking at children of ADHD parents.
I’m a retired science teacher and union president. I’ve had a history of depression. I like science fiction.
Hon the unions ✊️ nice to meet you!!
Hi neamhsplach,
I’ve been here 5 days or so, but been busy… Been away for a few days travelling, currently in Coimbra, Portugal. Anyway, I haven’t been doing much union stuff since I retired, but have been boosting union content on Mastodon. I’ve also been writing up stuff to help explain the fediverse and the reddit stuff.
https://babylon4.com/fediverse and https://babylon4.com/rexxit
Since Mastodon isn’t about grabbing your eyeballs and not letting go, when you get to the end of your feed, try closing the browser and doing something else. Take a walk, read a book, talk to your sweetie. It’s much better for your mental health.
I love this part!
I like science fiction too! What’s your favourite at the moment?
Hi SanityFM,
I’ve been here 5 days or so, but been busy… Been away for a few days travelling, currently in Coimbra, Portugal. Anyway, I just finished reading Dune for the nth time, because I want it fresh in my mind when the second half of the movie comes out. I’ve also been writing up stuff to help explain the fediverse and the reddit stuff.
https://babylon4.com/fediverse and https://babylon4.com/rexxit
You sound like a fun person to talk to :)
Thanks mananevergone,
Anything in particular you want to chat about? Right now I’m traveling to Coimbra Portugal. It’s very pretty, but also with very steep hills, which my aging feet and knees don’t like.
31, bipolar
Hello everyone! I’m Witch and I am an ADHDer that probably has autism but hasn’t really gotten around to getting diagnosed yet on account of being an adult that feels like it’ll be more hassle than its worth.
I’m currently on Vynase.
My special interest is art and I am currently trying to “fix” my life. High school drop out, no job, hoping for a change.
It’s nice to meet you all!
Hi, I’m Os and I’m new here! I’m here because I have major depression, general anxiety, and inattentive adhd. I also love Taskmaster! I really like Minecraft and I make lots of texture packs and things for it over on planetminecraft.
Hi Os! Love meeting other Taskmaster fans! I have an unhealthy obsession with it. Greg in teacher mode is my absolute favourite. I think my favourite season was the the fifteenth. Fern Brady is a neurodivergent queen 🤩
I’m Demondice, but I’m nowhere near as demonic as the name might suggest. 40 years old, and just going through the diagnostic process now as I’m very likely autistic. It’s a bit of an anxiety-inducing time as I worry that I’m just imagining the symptoms and I’m wasting everyone’s time. However, pretty much everyone I speak to tells me that I’m one of the most obviously autistic people they’ve ever met and find the concept of me doubting it hilarious.
I felt that way for a long time too but I struggled with the opposite with people not believing I could possibly be autistic. It was a relief to finally get a diagnosis :) I don’t think you’ll be wasting anyone’s time if you ask for an assessment. In fact you’ll be saying yourself, your partner, friends and family, a lot of pain and time.
Parent of a kindergarten aged kid on the spectrum here. Undiagnosed myself, but there are lots of parallels between what my kid is going through and what I experienced as a child, so I have a strong suspicion that I’m likely neurodivergent as well. I intend to mostly follow the community for the sake of my kid to ensure that as a parent I’m doing the best possible to allow them to thrive.
Even you being aware is a huge step forward :) My father was in the same position but he wasn’t aware of ASD and leaned on me pretty hard to mask. He is great person but I’ve struggled with being myself as an adult.
Hello! I’m Cave. I have ADHD, and I’ve been on Stratera for 2 years now. I’m also rather bad with social graces, but its likely just the adhd.
Social difficulty will probably be the title of my autobiography. Glad you made it here, Cave.
Same to you :D
Hi I’m in my mid 20’s, diagnosed with ADHD 2 months(?) ago, and in the process of getting diagnosed with ASD.
Nice to see this place growing so quickly. I want to watch reddit burn first, but I love that this exists now.
Hi! I’m in my early 30s. I have ASD and ADHD, but I wasn’t officially diagnosed until I was 19. Looking forward to chatting with more people who are in the same boat.
