One Thing That I Really Don’t Love About The Online Autism Community Is The Way That Some People In

Carrie Fisher photographed by Douglas Kirkland in New York in 1980.

Me and my sister have actually been bonding over the whole late/undiagnosed ADHD thing, and ever since I brought up to her that maybe she should get tested too, she's been spotting all sorts of Holy Shit How Did Nobody Notice signs about both of us. After finding out about stimulant resistance/paradoxal reaction, she pointed out that would explain why she's been hooked on coke (the drink, not the snorty stuff) and how I started my unfathomable coffee habit so early.

I started drinking a whole pot of coffee every day since I was like 10. I'd come home from school and brew myself a pot of coffee. I wasn't secretive about it and I was unaware that adults literally did not know that I was doing it, because by the time my parents got home from work in the evening, the whole pot would be gone.

The thing with ADHD is about a chemical imbalance in the brains, below average amounts of the kind of reward chemicals that prompt you to do anything. That's why procrastinating until last-minute panic is a regular habit - the task itself isn't just boring, it's intolerably tedious all the way until the adrenaline from the deadline panic boosts the brain to function on a - well, functional - level.

A lot of undiagnosed ADHD people unconsciously self-medicate with caffeine. I'm not a chemist, but as a mild stimulant, the caffeine gives you a boost that helps balance out the brain. Not as much as actually being medicated, but it's still better than nothing.

I didn't do it on purpose because it would "help me focus" on anything important or constructive - I didn't do my homework unprompted, not once, ever, since I was like 15 - but considering that nobody noticed a 10-year-old drinking a whole goddamn pot of coffee in the span of 4-5 hours every single day, one could conclude that it wasn't making me noticeably hyperactive.

I didn't drink coffee because I wanted a specific effect, though. As far as I was concerned I was drinking it because I liked it. And the reason why I started the habit in the first place was because at the time, I was reading a shit ton of Garfield comics for some reason and that orange cat managed to convince me that drinking a shit ton of coffee every day is cool. Anyway, the moral of the story is

Leaf-nosed Bat ⋆ 𖥔 ݁ ˖

Aziraphele: Oh Crowley...nothing lasts forever

Agnes Nutter In her cottage circa 1600: HE SAID WHAT

Festive gingerbread bats! With a link to the official Gothic Charm School recipe!

There are no disabilities which are raised above ableism. The person in the wheelchair, the autistic person, the person with schizophrenia and the person with an invisible chronic illness may all experience society's ableism in different ways, but none of them can expect to avoid it. So the "you wouldn't say X to Y" advocacy needs to retire yesterday. They say all kinds of ableist shit to all of us and it's time to try out some actual solidarity instead of arguing about who has it slightly worse

The thing about ADHD is that the "lack of reward chemicals in your brain" doesn't just mean that you don't want to do any tasks that don't feel particularly yummy :(, it means that your brain will look at chores and tasks that need to be done like "doing this would be painful and tedious for absolutely nothing to gain from it, Do Not Do That." The same thing that your brain tells you about everything else that would feel really bad and hurt the entire time that you're dying. The part of your brain that stops you from doing the thing is the same part that keeps you from shoving your arm into a wood chipper.

With unmedicated, unmanaged ADHD, "I have to do this assignment or I fail and my life will be ruined and I die" feels like a SAW trap, every single time.