Thread by @erikaheidewald

It's weird to hear people talk about how much they hate their ADHD traits that I also have. it never occurred to me to hate them bc there's no point in hating the basic unchangeable building blocks of yourself. It's like hating that I have a skeleton. My body was built around it

When I first had people tell me my ADHD must not be as bad because they can’t focus for more than 10 minutes I realized it never occurred to me to see that as a flaw. I always externalized the issue. Things get boring after 10 minutes. I don't want to do one thing for too long

I don't want to be good at being bored, I don't want to be bored. There is so much fascinating shit to do and learn in this world and people spend so much time on pointless busywork, wasting time, acting like we have eternity on this planet but all the minutes feel precious to me

And this isn’t me saying I was enlightened or something, I was just an autistic kid with ADHD who had no idea about all the things society saw as flaws. Not just personality traits - I remember when I learned about crows feet and I was so confused why they were supposed to be bad

I didn't understand why they were a separate concept. You have skin, you have wrinkles, why are wrinkles around your eyes different? There was nothing inherently bad-looking about them so it made no sense to me. We pass down the idea of flaws. they're social constructs, not real

I won't lie, I don't love hearing how awful people clearly think all of my personality traits are. I managed to go my entire life without knowing a lot of what people thought about my brain and it's not lovely to hear what a nightmare people think my existence is

Because I never tried to change myself, I am very openly expressing ADHD and autistic traits all the time. I am ten different people wrapped up in one, I am always thinking about five things at the same time, I am too loud, too much, too moody, don’t relax, too hyper, too weird

So the fuck what? I’m lots of things. I like all those things about me and the people in my life like those things about me. Sometimes I am so ridiculous, it’s just not a reasonable way for a human being to be! But here I am! All of it is me. Package deal.

My point in sharing this besides hey maybe stop telling me how much of my personality you hate is to show that it is not innate to hate yourself for ADHD. it is not inevitable, not a given. people taught you to feel that way about yourself with arbitrary standards and shame.

We are the people that we are and our brains are the brains that they are. Wanting to exchange yours is a waste of time and by talking about how much you hate yourself, you are teaching people to hate themselves. You are teaching people that the foundation of who they are sucks

Shame is taught. Ableism is taught. I am lucky I didn't hear those messages of shame at home. I learned a lot of them in middle school and it took ten years to rid myself of them again. Telling the world all the things you hate about yourself is cruel bc this isn’t just about you