Thread by @NomeDaBarbarian

So I had a thread about habits - about how I'd felt lied to, all my life, as someone with #ADHD, about what a habit was.

How habits, for me, are things that I can reliably remember to do. I have a procedure, I'm familiar with every step.

And how that's not what NT folks get.

By every definition, what they get are things they do without thinking, which become easier with practice. Which eventually become automatic, which they don't have to actively remember to do.

OED: a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.

MW: a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior; an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary

Dictionary dot com: - an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary
- customary practice or use

- a dominant or regular disposition or tendency; prevailing character or quality

Am. Journal of Psych (1903) "a habit, from the standpoint of psychology, [is] a more or less fixed way of thinking, willing, or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental experience."

"Habitual behavior often goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting it, because a person does not need to engage in self-analysis when undertaking routine tasks."

I am including these definitions up at the top for a reason; you see, I eventually had to delete that thread.

I had to delete it, because I was getting swamped in QTs mocking me for this, saying that I was everything that was wrong with #ADHD discourse online, that I was lying or making things up about people, that nobody experienced what I was talking about and I "wasn't special."

And that's fucking infuriating. Because it's a response I get often.

All my life, living undiagnosed, I have been called weird [derogatory].

At seven, I memorized the etymology of the word Weird, being tied to Power & Destiny, to prove them wrong,

Let me tell you, quoting an etymology at someone calling you weird was NOT the deterrent I'd hoped.

So, after thirty years of being made to feel weird, and different, and broken, I found out that I have a disorder - one that touches on nearly every part of my life.

And suddenly, all of these things I had been called weird for?

I had an explanation.

Except now, when I talk about it, I'm told "That's not weird, that's everybody. You're not special. Stop trying to make everything about #ADHD."

And - it's not literally the same people saying it,

But to have the world mock me for my strangeness, then insist it doesn't exist?

Fuck you.

Fuck you.

Throw yourself into the sea.

Because here's the thing - that is what habits are. Habits are things that they do without thinking.

They don't have to decide or remember to do them. Things just happen, automatically, because they've done them enough for that system to engage and make them automatic.

That system... which I lack.

Every single time I have brushed my teeth, it's been an active choice. I've had to devote thought and attention to it. It's not a routine, it's not a habit, it's something that I know is good to do, and hopefully I can remember to do it.

Every single time I exercise, or floss...

or pay my rent, or drink water, or say "bless you" when someone sneezes,

It's because I've had to actively and consciously engage the protocol.

It never gets easier. Just more familiar.

It's part of my struggle with my weight - exercise never becomes a habit, and every single time I do it, it is exactly as hard as the first time. It takes exactly as much willpower & thought.

I got lied to about how it would just "turn into a habit."

And blamed, when it didn't.

If there's not an external motivator (My cat yelling at me, so I feed her. I need clothes for work, so I do laundry. Etc.) I'm just constantly trying to remember all of the various procedures I have.

Add to that the way ADHD fucks with my interoception?

https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1466987217570582528

Drinking water isn't a habit. Feeding myself isn't a habit. Bathing isn't a habit.

I spend so much more energy, so much more time, so much more labor on just managing to maintain my fucking meat suit.

And now you want me to ALSO do taxes?

ON TIME?

Sounds homophobic, tbh.

I've found an archived copy of that thread, and copied that portion over - because some folks have told me it was useful.

The reason that I know that this is linked to ADHD, is because I know (neurochemically) the process by which both ADHD and Habit-forming work.

SURPRISE, HABIT-FORMING REQUIRES DOPAMINE.

Here's a paper on the specific pathways, from a group at Dartmouth.

"Neurobiology of Habit Formation."

pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/308310/1-s2.0-…

Here's a slightly more readable paper, from the Editor of the International Journal of Life Science Methods.

biotechniques.com/neuroscience/d…

Here's a Lay discussion, aimed at NT folks, about the best ways to build and maintain the dopamine production that causes habits to form:

nurosene.com/learn/habit-bu…

The ADHD brain - mine - makes enough Dopamine. It makes plenty! Just like everyone else's!

And it also has a hyperactive Dopamine Reuptake Pathway. It gathers and recycles the dopamine I make before I can use it, like a busboy who clears your table when you've only had one bite.

This is just... known. The part of everyone else's brain which rewards them - not just big rewards, like "JOB WELL DONE!" but little ones that do things like "allow you to stand up without thinking about standing up" - doesn't do that for me.

Dopamine lets things be automatic.

Nothing, for me, gets to be automatic.

One paper suggests that ADHD is just the behavioral subtype of something larger, which they call "Reward Deficiency Syndrome,"

Which might be why we often self-medicate with drugs before we find our D/x, and call ourselves "Addictive Personalities".
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

So surprise surprise - people are loud and wrong on the internet.

It shouldn't get to me.

It does.

I am /raw/ there. Particularly because "You're not special, this isn't a thing, you're JUST not trying hard enough,"

Is a loud enough voice in my own head, thank you very much.

Except.

When I medicate? I finally get to experience things that I thought were just phrases before.

I finally was able to sense the passage of time, and understand what people meant by "losing time" or "losing track of time."

https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1363750919817502721?s=20&t=GWGGBcUdyEY_uzRHEtuzfw

I got space away from my intrusive thoughts, and finally found out what those were, instead of just thinking I was "afraid of the dark" and being ashamed that I just needed to "grow up."

https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1345532104818364416?s=20&t=0up2d-CXqYCEttu1pwF62g

I got the executive function to process things like paperwork - and learned that I wasn't just "bad at adulting" because I couldn't bear to open mail.

https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1340319468598165505?s=20&t=fD-5FUWvaYupMi44wzPzkA

Hell, just the small things -

I would realize that I was hungry, or thirsty, or needed to use the bathroom,

And those weren't emergencies. Just signals my body was sending me. Status reports.

So I have to take a look at this anger I have,

And take a look at the people who are insisting that what I'm experiencing is what everyone experiences.

And I start to think of how many people get an ADHD diagnosis, tell their parent, and get told "everyone does that."

There's a joke tweet - "either folks with adhd need to stop being so relatable or I need to see a doctor."

And I think about how Twitter is like a trap specifically designed for ADHD folks. Specifically TTRPG or other Special Interest twitters.

https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1369937630645788674?s=20&t=pVkQ6ifaRTnszzl1dIHC7g

I wonder how many of the people lashing out at me are doing so because the alternative is admitting that maybe they've been abused by most systems and authority figures in their lives,

And they've gotten scar tissue, and mistaken that for strength,

And I'm threatening that.

My Stepdad is Autistic.

He found out at 50. After a lifetime in the Marine Corps. A highly regimented system that made all social interactions explicit and rigidly codified.

He's oft refused to acknowledge the d/x, I think in part because that would mean he'd been a victim.

CW: Corporal Punishment

That his family, his church, and the teachers in rural Texas public schools in the 60s and 70s who tried to beat the weird out of him were in fact abusing him.

He'd have to admit to it being unnecessary, and wrong. He'd have to change his opinion of it.

But he's built his identity on the back of being a strong man, made strong in part by that upbringing.

So.

I find myself, unfortunately, having sympathy for whatever proportion of these motherfuckers are using me as a punching bag for their own insecurities.

But sympathy or not, they can still throw themselves into the fucking sea.

The NTs policing normalcy are bad enough, we don't need to go Vichy France and join in.

https://twitter.com/The_Weed/status/1554891119929933825?s=20&t=F408JmDZHBesrhxZeh63sw

So I'm going to keep posting my lived experience. Keep talking about things they didn't think to tell me during my D/x.

Like - hey, I'm not hard to draw blood from, I'm just always low-key dehydrated because my body doesn't tell me it's thirsty.

Turns out we're high risk for all sorts of Kidney and Urinary Tract issues because of that -

Nothing to do with our Kidneys. It is, instead, in the words of @Chaoswolf1982, "My crapass mind has my body notifications on Silent."

https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1466987831453122563?s=20&t=pVkQ6ifaRTnszzl1dIHC7g

The fact that you've managed to make even an aproximation of a life work, when so much of the world isn't built for you, isn't just the minimum,

It's a goddamn wonder. It's proof of the work you put in and the strength it requires.

It's just hard to see that from inside it.

It's also hard to hear this,

But you deserve credit.

https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1290654388684546049?s=20&t=pVkQ6ifaRTnszzl1dIHC7g

So drink more water, you beautiful, capable, stronger-than-you-realize, dehydrated bitch.

As long as I'm thinking about it:

It's just... distressing, I guess, to realize that there's this internal process that says "If you can just explain this carefully enough, people will understand, because they're listening to the words you say in good faith."

Which is wrong.

It's the same part of my brain that is SURE I could convince someone of my politics if I could just sit down with them and talk.

All evidence to the contrary.

Like, here's another thread I got shit about:

https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1537232624342618112?s=20&t=HpjBkCUa9U4-uVL99HbevA

It doesn't matter how carefully I word it.

It doesn't matter that I said MIGHT (not is) be a COMMON (not universal) ADHD experience.

Because I've talked to so many people, and it's not that "understanding time travel" is an adhd power - that's not what I said.

And it's *directly tied* to a *known and quantified* part of my disorder - the fact that I have no sense of the passage of time, difficulty ordering memories, and no part of my brain that automatically and subconsciously sorts things by priority.

None of that mattered.

So I've just apparently hit the level of Twitter Platform where the bad faith takes are going to come, and no matter what the defensive writing part of my brain does, I'm just going to have to get desensitized to that,

WITHOUT losing sensitivity to folks calling me on my shit.

Hashtag goals, I suppose.

Just in case that voice in you needs some help,

If these were things "everybody" did, why would people have mocked you for them? Why would the single you out as strange, or other?

Why would they be things people say are character flaws, or challenges to overcome?

If you're "just not trying hard enough,"

Do you feel like you're not trying? Or do you feel exhausted, or confused, and like you're doing your best, and just /can't/ seem to get it like everyone else?

Does "everyone" else seem to be struggling like that?

So you're telling me that you're going through a struggle that other people don't seem to be troubled by? Something that makes your life hard? You don't seem to be /ABLE/ to do these things others can?

How about that.

Sounds to me like almost the definition of a disability.

But you said it, not me.

@polerin NT folks may still have to "talk themselves in to / up to" doing a task, from time to time, but as with so many things, their failure state is our default.