"Oh no, I do not have ESPN, guess I have no choice but to go to the bar to watch the NBA game whilst drinking pints of beer," I mumble to myself, very sad and dejected over being forced to resort to this course of action.
For what sort of toots could I use hashtags like #ActuallyAutistic or the previous two I just used?
I Toot quite a bit about me and my quirky way life. But I never really know if I "should" add any ND hashtags as the "silly" things I Toot about are quite normal to me. If that makes sense 🤔...
I'm proud enough, these days, of who I am. But I wonder if and when it would be good to add some of these tags... Maybe it could help connect with other peeps like me 😇.
I suspect, based on what my psychiatrist told me when he raised the strattera, the medication I take in the morning for depression blocks dopamine and serotonin receptors.
ADHD is made worse by low dopamine levels.
So I think my morning med is making the ADHD worse.
But it's either take it and stay out of chemical depression, or be depressed and struggle less with ADHD.
I have an appointment with him tomorrow and will find out more and see if anything can be done.
Google said Strattera goes up to 100mg but it was wrong. Psych said it goes up to 200mg.
Apparently I can also take a low dose stimulant together with Strattera.
I've been diagnosed 2x with ADHD, but he has to do an assessment and legally can't take my word for it, so totally understandable.
Raising Strattera to 100mg a day from 80mg and in 1.5 months if it isn't helping, we will do an ADHD assessment and he will prescribe me low dose stimulants + strattera.
@ashleyspencer My suggestion — if you get to the stimulant phase, there is a real difference between the ritalin-type drugs (Concerta, for example) and the adderall types (Vyvanse being one of those).
If one compound doesn’t work well for you (too much / not enough), possibly consider the other type (after considering dosage adjustments etc w yr HCP)
No matter how well I learnt to mask, no matter how well I learnt to get on with people, if not in any deep and meaningful way, at least superficially. There has always been one skill that I have never mastered and that is simply the ability to not upset people and especially without having the slightest idea how.
Or that I didn't for a long time, anyway. It was only when I realised that I was autistic and that the way I looked at the world was in some ways substantively different from the way many allistics looked at the world, that I began to understand something. Allistics tend to find validation externally, through feedback from the group or the part of society that they identify with, whereas autistics tend to find it within themselves, in their own reason and sense of worth and value.
Now I must stress that in many respects this is a generalisation and obviously there will be a lot of variation and degree in how true this is. But in its more extreme forms, it could very well explain many of the experiences and difficulties that I've had.
Because if someone's self-worth, the value they see in their life and actions, is almost entirely based on their interactions with the dynamics of the group they identify with, or the society they live within and not from their own judgement, then this could lead to certain choices and reactions that are quite frankly alien to someone like me and that I could easily end up in conflict with and all without really trying to.
For example, if the value of a child reflects back on its parents. Then in the extreme case the values and behaviour expected from that child, are not those of the child, but of the parents in terms of the group the child is meant to be representing them in and how well it is doing that. So any sense of divergence from that or criticism of that child, no matter how slight that might be, could easily be seen as an attack on the parents and reacted to accordingly, irrespective of how reasonable or just it was.
Equally, of course, worth, praise, or rewards, can also become divorced from any sense of reality. All that matters is that you, whether that's through your children or not, are being valued, not whether there is any justice to it. Because the truth or validity of it, is not based on how you see yourself, but only on how others see you. And in the extreme case, it doesn't even matter how they came to this view, as long as they have it. So worth can become something to be manipulated and played for and how you really are and how you actually feel about yourself becomes almost irrelevant to this process.
That people could even be this way, that everything could become how you're being perceived and anything that effects that negatively can be something to be attacked, is still something that I struggle to understand. It is so foreign to my nature. But, it certainly explains so many of the times that I've upset people, because I wasn't playing this game, or seeing the world the way I should and didn't even realise it.
@pathfinder@EVDHmn@actuallyautistic Throughout my working life (40+years) there was generally someone who ‘got’ and worked well with me — and they were tasked with telling me (nicely) who I had pissed off, and helping me to frame whatever Words needed to be said
(I remember asking ‘Who do I need to apologize to?’ more than once)
So, I was on a long drive yesterday, and put on some pump me up music, so I didn't get sleepy. I just put something on YouTube, and I ended up in the group of music that I would call Peak Mid to Late Millenial. For perspective, I'm one of the Gappers, not quite old enough to be Gen X, but also feel too old to be a Millenial, although I suppose I technically am, just an Ancient one. ANYWAY, this music, on the surface, sounds like bubble gum pop dance music, the kind you dance in "da club" to, but as I was listening, I realized most of the lyrics had a trend that broke down basically to this:
Get your friends together, drink heavily, have sex, party, DANCE, GO LIVE IN THE PRESENT, because we will all probably die young anyway.
Most of these songs are probably between 10-15 years old, and honestly probably really caught onto the zeitgeist of the time. Hope didn't work, we are still caught in a shit conflict none of us want to be in. The world is actively burning, and no one in power wants to save it. We make less money than our parents and their parents, we'll probably never get to own a home, we'll probably have college debt forever, if we could even afford to go. Might as well party your life away. I do wonder if Trump was a pretty big slap in the face about how bad it could really go, because this Apocalypse attitude seems to be changing a bit, or maybe Gen Z is just rebelling against their sad grunge Gen X parents. LOL
Either way, that was some kind of a ramble, share your thoughts on this, and listen to a peak representation of this musical phenomenon. It's kind of a banger.
I appreciate you all letting me get my feelings and thoughts off my chest. I appreciate your engagement and I just want you to know I’ve learned a lot. Thanks for that.❤️ ✊🏾