I live on the west coast of Sweden, just north of Gothenburg. I'm married and we have a son who will turn 18 in just a few days. I work in tech, with business-critical systems for the eCommerce sector. I'm #autistic and have #ADHD, was not diagnosed until I was 34. My interests are many, such as #science#tech#politics#climatechange#education#healthcare#travel#space and of course everything about #ecommerce.
I’ve recently taken up using a check list app to make sure I do the million stupid little dumb things I need to do during the day and it’s been really helpful.
Being an undiagnosed #ADHD kid getting "They would be so much better if only they focused and applied themselves" reviews...
It's like coming up to an American Football Wide Receiver and telling them "you would be such a great marathon runner if only you could keep your speed for 26.2 miles!"
Learning and performing with ADHD hyperfocus is a DIFFERENT SKILL than sustained performance on boring and repetitive tasks. You could be the best wide receiver in the world, and you're only going to be an "above average" marathon runner, because long distances simply isn't what they're good at. They're good at catching a ball, sprinting < 100 yards while being chased by 250+ lb mountains of meat, then getting a little bit to catch their breath.
Similarly, give me a task that is urgent and interesting, and I can crank out some miracle in a 12 hour caffeine fueled sprint. Expect me to do that in a consistent and reliable fashion, and I'm going to burn out and collapse within a few months.
@Nidonemo i think that's sorta like when you HAVE to do something early in the morning WITHOUT FAIL.. and you're trying to get to sleep the night before..
We're on hour... what, 4 now, of struggling through my kid's 3rd grade homework. This isn't difficult homework. The problem is that the DEA has created a situation where countless Americans are without the #ADHD meds they need to function, and my son is one of them.
The other night at dinner he was in tears, saying "I'm not even myself anymore."
This shortage is heartbreaking, cruel, and completely unnecessary. I can't even imagine what adults with ADHD are going through. This is hell.
Woah, @trunksapp now present the choice between reading as-is or 'unroll as article' when reading threaded toots.
Great for readability and long-form reading (if say, you for instance follow @pluralistic), although this clashes hard with my #adhd commitment issues.
New changes also allow sorting comments between chronological, best or controversial. Latter is a given for any #linux toot 😁
Just learned the term "wait mode" for the ADHD phenomenon where you can't start anything because there's a scheduled thing coming up. That is a useful goddamn term! The list of tips that's circulating was not very helpful, but here's a pretty good description: https://www.getinflow.io/post/waiting-mode-hard-to-be-productive-when-you-have-plans
This is why I see the Android team repeatedly breaking reminders and alarms -- silently dropping geofenced reminders, changing the alarm noise to silence on an OS update (!!!) -- as an accessibility issue.
@cliffle The fact that my android phone doesn't have a simple way to snooze a calendar event (which I like to use for things like vacuuming because it takes up tangible time in my day) is a serious accessibility problem.
So many of my #autistic and #adhd students are ashamed of their special interests, which breaks my heart. They're too young to see that engaging in things you're passionate about is difficult for most NT people. It's a life skill NTs must learn.
Most NTs I know have to work hard to find a deep passion for something. Not that they can't, of course, but that the social pressures around them discourage it. They struggle to disentangle from those pressures enough to be themselves.
@internet_ginger The fact that your #autistic students have a hunger and thirst for learning is something that should be nurtured and fostered. I am glad to see that you, as an educator, are trying to do this.
Neurotypicals in #Amurica don't seem to value education and learning. Society at large often derides those interested in learning and education as geeks and nerds. While we mostly wear this badge with honor, let's not kid ourselves that these terms are not ridicule.
@ablackcatstail NTs are often blind to their own behavior. I think it's because the way they act is normalized.
So much of the history of autism research and discourse carries the assumption that the neurotypical ways of being are categorically good, and any deviation from that is categorically bad.
There's no system-level incentive for them to reflect and analyze. It makes it so much harder for neurotypicals to know themselves. It's sad, honestly.