@100mountains @markusl @pathfinder @anantagd @actuallyautistic @RolloTreadway

Twitter (x) has changed due to the influence of Elon Musk, the new owner. He's unleashed quite deliberately, by his own invitation, a tidal wave of hate speech, racism, far right tropes, and these kinds of voices are becoming more and more dominant on twitter. The US fascistic right-wing is flooding into twitter more and more and they now see twitter as one of "their" online spaces.

English-speaking twitter isn't specifically "American" but certainly it often expresses a part of the US that is toxic, depending on which corner of twitter you hang out in, but with the new algorithms its hard to avoid the toxicity.

So, yeah, many people are leaving twitter, Americans included, and coming to mastodon, or going to other platforms. Twitter for many of us is dying a slow death. I still check in there to get a sense of political patterns and trends. The US is in a period of major flux with politics, with fascistic impulses on the rise as it is in other parts of the world including parts of Europe (see Hungary for ex).

Anyway... I'm "American" in terms of birth. Culturally being American is hard to exactly pin down, because it's a large geographic area. West coast is very different from East Coast. Urban different from rural. All the things that make up my world-view including being multiply-neurodivergent make me quite different from most others around me. My values and mind-set are so different from others in the US that I feel often socially alienated (mostly because I'm autistic). For me, it's not where someone is from, or where they grew up, it's their values, awareness of diversity, acceptance of differences. In the Portland area where I live, people tend to be very progressive compared to other areas of the US, and for that matter, probably more progressive on average than most other parts of the world, with some of us being far left. People here are often open as autistic. We have a lesbian governor. And yet just travel a short distance into the eastern part of the state and it's culturally very different.

But the internet collapses space in terms of giving a platform for all voices... and often the loudest are the most toxic.

Anyway... yes, I'm "American" whatever that means... I feel estranged from the world in my own country most of the time, these days.

#actuallyautistic
#ActuallyAdhd

Dr Russell Barclay: ADHD & Lack of Play - Further Refutations of Jordan Peterson

"such a position has no scientific standing, is worse than wrong, and is morally offensive given the voluminous research on the neurodevelopment and genetic nature of ADHD"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ-rttdz_PI #ADHD #RussellBarclay #ADHDer #ActuallyADHD #ADHDawareness #JordanPeterson #misinformation #PseudoScience

@actuallyautistic

I know I have PTSD and cPTSD but with so many other things to explore I've ignored PTSD for far too long. This is ridiculous... how have I not explored this more??

I think I'm I have so much low self-esteem I don't think I deserve to understand myself. My god, this is an awful thing to see in myself.

#PTSD
#ADHD
#actuallyautistic
#ActuallyAdhd

#PTSD
#ADHD
#actuallyautistic
#ActuallyAdhd
@actuallyautistic

If you were to recommend one book to read about PTSD or C-PTSD what would it be?

So the poll results clearly reveal why we struggle to start tasks 😉

We get overwhelmed by what we think it will take to complete a task (4)

Yet ‘just’ starting to do a task (1) seldom feels like a real option

And most of the time we have no idea how to magically break a task into chunks: that seems like a huge task in itself! 🤷🏻‍♀️

#AuDHD #ActuallyAutistic #ActuallyADHD

@SleepyCatten I think my meds help (40 mg of lisdexamfetamine daily, plus 10 mg of task-based methylphenidate as needed)

But they have a much subtler effect than some people report

And there are some things they don’t help with

(It’s well known that there’s a massive overlap between Autistics and ADHDers, so I have a sneaking suspicion that both neurotypes are really just variations of one major neurotype)

#ActuallyAutistic #ActuallyADHD #AuDHD

@ferrous There’s a strong connection between the Autism/ADHD overlap and monotropism – in our hyperfocus and inability to direct our attention as we might (more research needed here)

The slowness of monotropism to catch on as a theory among mainstream researchers is probably because it’s not a simple answer – it requires thought

#SARG2023 #ActuallyAutistic #ActuallyADHD

@konomikitten I've only heard of it as part of autism, but I wouldn't be surprised if it could be either/both, like a lot of things
And I've seen #ActuallyAutistic more than I've seen #ActuallyADHD but I'm pretty sure you're using both right? Assuming you have AuDHD. And TBC I, and most other neurodivergents I've met on fedi, trust you to determine that and decide for yourself what labels to use

@cjrando See also: body doubling

#ActuallyADHD #BodyDoubling

@theADHDAcademic Yes, I just felt a twinge of discomfort in recalling the difficulty I had with this kind of thing

#ActuallyADHD #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD

@st0neybrat Waking up has always been a problem for me. If I’m not panicked out of bed by the realisation that I’m going to be late for something, it can take hours

It can even be an effort and take a long time before I can sit up briefly to take my meds (crucially, my ADHD meds – so they are useless at fixing this problem!)

On the flip side, I’ve hardly ever had problems with insomnia, and can usually get to sleep very quickly when I decide it’s time to sleep (though that can be half-way through the night if my internal body clock has any say!)

#ActuallyADHD #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #sleep #waking

I find this track very helpful - like a weighted blanked, except made of sound 🥰

'Itipi so' chant/mantra - pali buddhist chant + ambient

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AVHiM3CHFY #sutta #sutra #Buddhist #chant #Buddhism #chanting #neurodivergent #meditation #AmbientMusic #ADHD #ADHDer #actuallyADHD

Cutting my own bangs cause that’s less agony than having to wait at the hairdresser. #ActuallyAutistc #ActuallyADHD

Started on a higher dose of Elvanse today. Day one is far too early to declare any success, but I’ve been home for two hours and have helped to break down a bed, moved furniture around, and climbed up into the loft twice to fit a mounting bolt for my better half’s hammock, and I’m doing ok.

Trouble is, I remember feeling like this after I changed from Xenidate to Elvanse, but it soon wore off.

#ADHD #ActuallyADHD

If I happen to find myself awkwardly trapped in the company of two other people, this *is* almost invariably what I end up doing! 😊

(Shared by @st0neybrat – I just added alt text)

#ActuallyAutistic #ActuallyADHD

So, there’s a question I’ve been pondering. Is it better that we refer to #Autism even when we also have comorbid #ADHD, given how often these overlap? Or is it better to consistently refer to them as #AuDHD?

I ask because it might affect folks’ ability to find posts in the #fediverse.

#ActuallyAutistic #ActuallyADHD @actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd

@actuallyautistic Interestingly, his corresponding 2-minute video on ADHD feels much more balanced (and is more informative): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8JnDhp83gA

#ActuallyADHD #neuroscience

@wogan @searls I think 'we' are people with above average adhd, add or autism aka nerds. We grew up with no to little internet or other distraction, so programming was all we had to get stimulus.
A big problem for younger generation with similar traits as 'us' is the unlimited distraction of games and social media.
Modern-day nerds play games or watch short videos all day instead of programming
#actuallyadhd

@diligentcircle I think we’re very much on the same page (and I sympathise with you having lost a long post – that kind of thing is incredibly frustrating and can really throw me!) 🙀

Three quick(ish) comments:

1. Your understanding of the word *disabled* seems to align (mainly) with the medical model (as well as with most dictionary definitions of the word), but under the social model, it is society (and its conventions, infrastructure etc.) that disables people – I tend to prefer the latter framing

(Of course, any society’s conventions, infrastructure etc. will disable some people, perhaps in different situations)

2. Talking of a *deficiency* or *deficit* as a lack of something important doesn’t stop it being a relative term, because importance itself is subjective

I do consider my difficulty focusing (to the extent that I’d like) to be a deficit in relation to an ideal version of me, but that ideal version of me is something I’ve conceived of because other people around me seem to be able to focus much better – if everyone had ADHD, I probably wouldn’t think twice about it

3. Words like *disorder* and *deficit* may be considered to be almost value-neutral – though I think many, if not most, words end up having some sort of positive or negative association conferred upon them by a language community

Even if their value is only very slightly negative, I find it interesting that those terms (indicating lack of something) are used in the DSM (which is in turn positively valued by a lot of medical professionals and others)

The Autistic/ADHD ability to hyperfocus on something of interest, just to give one example, isn’t included (unsurprisingly, because it’s not a problem, and the DSM is all about problems that people have), but we get assigned the label that only deals with the (relatively) problematic part of our neurotype

I hope that makes some sense – as I say, I don’t think we’re talking completely at cross purposes here! 😊

#SocialModelOfDisability #values #ActuallyADHD #ActuallyAutistic

I was just having a discussion with @lauravivanco about aphantasia and SDAM: https://mastodon.scot/@lauravivanco/110729611947017752

I am aphantasic and have a very different kind of autobiographical memory from that of other people I’ve spoken to

But then this occurred to me:

Why should I accept Brian Levine’s 2015 (yes, 2015!) coining of the term ‘*severely deficient* autobiographical memory’ for this aspect of my neurotype?

Being Autistic, I’m pathologised by the medical model as having a ‘autism spectrum *disorder*’

And being an ADHDer, I apparently have an ‘attention *deficit* hyperactivity *disorder* (yeah, get two Ds in there, why not!)

Yet many Autistic and ADHD activists who subscribe to the social model of disability and the neurodiversity paradigm are making inroads into persuading at least some academics and clinicians to treat us as disabled, not disordered, not deficient – just a different kind of human, not humans that have gone wrong

My aphantasia/SDAM (I have a strong hunch they go together) may have strengths and weaknesses in comparison with the imaginative capacity attributed to the mythical ‘normal’ person

But because it’s out of the ordinary, it has to be called *severely deficient* by the gleeful (probably) neurotypical researcher, doesn’t it!

In 2015!

Still!

#aphantasia #SDAM #SeverelyDeficientAutobiographicalMemory #neurodiversity #SocialModelOfDisability #ActuallyAutistic #ActuallyADHD #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs