I feel like as an ace with mild facial blindness I feel this so hard. The Amy Pond quote about Roy being the most beautiful man she has ever met smacked me like bricks because it never occurred to me that people approached appearances like that. I know a friend’s mannerisms at a distance before I could ever place their face. I can tell you which manager is in by the keys bouncing on their leg in the hall and step cadence. I squeal with delight upon hearing the door and knowing exactly which uncle just stepped in from the cold at grandma’s just by the handle turning.
So this uncanny valley social media thing has really struck me as “now everyone kinda gets it”. Between the Amy Pond “their face has their personality written all over it and they become so beautiful” and this “tik tok is weirdly sterile and form made” rant/dissection… I feel like it is becoming more and more obvious how fake everything seems and it REALLY isn’t just the filters. Unless you consider catfishing your personality to be palatable online for viewers to be a filter…
“You know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful, and then you actually talk to them, and five minutes later they’re dull as a brick. But then there’s other people, and you meet them and you think ‘not bad, they’re okay’, and then you get to know them, and their face sort of becomes them, like their personality’s written all over it, and they just they turn into something so beautiful…” - Amelia Pond on Rory Williams, Doctor Who
I lived and worked in a lighthouse at a previous job. There was a thick line painted in a circle around the shack where the fog signal was kept. The line represented how close you could get to the fog signal without experiencing physical harm in the form of eardrums shattering or worse.
Even in the house it was LOUD. Probably the loudest thing I have ever experienced but at a normal, predictable interval. You would begin to time your sentences with little pauses with the rest of the lighthouse crew so you would talk like this while making your………..HORN…………. tea and then carry on talking because you knew when it would go off. It rattled the walls and the dishes in our cabinet.
At least one girl had died there. They kept photos of her everywhere “in honor of her sacrifice” because she had decided to take the winter watch alone and died in a storm where bounders the size of mini vans had been lifted out of the ocean and left scattered across the island, to say nothing of the ice chunks. People weren’t allowed to be alone on the watch after that.
One day a dead moose washed up on shore and it took my entire crew all day but we managed to rig up a line to hang it up to dry because we thought having a moose skeleton in the house would really spice the living room up a bit. It did. Weird shit happens when six of you are left alone, like ALONE ALONE, no cell reception, no wifi, just a radio to contact the real world and not a lot of reason to do that. People don’t go on lighthouse jobs if they want to stay connected, I’ve found.
That said Id do it all again, I really do treasure those days
Placing these one after another makes it look like he left got a lighthouse job and came back six months later to update the drive through employee
seeing names/words on license plates fills me with inexplicable glee ill pass by a car that says like. mildred. & just start screaming
one time i was behind a car with a plate that said like luvbug or some shit & i was like Oh Fuck Yes & then on the way home i somehow wound up behind the Same Car & i was like oh my god oh jesus christ yes. once i saw a plate that said PROTEIN & i almost crashed my car
I saw this one a while ago:
Oh I have SO many of these!!!! Virginia has the highest number of vanity tags in the US and I have SO much proof.
(These are all photos I personally took, except one which I’ll mention)
Here’s one of my personal faves, could not agree more:
Then we got this one, I did not see the person who owns this car but I feel like I know what they’re like:
(note, my brother insisted that this could also read Dark Nigel, which is way funnier to be fair)
I saw all four of these in the parking lot of the grocery store all near one another:
Some of the plates have symbols or letters on the plate itself that they use like these:
(I didn’t take the one on the right, but! The person w this car used to live in my neighborhood, I think I remember correctly that the dmv made them change it?)
Which. Hilarious considering this:
I hit image limit hold on I’m gonna reblog this reblog
Idk if you know, but Virginia has plates based on the no step on snek flag, and. The people who have those plates are almost always bad drivers, and many of them have hilarious vanity tags like:
Here are more of my faves:
You got:
TRANS: all-star. Trans rights. Love u
LYL BITZ: something I still say to myself for no reason. Lil bitz. So true.
1 IN TEN: mysterious. What does it mean?? There was nothing else on the car, no bumper stickers or cricut vinyl url on the car or anything. It haunts me a little
CRSSWRD: I also love crossword puzzles. Love this energy for you, whoever you are.
THICCC: self explanatory. I hope whoever this thiccc bihhh is, they’re having a great day.
DRMAQUN: I have so many questions. Why is there a fox hunting plate? Why did they PICK the fox hunting plate?? I too am a drama queen tho, love it.
FISH LAW: I desperately hope this person is a fish lawyer. I don’t know what that means exactly, but I know it amuses me.
BRONY: self explanatory. This was parked outside a GameStop. I respect the hustle, I assume it was not easy to get this canon plate
Okay I hit image limit again, I’m only gonna post two more but they’re my favorites
Okay so. This tag. I saw this person at the gas station. The tag did not prepare me for the person who got out of this car. He looked like the Wes Anderson platonic ideal of the devil. He was wearing a red suit, a suede like fabric? A darker red shirt, super skinny black tie. The tiniest black circle frame sunglasses that still did absolutely cover his eyes. He had. I am not joking, a van dyke, pointy tip on the goatee and waxed moustache ends and all. I did not take a photo of him because 1) that’s an invasion of privacy too far 2) he would have taken me back to Hell Which Is Real And Where He Lives with him.
And lastly. My number one vanity tag I’ve ever seen of all time. Number one car plates, I give you:
Fuck, dude, it sure is
an absolute treasure I encountered outside the bay area recently
I 100% thought that was “Dark Nigel” to begin with and only realised it was maybe meant to be “Dark Angel” after reading the caption.
Lol when a 14 year old tries to tell off a 39 year old, gotta laugh.
Let’s just say meeting a real life Anti is an experience.
Did you… Did you meet an anti in real life? Tell me more! Tell me more *Singing from Grease erupts*
So I’m in the toilets at the market I work at washing my hands minding my own business, and I notice this young girl at the taps looking me up and down scowling. Note I’m wearing my hair in three buns and have a Kylo tee on. So I’m like
“Is there a problem?”
And she just says
“Are you a fucking Reylo?”
And I’m like
“Geez, what gave it away?” Because I have zero chill when it comes to smart arse teens and she starts going off her nut at me, screaming, literally screaming all the usual
Reylo is abusive, racist blah blah blah. Now she’s so loud her mum comes running in from outside to see what’s going on.
I just turned around and said
“I don’t know who you think you are but how dare you talk to me or anyone like that.”
Her mum just hit the roof at her, telling her off in front of about ten other market workers for her yelling, swearing, having the nerve to yell at an adult she doesn’t know like that…
And then he Mum finished with the classic line…
“What did you think was going to happen with Kylo and Rey?! Of course that’s what’s going on!”
So she not only embarrassed herself, she got in major trouble and found out her Mum ships Reylo…
It was a great start to the day.
FUCKING LEGENDARY
I CAN’T EVEN BREATHE
IM CRYING OMG HAHAHAHHAHA
Her Mum just bought me a Nutella Banana crepe for breakfast to apologise!
I take it back, this is the most amazing thread I’ve ever seen.
Oh my God!!!! That is the most glorious Reylo BAMF!!! moments ever!!!! And I just love the irony!!! A bratty, rude little teen anti completely put in her place by her Reylo mother.
Minecraft Piglins fuck me up. Like, they’re one of two/three seemingly sentient species, but there’s clearly something wrong with them.
They’ve got bastions throughout the nether, huge buildings that at one point were clearly lovingly constructed. Not only were these buildings functional (apartment complexes, hoglin stables), but they created art. Not just carvings, but music. Not even villagers have created music discs, only piglins. Piglins also had access to the overworld at some point, they have a number of items (carrots, water bottles, string, iron) that could only have been obtained from the Overworld.
But… something happened. At some point in the past, something happened, and Piglins lost the ability to maintain their buildings. The buildings fell into ruins, and even though the Piglins stayed with the ruins, they couldn’t salvage them. They just wander the broken hallways.
What happened? Well, we don’t know for sure. But… Piglins are afraid of Zombie Piglins. Even though Zombie Piglins won’t attack them, Piglins still try to get away from them. Despite this, Zombie Piglins don’t appear infectious. Piglins don’t even turn into them when they die. Instead, Piglins turn into Zombies when exposed to the Overworld. The Overworld infects them, and unlike Zombie Villagers, there is no cure.
It can’t have always been this way, Piglins would’ve needed to be able to access the Overworld at some point to get materials. But something went wrong. And here you are, exploring the ruins of a society and left wondering what happened. Or maybe more importantly, are you next?
The Minecraft website actually gives us an interesting hint about the fate of the piglins. In the page on The Nether Update, it says this:
The piglins used to have access to netherite, but they overharvested it, and all that’s left is this crude debris that’s useless on its own. But what do you need to make that debris into actual ingots? The same thing that piglins will give anything they have just to get a bit more of.
The way piglins used netherite in the past was unsustainable, and now today’s piglins are willing to give away riches they’ll never be able to get more of just to keep the ruins they live in today from crumbling any further.
[ID: a page from the official Minecraft site. it has a black banner on the top with the minecraft logo, and the entire page has a dark, crimson background. Below it is a picture of a netherite block, and just under that is text that reads: “Discover Netherite, a material stronger than diamond” all in caps. after it reads “Pure netherite- the strongest, most durable material in Minecraft- is no more. Piglins mined it all out. Now the only way to obtain it is by salvaging netherite scrap from ancient debris.” /end ID]
You know, this is an interesting take on it, but it does seem a bit strange to me.
Namely, if Piglin’s are desperate for gold, so desperate they’ll do anything, then why does wearing gold make them passive towards you?
If anything, shouldn’t it be the opposite? They have no problem killing a player who isn’t wearing gold, but at long as you have a golden hat or golden boots, they’ll let you pass by unharmed (unless you break their other rules). If they were truly driven by nothing but greed for gold, then I would expect them to attack players wearing gold on sight to try to get it. But it’s the opposite.
Gold certainly wouldn’t let you blend in with them, they clearly recognize you as something other than them, and brutes still attack you regardless. So that can’t be it. Piglins are still smart enough to barter, to understand that things should be given in exchange for gold, and they understand the difference between gold ingots (currency) and gold items (gifts). They also can’t always be distracted by gold. If they’ve been hurt, then they ignore it in favor of attacking you.
So, what if gold isn’t so highly valued by Piglins purely because of it’s association with Netherite? Or maybe that’s where the idea came from initially, but over time as conditions worsened and stories were lost, gold came to have a new meaning for piglins: safety from infection.
Fun fact about gold irl, it has strong antimicrobial properties. Silver and a few other metals do too. Gold in minecraft also has significant healing properties, AND gold has significant anti-zombie properties. Golden Apples not only heal players, but they can be used to heal a zombie villager. Glistening Melons make health potions, and Enchanted Apples are one of the strongest healing items in the game.
So maybe the Piglin’s strong fondness for gold is less about Netherite, and more about a belief that it may offer protection from Zombification? If that were the case, then Piglins being more trusting of players wearing gold makes sense. It’d be the equivalent of feeling more safe around a person wearing a mask today. A player wearing gold has signified that they are protecting themselves and others from the infection.
This theory is further backed up by Piglin’s singular natural enemy (they hunt Hoglins, but that appears to be for food, and the babies get along), withers. Piglins are hostile not only towards the Wither itself, but towards Wither Skeletons. And it’s only Wither Skeletons. Regular Skeletons and even Zombie Piglins aren’t attacked by Piglins, but Wither Skeletons are on-sight. Why? Well, maybe they have something to do with this infection. Or at least, maybe Piglins believe withers have something to do with this infection.
It’s also worth noting, when you spawn the Wither, the achievement you get for it is “The Beginning?“ and for killing it you get “The Beginning.“ Which is an odd string of achievements for spawning in and killing an out of the way boss. A strange parallel to when you enter The End, and earn “The End? Or the beginning?”.
The constant implication is that you’re starting… something. Something bad happened here, and you may not have all the answers, but you do have two hands and you can try. You can start something new, or maybe bring back something old, and who knows? Maybe you’ll find the answers given enough time.
On Sept. 17, 2021, my long-distance girlfriend, Lauren, paid a surprise visit to me while a friend filmed my reaction. Three days later, she set the 19-second clip to a hokey Ellie Goulding song and posted it to roughly 200 TikTok followers. The first commenters—Lauren’s close friends—had positive things to say. But soon strangers—among whom the video was less well received—began commenting, criticizing my reaction time or my being seated on a couch next to friends who happened to be of the opposite sex. “Girl he ain’t loyal.” “Red flag! He didn’t get up off the couch and jump up and down in excitement.” “Bro if my man was on a couch full of girls IM WALKING BACK OUT THE DOOR.”
As comments accusing me of infidelity rolled in, the video quickly became the topic of fierce online debate, à la “The Dress.” I, an ordinary college sophomore, became TikTok’s latest meme: Couch Guy. TikTok users made parody videos, American Eagle advertised a no-effort Couch Guy Halloween costume, and Rolling Stone, E! Online, The Daily Show, and The View all covered the phenomenon. On TikTok, Lauren’s video and the hashtag #CouchGuy, respectively, have received more than 64 million and 1 billion views.
While the Couch Guy meme was lighthearted on its surface, it turned menacing as TikTok users obsessively invaded the lives of Lauren, our friends, and me—people with no previous desire for internet fame, let alone infamy. Would-be sleuths conducted what Trevor Noah jokingly called “the most intense forensic investigation since the Kennedy assassination.” During my tenure as Couch Guy, I was the subject of frame-by-frame body language analyses, armchair diagnoses of psychopathy, comparisons to convicted murderers, and general discussions about my “bad vibes.”
At times, the investigation even transcended the digital world—for instance, when a resident in my apartment building posted a TikTok video, which accumulated 2.3 million views, of himself slipping a note under my door to request an interview. (I did not respond.) One viewer gleefully commented, “Even if this guy turned off his phone, he can’t escape the couch guy notifications,” a fact that the 37,600 users who liked it presumably celebrated too. Under another video, in which hall mates of mine promised to confront Couch Guy once they reached 1 million likes (they didn’t), a comment suggested that they “secretly see who’s coming and going from his place”—and received 17,800 approving likes. The New York Post reported on, and perhaps encouraged, such invasions of my privacy. In an article about the “frenzy … frantically trying to determine the identity” of the “mystery man” behind the meme, the Post asked, “Will the real ‘couch guy’ please stand up?” Meanwhile, as internet sleuths took to public online forums to sniff out my name, birthdate, and place of residence, the threat of doxxing loomed over my head.
Exacerbating these invasions of my privacy was the tabloid-style media coverage that I received. Take, for example, one online magazine article that solicited insights from a “body language expert” who concluded that my accusers “might be onto something,” since the “angle of [my] knees signals disinterest” and my “hands hint that [I’m] defensive.” This tabloid body language analysis—something typically reserved for Kardashians, the British royal family, and other A-listers—made me, a private citizen who had previously enjoyed his minimal internet presence, an unwilling recipient of the celebrity treatment.
Mercifully, my memedom has died down—interest in the Google search term “Couch Guy” peaked on Oct. 5—and I have come to tolerate looks of vague recognition and occasional selfie requests from strangers in public. And my digital scarlet letter has not carried much weight offline, given that Lauren and the other co-stars of the now-infamous video know my true character. Therefore, my anxiety rests only in the prospect that the invasive TikTok sleuthing I experienced was not an isolated instance, but rather—as tech writer Ryan Broderick has suggested—the latest manifestation of a large-scale sleuthing culture.
The sleuthing trend sweeping TikTok ramped up following the disappearance of the late Gabby Petito. As armchair TikTok sleuths flexed their investigative muscles, the app’s algorithm boosted content theorizing about what happened to Petito. Madison Kircher of Slate’s ICYMI podcast noted how her “For You page just decided I simply needed to see” TikTok users’ Gabby Petito videos “over and over again.” It appears that a similar phenomenon occurred with my lower-stakes virality, as I found myself scrolling through countless tweets bemoaning the inescapability of “Couch Guy TikTok.” One user despairingly reported seeing “five tik toks back to back on my [For You page] about couch guy.” (I assure you, though, that nobody despised Couch Guy’s omnipresence more than myself.)
The most recent target of the app’s emerging investigative spirit was Sabrina Prater, a 34-year-old contractor and trans woman, who went viral in November after posting a video of herself dancing in a basement midrenovation. The video’s virality began with parody videos, but quickly veered into the realm of conspiracy theory due to (you guessed it) the video’s apparent “bad vibes”—at which point I got a dreadful sense of déjà vu. As Prater’s video climbed to 22 million views and internet sleuths came together to form a r/WhosSabrinaPrater community on Reddit, Prater faced baseless murder accusations, transphobic comparisons to Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs, and overzealous vigilantes who threatened to go to her neighborhood to investigate further. This incident reveals the harmful potential of TikTok sleuthing. One expert aptly summed up the Prater saga to Rolling Stone: “It was like watching true crime, internet sleuthing, conspiracy theories, and transphobia collide in a car crash.”
Given the apparent tendency of the TikTok algorithm to present viral spectacles to a user base increasingly hungry for content to analyze forensically, there will inevitably be more Couch Guys or Praters in the future. When they appear on your For You page, I implore you to remember that they are people, not mysteries for you to solve. As users focused their collective magnifying glass on Lauren, my friends, and me—comparing their sleuthing to “watching a soap opera and knowing who the bad guy is”—it felt like the entertainment value of the meme began to overshadow our humanity. Stirred to make a TikTok of my own to quell the increasing hate, I posted a video reminding the sleuths that “not everything is true crime”—which commenters resoundingly deemed “gaslighting.” Lauren’s videos requesting that the armchair investigation stop were similarly dismissed as more evidence of my success as a manipulator, and my friends’ entreaties to respect our privacy, too, fell on deaf ears.
Certainly, noncelebrities have long unwillingly become public figures, and digital pile-ons have existed in some form since the dawn of the digital age—just ask Monica Lewinsky. But on TikTok, algorithmic feedback loops and the nature of the For You page make it easier than ever for regular people to be thrust against their wishes into the limelight. And the extent of our collective power is less obvious online, where pile-ons are delivered, as journalist Jon Ronson put it, “like remotely administered drone strikes.” On the receiving end of the barrage, however, as one finds their reputation challenged, body language hyperanalyzed, and privacy invaded, the severity of our collective power is made much too clear.
I’m glad the collective response to this has been “this is horrifying” and “body language ✌️experts✌️ and self proclaimed vibe readers are threats” but there is concerning number of you who think this behavior is specific to TikTok or to a generation. Particularly seeing tags that suggest Tumblr users would never because Tumblr users use sources, Tumblr listens to victims, Tumblr only doxxes the right people. There are reasons there’s less Boston Bomber issues here and none of them are because we are an inherently moral userbase.
Tiktok might be a uniquely brain dampening, mob enhancing platform by design but don’t get it twisted; harassment campaigns built on nothing but a vague sense of distrust and gleeful sadism/schadenfreude for strangers happen here constantly.
If you think you’re exempt from mob mentality because your mob only has good people in it, you have likely forgotten your victims, if you even understood that’s what they were. The article is talking about you too.
“Where has all the genuine self-expression gone? Now what used to be authentic subculture is turned into a performance of Aesthetic!” so many posts exclaim, usually concluding that the problem is Capitalism.
I don’t disagree entirely, but. The problem is that y'all are so deathly fucking afraid of things Cringe, Weird, and Uncool that anything unmarketable, subversive, or oddball enough to be “genuine subculture” is gross and unacceptable to you.
People wish to see “genuine self expression” that is not a performance or a commodity.
Very well then. I assume you’re appreciating and celebrating the dress, style and behavior of somewhat shabby, weird outcasts who firmly refuse to make themselves palatable to you?
I think some of you are forgetting what “subculture” means. If it makes everybody around you think you are cool and look nice, that’s missing the point a little bit. That’s just…culture!
When people express themselves in a way that is not a performance to appeal to others…
…it is actually very likely that they will…not appeal to you.
“Why can’t people be unapologetically themselves, in a way that is of course never "cringy” or too weird or too ugly or uncool? Why can’t we have self-expression without performance, in a way that is not boring to me and that doesn’t weird me out?“
Do you see the problem?
There are still robust, thriving subcultures full of unique fashion and artistic expression…
"Ah, but you see, that one is personally unappealing to me!”
That’s the Point, you fools!
I see how people talk about non-binary youths with hair dyed in funny colors. But there is such a young person of indeterminate gender I see sometimes on my college campus with “Trans Liberation Now!” and a bunch of other symbols and slogans hand-painted on their jacket, and they are a million times more “Punk” than anyone with simply piercings and spiky chokers
I was thinking about the incredibly cruel phenomenon of taking photos of strangers without consent and uploading them to websites so others can mock them, in the vein of “People of Walmart” and other such things, and when looking it up, I was disturbed to see how many of them are just 1) a fat person is in public (wow!) or 2) a (perceived) man is being obviously gender non-conforming 
they are just existing. probably at a more advanced level than you.
No doctor will ever get my respect like the woman in the ER who checked me for claws and fangs because I told her I was turning into a werewolf and could feel it and let me know gently that she couldn’t find any but that didnt make it feel any less real, like THATS how you do it, other doctors who just flat out told me I was wrong take notes
This is how you treat us!
i am reblogging this as someone who does not have delusions and often makes shitposts about werewolves, and i just want all my followers to know this is not a joke!
i am so glad you had this positive experience, and i hope this sort of kindness catches on with doctors and the general public.
Look when someone is in a confused or compromised state, no matter why,
and they are your medical charge,
it is vital to continue to treat them with dignity. Like that. Reassure them with visible practicalities that you acknowledge their fears, will not belittle them, and can show them facts to help them cope.
THAT is the proper compassion of a Healer.
Can I just add that, if you like me have delusions where everything bad that happens is your fault, the doctor shouldn’t be like “Yeah, you’re probably right” but try to reason with you in a respective way. OP’s doctor did it right, but some of the notes make it look like people think delusions must be agreed to always, when doing so can be detrimental to the person’s wellbeing
This is my favorite addition to this post because it’s true. When dealing with delusions you need to avoid the extremes - DO NOT tell the person flat out “you’re wrong”, “thats not real” or worst of all “you’re crazy.”
BUT DON’T ENCOURAGE THE DELUSION EITHER!
Let’s take my werewolf delusion, for example. Doctors who have flat out told me “that isn’t real” haven’t helped because for me it is real and no amount of you saying it isn’t will change my perception. It makes us feel alienated.
But someone saying “You ARE transforming into a werewolf but i have a poition thatll stop it! :D” is just as dangerous because you’re furthering a delusion which could get someone hurt. its also manipulative. we’re psychotic, not children.
So what DO you do? Acknowledge that the situation is frightening. If possible, give them the objective facts (ie, i don’t see any monsters; your mom hasn’t said anything to make it seem like she’s going to kill you) while also acknowledging that for them, it is real. Most of all, ask what you can do to keep them comfortable and safe.
Sorry for the long addition but when I made this post it didn’t occur to me apsychotic people would look at it for advice on how to handle an actively delusional person. I’m glad it’s resonating with people, though
I remember when I told a doctor someone had replaced all the veins and arteries in my body with wires and I was no longer a person. she very gently checked me over for any wounds where they could have made the incisions to put the wires in, and took photos of the places on my phone to prove it. all the places I felt were the entry points were out of my sight, behind my ears and in my back and stuff. then she offered to get me an xray if they could fit me in, but it might take a while. I declined because I didnt want to take up space for people who need it, and honestly at this point I trusted her enough to tell me if I had wires. she brought my husband in and showed him how to check me over for wounds and wires, then she asked me if I had any questions. I went back into the waiting room, feeling like I wasn’t stupid and I felt much safer.
she came into the waiting room later to check if I was okay, and I felt safe, cared for, trusted and believed. she told my husband she put a psychiatrist on standby in case I got freaked out again, and told me she understands how I feel, and that she can’t see anything but she gets how scary it is for me and she’s on shift for a few hours and to ask for her by name if I need reassuring again.
I felt safe. I felt believed. that’s how you do it.
anyways can we start recognizing adhd as an actual and serious disorder that
can affect on functioning in every day life so badly that it interferes with taking care of very basic human needs
is not 10 yrs old white boy exclusive disorder
is not a fake disorder created to benefit medicine companies
definitely should not be reduced to “kid who cant sit still and wont stop screaming” stereotypes because adhd has a whole fuckton of symptoms ranging from serious memory issues to fine motor control difficulties
ADHD is:
One of the most treatable “psychiatric” disorders (although it’s more accurately a neurodevelopmental disorder), with approximately 90% of patients able to find a treatment regimen that works well for them, given appropriate medical support. ADHD stimulant medications in particular (Ritalin and Adderall and their variations) are some of the most effective psychiatric medications in existence.
Contrary to popular opinion, extremely under diagnosed overall, particularly in populations that are not young white boys (women, adults, people of color, etc.)
So there are a LOT of people out there who could be helped by getting a diagnosis and treatment but are not, in part because of the negative stereotypes around ADHD and ADHD medication that are prevalent in pop culture.
Able to coexist with a number of other conditions or traits that may change its presentation and/or impact, including mental illnesses such as anxiety or depression and various learning disabilities but also giftedness/high intelligence.
In fact, in adults diagnosed for the first time, it is extremely common to have comorbidities, in large part because ADHD can be so hard to cope with.
Sleep disorders are also frequently comorbid with ADHD. Additionally, being poorly-rested makes ADHD symptoms worse, which makes you more likely to sleep badly. It’s a hellish merry-go-round.
In some cases, “twice exceptional” people (gifted + ADHD) have extra trouble getting appropriate support, because some ADHD symptoms can be masked by intelligence (for instance, if a child is bright enough to do their homework in the ten minutes between classes and master the test material by cramming the night before, they may never see the poor academic performance that might lead to testing), and because the symptoms of ADHD may also mask their giftedness - so they end up stuck in classes that are too easy for them, and therefore boring, which makes the ADHD symptoms worse. Also, people who know they are intelligent but have untreated ADHD can be really prone to some of the other psychological comorbidities, especially as they become adults, because they know what to do and how to do it and that they SHOULD do it, and they WANT to do it, but they still can’t make themselves actually do it, so they start to beat themselves up, thinking “I’m too smart to constantly be this stupid, I must just be really lazy, maybe I really DON’T care, maybe I’m just a terrible person.” Ask me how I know.
Can also have less-common symptoms associated with it. I actually had my hearing tested before my diagnosis because I had so much trouble following conversations if there was background noise. My hearing is fine: my issue is auditory processing. My brain just can’t focus on conversations if too much else is going on. (This also applies to following dialogue on television if there is a lot of background noise/music. I use the captions a lot.
In some cases, extremely disabling. Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, a disability is “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity.” A sampling of major life activities that might be substantially limited by untreated ADHD includes:
Managing finances (largely through impulsive spending, frequent lost items that need replacing, forgetting to pay bills, forgetting to do routine maintenance and having issues like larger repairs needed)
Basic self-care (remembering to take meds, go to doctor appointments, eat and drink at appropriate times, go to bed at appropriate times)
Employment (difficulty being on time for work or work activities, difficulty meeting deadlines, propensity to make “careless errors”, difficulty with emotional regulation)
Interpersonal relationships (memory problems so you never remember important dates, time issues meaning you’re late meeting them, forgetting commitments, easily distracted during conversations, impulsivity leading to interruptions/saying or doing stuff you didn’t think through, difficulty responding appropriately to social cues (through distraction/impulsivity), difficulty with emotional regulation)
Maintaining a clean and sanitary home (forgets steps in household chores, distracted away from finishing them, loses key equipment, impulsive purchases clutter up the home, loses interest in projects and leaves them out half-done)
If untreated, linked to higher rates of all manner of negative outcomes when compared to similar neurotypical populations, including:
unemployment
divorce
substance abuse
injury or death in accidents, especially car accidents
arrest
None of this is because people with ADHD as a group are, like, bad or lazy or evil or irresponsible or don’t care. People with ADHD are just people, and exist on the same range of good, bad, and in-between that all people do. However, the parts of our brains that are meant to help us regulate our emotions, plan for the future, remember to do important things, and not act on every impulse that crosses our minds just don’t work properly. A lot of us might lean in to an airhead, spacy artistic type, class clown, or similar persona to mask our deep shame over not being able to “just” do all these basic things that other people seem to do with no trouble at all.
Additionally, even accessing ADHD treatment can be extremely challenging, because stimulant medications are controlled substances and there are so many false and damaging perceptions about the condition and medications out there. And even when you have a well-established diagnosis and are well controlled on a medication you’ve taken for years, you are never far away from potential disruptions to your treatment. I personally am a white professional with good health insurance and was able to get diagnosed and medication prescribed - which in itself is often really difficult - but even from that position of privilege I have experienced multiple gaps in my treatment for reasons like:
My pharmacy lost a prescription and had to get a new one. (My medication cannot be refilled; each month has to be a brand new prescription.)
My pharmacy was out of stock of my medication (I can’t transfer that prescription to a different pharmacy, and even if I had a paper prescription, you can’t call a pharmacy and be told the medication is in stock, you have to physically go there and ask.)
I forgot to make a doctor appointment in time (I have to have a doctor visit every three months to continue to get the prescription.)
I forgot to fill the prescription (since I, you know, HAVE ADHD, and you can’t set them up to auto-renew like you can other meds.)
My prescription is really expensive and there aren’t many savings options because it’s a controlled medication. (Even with savings I pay over $100 out of pocket for my ADHD meds every month. If the manufacturer isn’t offering a coupon that month it’s close to $300.)
Again, this is a LEGAL medication that I am LEGALLY prescribed by my supportive doctor with consultation from my supportive psychologist, for my actual disabling medical condition, and which all parties involved agree is extremely effective in helping me manage said condition. I’m in about the best situation you can be in short of being a millionaire who doesn’t have to worry about things like preapprovals or copays or taking sick time from work.
I’ve also heard from others who have had to change doctors due to moving, job or insurance changes, etc., only to get issues like:
medical practices that flatly refuse to prescribe any controlled medications at all.
medical practices that don’t deal with ADHD specifically at all.
doctors that “don’t believe in” medicating adults/women/people with good jobs/people with good grades/anyone for ADHD.
doctors that won’t accept existing diagnoses or treatment plans.
ADHD is a treatable and manageable condition, but it isn’t a joke, it isn’t “made up,” we aren’t “all a little ADHD these days anyway”. It’s a complex and wide-ranging condition that can impact nearly every part of your life in serious and possibly very damaging ways.
