Me and my kid filling out screening paperwork at the doctor for an adhd checkup:

Me, reading: “I follow the rules: always, often, sometimes, or never”

Kid: “….Does the rule make sense?”

Me: “That’s the question, isn’t it. I don’t even want you following rules that don’t make sense.”

Kid: “Well, I don’t follow them if they don’t make sense.”

Me: “….. Let’s just go ahead and circle ‘often’”

Looking, with great ADHD weariness, at efficiency tips for neurotypical moms again.

Like, sure, folding the laundry while dinner simmers sounds like it would be a big time saver! But unfortunately I've learned by trial and error that, if I leave the kitchen while something is cooking and start another task, I will keep doing that task until the thing on the stove regains my attention by setting off the fire alarm?? If I try to squeeze in a little bathroom cleaning between my kids' school pickups, I will inevitably get on a roll, my time blindness and task switching issues will kick in, and I'll clean the whole bathroom and be late for the school pickups??? Etc etc, ad infinitum.

It almost makes me feel better, like, no wonder the NTs are better at this stuff, how many plates can they even keep spinning at once? I can spin one plate with incredible style and grace if I'm in the zone, but dang if I don't tend to drop 'em all as soon as we add more.

I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. Only after I had noticed some things that became really obvious once I became a mother. I feel a large part of what led me to seek out if I had this disorder or anything was because it was no longer just me.

If I dropped the ball and fucked up my life, no big deal. It's my life. I have perseverance. I will be okay. If I drop the ball and fuck up the lives of my children who are depending on me, that is bad and unacceptable. They deserve the chance to fuck up their own lives.

neurodivergent and queer people how are we feeling?

I've spent most of the last week barely sweeping the floor and keeping people fed. Dishes got done before I needed to use them, but the kitchen had seen cleaner days. And I was starting to feel bad about myself for it. This morning I woke up and swept the whole apartment, mopped a few areas where it was needed, cleaned both bathrooms, did a load of laundry, took the trash out, walked to the store and back with kiddo, did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen (not entirely, but significantly), and it's not even noon yet. Maybe that's not a lot for some people but personally I feel like I deserve a medal. Sure, L was watching videos of herself on my phone for most of that time, but I don't need to beat myself for letting her have prolonged screen time this morning, if it helped me take care of what needed taking care of. She'll be ok.

That's just how housekeeping with my ADHD is: I'll barely keep up for a while, then I'll do almost nothing for a few days and start to get down on myself, then I'll wake up one morning with the spoons to go on a cleaning frenzy and feel like a champion afterward. Rinse and repeat for eternity.

I've tried a few things to manage my ADHD better, but anything that works does so only briefly. Trying to rotate coping skills to keep them fresh is a chore in and of itself, and maybe I'll master it one day, but I don't have it yet.

And that's ok. It's ok for me not to be the Instagram or Pinterest or TikTok parent who cleans their house top to bottom and cooks 3 balanced, nutritionally-complete and aesthetically pleasing meals every day and bakes on the weekends. It's ok to do my best and not be "as good" as someone else, or even myself on another day. It's ok. I am managing, one day at a time. I've got this. If not today, then I'll try again tomorrow.

Staying at your parents’ house is not free it costs you your mental health

Life in an Autism World

Sooo sick of meeting autistic and adhd people who were diagnosed at a young age but know absolutely nothing about their own condition because their parents and doctors decided that instead of teaching them the different ways their brains work, they would just shame and correct them for the behavior and slap the diagnosis label on as the name for what needs to be Corrected. I met a whole college adult recently who said that he thought he was having dementia because he would forget things randomly all the time. He was diagnosed with adhd as a child. I had to be the one to tell him that's literally one of the most common symptoms. From the rest of the conversation I'm pretty sure he was told nothing about what he might experience mentally, only why he was too hard for other people to handle. It's so gross to me and I'm just collecting beef with a bunch of random people's parents. As a demographic we have been so neglected and it kills me.

reminder that the only reason the "ADHD is actually demigod BATTLE STRATEGIES" and "dyslexia is DEMIGOD BRAINS HARDWIRED FOR ANCIENT GREEK" things exist in the PJO universe is because it's a very direct reference to early 2000s teaching/parenting techniques for neurodiverse and disabled children, which aimed to frame childrens' disabilities and hardships as a "superpower" or strength so that the children would feel more positively about their disabilities or situations. This technique has fallen out of favor since then for the most part since more often than not it just results in kids feeling as though their struggles are not being seen or taken seriously.

Yes, demigods are adhd/dyslexic (and sometimes autistic-coded) in the series. This is extremely important and trying to remove it or not acknowledge it makes the entire series fall apart because it is such a core concept. Yes, canon claims that their adhd/dyslexia is tied to some innate abilities, which is based on an outdated methodology. It's important to acknowledge that and understand where it comes from! But please stop trying to apply it to other pantheons in the series like "oh, the romans have dyscalculia because of roman numerals!" or "the norse demigods have dysgraphia for reasons!" - it's distasteful at best.

A better option is to acknowledge the meta inspiration for why that exists in the series, such as explaining potentially that Chiron was utilizing that same teaching methodology to try and help demigods feel more comfortable with their disabilities and they aren't literal powers. In fact, especially given Frank, there's implication that being adhd/dyslexic isn't a guaranteed demigod trait, which means it's more likely to be normally inherited from their godly parent/divine ancestor as a general trait, not a power, and further supports the whole "ADHD is battle strategy" thing being non-literal. It also implies the entire greco-roman pantheon in their universe is canonically adhd/dyslexic - and that actually fits very well with the themes of the first series. The entire central conflict of the first series fits perfectly as an allegory about neurodiverse/disabled children and their relationships with their undiagnosed neurodiverse/disabled parents and trying to find solutions together with their shared disability/disabilities that the kid inherited instead of becoming distant from each other (and this makes claiming equivalent to getting a diagnosis which is a fascinating allegory! not to mention the symbolism of demigods inheriting legacies and legends and powers from their parents and everything that comes with that being equivalent to inheriting traits, neurodiversity, and disabilities from your parents).

anyways neurodiversity and disability and the contexts in which the series utilizes representation of those experiences particularly during the 2000s symbolically within the narrative is incredibly important to the first series and the understanding of what themes it means to represent. also if i see one more "the romans have dyscalculia instead of dyslexia" post in 2023 i'm gonna walk into the ocean.

One of the strangest things about being a parent with ADHD (and that’s actually a parenting superpower) is that you end up having hyperfixations about things you don’t want to care about

And because ADHD parents often have neurodivergent kids with a particular set of needs that require research/learning to meet, we often end up hyperfixating on those things with legitimate passion because we love our kids and want to do the best we can for them as we together face the mismatch between our brains and our environment

Which means I’ve had hyperfixations on things like: constipation/encopresis, dyslexia and mainstream reading instruction, gut health, sensory processing disorder, handwriting, ADHD itself, unconditional/noncoercive parenting, pros/cons of different types of education, how to deal with school/teachers

And at some point you look at yourself like, how did this happen? I don't want to care about any of these things, but I do? What happened to all my hyperfixations? And instead, I've become a person who hears another parent talking to the preschool teacher about naptime accidents and, because somehow THIS is one of my special interests, I insert myself into their conversation to info dump about constipation?!

I'm just saying. It's a bit of an identity mindfuck

Idk new post bc the last lost traction, no donations in a week. We need 450 for the rest of February, 450 for a deposit, and 950 for March, 50 for the rest of the utilities. We were homeless since Aug 2020 excepting 4 different months whose places fell through for various reasons, have to get rid of the van we were living in because it's falling apart, Collie got FFS December 28th, she's recovering well and maybe could do something with a car if we had a better car, given her ability to drive. I still haven't found much work but I'm still looking. Anything helps.

paypal.me/NoraEstherRose

venmo: nora-esther-rose

venmo: Leah-Esther-Rose

Me during pregnancy: odd how they say the baby sleeps when you move and wiggles mostly when you're still, this kid literally never stops moving. Literally. Even when they fall asleep, they still twitch and wiggle. Wonder if that's normal....

Me with newborn: Huh. She really doesn't stop moving. Even while sleeping. But also she kind of never sleeps, I thought newborns needed, like, 20 hours of sleep. We're doing everything right, why isn't she sleeping? And if she needs that much sleep, why is she fine with not getting it? And she really wants more stimulation and interaction than they said was good and normal for a baby her age. Her favorite place to sleep is a busy mall. Wonder if that's normal....

Me with ambulatory infant: Oh my heck she's going to kill herself would you please stop climbing things how did you even get UP THERE, you don't even have kneecaps yet! She hasn't stopped moving since the day she was born. Is this normal? I wonder if that's normal....

Me with toddler: I mean, being still is really unintuitive when you think about it. So what if she's doing hand-stands and flips on the couch while she asks me about how computers work? That's just how it goes, I guess. She'll probably grow out of it. Pretty sure that's normal....

Me with small child: Yeah, she's pretty wiggly and her brain never stops going and she climbs on everything and she talks all the time and she forgets where her shoes are but remembers the details of a conversation we had once about a very complex topic, but that's just how she is. I mean, look at me, I'm the same way, always have been. I'm pretty sure by now that it's all perfectly norm---

*sees child existing next to her preschool classmates*

Oh?

*sees child existing next to babies half her age*

Oh.

*gets diagnosed with ADHD at age 30*

OHHHHHH

"IT DOESN'T SUCK MAAAAARCKUS!!! YOOOOOU SUCK" - My friend who has now adopted this as apart of their vocabulary 😎

Another Work sketchbook page from a 'Typical attempt at a gamer podcast'. Had A LOT of fun with the funny colours and little bits :D

[Solid colour background in undercut]

I was thinking about things cause I saw a Supernatural edit, and my ADHD brain followed the thought train to Teen Wolf as it often does, and I have thoughts.

As much as I LOVE Stiles raising a baby/having a baby/ finding a baby and being naturally good at it while Derek is out of his depth when you break it down, it makes no sense.

Stiles and Scott? As only children and BOYS when did they ever have a chance to look after children? (While I think boys are perfectly capable of caring for children parents tend to favor girls in child care so like when would they have even had an opportunity?)

DEREK, on the other hand....

A) he has a younger sister with a fairly significant age gap. B) he had a pack that canonically is referenced as to having children, and with family/pack dynamics, it would not be a stretch that Derek has at least SOME experience with children, especially since it's implied Cora is closer in age to Stiles and co whereas Derek is in his early 20s in season one. (Obviously, we all know what a mess the Teen Wolf timeline is, but for the sake of this post early 20s)

Derek's not good with teenagers... As we know... *insert every early interaction with Stiles and Scott ever* But kids and babies? No problem Think about how he is with everyone in the show but then how he was with those little trick-or-treaters. He scared them sure but he also gave them candy, when he could have just as easily ignored them.

I just feel like if you gave him a baby, he would just be like: "I'm a father now, yes I need the most expensive diapers possible!"

Which after having this conversation with my roomie, I realized would make magical Nemeton baby Eli (My favorite explanation) make SO much sense. Found a clearly werewolf baby in the woods? Guess he's a dad now.

Now don't get me wrong, I do think Stiles would pick up very quickly on taking care of a baby, he's very empathetic and cares very deeply, but initially, I think he wouldn't have a clue what he was doing. He would love the baby and WANT to take good care of the baby but wouldn't really know what he was doing. And babies, especially younger babies can be overwhelming.

So what I'm saying is I need a fic where Stiles finds a baby, has no clue what he's doing and Derek is like: "No that's not how you hold a baby/change a diaper/ hold a bottle" and Stiles falls in love so I'm going to write one

Thanks for coming to my ted talk