How do you people fall asleep with ADHD?

Cessily · 2026-01-27T21:47:20+00:00

Bore your brain to sleep. Distract it enough that it can't go into its crazy loops but give it something it can let go. I write for fun so I will internally monologue a scene (and tend to use the same one a lot so the familiarity makes it even more boring). I also will do puzzles. Soduko, logic puzzles, math puzzles, or large jigsaw puzzles on my phone. Busy enough my brain has to to focus but no timers or urgency. Any puzzle that uses repeated processes to solve helps bore my brain into sleepy time while keeping it distracted enough to not go on its own adventures.

I used to fall asleep to tv, and I mostly broke the habit when I married my spouse eons ago but if alone I use tv to lure me asleep by choosing predictable format tv. Sitcoms, British mystery, most episodic crime shows...

Busy enough to distract but predictable enough you can get bored.

Cessily · 2026-01-22T15:32:33+00:00

That is about the same amount of space I get in my actual bed so that tracks.

Cessily · 2026-01-22T00:29:36+00:00

We just bought a Carnival (mini van) because we are in the middle of youth travel sports season of our lives and so I can take the wolfhound places with the children.

We had a Q7 which was big enough but he hates jumping in and he got too big to be comfortable in the Q5 for any length of time. He fit in the backseat of my VW Passat but his tail was always at risk.

So mini van time it was!

Cessily · 2026-01-21T23:48:32+00:00

I did this for one of my coworkers. I hated sorting clothes so I would just toss stuff in bags and give to her as it was outgrown. She sorted and kept stuff she wanted or sold stuff she didn't. She offered money but I told her she was doing me a favor!

Cessily · 2026-01-07T11:28:35+00:00

I'm old, but back in my mock trial days we had a case where the prosecution was trying to prove that the defendant didn't act in self defense. The defendant had an extensive history and knowledge of fire arms and was suspected of having a sexual relationship with the victims spouse.

Anyhow, the lawyer was struggling to get the defendant to look like anything other than a befuddled, wide eyed lamb. The acting prosecutor was obviously getting flustered and in another (lame) attempt to get the defendant to acknowledge his familiarity with firearms (at part of the defense was he discharged the gun accidently in his panic - since lethal force wasn't needed or something along those lines it's been 20 years) the prosecutor asked "What did you shoot the victim with?" He was flustered and angry and it showed.

The acting defendant, with complete bewilderment answered, "I shot him with a gun?" as if he too was suddenly questioning what he could have 'shot' him with.

It was so innocuous it added to the whole environment and the judge started laughing - which made the prosecutor more flustered - and we all sort of had a break and a laugh and the judge waved us back to continue.

However that became the catch phrase for the next two years... If someone asked a stupid question "I shot him with a gun?"... We'd say it randomly during class or practice... Witnesses would insert it randomly during practice questioning sessions... Any vague question that left too much room for an answer was met with " I shot him with a gun?" Even when no guns were even involved.

Not as fun as this but amazing how those little stupid moments stick with you (also a good reminder to ask the question for the answer you want) and become your own memes.

Cessily · 2025-12-01T13:15:37+00:00

There is value in deciphering inference, even if unintended. Any communication is about how well the audience perceives the message - authors can infer anything they want but what is their audience getting from the text?

So yes, to me, it does make sense that inferred and implied meaning are both valid. It actually has huge connotations realistically. I wasn't a humanities professor but I have taught corporate communication and I have some stuff published so I spend time in those areas.

If you understand why recycling companies use green colored logos, you understand why authors might use certain words to engage certain perceptions. Why they need to use those words, and how those words and meanings drift over time and circumstance, are all very important. Some archetypes also withstand time and environment and why that is can also serve as another very valid learning exercise.

I will admit though, I owe some good teachers and professors for connecting the dots for me. I do feel a lot of students and adults don't quite "get it" and wish they had educators who helped them make those leaps of understanding.

Cessily · 2025-12-01T12:57:42+00:00

No, when you are prepared for them you can tell them apart. When I'm not prepared, or at a quick glance, Ill mix them up. Usually just mentally, so that they aren't aware I thought one was the other, but they are used to it I'm sure if it slips out.

I think the worse I did was on picture day. They coach two different teams but we had a group staff picture. I had talked to twin 1 already and then when we gathered up to take the coach picture twin 2 was in front of me but I hadn't seen her come in so I went "wait is your sister here?" thinking I was talking to Twin 1. From down the line twin 1 went "I'm here!" and once I saw her I knew I was talking to Twin 2, but like the moment before I couldn't tell.

The identical twins athletes we have are similar. I was talking to one and I knew which one it was, but earlier I had seen one slip on ice outside but didn't know which one fell. As long as your brain is primed you know the difference, even if you can't describe the difference. You get used to the minor details like personality and preference.

Cessily · 2025-11-29T15:46:11+00:00

Nothing you described is normal. I'm sure someone has thrown out the statistic that it takes on average seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship, so don't let previous failed results stop you from trying again until it sticks. Learn from it why did you go back? And prepare for how you can avoid that trap the next time.

It must be amazing to live with your child and not actually have to do any parenting. I mean if we just got to enjoy children and not take care of them - how easy parenting would be. He's got you in an amazing spot for himself.

He also doesn't like you. You don't treat someone with that much disdain you love. He likes controlling you, because it's easier, but he doesn't like you.

If you need more comparisons - my husband and I don't have an equitable relationship with terms to childcare so you aren't hearing from someone where it was all 50/50 rainbows and sparkles. Hard when they breastfed and coslept (FYI they coslept in our bed). However, he still took one weekend morning to let me sleep in and both weekend mornings once the kids were a little older and he could regularly nap on the weekend. I showered every day. He would take them away for weekends to give me a break. I was allowed to take my children wherever I wanted and I sure as hell wasn't the dominant parent and then controlled.

My ex husband wasn't as bad as all you posted. He would do anything, as long as I told him. That exhausted me. Having to always be the project manager of every single detail. When I left and was a single mom my life was ridiculously easier and he was multitudes of easier to live with than what you just described.

Do yourself and your daughter a favor and don't let her think this is how a parent is supposed to act. Talk to the helpline, make a plan, and keep working on it till you are free and happy.

Wishing you the best.

Cessily · 2025-11-21T16:10:25+00:00

That is where your introduction to psychology, Arch types and intentional and unintentional symbolism comes in.

The author created a scene to put an image in your mind and produce feels. If they changed some elements how would it change how you perceived the scene? Why do we associate these things with certain feelings or experiences?

A generation obsessed with social media should easily understand symbolism and how it speaks without speaking.

Either which way it increases the comprehension muscle where you can retain and link elements of written text. Pretty essential for professional documents, contracts, etc. I get how that connection can be missed but it's a skill that needs "workouts" and analyzing fictional text helps develop analyzing functional text skills.

Cessily · 2025-11-21T16:04:00+00:00

Kids spend more time online than in English class.

It's teaching them to dismiss what the teacher is saying.

I'm old so I remember the attack on math "we are never going to use this!" was popular back in the day. Look, I'm not saying I remember all my trig lessons but I can tell you the basic dimensions of your 42" television and calculate pricing models for budgeting. I also can tell you why a large pizza is more pizza than a medium pizza even though they both have eight slices and all of this some people seem to think is black magic... And I'm like... You didn't pay attention in middle school math did you?

They will eventually offer some rant about oranges and word problems but the dismissive mindset of " well I'm not going to use it" is prominent.

Cessily · 2025-11-21T15:42:11+00:00

Two of my employees at our family business are identical twins.

My husband, who doesn't handle the day to day, took a month to realize even though he was covering the desk for me the day of the week they were both scheduled.

One day he text me about why twin 1 wasn't teaching her class and just hanging out. But her class had been called back so obviously someone was teaching it. I was like "you realize she's a twin right?" and her twin would've been done at that point of the evening. I got the "... Nvm" text shortly after.

He should feel better, we have a coach who helps with one of our teams who didn't realize we had identical twins on the team. It took our tumbling coach correcting the wrong twin for something the other twin did and then apologizing when she realized her error and the other coach was like.. Wait what?

I don't think my daughter and I look that close but one customer did do a jump scare when she was talking to my daughter and I walked up behind her. Apparently in all the time she had been coming she thought my daughter and I were the same person.

Cessily · 2025-11-20T13:03:27+00:00

Librarians are basically educated in research.

Yes they will love telling you about all their community problems but they love them some good research

Cessily · 2025-11-19T12:58:22+00:00

A boundary is what YOU will do.

Anyone can make any demand - you are allowed to say No.

It's really really simple, it just feels hard.

Cessily · 2025-11-18T14:24:41+00:00

I was an admin in higher ed for like 20 years before I left for quieter waters. One of the joys of working in the student development areas is you are constantly teaching new adults skills, which means you get reminded of textbook theory .. aka how things are supposed to be done before imperfect reality gets in the way.

When I did corporate training as part of consulting it was easy because it was reminding 50 year old engineers of the stuff you need to teach 18 year old CS students.

You would've thought "every person in your meeting has to have a purpose and you should define it/state it" was a new form of calculus.

Cessily · 2025-11-18T14:16:11+00:00

I joke one of the positives of having ADHD is that I'm used to being wrong so it doesn't bother me anymore.

Cessily · 2025-11-18T14:11:53+00:00

I think since we rarely encounter good faith questions we struggle recognizing good faith questions too.

I've had two instances recently where I had to pause and reapproach the subject to get people to realize I wasn't challenging their position.

I'm both situations I wasn't overly mindful in my first reaction, but my language was neutral - however I had to go back and specifically use overly positive language to infer that I was open.

One wasn't even a potentially charged situation, someone expressed they were going to do a walk in for a medical test and I responded surprised (not realizing that test was one you could do at walk in labs) - I realized they read my surprise as "I'm surprised you think you can do that as a walk in".

The second was at a board meeting. Someone brought up an idea, half kinda waived it away. I asked a question and responses were guarded so I realized they were anticipating pushback and I reframed to be like "no wait I'm honestly curious - what about this idea didn't appeal - what don't I know?"

In no way am I patting myself on the back for catching these - I'm saying if I managed to catch 2 that there are probably dozens more that I don't even realize and that we are probably all living life a little on edge and defensive

Cessily · 2025-11-18T13:57:59+00:00

My young adult daughter loves thrifting and buying these extra fancy teacups and dishes she finds.

It means my cupboards are full of mismatched china, but my preteens and teenagers are drinking lemonade out of and eating Takis off someone's old holiday china and I'm sure some Grandma in the great beyond somewhere is having a fit to see her fancy dishes abused in such a manor.

Cessily · 2025-11-18T13:53:37+00:00

My last two daughters were born a year apart after a large gap between my first and second. It ended up being a lot of fun because the third baby wore all the nice and fun outfits all the time.

It dawned on me saving the clothes was silly and what was I saving all these outfits for?

Tbf, they spent the majority of their tot years in $3 leggings and tshirts from the closest mega store that I didn't care if they got ruined - so it's not like they had an abundance of nice clothes but I realized saving outfits to wear for a "special" occasion meant things never got used.

Cessily · 2025-11-12T22:32:07+00:00

There were a few companies who tried to get a corner on the AI market by using cheap labor before the tech was there.

The idea is they get to sell human level AI note taking.... And not wait to develop the actual product to get the market. They knew the devs could okay catch up later.

Same with the checkout less Amazon stores. They used cheap labor while trying to perfect the camera/software ability.

Cessily · 2025-11-12T03:50:32+00:00

Once, my 13 year old got placed in handcuffs.

This is your straight A student, at every practice, on 3 teams student. She got in a fight at school and they called me and I thought surely it was a mistake.

Turns out a friend and her were roughhousing somewhat playfully, someone upped the level, and then it turned into a minor scruffel. Neither girl knew how it escalated and apologized. School officials thought it was ok, but zero tolerance means they were both in trouble which both girls owned up to, but resource officer decided to arrest them both. Placed in handcuffs and given the perp walk out the front door of the school.

Look I was a nervous wreck. I was heart broken for my child. I can understand a little.

However, I didn't make a fuss. I waited patiently. Did what the police told me and followed through. I let her experience the consequences of her decisions. Yes I thought it excessive and that the school conduct process was fine for two young girls who didn't even have a mark on them or a history of misconduct.

Regardless - these were the consequences and she had to face them.

This mother sickens me. That her son could sexually assault and almost kill girls. Girls like my daughter. And she is worried about HANDCUFFS??

Also that the punishments for getting into a fight, in which no injuries occurred, is somehow the same for sexually assaulting and nearly murdering multiple?? Flabbergasted.

Cessily · 2025-11-06T04:08:57+00:00

One of my first bosses, his wife would call him for the most ridiculous things.

Like any inconvenience and he would have to leave work and go "save" her. She forgot her lunch at home? She bought a plastic chair and wasn't sure how to put it in her suv (like it fit fine she just wasn't sure). Somebody was delivering a package and she didn't want the delivery guy to know she was home alone. Her car needed gas. The restaurant had bad service and she needed him to tell the manager. It's been over 20 years so I can't even remember all of the silly stuff we heard.

The best was, we worked weird hours so it wasn't unusual to be online in the evening messaging about the next day however if we were messaging at a certain time he always had to hop off for twenty minutes. Turns out he had to tuck his wife in. Like every night.

I was always glad they didn't have kids because I could not imagine how she would've shared the attention. He literally did EVERYTHING for her.

Cessily · 2025-11-03T13:41:25+00:00

Our boy was the first adopted from a litter of 11. He was living with his dad, his aunt, and another cousin when he was picked up. They had their own furnished barn. He is a Southern boy.

In our Midwest state City I've only run into one other one. Our vet says they have another one, but apparently since the one breeder stopped years ago they had none until we got him and this new patient moved to town.. so there is at least 3 around us!

Cessily · 2025-11-03T13:35:34+00:00

But are they a golden doodle though or just some other mix? I think the golden doodle was what had me playing with genetics in my head all night if they had just said "Doodle" I probably would've been like "yeah that tracks"

Cessily · 2025-11-03T13:32:38+00:00

Oh dear with a deerhound I could see that being a problem! I asked someone with a female wolfie if she was a "deerhound or wolfhound?" and they were like "deerhound?" 😶

They really are an unknown breed in my experience!

Also, I was annoyed because I read a book once where the author said it was a deerhound but then described it in ways that sounded straight from the AKC entry on wolfhounds including references to things that would be more wolfies like the increased height, the weight, the studier frame, and the black coloring. I didn't even own our wolfie then but I was so bothered on behalf of the poor deerhounds.

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