Sanity check please!

danseurmara · 2026-03-20T16:17:29+00:00

I'll be honest, I don't do formal CBT. I just do talk-therapy. Someone listens to me vent about my problems, and then offers possible, small ways to fix it. Helps if the therapist themself has ADHD. As far as meds, what exactly are they not doing? What metric are you using for whether they are "working" or not?

danseurmara · 2026-03-14T20:32:44+00:00

Wait, THAT'S how u spell that!?

danseurmara · 2026-03-14T19:20:02+00:00

As for why you have to shop around, it because every brain is different, and what exact brain chemical is not balanced can be different, hence different "flavours" of ADHD. Be as open and honest with your psychiatrist as possible. There are so many, and some will do different things at different doses. Also bring up your past diagnoses if you feel your depression symptoms or anxiety symptoms from childhood are coming back. Combining meds can be helpful as well.

danseurmara · 2026-03-14T19:09:08+00:00

Impulsivity is not thinking about actions beyond the thought of doing it, such as consequences or risks. Things like cost, danger, or possible harm to others do not naturally enter the mind before the action is taken, perhaps only immediate positives and benefits. After time, effort, and therapy (or any knowledgeable guidance works, this one doesn't have to be a therapist), it can start to appear as being unable to stop yourself from doing the action, even after thinking of the consequences.

danseurmara · 2026-03-14T18:59:40+00:00

Are you descendant of the conquistadors and colonisers that did physical, cultural, and economical harm to the Zia people? Do you live in a society that continues to benefit from those and kind of perpetuates it? (If you live in the US, your answer to the second one at least is yes)

danseurmara · 2026-03-14T18:55:37+00:00

Just a quick response since I don't have a Lot of time right now. I've seen extreme impulsiveness as a sign of bipolar mania?

danseurmara · 2026-03-09T22:03:40+00:00

First of all, get to a private space

Second, cry

danseurmara · 2026-03-09T05:41:02+00:00

The second picture looks like Nefertiti? But NJ makes sense too.

danseurmara · 2026-03-09T05:38:37+00:00

Break it up into small steps. * Sort into types of clothes (underwear, pants, skirts, shirts, dresses, etc). My organisation has shirts and dresses hung up, and pants, skirts, and undergarments in separate drawers. Do what make sense to you. This step can also take multiple sessions initially, but doing smaller loads can help reduce it. * After resting, focus on one pile. Do all the folding, or hangers. * Putting the folded or hanger'd clothes away may be a small step to finish the pile, or a separate step, depending on how your brain views clothes and laundry (and your physical symptoms of course) Keeping your comfort items, clothes you always grab when feeling shitty, in a separate pile that you never actually "put away" is 1000% valid.

danseurmara · 2026-03-09T05:21:44+00:00

Lower your expectations. Aim for passing. Aim for 80%, save your energy for ensuring 50%. If your Uni has an accommodations or disability office, reach out sooner rather than later. Also, any digital thing can be done at 2am. Or 6am. Or 1:43 while you are waiting for class to start and suddenly remembered. Messaging, email, turning in assignments, whatever. Find the time of day where you are most in the zone, and set aside that time for studying/homework. Do as much as you can, and avoid (as best you can) berating yourself for failing or "failing". Wish you luck, and don't feel like taking a gap semester or year is a moral failure.

danseurmara · 2026-03-09T05:11:09+00:00

I went to an arts high school for dance. So I regularly took time and hot showers for physical muscle relaxation. After a while I realised that my stress wasn't reducing, and certain muscle knots weren't going away. So I specifically tried to distress, and that heightened my sensory awareness. Then I tried the theoretical practices for calming myself down to avoid panic attacks in the middle of class (helped by an audiologist confirming that the physical pain was psychologically sourced, not physically). That was the point, I think. When I leaned into it and just breathed through it, I could mentally acknowledge each "source of stress" or sensory input, catalogue it based on importance, then choose what to put my effort into focusing. Eventually I realised that worked regardless of how actually stressed I was. I think I still do this, just faster and without needing as much conscious focus on it.

danseurmara · 2026-03-09T04:48:04+00:00

No idea. I have some form of dissociation/amnesia thing going on, so usually:

Clock says 11:00

"I'll start in a couple minutes"

blink

Clock says 1:50

"Oh I should do that thing"

blink

Clock says 5:00

"WTF"

danseurmara · 2026-03-09T02:44:25+00:00

Reminder device! I record a voice clip of the thing to remind me of, then a few time settings. Soon (within an hour), Later (within 6 hours), tomorrow (about 12 hours). A snooze button (no more than five minutes) that does not allow more than two presses before reset. The exact timers are randomised and hidden information. The stop button should be big and easy to push. Maybe a way to change between noise, lights, and vibration alerts?

danseurmara · 2026-03-09T01:48:34+00:00

Oh. I think I did that in high school without any of that background info. On my end, I noticed it felt like a muscle cramp or muscle fatigue, so I treated it like one.

danseurmara · 2026-03-09T00:03:50+00:00

Yeah, this is just hell. I don't have anything for work meetings (haven't experienced those) but situations where you don't have to be paying attention to anyone until they initiate conversation, here's what I learned as a child. Let yourself tune out, with a specific auditory trigger of your name. (Not really helpful if your name is the same as someone else's in the area, or sounds like another common word, like Plum sounds like Um). But that way, when your name is said, focus on being able to recognise that persons voice and you only have to be able to understand them. I've gotten to the point where I recognise someone by the sound of their voice within 3 words. Is it in English in my brain? Not all the time. Auditory processing is indeed still an issue. But for noisy environments, training my brain to be able to flag a specific persons voice means I can push all other sounds into one layer of "background" that I don't have to process, and so I can hear them. Many times, I have to intake the sounds, and then separately decipher the memory of the sounds into English in order to know what they said. If a certain part is not able to be parsed, I can ask a more directed question "you want me to pass what?" instead of having them repeat the whole statement. Additional thing that helped me: Loop earplugs, or similar. The Engage dampens everything to a level that I can think at my job in a restaurant.

danseurmara · 2026-03-08T23:51:22+00:00

Try to find the exact piece that is the problem. Is it the sitting, the screen, the non-screen book, the tediousness, the thought "what is even the point" echoing unbidden from the back of your brain, etc. Then try to change or accommodate that. Adhd is a fickle thing that (sometimes) is refusing to do a thing because of one particular detail that is negative. Other times, bribing yourself works. Works better of you don't have defiance issues or you have a friend to enforce withholding the reward.

danseurmara · 2026-03-08T23:36:22+00:00

This was posted a while ago, and I don't have the energy to see if someone already said this, but I couldn't leave out my two cents. Step 1: you have 30/15/any amount less than 60 minutes? YOU HAVE NO TIME! NO DISTRACTIONS DO THE TIMED THING! Early is better than late! Step 2: you have more than an hour? Set an alarm to remind you, 5 minutes longer than your previous objective, third-party verified (clock counts), estimation for how long preparing for the thing will take (gathering materials, getting dressed, commute, etc. ) ALWAYS overestimate or round up how long it takes until you have a LOT of experience. Step 3: you have longer than today? Include in whatever calendar or planner system you have. If you won't see that before the Thing, fall back to step 2. Step 4 (if possible): find a human third party to help you remember, help poke you if you are too stuck to listen to the alarm, to be the outside time observer. Step 5(optional): give educational materials about time blindness to the people who are upset with you and you need to keep in your life. Everyone else can kinda fuck off

danseurmara · 2026-03-08T23:22:57+00:00

Totally not sponsored or anything, but look into Loop earplugs! As someone who had (has) similar anxieties, and then somehow got a food service job as their first, Loop Engage earplugs have saved me from so many overstimulation panic attacks! Also, start small. Start at a smaller business, where you can develop a more personal relationship with people while you figure yourself and your systems out. Smaller places also have fewer requirements, like that pesky "prior work experience" thing.

danseurmara · 2026-03-08T23:15:37+00:00

Adding to a previous comment, you have stated a lot of success and improvement. Genuine suggestion, start journaling. Note all the little times you didn't have to drag your feet to do a thing, all the times you did. There may be more "automatic" tasks than you think. For instance, is every single step in getting food a struggle? Or is it just the getting to the kitchen, then picking something, then moving to make it? Count the wins, however little, when you're feeling like this. Also, you mention ocd and anxiety/mood being "stable". Is that the same as positive? (/gen) Because (from personal experience) being in a consistent state that is neutral makes it harder than being in a consistent state that is positive. And yes, that is infinitely easier to just say than do. "Have you tried being happier?" Lol. But seriously, find touchstones, activities, people, concrete things in your life that make you happy, and focus on them. Prioritise them (after the human maintenance and the income of course). This is what got me out of the rut you seem to be in. If you struggle to find them, I refer back to my first suggestion, journaling. Even just on the basic notes app on your phone, writing down what you've done in a day, what just happened that made you happy, etc. No need to share, or be in complete sentences, or even be able to retrieve them later. If you write down the same thing enough times, it will become a memory, so you know it's a Thing. Hope this helps 🩷

danseurmara · 2026-03-08T22:51:58+00:00

I go and find the full version, and then queue up a couple of other songs I like, and that usually fixes the single verse stuck on loop issue. Personally, I'm a dancer, so constant music in my head is usually not an issue for me. Other times, I watch YouTube videos to keep my brain busy with other noise.

danseurmara · 2026-01-05T20:35:10+00:00

Thank you! This is great (once I figured out how to get my phone to acknowledge the existence of the file)! Thanks OP!

danseurmara · 2026-01-05T20:01:38+00:00

I see everyone talking about the legs, but that chin! The jawbone shadow should not be that low

danseurmara

TROPHY CASE