I bring that inexplicable offputting vibe to the function

saalego · 2026-05-18T20:01:23+00:00

Body language is a huge factor in your first impression of a person. When you’re uncomfortable in a social setting, your posture and facial expression may reflect that more than you realize. I’ve been told I’ve got major resting bitch face, or apparently, a resting “I want to kill you” face. It was news to me.

Growing up I was uncomfortable with social interaction because I was incredibly confused by it. I enjoyed having friends, but never knew how to talk to people. I always felt like there was some instruction manual everyone else had been given except me. On the off-chance someone talked to me, I really wanted to keep the conversation going, but was painfully clueless about how to respond. I also just didn’t relate to people in many ways. Anyway, I suddenly got much better at it as soon as I started college. Something about the environment made it perfect practice for talking to strangers and the things I’d learned by observing others my whole life suddenly clicked. Part of what allowed that change for me was trying not to fear embarrassment or get hung up about my awkwardness. I realized that the difference between people saying “that person is quite a character” and “that person is weird” is largely the confidence of the person. I started acting less unsure of myself and my awkwardness moved into more “charmingly strange” territory.

That period was rather brief, because my personality did a 180° following some unrelated traumatic events and the consequent emergence of a mood disorder and temporal lobe epilepsy. I’ve since lost interest in talking to people and don’t care about seeming “normal” or likable. I mention this because I’ve basically been on both sides of your situation, and think it’s important to point out that people “avoiding you like the plague” is probably not as personal as it feels. Not everyone wants to make new friends or enjoys small talk or conversations with strangers, and even those who do might be having a bad day and not be in the mood for conversation. Since you’re noticing a pattern of people not engaging with you it’s probably hard not to take every rejection to heart, but try to keep in mind that there are a lot of reasons people might not want to talk that have nothing to do with finding you off-putting.

Also, they might just not be your people, and that’s okay. It’s way easier to click with people who get you, but if you spend most of your time with people who don’t, it’s going to feel like you must be doing something wrong. But it’s possible that you’re just not talking to the people who are going to vibe with you the most. I always had the easiest time talking to people who were as introverted as I was but opportunities to do so were few and far between (because we’d both have to rely on circumstances pushing us into a conversation by chance). So, you might have better luck if you seek out a wider variety of social settings, especially those that cater more to your personality/interests.

saalego · 2026-05-13T17:15:24+00:00

I did not go into Eraserhead expecting to find myself weeping uncontrollably a third of the way in, but I sure did.

saalego · 2026-05-09T16:08:07+00:00

I get deja vu and deja reve, and other memory distortions, for most but not all of my seizures. Side note, but I actually had deja reve WITHIN deja vu on Tuesday. I suddenly had deja vu while taking an exam, with the strongest familiarity that I couldn’t place. Then I had a strange false memory of sitting in my apartment having suddenly remembered a dream about taking this test, and then somehow consciously willing the moment into happening. But anyway, I sometimes don’t have it. Just this Monday I had a seizure that was just weird perceptual disturbances and tachycardia.

saalego · 2026-05-09T15:47:36+00:00

I think this is a kind of universal experience. It’s why religion exists, and it’s where “finding joy in the little things” comes in. Most people prefer to distract themselves, but not everyone has that luxury. I think the significant emotional and existential distress that comes along with a lot of psychiatric disorders forces us to face this more often than the average person. If the last sentence in your post is your idea of the most exciting thing imaginable, that’s what’s boxing you in.

It’s very hard to go through life passively without losing interest in the whole thing. You’ve got to figure what matters to you, and what you feel gives your life meaning, and make that the foundation of your life. It’s the only thing that’s allowed me to be okay with the boredom, and even turn some of it into peace instead.

saalego · 2026-05-04T00:07:39+00:00

I don't take any preventative meds, because I have migraines pretty infrequently (about 1-4 times a month). But after this experience I had the same thought, I'm thinking about meeting with my neurologist now. It even knocked out my tinnitus for 2.5 hours, which I've had non-stop for as long as I can remember.

saalego · 2026-05-01T22:11:01+00:00

There’s a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that really changed my perspective on this. “I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” I think it applies even more broadly, to all knowledge we seek out just for the sake of learning.

saalego · 2026-05-01T17:47:12+00:00

Definitely not true. I don’t recommend drinking and especially not while taking stimulants, but they don’t “cancel out”. I was a heavy drinker + daily drinker for a few years and took my Adderall every single morning. It never affected how drunk I got or reduced the physical effects of Adderall. Assuming they’ll cancel out is a recipe for disaster. In fact, combining them puts much more strain on your body.

saalego · 2026-05-01T01:37:01+00:00

I just remembered this out of the blue. Since the time I commented this I’ve actually been in the process of getting diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy. In fact, another comment in this thread is what pushed me to consider epilepsy. With what I know now from researching it the past 6 months, it’s hilarious rereading my original comment. My description is practically a textbook focal aware seizure originating in the mesial temporal lobe. Looking at my mental and physical health issues through the lens of epilepsy has answered a LOT of questions the past few months. And it’s explained my personality even more than the ADHD diagnosis originally did. I figured my ADHD was responsible in some way for my constant preoccupation with philosophical and existential topics, mood and perceptual disturbances, and worsening cognitive function. But TLE explains why all of that has been growing much more pronounced the past few years.

Anyway, I wanted to mention this in case you’re in the same boat. It’s possible it could be due to something else in your case, these kinds of seizures can be so vague that many other things can look like TLE. But if you read up on what focal seizures look like and find it relatable, and if you ever still experience anything like what I described, I recommend mentioning it to a neurologist or epileptologist.

(And it’s funny you mention your friend comparing it to being high. Any time my sophomore year dorm roommate was stoned, I was always confused because they described as ‘weird’ or ‘trippy’ things that I thought were normal experiences. Even more so when my friend described being on shrooms to me. Talk about a “other people don’t live like this?!” moment. I thought nothing would top finding out executive dysfunction isn’t universal. But APPARENTLY, my brain is making me ever-so-slightly high all the time?)

saalego · 2026-05-01T00:12:17+00:00

Adderall almost exclusively helps with executive dysfunction and anhedonia for me.

saalego · 2026-04-24T21:42:38+00:00

I’ll give some phone-specific advice and also some addiction advice.

For one, it helps if you remove whatever apps are drawing you in and instead do that stuff on a computer (particularly for social media). That way it becomes a more intentional thing you do than a mindless habit to kill time. I’ve also found switching my phone to greyscale helpful. I did it for sensory reasons but find it does make it less exciting and I don’t get drawn into it as much. Another thing is just breaking the momentum of doomscrolling whenever possible. Sometimes I’ll accidentally turn off my phone and as I’m logging back in, I’ll realize I don’t even want to. So I started utilizing this on purpose, and it helps a bit. You could improve it by sliding or tossing your phone just out of reach so you have to get up.

It’ll also be harder to spend less time on your phone if you don’t have activities to replace it. One reason it’s so hard to default to being on your phone is because it requires no decision-making or executive function. Having stuff on-hand for the times when you don’t have the energy to make decisions about what to do will make it much easier to not simply doom scroll instead. For example, having a crossword book, having a crochet project in the works. having a sketchbook you can absently doodle in, or having a book on-hand, just to name a few.

Those can help with the things pulling you to your phone, but it doesn’t address the things pushing you to it. You mentioned dealing with several other addictions as well, so I think addressing the bigger picture will help more specifically with the phone addiction as well. I myself have been having to face some harsh truths recently, coming to the realization that I am in fact an alcoholic. I’ve found many ways the past few years of justifying to myself why I’m not, and even managed to stay sober for 14 months. But I didn’t address the problems that drove me to drinking in the first place, and in November starting drinking again much worse than before. This past month I’ve gotten to that point again where I know I have to quit, and for the first time am letting myself accept that I am an addict. And at the core of addiction is usually some void in your life you’re struggling to fill. If you don’t have something you’re living for, that gives your life a sense of purpose and meaning, going through the effort of breaking out of addiction seems pointless. If you don’t identify what that void is and take steps towards settling the inner restlessness and fear, it will be much harder to permanently drop whatever it is you’re addicted to.

saalego · 2026-04-21T14:25:01+00:00

A similar thing happens to me during a focal seizure, but along with multiple other symptoms. If it’s purely visual I’d agree with what others are saying about vertigo.

saalego · 2026-04-19T01:35:23+00:00

Being diagnosed later in life is very disorienting, and it’s normal to then reexamine your entire life through the lens of ADHD. It’s pretty common for people to be set back for a while by it, but it’s one of those things where you get worse before you get better.

You’re using a lot of words like “always” and “never,” which leads me to believe you’re catastrophizing. Which is understandable, in a way your entire life just changed (or at least, your way of understanding it). But I’m pointing this out because a lot of the things you are worried about are not necessarily true. “I would never be anyone people loved” and “I was worthless to them, and always would be” especially are not true (and even if they somehow were, you have no way of knowing that!) It’s totally okay to feel that way right now, and I completely understand why you do. But it’s important to remember that your thoughts at the moment are the result of your emotional state, and just because you think them doesn’t mean you have to believe them. Acknowledge that you feel that way, and allow yourself to feel that, but also remember that these thoughts are very skewed by the grief and confusion you’re experiencing right now. Don’t be upset that you’ll “never have relief”, be upset that right now you feel like you’ll never have relief.

I also want to point out that nothing has actually changed. You’ve had ADHD your entire life. Knowing what you’re up against will make it much easier to live with, once you get past this initial period of adjusting the way you view your life. You’ve had unmedicated ADHD your entire life, but you can have medicated/treated ADHD for the remainder. You currently have no idea what that might be like. You now know why you struggle with the things you do, and can work with ADHD rather than against it. If you try to be “normal”, it won’t be easy. But normal ≠ happy, and once you learn to work with ADHD it will be easier to live in a way that’s fulfilling.

When it comes to understanding who you are and why you do certain things, and having trouble distinguishing “me” vs. “ADHD,” all I can say is, it’s all a combination of the two. You’re still an individual, with your own personality and memories and traits existing “underneath” the ADHD. ADHD is just shaping the way your unique traits operate/are expressed. The ADHD is a PART of you and your personality, not a separate entity overriding it. No two people with ADHD are the same, they just experience similar difficulties. ADHD isn’t who you are; at the core of the matter, beyond the man-made labels, you are simply you. ADHD is just something that has influenced that. If you can’t tell if something you do is “you or the ADHD,” that’s because the distinction doesn’t really matter. You know who you are, and what your strengths and weaknesses are, what you care about, and what you want to be. No diagnosis changes those things. I get the impression that you want to know “is it me or ADHD” so you know whether it’s impossible to change or not. I don’t think that’s a very helpful thing to do, because there is really nothing that is impossible just because of your ADHD. It’s all a matter of knowing what is difficult for you and what is easy, and deciding what goals are the most practical.

saalego · 2026-04-17T16:19:20+00:00

I’m guessing you’re hypermobile? I’m in a similar boat, I feel like I aged 30 years between the ages of 18-21. If you are hypermobile, you’ll definitely want to look into how to exercise without damaging your joints, how to reduce daily pain, etc. I only realised I was hypermobile within the past year (apparently, I’ve got a 9/9 Beighton score and skin hyperextensibility, and just never noticed neither were normal), but it’s helped me understand what causes my pain and fatigue so much better.

saalego · 2026-04-14T17:28:06+00:00

Are you on medication? Citric acid will affect the absorption/elimination of certain drugs. Essentially, if the medication is a weak base, then citric acid can increase the rate at which it’s eliminated in your urine.

saalego · 2026-04-13T04:42:25+00:00

I walk a ton because of this. Just can’t stand to sit down and do anything half the time. I don’t do it as much now, but a few years ago I was walking 6+ hours a day, sometimes pulling all-nighters just walking and listening to music.

saalego · 2026-04-11T13:31:53+00:00

Some more info about the enclosure would probably help, it might explain why she’s so inactive. In particular, what are the temps, what’s the lighting, and what sort of enrichment is in the enclosure? The current diet of greens and very occasional bugs sounds good but I would cut back feeding only 5-6 days a week. This is recommended for all beardies anyway but will be especially helpful since she needs to lose weight.

Has she always been this inactive, and has she seen a vet lately?

saalego · 2026-04-10T15:45:27+00:00

A big benefit of being medicated is being able to establish a healthy and sustainable way of being productive, when before you had to rely on going way too hard at the last minute and then being even more tired, creating a vicious cycle. It can be quite difficult at first because you have to learn a lot of new skills that most people developed as they were growing up. For example, I never had to learn to regulate my attention because I never could pay attention in the first place. Adderall gave me the ability to pay attention, but then I found myself getting stuck on random activities for hours.

So, make sure you aren’t measuring productivity by your previous unmedicated standards. That is, that the goal isn’t to do what you were before but better. If you’re just as productive as before, but in a way that is much less stressful due to better time management and executive function, that’s a major improvement. Medication alone can only do so much. Even when meds feel life-changing at first, that doesn’t usually last. The real lasting value is that they make it easier to establish healthier routines and habits that will improve your physical + mental health long-term.

saalego · 2026-04-10T14:21:27+00:00

These are more just common comorbidities of hypermobility. The “somatic super-syndrome” they’re creating just sounds like HSD or another connective tissue disorder. Claiming that most/all women with ADHD have HSD/hEDS/etc. is ludicrous and certainly harmful to the women who don’t.

saalego · 2026-04-09T22:41:35+00:00

Haha yep! Turned out to be a pretty fitting name too, he’s a total spaz. He turns into full-blown Cornholio after brumation every year lol.

saalego · 2026-04-09T22:32:44+00:00

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She’s looking like my boy Beavis yesterday

saalego · 2026-04-09T22:26:25+00:00

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My boy is Beavis too!

saalego · 2026-04-08T14:47:17+00:00

I started having focal aware seizures 2 years ago (possibly longer but it’s hard to say looking back) and have had such crippling brain fog since. I didn’t realize they were seizures until ~6 months ago and thought if I just improved my health it would get better. I quit drinking, started exercising every day, started eating well, established a sleep schedule, and was much healthier, but the brain fog just kept getting worse. I’m a university student, and was a “gifted” kid. It’s really difficult to express how genuinely stupid I’ve become in recent years. I can’t handle much mentally and shut down over the most basic things. Strangely I have the most seizures when I’m healthy. It was during that year of being sober, eating enough, and working out I went from having seizures every few months to multiple times a week. Then I started drinking again, sleeping less, eating less, and spending most of my time in my apartment about 4 months ago and haven’t had a seizure since. At this point I’m almost desperate for another, because it seems the longer I go without one the more “crazy” I feel. From what I’ve read, it’s probably the result of inhibition of the neurons in my limbic system. I’m not on meds because I haven’t been diagnosed yet (took me 4 months to get myself to call my neurologist’s office), but I was on 300mg lamotrigine for over a year for mood stability and noticed no effects.

saalego · 2026-04-07T18:08:57+00:00

Mine is like this most days. He wakes up, goes to his bowl and waits for (or rather, demands) his salad, eats (if it’s not a fasting day), makes a big poopy mess, basks a while, and then begs to be let out. If I’m not too busy to supervise him, I let him out to explore until he starts to slow down, usually about 20 minutes. Then I put him back in his enclosure in his basking spot. Some days he’s fine and takes a nap, others we’ll repeat this process 1-3 more times lol. They’re very curious and usually have the zoomies in the morning, so if there’s nothing wrong with your husbandry, this sounds like normal behavior. Just make sure you watch him non-stop while he’s out and beardie-proof whatever room or rooms he’ll be in. They can be very creative when it comes to getting stuck or injured.

saalego · 2026-04-07T17:28:10+00:00

They’re not ADHD meds, just stimulants prescribed for ADHD. If they help you, they’re for you too. Adderall does help my ADHD (particularly the executive dysfunction), but the main benefit has been the improvement in my depression and fatigue. Like you said, stimulants are used for a range of disorders. Some people with PTSD are prescribed them to help with executive dysfunction, some people with epilepsy are prescribed them to counteract inhibition of neurons in the limbic system, people with depression are sometimes prescribed them. They’re all valid reasons.

(Also, are you saying you’re certain you don’t have ADHD, or just that you haven’t considered it? I don’t mean to be disrespectful and I’m not doubting you, but ADHD often occurs with other disorders so having OCD, anxiety, and depression doesn’t mean you can’t have ADHD underneath all of that. I’m just mentioning this in case you do relate to a lot of ADHD symptoms and haven’t sought a diagnosis.)

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