I would feel better about seeing myself in that symptom list if there were more options beyond "here is a prescription, go away" and "no you faker you are drug seeking"

it's also frustrating when people are like "well for people who *don't* have My Condition it is all Easy and Automatic" like, no, there do not exist literally millennia of records of complaining about the difficulties of this kind of thing *just because of people who hit the pathological end of the scale*.

AND YET, HOW DOES MY BOYFRIEND REMEMBER WHERE HE HAS SET THINGS DOWN WHEN I CANNOT????

the willpower I have expended to achieve the things I have is not meaningless, it is not of a different kind than everyone else expending willpower to get through their day. I know that it's fashionable to say but I don't actually believe that no one is lazy! I have been lazy and I have been not lazy at various times and--even if it's extremely problematic to accuse *another* person of for various reasons not excluding the problem of other minds--there is a difference!!

and yet. and yet.

part of this Worked Up-edness I feel is because I remember so clearly how when depression was The Problem, I had no reference point to think "this is how hard it's *supposed* to be to get through the day" and literally a couple of weeks on an SNRI really shifted my view on how hard my struggle had actually been

"ah yes you are not supposed to be spending 80% of your waking mental effort on CBT-like corraling of your thoughts"

@maya thought you might want this

@toast ty!!

@maya I'd talk about my own experiences with various things (I don't think I have ADD itself, but I do have adjacent things) but I'm too closed/secretive/distrustful/whatever so I'm just gonna offer hugs instead ^^;;

@toast you know I think this stuff is so individual that the solidarity/empathy is really the *more* important thing so thanks :)

@maya Will you stop being so relatable?

@maya i love you for writing this tbh ;-;

@aetios I really recommend the linked piece at the beginning it's super good, I always feel so defensive reading stuff about this (for .... discussed reasons lol) but.... this was worth. now just folllowing her substack on RSS waiting for parts 2 and 3

@maya ill uhh maybe read it, ive scrolled threough it a bit but i dont really feel like reading a long form piece rn

@aetios fair fair

@maya sorry, having some trouble understanding this. is this reading correct?

---

so historical records exist covering executive function difficulties.

some of those difficulties were caused by what would be diagnosed in current day as executive dysfunction conditions like ADHD.

some of those difficulties were not caused by those conditions.

@bb010g yup, that's basically what I'm saying

@maya what must that be like

@stephen part of me thinks it's just because they aren't self aware enough to pursue the "cringe" niche content that would make them happy