Studying and being ND

@creative_writer 💯 👏 Absolutely! Seems the world is becoming a more and more divisive and unsafe place.

Have you found any other ND peeps at uni or anywhere? I've found that it does really help to have folks around who you can relate to and who speak the same language (as in, I've always felt that conversations are far easier with other ND folk. Less subtext, more wordplay 😝)

@creative_writer yep I feel that haha once I started to research my own ND traits I started to realise just how many people in my life are ND! I've even had friends who decided to seek out diagnosis after I started talking openly about my ADHD (and posting lots of ADHD memes, lol).

@creative_writer oh absolutely. A friend of mine with ADHD informed me that it's a part of our executive dysfunction - difficulty prioritising. I get super overloaded when there's too many tasks to remember to do, and I get stuck in analysis paralysis, unable to decide where I need to direct my energy first.

With social stuff too, I have reduced a lot of my anxiety by training myself to ignore the little red notification numbers on my phone. I used to get the urge to have NO notifications which meant I'd open messages straight away; however, I often didn't have the energy to reply so I'd say 'Oh I'll reply later' but then of course, I would forget. Now, I've learned just how forgetful my ADHD makes me, so I only open messages if I'm ready to reply to them. I get little bursts of social energy like once a week or so, and my friends now know not to expect immediate replies from me. It's really helped alleviate that anxious feeling of being socially available all the time.

Found some stuff about this if you're curious:

How to prioritise tasks w ADHD

3 reasons prioritising is so hard w ADHD brain

10 prioritisation traps keep ADHD brain stuck

@creative_writer aye that's a mood, forgetting stuff. I forget things so frequently, I'm just grateful to have this diagnosis and the language to explain, so that folks no longer take it personally if I forget something that's important to them.

You could set an alarm in your phone as a reminder. I often have about 30 odd alarms set at any given time 😅

Haha @creative_writer yeah I have so many notebooks, binders, and other stuff I've bought in attempts to get organised. It's hard to build the new habit of using them hey.