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The complete and total inapplicability of most ADHD advice (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 6 days ago by to c/autism@lemmy.world
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Reading the web and watching the YouTube's yields a plethora of little attention hacks that apparently really help people with their ADHD, but leave me feeling completely alienated because absolutely none of them work for me. In fact, I just don't even implement them, just sort of eye them suspisciously from a distance.

It feels a little reminscent of the advice I'd get for depression in that the bulk of advice seems targetted towards people with less severe forms, and both writers and readers can say, "Wow! Thanks! This really worked for me!"

The feeling that I had earlier that, "OK, now I have a diagnosis, I can start treating the problem" is evaporating away I'm left with a despair that comes from having a version of ADHD that is seemingly not treatable and not work-aroundable and is actually and irrevocably debilitating.

Getting an eval in a week

Edit: If anyone has resources for severe ADHD instead of this Stephen Covery organizational bullshit, please drop it in the comments.

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[–] 4 points 5 days ago (4 children)

making it harder to find joy

Comrade, it sounds like you are treating it like occupational burnout, which is (simplified as) a mismatch between your values and your life/work etc.

My personal opinion is that a lot of advice for occupational burnout is downright harmful when trying to treat autistic burnout.

Autistic burnout is a mismatch between demands and abilities, and is more about the nervous system.

What made my autism "click" for me was polyvagal theory, and framing the relevant challenges with that.

I don't really have it in me to post resources ATM, but I'll do my best to come back to this post tomorrow 💚

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 5 days ago (3 children)

    I've definitely have had occupational burnout. My trained occupation, social work, was pretty brutally and self-evidently unethical, and my awareness of the harm caused by all of it has only grown over the years; there's also an autistic component of needing to get along with tragically neurotypical co-workers. All the other jobs I've had have been based on taking as much money as possible from people, either directly or as the entire mission of the organization ...

    It's perfectly possible I'm suffering from both autistic and occupational burnout, but recovering from occupational burnout would require me to muster enough attention to pursue skills that grant me better occupational options; I am ensnared and the more I struggle, the worse it gets.

    Re: polyvagal theory. I hear that theory mentioned in The Body Keeps the Score and EMDR, and in both cases it's been criticized as having weak evidence, but if you find the conceptualization helpful, I'd love to hear more about how it's useful for you.

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