ToBbaCO COmpAniEs HATE tHiS OnE siMPlE tRICk

Yeah no this is true. I THINK it has to do with how driving uses so many of your senses and disparate parts of the brain, despite how mundane and easy it seems to us since we have trained ourselves and perceive it as the norm, it is crazy how complicated driving is, and yeah plenty of people have that autopilot experience.

I thought this was normal tbh. My word…

That’s so interesting to see thus written out like this because you have described in words, what I experience on some level. Of course all of this neurodivergence we’re speaking on exists on a kind of gradient, so none of our experiences are going to be 1:1, but this is fascinating because it is definitely close enough. For ex: I don’t have my toothbrush out in plain sight as my SO likes to keep things neat, and we’ve been together so long I don’t remember if it has always been that way, but I do know in the past I didn’t brush a lot because I would forget and get to bed and not have the wherewithal to make myself get back up and do it, and also I am terrible and remembering to take scheduled medicines like antibiotics and allergy medicine, but if I put it in the same place with my toothbrush I can trick myself into remembering both.

Showering is torturous to me and I don’t know why. I think it is because I have to remember to do that, wash my hair, blow dry my hair, etc etc and it just feels like a time sink though I know it’s necessary. Maybe the whole time the reason I hate it is because it is just another thing I HAVE to remember aka devote real energy into that.

I saved all of this because it seems like it could be super helpful to me. Humans are so complicated and can have so many “co-morbidities” and seemingly related quirks and things they deal with, that it is really nice to see something that I see in myself all the time most of my life actually) and possible solutions or coping strategies. Thanks a lot from the bottom of my icy beart.

I rarely have hunger signs and I can go from eating everything in sight because of my ridiculously fast metabolism or not eating for hours upon hours.

I wonder how we can make some of this other etuff like the seat belt thing. It is an intriguing point you make. Obviously seatbelt use for people alive today that are within a certain age range has been ingrained in the formative years so I wonder if that has something to do with it. I wonder if one day scientists figure out how to trick neurotypical brains into forming these kinds of memories (I dunno whether it is long term or short term), but I am out of my depth here. Pretty sure short term memories when the neural pathways for them are activated enough times, they eventually becomeong term memories and a part of working memory I guess? Like, I wonder how muscle memory ties into this. If an ADHD person successfully completes an action a certain amount of times, can it then be turned into a muscle memory thing? Surely it can, right? I need to do some research on this, but I’m not sure where to start…

No wonder i am exhausted all the time…

Exactly and there isn’t a guarantee that you will always remember to do so, right? It is like the memory of these tasks that are part of average people’s routines has to start over fresh every single fucking day, multiple times a day depending on the task or your mood or whatever else may distract you.

Yes but for “normal” non-ADHD people, usually the action in question becomes a routine that requires very little thinking energy. This isn’t always the case with ADHD people. I have learned to adapt to certain things like brushing teeth, taking my allergy meds is a new one because allergy season in the south has gotten so bad, but the key factor, I think is that consistency is just about impossible. As someone up above posted, we will fall off a cliff and drop all of it, and who knows when we will pick it all back up again, because it is a constant mental strain. You don’t have to think about walking and breathing, but sometimes ADHD people may as well have to when it comes to thinking about accomplishing things.

I think with ADHD people things that end up taking very little thinking energy for non ADHD people, take the same amount of energy if not more, all the time, which is exhausting. I believe it is easy to take that for granted if you’re not having to expend the energy constantly.

Would having off the charts procrastination on even the tiniest tasks that I absolutely know have to be done to the point of having to pay thousands for a dental problem I put off until i couldn’t stand the pain count as disruptive to my life? Not sure why I asked this because I answered my own question damn. Glad I started therapy so I can get to the bottom of this.

Good post, but what was she doing regularly that made her feel like a threat to you, if you don’t mind my asking? Thanks for sharing all this. I’m trying to ascertain my own mental state and it is all overwhelming.

I saw someone in another thread on ADHD say there is a test you can take to give you at least a basic idea. Of course we all exhibit a lot of neurodivergent characteristics because we’re human and "normal"s a social construct, but it could be a start!