Thank you Nome @NomedaBarbarian
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@NomedaBarbarian on Twitter:
Thinking about how I’ve been lied to as an #ADHD person about what habits are.
That apparently is not what neurotypical folks get to experience.
Habits are things that they do without thinking.
They don’t have to decide to do them. They don’t have to remember to do them. Things just happen, automatically, because they’ve done them enough for that system to engage and make them automatic.
That system…which I lack.
Every single time I have brushed my teeth, it’s been an active choice. I’ve had to devote thought and attention to it. It’s not a routine, it’s not a habit, it’s something that I know is good to do, and hopefully I can remember to do it.
Every single time I exercise, or floss, or pay my rent, or drink water, or say “bless you” when someone sneezes,
It’s because I’ve had to actively and consciously engage the protocol.
It never gets easier.
Just more familiar.
It’s part of my struggle with my weight–exercise never becomes a habit, and every single time I do it, it is exactly as hard as the first time. It takes exactly as much willpower & thought.
I got lied to about how it would just “turn into a habit”. And blamed, when it didn’t.
Drinking water isn’t a habit. Feeding myself isn’t a habit. Bathing isn’t a habit.
I spend so much more energy, so much more time, so much more labor on just managing to maintain my fucking meat suit.
And now you want me to ALSO do taxes?
ON TIME?
No, xd, nobody just exercises without initiating it. The point of making exercise as a habit is that if you have this momentum then you might feel a slight obligation to do it and be more familiar with it so it’s not intimidating.
I’m not sure understood what Nome was trying to say. The momentum of which you speak never happens.
I’m not the one downvoting you, btw. Thank you for sharing your viewpoint.
I mean he literally said “Habits are things they automatically do, without thinking. They don’t have to decide to do them.”
That’s not true, everybody has to think about whether they’re going to start some activity or not, muscle memory helps with e.g. driving so you don’t need to think about how much to press the pedal or turn the wheel when driving, but you still have to think about where you’re going (though I guess that can be relatively automatic by itself if it’s somewhere where you regularly go).
What I’m guessing might be a difference is that for other people it’s easier to start the activity itself because they feel an urge to do it, like they’re doing something bad if they don’t or that they feel their teeth being dirty if they don’t brush them.
That’s not true, everybody has to think about whether they’re going to start some activity or not
I think that a key difference between a habit vs not might be that when it’s a habit, the decision you’re thinking about when planning your course of action is less “whether to do the thing” but more “whether not to do the thing”. For example if you’re in the habit of eating regular meals, the question is “should I skip/postpone dinner”, but if you’re not then the question is “should I make dinner”. Sure, you have as much choice as you have in any other thing, but your default course is different.
Crucially (I think) that while the questions technically result in the same outcomes, they can engage different values: for example ‘should I make dinner’ feels like it goes first to how much effort you feels like expending, while ‘should I skip dinner’ feels more like it starts with how much time you have.
Habits are pretty much definitionally subconscious, so this person is most likely describing poor habits rather than an entirely different type of habits. I wouldn’t be surprised if habit formation is significantly more challenging with ADHD, though.
No, not poor habits. I have ADHD and–like the author of the tweets-- it takes mental energy to do many things that I think most people don’t think twice about. Saying someone has poor habits, saying someone is disorganized, saying someone needs to stop being lazy…I’m just over it. I’m not mad at you, and I wouldn’t expect you to care if I was, but I don’t think you realize what an executive function disorder does to a person and being blamed for things that are harder for us is the reason anxiety and depression are so prevalent in people with ADHD.
But anxiety and depression can provoke the symptoms described in OP. In this specific case, the cause is backward.
Probably adhd will lead to more anxiety and depression, but many other things do. And many people, if not most, will live what’s described by op.
“In this specific case, the cause is backward.”
You have absolutely no way of knowing this, and it’s an incredibly irresponsible claim to throw out there.
In women especially, ADHD will overwhelmingly be misdiagnosed as depression and anxiety. Treating the ADHD removes the need for antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds.
I’m not sure what is going on with this stuff. Habit is another word for automation and we all have that. Nobody is consciously growing their hair. When you move up to behavioural habits it becomes less clear. We fundamentally don’t understand where our motivation comes from. It amazes me how much behaviour people take credit for. Sit in silence and listen to your mind, the thoughts arrive continuously and they are unpredictable. If you can admit that you don’t really know why you do the things you do, life is easier. It’s just a process that unfolds, moment by beautiful moment.
If you think that growing your hair is a “habit”, you’re in for a huuuge set of revelations, son. To say nothing of your flippant disregard for a headspace you clearly have no point of reference for, thus leaving you to perpetuate the the patroniziing dismissal of the struggle.
Do better. Take your own advice. Sit in silence and listen to the minds that actually know wtf they’re taking about. 😬
Uh… No. This suggests that NTs act like drones, without any thought. Like they’re sitting on the sofa, then they just get up, wander to the bathroom, brush their teeth, then get into bed and think “wow how did I get here hahaha what a habit, eh?”
ADHD is many things but it ain’t this.
ND is the new introverted.
Only introverts think deeply, get anxious, or enjoy academic pursuits. Do you have a counterexample? Oh, well that person just doesn’t know they’re an introvert, so the pattern still holds!
Same with ND/NT. Nobody is neurotypical according to this definition because everyone has something they struggle with or are quirky about.
I think there’s this myth of “the neurotypical”… It’s a generic point on a scale that represents the most significant overlap, not any specific person. I genuinely believe no one is “neurotypical”, rather some tend towards it and others further away. That’s the spectrum. Plus some people might be closer to NT with some things but much further away with others.
For example, I have a pretty good degree of focus, I remember things pretty well, but I struggle to organise my thoughts and can’t bear to touch other people or certain textures. I’m sure everyone is a bit like this. Some people more so, some people less.
And that isn’t to minimise that there are people out there who really struggle to fit into the “best fit” of Neurotypical-aimed social design.
So why the need to create a mythical group of “Neurotypical”? Is it a need to define ourselves in opposition? Is it to make ourselves feel more unique? Is it a perverse form of gatekeeping?
The upshot is, that until we move towards realising that individuals have individual needs and requirements we aren’t going to make substantial progress and describing (and prescribing) otherness only seeks to alienate folk that might otherwise help.
People aren’t neurotypical… Systems are. I think that’s what I meant to say.
You raise a good point. None of us have had a perfect childhood, nor is it possible to be both perfect and human. Every person is different, and everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.
I think that more people need to be kinder to everyone. You never know what someone has gone through, or what they are going through. Almost everyone is struggling is one way or another. We are all human.
It would be bloody fantastic if the bad stigmas stopped from both sides. Working together on this stuff is the only way to make it easier for us all.
Same principle behind the “Everybody is perfect but me in Facebook” misperception - ones sees a cultivated image of others there which one compares with the intimatelly familiar image (with all the warts) one has of oneself and, well, a carefully cultivated image is almost always superior to a nothing hidden one unless you’ve gotten to a point were you actually value people’s quirks more than flat, tasteless, always-the-same “perfection” and/or can read beyond peoples’ masks (things are a lot my interesting when you ask yourself “Why has this person felt the need to post this?”)
This is then amped up by certain personality traits which are stronger at certain stages of one’s life (i.e. the natural insecurities of youth) which fill the “missing pieces” in other people’s life, drives and intentions with an overly positive fantasy rather than a realistic one (which would roughly be “Everybody fucks up at times. Everybody has quirks. Lots of energy spent on managing appearance means the rest of a persona is likely underdeveloped”).
It doesn’t help that the current society of celebrity-celebration, ubiquitous-marketing and creating-emotion-to-induce-action is almost entirelly anchored on fakeness: we’re constantly faced with carefully-crafted unachievable fantasy examples of what we are told we should aim for (normally with a “buy this to be more like that” message) and that always leaks something, even if just an uncomfortable pressure.
This is far from being just a problem for those who are not neurotypical, though those who for one reason or other are “more aware of the ticking of their internal clockworks” probably spot better that there are pushes and pulls (or at least attemptes at it) from the outside even if they can’t quite track it down.
I fail to see how this is not the case for everyone.
Absolutely no one has a habit of paying taxes. Or brushing their teeth.
I would argue that what you have is depression here, not adhd. You need help.
They weren’t claiming that people had a habit for paying taxes in general but that because nothing else is a habit they lack the energy to do the things that other people already consider draining when they had to spend so much on things that come naturally and in a way for free to others.
I would argue that brushing your teeth certainly seems to be habitual for most people. It’s something they’d do if they went through the bathroom routine in the morning while effectively still asleep. This person is saying that if they don’t effectively stand in the bathroom and look at the brush and decide “I will now brush my teeth.” they won’t do it, where someone else had grabbed the brush while thinking about what they need to get done later in the day.
Depression on the other hand would more likely manifest in a disregard for the necessity of the activity. This person says they do brush their teeth, they want to brush their teeth and they are ready to spend their existing energy on it.
A depressed person often would not be convinced that it matters, nor that they could even make themselves do it if they felt like they had to. Though naturally depression is expressed in many ways, as is any type of neurodivergence. It’s hard to put strong labels on these things. Nonetheless it seems sensible to differentiate on these things as most neurodivergence is simply a set of untypical phenomena and behaviour that have collected up enough to start becoming notable.
A person considered completely normal could suffer from the same but simply manage well enough for it to never stick out. No one is entirely normal.
Yeah the “meat suit” comment makes me think some kind of dysmorphia or something , that’s friggin weird man. Our meat suits are how we experience the universe and they profoundly impact our state of mind and being. To deny it demonstrates a very odd disconnect from reality.
I think the OP was being dramatic for emphasis with the “meat suit” comment. That said, I’m guessing that you’re younger than me or have few health complaints. Not casting shade, but it’s not exactly uncommon for people as they age to start feeling a mind-body disconnect. For example, my mind says, “I can redo my own roof!!!” and my knees say, “hahahaha foolish hu-mon,” (they’re Ferengi knees) “we will randomly dislocate your kneecaps the moment you get up there and you fall to your death.” I’m not saying I think I have a “meat suit” every day, but there are definitely stretches of weeks when my body is having a spell that I definitely feel that way.
I actually do have a habit of brushing my teeth. It’s part of my morning routine, which I do in the exact same order, every day. But, I’m autistic (I was diagnosed as a teen in the 80s). I’m one of those persons that has a very exact routine, and get really upset when my routine gets interrupted.
But, I do agree with you that some of those symptoms seem more indicative of depression than ADHD.
