On the other hand, sometimes I complain about a problem and someone who is also neurodivergent will say “have you tried <seemingly unrelated and honestly fucking wild thing> because that helped me!” and it will miraculously work, so I’ve got that going for me.
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Mostly what works for my #ADHD is simply accepting that I have to compete with a dopamine-addicted monkey for control of my brain and organising my life around that fact, because trying to constantly wrestle that monkey into conforming to a neurotypical life is exhausting for both me and the monkey.
I call the monkey Bubbles.
Genuinely the #ADHD monkey analogy is helpful though. I don’t try to fight the monkey all the time any more. I no longer see the monkey as my enemy, in fact. I have to coexist with the monkey, so I have to make the best of it.
Actually, I would like to one day see the monkey as my friend, but given that we have been smacking the shit out of each other for so long this may take more time, so currently I have an uneasy truce with the monkey.
Sometimes I need to let the monkey have its fun, and sometimes I need to gently remove its hands from the controls the way you might take a toy from a stubborn toddler.
Sometimes the monkey wants to impulse-buy shit off Amazon so I appease it by instead playing Cotton-Eye Joe on repeat for fifteen minutes. I don’t know why this works. The monkey has terrible taste in music, honestly.
The monkey is also why people saying things like “listen to your body, it’s saying it needs to rest!” don’t quite work for me, because what the monkey hears is “BUBBLES TAKE THE WHEEL” … but Bubbles is actually *really bad* at resting. Bubbles thinks slumping in front of YouTube for eight-hour stretches while I wring my hands guiltily in the background is rest. It’s a monkey, it doesn’t know shit.
If I want to rest I have to persuade the monkey to let me direct us to actual restful activities. Once we get going Bubbles usually has a good time.
This division of self is genuinely helping me be nicer and kinder to myself, because a monkey can’t help being a monkey, can it?
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