| Pronouns | they/her |
| Web | http://www.structuredsuccess.ca |
People with ADHD may need longer, more intensive executive functioning supports as we learn how to use our own executive functioning skills.
Some of these may become long-term accommodations, but sometimes it's just about adapting to the longer developmental timeline of ADHD'ers
Reminder:
There are huge barriers that prevent people from seeking or accessing professional diagnoses, and folks who sit at the interactions of multiple marginalized identities tend to face more of these barriers.
Self-diagnosis can be a particularly important tool within underserved communities
Hot Take:
The people who hate self-diagnosis the most should be the ones fighting the hardest to make professional diagnosis universally accessible.
And the fact that many of them aren't tells you everything you need to know about their actual reasons for hating self-diagnosis
Stop expecting yourself, or others, to just stop meltdowns.
Once a meltdown or shutdown starts, very few people can pull themselves out of it through effort alone. The main way to stop a meltdown or shutdown is to prevent it in the first place!
ADHD struggles with memory can make it really hard for us to remember our accomplishments.
It can feel big headed to take the time to note them down, make them visible, or remind ourselves of them, but it's actually necessary to get the sense of reward that encourages us to continue with our goals
Co-regulation often involves a lot of the same skills as self-regulation, but in a collaborative, sometimes fun way.
Breathing exercises are hallmark self-regulation technique, for example, whereas 'competing' to inflate a balloon with the fewest breaths or to keep it aloft with only our breath, can be examples of co-regulation
ADHD impulsivity makes it more likely ADHD'ers act in ways that don't fit our personal values.
The emotions, sensations, and thoughts we experience when this happens aren't wrong though. Instead, understanding the underlying emotion is a really important step toward positive behavioural change
This comes from the impact of impulsivity, or weakened response inhibition.
For non-ADHD'ers, impulses, whether from internal or external cues, are often followed by an inhibition response which tells them not act on them.
For ADHD'ers though, that inhibition is slower and less reliable, so we can pick up an emotion and run with it before we even process what's going on
We all know that ADHD'ers tend to have big, fast emotions. (We do all know that, ...right?)
But having big, fast emotions also means that ADHD'ers can be more susceptible to emotional contagion, where we catch emotions from other people around us
Executive function is not just one skill, it's MANY. Different people can be strong at some areas of executive functioning and weak at others.
ADHD'ers often struggle with many of these skill, and the differences between strong and weak executive function skills can be particularly stark