I didn't get into how angry we become, as a result of the frustration, but you're right that it's a huge (if frequently unspoken) component. And it doesn't help that I think we also have every right to be angry for the way we're dismissed or derided as we try to cope with the effects of the disability, all that crap about growing up and getting over it. It's just anger upon anger and frankly, the only part that doesn't get a rating of 'perfectly justified' is the kernal at the bottom that's just simple frustration with beating our own heads in to try and destroy our square pegness when the world's all round holes.
There is stuff out there for adult ADD/ADHD, but all I can tell you is what I've learned: when it comes to concessions, think of what you want, what you need (a quiet room, an unbroken hour without interruptions), and then work backwards to think of a reason to want that, a way to express it, that doesn't require you deal with other people's prejudice about mental disabilities. Lie like a goddamn rug if you have to, because it's your mental health on the line, and the only reason you'd say anything is to satisfy their little minds, so you give them a little excuse that can nicely fit in their little minds. "Oh, I just do better when things are nice and quiet," or "Sometimes you just gotta take a minute, clear your head, y'know?" They can handle that because sometimes they need that, too, and they don't need to know how much it matters to us, how crucial it is.
And the second one I mention is because the only way I know to deal with the frustration and anger and other-people-idiocy-anger is to walk the hell away. Just excuse myself for more water, more tea, whatever, and leave for five minutes. When I work in an office, I drink a boatload of tea -- not because I like the tea at work (it almost always is cheap lipton) but because unlike coffee or water, which you just pour because it's usually got a waiting pot/faucet, tea requires heating the water, steeping the bag, getting out sugar and milk. It's a time-consumption thing that means you aren't just "walking in, getting soda, walking out again".
It's an external imposition of a minimum time for the task, one that other people understand and see as perfectly normal for those who drink tea. Meanwhile, I'm using those minutes to keep from falling apart or flying apart or just to calm myself down so I can plunge back into concentration-mode... but they don't need to know that. As far as they know, I am simply VERY DEDICATED to my goddamn cup of tea, and that three minutes of steeping is part of my ART of the freaking PERFECT CUP of tea. And, they'll laugh, they're very picky about coffee, so to each their own, eh?
I've learned lots of tricks like that, over the years. Sometimes I really wish, though, that someone had handed me the list at the very beginning, because I really would've rather have learned from someone else's mistakes, rather than my own.
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Date: 11 Jun 2010 04:47 pm (UTC)There is stuff out there for adult ADD/ADHD, but all I can tell you is what I've learned: when it comes to concessions, think of what you want, what you need (a quiet room, an unbroken hour without interruptions), and then work backwards to think of a reason to want that, a way to express it, that doesn't require you deal with other people's prejudice about mental disabilities. Lie like a goddamn rug if you have to, because it's your mental health on the line, and the only reason you'd say anything is to satisfy their little minds, so you give them a little excuse that can nicely fit in their little minds. "Oh, I just do better when things are nice and quiet," or "Sometimes you just gotta take a minute, clear your head, y'know?" They can handle that because sometimes they need that, too, and they don't need to know how much it matters to us, how crucial it is.
And the second one I mention is because the only way I know to deal with the frustration and anger and other-people-idiocy-anger is to walk the hell away. Just excuse myself for more water, more tea, whatever, and leave for five minutes. When I work in an office, I drink a boatload of tea -- not because I like the tea at work (it almost always is cheap lipton) but because unlike coffee or water, which you just pour because it's usually got a waiting pot/faucet, tea requires heating the water, steeping the bag, getting out sugar and milk. It's a time-consumption thing that means you aren't just "walking in, getting soda, walking out again".
It's an external imposition of a minimum time for the task, one that other people understand and see as perfectly normal for those who drink tea. Meanwhile, I'm using those minutes to keep from falling apart or flying apart or just to calm myself down so I can plunge back into concentration-mode... but they don't need to know that. As far as they know, I am simply VERY DEDICATED to my goddamn cup of tea, and that three minutes of steeping is part of my ART of the freaking PERFECT CUP of tea. And, they'll laugh, they're very picky about coffee, so to each their own, eh?
I've learned lots of tricks like that, over the years. Sometimes I really wish, though, that someone had handed me the list at the very beginning, because I really would've rather have learned from someone else's mistakes, rather than my own.