<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:googleplay="http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Welcome to the Chaos Palace: I Am Chaos]]></title><description><![CDATA[An in-depth look at well-documented and esoteric symptoms of ADHD as experienced by me, a proud weirdo. ]]></description><link>https://chaospalace.substack.com/s/i-am-chaos</link><image><url>https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8ljN!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F57e76c89-63e4-4bf2-9d3e-f34d72db030c_1080x1080.png</url><title>Welcome to the Chaos Palace: I Am Chaos</title><link>https://chaospalace.substack.com/s/i-am-chaos</link></image><generator>Substack</generator><lastBuildDate>Mon, 01 Jun 2026 11:29:26 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><copyright><![CDATA[Mikhal]]></copyright><language><![CDATA[en]]></language><webMaster><![CDATA[chaospalace@substack.com]]></webMaster><itunes:owner><itunes:email><![CDATA[chaospalace@substack.com]]></itunes:email><itunes:name><![CDATA[Mikhal]]></itunes:name></itunes:owner><itunes:author><![CDATA[Mikhal]]></itunes:author><googleplay:owner><![CDATA[chaospalace@substack.com]]></googleplay:owner><googleplay:email><![CDATA[chaospalace@substack.com]]></googleplay:email><googleplay:author><![CDATA[Mikhal]]></googleplay:author><itunes:block><![CDATA[Yes]]></itunes:block><item><title><![CDATA[The Community Resources Are Here!]]></title><description><![CDATA[ADHD-related books, videos, audio and more for the Chaos Palace community]]></description><link>https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/the-community-resources-are-here</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/the-community-resources-are-here</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mikhal]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 04 Nov 2024 19:52:56 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3XDd!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff46dbb1a-be7d-4b7b-8f0b-26b11bf08424_1200x836.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3XDd!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff46dbb1a-be7d-4b7b-8f0b-26b11bf08424_1200x836.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3XDd!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff46dbb1a-be7d-4b7b-8f0b-26b11bf08424_1200x836.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3XDd!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff46dbb1a-be7d-4b7b-8f0b-26b11bf08424_1200x836.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3XDd!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff46dbb1a-be7d-4b7b-8f0b-26b11bf08424_1200x836.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3XDd!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff46dbb1a-be7d-4b7b-8f0b-26b11bf08424_1200x836.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3XDd!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff46dbb1a-be7d-4b7b-8f0b-26b11bf08424_1200x836.jpeg" width="1200" height="836" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f46dbb1a-be7d-4b7b-8f0b-26b11bf08424_1200x836.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:836,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:130919,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3XDd!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff46dbb1a-be7d-4b7b-8f0b-26b11bf08424_1200x836.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3XDd!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff46dbb1a-be7d-4b7b-8f0b-26b11bf08424_1200x836.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3XDd!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff46dbb1a-be7d-4b7b-8f0b-26b11bf08424_1200x836.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3XDd!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff46dbb1a-be7d-4b7b-8f0b-26b11bf08424_1200x836.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Hey there fam, </p><p>A while back, in a <a href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/breaking-we-had-a-good-day">weekly update from the Chaos Palace</a>, I asked if you&#8217;d like a list of ADHD-related resources. A whopping 67% of respondents responded in the affirmative,  and I&#8217;ve had it on my to-do list ever since!  </p><p>Initially, I imagined this as a list of books that have helped me. Alas, as many projects do, it kind of&#8230; splooshed outwards in various directions. The result is a document with reference books, children&#8217;s books, YouTube channels, and more. <strong>Each entry on this list has some information about the resource, why I found it helpful, and the relevant links.</strong> </p><h4>To be clear: This is not finished, and I don&#8217;t envision it <em>ever</em> being finished! </h4><p>You&#8217;ll see that I left two sections (&#8216;Narrative Fiction&#8217; and &#8216;Podcasts&#8217;) under construction. More importantly, though, this is an evolving list of resources because there&#8217;s such a wide (and ever-expanding) world of neurospicy resources out there. In fact, I&#8217;m excited to keep updating this and sending you more and more wonderful words and sounds. </p><p>And, since this is a <em>Community</em> Resource Doc, please message me or leave a note in the comments if you know of some book or podcast that&#8217;s missing. I&#8217;ll check it out and add it if I find it (a) relevant to this audience and (b) helpful in a meaningful way. In the </p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J4lX6RK7dGsnsV5EblEa9v2Tb3kTpnLgqI-FRWxNEpc/edit?usp=sharing&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;EXPLORE THE RESOURCE DOC!&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J4lX6RK7dGsnsV5EblEa9v2Tb3kTpnLgqI-FRWxNEpc/edit?usp=sharing"><span>EXPLORE THE RESOURCE DOC!</span></a></p><p>I sincerely hope this is helpful and interesting. Hey, should we start a book club?</p><div class="poll-embed" data-attrs="{&quot;id&quot;:231854}" data-component-name="PollToDOM"></div><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TnZx!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faaa25bfe-e02b-4998-8967-ba3b8e0f050d_1704x24.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TnZx!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faaa25bfe-e02b-4998-8967-ba3b8e0f050d_1704x24.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TnZx!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faaa25bfe-e02b-4998-8967-ba3b8e0f050d_1704x24.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TnZx!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faaa25bfe-e02b-4998-8967-ba3b8e0f050d_1704x24.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TnZx!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faaa25bfe-e02b-4998-8967-ba3b8e0f050d_1704x24.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TnZx!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faaa25bfe-e02b-4998-8967-ba3b8e0f050d_1704x24.png" width="1456" height="21" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/aaa25bfe-e02b-4998-8967-ba3b8e0f050d_1704x24.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:21,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:76616,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TnZx!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faaa25bfe-e02b-4998-8967-ba3b8e0f050d_1704x24.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TnZx!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faaa25bfe-e02b-4998-8967-ba3b8e0f050d_1704x24.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TnZx!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faaa25bfe-e02b-4998-8967-ba3b8e0f050d_1704x24.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TnZx!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Faaa25bfe-e02b-4998-8967-ba3b8e0f050d_1704x24.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><strong>Welcome to the Chaos Palace is about coloring outside society's boring ol' lines.</strong></p><p>More specifically, it's about ADHD, parenting, queerness, and Judaism. Subscribe to get new ideas (big and small) about how to expand the boundaries of societal rules. Paying subscribers get updates from my own Chaos Palace, as well as <a href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/s/dreams-of-chaos">conversations with folks</a> who are whistling their own quirky tune and <a href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/s/i-am-chaos">reported essays</a> &#8212; for just $5 a month (or $55 for the year)! I also <a href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/a-poem-from-yesterday?r=12sec7">write poems sometimes</a>, as well as thoughts about <a href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/trying-to-understand">the complexities of the place I was raised in and love</a> &#8212; Jerusalem, Israel.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chaospalace.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lynp!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1cf2efca-8e36-44ce-a624-ceacf964c9b4_1704x24.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lynp!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1cf2efca-8e36-44ce-a624-ceacf964c9b4_1704x24.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lynp!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1cf2efca-8e36-44ce-a624-ceacf964c9b4_1704x24.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lynp!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1cf2efca-8e36-44ce-a624-ceacf964c9b4_1704x24.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lynp!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1cf2efca-8e36-44ce-a624-ceacf964c9b4_1704x24.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lynp!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1cf2efca-8e36-44ce-a624-ceacf964c9b4_1704x24.png" width="1456" height="21" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/1cf2efca-8e36-44ce-a624-ceacf964c9b4_1704x24.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:21,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:76616,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lynp!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1cf2efca-8e36-44ce-a624-ceacf964c9b4_1704x24.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lynp!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1cf2efca-8e36-44ce-a624-ceacf964c9b4_1704x24.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lynp!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1cf2efca-8e36-44ce-a624-ceacf964c9b4_1704x24.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lynp!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1cf2efca-8e36-44ce-a624-ceacf964c9b4_1704x24.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Am a Good Listener: On ADHD & Empathy]]></title><description><![CDATA[Folks with ADHD aren't empathy-impaired, we just show it in a different way.]]></description><link>https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/i-am-a-good-listener-on-adhd-and</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/i-am-a-good-listener-on-adhd-and</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mikhal]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2023 14:01:44 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x1lV!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d8f9127-fcfd-47a2-a75c-335459e737fa_4473x3888.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>I Am Chaos is a series of reported essays about the lesser known sides of ADHD. By sharing my own experiences and exploring the science behind the weirdness and beauty of this specific neurology, I hope to bring us all closer to understanding the rich beauty of a neurodivergent mind. And how, despite common perceptions of neurodiversity, we actually make the world a whole lot more interesting. <strong>To continue to receive these full reported essays, please upgrade to a paid subscription &#8212; just $5 a month or $55 for the year. </strong></em></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x1lV!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d8f9127-fcfd-47a2-a75c-335459e737fa_4473x3888.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x1lV!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d8f9127-fcfd-47a2-a75c-335459e737fa_4473x3888.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x1lV!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d8f9127-fcfd-47a2-a75c-335459e737fa_4473x3888.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x1lV!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d8f9127-fcfd-47a2-a75c-335459e737fa_4473x3888.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x1lV!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d8f9127-fcfd-47a2-a75c-335459e737fa_4473x3888.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x1lV!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d8f9127-fcfd-47a2-a75c-335459e737fa_4473x3888.jpeg" width="1456" height="1266" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/6d8f9127-fcfd-47a2-a75c-335459e737fa_4473x3888.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1266,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:859270,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x1lV!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d8f9127-fcfd-47a2-a75c-335459e737fa_4473x3888.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x1lV!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d8f9127-fcfd-47a2-a75c-335459e737fa_4473x3888.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x1lV!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d8f9127-fcfd-47a2-a75c-335459e737fa_4473x3888.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x1lV!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d8f9127-fcfd-47a2-a75c-335459e737fa_4473x3888.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">Photo by Tara Winstead</figcaption></figure></div><p>I never sit facing the door of a restaurant or caf&#233;. If there&#8217;s a TV mounted on the wall, you won&#8217;t catch me facing it. If there&#8217;s a cramped seating space or a wobbly table, I try to finagle myself a spot where I won&#8217;t be likely to knock things over. I scan the table &#8212; Napkins? Sugar packets? Straws? Any of these, in a pinch, can be a fidget toy. Do you know how long it takes to carefully shred a paper napkin? Perhaps the length of a friendly conversation? A one-on-one interaction is stressful and I need all the help I can get.</p><p>At a party or gathering, I have a different suite of tactics. When conversing, I try to focus my eyes on a person&#8217;s face for as long as I can, which is hard, because there are about 1,000 things happening behind and around that person. If I can just stare at them I am more likely to hear what they&#8217;re saying. This, inevitably, fails. Which is why I have a short list of responses in my (metaphorical) back pocket, each just vague enough to pretend I know what someone&#8217;s saying while my brain catches up to my ears. &#8220;Oh, wow! That must be an incredible experience,&#8221; is a good one. Also, &#8220;Sounds like you&#8217;re really getting into it!&#8221; Often, I don&#8217;t know what <em>it</em> is that they&#8217;re getting into, but I&#8217;ve found that folks tend to respond with something clarifying. That buys me enough time to let my brain process what I heard but don&#8217;t know I heard. My ears have received the sounds, but my language center is lagging a few crucial seconds behind.&nbsp;</p><p>By the time they&#8217;re done saying, &#8220;Yeah, thanks, I&#8217;m really excited about it,&#8221; I have some idea of a keyword and can ask something more specific (e.g. &#8220;Wait, explain again how you ended up in Poughkeepsie?&#8221; or similar, Poughkeepsie being the keyword). They answer something specific, the conversation gets back on track, and I go back to trying to focus.&nbsp;</p><p>The whole time, I&#8217;m resisting the urge to jump into the person&#8217;s sentence, to participate in the conversation to my left, to offer assistance to the person who&#8217;s struggling with their coat, to mop up a spill. I can see it all. My sticky neurology makes sure I miss nothing. Except, of course, what I should be focused on &#8212; my friendly conversation.&nbsp;</p><p>If this sounds exhausting, it&#8217;s because it is. But most people don&#8217;t understand that having ADHD makes it hard to be in social situations, and I&#8217;m determined not to be considered rude or inconsiderate. So, while these rules may appear overwrought for an evening of light snacks and a glass of wine, I&#8217;m pretty strict about them. And stressed. After every (and I do mean every) social event, whether it&#8217;s a quick dinner with friends or a big party, I ask my wife if I talked too much, cut people off too much, seemed unfocused, made a weird face. Did I look aside too often? Did I smile in a weird way? It&#8217;s hard for me to gauge these things, and I count on her to be my compass in the strange waters of neurotypical interactions.&nbsp;</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PO-N!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F40a2921d-4937-4df8-aede-e25caa378218_480x270.gif" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PO-N!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F40a2921d-4937-4df8-aede-e25caa378218_480x270.gif 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PO-N!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F40a2921d-4937-4df8-aede-e25caa378218_480x270.gif 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PO-N!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F40a2921d-4937-4df8-aede-e25caa378218_480x270.gif 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PO-N!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F40a2921d-4937-4df8-aede-e25caa378218_480x270.gif 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PO-N!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F40a2921d-4937-4df8-aede-e25caa378218_480x270.gif" width="480" height="270" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/40a2921d-4937-4df8-aede-e25caa378218_480x270.gif&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:270,&quot;width&quot;:480,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:878472,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/gif&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PO-N!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F40a2921d-4937-4df8-aede-e25caa378218_480x270.gif 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PO-N!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F40a2921d-4937-4df8-aede-e25caa378218_480x270.gif 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PO-N!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F40a2921d-4937-4df8-aede-e25caa378218_480x270.gif 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!PO-N!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F40a2921d-4937-4df8-aede-e25caa378218_480x270.gif 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>As it turns out, I&#8217;m not the only person with ADHD who struggles with social situations. Not even close. And these situations can have real-life implications for the folks who are living with them. When I began researching this essay, my hypothesis was that ADHD-ers are perceived as less empathetic by their peers; a great and persistent fear of mine is that others will decide I&#8217;m actually an asshole.&nbsp;</p><p>My research bore out this conclusion. In fact, time and again, researchers refer to children and adults with ADHD as the problem, the cause of discomfort and problematic situations with their peers. Far from the observational scientific distance one might hope to find in academic papers, there is a morality ascribed to the behavior of those with ADHD. It&#8217;s not that we&#8217;re struggling with real neurological differences that make our behaviors different from those of our friends. Goodness, no. We&#8217;re just bad.</p><p>&nbsp;One <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/11038120903156619?_gl=1*1k5m7v4*_ga*MzM5MzM5MzY2LjE3MDI0MzMzNDQ.*_ga_0HYE8YG0M6*MTcwMjQzMzM0NC4xLjEuMTcwMjQzMzM3OC4wLjAuMA..&amp;_ga=2.201523857.1869273905.1702433344-339339366.1702433344">2010 study</a>, published in the <em><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/iocc20">Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy</a></em> describes the dynamic between neurotypical children and their peers with ADHD as &#8220;lacking in empathy.&#8221; The paper examines two potential causes for this. One option is that the typically developing children are mirroring the &#8220;negative behaviors&#8221; of those with ADHD. Essentially, this means the kids with ADHD are just a bad influence. Alternatively, &#8220;[the neurotypical children&#8217;s] play behaviors might reflect the known risk of negative behaviors reported amongst siblings and peers of children with ADHD.&#8221; This option is hardly better. The authors are saying that neurotypical kids&#8217; just have to be bad enough to keep up with our rudeness. Awesome.&nbsp;</p><p>Similarly, a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28558473/">2019 study</a> published by the <em><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/home/jad">Journal of Attention Disorders</a></em>, explored whether children with ADHD were as empathetic as &#8220;healthy controls.&#8221; The methodology? The ADHD-ers had to fill out a questionnaire and answer a series of &#8220;faux-pas&#8221; related questions known as a <a href="https://www.charlesjvellaphd.com/Tests/Faux_Pas_Recog_Test.pdf">&#8220;faux-pas&#8221; recognition task (FPR)</a>. For what it&#8217;s worth, I took a look at some of these questions and found them pretty vague and hard to answer. Nonetheless, the findings were similar to those described by the 2010 study &#8212; &#8220;Children with ADHD showed significantly lower levels of self-reported empathy.&#8221;</p><p>These are just two of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=ADHD+and+empathy">many, many studies</a> describing how folks with ADHD are less empathetic than neurotypical folks. As I read more of these, I found myself wanting to shake all of the researchers by their shoulders. Because, you see, there is one very basic problem with all of this. <strong>It is all based upon a neurotypical understanding of which behaviors express empathy.</strong></p><p>In my understanding, empathy is an emotional experience. <em><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/empathy">Psychology Today</a></em> describes it as &#8220;the ability to recognize, understand, and share the thoughts and feelings of another person, animal, or fictional character.&#8221; To be sure, empathy is a crucial building block of a healthy society. But the methodologies being used by these researchers to see whether neurodivergent people experience empathy are, frankly, a bunch of hooey. They&#8217;re not measuring whether people with ADHD are experiencing empathy; they&#8217;re measuring whether we know how to show empathy according to the narrow societal ground rules built and maintained by neurotypical folk.&nbsp;</p><p>Isn&#8217;t it possible to feel empathetic and still get so excited about what someone is saying that you cut them off mid-sentence? Can we not feel for someone and still be distractible?</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CeBu!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5d5d5151-6b57-4abd-9626-456f073bc626_5184x3456.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CeBu!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5d5d5151-6b57-4abd-9626-456f073bc626_5184x3456.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CeBu!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5d5d5151-6b57-4abd-9626-456f073bc626_5184x3456.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CeBu!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5d5d5151-6b57-4abd-9626-456f073bc626_5184x3456.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CeBu!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5d5d5151-6b57-4abd-9626-456f073bc626_5184x3456.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CeBu!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5d5d5151-6b57-4abd-9626-456f073bc626_5184x3456.jpeg" width="1456" height="971" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/5d5d5151-6b57-4abd-9626-456f073bc626_5184x3456.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:971,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:1494237,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CeBu!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5d5d5151-6b57-4abd-9626-456f073bc626_5184x3456.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CeBu!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5d5d5151-6b57-4abd-9626-456f073bc626_5184x3456.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CeBu!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5d5d5151-6b57-4abd-9626-456f073bc626_5184x3456.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CeBu!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5d5d5151-6b57-4abd-9626-456f073bc626_5184x3456.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">Photo by Marcelo Chagas</figcaption></figure></div><p>&#8220;ADHD behaviors are easy to interpret as intentional since non-ADHD people tend to have more control over those behaviors (but no one is perfect). Therefore, if you interrupt someone, it's easy for them to assume that you did it on purpose and don't care about what they have to say or their feelings,&#8221; says <a href="https://adultadhdbook.com/">Dr. Ari Tuckman, PsyD</a>, ADHD specialist and author of <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/More-Attention-Less-Deficit-Strategies/dp/1886941742">More Attention, Less Deficit: Success Strategies for Adults with ADHD</a></em>, &#8220;This is especially true if it's part of a larger pattern. Folks with ADHD use up their free passes too quickly. This is why it's important to make it clear that you do care about others, both by showing in your actions when you can and by using your words to re-interpret your behaviors. For example, after interrupting, it&#8217;s helpful to explain, &#8216;Sorry, I'm really bad at interrupting, even though I try. It's just that I get so excited about what you're saying that I can't stop from jumping in. Just put up your hand if I do that again.&#8217; The problem isn't the interrupting itself &#8212; it's the hurt feelings.&#8221;</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/i-am-a-good-listener-on-adhd-and?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/i-am-a-good-listener-on-adhd-and?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><p><strong>I wonder if I, and others like me, would be able to enjoy social situations more if we weren&#8217;t constantly afraid of breaking a social contract we never signed on to.&nbsp;</strong></p><p>Part of the problem is executive function, described by <a href="https://chadd.org/">CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder)</a> as &#8220;brain functions that activate, organize, integrate and manage other functions. [This] enables individuals to account for short and long-term consequences of their actions and to plan for those results [and] to make real-time evaluations of their actions and make necessary adjustments if those actions are not achieving the desired result.&#8221; Our brains do not have the same types of connectivity that neurotypical brains do; we&#8217;re connecting or prioritizing certain ideas and forgetting about others. This can look like short-term memory loss, or emotional dysregulation, or impulsive (sometimes dangerous) behavior, or misunderstanding how to prioritize tasks. It&#8217;s what makes us creative, and messy, and spacey, and fun.</p><p>When it comes to social settings, it means our brains may not stop us before we blurt out something dumb or insensitive<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-1" href="#footnote-1" target="_self">1</a>. It means we may notice four conversations at once but can&#8217;t process the information all at once. It means we may get overwhelmed by the sensory environment, resulting in frustration. It means we may do something totally wild without understanding it was inappropriate or strange.&nbsp;</p><p>&#8220;This can have significant social impacts if the person with ADHD is seen as selfish or uncaring,&#8221; says Dr. Tuckman, &#8220;They aren't given the regular benefit of the doubt because they've already used it up. Ambiguous actions are then interpreted more negatively and the social impacts just get worse. This can create a lot of distance in your relationships and lost opportunities. We look at what people do to infer their intentions, and we look at the pattern of what they do to infer their character. <strong>[The problem is that] ADHD makes it harder to consistently convert intentions into actions, so it's easy to misinterpret both.</strong> If a person with ADHD missed an empathic moment, talk to them about it. Check in to see if this is what they meant.&#8221;</p><p>I want to lay down my guidebook for social interactions, but in order to do that I need to know those I come into contact with will give me the benefit of the doubt. I don&#8217;t trust society to do that quite yet. Maybe it&#8217;s all the research I just read that describes people like me as negative or lacking in empathy. Maybe it&#8217;s the experience of being told to wait my turn to talk as a kid. I fear if I loosen the reins on my mind I will prove them all right. How can I possibly participate in a game that was built for people with a brain that&#8217;s deeply different from mine? If I stop trying to be like you, will you still believe I experience emotional resonance?</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/i-am-a-good-listener-on-adhd-and/comments&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Leave a comment&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/i-am-a-good-listener-on-adhd-and/comments"><span>Leave a comment</span></a></p><div><hr></div><p><strong>Welcome to the Chaos Palace is about coloring outside society's boring ol' lines.</strong> </p><p>More specifically, it's about ADHD, parenting, queerness, and Judaism. Subscribe to get new ideas (big and small) about how to expand the boundaries of societal rules. Paying subscribers get updates from my own Chaos Palace, as well as conversations with folks who are whistling their own quirky tune. Let&#8217;s get messy (and chaotic) together!</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chaospalace.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-1" href="#footnote-anchor-1" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">1</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>Don&#8217;t worry, though! I replay those moments on a forever loop before falling asleep!</p><p></p></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Am a Ticking Time-Bomb: On ADHD & Anger]]></title><description><![CDATA[If this is a core symptom of ADHD, why the heck don't we talk about it more?]]></description><link>https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/i-am-a-ticking-time-bomb-on-adhd</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/i-am-a-ticking-time-bomb-on-adhd</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mikhal]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 08 Nov 2023 16:41:35 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xz23!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F98e7f8d4-f151-4ffa-9ce9-9b666958e832_2592x1925.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>I Am Chaos is a series of reported essays about the lesser known sides of ADHD. By sharing my own experiences and exploring the science behind the weirdness and beauty of this specific neurology, I hope to bring us all closer to understanding the rich beauty of a neurodivergent mind. And how, despite common perceptions of neurodiversity, we actually make the world a whole lot more interesting. <strong>To continue to receive these full reported essays, please upgrade to a paid subscription &#8212; just $5 a month or $55 for the year. The first one is for everyone, but they&#8217;re too labor-intensive to do for free all the time. Thank you!</strong></em></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chaospalace.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Upgrade to Paid&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Upgrade to Paid</span></a></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xz23!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F98e7f8d4-f151-4ffa-9ce9-9b666958e832_2592x1925.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xz23!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F98e7f8d4-f151-4ffa-9ce9-9b666958e832_2592x1925.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xz23!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F98e7f8d4-f151-4ffa-9ce9-9b666958e832_2592x1925.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xz23!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F98e7f8d4-f151-4ffa-9ce9-9b666958e832_2592x1925.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xz23!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F98e7f8d4-f151-4ffa-9ce9-9b666958e832_2592x1925.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xz23!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F98e7f8d4-f151-4ffa-9ce9-9b666958e832_2592x1925.jpeg" width="1456" height="1081" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/98e7f8d4-f151-4ffa-9ce9-9b666958e832_2592x1925.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1081,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:767153,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xz23!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F98e7f8d4-f151-4ffa-9ce9-9b666958e832_2592x1925.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xz23!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F98e7f8d4-f151-4ffa-9ce9-9b666958e832_2592x1925.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xz23!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F98e7f8d4-f151-4ffa-9ce9-9b666958e832_2592x1925.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xz23!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F98e7f8d4-f151-4ffa-9ce9-9b666958e832_2592x1925.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">Photo by <a href="https://www.pexels.com/@thiagomobile/">Thiago Matos</a></figcaption></figure></div><p>When I was 20, I broke a glass door. I was at my parents&#8217; house, the home where I&#8217;d grown up, and I was arguing with my baby sister. What about? I don&#8217;t remember. All at once, a crimson rage overtook my senses. I roared at her, a deep roar, from the bottom of my gut. Then I slammed the door to the patio. It shattered. The glass glittered in the midday Jerusalem sun. Shards everywhere.</p><p>I remember my sister&#8217;s eyes &#8212; wide and white with horror. She was frozen. Something else was in her eyes, too. Heartbreak? Fear? We&#8217;ve never talked about it. All I know is she didn&#8217;t move and so I did instead. My blood was thundering in my ears as I took a step onto the broken glass, then another, and another. I strode, barefoot, on the crunching pieces. I kept walking, out to the backyard, up the thorn-covered hill behind the yard, all the way to the public park half a mile or so away. Then, shaking, I realized I was bleeding. And in my pajamas. And looking very, very crazy.</p><p>&#8220;Fuck,&#8221; I thought. Or something like that. I&#8217;d done it again, you see. I&#8217;d let the rage overtake me. Broken something. Hurt someone. Acted unhinged. Lost it. I sat on the limestone steps, the white of them reflecting the burning-hot light of the Mediterranean sun. I tried to figure out my next steps. My feet really hurt now. The adrenaline? Gone. All that was left was shame and humiliation.&nbsp;</p><p>Eventually, I braved the asphalt path and walked on my shredded feet back to my parents&#8217; house. I cleaned up the glass and the bloody footprints before my folks got home. I apologized to my sister. I cleaned the cuts on my feet, tweezed out the tinier bits of glass. I sat alone in my room and tried to figure out what the hell was wrong with me.&nbsp;</p><p>&#8212;</p><p>I don&#8217;t know anyone who gets angry the way I do. Actually, that&#8217;s not true. I know two people &#8212; my child and my mom. To be fair, my mother never walked through broken glass without noticing the pain. Neither has my son, although she&#8217;s been known to throw the occasional chair when things get hairy. Growing up, I was the only person who could match my mom&#8217;s energy.&nbsp;</p><p>Fireworks, man. Fireworks.&nbsp;</p><p>We&#8217;ve both calmed down with age; no more explosive events these days. I haven&#8217;t seen my mom get mad in years, maybe decades. But, on a recent trip, when my child pushed me over the edge and I slammed a door, my mom got a sad look on her face. &#8220;Oh, honey,&#8221; she said, &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry I gave you the ability to get mad that way.&#8221;&nbsp;</p><p>With that, she affirmed what I&#8217;ve long suspected: There is a genetic component to the belly-fire I&#8217;ve had my whole life.&nbsp;</p><p>&#8212;</p><p>Of the three of us, I am the only one with a diagnosis of ADHD. My child is too young and my mom isn&#8217;t sure how she feels about it. It took me a long time to really admit it, too. These days, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2022-01-05/those-struggling-with-mental-health-have-found-validation-on-tiktok-heres-how">Gen Z is proving how easy it can be to talk about mental health</a>, but us previous generations faced a truckload of stigma about any mental health issues or learning differences. The only kids in my grade with accommodations were self-defined weirdos. One of them (a friend of mine, incidentally) was infamous at school for piling up school chairs on the basketball court, dousing them with Zippo fluid, and lighting those puppies up.&nbsp;</p><p>It took a long time to get the melted plastic off the court.&nbsp;</p><p>So, while I knew I had attention differences and that math made me cry, I didn&#8217;t talk to anyone about it. I couldn&#8217;t concentrate in class. Instead, I hid my headphones under my long, curly hair and perfected the art of speaking at a normal volume despite Alanis Morissette screaming &#8220;You oughta know!&#8221; in my ears. I learned to type on my phone without looking at the numbers and texted friends all day. Then I went home and tried to read my textbooks, words swimming in my vision.&nbsp;I read the same sentences over and over, willing them to stay in my mind long enough to take a test.</p><p>I thought if I made good grades <em>despite</em> having attention difficulties it would prove to everyone how smart I was. And I didn&#8217;t want to be a bad kind of weirdo. So, I paddled along through high-school, confusing my teachers and peers by struggling to focus in class while acing tests (see: adrenaline), drinking more coffee than was wise, and getting mad. Very suddenly and very often.&nbsp;</p><p>I don&#8217;t know if I would have sought diagnosis had I known that my emotional dysregulation and rage were part and parcel of my specific neurology. That my brain chemistry makes me more predisposed to outbursts. Being a girl, it probably wouldn&#8217;t have mattered &#8212; until recently <a href="https://chadd.org/adhd-news/adhd-news-adults/how-the-gender-gap-leaves-girls-and-women-undertreated-for-adhd/">us AFAB folks have mostly been ignored</a> unless our ADHD was incapacitating. But it would have been nice to know I wasn&#8217;t broken, just different. Maybe I would have spent less time hating myself so much.</p><p>&#8212;</p><p>Correlation, famously, is not causation. So, armed with the question of whether my rage had anything to do with my ADHD, I went out to look for actual facts. And, wow, did I ever find some.&nbsp;</p><p>In 2020, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7069054/">BMC Psychiatry published a meta-analysis</a> of research on emotional dysregulation in adults with ADHD. The paper looked at 13 studies, with a total of 2535 participants, all of which controlled for healthy non-ADHD adults. &#8220;Our findings support [emotional dysregulation] symptoms as a core feature of ADHD&#8217;s psychopathology,&#8221; the authors write, &#8220;With respect to dimensions of [emotional dysregulation], emotional lability, and negative emotional responses play a more definitive role in the psychopathology of adults with ADHD [...] Apart from the core symptoms, emotion regulation contributes independently to functional impairments in patients with ADHD.&#8221;</p><p>They go on to note that, while emotional dysregulation has long been regarded as a defining characteristic of adults with ADHD, &nbsp;&#8220;DSM-5 refrains from including such symptoms as indicative of the disorder. Instead, the DSM-5 recommends considering [emotional dysregulation] as an associated feature of ADHD supporting its diagnosis.&#8221; The <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9890120/">initial paper</a> which recognized emotional dysregulation as a core feature of ADHD was published by <a href="https://www.webmd.com/paul-h-wender">Dr. Paul H Wender</a> (the &#8220;Dean of ADHD&#8221;) in 1995. In it, Dr. Wender says that &#8220;Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is probably the most common chronic undiagnosed psychiatric disorder in adults. It is characterized by inattention and distractibility, restlessness, <em><strong>labile mood, quick temper<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-1" href="#footnote-1" target="_self">1</a></strong></em>, overactivity, disorganization, and impulsivity.&#8221;</p><p>In 1995, I was nine years old and had never heard of ADHD. A few years later, when kids were passing around Ritalin in the school bathroom, we all knew it was because they couldn&#8217;t sit still. No one mentioned anything about emotional shifts or a quick temper.</p><p>&#8220;For as long as ADHD has been a known diagnosis, people have focused on the most stereotypical symptoms: hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention,&#8221; says <a href="https://www.understood.org/blog/authors/andy-kahn/">Dr. Andrew Kahn</a>, PsyD, an ADHD specialist with <a href="https://www.understood.org/">Understood.org</a>, &#8220;Emotional dysregulation is often seen as one of the &#8216;naughty behaviors&#8217; we see in kids, and people are not aware that the neurological differences that drive ADHD are central to their problems in understanding and managing their emotions. The behaviors that result are often mischaracterized as &#8220;oppositional&#8221; or angry, resulting in discipline and negative attention, which can too often blame the dysregulated person for their experiences. Adults with ADHD who struggle with emotional dysregulation may have challenges with a wide variety of their relationships, employers, etc., and rarely is ADHD considered a possible factor. Those life impacts can be catastrophic and, in the absence of treatment support, can derail someone&#8217;s entire life.&#8221;</p><p>&nbsp;If emotional shifts is one of the core symptoms of the disorder, why the heck doesn&#8217;t anyone talk about it?</p><p>&#8212;</p><p>Two years ago, my wife got me a dartboard for my birthday. It was one of the nicest things anyone&#8217;s ever gotten me, even though I picked it out myself. To be clear, it&#8217;s not a special dartboard in any way. It&#8217;s made of cork, I think, and it has pizza-esque wedges with different numbers in red, white and green. I assume the numbers mean something to someone who understands darts. Myself, I have no idea what they signify. And I don&#8217;t really care.&nbsp;</p><p>Originally, she&#8217;d wanted to get me a punching bag. &#8220;Maybe, instead of trying to make your anger disappear, we can find a safe outlet for it,&#8221; she told me. I thought about this. It made a lot of sense. I&#8217;d been trying to stop getting angry for over 35 years, and it hadn&#8217;t worked. All that happened was the same cycle of emotional buildup &#8594; anger &#8594; outburst &#8594; shame. I always ended up feeling pathetic and crying. Again, and again, and again.&nbsp;</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TkM5!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F74c56340-731c-4684-95c6-6a9426616b50_1024x768.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TkM5!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F74c56340-731c-4684-95c6-6a9426616b50_1024x768.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TkM5!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F74c56340-731c-4684-95c6-6a9426616b50_1024x768.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TkM5!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F74c56340-731c-4684-95c6-6a9426616b50_1024x768.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TkM5!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F74c56340-731c-4684-95c6-6a9426616b50_1024x768.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TkM5!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F74c56340-731c-4684-95c6-6a9426616b50_1024x768.png" width="1024" height="768" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/74c56340-731c-4684-95c6-6a9426616b50_1024x768.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:768,&quot;width&quot;:1024,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:386579,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TkM5!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F74c56340-731c-4684-95c6-6a9426616b50_1024x768.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TkM5!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F74c56340-731c-4684-95c6-6a9426616b50_1024x768.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TkM5!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F74c56340-731c-4684-95c6-6a9426616b50_1024x768.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TkM5!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F74c56340-731c-4684-95c6-6a9426616b50_1024x768.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">A non-scientific illustration I made on Canva</figcaption></figure></div><p>For the first time, someone was asking me what I needed to get the anger out of my body safely. Not to eliminate this part of myself, but to facilitate it. It was a completely revolutionary idea, one I&#8217;d never considered. Wild. I told her I thought a punching bag wasn&#8217;t quite the right thing. &#8220;I&#8217;m a thrower,&#8221; I explained, &#8220;My instinct is always to throw something. There&#8217;s something about the impact of a can of cat food on the wall that just really feels good.&#8221; A dart embedding itself in cork makes approximately the same sound as a can of Purina busting open on the wall. And you can throw darts really hard without worrying. What if I found a <em>space</em> for the parts of myself society had always found scary or monstrous?</p><p>Buying a dartboard cost $50 on Amazon; a pittance for a miracle.&nbsp;</p><p>I&#8217;m not exaggerating when I say it transformed our family life &#8212; in more ways than we&#8217;d imagined. The first thing that happened was that I had a space for my anger. We called it my throwing wall, and when things got to be too much I&#8217;d just go in there and hurl the darts one after the other <em>thunk thunk thunk</em> until I felt space opening up in my chest. I had an acceptable and healthy thing to do when my sensory overload was threatening to drown me, or when I just could not handle one more minute of whining. This was what my wife and I hoped would happen.</p><p>The second thing that happened was that our kid got curious about the dartboard. I always explain, &#8220;Mama needs a minute to work through some big feelings,&#8221; before going, but what does that mean to a toddler, really? So, at three years old, she got her own throwing wall, in the form of some painter&#8217;s tape on the wall and juggling balls. For a while, this worked well. Since then, navigating Big Kid&#8217;s anger has evolved. But instead of seeing her volcanic eruptions as the thing itself to be managed, we have the mental space to see them as the outcome of a specific set of circumstances.&nbsp;</p><p>And that&#8217;s because of the third thing that happened. Once I stopped expending so much energy on groveling for forgiveness and hating myself, I began to notice the anger creeping in <em>before the eruption.</em> I began to notice that if I didn&#8217;t stay on top of my sensory needs, I&#8217;d be more likely to get mad. I noticed how I was more sensitive when I hadn&#8217;t exercised in a while, how I got more angry when I didn&#8217;t have a chance to eat regularly during the day, how crucial sensory breaks are to my overall mental health. And all of this applies to Big Kid, too.&nbsp;</p><p>Big Kid still gets mad, and so do I. Just yesterday she screamed &#8216;til her face went red and threw a (small) chair. But we&#8217;re making advances in helping her (and me) move <em>through</em> the anger. And we&#8217;re doing this by seeing where it comes from. You can&#8217;t put out the coals, it seems, but maybe you can avoid fanning them.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0M1G!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F43dd8d62-b3f8-4859-b722-c2081957b61d_6000x4000.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0M1G!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F43dd8d62-b3f8-4859-b722-c2081957b61d_6000x4000.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0M1G!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F43dd8d62-b3f8-4859-b722-c2081957b61d_6000x4000.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0M1G!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F43dd8d62-b3f8-4859-b722-c2081957b61d_6000x4000.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0M1G!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F43dd8d62-b3f8-4859-b722-c2081957b61d_6000x4000.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0M1G!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F43dd8d62-b3f8-4859-b722-c2081957b61d_6000x4000.jpeg" width="1456" height="971" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/43dd8d62-b3f8-4859-b722-c2081957b61d_6000x4000.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:971,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:1803938,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0M1G!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F43dd8d62-b3f8-4859-b722-c2081957b61d_6000x4000.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0M1G!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F43dd8d62-b3f8-4859-b722-c2081957b61d_6000x4000.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0M1G!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F43dd8d62-b3f8-4859-b722-c2081957b61d_6000x4000.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0M1G!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F43dd8d62-b3f8-4859-b722-c2081957b61d_6000x4000.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption">Photo by <a href="https://www.pexels.com/@jan-van-bizar-92378004/">Jan Van Bizar</a></figcaption></figure></div><p>&#8212;</p><p>In 1990, <a href="https://www.russellbarkley.org/">Dr. Russell A Barkley</a> (regarded widely as the Godfather of ADHD diagnosis) published the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder-Diagnosis-Treatment/dp/0898624436">first edition</a> of <em><a href="https://www.guilford.com/books/Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder/Russell-Barkley/9781462538874">Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Handbook for Diagnosis and Treatment</a></em>. It has since been updated and reprinted many times. In the fourth edition, published in 2015, he writes &#8220;As noted in DSM-5, the essential feature of ADHD is a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity impulsivity that is more frequent and severe than is typically observed in individuals at a comparable level of development. <em><strong>Such official descriptions concerning the core nature of the disorder and the related symptom lists focus exclusively on a two-dimensional structure as being the central features of the disorder.</strong></em><a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-2" href="#footnote-2" target="_self">2</a>&#8221;</p><p>Essentially, there&#8217;s more to ADHD than just inattention or hyperactivity. Dr. Barkley suggests that, as a society, we may be more interested in hyperactivity and inattention because these symptoms are &#8220;the most observable and objectively measurable features of the disorder.&#8221;&nbsp; They are, however, hardly the least important or challenging. He goes on to say that he believes we must also pay close to attention to two further features: impulsivity and &#8220;top-down self-control of emotions in general and particularly those pertaining to the self-regulation of frustration, impatience, and anger.&#8221;</p><p>According to this analysis, there is an actual neurological difference that&#8217;s making us more quick to anger. Which means there&#8217;s a physiological reason I have a hot temper. It&#8217;s part of my actual brain chemistry.&nbsp;</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/i-am-a-ticking-time-bomb-on-adhd?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/i-am-a-ticking-time-bomb-on-adhd?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><p>When I asked Dr. Kahn what strategies have helped his patients with their outbursts, he said there were two main categories of activities that are constructive. &#8220;Learn improved ways to regulate your body&#8217;s reactions to sensations and stressors. Meditation, deep breathing, intense but brief exercise, yoga, etc., are all great ways to help you become more aware of your body and how it reacts to your environment and circumstances,&#8221; he told me, &#8220;Once you have the ability to activate your <a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/23266-parasympathetic-nervous-system-psns">parasympathetic nervous system</a> by doing self-guided calming tasks, you can slow down your processing and thinking to manage your emotions.&#8221; Other helpful ways to bring yourself back into your body include holding something cold &#8212; an ice pack, for example &#8212; or describing things in the room you can feel, smell, or hear. When we&#8217;re having an out-of-body rage experience, having a strong sensory experience can help folks come back from <a href="https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-does-fight-flight-freeze-fawn-mean">fight-flight-freeze-fawn mode</a> into their logical selves.&nbsp;</p><p>Dr. Khan also emphasized the importance of communicating emotions to others &#8220;We [at Understood.org] teach children and tweens how to use a Feelings Wheel to identify what they&#8217;re going through in the moment. Communicating about feelings accurately and understandably can help manage behavior during big feelings.&#8221; Language is something more advanced; we need our prefrontal cortex to communicate. That&#8217;s why a Feelings Wheel, that only requires pointing, can be so powerful. </p><p>One huge thing I recognized in Big Kid, for example, is that she&#8217;s not going to explain how she feels when she&#8217;s in it. She can&#8217;t. But my wife or I can ask her if she&#8217;s mad and frustrated, or state it for her, and just acknowledging it makes a difference. It brings her closer to her logical state. We also, sometimes, try to make her laugh. Both <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-laughter-may-be-the-best-pain-medicine/">laughing</a> and <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-crying-good-for-you-2021030122020#:~:text=Researchers%20have%20established%20that%20crying,both%20physical%20and%20emotional%20pain.">crying</a> release endorphins, which can provide relief in a major way and substitute the adrenaline that comes from being in <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-fight-or-flight-response-2795194">fight mode</a> (which, we recognize, is what&#8217;s happening when he throws).&nbsp;</p><p>&#8211;</p><p>Since we moved to New Jersey in July, the dartboard has been leaning against the wall of my office, waiting to be hung. I haven&#8217;t used it. I will, I&#8217;m sure &#8212; I still get mad. Heck, I got cranky just this morning. But, so long as I look after myself, I don&#8217;t get <em>as</em> mad. If I do? I know I have options. I can take deep breaths, I can punch a pillow, I can take a sensory break in a dark room. These past years have changed how I conceive of my anger.</p><p>My rage is not a malfunction of my brain &#8212; it&#8217;s a feature. One that can be a powerful driver of my work in the world. I do some great writing when I&#8217;m in my passionate place. As we always say to Big Kid, though, &#8220;Everyone gets mad, and that&#8217;s fine. It&#8217;s about being <em>safe</em> when you get angry.&#8221; Now I know how to do that. And that, friends, has made all the difference.&nbsp;</p><div><hr></div><p><em><strong>Welcome to the Chaos Palace is about coloring outside society's boring ol' lines. More specifically, it's about ADHD, parenting, queerness, and Judaism. Subscribe to get new ideas (big and small) about how to expand the boundaries of societal rules. Paying subscribers get updates from my own Chaos Palace, as well as conversations with folks who are whistling their own quirky tune for just $5 a month or $55 for the year. Let&#8217;s get messy (and chaotic) together!</strong></em></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chaospalace.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-1" href="#footnote-anchor-1" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">1</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>Italics and bold text mine</p></div></div><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-2" href="#footnote-anchor-2" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">2</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>Italics and bold text mine</p></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Introducing: I Am Chaos]]></title><description><![CDATA[Writing about the weird, wild symptoms of ADHD. With a little humor and a lot of compassion.]]></description><link>https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/introducing-i-am-chaos</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://chaospalace.substack.com/p/introducing-i-am-chaos</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mikhal]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 17 Oct 2023 19:24:42 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQcc!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02f80447-6bd6-45ad-b088-49f8f1b2f7e4_1077x1119.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I do my best thinking right before I&#8217;m about to fall asleep, which isn&#8217;t great. It would be a lot more productive to have sudden epiphanies as I sit down at my desk in the morning, for example, when the whole day stretched out before me, vast with possibility. Instead, my aha moments occur in the dark, as my muscles relax into my mattress and my breathing becomes regular. </p><p>Over the years, I&#8217;ve learned my mind is strangest in those almost-asleep moments. Taffy-like and flexible. It&#8217;s a trickster mind. Bright lights flash behind my eyelids &#8212; pop, bam, whiz &#8212; as I wait for the energy to unwind. I call this time my unspooling. </p><p>Inevitably, my most interesting ideas poke out of their hidey-holes during my unspooling. These ideas are timid, and I now know I should be patient as they creep out, let themselves be known. I don&#8217;t want to scare them off. It&#8217;s a delicate business &#8212; I have to stay awake long enough to grab them and write them down but lay still long enough for the ideas to be formed enough to mean anything. Otherwise, I end up with cryptic notes to decipher in the morning. <em>Squirrels were dancing around the bus stop,</em> or <em>What else can you waffle?</em> I have no idea what any of that means. </p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://chaospalace.substack.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://chaospalace.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>A few weeks ago, I felt the familiar creeping of an idea during my unspooling. My heart-rate got faster instead of slowing. My mind began to race with words instead of colors. And this list came into focus in my mind:</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQcc!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02f80447-6bd6-45ad-b088-49f8f1b2f7e4_1077x1119.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQcc!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02f80447-6bd6-45ad-b088-49f8f1b2f7e4_1077x1119.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQcc!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02f80447-6bd6-45ad-b088-49f8f1b2f7e4_1077x1119.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQcc!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02f80447-6bd6-45ad-b088-49f8f1b2f7e4_1077x1119.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQcc!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02f80447-6bd6-45ad-b088-49f8f1b2f7e4_1077x1119.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQcc!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02f80447-6bd6-45ad-b088-49f8f1b2f7e4_1077x1119.jpeg" width="1077" height="1119" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/02f80447-6bd6-45ad-b088-49f8f1b2f7e4_1077x1119.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1119,&quot;width&quot;:1077,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:71047,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQcc!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02f80447-6bd6-45ad-b088-49f8f1b2f7e4_1077x1119.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQcc!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02f80447-6bd6-45ad-b088-49f8f1b2f7e4_1077x1119.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQcc!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02f80447-6bd6-45ad-b088-49f8f1b2f7e4_1077x1119.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQcc!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02f80447-6bd6-45ad-b088-49f8f1b2f7e4_1077x1119.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image"><svg role="img" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g><title></title><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>See, I&#8217;ve wanted to write about the <em>many</em> weird symptoms of ADHD that crop up for folks like myself. We are, as a community, way more than just that stereotypical kid with ants in his pants. To varying degrees, depending on the person, we may deal with co-morbidities things like <a href="https://add.org/sensory-overload-adhd/#:~:text=It%20happens%20when%20an%20ADHDer,how%20a%20person%20functions%20daily.">sensory overstimulation</a>, <a href="https://add.org/adhd-tics/#:~:text=ADHD%20doesn't%20cause%20tics%2C%20but%20the%20two%20often%20co,advice%20from%20a%20healthcare%20professional.">facial tics</a>, <a href="https://www.everydayhealth.com/adhd/tooth-grinding-poor-memory-and-more-surprising-facts-about-adhd.aspx#:~:text=ADHD%20Is%20Associated%20With%20Short,that%20require%20focus%20or%20concentration.">short-term memory loss</a>, and <a href="https://add.org/adhd-time-blindness/#:~:text=Time%20horizon%3A%20Our%20time%20horizon,radar%20when%20it's%20too%20late.">time blindness</a>.<a class="footnote-anchor" data-component-name="FootnoteAnchorToDOM" id="footnote-anchor-1" href="#footnote-1" target="_self">1</a> Diagnoses of ADHD overlap a ton with <a href="https://www.additudemag.com/dyslexia-evaluation-adhd-comorbidity-overlap/">dyslexia</a>, <a href="https://www.additudemag.com/what-is-dyscalculia-overview-and-symptom-breakdown/">dyscalculia</a>, and <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140312103102.htm">gender dysphoria</a>. We have overactive emotional systems. We are overly impulsive, and tend to find ourselves struggling with addictive or dangerous behaviors. </p><p>As I lay in my bed, unraveling (in a good way), I realized that the best entry point for these phenomena is through me. So, for the next few months, I&#8217;ll be writing about all of the above. These pieces will be part personal essay and part reported journalism. For the bits I don&#8217;t experience myself, well, I&#8217;ll interview some other folks I know, love, and trust. I hope that, by sharing my own experiences and those of people who also live with the weirdness that is ADHD, I can bring us all closer to understanding the rich beauty of a neurodivergent mind. And how, despite common perceptions of neurodiversity, us weirdos can actually make the world a whole lot more interesting. </p><p>So, stay tuned. First up &#8212; I Am a Ticking Time-Bomb.</p><p>Love ya, </p><p>Mikhal</p><p></p><div class="footnote" data-component-name="FootnoteToDOM"><a id="footnote-1" href="#footnote-anchor-1" class="footnote-number" contenteditable="false" target="_self">1</a><div class="footnote-content"><p>Don&#8217;t fight me on this. It&#8217;s real. </p></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>