this is a strawman. the distinction into the inattentive presentation and the hyperactive presentation is useful, because stimulant-based medication usually helps with the first kind of symptoms and the medication like atomoxetine will help mostly with the hyperactive symptoms such as emotional dysregulation or restlessness
the picture that made OP so angry was probably made by someone who has nothing to do with being trained in psychology, because there is something called combined presentation, which is what it sounds like: symptoms that are both from the inattentive and the hyperactive presentation
the term inattentive adhd makes sense because the deficits in the brain that cause the inattentive symptoms are similar to those with the hyperactive presentation, that's why they changed the name. it is literally the same disorder, just different presentations. besides, "inattentive" is just a name, every psychologist or psychiatrist who specializes in adhd knows that the problems come from regulating and directing attention
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I started replying before finishing reading the post and oh my god it gets even better? this is a joke right? please tell me that I started replying in a serious manner to a post that is supposed to be a joke because the other option is that someone seriously wrote something so stupid and believes it, and I don't want this to be true
okay. this fucking picture made me so mad i went on a 15 minute rant to my sister while she was trying to read her book.
so ive been looking at a lot of pictures of posts on pinterest because thats just where i spend most of my time. most of these posts are on the topic of adhd. ive never been properly diagnosed, but reading through these posts has made me feel so welcomed and understood (more than my parents have made me feel, pretending that this is "all just a phase that ill get over soon because pretending to have adhd is just the thing right now") that i realized ON MY OWN that "hey maybe i do have adhd." well.
i found this post while scrolling through pinterest, and it really sparked my anger.
i have a friend who was diagnosed with add before it was considered an "outdated" term and scrapped because apparently ALL FUCKING FORMS OF NEURODIVERGENCY THAT ARENT AUTISM ARE JUST "ADHD".
i read this post and it was what sparked my anger and my 15 minute rant to my sister. people who get degrees in this stuff, or counselors at schools, never really know what youre going through. all they know is that youre having some problems and they need to be solved.
which brings me back to this picture. if you look up "is add still a thing" on google, this is the first picture to pop up. and just seeing the visual aids they put with it makes me furious enough to throw something or someone out a fifth story window. the little girl is fucking SMILING while thinking about the most common shit people think us neurodivergent folks think when distracted. first off, no. false. we dont just think of video games and candy. we think of the randomest shit possible, like how long can i sit here without blinking or what kind of funny shit can i draw on this one sheet of paper.
and ALSO.
you cant just categorize adhd as TWO SEPARATE THINGS and call it good. we dont fit under two umbrellas. theres too many of us. we each have our own figurative umbrellas that only we ourselves can fit under, no one else. thats the problem with neurotypicals. they fit the typical stereotype for humans: we try to understand everything by putting it in a box. those lists of "symptoms"? i match every single one. on both sides. so ha. take that SCIENTISTS. what am i? some kind of freak of nature because i dont fit under just ONE of your precious categories?
i also looked up what "inattentive" means and it made me angrier. according to oxford languages, "inattentive" means "not paying attention to something", which doesnt seem too bad, right? it fits some people perfectly with their symptoms, right? but its not the definition that bugs me. its the example sentence thats used. "a particularly dull and inattentive student". basically saying that if you dont pay attention well to something, youre dull and boring.
im sorry, what? sometimes i have trouble paying attention, sure, but you ask any of my friends and they can agree i am NOT boring in any way, shape, or form. non of them would describe me as "dull". inattentive? sure, but not dull. so to call it "inattentive" adhd, instead of just add, is stupid! my friend with ADD (not fucking adhd, stupid scientists) is one of the funniest, most entertaining people ive ever met. shes an incredible artist, super smart, and knows how to make anyone laugh. does that sound dull to you? does she have problems focusing sometimes? yes. does she struggle with doing something sometimes? yes. but dont the rest of us?
my point is, when i see things like this, it pisses me off. like, unless all of the scientists who agreed "add" is an outdated term have it themselves, i refuse to believe its outdated and i will continue to say that my friend has it. she was literally diagnosed by the doctor telling her "you have attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder without the hyperactivity." THATS JUST FUCKING ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER YOU DUMBASS!!!
anyway, i hope im not the only one who feels this way. i just felt it necessary to get this out there. maybe someday, people wont be so dumb and single minded. in my opinion, neurodivergent people are superior in intellect and creativity, but i guess until someone like that takes over the world and dropkicks neurotypicals into the stratosphere, we'll never know.
reverse gaslighting where i pretend to know exactly what you are talking about
meanwhile typical conversations between my friends:
– so what do you do in math?
– differential equations
– ugh I always hated differential equations
– you?
– general topology
– ugh I always hated topology
The curse of a mathematician is to work in a disliked field
→ 30 VIII 2021
not much has happened really
concentration: 4
doing topo as usual, stopped doing as much analysis, just enjoying my break from coding with abstract ideas
reading books about math became sort of a comfort thing for me. i fell in love with just sitting there and trying to imagine everything. i wish i could be payed for studying math, i would be a fucking billionaire at this point
ok uh. how do you hypothetically say "i want to study you" in a friendly way
so far the best I've got is "can i join a discord derver that youre in so i can observe you in your natural habitat"
thinking about the time a prof told us that in real research mathematics it's fine to be slow, speed itself is not essential, as long as you can find it within yourself to make consistent unyielding inexorable forward progress, like the time some guy stole an M60A3 tank and terrorized a suburban neighborhood with it, said guy wasn't going that fast but plowed through cars and telephone poles and shit no problem. i'm not kidding that's what he said, that's the metaphor he used, he told us that the act of mathematics is like the 1995 san diego tank rampage
I got a proof wrong on an exam. No points.
Then, I thought about it for fifteen minutes outside of the exam, wrote it down, nailed it.
I showed a classmate and told him what happened. He looked frustrated. He’d clearly had this happen before, too (haven’t we all?). He said, “Don’t you hate it when that happens?”
I almost said yes. What the h*ck!? No. No, I do not hate it when I can fathom a deeply abstracted concept in mathematics. I never hate that. I the opposite of hate that. Expecting myself to immediately understand topics like this is unrealistic. I’m proud of being able to do it at all. Who cares if I did it in the exam or within the next hour? I DID IT. It’s mine now. I can do it whenever I want. Missing points on that problem doesn’t take the knowledge out of my brain. How dare I be taught that my knowledge is useless because I didn’t have it right at that moment. It’s just as good now.
Education is not about the arbitrary numeric number ascribed to your ability to do things quickly in an arbitrary, restricted time interval. Education is about being able to do progressively more things, to understand progressively complex things.
Tenacity and challenging yourself far beyond your limits is a hundred times more important than getting good grades. Because, when you’re one of .4 percent of the population who possess complete knowledge on a very complex topic, nobody cares how long it took you to do it, or how well you did it the first time you tried.
Grades don’t discover new mathematics. Mathematicians do (even the ones who failed a basic topic in mathematics because their base way of thinking was too complex). Grades don’t advance medical research. Scientists do (even the ones who had to apply for their PhD programs 3 times in a row before they got accepted). Grades don’t make science fiction into real-world technologies. Engineers do (even the ones who dropped out of school because they wanted to build things, not talk about building things).
Knowledge is power. Skills are power. Grades are constructs. Never trade actual understanding for a semblance of understanding.
“that sounds very hacky, but smart”
“i’m not sure where i’m going with this… its quite similiar to my life”
*Entire class and prof spends fifteen minutes trying to solve a problem before eventually giving up* “great work guys, that was some good debugging”
“is this a super big issue?” *longggg dramatic sigh* “… yes”.
Professor 1: “it’s still not working? um… okay, maybe you should… turn off your wifi and turn it back on again?“ Professor 2: "40 years of experience in networking and computing at its finest”
“whenever i’m doing my taxes, i never use the calculator app on my phone, i always just open up a notebook and use python and i think thats very brave of me”
“your life quality with improve when you use python 3 instead of python 2. your skin will improve and you’ll even sleep better”
“so this compiler doesn’t recognise cases, so if you’re really perverse, you could do Apple, aPple, apPle, appLe, applE, but if you do that then i’m going to kick you out”
“so, let’s give an example: "True = False”. Asides from causing the end of the world, much like dividing by 0, this will also cause an error”
“if you want to see my cat, i’ll show her. if you DON’T want to see my cat, too bad, cause I’m going to show you her anyway”
“today we will use three keywords: `if`, `else`, and their weird cousin `elif`.”
“if you want to type something else, like… uh, goodbye world? maybe? is that too dark? i think its too dark, so lets save that for later on in the year… by the way, have you been told about your exams yet?”
Professor : “is everything clear so far? shall i go faster?” Literally EVERYONE: “no! slower!“ Professor: "Slower?! you can go slow when you’re dead, you won’t need python then!”
“you can’t use functions as your variable names. for example, you can’t call this number "if”. i mean i don’t know why you’d use that as your variable name to begin with, but i’m not here to question your life, i’m here to teach you python”
“it’s probably not the most efficient but its just what came out of me so we’re running with it”
Part 1 | Part 2
6 VIII 2021
went back home
sleep: good, finally, although it's already almost 3 and i'm still up so i gotta go be unconscious for a few hours soon
concentration: fine
phone time: fine
did some measure theory, only this today and i'm in love, shit's fucking amazing
tomorrow i'll probably do more measure theory and possibly some coding
⁕ pure math undergrad ⁕ in love with anything algebraic ⁕
292 posts