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Cake day: July 23rd, 2023

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  • I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and then pursued a psychiatrist to oversee my treatment, who determined I didn’t have ADHD.

    The way he described my situation made the “ADHD superpower” meme make more sense than anything I’ve ever read. I’m gonna butcher it but I’ll do my best to share:

    There are structural differences in the brain that contribute to a person having ADHD, but the structural differences themselves ARE NOT ADHD. The last D in ADHD is “disorder”, and there are a whole bunch of external circumstances that mental health professionals use to determine whether or not you count as “disordered”.

    You can have an addictive, impulsive, obsessive, stim-hungry brain and not have ADHD.

    Many children develop habits, coping strategies, or other accommodations that allow them to “overcome” the weaknesses that come along with these brain structure differences.

    This is the situation where ADHD looks like a superpower.

    In my case I have a very, very easy time slipping into flow state. When I’m intensely focused on a task I am time blind, I often don’t respond to questions or acknowledgements, and I have an intense temper if I’m interrupted. So I’ve used timers and meditation/CBT to manage those drawbacks.

    By comparison most people I know have a difficult time motivating themselves and accessing flow state. So to those people, especially when they DON’T see the extra work I do, it could look like I have a sort of super power.

    It’s not a super power, my brain just works differently and I’ve come up with ways to manage the problems and use it to my advantage.













  • The richest guy in the cemetery probably lived a pretty good life.

    He could host his friends, people wanted to spend time with him if he wasn’t particularly foul.

    He could afford better food, better schools, and better medicine. So he was better nourished, better educated, and better taken care of.

    He could pursue his interests and support things he cared about, so he felt actualized.

    Of course rich people die of cancer or suicide just like the poors. But they do it less and it’s more of a tragedy when they do.