Is your family member Google Ad Sense?
“I see you spent a week researching PSUs for your computer and I see that you finally bought one. Would you like to buy a PSU? because even though we know you bought one we’ll be showing you nothing but ads for PSUs for the foreseeable future.”
Some doctors can be real shitty like that sometimes. The medical community’s understanding of ADHD has really evolved a lot over the past couple decades, but a lot of people are still stuck in the mindset that it’s mostly in kids or that if you’re managing your life then it’s not worth worrying about. The good news is you can bypass them! Typically a good doctor will send you to a therapist for an eval, so you can just find your own to do the test. It usually takes longer to get an appointment, but if you can get with a psychiatrist and not a psychologist you don’t even need to go back to a doc for meds. Psychology today’s website is a pretty good starting point to find someone in your area that focuses on ADHA, and possibly even adults with ADHD. The diagnosis takes some time and often finding the right meds can be a long journey sometimes, but when you find what works it can be life changing.
As much as I dislike diagnosing strangers on the internet… this is classic ADHD. The brain doesn’t really form working memory so short-term things just don’t exist unless you see them. Meds help but even still I rely on a lot of those same tools you described. I can’t live without my calendar with everything written down. I have daily alarms for set things in my schedule so I don’t forget. Notes around my workspace that don’t go until the task is 100% resolved. I’ve also learned to organize my house so that as many things as possible are visible. If it’s away in a cabinet then it may as well not be there so I have a ton of nice-looking baskets and things all around for organization. I think the only things in my house that are really tucked away are dishes and cleaning supplies, mostly out of necessity for space/safety. And even those I’ll remember because they a separate task will drive me to need them and seek them out.
I spent years thinking I had a serious memory problem. A partner once said my memory was worse than her ex who had brain damage. I accepted it as just a part of me. Turns out, I have severe ADHD and the Adderall does wonders for my day-to-day functioning.
Then why are we taking their opinion over our own?
Typically, when people cite something like that, they defer to an expert in that field. In this case, maybe an anthropologist? There’s nothing in the training to be a physicist that prepares them to understand the early stages of civilizations forming, let alone is longevity.
Freedom is good. Radicals are cool. so…
I suppose that’s a good point. I definitely would prefer that to burning to death. I just wish the dead battery noise could be set at a different volume to the “wake the fuck up, you’re about to die!” noise.
At 4 AM this morning I learned there was a smoke alarm in my office. Also that the beep it makes when the battery is dead is loud as fuck. Loud enough to wake me from a dead sleep in another room.
It definitely reads like a name in English. You just have to pronounce it Jeen. I know a few old ladies with that exact name.
But Zoom meetings mean I can - and do - get to message coworkers and shit talk the offender while it’s happening.
Pro tip: Make it a common practice after doing this to always make sure the last message sent at least starts with something innocuous in case you need to share your screen later so the preview in Teams shows doesn’t say “Jesus Christ, Carla is such a…”
Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.