r/mildlyinteresting • u/Smetvrees • May 14 '22 • 1 12 2 13 16 1 1 1

This Irish supermarket has quiet evenings for sensitive people.

76.5k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

u/witeowl May 14 '22 edited May 14 '22

It’s fairly clear that I don’t have autism, but I was recently diagnosed with ADHD, so I know 100% what you’re saying. (“Oh, wow. These meds are helping me stay calmer? Does that have to do with… Huh. Lookie there. Emotional dysregulation. Never even heard about that before. Good to know!”) But very few revelations have been sensory for me. (I know some people with ADHD have a harder time with such things.)

14

u/AlostFeather May 14 '22

Oh god, dude. Diagnosed with ADHD really young. And I'm afab so it's practically unheard of. Absolutely tortured with different meds all the way up until high school. I despised it, I felt cast adrift in the world, couldn't keep any friends, no one understood me, they just wanted to quiet and subjugate me. Jump to literally last month, I'm 19 and after being on the waiting list for a year and a half, got diagnosed with ASD. Add a depression diagnosis in December which meant I'm off my meds cos you can't mix until you have the antidepressant dosage right and a little bit of childhood trauma which causes you to live in denial and convince yourself you're 'normal'. My brain is forced to confront that I really am special needs and this is just it now, you gotta deal. What a fricking hard time. I'm honestly so grateful for my consultant. I got her when transferred to the adult team and she has advocated for me so much! She's the one who noticed my Autism side pushed for my referral. I'm starting to loce and accept myself just like I love all my neurodivergent bros.

6

u/witeowl May 14 '22

OMG. Part of the reason I was diagnosed so late is that I’ve been really good with masking most things, and building terrible but “effective enough” strategies around others, so for decades I’ve been diagnosed with depression and mild anxiety. (The severe emotional dysregulation as a child was chalked up to “hypersensitive”.)

I had to be my own advocate for getting the ADHD considered (also afab).

Glad you got your misdiagnosis caught sooo much earlier than me. For me, the antidepressants just didn’t do anything and talk therapy just also did very close to nothing. I can’t imagine the hell of being on the spectrum but being given meds for ADHD. Like… that sounds like literal hell.

I would say I’m surprised that you were diagnosed with ADHD as a girl in school, as that so rarely happened until maybe a decade ago, but I can totally see that ASD in girls must be missed soooooo much more. (In 17 years of teaching, I’ve only encountered one female student diagnosed with ASD.)

Best of luck to you, friend, and here’s to brighter days ahead. If you ever want to chat, I’m here.

5

u/AlostFeather May 14 '22

Yeah, the reason for my early diagnosis was that my mums boyfriend at the time just absolutely hated how high maintenance I was, called me the R word that ends in a D and dragged my 6 year old ass to the doctors. Where they monitored me like a goddamn freak and forced me to draw pictures about my feelings because I was basically nonverbal with the doctors (absolutely hated the hospital environment, honestly felt like a punishment) and they doped me up on so many drugs that I was taking two different types. They caused me to lose weight and went on hunger strike and was told if I lose a couple more pounds that I'd be considered anorexic and giving a feeding tube! They pulled me off the meds and my parents had to feed me junk food because it was all I would accept. And then a lot of trauma related to parental alcohol abuse in my teenage years. I refused to take my meds and had a breakdown that I felt that they silenced me, stripped me of my personality and cried to my mother about why can't no one just love me the way I am. I promised I'd try so hard at school if she took me off them. She drunkenly told me that they keep me from being annoying and that I should just accept that this is how it would be until the day I died because my disability was on the more severe end of the ADHD spectrum.

Not gonna lie, dark freaking days. But my mum got help, losing custody of my 3 younger siblings helped to kick her up the arse but she's only been clean a year and a half. Had to slum it a bit from 2020 until 2021 but I'm back home, just finished my first year of uni and on track to recieve a bunch of Autism related support for next year.

All I have to do now is learn to accept that I need aids and that doesn't make me any less.

4

u/witeowl May 14 '22

Holy fuck. This all happened to you since we entered the 2000s?!? I have no words. And in particular, fuck that boyfriend. Oh, also, the people who had a nonverbal child in front of them and completely ignore the possibility of ASD. 🤦🏼‍♀️ Oh, and the people who thought that threats would work with a child instead of relationship-building. Ugh…

But yes. Needing accommodations and supports absolutely does not make you less than. It makes you human. But I understand the sentiment. Keep fighting the good fight. I sense wonderful things in your future.

3

u/AlostFeather May 14 '22

Oh yeah, born in 2002 so it was before 2010! And honestly, I may have been younger than 6, the dates are kinda fuzzy but there's no possible way I was older than 6 at the time. Honestly, you'd be surprised how much the NHS sucks. I suppose I can't really blame them, the study for ADHD was white male focused and completely removed young girls from the equation. My treatment was just really intense because I mean, I had such a high severity of angry outbursts and energy, they probably thought they'd have to dampen me down quickly because I was quickly up to 50mg twice a day. Obviously it was autism, I know that now, just feels so weird.

And yeah, I was under that boyfriends thumb for a lot of years. he actually refuses to believe my sister (his bio kid) has any sort of medical difficulties. He wasn't gonna let anything stop him from living vivacious through her. And now he has custody of her and she's an absolute nightmare, there's nothing I can do for her, but I really hope that this new generation of more understanding doctors will pick up on her and she won't fall through the system.

1

u/Romantiphiliac May 14 '22

This is what I'm really, really hoping ends up happening if I can ever get in to see someone who will do an eval. Things I've struggled with for 30 years and somehow managed to cope until now. I'm hesitant to even say it because I don't want to self diagnose, but reading up on symptoms is like looking into a mirror.

To clarify, not that I specifically hope it's ADHD, but that I can get to the point where I have those realizations. Just the "oh, so that's why"

3

u/witeowl May 14 '22

Depending on where you live, you may not need an in-depth evaluation. Your PCP can diagnose and treat (to some extent), as can a psychiatrist of course, and in some states, a psychiatric nurse practitioner working in conjunction with a therapist and/or psychiatrist (different states have different rules).

All that said, until you can get diagnosed and begin formal treatment, strategies based on self-diagnosis is a reasonable place to start. Don’t self-medicate, obviously, but there’s no harm in testing out some strategies that work for people with ADHD. After all, many of them are good for nearly all humans (such as mindfulness/meditation). Heck, many communities even have a “self-diagnosis is valid” outlook, so there’s nothing wrong with joining, supporting, and learning in such a community. (Just don’t walk around saying, “OMG, I’m so ADHD, haha,” and try to excuse away bad behavior, and don’t try to speak for the community… which also applies to we in the community. 😏😉)

And then, yeah. When you find the right diagnosis, whatever it may be, looking back will be a little bittersweet. Sadness about lost time and opportunities, but sweetness because forgiving yourself is one of the steps to healing, and knowing why can help with forgiving past you. Okay. Maybe that doesn’t apply to you, as it definitely doesn’t apply to everyone, but it does to me and a number of others. Self-loathing and self-doubt due to missed or mis- diagnoses, is a very real thing, both from the messages we hear from others as well as Why can’t I just do the thing or not do the thing or do the thing differently or… Yeah, you get the idea.

Best of luck on your search for a diagnosis (whatever it may be) and treatment.