Call her doctor

I should have been more specific. Find a time when she’s not doing anything urgent, tell her it’s time to call the doctor, pick up her phone and dial the doctor, put them on speaker and put the phone down next to you while you body double your partner as they gone through the motions of locking in the appointment.

While on the phone your partner can also give third party authorisation. It’s the first thing I do when I meet a new provider, I give third party authorisation to my partner and mother so they can make appointments on my behalf (they can’t get results for me, but they can schedule things for me)

Call her doctor, make an appointment, save it in her calendar, remind her in the lead up, drive her there, get the referral. Walk her to the post box to send it off, sit next to her to phone the intake office to confirm they got the referral, set appointments on her phone for every 6 months to sit with her and call to check the cancellation list until you get an appointment. Drive her to that appointment.

If she has ADHD, the steps involved in getting a diagnosis are bigger than Mt Everest, she will need a neurotypical Sherpa.

I genuinely thought I was NT because I was comparing my quantity of interests to my brothers quantity of interests. He’s autistic, he has one interest.

Then I’d compare my quantity of interests to my best friends quantity of interests, he has ADHD hyperactive type, he has 700+ interests.

And I have like, 25 (and that’s if I split up larger interests into subcategories)

So I’m normal…except for all the sensory issues, executive dysfunction, impulsively, social difficulties, memory issues, communication deficits, learning difficulties, inability to establish routines, poor interoception resulting in medical complications from failing to attend to basic needs because I’m “in the zone” on something else.

Jokes on me, I have AuDHD.

Some of my “symptoms” cancel each other out in a way I’m very grateful for, and others conflict with each other in the most debilitating ways. That feeling when you are somehow catastrophically overstimulated and also your brain is tearing itself down the middle in desperate need for some dopamine through sensory input…

Meditation wasn’t super helpful for me, guided meditation required too much sustained focus and was cognitively fatiguing to stay on track. I have dysphantasia so that doesn’t help when you’re told to picture things or imagine things as part of meditation, because imagining something requires me to talk to myself in my head, which doesn’t feel meditative, it feels too similar to ruminative thought patterns. Doing the “quite wandering mind” style of meditation was risky because I already experience maladaptive daydreaming.

But I discovered “somatic regulation”, which is something I kind of already did instinctively when I was getting really stressed or overwhelmed.

When stressed I’d tap my teeth together in a pattern, drum on my chest, hum, wiggle or do fidgety little things, often not even consciously.

Now that I understand what this does for my emotional regulation, I set time aside every day to consciously and mindfully do things that look and feel absolutely ridiculous. Like lying on my stomach and rhythmically slapping the tiled floor, focusing on the sensations rather than trying to clear my mind, or guide my mind.

I started mid last year, and it’s been the only form of mental health self care that I’ve been able to remain consistent in, and I’ve noticed a drastic decrease in how often I feel overwhelmed, stressed and anxious. I’m also able to identity when I’m starting to get stressed much earlier than I used to, and more quickly identify a way to reduce it. I’ve always struggled to identify emotions in the moment, but I feel like now my mind-body connection is stronger. It’s easier to tell when my headache is because I’m hungry/thirsty vs stressed or tense. Before I used to just guess, try everything and hope something worked, then look back with hindsight thinking “guess that was a hunger headache because relaxing didn’t help but carrot sticks did”. Now I’m more likely to know what I need.

Edit: just realised this post was in the Autism community, lol, I need to learn to read things more thoroughly, I was talking about stimming without saying the word “stimming” because I’m so used to getting flak for that in the NT subs I post in.

I think the reason the idea of a “skill cap” feels instantly incorrect is because there is obviously no point at which any human “stops learning”. There will always be more to learn an more that someone (autistic or not) can learn.

The skill cap applies to specific metrics of measuring skill gain.

A large number of people with “level 3” autism who are non verbal will never learn to communicate verbally as fluently as non-autistic verbal people, even with decades of supportive education. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they have a “communication skill gap”, there’s a lot of communication skills that can and will be developed with the right support. But expecting someone in that situation to “try harder” and “learn to talk” is unrealistic, when the more achievable goal should be “learn to effectively communicate”.

It really depends on the way someone’s autism effects their social skills. Not everyone has the capacity to learn these skills, Autism does create a skill cap for many people.

It’s also a question of involved effort. I was in a form of ABA therapy as a kid and I was capable of learning to identify sarcasm and read social cues, so I did.

But it doesn’t come naturally to me, it requires a level of concentration and conscious processing that I don’t hear non-autistic people discussing. It causes headaches and migraines and after a few days of work, using these skills every minute of the day, I’m exhausted and struggle with basic tasks at home. I don’t have these same issues with exhaustion or conscious processing when I’m with other autistic people (I work in disability programming, I coordinate/admin 3 days a week with mostly neurotypical people, and run programs 1 day a week with mostly neurodivergent people, and there’s a big difference on how much “effort” it takes to understand people in those two environments)

Not saying it’s not worth learning. If you can learn these skills they are incredibly important and at the bare minimum they will keep you safe.

But as a society we need to accept that for a small subset of people with disabilities, these skills are unachievable, and reasonable accommodations will still need to be made, and for a slightly larger subset, accommodations may still need to be made on occasion because while someone may have these skills, they might not have the cognitive capacity to employ these skills 100% of the time.

I’m thinking It’s someone’s house, but knowing they’re are likely to throw a LAN party they opportunistically found a community centre/doctors office/gathering place that was throwing out the old chairs and grabbed as many as they could carry.

I grew up in a house that hoarded chairs. Between Dad hosting card nights, mum hosting social clubs, and me and my brother throwing LAN parties, any time any 4 of us were walking home and we saw an old chair on the curb, we’d carry it home with us because we always felt like we could never have enough chairs.

Our side shed had like a 60 mismatched chairs all stacked up in it. And at Christmas time we’d use them all when extended family came for a BBQ.

My brother and I would throw LAN parties in the garage. As if LAN parties weren’t already stuffy and sweaty enough, we had a corrugated iron box on a concrete slab in the Australian summer. Often my parents would throw a party of their own at the same time because they knew they weren’t getting any sleep with 20 kids in their late teens screaming cues in the backyard, so more chairs was more good.

Plus dad never slept during a LAN party because he was so paranoid about his garage catching fire, which I’m still surprised we never did . (at least, not an electrical fire. Every friend group has the one guy who’s obsessed with fire and is always burning stuff… That person was me, I may have set fire to my own pants and hair one party, but nothing else took damage)

If I ever try methamphetamines, I’ll let you know if it worsens or lessons my negative experiences of having ADHD.

There are certain aspects of ADHD that would be disordered in any societal structure.

I have been so hyperfixated on something that I have been completely oblivious to my own body’s signals. As a result I have had accidents, developed UTIs, ended up in the ER with electrolyte imbalances, and dislocated several joints.

ADHD and joint Hypermobility are closely linked and while more studies are needed to understand exactly why and how, a lot of people with ADHD also meet criteria for Hypermobility spectrum disorders. In my case, I’ll be focused on a task and I won’t realise I’m clenching my jaw too firmly until the sudden sensation of undeniable pain sweeps over me and I realise my jaw has dislocated. Or ill be struggling with transitioning from a task to a rest, even though my knees are in agony, I can’t seem to force myself to stop.

ADHD is also inherently linked to circadian rhythm disorders, and while yes, delayed sleep phase disorder is only truly a disorder if you’re forcing yourself into a 9-5 lifestyle, ADHD sleep issues are more than just the shifting of the phases. A lot of people with ADHD will describe the sensation of sleep as being “passing out”, because of the way our brains (fail to) regulate dopamine, the way serotonin and melatonin is secreted to create drowsiness is also impacted.

I don’t get tired or sleepy, I get headaches and blurred vision and spasms in my back, and then I know that I can fall asleep if I lie down. I take sublingual melatonin tincture (I find it works better than tablets) and it’s such a strange phenomenon because about 15 minutes after I take it I feel my eyes are heavy and my body is calm and my mind ia slower, aka, sleepy. I don’t experience that without the help of supplements.

And sure there’s the argument that you “people with ADHD used to be on night watch duty”, but sleep deprived people make shit guards. If I’m not physically able to fall asleep until I’m “overtired”, and if being tired makes my ADHD symptoms worse, then I’m no good for anything.

It’s also not like hyperfixations are a super power (God I hate that way of framing things) I can’t choose when or why they happen. If I could, I’d be good at just job, instead, I’m loosing all sensation in my feet because I’m stuck in a fixation trying to pick at the skin on my thighs because I spotted one single ingrown hair while I had my pants down sitting on the toilet. Now it’s 40 minutes later, my alarm is going off in the other room, and I’m frozen, unable to transition away from this task.

ADHD is a spectrum, and for many people there are strengths, but it’s most definitely a disorder and for a lot of people, even if we lived in the most utopian ADHD friendly society, there are still internal issues to face.

For the record, I am unmedicated and always have been due to a heart condition, so maybe my view on the condition would change if I had different treatment and management options available to me.

Thank you, British and Irish Islands seems like it would be more easily understood by the general populous. When I hear South Eastern Icelandic Archipelago, I get a bit geographically turned around because I’m an idiot and I picture Iceland near Greenland which is near Canada, and I picture Ireland near England which is near France, so in my tiny brain Ireland and Iceland are a whole ocean apart (even though paleo-geographically, it’s the same soil)

Makes sense, as a geographical location I imagine it has had many names over history based on who controls the narrative. Can I ask what other names there are for the area that isn’t supportive of British colonialism?

Britain is historically just England and Wales, though colloquially now used as a shorter way of saying “Great Britain”, which is England, Wales, and Scotland.

The British isles is England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (and all the smaller islands like the Hebrides, Orkneys, etc)

This is why I love my current job and my friendship group’s. In both circles “I didn’t do that because I’ve been struggling with my ADHD” is a completely valid reason.

I mean, at work it’s followed by a short “what do we do to get over that hurdle?” because obviously I can’t just, not do my job.

But at least I’m not having to make shit up, and I can actually get to the root of the problem (being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world) and address it. Even if addressing it is just my boss giving me a fake deadline to put the pressure on the task.

I’m really not sure I would, I’ve borrowed my partners $200 headphones and it still kind of sounds the same.

I can tell a really shit pair from an affordable pair. Obviously if it’s crackling, or really tinny I hear that. But I think my hearing loss is the quality cap, not the headphones.

Same with vision, I genuinely can’t see a difference between 1080p and anything higher because even the back of my own hand is blurry, if real life is blurry why would a better TV suddenly be sharp?

If my boyfriend sitting 30cm away from me having a conversation sounds muffled and distant, better headphones won’t make my podcast sound clearer.

All the time, always and forever.

I will buy adaptors, and seek out wired headphones with a jack that fits my phone.

Friends and families have bought me wireless headphones, but I am a walking Bluetooth black zone (I’m constantly having to reset Bluetooth connections on my all my devices, no one else in my household has the same problem), and I’m notorious for loosing things.

I superglued my wireless ear buds to a chunky necklace so even if one fell out it wouldn’t get lost, it would just dangle around my neck. Lost the whole thing somewhere between the garage and the front door one night. Got my housemates out crawling in the grass looking for it with torches and playing the “lost ear bud” tone from the app, but we never found it. Not even when mowing the lawn did we ever hear it getting chewed up.

I’m not an audiophile, I have reverse slope hearing loss and I’m currently using a $10 pair of 3.5mm earphones with a $7 usbc adaptor and its exactly what I need because it’s cheap, replaceable, and I wouldn’t even notice better audio quality if it stuck it’s tongue in my ear.

Living modestly isn’t the same as trimming off all the fat to prioritise survival and savings above all else (which is what this vet tech would need to do to really make a difference for her financial state)

I’m on a very similar income ($36,000AUD) in a country with similar issues surrounding housing, and a quickly rising cost of living crisis. I’m not sure about her exact area, my cousin’s in Edmonton, so that’s my main reference point.

I live within my means and other than a student loan, I have no debt. But I also have no property and no real assets beyond the everyday items I need for work (laptop, phone, my bicycle)

It is very comforting and peaceful to live within my means. And I often experience a “simplified joy” in moments where work is calm, my family is happy and I have an afternoon off to take my time and bake this week’s meals to keep the grocery budget happy and healthy.

But most of the time work is not calm, work is a major contributor of emotional and physical stress, and taking stress leave isn’t quite yet a financial option (until I’m approaching mental health breaking point, which so far so good)

Usually the family isn’t happy, I’ve got chronic health issues, my partner and I both have disabilities, it’s vital we maintain chunky emergency funds because our savings disappear quickly when one of us needs to see a specialist (public healthcare in Australia is a mess at the moment) so if we’re talking about going to the country for the weekend to have a relaxing holiday we’re usually deciding its not worth the petrol, train or accommodation costs when for all we know I could require an urgent doctors appointment tomorrow and we’d wished we’d saved all that money.

We’re financially smart in the sense that we are 5-6 big emergencies away from bankruptcy which is so much more than most people in my income bracket. But in our experience we tend to get our emergencies in waves where it’s one right after another leading into each other. It’s scary.

Fortunately we don’t want kids, but if we did, I can’t see how we’d do that without majority changes to my income stream.

It’s also just exhausting to live on a strict budget all the time. I’m definitely getting fit biking halfway across town 3 times trying to shop at Aldi and veg markets because it’s the most affordable grocery option, I’m lucky I’m not time poor, but many people working low wage jobs are. Mentally it’s hard keeping track of everything all the time, comparing prices and holding back. It’s socially exhausting, having to constantly remind friends that unless it’s a free or very low cost outting, we won’t be hanging out.

Being out at work and feeling exhausted and headachey and knowing some caffeine would help, but I forgot to pack a zip lock bag of instant coffee, so I’m out of options because that’s what’s budgeted for. So I finish out my day in pain. Likewise, I had to give up my monthly massages because it was a luxury my budget couldn’t bear. It didn’t reduce my physical capacity, but it has made my daily pain level higher which makes me less happy.

Small things like that’s make me feel tired, frustrated, burnt out and angry that my income is so low.

But then I’ll have a moment like today, where I’m harvesting the sunchokes i planted in August, thinking to myself, being poor prompted me to grow these, but having them here to water and watch grow has been so good for my mental health and this is such a rewarding experience…but I could have also had this experience with money in my pocket.

I was definitely more happy and more comfortable 5 years ago when my same income had a higher buying power so my budget wasn’t as tight.

I will never want to live outside my means. But boy howdy the cost of living here means I’m getting close to having to make the real tough decisions (like, do I really need to pay extra for certified allergen free ingredients, or can I gamble on the cheaper brands that “may contain traces of”) to avoid blowing my budget.

Yes, even if she trimmed her expenses (which I agree is possible, though I don’t know much about Canada) she would still not be living a “good” life despite being well educated, and fully employed with stable housing. She would be living a safe, healthy and financially functional, but it would not be a sustainable, happy, and enjoyable life, and her savings contributions would be not be enough to give her financial independence without some serious investments.

That’s the second sentence. And that’s all only one sentence. I’ve re-read it multiple times and I’m still scratching my head at most of it.

Yeah I don’t think I have enough working memory to remember how the sentence started by the time my dyslexic neurodivergent ass has reached the end of the sentence.

It’s unfortunately reading as word salad for me.

My experience with the internet as someone born almost the exact same time and place as the author was that once you found your space, it really was a great community. Finding that community was the difficult step, not as difficult as finding community offline, but certainly with more potential to stumble upon gore and grotesque imagery that I can still remember, 25 years later, thanks 4chan. Not much has changed in that regard, there’s weird shit everywhere.

Given the authors relatively young age in the grand scheme of the internet, I wonder how much of the sentiment they’re expressing is just pure nostalgia.

The internet did feel better back then. But so did life. Because I was a teenager with no real problems and no real sense of what was happening in the world.

The internet was novel and new, many of us felt like we were part of something, that we were building and creating something. Now the internet feels like it controls us, companies and corporations are building something that we must participate in whether we like it or not, lest we be left behind economically, socially, educationally, etc.

But it’s all personal perception. Federation and decentralisation has changed my perception and I have a lot more hope for the future of the internet, it’s feeling a little bit more like old times.