I keep seeing people, especially older adults, claim that if you have “ADD”, you don’t have hyperactive symptoms or that you grow out of it, which is just not true.
“ADD” or ADHD-PI as its now called, just means you have much more inattentive symptoms than hyperactive (hence, PI: Predominantly Inattentive).
I like imagining ADHD as a spectrum, with PH on one side, PI on the other and C in the middle. For example, I’m diagnosed as PI but I still show hyperactive symptoms from time to time; I once threw a towel, down the stairs, at my sister’s friend because I was feeling quite hyper.
Hyperactive symptoms don’t have to be physical, they can be mental too, like racing thoughts.
I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD-PI recently and I don’t experience physical hyperactivity at all. But in my head it is quite busy indeed. I talked to my roommate the other day and she said she sometimes doesn’t have any thought at all. Like I didn’t know that was possible. Mean well there isn’t a moment I’m not thinking about at least five things at the same time.
The constant buzzing of thoughts is the reason we need background music/noise to concentrate.. to drown out the buzz. I can’t study in a library because its too quiet.. and my in contrast my thoughts are too loud.
Talking a lot is a hyperactive symptom, the leg bounce is hyperactivity, feeling restless is a hyperactive symptom. How often do PI types exhibit symptoms like this? Every day for hours on end.
The idea that someone isn’t hyperactive because their hyperactivity isn’t loud and in your face to strangers is a problem.
And ADHD is lifelong. During each life stage, or even day to day, different things effect us and we learn new coping mechanisms as we go along (good or bad) so the disorder can display really differently in one single ADHDer. It’s all still ADHD and it’s all a challenge.
Also, physical hyperactivity symptoms in kids often get internalized as they get older. So they might seem to “grow out of it,” but really their brain has just matured just enough that they can be okay bouncing their leg instead of climbing on the furniture, or that they can usually control the constant impulse to interrupt people but it’s still there and something they’re very aware of and have to consciously hold back.
I do not appear to be anywhere even close to hyperactive. I was inactive as a kid, I’m inactive as an adult. Yet I have four of the required six hyperactive/impulsive symptoms.
In a footnote to a May 10, 2005, memorandum from the Office of Legal Council, the Bush attorney general’s office argued that restricting the caloric intake of terrorist suspects to 1000 calories a day was medically safe because people in the United States were dieting along those lines voluntarily.
“While detainees subject to dietary manipulation are obviously situated differently from individuals who voluntarily engage in commercial weight-loss programs, we note that widely available commercial weight-loss programs in the United States employ diets of 1000 kcal/day for sustain periods of weeks or longer without requiring medical supervision,” read the footnote. “While we do not equate commercial weight loss programs and this interrogation technique, the fact that these calorie levels are used in the weight-loss programs, in our view, is instructive in evaluating the medical safety of the interrogation technique.”
Another another friendly reminder that the Minnesota Starvation Experiment subjected adult men who were VOLUNTEERS to 1,560 calorie diets and the psychological effects were so profound that one volunteer cut three of his own fingers off and could not remember why.
These men were volunteers who knew exactly what they would be going through and when it would end, and who believed they were doing it for a good and moral reason (the research was used to help rehabilitate victims of starvation and famine at the end of WWII).
And these are the things we are expected to engage in FOREVER to stay at a “healthy” weight.
Reading about the Minnesota Starvation experiment was my wake-up call. It was what kicked me out of my eating disorder. The guy missing three fingers, whatever his name was, he was the last straw for me.
Scared me so fucking bad I stopped restricting my food that day, and never went back to it.
Just bringin’ this back around like I sometimes do.
Wow. This really hit me hard.
EAT
Fun fact– calorie restriction exacerbates symptoms of pretty much *every* mental illness.
One of the BEST WAYS I fight my anorexia is wising up with scientific facts, and letting go of my twisted logic!!!
When you feel like restricting, remember that diet culture MADE you think restriction=weightloss=skinny=Good.
Gina Kolata’s book Rethinking Thin has a lot of fact and is very readable, for those wanting a jumping-off point.
It’s 1pm and I just realized I forgot to eat anything yet today. So if you need it, this is your reminder to eat something, hydrate, go to the bathroom, take your meds, stretch or go to bed if you need it.
Anyone else only in their 20s but feel like they are running out of time to get their life together??
Don’t.
I felt this way too, in my twenties, but you know what?
I began transitioning at 30. I went back to grad school at 32. I’m living my best life, and while I’m a little behind the curve compared to some of my classmates on some things, I’m also so far ahead of them on others.
You need follow nobody’s schedule but your own.
Life is hard and the world isn’t doing any of us favors.
Be kind to yourself, and remember that you still have plenty of time. The only difference between starting now and 5 or 10 years earlier is now you have more experience.
Men not being allowed to be emotional & rampant homophobia are the reasons men commit suicide 3.5x more than women… most men are given no outlet to feel feelings. To the point that they kill themselves.
TheOriginalGodsGirlRachel 