Wandering through some superb videos by neurodiverse people on their journeys in an era of discovery, exploration, and overturning mindsets from the last millennium
This sort of follows on from my earlier blogpost on all things neurodiversity and the challenge of having to unlearn so much from the late 20th Century in order to try and make sense of, and make a positive contribution to the time I have left in the 21st Century.
Only I’m less than five years away from the big Five-Zero (*HTF did that happen?!?!*) which probably means I way beyond halfway through my time on the third rock from the Sun. Having effectively been struck down with CFS/ME in 2012, one of the things I’ve struggled with has been re-building a sense of self in a context of not being able to function full-time in a world/society that judges individuals by their occupations and by institutional memberships. At yet strangely I never ever felt I ‘belonged’ to any of those institutions I was enrolled in or employed by. All too often it felt like a grind just to get to the next day. Some of the recent content I’ve discovered on all things neurodiversity have started to explain why.
Above – A familiar looking scene from school/college/university whenever I was bored and/or fatigued. By Jaiden Animations in “I found out I have ADHD”.
“When I hyper-fixate and honed into an activity, you have to prise me away from it with a crow-bar.”
Above – By Jaiden Animations – a bit like me when I hyperfixate on completing a blogpost or editing a video in the early hours of the morning. Like this LostCambridge one on Olivia Newton-John’s family during their Cambridge years in the late 1940s. It was gone 3am by the time I uploaded it, even though there was no urgent or important reason to stay up that late eg business deadline. (It’s now 01.45am at the time of uploading this!)
Another take – watching a conversation, by GingerPale
The worst thing in the world you can ask me is:
“How are you?”
Especially if you are only expecting a response of a few words or is the sort of thing taught in basic foreign language lessons. “Tres bien merci! Et vous?” Knowing nothing about real life in secondary school in the 21st Century (due to being single with no offspring), I’d like to think that language learning has taken significant steps up compared with the early 1990s.
Above – ***And this was just my morning!*** In A Conversation with ADHD By GingerPale which is superbly done.
For any of you who have had the misfortune to have had an extended conversation with me (sorry!) Basically the chap above is info-dumping on the person opposite.
Above: And the only way to break out of the deluge of info (or perhaps to try and concentrate on it) is to remove the other distractions – like the phone alerts. Although I don’t recommend thwacking it off of the table!
But keeping concentration while being info-dumped on isn’t easy for anyone. Especially if you’re not interested in the info being dumped!
Above – ***Yeah – we’ve got too many stray thoughts coming in guys!*** In A Conversation with ADHD By GingerPale
“What do the pink ones?”
GingerPale says they are the good ones.
“And the yellow ones?”
GP says we don’t talk about the yellow ones.
“What does the interwebz show about ADHD songs?”
This will divide people because it’s AI-generated (you can tell by the vocals and the animation style, along with error such as writing on paper with the title at the bottom *and* upside down) but also has a child-friendly Europop musical hook to it.
“My brain’s a pinball bouncing around / Hitting on thoughts with the ding dong sound”
“Started strong, but *oops* what was the plan? / Shiny! What is that? In the frying pan”
Above – from ADHD The Song on ADHD Adult Life.
On one of the treatments – medication
As mentioned in my previous blogpost, there is a 2 year waiting list just to get assessed on the NHS in/around Cambridge. While under the ‘right to choose’ you can get an assessment done on the NHS by a private/independent clinic, there’s no obligation for your GP to then ‘take on’ the additional prescriptions and treatment for it. It’s up to ministers to resolve that one. Some of you may also recall the headlines last summer on the shortage of medication worldwide, and the impact that this had.
The difference it made for Jaiden (who is also on IG here)
Have a watch from 10m25s here. I recall hesitating when my GP at uni prescribed me antidepressants for the first time in very early 2002 following a series of panic attacks which caused me to miss most of the previous term in what was my final year at uni. (I still got high marks at the end of the unit, and no, I have no clue how either!)
But the striking think is the reduction in the ‘noise’ that makes it hard to concentrate or start on something new that’s not particularly interesting or enjoyable.
Or as Jaiden described it, a non-stop civil war going on in her mind
By Jaiden Animations in “I found out I have ADHD”.
Reassessing nearly half a century of life events without the people who were there at the time
That’s one of the things that those of us who are being diagnosed/assessed late in life for something that we were born with/as, have got to process.
Above – hence getting myself one of these. (Now to find suitable items of clothing to wear them on in a manner that doesn’t say ***freak***)
Or is it too late for that?!?
Just as importantly – and one of the reasons why I go on about community centres and lifelong learning provision is that these are not things easily processed alone. One of the big positives to come from the evolution of social media was the emergence of communities of interest and of common experiences. I’m still gutted that the politicians of the world enabled a very small group of not very altrustically-minded or civic-minded chaps to take such firm control of the big platforms and use them for destructive means.
Above – Cllr Rachel Millward calls out the chaps at the Green Party Conference
Which reminds me – Parliament’s back. Expect some big announcements this week from Westminster.
I normally write about things to do with the past, present, & future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made. This was a slight detour onto personal issues. If you are interested in that strange mix of local issues, national public policy, and the odd personal post:
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