That’s how I always knew my period was about to start: diarrhea city.

I have two kids, one is 7, girl, and has pretty classic adhd (I have adhd too but the more internal kind that is common with girls and women). My other kid, 4, girl, I’m pretty positive does not have adhd but maybe time will tell. She’s a pretty textbook toddler and I can see a very striking difference in the two, it’s like raising a kid for the first time all over again.

1. The most challenging moments on a day to day basis is getting her out the door. She never can find her shoes, she gets distracted and is always spacey, takes like 7 minutes just to walk down the stairs. She wakes up sooo early and gets dressed by herself but the shoe thing makes us late a lot. I do my best but she’s 7 so she is very particular about what shoes she wants to wear, and they’re always missing.

2. My child does not have aggression, but rather emotional disregulation. When she gets upset she doesn’t know what to do with herself and will express this is as extreme frustration and end up burying her head in a pillow. She is naturally a very kind and caring person, I’ve never seen her be aggressive towards someone else.

3. When she is having trouble managing emotions, we ask her to stop, breathe, think. We practice breathing techniques and she uses them on her own sometimes when she needs to.

4. There are two ways her adhd effects me personally. One is that is hard for me to watch her struggle because she going through the same things I did. Even though me and her dad are understanding, I know it can be a very isolating experience. Another way it effects me is her lack of spatial awareness drives me insane. She’s constantly under my feet, too close to me, making me feel overwhelmed (I can’t handle too much touching, it overstimulates me) I own my own business so I can’t work when she’s around, talking my ear off, hanging on me. I ask her to stop and she will, and then will come right back in 3 minutes, totally forgetting my earlier frustration.

5. The biggest thing that would help is more understanding from other people. My mom recently watched both of my girls and was like “omg you have GOT to get her medicated, she’s so hyper and spaced out” but the way I see it, is that’s her, it’s who she is. I think medication would help her navigate school, but i want to do things that are good for her, not because it makes other people more comfortable. Her school is very accommodating, and her current teacher is understanding as she has adhd kids herself. Her teacher last year, however, was not. She’s having a much better school year. Teaching her methods of cleaning, emotional regulation, and non-medication ways of making life easier is helpful. My husband and I are only going off of our own experiences though, as we’re not professionals.

I live in a VERY rural area. If I want to visit my neighbors, it’s at the very least a 10 minute walk. To buy groceries it’s about a 20 mi drive. If I want to go to a movie theater, it’s a 40 mile drive. It’s about a 70 mile drive to the closest city (sky scrapers and stuff)

There’s no public transportation or even sidewalks. The closest town that is 5 miles away has one stoplight and a population of 700 ish. We do have a few restaurants in town though, a school and a post office.

This describes my brother in law. Granted, he’s better than he used to be about 10 years ago, but he grew up in a small town, got to know all the cops pretty quickly, did a little jail time here and there but still has his license. He’s totalled many vehicles, spent some time in ICU and still drives like a bat out of hell.

HYPNOTOAD

I think I’d be considered a “normie” maybe. I’m not super tech savvy (maybe a bit more than the average person though as I’m a bit of a photoshop wizard and am interested in tech subjects).

What brought me to lemmy was my moral compass. I’ve used reddit since the late 00’s so it was hard to let go but reddit just isn’t what it used to be. I could no longer use Joey, my reddit app of choice so I abandoned it because what they did to Joey and other apps was bullshit.

I still find myself on reddit every now and then when I need information on something specific though. I haven’t found communities on the fediverse that I connect with that are super active (things like houseplants, knitting, chronic pain, my specific city I live in, etc).

I use lemmy now for mindlessly scrolling before bed and news as I only use Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for work so it’s not leisurely for me to get on normie social media. I do find some interesting articles and funny memes and that’s enough for now.

So maybe the key to get a more robust community is through pulling heart strings? Idk my husband still used reddit daily and I guess doesn’t give a shit about the lax morals of the company 🤷🏼‍♀️

Oh yes, good point. That’s a big part of my problem when it came to my reddit experience in the end. I mean shit, I was a redditor since 2009. It was hard to leave but also not.

Wow! I just looked and I’ll have my cake day soon too! I really thought it had been 6 months. Time flies.

Gonna be honest, a lot of times I feel like I don’t belong here, I’m still figuring things out. I’m not a “techy” type person (that seems to be some kind of prerequisite) and I barely know how to explain the fediverse to the layman, but I left reddit when they fucked over Joey (my preferred reddit app) and read enough to give reddit the middle finger and never look back. It’s been nice, really. I spend more time outside of the internet now. But I believe in the fediverse, I think it’s the right thing to do. I still check up on lemmy daily, but I get much more value and human connection and only spend the time that is appropriate on lemmy instead of endlessly scrolling. Most days I end up in some Wikipedia rabbit hole. Just like the good ol’ days. Learning new things, meeting new people. That’s what I love about the internet.

Their old asses don’t know that and no amount of explaining will help them understand.

I was kid A. Of course, I didn’t turn in EVERY assignment but I burned myself out from an early age just to get by. I met my husband in college who kid B, and was always so jealous of his ability to do everything last minute, never study, and get higher grades than me. For reference, I’m a woman and I believe adhd looks a bit different for most of us than it does for men. Being kid A means I was diagnoses but never treated because I was “doing fine”. I struggled so much with depression and anxiety in my teens and 20s though.

They still have weird shit like that all over kids youtube. I forbade it in my house after seeing a video of a kid literally shooting their mom in the face. Before I was just blocking entire channels but after that… yeah no youtube kids in my house.

Minimalist Phone has changed my life. For anyone looking to either spend less time on social media or get rid of the digital clutter constantly bombarding you, this app is amazing.

It Filters my notifications so I can check them on my own time, it sets time limits on all social media and game apps and kicks you out when time is up, and it has a simple black background with no app icons, only the names of the apps you choose in white letters. Perfect for my over-stimulated adhd brain.