I want to do something, anything, but organizing/participating in orgs is really hard with how my brain works. Theres chapters/locals out here, dsa, psl, frso, etc., but i feel like i cant participate.
I get overwhelmed by noise and large groups, especially if those groups are shouting or chanting. Protests and marches and demonstrations are a nonstarter cause having panic or anxiety incidents at those does more harm than good. Ive tried attending meetings and discussion groups, but theyve been so incredibly difficult for me and i end up contributing nothing and taking nothing away. I cant hear what people are saying cause if multiple people are talking it all blurs into a single sentence. And my body dumps literally all the cortisol into my blood and i have to recover for a good while afterwards.
What can i even do? Like, i could admin a *nix box that serves stuff, i can cook, i can do (very basic) firearm safety, i can do things, but the social aspect is really hard for me. Organizers want to fire people up, but that firing up incapacitates me. How can i attend a meeting when that meeting is geared toward not-me and within 15 minutes im in emergency mode and lose the ability to form solid memories from the meeting, or lose the ability to speak? Last one i went to, it started with chants and that was kinda it for me. I stayed thru the end, but it was really intense and i needed to lay down cry and be held afterwards. I cant participate in those kinds of things in a manner that is sustainable for me.
I want to do stuff, i want to contribute, i want to make the world even just a little bit better, but i feel like all the activities and actions that are available to me are things that are either veryvery difficult or incapacitating for me.
I was in your position for a long time and feel like I can relate. ADHD to people who don’t have it is a funny little condition that some of the quirky and eccentric people they know have that makes them fun and silly.
The reality is that for some, like myself and perhaps you, it can be a completely debilitating disease that makes you feel incompatible anywhere you try to fit in with society. To us, it is a BASE LEVEL ISSUE. If you are an adult living independently, it is absolutely, beyond all doubt, the priority issue you need to address before the rest of the world slides away from you too.
It’s frustrating, it can be tiring, it can be expensive, but you need to do everything in your power to treat it before you can even attempt to fix the other things going on around you. I lost a few years of my life in what I’ve dubbed “The Slop™” where problem after problem could just be traced back to issues brought about by my adhd. First minor ones, then major ones, then the life altering ones.
ADHD treatment is stimulants. Do not abuse drugs, but treating it with reasonable amounts of caffeine will at least help you be somewhat more attentive and able to pursue real treatment. You may need to schedule multiple appointments back to back to back in a single day to find a doctor who will take you seriously. Some might think you’re faking, some might make you feel embarrassed, but only one needs to say yes and understand your situation to change your life.
Everything turned around for me when a doctor prescribed a small dose for 30 days to see how it impacted me. I was finally able to function the way I needed to in order to secure lasting treatment and eventually make a life for myself that I don’t feel trapped in. Do not spend your energy and focus on doing socialist organizing before you’ve secured proper baseline treatment for yourself. It is so worth continuing to try because you have no idea just how good life can be when you finally get properly treated. I sobbed my first day because I realized I got all of my house cleaning and self care done and I hadn’t heard my neighbor’s low battery smoke detector beep a single time even though it kept me up at night for weeks.
It’s life changing, and the least you owe yourself is a shot at seeing what it can become after sustained treatment for a serious disease.
The good thing is I'm already a bit ahead of this and I have gotten a diagnosis. I have tried the treatment and it works.
The bad news is how I got there. Couple decades of beating myself into a pulp and now having to un-learn all that while being held hostage by the privatized healthcare industry. It's something I struggle to deal with independently and constantly fall in and out of treatment.
What I really don't know how to deal with is guilt. I have many privileges like being white, living in the 1st world (Baltic States) and many people rightfully critique me for my lack of action and demand support from me. Even though having ADHD and my trans identity is quite troublesome, it just doesn't compare to what others go through.
99% of advice I get when it comes to solving my problems is to get a job so I've been trying to do that. I was hoping someone would help me, but it's a bummer every org I reached out to has ignored my requests. What's even worse is my country does not recognize adhd as a Condition adults can have, so I can't get help with adhd through the national healthcare. It's a mess.
I'm trying to at least like document my life. Do you think it'd be worth it to try to write like a small book that can maybe be used to save those who come after me? I been thinking, but then it's like nobody seems to be interested in helping me circulate information either so I'm probably wasting my time on that.