Like autistic people get to be autistic. That’s a word, and it has meaning. Someone can be autistic because it’s a type of person (spectrumy type). In my opinion, ADHD sucks as an identifying term. It’s 3 letters, one repeated. It means nothing as it is spelled and can’t be owned as an identity because they’re letters, not a word. “I’m adhudd.” The initials include “disorder” in it. That sucks. Autistic people don’t go around saying, “Hi, I’m austically disordered,” cause that’s not accepting. Is there a term that is smooth and not judgmental for ADHD? Maybe we can take Aspergers since it got dropped, but add the ‘d’ to get “Adspergers”. Nah, that’s stupid af. What about multibrained? I feel multibrained because I act like I’ve got multiple brains running in my head doing their own thing all at the same time, and I bounce around them based on who knows what.
What? Oh, yes…I’ll have the spaghetti bolog-knees. Do you guys have red pepper…crushed red pepper? Yeah, thanks. Cool. I like your name tag. Is that really your name? Samsquatch?..oh! It’s Samuel, but you changed it to Samsquatch! I love Trailer Park Boys. Fuck off, Leahy! Yeah. Sorry. I got excited.
Okay. So…um, is there a descriptive word for ADHD that isn’t ADHD?
It is not cool or trendy to be Autistic…
I know that you probably don’t mean it that way but I do think it is important to see people for who they are.
Neurodivergent, no need to be specific
I disagree with providing clues about certain conditions. Doing so can lead to misinterpretation, as people’s perceptions vary widely. While it’s inevitable, it’s possible to live in a way that minimizes the impact of these perceptions, and I would advise everyone to do so.
ADHD, although it shares similarities among individuals with this neurodivergence, manifests uniquely in each person.
ADHD is distinct from autism, particularly in how individuals with ADHD manage conversations.
ADHD is also different from intellectual disabilities.
Despite these differences, all these conditions fall under the umbrella term “neurodivergent.” However, I prefer not to use this term, as it can lead to overthinking and reliance on preconceived notions. I just tell people I have ADD on paper and if they want to understand it/me better, they will ask. Or I will provide them the info I seen they are missing. Lol!
I usually describe myself as “a bit much.”
I just don’t tell people. It never leads to anything good.
Agreed. It’s like they start looking for confirmation, so they start expecting and noticing every little mistake. Or they don’t see it, and give you unsolicited speeches about how they struggle to focus to and you just need discipline… In fact, you should stop taking your meds
I just tell people without telling people. “I can’t sit still for too long, I have to walk”, “the music/videos and stim toys help me focus”, “my thought process is weird, I know that sounds unrelated but it makes sense to me”, “I know you’re writing up a list, I need to take notes to process what you’re saying
and if I don’t doodle I can’t pay attention to this boring ass meeting”If you take on the label, they don’t see you as managing your symptoms, they look for the cracks. If you explain your compensation strategies and areas of difficulty, they usually are pretty supportive and will even respect the level of thought you put into it
We all tried to come up with a nice concise term for ADHD but ended up writing multi page papers instead.
Dopaminded
I just say ADHD’er
I feeeeeel…I ☝FEELLLLLL☝ (pls don’t get mad at me) like when I tell people ahead of time of my neurodivergence, they take it as me coming up with an excuse to be rude in the future.
I don’t understand the context
If you’re medicated you can say “I do drugs.” 😎
Degenerate
Retarded (I call myself that sometimes)
Neurospicy
absolutely hate this phrase.
Ok, it’s your moment. Let’s hear it all. Dump it. Why do you hate it?
I can’t speak for hypnicjerk, but I personally dislike the term because it feels too glib.
I can’t do shit because of executive dysfunction and I forget things all the time, that’s not “spicy”, it’s preventing me from having a life.
it’s such a heckin pupper way to describe one of the biggest challenges i deal with in my life. i’m not grim about my neurodivergence but i’m sure not perky about it either.
I can respect this. I have all this creativity, 98th percentile in creative writing standard tests in the US (SATs, but this was also a while back), and I can’t ever get beyond the start of a book before I’m bored, hate it, feels like work. I’m immediately drawn to other, shinier things to do. Forget neurospicy, I feel neuroblocked. I’m neuroselective of what I want to neurodo.
It’s like drowning, but you can pick from a bunch of tiny straws poking up in the water to get air. Some days you want the yellow straw, oh but wait the green straw looks good… but there’s that temptress the red straw in the corner, the sly devil. Sometimes you just want to breathe so you grab multiple straws in one day. Sometimes no straws look good and you just drown that day. However, by ADHD law, you can never use the same straw twice in a week.
I also deeply dislike the phrase for much of the same reason as the other replies. It’s a phrase that evokes high-functioning TikTokers looking to quirkily stand out from the crowd and in general downplays the reality of many neurodivergent people and their very real, very tangible struggles.
I hate this, but I use it because “I’m from a neurodivergent family” sounds worse to my ears that “My whole family is some flavor of neurospicy.”
We have 2 ADHD+anxiety, 1 dual ADHD+Au, and 1 dual ADHD+NVLD.
I’ve used “spicy brained” and people seem to get it.