First of all, I canât believe this has almost 3,000 notes. Iâm so glad that people are sharing this – both as a cool design, and also as an important accessibility feature.
Thanks to pseudosoph for linking to additional info (above) regarding weight limits, lift height, and product background â the creator is a wheelchair user himself! Very cool stuff. Keep sharing!
This isnât a fail. Just wanted to share an accessibility win so people can get ideas for improving accessibility
executive dysfunction is telling yourself for two and a half hours that you need to shower bc you smell like your workplace and you absolutely Cannot do Anything Else until you shower, doing Any Other Thing before showering is illegal!!! but you still havenât for some reason??? youâve just been sitting on your bed in a towel scrolling tumblr for 2+ hours thinking âI need to shower right now immediatelyâ and growing increasingly frustrated that you are still not clean and you havenât eaten or done your laundry either
ok actually no Iâm reblogging this because a) I am clean now (and I smell amazing, thank you), and b) I had a heckin Realize and I wanted to share it with yâall in the hopes itâll help someone else with a brain like mine.
I figured something out about myself a long time agoâ itâs only just now occurred to me that I was in fact solving a problem caused by executive dysfunction, and I havenât been implementing this solution lately because my brain went âthatâs a relatively new term to me and therefore a Different problem that requires a Different solutionâ. thanks a lot, brain.
anyway, long long ago, before I knew these fancy schmancy Official words, the problem, as I phrased it to myself, was such:Â
sometimes I get Stuck. I was doing something, or on my way to doing something, and then⌠I just. got stuck.
âStuckâ looks like refreshing my feed or dashboard repeatedly. or it looks like staring at a spot on the wall. or chewing my fingernails. or picking at a stubborn sticker. all the while, my brain drifts through various unrelated topics I wouldnât be able to recall if asked. sometimes I can get Stuck for hours before realizing I am Stuck. sometimes I get so Stuck that I go to bed that way (feeling especially bad for being unproductive) and I have to just reset everything by sleeping.
one day I asked myself, âwhy is this happening? why am I stuck, right now, at this moment in time?â the answer, as it turns out, was pretty simple: I was trying to make a decision, and I got distracted. I havenât moved forward because I havenât answered that one question or made up my mind.
let me rephrase this in terms of executive dysfunction: many people have expressed that it feels like knowing you need to do a thing but not feeling âreadyâ to do it. many with ADHD may also be familiar with the feeling of needing things to be âjust soâ before you embark on a task- you need your setup to look a certain way, or you need to set a timer, or have the right music playing, etc.
when I get Stuck itâs often because I got lost somewhere in that setting-up process, and my brain took the opportunity to nyoom off into Distraction Town.
getting myself Unstuck is solved, 95% of the time, by tracing my steps back to the original decision I was trying to make- often something small and inane- and then troubleshooting from there. (out loud! verbal processing is totally punk.)Â
âwhat was I trying to do?âÂ
âwas I trying to decide between two things?âÂ
(the answerâs usually yes.)Â
âwhat were they?âÂ
âokay, letâs decide.Â
âokay, thatâs settled. letâs move on.â
and then I am free as a bird to nyoom in the direction of The Thing I Wanted To Do All Along, in the amazingly disorganized, scattered, yet rapid-fire way that I do many things.
so!!! in the case of my first post, where I hadnât showered for 2 hours? turns out I had been trying to decide what music to listen to in the shower. (another hack: my chances of getting Stuck while showering decrease by 75% if I have music playing to help me keep track of time.) I couldnât immediately make up my mind, got lost in thought, got distracted, and drifted. once I stopped and asked- âwhy am I stuck?â- then I remembered- âoh yeah! I wanted to listen to musicâ- and then decided- âI want to listen to Daft Punkâs Discovery albumâ- I was finally heckin able to shower. and also eat, and also throw my clothes in the dryer.
and may I add I only zoned out once, during the slow part of âOne More Time.â đ
Iâm not saying this is a foolproof method. sometimes I donât have a reason for being stuck, and thatâs okay! Iâm also not saying this is how every adhd brain works. itâs just how my brain works, and Iâm sure thereâs at least a few who can relate. for those few, I hope this helps!!
a lot of people are reblogging the original post without the update and leaving frustrated comments and that makes me sad! if I can find ways to hack my brain than so can you! executive dysfunction is a real and frustrating challenge, but donât buy the lie that thereâs no way to work with it or around it!!!
!!!!
This sounds really useful and for some reason, Iâm also really happy to find out that Iâm not the only person who uses music to keep track of time
i got stuck in one shoe once for six hours. had the other shoe and sock right there, but just. doop de doo.
iirc in the end i just went âok we donât have to climb Mt. Put On Shoes. But letâs pick up that sock.â then i put on that sock, solemnly in the knowledge that the shoe was no longer a goal. Then the shoe went on, and had a laugh at how Mt. Shoe didnât even see me coming.
getting stuck in a mudhole is a mofo. change gears to get out of the hole and do that, rather than thinking in terms of continuing to drive to your destination while in the hole. at least, thatâs how i do it.
i canât do Errand but i can sure as hell leave the house, and if i leave the house, eventually Errand will sneak up on me and i wonât have fretted myself to death about it for hours.
working out isnât hard.
getting clean clothes for after, and a towel, and making sure i donât take the last towel and leave seebs with nothing for their shower, and making sure iâm hydrated beforehand, and iâve taken my meds, and i have food available afterwards because i know iâll be hungry, and remembering iâll want to shave between workout and shower because if i do it after the shower hair crumbs stuck to my neck will drive me insane, and making sure i donât have anything else looming later in the day that iâm going to need my energy for because iâm going to be tired and sore â THAT IS HARD.
so lately iâve been trying a thing where i just Do It Anyway. result: i am often hungry and half naked and unavailable to socialize. but hell, i was that anyway, and at least iâm getting my physical therapy on.
it doesnât always work, mind. more than half the time, actually, i donât make it as far as the pool. but i do something else instead, in my brownian motion; eat an apple, hug the spouse, chat with the kidlet, pat the pets, fold a towel, stand on the front walk and inhale free air and examine a bug! better than sitting in my room staring at the wall and hating myself for it, certainly.
cuz the thing is, at that point, the problems i have are not executive dysfunction. executive dysfunction is THE hardest problem, because it completely prevents all problem solving. or eating. or going to the bathroom. or picking your pants up off the floor even though youâve been staring at them for an hour.
just do something, anything, and it all gets easier. (not fixed, but easier.)
tl;dr: if you canât pick your pants up off the floor because Do Thing is broken, sing to your cat instead. it might break the vapor lock.
soooo they a) have a health network that b) diagnoses and addresses mental illness including chemical deficiencies and c) makes store bought brain chemicals accessible to people who need them, which d) allows people the ability to help manage their depression because their chemistry is no longer fucked up and actively working against them?
Yeah no wonder theyâre happy. They are getting treatment and arenât suffering because their lying brains are bullshitting them into anxiety and depression. sign me the fuck up.
Them: people in Denmark who need anti depressants get them
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