Girls with ADHD are over 3x more likely to develop an eating disorder | Jaclyn ☕️ The ADHD Homestead on Instagram
The things I learn doing research for my writing. Sometimes we spend years struggling alone, or watching loved ones struggle, completely unaware we’re part of something bigger. This knowledge might not change anything for you, or it might change everything. Yet another 💡 “I had no idea that was connected to ADHD” moment.
(Also, beware blanket advice that cautions against using stimulant meds to treat ADHD if you’re concerned about weight loss. Sometimes relieving the ADHD symptoms can have surprising–and counterintuitive–effects. I’ve known several people who developed much healthier eating habits after treating the ADHD with meds. Brains are weird and there’s very little blanket advice that applies to everyo️ne.)
Project 333 Challenge | Be More With Less
File this under “another challenge of being a woman with ADHD.” I need to do a big wardrobe cleanout soon. I love Courtney’s Project 333 Challenge, even if I’ve fudged it a bit every time I’ve done it. Overwhelm and decision fatigue are real issues for me. I also never really learned how to match my clothes. Minimizing my wardrobe and limiting myself to a single color palette helps SO much.
Do you need a bigger house? | A Slob Comes Clean
I write in my book Order from Chaos about my choice to live in a smaller house than we can afford. It comes down to overwhelm. I already have enough trouble policing my family’s clutter in the house we have. We already have enough storage areas and horizontal surfaces being used inefficiently. How would a larger house improve this? I don’t know for sure, but I fear it would make everything worse. The size of our house limits the amount of careless mess and clutter we can generate. Thus far I’ve been nothing but grateful for it.
When Adult ADHD Means Not Good Enough | ADHD Roller Coaster with Gina Pera
Excerpt:
My social timing will never be perfect. I’ll stand out from the crowd, which will lead either to unsolicited and often unhelpful advice or they will back away slowly. I strain to contain the thoughts, to remember the hundreds of niceties, correct postures, correct lines of the conditioned script you call empathy and socially adaptive behaviour.
Anxiety will spike as my mind floods with potential social landmines, things you give no thought to. I know that, should I find myself feeling enjoyment, a laundry list of how I’ve socially failed and embarrassed you will soon follow. When I’m enjoying myself, the tight hold I must maintain on my body, my facial muscles and my thoughts loosen and “here there be dragons.”
As we finally leave this field of landmines, the exhaustion overwhelms me, leaving me little ability to fend off the recriminations over my moments of unchecked control. This will be followed by finishing the list that I must accomplish before my day is done. For, not to do so means having to listen to you say that I never do anything and you have to do everything. That I have just exhausted myself in “doing” for you so that your social needs will be met is swept aside as negligible. Those efforts are invisible to you, so they don’t count as doing.
What’s been working lately: Habit Hearts | The ADHD Homestead
Habits. Adults with ADHD slip into unhealthy ones too easily and struggle to maintain good ones. Healthy habits require the sort of tedious daily effort ADHD makes particularly difficult. This means no matter what, any good results are usually temporary.
I combat this not by getting down on myself or forcing myself to try harder, but by lowering my daily expectations. If I’m going to make progress in the long term, I need to create a system that makes it easy to recover from failure. I need my goals to feel achievable even on the worst day.
Enter my habit hearts.
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