Thank you Nome @NomedaBarbarian
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@NomedaBarbarian on Twitter:
Thinking about how I've been lied to as an #ADHD person about what habits are.
That apparently is not what neurotypical folks get to experience.
Habits are things that they do without thinking.
They don't have to decide to do them. They don't have to remember to do them. Things just happen, automatically, because they've done them enough for that system to engage and make them automatic.
That system...which I lack.
Every single time I have brushed my teeth, it's been an active choice. I've had to devote thought and attention to it. It's not a routine, it's not a habit, it's something that I know is good to do, and hopefully I can remember to do it.
Every single time I exercise, or floss, or pay my rent, or drink water, or say "bless you" when someone sneezes,
It's because I've had to actively and consciously engage the protocol.
It never gets easier.
Just more familiar.
It's part of my struggle with my weight--exercise never becomes a habit, and every single time I do it, it is exactly as hard as the first time. It takes exactly as much willpower & thought.
I got lied to about how it would just "turn into a habit". And blamed, when it didn't.
Drinking water isn't a habit. Feeding myself isn't a habit. Bathing isn't a habit.
I spend so much more energy, so much more time, so much more labor on just managing to maintain my fucking meat suit.
And now you want me to ALSO do taxes?
ON TIME?
Damn as a neurotypical person reading this it blows my mind. Yes, my habits are absolutely automatic, to the point I daydream through them. Am I just misunderstanding something or are you saying every adhd person struggles to form habits?
Thanks for speaking to the other side, because that’s so hard to believe. I don’t know about everyone with ADHD, but it definitely seems to be a common shared experience. The only habits I do completely without thinking are a) putting my seatbelt on in the car, and b) picking my phone up like 100 times a day. Anything bigger, even something like eating, is something I have to will myself to do.
And when I’m trying to form a “habit,” like certain types of note taking or task planning at work, no matter how effective it is and how much I like it, I never manage to do it more than about 3 weeks before my brain just completely shuts off that pathway and it’s like I forget that process exists altogether.
If I don’t put my meds on my nightstand AND have a reminder on my phone, I will forget them most of the time. Daily activity, takes almost no brain power, and it still doesn’t trigger in my head as something I need to do unless I physically see it.
ugh, I constantly forget to eat. People would ask “how the hell can you FORGET to eat, for two days” and I’d be like. “three days… I think”.
LOL, relatable. I also had to literally train myself over years to feel hungry, and all that training goes away when I’m really stressed. Living with a partner is the best thing for my eating habits. He needs to eat, so I eat… at least once a day.
The range of ADHD is wild, I'm just always hungry, I have to consciously stop myself from randomly eating any food in my proximity. If there's a box of crackers, or leftovers in the fridge, I'll eat them, even if I ate an hour ago, if I don't make a conscious effort to remind myself that I ate a meal already. Adderall has helped with me being aware of when I'm not actually hungry, but when the drugs wear off in the evening, I have to be careful about cruising the kitchen/pantry.
A few days late, but I just stumbled across the community. I know that when I was on meds I wouldn’t eat for days. Without meds, I’m just Homer Simpson saying “ooh a piece of candy” all day
I rarely have hunger signs and I can go from eating everything in sight because of my ridiculously fast metabolism or not eating for hours upon hours.
Dude. Three days isn’t even my record, and I don’t feel hungry during that time, like at all. Or if I do it’s this vaguely distant feeling that isn’t nearly as important as whatever I’m hyper focusing on at the moment.
How did you train yourself to feel hungry? I need to take medicine to feel hungry and I want to take control of it
Sorry for the long message ahead :)
This is a TL;DR list I wrote to help when my cousin was struggling to eat and having stomach aches whenever he did eat:
Learning #1 was what made me realize my relationship with food was unhealthy and needed to change. #2-3 might not apply to your situation but I’m leaving them in case anyone else needs it.
#4 and 6 really are the answer to your question. When I got my first job out of college, I ate lunch daily with coworkers even if I had no desire to eat, which greatly helped the last thing I’ll share: I redefined what I thought of as hunger.
I realized even when I didn’t consciously feel the need to eat, my body had symptoms. I paid attention to things like lightheadedness, a tightness in my stomach, and shakiness, and started considering those to be “feeling hungry.” After forcing myself to eat more consistently and listening to my body, I actually started to feel hungry on a regular (daily-ish) basis.
Oh, and for a year or two I lifted weights 3x/week and that made me hungrier than I’d ever been in my life. The first three months I always felt hungry. But that’s a bigger commitment than the other suggestions :)
I hope this might help you!
I saved all of this because it seems like it could be super helpful to me. Humans are so complicated and can have so many "co-morbidities" and seemingly related quirks and things they deal with, that it is really nice to see something that I see in myself all the time most of my life actually) and possible solutions or coping strategies. Thanks a lot from the bottom of my icy beart.
I already do all of those things except the weightlifting, and I think burning more kilojoules would be counterproductive to my goals given I want to do the opposite. Making it easy to eat doesn't cause me to feel a subjective sensation of hunger, and I don't get those other signs of hunger you describe like lightheadedness or shakiness either. I get a tightness in my stomach, which my nervous system interprets as fullness and turns into a "no more eating" signal.
I'm asking how to feel hungry.
If you are already eating meals consistently and don’t let yourself get to the point of physical impairments from not eating, then I can see how my methods wouldn’t work for you.
My suggestion of having easy meals was just to facilitate eating meals consistently, no matter how you feel. I found when I ate a meal at the same time every day no matter what, after a year or so I actually developed the feeling of needing to eat at that time of day. But if you’re already eating at the same times every day and you still don’t feel a need to, then I don’t think my experiences can help you :(
My mom. Super skinny her whole life. People thought she took care of herself, but I knew that she forgot to eat for days.
I used to think that would be nice. I have the other end of it where I am constantly nibbling for dopamine hits.
Yeah. I’m super skinny. I have trouble keeping weight on. I’m 6’1, male, and like 144 lbs. It’s not good for ya.
Nah it's not something to really wish for. Over time, you start to feel all those forgotten meals physically. Yes, you may look skinny, but you're much more likely to be missing out on important nutrients.
Hello, headaches and more!
This happens to me all the time. People will ask about the last time I ate, and I’ll tell them “Uhh… I think I had a granola bar for breakfast… two days ago.” Today I ate two full(ish) meals. The last time I remember eating that much is almost three weeks ago. It’s gotten to the point where people think I’m intentionally starving myself, but I just genuinely don’t get hungry. I have no urge to eat, so I constantly forget.
My girlfriend takes me out to dinner twice a week. Most of my calories come from those two weekly nights out. Add in my time blindness and I’ll think that I ate breakfast in the morning, but then realize that it was the previous morning and that I just never noticed the passage of time.