Probably due to my own childhood experiences, it makes me very upset to see an individual or group persecuted because they are doing something or are something that is not harmful in any way whatsoever but have been arbitrarily categorized as unacceptable.

Holy shit, MOOD. I cannot stand people insisting that harmless things are bad just because they’re weird/they’re gross/they make them feel bad somehow. Especially from leftists like myself. They should know that that feeling is exactly the same feeling that drives conservatives to hate queer and kinky people.

When I see banal evil, or wrongdoing committed out of apathy and selfishness, I want to shake them and explain to them that they are deteriorating the social fabric and ultimately creating problems for themselves through sheer stupidity.

Right? Even if you don’t care about anyone but yourself, YOU ALSO BENEFIT FROM THE WORLD BEING A BETTER PLACE. And you can actively contribute to that!

if MODERATORS are landed gentry, what the fuck does that make rich bastards like him?

Exactly. Blaming individuals for systemic problems never gets you anywhere. If you can reduce your car dependency, sure, do that, but don’t beat yourself up if you can’t.

Not a subscriber yet, but I might become one after I finish Fantasy High.

That’s a fair perspective. However, the counterpoint I’ve often heard from autistic advocates is that autism is only a disability on allistic terms. If everyone communicated in a way autistic people understood, it wouldn’t be a disability. This could be completely wrong, of course, but it’s what I’ve heard argued.

I don’t feel like this is the case with my variety of ADHD. I feel like even if the world tried to accommodate my ADHD traits, I’d still struggle quite a bit.

I agree with you that “I have a mental illness” shouldn’t get a horrified reaction anymore than “I have an illness” does. It’s a shitty stigma we should try to break down.

Yeah, the toxic positivity is a big part of what I’m referring to here. I’ve been deeply disappointed to hear my fellow leftists say things like, “Under socialism, you wouldn’t need your ADHD meds! You’re not disordered, you’re just living in a capitalist society that doesn’t value you!” Which, while it’s true that living in a capitalist society makes things much harder on people with ADHD, I don’t think it’s true that none of us would struggle or need meds under a better system.

I totally understand why you identify with the term neurodivergent. It really does seem to be the best term that exists for people like you.

Go ahead. I’m perfectly down to have a discussion.

Perhaps. My only real exposure to either has been through social media, so that’s what my thoughts are based on. But I do feel like even if you divorce it from the neurodiversity movement, the word “neurodivergent” is to “mentally ill” as “differently abled” is to “disabled”: an unhelpful and somewhat idealized version of a more appropriate term. Though that specifically applies to it regarding ADHD, not every difference in neurology, as I said.

I’m not necessarily saying that ADHD doesn’t come with benefits. I’m just saying that, for me at least, my ADHD’s shittier aspects undermine the benefits it gives me.

For example, I’m quite creative. But I don’t create much. Why? Executive dysfunction. I’ve wanted to be a writer my entire life. But I just don’t have the discipline (or executive function, call it what you want) to make it work. I’ve had the same novel idea for a long time. Wanna know how many words I’ve written? Zero. I’ve got a bunch of scattered, sometimes contradictory notes about the characters and setting, but I can’t make myself sit down and compile it all, let alone plot out a coherent story. I’ve tried writing without planning or outlining beforehand, and it works insofar as it gets words onto the paper, but at the end of it I’m left with a disaster that needs copious editing and no energy or interest in doing it.

I wrote a couple novels when I was a teenager. They will never see the light of day because after writing them, I never got around to making them into something decent, and now I’m no longer interested in the projects.

Even on meds, I just lack whatever it is normies have that makes them select a project or skill to work on and then follow through with it until they’re satisfied. The one and only creative thing I’ve ever been able to stick with is crochet, and even then, I took a six-month break from it and only picked it back up on a whim. And I only stick with crochet because it’s easy and mostly thoughtless; I won’t be able to do consistently anything that requires sustained mental effort, especially sustained mental effort.

Admittedly, I probably could write more consistently if I had some kind of outside force making me, but where do I find that? I both need structure and avoid it at all costs because it feels so suffocating. I could maybe get an accountability buddy, though I hate having to be accountable, but I doubt that would be enough. I fear the hell out of failing out of school, but if my dad doesn’t sit down with me and help me study, I just won’t do it half the time. Even with the meds. Even knowing my future depends on it. Even as a 27-year-old adult. Even knowing my dad is paying good fucking money to send me to school. My brain simply hates doing things. Hell, I even procrastinate on things I love.

What good is a writer who doesn’t write? I know I’m worth more than what I produce, yes. But still. The world could have my works, but it probably never will, and that depresses the hell out of me.

And none of this is even touching on rejection-sensitive dysphoria. RSD makes normal life events like breakups and failure into soul-crushing catastrophes. I’ve tried repeatedly to kill myself in part because RSD ensures things that happened years ago still hurt just as sharply as they did in the moment. There are some things I will simply never get over, and I just have to learn to numb the pain enough to keep living. Call ADHD a gift all you like, but the truth is that a healthy person’s brain should not try to kill them over every bad thing that happens.

You are, of course, allowed to feel that way. But I’d trade my brain for a normie brain in a heartbeat. I’d still be me, just capable of taking out the trash. I see no upsides to my ADHD that aren’t canceled out by the signifcant downsides.

Tankies are just right-wingers who simp for different countries.

As someone who is far, far left, I just want to say that Lemmygrad doesn’t represent us all. The libertarian left is very different.