Edit: I just learned from a comment on another post here that it’s literally the only rule for this community. Thanks @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com for taking out the trash.
I just ran into several comments all saying this. If you’re going to be policing this community for “normal human behavior” you’ve certainly got a lot of work cut out for yourself. Almost everything about ADHD is an exaggeration of normal human behavior, we don’t randomly tweet like birds or wear silly hats, it’s the exaggeration that makes it a disorder.
It’s also really invalidating and it’s the same gaslighting crap that we’ve had fed to us by jerks our whole lives.
I have an anxiety disorder that began suddenly due to a traumatic event earlier this year.
I can confidently confirm that I did not know what anxiety was before I felt it, and that I completely misinterpreted when other people talked about anxiety.
Neurotypical people like I used to be, they grow up thinking that anxiety is the same thing as worry, indecision, laziness or mild restlessness. Before I had anxiety attacks, I could, with some effort, turn on or off any emotions I felt. I could just stop worrying by overriding it consciously, and force myself to do something. I could stop crying and try and have a positive or neutral outlook when I was sad, and usually it'd work. The fucking horror that I felt when my own body took me on a whole rollercoaster ride I didn't want to be on, I never even considered that that was what anxiety meant all along.
The difference between being in control of your own consciousness and emotions, and being a passenger to your own brain was HORRIFYING.
It felt so terrible realizing that all the times I thought to myself or even said to others that they should overcome their anxiety in this or that way were terribly misguided. I thought that anxiety was the same as nervousness, or the little spark in your tummy when you are excited or happy (just a negative version of it), that those were synonyms, that anxiety was just overthinking or worrying which could be overcome with the right change of pace or attitude.
The biggest revelation to me was that anxiety is mostly a physical symptom, not a thought or an attitude/idea.
Thank you and bless you for sharing.
People often seem to conflate "having chronic anxiety" with "being anxious" and cannot understand that they are not the same thing.