Murdoc Addams 🧛🏻 🇨🇦

I just had an idea that I want to run by the neurodivergent community as a possible way that some of us might be able to help each other. I have no idea if anyone would be interested in trying it, or even if it would work, so I want to know what others think.

If you want, you can skip down to "The Idea" below, or you can bare with me for a tiny bit of background first for some context.

So like many of us I have executive function issues. For me, when I get a new interest, I hyperfocus on it for a couple of weeks or months, and then I stop. Not because I lose interest in it, it's more like running out of gas while still on the road: you really want to keep going, but the damn thing just won't move. This is not really a problem for most of my interests, but for certain projects, it can leave them unfinished, which really frustrates me.

So far the only thing that I've found that can give me energy to continue a project is engagement. If I can find someone to talk to about it, that helps. If they talk with me about it, that helps more. If they actually work with me on the project (assuming that it's the kind of project that someone can help with), that helps the most. The trouble of course has been finding people who are also interested in the same thing(s), thus this pretty much never happens for me.

But now I recall some people in the autistic/ND community saying that they actually like listening to other people info-dump about their special interest(s). So this got me thinking...

The Idea:

Basically this shares some traits with body doubling and mutual aid. If someone like me needs engagement to work on a project (or maybe even just share an interest for the sake of some social contact), and someone else would be interested in helping out this way, the second person would be like their interest-buddy (hopefully a better name will be found). Kind of like how some people help others by body-doubling, except this will be with talking or maybe even participating instead of presence. And like body doubling, it can be a one time thing, an ongoing arrangement of some kind, whatever the two (or more?) people agree on. But unlike body doubling, it can be done (well more easily anyway) over the internet. Social media posts, DMs, chats, voice, whatever. Of course discovery would an issue, but no different than for body doubling or mutual aid, so I'll leave that issue.

So how about it? Is there any merit to this? Any use? Any interest? (And I mean in general, not just for me.)

#ActuallyAutistic @autistics@fedigroups.social #ActuallyADHD #neurodivergent #AuDHD #ADHD

So tomorrow is the big day that I've been... anticipating... for months now: my first appointment with a psychiatrist. And yeah, I'm a bit nervous. First of all, what kind will they be: a nice, caring person who actually listens and is well informed about and supportive of neurodiversity? Or an old-school, manipulative elitist who likes having control over people and may have more control over my life than I want them to? How much self advocacy am I going to have to do? (Of course I've been madly scripting since I got the appointment.) And how much of that will do any good?

And then there is the possibility that, thanks to a misunderstanding with another doctor, that this one will likely think that I am there to get a diagnosis for autism and adhd. But really what I want is someone to talk to about my situation, goals, and options, like how to navigate the system and whether a diagnosis would benefit me more than any potential drawbacks. I worry that when told this that they will get angry and tell me that I just wasted their time (typical RSD). (sigh) I guess we'll just have to wait and see. 😬

#ActuallyAutistic @autistics@fedigroups.social #ActuallyADHD #AuDHD

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