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?
I mean he literally said “Habits are things they automatically do, without thinking. They don’t have to decide to do them.”
That’s not true, everybody has to think about whether they’re going to start some activity or not, muscle memory helps with e.g. driving so you don’t need to think about how much to press the pedal or turn the wheel when driving, but you still have to think about where you’re going (though I guess that can be relatively automatic by itself if it’s somewhere where you regularly go).
What I’m guessing might be a difference is that for other people it’s easier to start the activity itself because they feel an urge to do it, like they’re doing something bad if they don’t or that they feel their teeth being dirty if they don’t brush them.
I think that a key difference between a habit vs not might be that when it’s a habit, the decision you’re thinking about when planning your course of action is less “whether to do the thing” but more “whether not to do the thing”. For example if you’re in the habit of eating regular meals, the question is “should I skip/postpone dinner”, but if you’re not then the question is “should I make dinner”. Sure, you have as much choice as you have in any other thing, but your default course is different.
Crucially (I think) that while the questions technically result in the same outcomes, they can engage different values: for example ‘should I make dinner’ feels like it goes first to how much effort you feels like expending, while ‘should I skip dinner’ feels more like it starts with how much time you have.
This particular post isn’t very… polite toward neurotypical people.
Like you say, there’s a key difference between “making a behavior into the default” and “consistently managing to do something.”
But I think we can both understand that this is likely to offend the neurotypical folks wandering onto this page. Especially because we’re all pretty new to Lemmy (NTs and NDs alike) and I can guarantee you most of us still don’t know where to find the “block community” button on the sidebar. Meaning they literally don’t know how to avoid this kind of content popping up on their “all” and “local” feeds.
To put this in real-life terms, this lemmit is like an ADHD support group… but there’s a young, inexperienced sommelier standing outside on the street offering free pizza and beer to random strangers saying, “come on in! This place is bumping!”
… and then, the neurotypical people he has invited in (along with neurodivergents and everything in between), after sitting down in a circle with the rest of us – not sure why there’s no disco lights or dance music – proceed to immediately receive complaints about how much easier their life is than ours.
It wouldn’t feel great being in their shoes right now.