Some of y'all have seen this already, but I thought I would share again for the folks that missed it as it seems to be resonating!

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What has helped me deal with my ADHD the most was recognising and accepting the following:

I am not a person, I am three raccoons stacked on top of each other in a trench coat pretending to be a person.

To accomplish anything, I have to align the raccoons; when I can't accomplish things, I look at my raccoons and see who needs a bit of coaxing. Each raccoon has its own specific needs, and if the raccoon's needs aren't met they go haring off to do Things - straight out of alignment.

Meet your raccoons

We all have three raccoons, and each raccoon has different needs.

At the bottom of the stack, we have Body Raccoon.

Body Raccoon is the raccoon that has to be comfortable.

Body Raccoon needs to be fed, or Body Raccoon goes hunting for racc snacks. Body Raccoon has to be watered, or Body Raccoon stumbles around in a dehydrated headache-y daze. 

Body Raccoon has to stretch or roll around on a tennis ball to get knots out, or Body Raccoon hunches up in a miserable little ball howling about back pain. Body Raccoon has to go to bed at a reasonable time, or Body Raccoon slouches around all day in a tired sulk. 

Body Raccoon has to have clothes that feel nice and are suited to the activity of the day. Body Raccoon hates things that are itchy, or scratchy, or too tight. Body Raccoon also needs to be at the right temperature. Body Raccoon doesn't like to be too hot or too cold, and can’t stand feeling sticky, grimy, or any other horrible sensation that makes it really, really hard to focus on what you're doing.

If Body Raccoon is out of alignment, because Body Raccoon is the base raccoon, everything else just kind of falls apart. The big issue with Body Raccoon is that when Body Raccoon is out of sorts, it's really hard to do the basic care tasks that make it easier to do other things, but we have to do those basic care tasks to make Body Raccoon feel better.

Body Raccoon has a lot of physical needs but kind of just wants them fulfilled and to be left alone. Body Raccoon doesn't like to have to think about things. Body Raccoon is not great at executive functioning, but needs executive functioning to be happy and healthy. 

The next raccoon is the middle raccoon, Heart Raccoon.

Heart Raccoon needs to feel safe and secure.

Heart Raccoon is the core of who we are as three raccoons pretending to be people. Heart Raccoon is the raccoon of our emotions and can get out of sorts very easily.

Heart Raccoon is a sweet, sensitive, gentle little soul. Heart Raccoon is very anxious and needs a lot of positive self-talk. Heart raccoon loves a self-help book.

Heart Raccoon has a hard job - stuck in between the other two raccoons, Heart Raccoon has to hold everything together! But even though Heart Raccoon works hard, Heart Raccoon is very childlike and needs to be cuddled, babied, and loved.

Heart Raccoon has a lot of emotional needs that have to be fulfilled through conscious attention. It can be really easy for us to neglect heart raccoon because we're so busy paying attention to all the sensations Body Raccoon experiences and the thoughts Head Raccoon (you’ll meet Head Raccoon in a second!) thinks and everything going on around us that we forget there's another little raccoon in there doing their level best to keep us together and feeling all of the things all of the time.

Finally we get to the third raccoon, Head Raccoon.

Head Raccoon is probably the hardest raccoon to align.

Head Raccoon goes a thousand miles a minute. Head Raccoon is very easily distracted.

Head Raccoon wants to do a hundred things at once and wants them all done yesterday.

Head Raccoon is like a rambunctious puppy. Head Raccoon wants to get into things and is fun, creative, and curious, but can also be a little bit out of control.

Head raccoon hates boundaries but thrives on boundaries, so we have to trick head raccoon into following boundaries. Head raccoon is really clever, but can be corralled through puzzles, games, and lists.

We have to take different approaches to dealing with all of our raccoons to make sure they’re happy, healthy, and secure. I’ll pop my tips for dealing with your raccoons on here as I write them up, but before that there’s one more thing I should mention.

The most important thing is to be kind to our raccoons.

They're crafty and sneaky and occasionally a little bit feral, but they're also cute and cuddly and they're just going through life in the way that feels natural to them. It isn't their fault when they're not aligned and it isn't their fault when they're not functioning like humans, because they aren't humans: they're just three little raccoons. They probably need a snack, a hug, and a nap.

If you saw an injured raccoon flailing around in pain and misery, even if you had a deadline looming, dirty dishes in the sink, laundry on the floor, or other tasks you were supposed to be doing that day, what would you do?

• Would you shout at the raccoon to do better?
• Would you tell it to fix its own problems?
• Would you ignore it or say ‘you can wait until I'm done’?
• Or would you (do not try this with real raccoons, cuddling real raccoons is very very dangerous) pick the raccoon up, give it a hug, say ‘that's okay, we'll deal with the dishes in a minute’, and make sure the raccoon had the treatment that it needed to be okay?

Remember: you are the raccoons and you need to be kind to your raccoons.

Don't expect yourself to behave like a person. You are three raccoons in a trench coat, pretending to be a person. Treat yourself the way you would treat the raccoons.

I’m 40 and still feel girlish and much younger energy and vibes than my NT peers. I feel like a lot of my ND friend are similar. What are y’all’s experiences? I know I’m legit old now. I think it took into my mid to late 30s to think “woman”. My sister is 31 and we joke about that with her too. She bought a clothing item recently and we call it her “woman” clothes cause it’s sort of mature looking.

Just to add to the absurdity, I also have 2 kids (one is an adult now), a house, a masters degree, my own private practice and have lost both parents… so by all accounts, I should feel like a woman by now!

I've seen so many posts about how exercising helps with ADHD, my doctors tell me how good it is, BUT it feels like pulling teeth to even motivate myself to go for a walk. I want the endorphins, I want to be healthier, but it feels impossible to leave the house or exercise at home. I know I'm probably in the minority here but I'd love some advice on how to motivate myself. Kind advice only pls I am fragile 🥺

EDIT: omg thank you all so much for sharing your tips!!! I will go through these once I'm finished with work but I appreciate all of you so much.

Cross-posting because the neurodivergence piece is one of the parts I’m struggling with most. I have ADHD, and I’m particularly interested in hearing from other ADHD/neurodivergent women who have had emotional reactivity, rejection sensitivity, or interpersonal experiences interpreted as BPD—or who were evaluated for both and can speak to how clinicians differentiated them.

Throwaway account for anonymity purposes. I (34F) recently discovered F60.3 — Borderline Personality Disorder on a treatment plan in my patient portal after seeing the same female therapist (40s) long-term.

I was shocked, blindsided, confused, and honestly felt deeply betrayed. BPD had never been discussed with me—not as a possibility, not when the diagnosis was entered, and not afterward. When I confronted her about it, I learned that it had actually been in my medical record for more than a year without my knowledge.

I’m also a therapist, so I knew what the code meant. I pulled up the DSM criteria and started researching BPD extensively—criteria, clinical presentation, differential diagnosis, etc. The more I read, the less sense it made.

I genuinely could not identify even one of the nine criteria as describing me, let alone the five required for diagnosis. The broader descriptions of BPD didn’t resonate either. I went through the criteria with a couple of people who know me extremely well because I wanted to challenge my own perspective and see if I was missing something. They couldn’t identify these patterns either.

Obviously, I can’t objectively diagnose or rule out a diagnosis in myself. But having essentially zero recognition of myself in the disorder made me want to understand how someone who had known me therapeutically for so long had reached such a dramatically different formulation.

So at my next appointment, I asked what assessment she had done, which five criteria she believed I met, and what specifically supported them.

She told me she had been considering BPD for years and emphasized how much thought she had put into it. The five criteria she identified were 1, 2, 6, 7, and 8.

#1 — Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment: She referenced several important relationships and concerns I’d had about maintaining connection. When I repeatedly asked what actual frantic efforts I had made to prevent abandonment, I didn’t receive a concrete behavioral example. Her explanation centered around my concern with “staying connected or not staying connected.” I don’t dispute caring deeply about relationships or grieving their loss; I don’t understand how that establishes frantic efforts to avoid abandonment.

#2 — Unstable/intense relationships involving idealization and devaluation: She referenced “black and white thinking” and, as an example, that I viewed one parent negatively and the other positively. She also referenced a period of conflict in a long-term romantic relationship that ultimately resolved. I asked for an example of me alternating between idealizing and devaluing the same person, because that’s the pattern described by the criterion. I didn’t receive one.

#6 — Affective instability: Her concrete example was an occasion when something valuable was stolen from me and I remained upset about it for a few hours. I don’t deny being emotional or sometimes reacting strongly to upsetting events. My confusion was how an emotional reaction to an objectively upsetting event established a pervasive pattern of marked affective instability.

#7 — Chronic feelings of emptiness: She said I had “expressed emptiness” before. I told her directly that I don’t experience chronic emptiness and asked what I’d said or done that led her to that conclusion. She couldn’t give me an example during the conversation and said she’d have to go through my file. This particularly bothered me because emptiness is an internal subjective experience, and I don’t remember ever being directly asked about it.

#8 — Inappropriate/intense anger or difficulty controlling anger: The example she gave during our discussion was my anger and intensity during that very conversation about discovering the diagnosis. No other example supporting #8 was provided. That felt incredibly circular: I was angry about unexpectedly discovering a personality-disorder diagnosis that had been in my record for more than a year, and my anger about disputing it was then being interpreted as evidence of BPD. It also obviously couldn’t have been the original evidence for the diagnosis because the diagnosis predated this conversation by more than a year.

And honestly, the assessment process may bother me even more than her interpretation of the criteria.

She told me she’d been considering BPD for years, yet I don’t remember ever being specifically assessed for these experiences. No BPD-specific structured/semi-structured interview or quantitative measure. No conversation saying, “I’m wondering about BPD and want to explore these patterns with you.”

If you’re considering a personality disorder for years while regularly sitting across from the person, why wouldn’t you directly ask about the criteria you’re unsure about?

When I questioned this, she told me that our regular biopsychosocial assessments (yearly intake sessions) and her ongoing assessment during ordinary therapy were sufficient.

I’m also neurodivergent, which makes the differential-diagnosis piece particularly important to me. There can be overlap between neurodivergent presentations and features that may be interpreted as BPD, particularly around emotional regulation/reactivity and interpersonal experiences. I’m sure she saw my emotionality over the years. I don’t dispute the emotionality; I question how she determined what it represented.

I’m not saying neurodivergence rules out BPD. It doesn’t. I’m saying overlapping presentations make careful differential assessment more important. When I specifically asked how neurodivergence and other differential explanations had been considered, I didn’t feel I received a clear explanation.

I also looked at the American Psychiatric Association’s current BPD practice guideline afterward. It recommends a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation, including assessment of core personality-disorder features and common co-occurring disorders, and suggests incorporating a quantitative measure of symptoms and impairment. The APA also recommends collaboratively discussing the diagnosis and treatment with the patient and providing psychoeducation about BPD.

That comprehensive psychiatric assessment simply never happened, and that collaborative diagnostic conversation simply never happened.

What added to the betrayal was her explanation for why we’d never discussed it. She repeatedly apologized for how I found out and talked about how patient portals are changing what patients see and how historically many people wouldn’t necessarily see or understand their diagnostic codes.

But I wasn’t primarily upset about how I found out.

Why wasn’t I told at all?

This diagnosis had been in my medical record for more than a year. Had I not encountered it myself, I genuinely don’t know when—or whether—I would have learned about it.

There’s also a bigger piece of anger for me here. There is a long history of women’s emotionality and neurodivergence being misunderstood or pathologized, and I’m angry at feeling like I’ve now had a personality-disorder label wrongly placed on me without those possibilities being adequately differentiated. Coming from a female therapist I had trusted for a long time adds another layer of betrayal.

And to be clear, I’m not saying BPD is an insult or that there’s anything shameful about having it. I’m saying that after extensive research, reflection, examining my history, talking with people close to me, and finally hearing my therapist’s evidence, I still do not believe I meet the diagnostic criteria for BPD.

I’m not angry because I refused to consider the possibility. I did consider it seriously. The more closely I examined it, the less sense it made.

She ultimately stood by the diagnosis and didn’t believe further assessment was necessary. I decided I couldn’t continue the therapeutic relationship and am now pursuing the process available to formally dispute/amend the diagnosis in my record.

Mostly, though, I’m still processing the rupture. I trusted this person for a long time. I feel shocked, confused, betrayed, and angry that she developed such a major formulation of me, put it into my medical record, and never included me in a conversation that could have clarified whether it was actually accurate.

Has anyone else discovered a significant diagnosis in their record that their therapist never discussed with them?

And for other clinicians—does this assessment/disclosure process strike you as typical for diagnosing a personality disorder? Personally, I would have never given a diagnosis like BPD without more targeted assessment than just regular talk therapy, based on whatever the client wanted to speak about that day.

TLDR: Longtime therapist secretly diagnosed me with BPD > I discovered it over a year later > I can’t recognize even 1/9 criteria > asked her for the five > her examples seemed not to establish the actual criteria > learned she never specifically assessed these things despite considering it for years > she stood by it > I terminated.

I recently read that ADHD qualifies you for a free lifetime pubic lands pass. I don't recall where I read it but I went to Grand Teton and Yellowstone this week. When I got to the window to pay I asked if he had any info on the pass as I had heard that ADHD now qualified you. Homie asked to see my ID, had me read a paragraph and then handed over a 100% lifetime public lands pass. This includes all national parks, forest service sites, BLM, army of engineers corps, and fish and wild life sites. Having ADHD sucks ass most days. Go get you your LIFETIME pass friends.

A friend sent me 30 ADHD memes.

Then she laid out her case about why she thinks I'm slightly autistic as well. (convo was TOTALLY welcome btw, 0% offended and it was on topic for a philosophy related thing we had been discussing).

I'm... questioning it now. I'm by no means like someone on love on the spectrum. And, my ADHD is severe. I'd expect if I have autism, it would be mild.

I'm kind of blown away. A lot of her argument rested on how autism and ADHD are both conditions that present differently for men and women.

I struggle socially especially with women. Most of my friends are autisitic men. I'm highly logical, gifted in math when I was young. I'm an "optimizer" in severak ways. Sometimes I do learn social skills by rote.

There's a lot of overlap with ADHD that I thought was just ADHD. sensory stuff and the noise canceling headphones mainly.

But frankly... Idk most of friends argument rested on how much I agreed with memes posted by AuDHD women on a Facebook group (she's autistic and a few other things). I think that's an interesting indicator but not proof.

What helped you know (diagnosis aside... because even if I'm convinced I'm AuDHD, I won't have time to get diagnosed for at least 6+ months. New job)...

So yeah what helped you know that it was AuDHD and not just ADHD? I'm on the fence and just looking for self education resources or personal acedotes to see if I relate.

I (40, f) wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was 35. All the signs were there my entire life. I joked about having ADHD. I’m not stupid (though I struggle to believe this on a daily basis and it’s getting worse) but my grades suggested I was. My parents had every sign but being boomers, they didn’t think to do anything about it. Instead, they told me to stop being lazy. They met with teachers and then yelled at me for not trying. They never said “hmm…WHY is she this way?” Instead they just shamed me. I apologize but if you’re still reading, this will be very long. After two weeks at their house, my entire body is radiating with nerves.

I’m married and live about 1500 miles away from my hometown where my parents and almost my entire extended family still live. I’m an only child. My mother has OCPD. This was recently diagnosed by MY therapist. My mother has never seen one but she should have. Again, as a boomer, mental health isn’t real. It’s just imagined by people who like to be “drama” as she calls it.

Her obsession with perfection is almost hard to describe. All I can do is give examples. Finger prints are evil. She puts her hand into her shirt to open the fridge because she doesn’t want to get finger prints on the handle. If you must roll down your car window (and why would you do such a thing?) you have to roll it down all the way. Otherwise there could be a water line left on it. Crumbs will get you the silent treatment. I have to vacuum the bathroom after I do my hair. And I’m fairly certain she redoes it after I leave the house. One time she said not to worry, she would do it, and then she came downstairs and lint rolled her socks in case any hair was on them. There’s a certain way to lie clothes in the washer. There’s a certain way to walk up the stairs to avoid wearing the carpet down too much in one area. These are just a few examples I’ve experienced during this trip. If you asked me to recount everything from my life of memories of this, we’d be here all night.

Needless to say, growing up in her house was tough. My dad was not naturally an anxious or particularly particular person. He’s become one out of necessity and the need for survival. He picks up crumbs on the table with his finger after he eats. He arranges things just so. He’s not the same guy he was when I was young.

All that to say…being neurodivergent with no coping skills, being terribly, horribly sensitive, and being raised by someone like my mother set me up for a bad time. My parents are also emotionally immature. That’s putting it lightly. There’s no talking to my dad. My mom can’t handle anything at all. It’s just hard. Very, very hard.

I’m leaving to head back home tomorrow and the anxiety in my body is so strong that while I love being back in my hometown for a couple weeks every summer, I get so tense that my body just needs to leave.

Now as an adult, I still have no coping skills. My rejection sensitive dysphoria is raging and I feel like a complete idiot all the time; just waiting to be told I’m doing something wrong at work. I’m struggling hard. I have a therapist I like but I feel like I’m spiraling. I don’t even know what I’m looking for with this post. Maybe just someone to say they understand.

No judgment because I don’t remember at all. My reusable bags sit in the cupboard and I forget them. I try to make a plan to remember them by placing them on the counter where I can see them but I still forget them. I’m kind of okay with it because I reuse the plastic bags they give me as trash can liners and kitty poop bags.

I guess my disability will be the sole reason for climate change. Sorry, guys! 🙃

I moved to a new town with my boyfriend a year ago and it’s rural and I don’t know anyone here. It was my friends birthday and I went and hung out with her and a few other of her friends. I drove almost 2 hours each way and was fighting anxiety about hanging out with people completely sober which is very new for me.

Ultimately I had fun and my friend seemed very happy which I love. I came home to my boyfriend scowling at me and looking disgruntled eating a frozen pizza like it was trash.

He asked me about what happened with the cats in a very condescending tone ( I was supposed to take two cats to the vet but could only get one and didn’t want to be late so I just took the one) he seemed really angry about it even though it was a vaccine apt so not like they are sick and it was a real problem.

He asked me if I could clean tomorrow and I said yes. He showered and came barreling out of the bathroom and lectured me like a child bc my hair was on the shower wall. I went in expecting I forgot to clean a lot of hair but it was about 4 small pieces.

I was like where is it? Thinking I was missing something, and he pointed aggressively to the hairs and almost hit my head while doing so.

I was upset and asked him if he could use a kinder tone when asking me to do something. Then tried to speak to him and he said “I’m not speaking to you since I can’t say anything right” and went to bed and I went to sleep in the other room.

I was so upset I couldn’t sleep until around 3 am and feel horrible today. There’s a lot more but am I being over sensitive? He acts perfectly fine when there’s other people around so it’s hard to get anyone’s opinion. I feel like I’m going crazy. I try so hard to be clean and clean and cook but it never seems to be good enough. He always find something to lecture me about. I just wish some one was here to witness this and tell me if it’s me or this is wrong

Sometimes I avoid even trying a new thing or hobby that I think I may like because I'm so scared that it will become boring to me eventually and therefore it's not worth the time, money, or effort. Its so disheartening.

I have ADHD I’ve just realized how much it is affecting my relationship but I’m so overwhelmed with all the information and steps to take and seeing where I need to work on things while keeping up with everything else and being in this parent/ child dynamic with my partner.

I generally keep up with house tasks because I managed to learn to cope with these things in the past.m, but emotionally It’s like I’m swimming against the current all the time. Every moment feels like I’m overthinking trying to be present and not people please but somehow still be truthful and not be afraid. It’s hard cause I’ve emotionally abandoned them so many times not being in the moment or understanding what they need. It has gone on so long my emotions are on 100 the moment I look at my partner.

I’ve been meditating and practicing grounding but there’s so much resentment from both of us (mostly from them and understandably so) that I feel I have to execute the change in behavior now. My hypervigilence is through the roof and when an overwhelming situation comes or they try to tell me how they are feeling I still somehow abandon them. Now they’ve gone full parent mode with constant suggestions of how I should do things or say things and I know they’re trying to help but it’s only overwhelming me more and making it harder to break the child mode I’m in.

We are going to go to therapy but I know it’s still my responsibility to treat my adhd I just don’t know where to start when it feels like every second of every day is a test I don’t understand until someone explains it in the moment. I have individual therapy but it just doesn’t feel structured enough.

Any advice anyone?

As if the ADHD brain wasn’t enough, I’m interrupted every two minutes. Literally. Maybe even every minute.

I can’t finish a fcking thought.

So done.

EDIT: Can’t believe I have to say this, but I see the downvote ratio lol. I LOVE MY DAUGHTER GUYS. Loving your child doesn’t automatically mean loving motherhood 🙄

I just picked up my very first prescription for ADHD medicationthis afternoonr. LAte diagnosed 41F here, struggling currently with a lot of stress at work and the kiddos start school again Monday!

I was given generic Vyvanse filled with the Lannett brand. Was supposed to start it last weekend but with insurance/approval/no communication being what it is in the US, i will likely start it this Saturday. I'm so anxious about it! Also doesn't help that i'm expecting my period sometime next week, so currently in the oh so nice PMS phase.

These alst couple weeks ive been reading so many posts here and on the ADHD Meds sub as well; and well my brain is doing that fun ADHD thing where it spirals into every worst-case scenario. I’m scared of feeling overly jittery, getting a bad crash, or somehow "feeling fake" or totally losing my personality.
One of the struggles that affects my family the most is my difficulty with emotional regualtion, and i'm scared of the crash and having zero spoons left for my kids.

I know everyone’s body chemistry is different, but reading a few real-world experiences would help ground me a lot right now. Please share any first-timer tricks, things you wish you'd known, or just a funny meme to get my brain distracted.

Every week, we see multiple posts that go something like this

“My bf/husband is so sweet and so nice to me, but he told me to stop being a junky and refuse taking meds even though they’re prescribed by a professional with infinite knowledge and the drug went under years and years of testing and drug development”

Can we fucking stop validating these sc*mbags with a civilized discussion? Aren’t you (ADHD women) already sick of the treatment you’ve been denied in your life and the freedom that you don’t get that (ADHD) men get easily? The freedom that allows them to act however they want, not feel societal pressure to force any behavioral changes, then come and preach their dumb beliefs on us?

STOP IT! Stop validating men’s disregard to our life experiences and our need for help!

I’ve been needing to get this off my chest. Sorry

I see posts all the time from people who did exceedingly well in school who turned out to have adhd. I can’t be the only person here who didn’t have that experience, right? Did anyone else do pretty bad? Did anyone else lose literally all their papers and worksheets and always turned in a wrinkled paper because it was stuck in the bottom of your backpack? Did anyone else have the daily experience of, oh wait we had homework? Up until a certain point, maybe late high school or into college, I felt like even if I lost all their busy work I’d still do well on the tests just from intuitive knowledge on the subject or educated guesses. Did anyone else fail a class? Did anyone else have a low gpa? Was anyone else definitely NOT “gifted”? None of this really matters now because I’m an adult but I’m so curious. I feel like I only see posts about the opposite of my experience. I assume because doing poorly in class and not paying attention is the stereotype of adhd children, understandable people would want to spread awareness about the opposite side of things. But damn was anyone else struggling and not seeing any payoff for their entire childhood?