Post #1 - We all know how easy it is to spend 15 minutes scrolling on social media (and then there is timeblindness) - Lets create a list of more enjoyable or productive things we could be doing instead.... When tempation strikes, lets go to our "instead list" and do one of these things instead. I'll start - 🐕 A quick Boogie with the Dog 📞A Quick phone chat with a friend 💃Ten minute Tango - of Tidy UP What's your go to... What's on your instead list....

The absence or near-absence of voluntary mental imagery. Aphantasic people think in concepts, not pictures Where many people can picture a friend’s face or imagine a beach, an aphantasic mind thinks in concepts, words, facts, or spatial awareness rather than visual pictures. Many aphantasic people only realize their experience differs when they learn that others actually “see” images in their minds, and that phrases like “picture this” aren’t always metaphorical. Hearing that for the first time can be both disorienting and clarifying. Research suggests the most meaningful difference may be emotional, not cognitive. Mental imagery seems to amplify emotional responses to imagined scenarios, so without it, people often process fear, empathy, and memory in their own way. Creativity itself does not appear to be affected. Aphantasia can be present from birth or acquired through brain injury, trauma, or neurological change. Some researchers have noted possible overlap with autism and ADHD though that connection is still being explored.

I just wrote something to a lovely lady who is new on here and my words hit hard as I don’t follow it myself and I really should Start afresh, forget the feelings of “bad, useless, stupid etc” and move forward. You cant change the past but you can change your future.

For a long time, if you had asked me how I was feeling in the moment, I would have frozen. I could talk about ideas, theories, other people’s emotions, even write a long essay about my inner world, but in real time, I often had no words for what was happening inside me. This showed up most starkly in therapy. I’ve spent years sitting across from well‑meaning therapists asking, “How are you feeling right now?” or “Where do you feel that in your body?”and feeling a sudden surge of irritation and shame. The same thing happens with friendly check‑ins from family or the casual “How are you?” that most people seem to answer on autopilot. Few questions stump me as quickly, or make me feel as incompetent, as that simple one. I now know that this isn’t “being bad at feelings” or resisting the work. It’s alexithymia: a very common trait among Autistic and ADHD people where emotional and body signals show up more like static than a clear radio station. The signals are there, but the translation layer is foggier. In this article, we’ll explore what alexithymia is, why it’s so common for Autistic and ADHD people, and how it can shape everything from therapy to day‑to‑day life. What Is Alexithymia? Alexithymia literally means “without words for emotion.” It’s a term coined in the early 1970s by psychiatrist Peter Sifneos to describe people who struggled to notice and put words to their internal emotional states. Alexithymia itself is not a formal medical diagnosis. It’s usually described as a trait — a fairly stable pattern in how a person takes in and works with emotional information. Like most traits, it exists on a spectrum from mild to more pronounced. At its core, alexithymia is about having a hard time noticing and naming emotions. People with alexithymia often struggle to tell the difference between an emotion and a body sensation: is this anxiety or low blood sugar, sadness or fatigue, fear or just too much coffee.

Ok I think I have opened a can of worms. I have been looking at things you can have with ADHD, I will post these separately so it’s easier to read and you may recognise these in yourself.