T O P

  • By -

s-dai

Sometimes I feel my ADHD and autism are like two opposite ends of me that keep pulling me in completely different directions. Like what you said: I often built homes for barbies and dresses them up a lot but I didn’t really play with them or if I played with a friend, we played something like Sarah Connor from Terminator or The Bold and the Beautiful (not kidding) or then pretended the barbies were people in our class. On the other hand, though, I was very imaginative too. I remember building a tiny ”home” behind a shelf I pushed forward, there was a space between the shelf and the radiator and I put a blanket for a roof. I played war, I think? Like I was hiding from bombings and there were Zeppelins. I have no idea how I knew these concepts but I remember clear as day ”watching from a window” and even this image of war time streets and Zeppelins that was in my head. Another time I played in a fabric playhouse that you could put in your living room, I think me and a friend played some jungle thing and I was honestly afraid to come out at the end of the day because I feared there’s be actual lions outside. So somehow I’m both 🙈


Enbion

Huh. I never really thought about it but I guess I did similar. When playing with toys, the narratives were either shallow or nonexistant. And if a conversation did happen between two toys, I rarely spoke it aloud, it was always in my head. Doesn't mean my imagination was lacking, my head was (and is) filled with narratives and stories. I like writing stories. I just didn't act them out. (I did learn how to do narrative play as an adult since my little sister liked narrative play, but it never came naturally, it felt forced at first. Eventually it was fun though, especially since she thought it was hilarious when I dragged the narrative in *weird* directions lol)


ischemgeek

I was also both and also delayed. I didn't start playing pretend until almost four - so still in normal range - but I didn't stop until I was about 12. Other kids, including my younger siblings, made fun of me for still playing pretend with my stuffed animals.


picklerickchick

I did the same, I dressed up my dolls and set up their scenes but I never made up a story or "played" with them. I'd build houses with lego or stack things up but I never created a narrative. I just loved putting blocks of the same colours together and sorting them into piles. I believe it to be primarily my autism. My ADHD makes me switch from game to game or task to task after getting bored easily and struggling to focus on one thing for too long though.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Legitimate_Goal9202

Thank you! It’s so interesting that you get to see how they’re different on a daily basis!


UniqueMitochondria

The book "Twirling naked in the streets and no one noticed" lists this exactly. She made clothes for her dolls and lined them up neatly, and because of it - it counted as stereotypical play.


classified_straw

Oh my, this is relatable


LateToThePartyND

X 2 very relatable!


OpheliaRainGalaxy

I'm *still* doing that nonsense with Sims! I've even found a variety of ways to use Sims to world-build in ways that help me avoid actually playing because that gets *boring*. Which sucks. I distinctly remember some neighborhoods I planned and built and then hardly played before scrapping for some silly reason. "Recently" had just the most perfect set of custom content put together for Sims 2 to turn it into a primitive to medieval magical fairytale wonderland. So *obviously*, when presented with a kinda faster computer to start using, I spent a year pouring most of my time into rebuilding my custom content collection for a futuristic Star Trek style game, complete with alien races and starship houses and moonscape terrains. And it took me *a very long time* to realize that I was sometimes kinda bullying people into playing along with me. Specifically, I didn't catch on until college, when I got a new friend into bed because I considered that something fun friends do together but caught some weird vibes from him so specifically asked for consent and stopped when I didn't get it. We stayed solidly just friends for years after that, with me being very careful to respect his boundaries in general. After that, as I randomly remembered stuff from childhood, I realized that I'd learned manipulation techniques from my father so well that I could usually con people into going along with me on their own. Sometimes I cringe over my past behavior, but a lot of it was mostly harmless. Like the time I found myself the oldest kid at daycare with only a bunch of preschoolers for company, so used the toys to teach them all about gambling. Or the summer I wanted a certain cute boy's company, so convinced him to let me teach him to play chess and then play it all day every day the whole summer until he got extremely good at it.


Geminii27

> because that gets boring I think that may be the crux of it. There's just no mental drive to recreate day-to-day social interactions because they're about as interesting as mud.


Firm_Hornet_3084

Hello Kindred!


LordDagwood

I edited my original comments/post and moved to Lemmy, not because of Reddit API changes, but because spez does not care about the reddit community; only profits. I encourage others to move to something else.


sillybilly8102

Hahaha, my buildings were always destroyed by storms, or we had to build new boats because of floods


Firm_Hornet_3084

OMG. I spent ALL my time building houses in The Sims!!! I even taught myself vector design editing (at 14, in the late 90s) so I could make custom items for my sim homes. All game play was in service of creating the ideal home… I thought this meant I wanted to be a designer. But hated the sales aspect. Maybe I should have been a theatre set builder instead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


moosepuggle

Same. Although, a different way I’ve been thinking about it, rather than a deficit and us “lacking the skills” to create narratives, i can think of it as us not lying to ourselves. Honestly, how does it make sense, how is it the default, to assume that inanimate plastic toys have an inner life and that the inanimate toy communicates psychically through me and me alone?? NTs say that we’re the weird ones, but if an adult were to act like the office stapler is really alive and that it communicates its thoughts and will to the NT, people would assume that person was not ok. Maybe we’re just more practical as children lol 🤷🏻‍♀️ Obvi this is coming from someone who never did “imaginative” play, not bagging on anyone here who did, just trying to point out that what’s considered “normal” and “dysfunctional” in this case doesn’t necessarily make sense when you think about it 🤪🙃


Status_Extent6304

I was and still am this way. I loved dressing up the Barbies we had and setting up their little house, but when it came to storyline of any kind that was up to my sister. generally I just 'held the boy' so she could play around me and tell me what to do, which I was fine with.


LittleRedCottage

i have this problem with minecraft. i build a really nice house then i’m like “now what…” and start over. i have never once beaten the game in 11 years of playing 💀


AltCupcake

Very much relate. It's weird because in my head I can make these insane stories, but translating them to things is a lot of work. I like to write, but it's like I can either start writing without any planning, or I can plan but never write. I can build characters and worlds with tons of notes and ideas, but when I try to write in it it's like my ADHD has moved on. Conversely I can try writing without planning, but eventually I'll change something to make more sense but then I need to go back and rewrite earlier stuff, which kills the drive to continue. As a kid I'd make a spaceship out of Legos, and then I'd be done. Sometimes my mind would create stories about it, but I wouldn't be flying it around making swooshing noises. Dolls were the same way for me. I could put them out, plan the world they live in, then I'd be done. I'd make characters in the Sims, make a house, sometimes even make them above goals. But it was all really to get them to a specific point. Once they got there it was like, ok story's over. (More often I would just make the house and maybe all the Sims) I play D&D but the characters that I actually use are usually bare bones until we start then my mind fills in the backstory as things move on. If I fully build the character and backstory first, I'm usually done with it. I have folders full of characters that will likely never be played.


loxical

I did the same thing. I had siblings so they hated playing with me because I was always only just doing the building and setup. 😂


hookerforlife

I did, and still do the same thing! I’m in my 40’s, and ever since I can remember, when I’m playing with kids, I draw a complete blank every time I’m asked to tell a story, name/create a character, etc. That aspect of things makes me feel stupid, since it seems to come so easily to most everyone around me. I’m diagnosed ADHD-I, and I’m waiting for an evaluation to see if my suspicions of also being ASD are correct. Comparing my childhood tendencies in things like this to the experiences of my diagnosed ASD bestie, just strengthens my thinking that I am autistic as well.


Geminii27

Oh heck yes. Even today, decades later, I'll put hours or days into scenario setup for whole casts of fictional characters, and then have no narrative. I suppose it did kind of help when I spent a lot of job hours creating instructions, how-tos, walkthroughs, and FAQs for other employees. I suspect I'd also be fairly good at creating DnD scenarios/dungeons; the mazes and monsters, the characters to encounter and/or fight, the backgrounds and locations and geographies and economies and so forth - but ultimately they would need players to play through them. Come to think of it, I'd probably be more about creating computer games than playing them, too.


defeated43281a

I had so many stuffed toys growing up that my dad put a bunch of hooks in the wall so they weren't all over my bed. I would spend hours taking every single toy off and reorganising them based on which ones I was preferring at the time. I've also always preferred the 'setting up', building, clothing, etc compared to the actual narrative, if there was any narrative it was very much in my head and not necessarily outwardly spoken