As a former mod of r/adhd, I can assure you that each decision made was due to problems either on the sub or on the associated chat room. r/ADHD was supposed to be a support group and information location whereas r/adhdmemes was for the shitposting and memes. The problem appears to be that over time, more and more rules and issues cropped up and rules for temporary situations were never revisited. You will probably find that this is a more welcoming environment to begin with and then will slowly become more and more like r/adhd as problems occur.
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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ADHD
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A casual community for people with ADHD
Values:
Acceptance, Openness, Understanding, Equality, Reciprocity.
Rules:
- No abusive, derogatory, or offensive post/comments.
- No porn, gore, spam, or advertisements allowed.
- Do not request for donations.
- Do not link to other social media or paywalled content.
- Do not gatekeep or diagnose.
- Mark NSFW content accordingly.
- No racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, or ageism.
- Respectful venting, including dealing with oppressive neurotypical culture, is okay.
- Discussing other neurological problems like autism, anxiety, ptsd, and brain injury are allowed.
- Discussions regarding medication are allowed as long as you are describing your own situation and not telling others what to do (only qualified medical practitioners can prescribe medication).
Encouraged:
- Funny memes.
- Welcoming and accepting attitudes.
- Questions on confusing situations.
- Seeking and sharing support.
- Engagement in our values.
Relevant Lemmy communities:
lemmy.world/c/adhd will happily promote other ND communities as long as said communities demonstrate that they share our values.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I imagine it can get very hard to be caring and fair when dealing with a massive group of ND people. I loved r/ADHD, and I understand why so many of those rules were necessary.
Hey guys. This is a safe place which so far has required zero mod actions. Feel free to post about anything ADHD related. I don't mind what words you want to use or if you self diagnose. Some no-no's: Don't tell others what meds they should take. But feel free to discuss your own meds. No suicide threats, we won't do as good a job here as your local help line, and if you're at that point, you need more help than an open forum.
Try keep it positive but thats not a rule just encouragement.
I love this response
May I ask what was so awful about it? (So we can help avoid the same outcome)
Due to my terrible memory it's hard for me to remember/give specific examples unfortunately I just remember that any time I tried to post something asking about ADHD it was either auto-modded and never posted or never approved by the mods of the subreddit despite never being against any of their rules.
From my experience it's an incredibly shut-down sub-reddit that enforces too many strict rules onto a community of people who don't do well in restrictive communities like that.
Oh they also heavily enforced just putting your content into their megathreads rather than allowing you to post your own thread. Despite them allowing other people posting similar content to create their own threads.
I remember it being very negative in that most posts that you'd see just scrolling through it were complains along the lines of "ADHD is the worst" and "just been fired for the fifth time" and it wasn't until my husband noted that he had heard it being a terrible sub that I realised the atmosphere was purposely that way. They discouraged self-diagnosis to the extend that seemed unhelpful, even though it could be argued that how can someone seek a diagnosis if they don't first self-diagnose? And generally seemed to consider ADHD as a curse or a disability, regardless of whether and individual would feel that way. They were openly against neurodivergence as a term:
"We consider the neurodiversity paradigm to be harmful to people with ADHD, both directly in terms of its stated goals and indirectly via constant attempts to silence us for disagreeing with them."
Yep the subreddit was so depressing all the time, and they also hated the term "neurodivergent" which I mean I don't know, let people identify the way they want to? I like queer for me in terms of my sexuality, but some don't like it, I don't like it/its as a pronoun, but I'm not gonna stop someone identifying that way.
And it's not like subs can't be a place to vent, because hey, sometimes ADHD does suck. But also the fact that it was constant depressive posts, or "my doctor doesn't believe in ADHD" or "my relative is stealing my meds". And it's just like... yeah so depressing. And like I see ADHD as a disability, because it is, but yeah... it's just... a sub to be helpful for those with ADHD, sure fuckin' hates those with ADHD.
Yeah it's not like I'd want people to feel bad for having negative feelings about their ADHD, but it might be more helpful to channel those feelings to a more positive change rather than wallowing in it. Had the sub been named r/ADHDvent I don't think people would've been so annoyed but I've heard it was difficult to post anything positive as it would get deleted under the rule of "no toxic positivity".
ADHD is such a personal thing as well it should be up to the individual to define their feelings on it. Currently I don't like to consider mine a disability mostly due to feelings of being an imposter and having one therapist suggest it may be more of a trauma related thing, but I think that should be my right to define how I feel about my ADHD and how it affects my life since it's a question of my experiences. For someone else it will affect them a lot more and they'll struggle a lot more.
Yeah I think if there was a venting place it wouldn't be so bad. And again, like not saying that ADHD is all sunshine and rainbows. But iunno dude, I just want to see how people make their ADHD work for them, or what apps they use, or whatever.
Like yes toxic positivity is a real issue, but there's a difference between "hey I finally made my bed!" And toxic positivity. Then there's also my own gripes of it being too American for me, but that's mostly because my local ADHD sub was pretty dead tbh.
Yeah and in fairness it can be easier to find something to complain about than come up with positive or even neutral topics but I found most interesting conversations to be about small things I didn't think could be linked to ADHD.
Also that's true, if it's all Americans it's hard to find out what it's like to get a diagnosis in another country or what meds are being prescribed etc.
I found that subreddit really depressing too, so I only occasionally popped in and out. In theory, an online support group is great, but compared to an in-person (or structured online) support group (discussion led by moderator, meets maybe once a week, etc), it was just too heavy to read daily. I honestly don’t know how you make it better, though, especially once a sub grows reaches a certain size.
I joined the discord for a bit and it was really good. But the main sub was something else.
how can someone seek a diagnosis if they don't first self-diagnose?
That's the problem I had there. I've been waiting on an official diagnosis for almost 3 years now, but I certainly do tick all the boxes for having it, to the point I'm like 99% certain I do. But I've always been made to feel like I shouldn't be posting there or claiming I have ADHD until I can get the official verdict.
Which is especially weird considering the recent news regarding private ADHD clinics and whether it's too easy to get a diagnosis privately in the UK. Similarly I have a diagnosis for ASD from Finland but have had a therapist say she didn't think I was autistic, so if I can't then discuss that in a very large and popular subreddit where should I go. It all seems rather silly.
Interesting. Thanks for the info!
So I heard bad things too about the reddit adhd sub but haven't seen any problems here. I'm not diagnosed but working on trying to get assessed but everyone so far seems supportive. For me I'm just looking for answers and having these communities with or without diagnosis has been helpful.
Reading posts that we can all identify with and getting advice and support should be what these groups should be about. Its been helpful at least to me. We have a hard enough time as it is. Hope you stick around and feel comfortable posting. Welcome.
I hope so. My experience thus far between Kbin and Mastodon are very positive. ADHD, ASD, etc. seem to be more common, therefore better understood and accepted.
Everyone is different and struggles differently, but hey. Hopefully you find some friendly faces here ^^
Sorry I'm not familiar with Kbin or Mastodon.. I just joined lemmy after I saw what happened to /r/piracy (reddit admins forcibly bringing it back online and putting their own mod in charge)
I had a horrible experience with /r/ADHD when trying to communicate with people in the community while I was going through my diagnosis and sought refuge at /r/ADHDmemes instead and there were a lot of people posting there about how terrible /r/ADHD was.
Hopefully I do! It's a very similar but different experience so far and Reddit has been so ingrained into my memory for years now it'll be a difficult change.
Ah, just realized you’re on Lemmy. No worries! Basically, there’s a few different sites that are all talking the same “language”. So while you’re on lemmy.world, I’m on kbin.social, but we both can see the same posts and talk to each other.
I had a similar experience with Reddit trying to find support from the community there. ADHD sucks, and while having a positive attitude is good… sometimes you’re tired of being positive and want to just talk about what’s frustrating.
I’ve used the jump from Reddit to just… approach it more honestly. Everyone is pretty new to this mode of operation. Be you, be transparent, be kind. I’ve felt better speaking up here than I ever did on Reddit. Best of luck!
Oh thank you for the explanation. I literally just moved from Reddit so I have next to no idea how this works. I had no idea it was different sites communicating with each other. It'll definitely taking some getting used to.
I have never had an issue with r/adhd. For the most part, the community there was kind, caring, accepting and helpful. I was actually hoping this community would be just like r/adhd...
Something I want to make an example of with this comment:
The previous person states their frustration of the subreddit. What value does your comment bring to their situation? Does it help address the problem?
When I post about an issue online and someone says "no problem here," that doesn't help solve the problem.
Sorry. Didn’t realize gatekeeping was a thing here. Have fun with that.
People for sure where hyperfixated on the term "neurodivergency" back on the old sub. I don't understand why they thought ND means the same as anti-therapy.
Ohh yes. I lost that community because of the mods there. And I was looking for another adhd community that fit my needs. Didn't find any and I was a little concerned that the mods from there are the ones modding this place as well.
So far so welcoming/supportive. 👍