I first want to point out I really do appreciate the slowdown mode for injecting mindfulness. But is it possible to at least allow editing one’s own posts?
ADHD often leads to a lot of bad typos, missing words and grammar issues, or worst inaccuracies. Most ADHD people I know will edit a post several times before being satisfied with it. I consider the ability to edit my own posts an adhd accommodation. When I don’t have that ability on slow mode I will literally lose two hours of my day hyper fixating on all of the flaws of a post I could have taken care of in 5-10 minutes. I can’t focus on anything else. Just a thought or some feedback.
The other thing we tend do is post thoughts in quick succession. And I know that is against forum policy and for good reason. But it is how our dynamic cognitive functions seem to be wired, heh.
Anyway, I want to add here, because I can foresee people making this argument, that no, I can’t just edit my posts 10 times before hitting the send/reply button in the first place. I wish I could… seriously! but my tunnel vision and hyperfocus and impulsivity prevents me from remembering to do that basically until I send it (basically consider it a difficulty in shifting gears. The send/reply button is the moment my gear shifts and then I start slowing down and re-reading what I wrote). This has been an issue my whole life with the internet. Talking to other adhd folks, I know I am not alone in this. And I know I am not alone in considering the ability to edit one’s own posts a disability accommodation.
I once raised a thread asking whether mindfulness/meditation was ableist or not (in the sense that it is projecting neurotypical expectations on neurodivergent folks—and whether we can find hints in the EBTs of the Buddha offering teachings geared towards neurodivergent disciples to find less ableist ways to teach these ideas). It was a dumpster fire of a thread. But this is precisely the issue with why slowdown mode is difficult for us. Mindfulness is extra slippery for us. Slowdown mode doesn’t encourage mindfulness in my own writing/post, it just encourages me to have regrets/frustrations at being unable to fix what I had said (remember one of the “symptoms” of adhd is impulsivity. The reply button is beyond my control!). The mindfulness for me comes with my ability to sit with what I had said and tweak it.
I don’t have much to say about the idea of accomodations. I’m not confident enough to ever ask for them so I don’t even know which ones would serve me. But I must say it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who struggles to get posts right on the first try. I really like the simile of the ADHD mind being like a train and the non-adhd mind being like a bus. Both are great modes of transportation, but being a train in a world made for buses can be hard. You can’t just not press the send button in the same way that a train can’t just stop or switch directions at a moment’s notice.
In any case, I commend you for advocating for your needs. It’s great to see that.
Asking for accommodations is never easy. The amount of anxiety I have right now to see these two posts potentially backfire into another dumpster fire is really really rough. So thank you for adding your voice here!
Speaking of which, I am still hyperfixated on this singular typo where I wrote in instead of on (or vice versa) in the thread that prompted this post and currently can’t edit b/c of slowdown mode. It’s been an hour. I have stepped outside for some breaths, I have been pacing around. But I can’t let go that I want to edit that typo.
I have a few requests for this specific thread (and any future threads by adhd people discussing adhd issues) for the mods.
please do not turn on slowdown mode in this thread that is about us! If people start posting ableist stuff (and turning this into a dumpster fire), slow THEM down with the flags and deletions and all of that. But please let us have a space where we can act like ourselves when we are discussing ourselves.
in posts about adhd, in the spirit of letting us act like ourselves, let us post several posts in rapid succession. In other threads I make a whole lot of effort to restrain myself, despite it going against how I am wired. It would be nice to not have to worry about that at least when we are discussing adhd and adhd issues. Let this be a thread where our mode of communication is respected. We don’t get that often.
this was an issue in the original thread where I brought up adhd: people denying the existence of adhd. This is ableist. Please flag and delete those comments if those come up.
and since we are on the topic of accommodations in this forum for adhd. I would like mods to take a look at this old thread where I brought up adhd. The mod’s whole “this is not a place for therapeutic advice, please talk to a professional” was very condescending. It was supposed to be a theoretical thread of sharing a neurodivergent POV and an invitation to look at suttas from said POV. I was not seeking meditation or therapeutic advice… I was seeking to explore the concept of neurodiversity in the suttas. That thread led me to leaving this forum for a couple of years (I have brought this up to @sujato 8 months ago and he was willing to revisit the issues brought up in that thread, but I chickened out because it IS a difficult conversation, so tagging you to let you know, I am finally bringing these issues up ) . ADHD and meditation - #38 by Ulriquinho
Yeah, I can imagine the feeling. It’s even worse with email because then you can’t edit. But you can send a panicked correction and then another message to apologize for over-explaining yourself. And then apologize for sending 4 emails when it could’ve been 1… And then speedwalk to the other side of town and back to ground yourself
Hopefully people will be nice. Asking for accomodations is hard indeed. There’s always that little nagging voice at the back of your head that says “if you just tried harder, you’d be fine. everyone else can do it, you’re not that different” etc. So well done for powering through.
I suspect slow mode is as much for easing the lives of mods as it is to keep people from spam raging on a sensitive topic. I get why they do it. This is part of why I am proposing a compromise to at least just allow post-edits. But yeah, I am not a huge fan of slow mode period, heh.
Thanks for highlighting these issues, and I’m sure the mods will check it out and consider your concerns.
If there is anything we can do to make your life a bit easier, let us know!
Discourse as a platform gives quite a lot of customizations, but it occurs to me that these are general concerns and other platform users are likely to experience them as well. It might be worth asking over at meta.discourse.net if there are any recommendations, or to see whether some adjustments to the UI might be in order. The discussions there tend to be very specific and technical so it would be good to make any inquiry as specialized as possible, eg. “Some ADHD users find slowdown mode stressful, is there a way to alleviate this?” Do you think this would be a good idea?
This appears to be a setting that has to be changed in a config file, so @musiko would need to help the @moderators change it. Unfortunately it appears to be a site wide setting, so it doesn’t allow for much fine tuning. Although my take from this conversation is that the wish is to have it be site wide.
Personally I’m in favour of allowing editing in slow mode. I don’t believe the potential disadvantage of people editing posts outweighs the advantage of letting all of us tweak our posts. I’d say that it can even be more important to be able to fix posts on “hot” threads. As the discussion on the meta.discourse.org forum indicates, if people abuse the edit feature then they just need to be banned.
I 100% agree with this. There have been several times where a minor mistake in a post on an already controversial thread further escalated the situation. Allowing edits should help reduce the mod burden by allowing users to self-moderate.
I would also add that sometimes emotions are running a little high and a few tweaks to change the tone is very important in those instances as well. Besides missing words and grammar, I am often also editing for tone.
Thank you all for your valuable input. There is always a fine line between accommodating personal requests for change and considering the effects on overall health of the discussions such changes might entail.
In light of this premise
I’m enabling the capability to edit posts in slow mode (with the same constraints that apply to regular topics) in hope that everyone on this forum will please remember that moderators are also members of this forum, who voluntarely take on this role as a service to this community in addition to their regular duties in life, so please try and make their jobs as easy as possible.
Indeed. And I wanted to say that after I re-read my “just ban them” comment I realized that although banning might just be a click of a button, it probably involves a lot of emotional labour.
Nah at this point we covered the most of it. And thank you for your support!
Or perhaps there is the subject of cleaning up that original thread of ableist comments and re-opening it? So many interesting questions to explore, that even this thread brings up in the first place? Like are vinaya expectations on “communicating mindfully” neurotypical expectations? Is mindfulness positioned as a “cure” (if you read all of the adhd deniers in that thread, they absolutely think a little yoga and meditation is the “answer”) or does mindfulness simply look different with an adhd brain? Like that bus metaphor and what mindfulness looks like for buses versus cars!
Or are monastic schedule expectations difficult/problematic given the adhd/night owl link (there is some evidence that we might biologically be wired or predisposed to being night owls and there are theories about evolutionary advantages to have groups wired/keyed in to be hyper alert and vigilant AND awake at night… and this might be the origins of adhd)? Can an arhat still have an adhd or autistic brain or are those inherently incompatible and requires neuroplasticity to “fix” us… (which I would find problematic). What does an adhd arhat look like? I mean I am not saying we have to turn the entire monastic life upside down or get rid of teachings of mindfulness. Just questions I really wish we could have explored in that thread before it got shutdown by people derailing it!
) . 
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