Santana Lopez Has Adhd (part 1)

santana lopez has adhd (part 1)

^the adhd lesbian flag^

(*disclaimer: i have adhd myself and work in education/educational psychology, which is the basis of this post in which i get wayyyyy too analytical about a fictional character; however, i'm not a psychiatrist or doctor and am not qualified to diagnose real people with adhd or anything else ... seriously, our only representation is cis white boys whose adhd is an explanation for them being the class clown and treated as a joke so please don't get salty at me for claiming a fictional character that isn't a cis white boy as part of the adhd gang)

(credit to @dojasrivera on twitter for making the og adhd!santana thread; i unfortunately wasn't able to see it as i only found out about it after their original twitter account got suspended but there may be some overlap between their thread and this post)

this ended up being really long and tumblr cut me off so there is going to be a part 2

impulsiveness - let's get this one out of the way first since this is obviously really central to santana's character; she has a tendency to just kind of say whatever she thinks in the moment without thinking about the consequence and it often gets her into trouble.  she also just does random shit like try to get into a physical altercation with lauren zizes who is in the wrestling team, and later move into kurt and rachel's apartment completely out of the blue and go through their stuff for some bizarre reason (which is funny in a tv context but also like ... santana wtf don't go through their stuff).

difficulty initiating and maintaining friendships - santana has maybe 2 secure close friendships throughout the series (brittany and mercedes) and even then there are some complications; brittany because they're in love with each other, and even mercedes competed with santana over puck (ew) but that was resolved by the end of the episode.  all of santana's other female friendships (except tina but they're not really all that close and even they have a one-sided feud in season 4 where surprisingly santana is the unbothered one) appear to be sources of stress and anxiety for her because they revolve around competing (see her storyline with rachel from 5x09-5x13).  it's also established that santana is close friends with quinn throughout the series (even if they have a tendency to compete with each other) but santana says in 5x10 that quinn doesn't live too far away from her and yet she never makes the effort to see her, even though they ended their senior year relatively amicably.  she's way more forgiving of other people than she's given credit for, but she just craves acceptance and friendship from this bunch of misfits so much and is really insecure about whether or not she has it.

rejection sensitive dysphoria - this could literally describe like 90% of her interactions with people (mostly people that aren't brittany).  the entire pezberry feud is essentially santana experiencing rsd around her friendship (or lack thereof) with rachel and then doubling down on rachel's expectations of her to save face.  another example is in 2x20 when kurt wins prom queen and santana's immediate first thought is "everyone hates me".  this post from themostrandomfandom suggests that santana has an anxious attachment type.  even in some of her interactions with brittany, she's anxious about their relationship and needs reassurance ("you didn't say you love me back" in 2x18, "are we dating or what" in 3x04).

disorganisation - santana's bedroom (see 2x15 and 4x04) and locker (see the scene in 3x22 with her mom) are both literal disaster zones, and according to brittany, her car would qualify her to be on "whoreders" (honestly same)

difficulty with time management (chronic lateness) - "i like to make an entrance" aka she lost track of time and knew she was going to be late so she planned it (credit: @smolbrittana on instagram)

emotional reactivity and difficulty with emotional regulation - santana has very visceral reactions to all emotions, positive and negative (see this post by themostrandomfandom) (see this post by drshebloggo); she's very easily affected by external stimuli (e.g. the scene in 1x03 when she gets her tanning privileges revoked).  she feels her emotions really intensely and it takes her a long time to calm down.  she has rage (and of course i'm obligated to include this awesome compilation by literallylebanese).  in the hurt locker scene (2x15), santana articulates really well that she has so many big feelings that she doesn't know what to do with so the only thing she can do about them is lash out at other people. it's also worth noting that santana is extremely defensive and reactive in her social interactions with others; she's very rarely the one to "shoot first" (for lack of a better term) and a lot of her lashing out against her peers (i.e. getting revenge on finn/quinn in 2x12, her interactions with rory in 3x04/3x06, most of her interactions with rachel in 5x09-5x12, her monologue to kurt in 6x03) are in response to perceived wrongdoing/criticism/rejection (i'm not justifying these but context and motivation matters). she also has really visceral reactions to positive emotions; her whole face just instantly lights up when brittany smiles at her or touches her or someone compliments her.

poor financial management skills - homegirl literally blew half of her college fund on post-breakup retail therapy (maribel lopez seriously i love you but why would you just hand this child a cheque if you knew she was getting a scholarship)

impulsiveness around romantic relationships - u-haul lesbian jokes aside, santana moves very fast with dani, calling dani her girlfriend within like 5 seconds of meeting her, it's unclear when she and dani officially break up (my headcanon is that things went somewhat sour after dani voted to kick santana and rachel out of pamela lansbury, especially based on what we know about santana and her feelings of anxiety around real and/or perceived rejection, but i guess we'll never know). it's possible that dani may have been a hyperfixation.

poor adult interactions/distrust in authority - homegirl has this in spades; her abuela literally threatens to beat her up with a chair and tried to sell her once, and sue mistreats all the cheerleaders on a regular basis. even will schuester who she says she likes kicks her out of glee club, refuses to defend her and pushes for her to get suspended after the finn incident (as does shelby corcoran), and shames her for reporting his subpar teaching, so that's educational trauma on top of that and she has a tendency to challenge them, mr schuester especially.

compulsive fidgeting - often has a nail file or one of brittany's funky pens, also often fidgets with her hands when she's nervous - mostly around her britt-britt (see also)

extroverted introvert - santana is simultaneously brash and outspoken while also being bashful and socially awkward (see her interactions in 5x02 with dani)

(part 2)