I just wonder if it actually did get worse or it just seems like that because as an adult you have a lot more on your plate than you did when you were a kid/teen
I was also diagnosed late in life (mid 40s).
For me it became a significant impact in two places in my life:
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as my roles changed and I needed more ability to handle “blank page” type work assignments as I became more senior, rather than “survive this chaos” which I’ve always excelled at (given my ability to drop something, pick up something else, then revert later.) With previous “chaos surfing” roles, my now diagnosed ADHD was actually a secret super power (seriously, I managed turn ADHD into a career). As my roles became more “take this blank page, and figure out what to do, and make it into a project to make stuff better” I fell off a performance cliff.
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as 1 happened, my ramp up of symptom management routines started to impact my family. (I didn’t actually realise this until my partner filled in her part of my diagnosis questionnaire. )
My Doc basically told me I had been doing everything they want ADHD patients to do to manage the impacts of their symptoms, but my level of challenge had reached a point where medication could help me live at an effort level below the 99.99% constant I had all the time.
He was right and it did…
Blank page work…that’s a good way to put it. In grad school writing a thesis and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever, ever done with my adhd. And I used to do Stem Cell and Neurobiology! The lack of a deadline which I used to pressure myself in undergrad and no protocols to follow to a T, man…
I just got through grad school and had a similar experience with my capstone project. I had all semester to work on it, but didn’t get started until a week before it was due. I had to take the last day off of work just to binge write my paper.
So glad that’s over with … 😅
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No.
It’s just that adult life is less forgiving of ADHD symptoms.
As a kid they give you more of a pass because you’re a kid, they just assume kids get distracted, consumed by social life issues, or just “teen issues”. Maybe you fail one assignment but you pull a win off later that keeps your head above water thanks to averaging grades.
Now you move into a highly structured adult life where there’s far less forgiveness for failure to accomplish things by deadlines. Adult life doesn’t average your failure to pay bills or accomplish work your boss told you to do.
So yeah, ADHD is more stressful as an adult because there’s less forgiveness, less wiggle room.
JMO.
