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Yeah. I feel like it never bothered me when younger (he’s “gifted and mature”) but you get screwed later on when you have a 8-5 office job where you sit and stare for 9 hours. I can’t focus on boring useless stuff like that. Unfortunately, the alternative is destroy your body doing manual labor to keep moving around. Plus. You make a lot more money sitting and staring at a screen. So just keep it bottled up and pretend you know what you’re doing and don’t feel like going nuts!
This is kinda why I ended up as a manufacturing engineer. It’s technical, well paid, and doesn’t require hard physical labor. But I’m constantly “putting out fires” and going to some forgotten corner of the factory to figure out what broke. “Oops sorry I skipped the meeting - the production line was stopped!” Neurotypicals view this chaos as stressful, but it’s the only way I can flow through the day without hating my job.
Lucked out big time.
You want me to pay bills? On time? Best I can do is rack up late fees.
Set auto payments for all the things!
Oh, my workaround for that is easy, just develop lifelong crippling anxiety and still forget about 10% of them anyways!
It definitely got less hyperactive and more fogbrain, as I like to call it.
Accurate. My wife’s got worse. It went in to bloody overdive when perimenopause started.
Mrs. Warp Core is also going through this very thing. Basically the wild hormone swings hit her hard, right in the executive function. ADHD meds helped, but ultimately weren’t enough. HRT has helped tremendously. That said, we’re now terrified to roll off of that.
Do you mind telling me what age she was? My wife is suffering severely with mental health but will not see a psychiatrist. I suspect perimenopause. She does see a therapist.
It started in the late 40’s, which is on the early side.
My wife is suffering severely with mental health but will not see a psychiatrist. I suspect perimenopause. She does see a therapist.
I’m very sorry to hear that; I can appreciate that the struggle for you both has to be very, very real. It’s a raw deal and it’s hard to manage. I wish you both the very best on this.
What I can share is that finding a good Gyno was instrumental in all this. We went through several practices before we found one that was sympathetic to what was going on. to my complete shock and horror, some seemed far more interested in treating reproduction and reproductive health issues than aging and quality-of-life1. Your town might be different than mine, but I suggest that you both be prepared to move around a bit if you can’t get support right away. You might find that doctors that are LGBTQ+ friendly as more willing and better equipped to handle this kind of thing.
- I really need someone with an educated background in women’s issues to make exact sense of this beyond “this isn’t right/fair”. I’m way out of my element.
I don’t have the ADHD. I am the ADHD.
Made this for ya while procrastinating
I was picturing that exact thing in my head but didn’t get around to making it. Thank you.
We’re all reading this while procrastinating
Maybe YOU are…
(and also so am I:-)
I’m reading this and zoning out
I read this while not paying attention to an anime intro.
Hey, I don’t actually have any responsibilities right now! Except planning my lessons for next week, but I’ve got time. I guess I could also do the dishes or hang the laundry or email my advisor about my thesis topic…
Well shit.
Now listen here…next time you wanna come for me, at least send me a comfortable ride, lol.
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Because it was wildly under diagnosed in many places until recently, and if you weren’t a white boy you were a lot less likely to be correctly diagnosed.
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If we look at the timeline of ADHD research, we can see that there was a lot studies about it in the 80s, and even more in 90s, so it kinda makes sense that there would be more ADHD detected in the population when the general understanding of it improved.
Also DSM IV was published in 94, and refined the diagnostic criteria for ADHD https://www.cdc.gov/adhd/media/pdfs/ADHDTimeline.pdf
That was the pop culture take on it, that doesn’t mean that’s what the evidence shows.
Because a lot of people don’t have access to mental health resources, or even medical ones, and are struggling with the pressures of navigating a life setup for type A brains with a type B brain. They know “something” is off, and find symptoms match up with ADHD.
My adult appointment for testing/evaluation was nearly 2 grand. I met my annual deductible in a month because of it. I’m fortunate enough to be middle class, so I could afford it, but I can’t imagine someone making a lower end of middle class income just being able to drop that kind of money like that.
My provider that tested both of my kids stopped taking insurance for tests, so they wanted me to pay 13000 dollars for spectrum testing, I found a different provider and I still have to get lined up with a test but they’ve already started my adhd symptoms right away. It has been so nice after 34ish years of just coping
Bcz people don’t actually understand that ADHD is a debilitating condition that I wouldnt wish on my worst enemy. (I don’t have any enemies tho bcz I’m an adult :P)
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Ritalin is a nightmare drug, so no.
It’s true that, for people who don’t have ADHD, the meds used to treat it can be misused for ‘recreational purposes’. For people with ADHD however, is not a party drug. Infact, it has the opposite effect’s (generally).
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I think
Ah there you have the root cause
Every person with ADHD I have met has related heavily to my struggles with simply staying on my prescribed medication, you should reevaluate what you think you know about the disorder because you seem really ignorant.
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lol the ODD explains it all.
Bye bye now
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Don’t be surprised when this kind of response is met with hostility.
I mean, read the room.
You got that backwards.
Without looking it up, I believe the DSM says that diagnosis requires three out of five indicators. That would suggest that many people can get one or two indicators. Social media (specifically short form like twitter, instagram, and TikTok) has measurable negative impact on attention spans, while also propagating a narrative of colloquial symptoms.
“Whee look at me being neurodivergent!” - golly, I do that too! Maybe I’m ADHD.
For what it’s worth, I have both ADHD and mild autism. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. I’m saying that the diagnosis is devalued by “oh i do that too, I’m also a little bit adhd”.
I self diagnosed before getting my formal diagnosis from a doctor. I was a hard yes to like 30 of the 32 signs of adult ADHD in Driven to Distraction.
At some point it’s kinda a relief to realize that other people are going through the same stuff as you, and start therapy and treatment that are actually catered to your needs since you’ve already tried a million other things and nothing has worked.
And yeah everybody struggles with executive function and attention sometimes. But like, we all bleed when we’re cut, doesn’t mean haemophilia is fake.
Man it got worse in ways i didn’t think possible.
So convinced i understood myself and i actually masterminded my soul into stagnation…
…but a hand come out of the mud
Of course it got worse, I have to work now
Most people tend to develop coping mechanisms that help them pass as non-ADHD individuals, by lowering their standards for what they can achieve in life and by accepting the abnormally high amounts of stress that hiding their ADHD causes them.
Psychologists call this “growing out of ADHD”.
Took me getting fired from one job and almost a second before I finally got my coping mechanisms figured out. It’s still a struggle and it’s also cost me a significant amount of my ability to enjoy my free time (have to severely limit my investment in anything not work related so I don’t accidentally get consumed by it and lapse at work), but I’m ‘functional’ now.
It’s still a struggle and it’s also cost me a significant amount of my ability to enjoy my free time (have to severely limit my investment in anything not work related so I don’t accidentally get consumed by it and lapse at work)
This path leads to burnout. I have no practical advice since we are kind of required to put work first in order to survive. But the fact that it’s socially acceptable to call this “living” makes me sick to my stomach.
Yup. Currently on my 4th burnout that’s lasted 3 yrs and counting (previous 3 were 1 yr each).
I just don’t have it in me to buck up and try to work again. :/
The problem is that responsibilities seem to grow faster than I can create coping mechanisms…
You’ve got “management” written all over you. I hope you like meetings!
Heading for the top, that’s me. Of an office building or psychiatric ward, remains to be seen.
To be fair, ADHD is a developmental disorder that sometimes can present as delayed development rather than halted development. I.e being behind in executive functioning development but eventually “catching up” to peers.
That said, the severity of cases is still often determined through the lens of “how well do they fit in/mask it” and not “how is their emotional/mental wellbeing”, which definitely gives the impression of kids “growing out of it”.
Well, minds are difficult, patterns are easy.
Not all doctors are going to do it the hard way, same as not all people (encompassing all professions) do it the hard way.
“Gifted child, if only they’d apply themselves”, turns into “Average adult, not always reliable and my god have you seen their <thing we ignore because we don’t have the bandwidth> but usually gets things done.”
Well, guess they need to be diagnosed for LBD (Low Bandwidth Disorder).
And then start berating everyone who doesn’t care about the small stuff, instead of letting them say that we are “overreacting”, just because we realise that, under different conditions, ignoring some of that stuff could cause bigger problems.
They don’t necessarily lower their standards. Sometimes, they simply “pay” by other means.
The officially changed it in my country to be an syndrome diagnosable in adults as well the very year I turned 18. I’m not saying it HAS to be because of me, but yeah.
Doctor leaves appointment with Droggelbecher
“Get the Chancellor on the phone immediately.”
what they mean by that is, “thank god they learned to mask the problem so they stop inconveniencing us”
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Your experience isn’t everyone’s experience, and judging people who struggle more helps no one. I was medicated as a teenager, grew out of it, then suddenly got whacked over the head by it coming back in my late twenties. Medication has helped, and I’ve learned a lot of tricks to manage it, but the fact that I have to work twice as hard or more to do basic things that other people do without thinking means it clearly is a disability. I’m also autistic and I feel far more disabled by my ADHD than my autism.
Have you considered the possibility that you don’t have ADHD or that your symptoms are on the very mild side? You clearly have no understanding of executive dysfunction.
Never formally diagnosed lol.
Nothing you said is helpful to anyone with this condition, regardless if you have it or not. Please take your organizers and calendars and reminders and bootstraps and kindly post elsewhere.
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Meditate on why you have that impulse and ask if you can control it or it controls you.
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Don’t cut yourself on that edge.
It’s not that we think we have zero responsibility or whatever - it’s that, as you described, we put in a lot of effort to find coping mechanisms and management strategies, and then people like this cut-rate psych point to the results of that effort and say ‘See, it’s gone!’ It’s not gone, you dingbat, we have to manage it and it takes a lot of work, and maybe it would be nice - just once - to get some recognition for all that work we’re doing rather than pretending the problem doesn’t exist any more.
I am not diagnosed either and I too have managed my life somewhat okayish so far because I have some really good people around me, but at the same time I know A LOT of ADHDers irl and they are all very different both when it comes to severity of their symptoms and what types of symptoms they have.
What is somewhat manageable to me is impossible to others and what others are able to do, I am unable to myself.
I know high functioning ADHDers and I know severe cases where their symptoms are so bad, even when on medication, that they will never be able to function in society.
If I may compare, you and I may be partially blind. It is definitely enough to affect us in our daily lives. At least it is for me. But we are able to manage and somewhat navigate the world and we can still see shapes and colors, just very out of focus.
What you’re essentially doing with your post is asking someone who was born without eyes to see as well as you do. “Just get some glasses. It worked for me.”
But they are blind, bro. They don’t have eyes. Both of you are blind, but blindness is on a spectrum, just like ADHD is.
I never considered that what I was dealing with could be ADHD because the ADHDers I had known up until that point were the severe cases and they never got any better. Some of them didn’t try at all while others really did their best and yet they still failed constantly.
I’m relatively good at hiding my failings so people don’t notice unless they are paying attention. But I still fail almost daily despite having tried all types of organizing systems, scolding myself into getting my shit together and establishing this and that routine. I always fail. I keep trying, but I will never be able to get good at having structure in my life no matter how much I want it. I can see shapes and colors, but I cannot read you that sign over there. No matter how much I try, I just can’t.
I don’t think the ADHD necessarily gets worse, it’s more often that the consequences get worse.
I.e. the intensity of the disorder relative to a given set of stimuli doesn’t increase, but the average significance of the stimuli (and consequently the outcome of one’s reaction to them) does increase.
You could argue that’s a meaningless distinction, but perhaps it’s a helpful change in perspective for someone.
That’s a valid point. Although I’d add that, as you get older, it’s not only the significance of the stimuli that increases, but the overall levels of stimuli increases. More responsibilities, more burdens, more stress, and less likely to be given any concessions due to being young.
No, it gets worse. Adults don’t have the amount of mental plasticity that younger people have. While it’s possible to make things easier through CBT and learning to cope and deal with certain challenges. The mental load of keeping up with daily life ultimately has its toll. Life is getting harder every year for everyone, and having ADHD makes that mental load just that much harder.
Realistically, it’s utterly dependent on one’s life situation.
When you’re in school, your main focus is trying to get through school, get home, and not get hassled about keeping up with yourself and your things.
Later on, some jobs, are congruent or even complimentary with symptoms, some jobs aren’t. Some partners help compensate, some don’t.
It absolutely will get worse for some, better for others. Some may have consequences that are an issue, some may have circumstances that defuse the consequences.
Turns out that people don’t “grow out of” physiological differences in how their prefrontal cortex forms. Who would have thought?! /s
Hmm I’m sure it’s personal for each but me I feel like I didn’t outgrow it. More like I overcame it.
“Psychologist” just means they were able to complete a degree program at all, C’s get degrees
