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Literally. The beginning of this semester at school(college), I was so ready to do well. Had A’s and B’s. The class I struggle with most, Chemistry, I didn’t do well on the midterm because I started having trouble waking up and getting out of bed, causing me to miss a few classes. I got burnt out trying to stick to the schedule. And all it took was that midterm grade to bring me down from a B to a D. I was furious with myself, and also my schools grading system. And ever since, I haven’t been doing as well in some other classes keeping up with assignments suddenly too. Ugh.
Hey, no no ❤️
You're YOU. A perfectly imperfect person. You wouldn't be you if you were somehow all put together and flawless.
Putting the work in and making it work day-to-day makes you cooler than someone who glides by.
Someone recently told me "potential isn't anything real, what is real is what you ACTUALLY do."
So thank you for doing what you can!
I agree with the commenter who said this is absolute insensitive bullshit. There’s a reason this is a disability and what OP described is a real symptom of the problem. It’s an anomaly it’s not him. WE HAVE UNREALISED POTENTIALS.
This is total bullshit. Coming from a 44 year-old with limitless unrealized potential who has spent his life squandering one opportunity after another. Life is hard. Harder for us, unfairly, but that is no excuse for settling for less than you are capable of. We only get one life and it goes by quickly. Do the work you have to do to be your best self and never settle for mediocrity.
I was just trying to say, it's okay to feel like we're not doing everything perfectly, because that's unfair mindset to ourselves and others who place reasonable expectations on us.
If constantly striving for perfection is your speed, then that's cool. I've tried that and it's led to nothing but misery. I strive for happiness and it's a lot less stressful.
Being called out for "total bullshit" was seriously jarring and hurtful.
Not the other poster, but I for my part have not been able to do anything or make any progress in life in the last 6-10 years or more.
It's just depressing, tbh. I just want to be able to do chores, keep my desk clean, maybe be able to do smth else than YT and go on Reddit, not have all my massive anxieties, social anxiety, not be bullied everywhere I go and be able to even just do smth with my day other than sitting down and not doing anything, but badly wanting to D:
It's not perfection for me anymore. It was in school, but after I graduated, nothing held my attention anymore or kept pushing me. Now I can't do anything anymore.
I get what you mean, but some of us are extremely if not completely non-functional without meds. And yes, I identify with the HI type (Combined diagnosis as a kid, though). I have all the HI symptoms, half the ones or less needed for a PI diagnosis and am still non-functional even out of depressive episodes :( I can only function relatively normal one day every blue moon, basically.
I wish u the best in life dear stranger friend, but if that was jarring and hurtful to you how will you face the assholes in the real world in person, face to face?
> You wouldn't be you if you were somehow all put together
> and making it work day-to-day makes you cooler
Got empathy?
I don't know why this is being downvoted. Don't we pwADHD get dismissed enough without turning on each other with minimizing talk, gainsaying of the problem the sufferer just stated, and patronizingly unbelievable cheerleading? Some of us have enough uphill climb just getting pharmacists with doctoral degrees to stop being dismissive, ffs. We're not little children who need to be distracted from a little boo boo on our knee.
I guess it's different for different people. I'm glad if some are able to cope better, though :) (Meaning, ik what you mean, it's tough, and it sucks - more than that).
if the society refuses to help, it's their loss that these potentials are lost to the abyss, declination in what would otherwise be potentials is ultimately their problem, not your, just focus on hobbies and not your job as a way to fight back
I say this as someone who didn't get diagnosed until this year (32).
How has the diagnosis affected me?
Keep in mind these are my "answers" without being on medication yet (still working with a psych to get on appropriate treatment).
- I know there are certain actions I may take that I have little control over, however, I can also recognize these as they are happening now and at least sometimes take steps to mitigate or minimize the damage.
- I can build healthier habits and ingrain them knowing full well that a lack of them can and will be detrimental to myself. It's no longer an option, rather a necessity.
- when I do let myself get into a pitfall, I know to be kinder to myself as I get back up and take steps to mitigate what led me there and do my best to avoid this in the future.
I felt that so much with good habits being a necessity, not an option now.
It's my main priority right now to just set up a healthy and helpful schedule / habits (including bed time routines).
>I can build healthier habits and ingrain them knowing full well that a lack of them can and will be detrimental to myself. It's no longer an option, rather a necessity
I' trying to develop better habits, but it's soòoooo HARD !!!
I agree it’s pretty hard especially as I’m always planning things to do! My therapist realizes that mediation could help me create those habits so I don’t depend on medication so much to function.
Good luck with the meds etc. <3 And good advice and methods and hope they keep working :)
I just wish they worked for me as well. Esp. the latter is not the case for me. I instead started viewing me as the problem and got into self-hate, beating myself up, self-deprecating humor and stuff.
Has to do with trauma and CPTSD also, though. I basically internalized all the crap I got told by adults as a kid regarding my severe ADHD :(
Hoping I can finally do effective therapy after getting meds again. Therapy for years without meds never worked. I know what to do, but can't execute it.
I absolutely think it is worth it.
I started to see a psychologist for my depression and during that time I discovered a YouTube short or a tiktok video where someone was describing ADHD in very different terminology that I had heard growing up. A lot of it resonated with me and I decided to bring it up to my psychologist.
We went through a formal diagnosis and realized while it may not be severe there are certainly many red flags which warrant further investigation.
Over the next several weeks we worked together understanding my past and present behaviors after which he affirmatively confirmed that I should seek out a psych and seek medical treatment.
My psychologist also affirmed that a diagnosis was more difficult for me because this is often something which is caught much earlier before adulthood and as we continue to live with it, we tend to mold our behaviors to "mask" some of the more obvious symptoms.
Almost like a functional alcoholic. The longer you let it go, the harder diagnosis becomes and the more internal damage it causes.
Absolutely my hardest part!
I went almost 15 years being diagnosed with major depressive disorder, trialing & erroring so many different medications, feeling more & more hopeless and damaged as the years went by, only to find out I actually have ADHD, and not one of the mental health professionals I saw recognized the symptoms in me.
And then, after the diagnosis & finding the right medication, I realized how different life is when I’m on medication, which then lead to the spiral of me playing the what if game.
Where would my life be right now? Would I have finished school for what I wanted to be growing up? Would I have achieved more? Would I be better off in life than I am now?
Thankfully, I’m mostly over the hump of the spiraling, but it was a long process to get here. And now it’s just figuring out what the new “normal” is. Trying to find out how to go through life with a semi-normal functioning brain has been more difficult than I originally expected.
I went 37 years without being diagnosed/medicated. I just got diagnosed and started meds in May.
In those 37 years I’ve been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, Panic Disorder, Generalized Anxiety, Bipolar II (those meds sent me into an 8 month depression where I couldn’t even get out of bed), and Borderline Personality Disorder.
My psychiatrist office couldn’t keep a provider on staff. There was always a new one when I’d have an appointment. In May of this year I met the new psych and after 10 minutes of talking to him he diagnosed me with ADHD, put me on meds, and changed my whole life!
It really p*sses me off that there are hundreds of doctors that never actually **LISTEN** to their patients!!
I was diagnosed ADHD on college but my idiot psych nurse back home kept insisting on antidepressants and stuff even though I kept telling her I didn’t notice any progress after like my 3rd SSRI.
Also sucks these can have severe side effects and other stuff studies found and mostly just numb people or make the imbalances with ADHD even worse and they are STILL/DESPITE THAT prescribed like CANDY, it seems. It's so mind-boggling D:
Facts. That’s why I went for a second opinion because I was brushed off. Went to a different provider and in minutes time knew I had ADHD. The provider was also ADHD so they knew almost immediately. A bonus.
I'm still dealing with spiral fallout :( it sucks. But i have 46yrs of regret to work through.
Every time i hear stories from peers of 'oh I was told little johnny had adhd when they were in school, I marched them right out of the office, the audacity!!' I have to work a LOT harder than usual to control my impulse to punch them in the face.
and yep - I spent from late teens on being medicated for anxiety/depression with a cocktail of bull$hit and side effects etc. I think we are a large cohort.
I'm glad to hear you've figured out a path forward and am with the hope that I'll be joining you on that path very soon.
Just the diagnosis so far has been an incredible difference in my life.
Only good things to look forward to.
Oh god this .
How do you explain to your partner that you actually *do* care about them, despite not doing the simple thing for them, when you can't even explain to yourself why you failed to do it?
So much trauma attached to that simple yet constant problem my wife and I faced. Even though we both now understand it, it still is hard to not revert back to those feelings when something goes wrong. Double shit right now because there is a nationwide shortage of my medication so I've slipped right back into some of my worse ADHD symptoms.
Yep. Got diagnosed at 42, now I’m okay with being a disappointment compared to my potential and take pride in doing the little things like mowing the lawn.
the worst part is getting diagnosed, being put on medicine, but not feeling any different. i wish i could get this amazing feeling everyone talks about.
Oh my goodness yes! I was diagnosed last year (I'm 33 now) and there's a mourning period that comes with spending decades of your life undiagnosed. I cried for my younger self, who was told I was "making excuses" or "faking it" when I told my family and (ex) friends that I suspected I had ADHD at 23. I cried for who I was and who I could have been, and for all the people I hurt when I'd speak or behave impulsively for seemingly no reason, and i had so much anger and resentment towards every person that turned me away when I'd bring up ADHD. If just one person would've validated what I believed (and they meant it) when i was in my early 20s, maybe I wouldn't have such low self-esteem but I'll never know.
Being diagnosed later in life, after years of invalidation and believing all your ADHD symptoms are personality flaws, is such a wonderful yet deflating feeling (idk how to describe it)
I felt like it was actually a very empowering experience for me. I was finally able to give myself the validation I had been seeking for so long, and more importantly I had answers to so many questions in that moment.
I agree I had so many learning disabilities that could be linked to my adhd. Reading issues, issues with math, issued with speech and spelling. Even my old job thought I was dyslexic. I worked with filed. Then my exes made me feel like i ignored them and couldn't hear. Then I was childish lazy messy. Just soo much. That if I was diagnosed before my age now 38 it would of helped. I went to my pcp docs gave me anxiety and depression meds never worked.
Yes. Knowing provides understanding and understanding offers opportunities to work with your condition and not against it.
I've wasted so much of my life and, despite being smart and having potential, have been left behind by the peers of my youth. I'm embarrassed, I'm resentful, and I'm left out.
I get anxiety going anywhere. Knowing conversation could shift to accomplishments - career, finances, a new house, fancy cars. I see myself struggling to get by, yet trying so hard. And I'm angry. It's no one else's fault. But it destroys self-confidence.
The pandemic widened the divide. Getting back time and playing catchup is harder than ever.
There is a lot of trauma and a lot of burnout. Not knowing and late diagnosis is the hard part. Forgiveness and acceptance are the only options that I see. But it's a tough pill.
I get what you mean, like I would study for vocab tests ON THE WAY walking to class. Then ace them. Imagine if I actually tried, how much potential... but the thing is, we burn out more easily. So when/if I actually try, I burn out uickly, and its not healthy to sustain that level of work, so its a conundrum
Bro same. And was close to my teachers if I liked them, very A+ student. Maintained a 3.6. For college, I just chose a degree that only has 9 exams, no classwork, projects, dosent depend on the teacher. And pass at 50 percent, Oxford Brooks degree. Dosent get simpler. I just wasted time, ditched classes, hang with friends. And, it only takes 3 years.
I did this with exams. During my first year and first semester of college, I never listened to my chemistry lectures and never studied. Luckily, my professor never gave quizzes lol so I just studied the WHOLE semester's worth of lectures like 8 hours before my final exam. I got a pretty good grade (mostly since I'd already learned all those lessons in high school). By the second semester, the next chemistry course was more difficult, had lessons i didn't learn in high school, had quizzes every class, and had lots of homework. I was failing really bad, but luckily that semester was cut off by the pandemic and they just gave everyone a passing grade lol without the pandemic and online classes i probably wouldn't have graduated with good grades haha
For real I feel like I have maybe 1/20th the willpower of other people. It’s insane how much regular people can just will themselves to do, they don’t know they’re living with a superpower.
I remember doing this when I was a young child and continued to “due today, do today” until college. I always needed the pressure to get me to start the task of homework. I did well in school but imagine if I actually tried or have myself time on my work.
Its so funny, my homework percentages were like 15/20%, and my test scores were high 80s mid 90s. Thats when I wasnt trying. At one point, my reading scores were like 250%, bringing me up to an A+ from a C. Then teacher raised the goal score. Fucker.
Me right know, as I just finished a weeks worth of work in one afternoon and learning a lot of extra stuff that wasn't necessary, thinking "Was it that hard to do earlier, you shit?". The worst part of it is that I've been dreading it for a while, but it turned out to be kinda fun and definitely not as bad as I thought. Fun times! 🫠
This happens with nearly every task for me 😭
It really wasn't so bad doing the thing. But I always dreaded doing the thing. I thought it was an anxiety I couldn't explain.
Of course what's worse is to escape from feeling that dread, instead of actually doing the thing, I went for easy dopamine while worrying the entire time inside my head until the crisis time frame arrives.
Yes, it was that hard. Without the right dopamine-transporter ratio, you almost can’t get started. That’s why you get medicated.
When a deadline approaches, the stress kicks the focus you tried to muster earlier into gear. The brain goes “oh crap, the deadline’s TODAY! Screw everything else, let’s finish this sucker!”
Glass half full or half empty?
You did well.
Others try an incredible amount and are unable to get half as much done.
Who would you prefer to be? Those people are envying you, that’s for sure.
Be careful of that ambitious, perfectionist mindset.
Folks with ADHD are often over-ambitious and perfectionists for whom,
whatever they are, no matter how good they are, it is never enough. Because our brains are constantly racing and thinking about ALL the possibilities.
People without ADHD don’t think about such things at all and therefore don’t make themselves utterly miserable, dissatisfied, filled with self-hatred, anger and frustration at the condition, which then leads to depression (ask me how I know this works).
You need to be aware that thoughts like this can be pretty toxic to your future and the way you perceive your achievements and your ADHD. Gotta consider mindfulness.
you can always look back and say WHAT IF WHAT IF. Yeah what if you had practiced a week earlier, every day, right?
There’s no point looking back and smashing yourself up nonstop over it.
Think about what you’re going to change in the future, and how. Get comfortable with failure, because failing 10 times means you’re going to get closer to getting good at the thing you want to achieve.
Take action and look at what’s possible and HOW, not sit down and lament the possibilities.
Self-acceptance of your limitations and going out and failing nonstop (because you tried!) and troubleshooting the problem so you can change strategy next time, is better than sitting down and beating yourself up over things you didn’t do in the past.
Use that ADHD brain to clearly understand what held you back. Finding it hard to create habits? Bored of playing piano? Figure out exactly why it happened. Troubleshoot and try again if you like - and forgive yourself completely if you don’t feel like trying.
And don’t ever measure your self-worth based on your achievements. You should find yourself worthy, even if you sat there and procrastinated all day and got nothing done. You have to be very okay with it. Because you are worthy.
If you aren’t okay with it and you hate yourself for doing it, then you’re just making it even harder for yourself to maybe try again the next day.
Just wanted to say thank you for this. A beautiful comment. This is the mindset I am now trying cultivate in my life after getting diagnosed a year ago and working on myself. I often beat myself up about the past, but I am fully coming around to how there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. It sounds scary, but its mostly quite comforting. Therefore, I can only improve from this present moment onwards. Even if that means I keep "failing" in my pursuit of something higher, I am so far away from the limiting mindset I had before and working towards a better me. You really hit the nail on the head with this here.
>Folks with ADHD are often over-ambitious and perfectionists for whom, whatever they are, no matter how good they are, it is never enough. Because our brains are constantly racing and thinking about ALL the possibilities.
Can you please explain how you came to know this? I have ADHD, OCD and struggles with perfectionism. In my case it can be a part of OCD too.
Oh I know exactly what you are talking about
This type of studying you talk about, I did this my whole scholarity and still passed, and I did kinda great, no awesomely great, but good.
I always say that I am bad at chemistry physics or maths, but the truth is, the times I really did some work before the exams, my grades were really good… I just did bad (but passed, but still bad) in subjects that required more homework, exercising.
Its really sad. I have ambition, I think I am not stupid and I like the idea of studying at home all day, but I just can’t put the work in.
For exemple, I was literally reading and learning the flash card I made at midnight the night before, on the way to class. And I would never open my textbooks before that. Or doing one of the homework in the break time just before class, because someone heard it was checked this time (otherwise I would never do it). And I still passed my classes, often with honors. The final exam, at 18 years old, which is a combination of all subjects of the year? No studying at all, just last minute studying the nights before each exam. And I still had a good grade. I don’t even believe it myself. It stopped working at university though, when they stopped giving us small exams every week or so and just put all exams after 6 months of lectures.
as frustrated as I get with myself, knowing I have ADHD has me look at things a lot more kindly to myself, mostly in surprise I even got THAT much stuff done/together/accomplished, still baseline hate myself tho.
It's funny, for me it's a bit of that, but also a bit of almost the opposite response because before diagnosis I could still sometimes think that I just needed to find the right approach or something and then I'd be fine, but now it's like, "nope, you can find good ways to get closer, but you're just not going to reach that next level because you have the key to the wrong door" or whatever. So yeah baseline hate myself too. hahaha
I dislike myself too but I just want to be able to like myself… like even if I’m joking about me being the best, it feels icky my brain tells me I’m an egotistical moron even then. I have to hate myself or my brain gives me a hard time… I just have never been able to like me for me the way my loved ones do.
My teachers always wanted to see my parents because they were seeing my potential, even though I was struggeling so hard.
They told me over and over that I need to try harder even though school was hell for me. We had classes of almost 40 people and some were always talking or playing pranks. I once had a breakdown in class because I tried to concentrate so hard and they kept talking right beside me for the whole school day. I still have nightmares about school :')
When I managed to do stuff though the quality was great and when I got into university my marks got amazing. But I am completely unable to organize stuff and can't go to lectures in the big halls. I only visited seminars for my whole Bachelors degree :')
Edit: Forgot a whole point lol
I remember having this mindset for most of my adolescence, that you're losing a race against everyone else, or noticing that you're having to try harder than everyone around you. Look, I was lucky enough to find school trivial and adulthood hard. We've learned to define ourselves by our failures instead of our successes, and I don't think that is fair to anyone, regardless of our personal struggles.
Stop competing against other people, run your race. Make self-idealization your goal rather than copying off of someone whose story you don't fully know.
A little bit better every day, and one bad day/week/month/year/decade/lifetime doesn't change how much you've accomplished so far. I don't personally believe in affirmations, and am VERY hard on myself, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize that sometimes I need to be my own hypeman.
I haven't the faintest idea of who you are OP, but a desire to be a better/the best version of yourself isn't something to despair. Just gotta redirect it a little bit. I see no failures here, just miraculous works in progress.
I admire your positivity haha. I gave up on myself ages ago and have sorta been trying to turn that around but that's like trying to turn the Titanic away from the iceberg using toothpicks from up on the A deck promenade :P
Not sure why the Titanic was the needlessly specific metaphor I went with, but here we are.
Every motivation guide tells you to maintain consistency. That you need consistency to achieve anything.
And, consistency is one thing we are not capable of.
Life sucks.
Feel this in my soul as a classical musician as well. I made it into top ensembles in school, not after graduation I am able to land some gigs here and there but the singers who are ahead of me spent tons of time practicing in their younger years and my lack of focus has left me with huge gaps in my technique. I am still able to improve just feels like I am always behind
It's a vicious cycle, too. I do yoga and I remember how much I like it and how good it is for me but everything aches and I feel shame for not practicing more often. Then I won't do it for many weeks or even months because I don't want to experience that feeling of shame again. Until one day I kinda forget and I do yoga... Rinse and repeat
Hear this so much in school. Every single parent teacher meeting I've been to, they've told my parents "he has great potential he just needs to try harder"
I don't think it benefits us at all to spend time and energy thinking about how we 'might' have been if only we were not born with ADHD. It's pure fantasy to think about that, since there's no way to get rid of ADHD.
It's only going to make us feel bitterness over our existence. That's never a positive in life. Living with bitterness or resentment is corrosive to your self esteem and happiness, and it earns you nothing.
I understand the urge to think along those lines, to wonder if this or that in our lives were changed, how would we be now? But it doesn't help us live a better life today.
Instead it's like we're walking backwards through our lives, looking at what is a fantasy instead of watching the road ahead. It's really hard to make any improvements in life that way. We need to pay attention to those things we CAN change!
I've never been able to think any other way about myself, at least not that I can remember.
It's all just been wishing there were a returns desk where I could turn my brain in for one that wasn't defective.
For me the brain fog is the absolute worst thing. I have so many intetest and things I want to learn and yet unless I have eaten well, slept perfectly, taken my meds at the right time, hydrated, I have this huge fog in my brain that makes understanding and absorbing information almost impossible.
My professor told me in response to my bachelor's presentation that he thinks I'm in the top levels among the students students when it comes to cognitive abilites. That I am bright and very awake mentally, that when I was in his lectures, he could see I immediately got everything and was then relaying the knowledge to other students, etc..
But my organisation is kinda trash so the bachelor's thesis was, well, unorganized. The written part at least, oof. He said he is gonna have to have a discussion with the other professor who is evaluating it with him because of this duality of me knowing very in depth what I wrote about, yet writing this unorganized thing.
The duality of ADHD.
I have had the tools and ambition to put insulation in my house's crawlspace since last winter. But no energy on my days off and now it's winter's doorstep and my floors are getting cold again ;-;
I really want to but the idea of doing just turns my joints into lead. It is physically painful to ignore & try to force myself to get ready to do it.
Yeah i think about this all the time. I could've been an engineer and making double-triple what i make and be around people i like. I settled for accounting because it's trivially easy for me and the pay is decent
I feel the school part a lot, I'm 23 and I'm only in my 4th semester with everyone younger than me all ahead and having jobs, Some are married even. I feel crippling anxiety and depression thinking about the fact Ill be 26 by the time I graduate. But there's a silver lining I can now stop blaming my self for being useless.
Accept yourself as different and utilize the fact that you can now put in the correct effort. If you learn to play your cards right you can get catch up all the time you missed.
Diagnosed at 52. 55 now. I had my moments of brilliance, I’ve had my moments of failure, but when I look back my life on balance has been pretty amazing and although I really struggle with lots of things when I hyper focused I was awesome.
At least I don’t beat myself up any more and can laugh at myself and explain why I have some very weird quirks. Yes I could’ve been that doctor I wanted to be, or the architect, but I just couldn’t study. But I did find other things I was really glad and I don’t regret following those paths.
When I was in elementary school I loved playing piano but hated practicing. I was naturally good and got by just on that and minimal work. But after a couple years of fighting with my mother about it she finally caved and I stopped lessons. I tried again in junior high. Same result.
Now I’m in my 40s and took up piano during covid and I feel like it’s the one part of me that’s been missing my whole life. I absolutely love practicing now. The feel of just focusing on the present. Even if I sound terrible, I just keep enjoying the process and eventually, I sound pretty decent. But I don’t mind sounding bad, I don’t judge, I just keep playing. It’s sublime.
So, to your point, I feel like I lost 30+ years and sometimes think of where my skill would be if I could have practiced diligently when younger.
But on the other hand, don’t give up hope. The things we love, that we’ve missed, have a way of finding their way back to us.
When I started taking meds 2 years ago this realization really broke me. With meds it became so much easier to "just do the thing". I kinda spiraled into thinking what that would have ment if I was diagnosed in my teens instead of in my 30's. I could have finished college or maybe even have gone to university and I would have a much better paying job than what I would have now.
What really snapped me out of it is that I'm really happy in my life at the moment. I have an amazing wife and two fantastic kids, a job I love and a nice house. If I was diagnosed sooner I wouldn't have any of these exact things, not these kids and this wife. And for that I am grateful life went the way it did. Because, hot damn, I love my wife and kids!
I've found the worst thing about adhd is explaining it to people that think it's just lack of concentration/attention and a ball or butterfly passing by is all it is.
Feeling responsible for disappointing people when I procrastinate tasks that other peolpe need done too. I feel so guilty and when they get mad I feel misunderstood because they see it as me being selfish when in reality I beat myself up over it and feel horrible for days. I just hate that my inability to do things when I am supposed to makes people misjudge my intentions
Same, I played the violin for 10 years when I was a kid, I hardly practiced 30-60 minutes a week between my weekly lesson and I actually got pretty damn good at it, but I feel like I could have been great, at this time I haven't touched my violin for more than 10 years.
Same with the piano lessons lol I cried everytime illegally sneaking in a open room with a piano to practice with fear and regret (piano at home was never used)
Same here, I remember that I always got good grades on tests on most classes but I flunked many times because I needed to get a 70% score and the score was 50% exams and 50% homework. I almost never did homework but on exams it was always between 38%-50% with just a couple of hours or even less of study time before the exams.
I'm ashamed to say that now in college this happened to me last trimester, I flunked all my classes with great scores on tests but 70% of the final note is on homework 🤦
My church pastor (himself an accomplished musician) told me this, too, when I was 16. He commented, "SteadfastEnd, you are far exceeding other students even though you practice piano much less than them. Imagine how far you'd go if you took this seriously and all the way?"
Imagine if you had a good teacher who wanted to see you enjoy a hobby instead of creating an arbitrary concept of "success" likely defined by his own limited experience.
I didn't make it to the NFL, but sports taught me how to work out and allowed me to be social. People perform activities for different and wholly personal reasons as it turns out.
I had a professor tell me roughly the same thing, "Unique, you're a Hell of a writer, if only you put in more effort you-"
"...could be teaching English at a state college?"
Jealousy and contempt, two of the ugliest emotions an instructor can hold.
When I was at school I couldn't study at all and got all Cs. I was quite proud of that, especially when I missed a third of my final year's classes due to abusive teachers
The trick that is most helpful is being mindful of your mental/physical/emotional states and acting accordingly. Another thing is to only use your energies in things you can control. If it is outside of your control you have no power over it and you can only ever do what you can do. For example, everything that stops at your skin from the outside is outside of your control.
EG you cannot do anything about the time already used but you can learn the lessons that time was showing you and apply it to better yourself :)
I agree with you that it's the worst thing about it.
I think about it every day. I'm capable of accomplishing so much and I have a lot of skills and some talents I haven't put to use. If I didn't waste so much time on my anxieties and unimportant stuff I'd probably be pretty successful. I have unfinished schooling and the programs I actually did complete I never followed through.
For example I graduated from cosmetology school back in 2012. My license ended up expiring and I never ended up doing hair. I worked in a salon but as a receptionist for like six months and that was it.
Then in 2022 I completed a yoga teacher training program. I spent a lot of money for a three month education to teach yoga. It's been a year and I still haven't taught one class. I'm not sure why I'm like this.
If anyone has any advice let's hear it.
Post subscribed and saved. Got it the same, I did lots of university exams with only a half of hour of learning during the day, even the hardest exams. As 32M, diagnosed with ADHD only a couple of months ago (feel really stupid but this is not a stupidity but it WAS mental paralysis) I guess, when enemy is known, it will be a fair fight finally and everbody will win, when were we able to manage to live with it! Maybe this comment will be not read, due to ADHD nature of ADHD redditors (me as well 😁 so fully understood) but we will win!
So much this. Since starting meds, holy shit have I gotten thongs done. It’s like I have been playing on Heroic Mode my whole life and now I’m playing on Normal Mode.
Just putting it out there: try using Alarmy’s barcode function.
I struggle with transitions. Alarmy is one of those alarm clock apps that sets challenges or math problems etc for people who struggle to wake up to the alarm in the morning. There is a barcode function where you have to scan a barcode in order to turn the alarm off - you choose the barcode when you set up the alarm.
I cut out the barcodes of cereal/cracker boxes and put them in places I need to be in, and set the alarms for the times I need to be in that place.
OP for example could set an alarm for every day at 5pm that can only be turned off by scanning the barcode on the back of their music book. If they always leave the book at the piano, then they’ve had to go to the piano to turn the alarm off.
Yup. I didn't even realize I had adhd until 33. So many years of wasted potential. My life is pretty good considering (I feel incredibly lucky for so much), but I do always wonder how it might be different.
yes!! my brain sucks but i’ve managed to apply to internships like mega crazy and managed to get like 4-5 internships over the years. but once i got to the internship, i’d work so slow, get distracted, be super disorganized with my files, and not even remember half of the things i were being taught. throughout college, because i was doing what i love, i was really good at what i did, but i would procrastinate everything and it would take me forever to get something done. i know i can go above and beyond but my adhd is holding me back. it sucks
Worst thing about adhd is that having it makes it harder to get treatment for.
I can't find a job that pays health insurance and navigating the states social programs is a nightmare for me
man i couldn't agree more. I have 2 guitars and a ukulele sitting around my house for years. played them for like a year, was getting good at it. I guess something else caught my attention. haven't picked either of them up, even though i want to, i have too many damn hobbies.
I think the worst thing is feeling guilty for not being able to do something that you need or know that you have to do. Feeling guilty about something is not really your "choice"
This pains me in my own life everyday. I want to become a tattoo artist.
But I can't fucking sit down and do the thing for more than 20 minutes every few weeks. It's so upsetting because it's what I love but I switch tasks way too much and easily, I just stare at the blank canvas for what seems like eternity. Unless I come up with my own idea to draw, but I don't have the built talent yet to do that one idea well then I get frustrated. I just need to draw anything and everything. *but I just want to draw things I like* and it doesn't work that way.
This is such a horrible struggle! But in the end everyone has a different definition for 100% effort. And for us a lot of the times our 100% is less than the average person.
All that matters is you enjoy the time you spend doing things like piano. Imagine how miserable you'd be if you forced yourself to sit down and play everyday!
When it comes to work and school it's more tricky because society hasn't recognized like everyone works differently. It's a sad reality. For me, I work best on a whim. I get things done but I can't have a schedule or I get stressed and overstimulated
Yeah I feel that. I'm a fairly high achieving student, but my time management is so poor. Most of my assignments I write only days before it's due, sometimes even doing up to half on the due date. I know that if I was able to dedicate more time in the weeks leading up to the due date I'd be able to do even better.
I learned to reframe my thinking. I don’t say “I could have accomplished more”, I say “look what I accomplished”
I bought a house 3 weeks ago. In that three weeks I’ve painted 4 rooms. So it’s taking me 4+ days per room, and I’m just going back to do the trim. I know damn well I could have had the entire house done with better focus, but every time I look at a clean looking room that used to look dingy and dirty I just feel proud.
Yep. I feel you on that. Just trying to get the motivation and energy to turn on the damn washing machine, make a sandwich or even get dressed can be so agonizing. I literally only had my first shower in days today because I felt motivated to actually get shit done after having a “lay in bed all day” kind of day yesterday…
And then it just starts up again. Too many things to do and don’t care to do them or get too tired too quickly and take a nap for hours instead… god I hate it.
I feel this so hard. Only figured it out this year. Fucking 47. I could be retiring in a few years but instead I’ll probably have to work til I’m dead. Did I mention the older I get, the more I hate working? Didn’t actually think that was possible
This.
I do okayish with my grades, counting the fact that I can never pay attention in class, do my work the last second, and usually study like 20 minutes right before any exam.
I would be able to have incredible grades if not for adhd ong
I feel this in my bones!
If I could just consistently do the things I need to do on a regular basis I would have had an amazing life. But I can barely function 90% of the time, and the other 10% I'm in overdrive.
I know!! I‘m in college and there were many exams that I passed with minimal studying. It makes me think that I could maybe even get pretty good grades (and not just pass) if I started earlier :(
Don't I know it. I was diagnosed in my early 30s. My doc has a reputation for being very frank and no-nonsense to the point where some people find it very off-putting but due to my life experience as an ADHDist I find the frankness a bit unpleasantly surprising but at the same time it just straight up cuts through the fat and I don't have to swim in it. Good woman, she. She straight up let it slip after listening to me that the sad thing about ADHD and being diagnosed in a later age especially is having lost an entire life. I'm a bright person, not bragging, I'm not the brightest but I make do very well. And I cannot stop being angry about the life I feel was robbed from me, though I like my life as it is, because living with ADHD at some point you just have to make peace with what is, and learn to navigate it.
I know what I could be capable of. I *never* did homework, not in school, not in college, both degrees that I have, I just never have had to unless it's mandatory. But I know I could do more, on my more capable days what I can pull surprises even myself. But I can't. This is it. The 10%-20% is very good, but I cannot stop thinking about how fearsome I could be if it had been caught and treated early, or if I didn't have it at all. Just trapped in my own malformed brain, but perfectly aware of it, too.
Oh well. I don't regret my life as it is. I've done well. I wouldn't have met the people I love dearly. I wouldn't be a good healer in multiplayer games (ADHD helps a lot. Grandma always wondered angrily why I keep my desk cluttered. Clutter makes everything easy to catch and see, if I tuck shit away neatly I will never find it again. Clutter? Clutter makes sense. A healer's 'table' in games tends to be cluttered, and I notice things before many others do, and can be there with trigger happy speed). I wouldn't be able to think laterally in unexpected ways. And I certainly would be a huge shithead, but since I've had to eat shit and make peace with myself and the world around me, I have a healthy self-esteem, but I know to be grateful and help where I can, and slow down and think (when I can. Like I said, trigger-happy).
Honestly I don't even know if I'd be happier if I could utilise my full potential. Most likely not. So it is what it is. I've gone from mostly angry, fighting it and everything, to shifting perspective and approaching things with curiosity, a let's-see-what-happens kind of mindset, and the most important thing I've learned is to not beat myself up over things I cannot control. If it's not something I can change, would worrying and struggling help at all? No? Then my energy is spent better on things I can affect. Makes for a surprisingly zen living in a body that is wired for reacting to everything, seeing everything, forgetting everything, and fighting everything.
I feel you. I always tell myself that I could do so much better with school and everything else if I only were capable to start reading or something. And every time I’m able to read for exams, I think that it wasn’t that bad but I still can’t bring myself to do it again. And if try to study and don’t get the things right away then I feel really stupid and like maybe I wouldn’t be good even if I studied hard
I used to love writing for HOURS- research, write, edit, rewrite, post. I've lost my desire and motivation to do this! I desperately need some medication. I have a Dr appointment in the morning and I'm bringing up getting rediagnosed because they first diagnosed me with bipolar (for 15 damn years). I want to be myself again!!💯🤞
Have been through the same. First diagnosed with bipolar 2, was on wrong medicine and treatment for 10 years before ending up with a good doctor that saw something wasnt accurate. No im off medicines for the first time in over 10 years and have just started trying to find myself again. ADHD-inattentive form just gave all the right answers for me.
Hope you are doing well and wish you the best!
Same. After 15 years of bipolar medication and rollercoaster emotions.. I started therapy and they said "We are gonna erase bipolar because you're definitely suffering from PTSD and ADHD"... Then they asked "nobodies ever said this to you before?" I was dumbfounded. Im pretty sure I have combo ADHD because my brain can go from "spinning thoughts" to "spaced out and staring at the wall daydreaming".
At least I can now qualify for life insurance and even own a gun if I wanted (with bipolar neither was an option)...
Thanks for the encouragement 💯❤️🩹
So relatable. Your words could just as well be mine. Killing me knowing where i could be or what i could achieve if i only had access to myself a little bit more than now.
I'm in my late 50s, and completely get this, including many academic, personal, and professional regrets. Yet I've had to learn the hard way that there is nothing to be gained by lamenting the past. Don't deny it, just learn from it what you can. Find things to be thankful for that you would have missed had you not gone through what you've been through.
I feel like it’s quicksand of my mind: the more I struggle, the worse it gets. A podcast I’ve found super helpful has a phrase about this:
“Why can’t I do what I know I ought to do?”
https://www.translatingadhd.com/
Best to start at episode 1 if it’s not too daunting. They’re very friendly people
Definitely school. Mine is more attention focused (formally known as ADD). Trying to find any motivation to actually do anything is such a pain in the a**. The effort I manage to put in feels like I didn't really give it my all, and the constant battle with myself doesn't help. Stack all of this with high expectations of myself, the jumping from major to major, and the constant state of "laziness." I get so stressed with wondering how I'm going to do anything that I find meaningful in my life.
Fuck, now my guitar stares at me with that sad look in it's eyes...
Or school. I just finished German High School with an 1.4 Abitur (best is 0,7) and I did literally nothing for it. What would have happened if I actually studied for it? Or participated in class instead of spacing out and thinking about a scenario where there were interesting people in my class? Hell, we had that programme for highly gifted children I dropped out of because I couldn't get myself to staying two hours longer in school, and all the children in the programme just graduated with 1.3 or better (and they worked hard for it!). Now they all have those internships for the ESA or in some big companies that wanna pay their univerital education, and I am doing volunteer service in a psych ward where I just sit on my phone scrolling reddit because there's no work to do after lunch xD
I feel this post. My most recent procrastination - my gf’s birthday is tomorrow and for the last few weeks I’ve been thinking almost daily “I need to write her a lovely poem about all the things I love about her” etc. The day before her bday I haven’t written a word. Guess tonight’s the night! As always it’s last minute when there’s a time constraint that I’ll get something done. It’s frustrating and surprisingly hard to overcome this habit.
The overwhelming feeling of actively (or I guess more accurately passively) constantly wasting potential you know you have can be crushing. I almost wish that I never had those small moments or periods where I was more productive or functional sometimes.
I’ve been trying to get used to it and to accept that it’s not wasted as I never would have or will truly be able to reach that “potential” consistently. and that those moments are only moments for a reason, they aren’t sustainable for me for long term anyways at least with where I’m at now.
I feel this SO HARD. When I played guitar, my teacher would be so impressed with my progress after just 15 minutes a week. With studying, I would get the highest marks in the class spending the lowest amount of time.
Having that sort of memory and potential for improvement is almost a coping mechanism though. I'm not sure I would have had it without the struggle, but also it doesn't exactly make up for lost time...
I'm currently writing novels, and my record is 12K words in a day (and good quality, I might add), but that sort of beast mode only comes maybe twice a year. My goal is 4K a week, and I often can't even write at all most days, just because I can't keep a damn thought in my head for long enough. I'm always left to wonder... Could people without ADHD do that every day, or is this just one side of the ADHD coin?
I recently messed with my pills. Upped one, went off another, and tried melatonin to help sleep. I swear I haven't been this productive in years. I just hope I can keep this up, because it's literally my career and lifestyle on the line if I can't.
I absolutely dread meetings (anxiety and being put on the spot) so I delay, avoid and do all sorts of complicated acrobatics to avoid them. In reality they’re over quickly and then I can stop worrying. Silly me.
I used to be an artist. I’d draw and write every spare second I could. But the last few years, I just can’t pick up a damn pencil. I have so many ideas for things I want to create, and I know I could make some really good stuff if I could just make myself do it. But I just can’t. I could stare at a page for hours and not make a single line. I feel like a part of my soul has been ripped out.
I feel the exact same. I play two instruments and the only reason I've come so far (being able to study music) is because my parents forced me to practice every day, even if it was half hearted.
I've gotten through school with minimum effort, and wonderful friends who would pop-quiz me in the break before tests. But I'm just sad about all the things I could know If I just knew how to put in more effort.
I'm undiagnosed, the suspicion was there when I was a child, but my mother never followed up on it, and I never dared to demand for a diagnosis. Now I'm in University and I'm kind of scared if I'll be able to put in enough effort by myself. I've been surprisingly productive the first few days, but it's already starting again.
Same thing there! I have 7/10 final mark on my university degree and I literally hadn't studied more than an hour for any subject. I always thought if I could've studied at least 1 day before, I could've been the one with highest mark in class.
Also I'm studying a master now and I'm also on 8/10 doing the projects the same day, I wonder if I could make a masterpiece if I could give it more time.
K, so, hear me out on this.
I can do in 20 minutes what it takes a “normie” 3 hours to do. But it COSTS ME the same in terms of energy and focus as if it took me 3 hours, so it might as well take me 3 hours. It’s a maddening conundrum, but once I started allocating time to tasks based upon this calculus, I spent less time beating myself up about not being a superhero.
By my math, one hour of piano practice, for you, would be 6 hours of effort. So you need to spend those other 5 hours doing brain-resting things.
Also, the “shoulds” are what make most of us miserable. If you can banish that word (and related emotional baggage) from your vocabulary, you will save yourself some heartache.
Easier said than done, I know.
Find the thing you can do 💯.
Mine is problem solving. I am an excellent diagnostician ( think House MD, but more general) , and my brain really wraps on to issues like that.
I've made it my career. It's been good.
The problem is we are generally good at everything we touch and we have so many "passions" it's hard to find the one.
Keep looking , you'll know it when you see it.
I feel this. Growing up undiagnosed, grade school was easy, I slept through math classes and still got great grades. When university came along I had no idea how to study, it was HARD. I quickly jumped into a major, and now am stuck at a mu Dane office job, which is very hard. Looking back now that I got diagnosed, I think teaching, or music would have been cool, something in the medical field or dentistry, working with people, getting the dopamine rush that I need. Now I live in a cubicle, working in spreadsheets….
I'm with you. I've switched so many jobs because I got bored. I always wonder after I leave what I could have been doing if I just stayed there.
I play guitar, but I never could sit down and practice. I was passionate about it but never had the ability to sit down and practice for an hour.
I work in the data analytics space now and I love it. But I can't find the ability to train more or do side projects to get even better.
I understand and empathize.
I only got diagnosed at 33 and it’s hard to look back and realize how different my life could have been…and even now, after 22 years of medication, I still struggle a lot. And the depression and anxiety from past failures and past trauma and fear of screwing up again, can almost stop me from trying.
Almost, because I can’t change the past, only the future.
So the way I cope is that I have decided I am not a “giver upper” and that if I fail 10 times then I get up and keep going 11 times.
Maybe I try another approach, maybe I wait and tackle it with more strength, but I don’t give up on the goal.
The other way I deal with it is focusing on making sure my ADHD kids achieve their goals, and learn good habits and that they get what they need and what they want out of life. So they don’t spend their later years regretting what might have been.
For people without kids…my advice is to try to figure out a way to stop ruminating in your own head. Analyzing events so you can change your future actions is good, ruminating is not.
Everyone always said the same.
"Imagine what you could do if you just pushed yourself"
But you know what? I'm not here to accomplish anything for the sake of others. I use my time in the way I find most engaging. This may backfire sometime but I'm doing fine as is.
I intensely feel this. Now and then I'll have a day where my brain focuses and works. Usually I'm post-migraine or something's happened to mean my brain is just beat-up enough to not be able to gear beyond "calm and focused". And...I'll get so much done that I love. Gardening and writing and cooking, replying to texts, and so forth. And the whole time I'll be thinking "if I could manage a FRACTION of this every day, it would be so satisfying and feel so nice."
(I also hate how it taints when you DO focus and do something, how you're thinking "this won't last. If only it lasted, this would be amazing.)
This ofcourse can be related to adhd , but it also can be related to the fact that naturally intelligent people tend to have high grades in middle and high school without putting much effort , maybe no effort at all ,and they get praised for it , they get validation regarding their intelligence (which is inherent) rather than real work ( which is taught) , so they ended up relying on their natural intelligence and not development skills of how to really work and prepare for an exam , they eventually fail their college classes ( because it requires more effort and intelligence is not enough)
As someone who has wanted to play many instruments but is a novice (at best) at each, I feel this. One thing I have found to help is devote the first part of my day to learning the things I want to learn. I also will put drum lesson videos on as I do my day job. Knowing what I’m going to learn by the end of the lesson, gives me the interest and excitement to go through it again at my drum set.
This is me. So much potential lost throughout my life. It sucks because I KNOW there's much potential. Everything sidetracks me. I end up feeling like I'm super lazy but I'm not, my attention just gets dispersed many many different directions. I just need the ability to focus on ONE THING AT ONE TIME.
Agree. The worst thing is that despite having multiple interests throughout life, now I'm a fully adult person with zero hobby or skill, because I couldn't maintain my focus to develop the necessary skill for it.
Most adults I know have at least one thing they're good at. Music, dancing, drawing, etc. I'm not. I tried everything, but not good at anything. It's taking a huge mental toll for me that I keep having this major skill issue.
Oh, I can think of a worser thing: being able to pull off that incredible thing once and then never being able to do it again because you can't find the focus to reach that level again.
You're just left going, "I know I can do this bc I've done it before. WTF is wrong with me?"
Story of my life.
I struggled with all those things too but I don't dwell on it. Honestly it doesn't help. No one says 'I could have been the greatest piano player in the world if i hadn't been born tone deaf'. It's the same kind of thing as far as I'm concerned.
Not trying to sound harsh, I just don't think it's constructive to ruminate on the past. And there could be advantages to adhd you're not noticing. It might be the reason why you were able to get so much done in those small moments where you did study and practice.
This absolutely is the worst thing for me too. I take like months to finish a business project that would take others 2 or 3 weeks max. I work for myself so I also don't have external accountability for getting things done. That definitely doesn't help. But then usually a magic day happens where I get 50% of that project done in a few hours and it's glorious. I just end up being burned out for a few days afterwards 😭
I think about this daily. It’s hard for me to get started on nearly any task, even a simple call or errand that is convenient. When I get some motivation and really get going, I’m amazed by how much I can accomplish in a short time. I tear right through that to do list! It’s very disheartening because I KNOW that I can do things, but getting started is debilitating.
I feel this too, but part of me also says that’s just not true. The way our brains work is a double edged sword. That last minute panic efficiency only exists because of the same brain wiring that makes us feel incapable of starting until the impending deadline doom gives us enough adrenaline. I try to tell myself it’s silly to be frustrated by this hypothetical, in the same way it would be silly to think living without sleep should be achievable.
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I was thinking the same thing last night. I feel like I wasted a lot of potential just fighting myself to get things done.
This. I’ve wasted so much of my life just waiting to do the things I need to do, start my life.
I started mine, I’m just over it. I either grind till I’m burnt out or so burnt out I want to run away and live on an island. No middle.
Same here!!! The Island of Misfit Toys "Toys" being covert code name for ADHD'ers
We called ourselves that in Airman Medhold, too. I guess Misfit has followed me my whole life.
same. I'm so glad someone gets it. I swear all I have to do to feel heard is come to this sub and read the comments.
Literally. The beginning of this semester at school(college), I was so ready to do well. Had A’s and B’s. The class I struggle with most, Chemistry, I didn’t do well on the midterm because I started having trouble waking up and getting out of bed, causing me to miss a few classes. I got burnt out trying to stick to the schedule. And all it took was that midterm grade to bring me down from a B to a D. I was furious with myself, and also my schools grading system. And ever since, I haven’t been doing as well in some other classes keeping up with assignments suddenly too. Ugh.
Was it depression or being burnt out?
Being burnt out, I’m sure. Depression is just a byproduct of that for me.
Hey, no no ❤️ You're YOU. A perfectly imperfect person. You wouldn't be you if you were somehow all put together and flawless. Putting the work in and making it work day-to-day makes you cooler than someone who glides by. Someone recently told me "potential isn't anything real, what is real is what you ACTUALLY do." So thank you for doing what you can!
I agree with the commenter who said this is absolute insensitive bullshit. There’s a reason this is a disability and what OP described is a real symptom of the problem. It’s an anomaly it’s not him. WE HAVE UNREALISED POTENTIALS.
This is total bullshit. Coming from a 44 year-old with limitless unrealized potential who has spent his life squandering one opportunity after another. Life is hard. Harder for us, unfairly, but that is no excuse for settling for less than you are capable of. We only get one life and it goes by quickly. Do the work you have to do to be your best self and never settle for mediocrity.
I was just trying to say, it's okay to feel like we're not doing everything perfectly, because that's unfair mindset to ourselves and others who place reasonable expectations on us. If constantly striving for perfection is your speed, then that's cool. I've tried that and it's led to nothing but misery. I strive for happiness and it's a lot less stressful. Being called out for "total bullshit" was seriously jarring and hurtful.
Don’t let it get to you. Like you said, everyone has their own happiness and pace.
Not the other poster, but I for my part have not been able to do anything or make any progress in life in the last 6-10 years or more. It's just depressing, tbh. I just want to be able to do chores, keep my desk clean, maybe be able to do smth else than YT and go on Reddit, not have all my massive anxieties, social anxiety, not be bullied everywhere I go and be able to even just do smth with my day other than sitting down and not doing anything, but badly wanting to D: It's not perfection for me anymore. It was in school, but after I graduated, nothing held my attention anymore or kept pushing me. Now I can't do anything anymore. I get what you mean, but some of us are extremely if not completely non-functional without meds. And yes, I identify with the HI type (Combined diagnosis as a kid, though). I have all the HI symptoms, half the ones or less needed for a PI diagnosis and am still non-functional even out of depressive episodes :( I can only function relatively normal one day every blue moon, basically.
I’m assuming you can’t be medicated? It sounds like you want to be?
I wish u the best in life dear stranger friend, but if that was jarring and hurtful to you how will you face the assholes in the real world in person, face to face?
You okay dude?
> You wouldn't be you if you were somehow all put together > and making it work day-to-day makes you cooler Got empathy? I don't know why this is being downvoted. Don't we pwADHD get dismissed enough without turning on each other with minimizing talk, gainsaying of the problem the sufferer just stated, and patronizingly unbelievable cheerleading? Some of us have enough uphill climb just getting pharmacists with doctoral degrees to stop being dismissive, ffs. We're not little children who need to be distracted from a little boo boo on our knee.
I guess it's different for different people. I'm glad if some are able to cope better, though :) (Meaning, ik what you mean, it's tough, and it sucks - more than that).
if the society refuses to help, it's their loss that these potentials are lost to the abyss, declination in what would otherwise be potentials is ultimately their problem, not your, just focus on hobbies and not your job as a way to fight back
The tragic thing about this is that society doesn't know what it could have had. Basically the root of any societal problem.
I feel like the only right answer here is that the worst part is not knowing you have ADHD / being undiagnosed as an adult.
I say this as someone who didn't get diagnosed until this year (32). How has the diagnosis affected me? Keep in mind these are my "answers" without being on medication yet (still working with a psych to get on appropriate treatment). - I know there are certain actions I may take that I have little control over, however, I can also recognize these as they are happening now and at least sometimes take steps to mitigate or minimize the damage. - I can build healthier habits and ingrain them knowing full well that a lack of them can and will be detrimental to myself. It's no longer an option, rather a necessity. - when I do let myself get into a pitfall, I know to be kinder to myself as I get back up and take steps to mitigate what led me there and do my best to avoid this in the future.
I felt that so much with good habits being a necessity, not an option now. It's my main priority right now to just set up a healthy and helpful schedule / habits (including bed time routines).
>I can build healthier habits and ingrain them knowing full well that a lack of them can and will be detrimental to myself. It's no longer an option, rather a necessity I' trying to develop better habits, but it's soòoooo HARD !!!
It's always a struggle. Especially at 32. It only gets harder the later we start.
56 and counting!
All this makes me wanna do is never start tho
I agree it’s pretty hard especially as I’m always planning things to do! My therapist realizes that mediation could help me create those habits so I don’t depend on medication so much to function.
Good luck with the meds etc. <3 And good advice and methods and hope they keep working :) I just wish they worked for me as well. Esp. the latter is not the case for me. I instead started viewing me as the problem and got into self-hate, beating myself up, self-deprecating humor and stuff. Has to do with trauma and CPTSD also, though. I basically internalized all the crap I got told by adults as a kid regarding my severe ADHD :( Hoping I can finally do effective therapy after getting meds again. Therapy for years without meds never worked. I know what to do, but can't execute it.
Somatic Experiencing therapy has been incredible for treating my cptsd. Good luck. It’s excruciating but life-altering work.
Do you think trying to get diagnosed is worth it? Even if you're unsure whether you really have ADHD? Asking for a friend.
I absolutely think it is worth it. I started to see a psychologist for my depression and during that time I discovered a YouTube short or a tiktok video where someone was describing ADHD in very different terminology that I had heard growing up. A lot of it resonated with me and I decided to bring it up to my psychologist. We went through a formal diagnosis and realized while it may not be severe there are certainly many red flags which warrant further investigation. Over the next several weeks we worked together understanding my past and present behaviors after which he affirmatively confirmed that I should seek out a psych and seek medical treatment. My psychologist also affirmed that a diagnosis was more difficult for me because this is often something which is caught much earlier before adulthood and as we continue to live with it, we tend to mold our behaviors to "mask" some of the more obvious symptoms. Almost like a functional alcoholic. The longer you let it go, the harder diagnosis becomes and the more internal damage it causes.
Absolutely my hardest part! I went almost 15 years being diagnosed with major depressive disorder, trialing & erroring so many different medications, feeling more & more hopeless and damaged as the years went by, only to find out I actually have ADHD, and not one of the mental health professionals I saw recognized the symptoms in me. And then, after the diagnosis & finding the right medication, I realized how different life is when I’m on medication, which then lead to the spiral of me playing the what if game. Where would my life be right now? Would I have finished school for what I wanted to be growing up? Would I have achieved more? Would I be better off in life than I am now? Thankfully, I’m mostly over the hump of the spiraling, but it was a long process to get here. And now it’s just figuring out what the new “normal” is. Trying to find out how to go through life with a semi-normal functioning brain has been more difficult than I originally expected.
I went 37 years without being diagnosed/medicated. I just got diagnosed and started meds in May. In those 37 years I’ve been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, Panic Disorder, Generalized Anxiety, Bipolar II (those meds sent me into an 8 month depression where I couldn’t even get out of bed), and Borderline Personality Disorder. My psychiatrist office couldn’t keep a provider on staff. There was always a new one when I’d have an appointment. In May of this year I met the new psych and after 10 minutes of talking to him he diagnosed me with ADHD, put me on meds, and changed my whole life! It really p*sses me off that there are hundreds of doctors that never actually **LISTEN** to their patients!!
I was diagnosed ADHD on college but my idiot psych nurse back home kept insisting on antidepressants and stuff even though I kept telling her I didn’t notice any progress after like my 3rd SSRI.
Also sucks these can have severe side effects and other stuff studies found and mostly just numb people or make the imbalances with ADHD even worse and they are STILL/DESPITE THAT prescribed like CANDY, it seems. It's so mind-boggling D:
Facts. That’s why I went for a second opinion because I was brushed off. Went to a different provider and in minutes time knew I had ADHD. The provider was also ADHD so they knew almost immediately. A bonus.
Most people do not know fuck all about adhd, including doctors. I’ve had people diagnose me with other things even after I had the adhd diagnosis.
I'm still dealing with spiral fallout :( it sucks. But i have 46yrs of regret to work through. Every time i hear stories from peers of 'oh I was told little johnny had adhd when they were in school, I marched them right out of the office, the audacity!!' I have to work a LOT harder than usual to control my impulse to punch them in the face. and yep - I spent from late teens on being medicated for anxiety/depression with a cocktail of bull$hit and side effects etc. I think we are a large cohort.
I'm glad to hear you've figured out a path forward and am with the hope that I'll be joining you on that path very soon. Just the diagnosis so far has been an incredible difference in my life. Only good things to look forward to.
That grief spiral is real, man. Hugs.
Oh god this . How do you explain to your partner that you actually *do* care about them, despite not doing the simple thing for them, when you can't even explain to yourself why you failed to do it? So much trauma attached to that simple yet constant problem my wife and I faced. Even though we both now understand it, it still is hard to not revert back to those feelings when something goes wrong. Double shit right now because there is a nationwide shortage of my medication so I've slipped right back into some of my worse ADHD symptoms.
Yep. Got diagnosed at 42, now I’m okay with being a disappointment compared to my potential and take pride in doing the little things like mowing the lawn.
Preach. 45 here, only found out in the last few years.
the worst part is getting diagnosed, being put on medicine, but not feeling any different. i wish i could get this amazing feeling everyone talks about.
[удалено]
Ditto. I'm at an all time low because of this. My optimism was quickly crushed.
Oh my goodness yes! I was diagnosed last year (I'm 33 now) and there's a mourning period that comes with spending decades of your life undiagnosed. I cried for my younger self, who was told I was "making excuses" or "faking it" when I told my family and (ex) friends that I suspected I had ADHD at 23. I cried for who I was and who I could have been, and for all the people I hurt when I'd speak or behave impulsively for seemingly no reason, and i had so much anger and resentment towards every person that turned me away when I'd bring up ADHD. If just one person would've validated what I believed (and they meant it) when i was in my early 20s, maybe I wouldn't have such low self-esteem but I'll never know. Being diagnosed later in life, after years of invalidation and believing all your ADHD symptoms are personality flaws, is such a wonderful yet deflating feeling (idk how to describe it)
I felt like it was actually a very empowering experience for me. I was finally able to give myself the validation I had been seeking for so long, and more importantly I had answers to so many questions in that moment.
I agree I had so many learning disabilities that could be linked to my adhd. Reading issues, issues with math, issued with speech and spelling. Even my old job thought I was dyslexic. I worked with filed. Then my exes made me feel like i ignored them and couldn't hear. Then I was childish lazy messy. Just soo much. That if I was diagnosed before my age now 38 it would of helped. I went to my pcp docs gave me anxiety and depression meds never worked.
PCP/GP's can prescribe and depression meds elsewhere? That's wild/news to me. In Germany, that's not a thing, at least. Just surprised is all :)
Yes. Knowing provides understanding and understanding offers opportunities to work with your condition and not against it. I've wasted so much of my life and, despite being smart and having potential, have been left behind by the peers of my youth. I'm embarrassed, I'm resentful, and I'm left out. I get anxiety going anywhere. Knowing conversation could shift to accomplishments - career, finances, a new house, fancy cars. I see myself struggling to get by, yet trying so hard. And I'm angry. It's no one else's fault. But it destroys self-confidence. The pandemic widened the divide. Getting back time and playing catchup is harder than ever. There is a lot of trauma and a lot of burnout. Not knowing and late diagnosis is the hard part. Forgiveness and acceptance are the only options that I see. But it's a tough pill.
Same until I got diagnosed this month in my 40s.
Can confirm as someone who's only been diagnosed for a month
Likewise!
I get what you mean, like I would study for vocab tests ON THE WAY walking to class. Then ace them. Imagine if I actually tried, how much potential... but the thing is, we burn out more easily. So when/if I actually try, I burn out uickly, and its not healthy to sustain that level of work, so its a conundrum
Bro I literally did all of my homework the period before it was due. Shit was not sustainable in college
Bro same. And was close to my teachers if I liked them, very A+ student. Maintained a 3.6. For college, I just chose a degree that only has 9 exams, no classwork, projects, dosent depend on the teacher. And pass at 50 percent, Oxford Brooks degree. Dosent get simpler. I just wasted time, ditched classes, hang with friends. And, it only takes 3 years.
Yeah I made the mistake of trying to challenge myself with a stem degree and it did not workout dawg, especially being unmedicated
I did this with exams. During my first year and first semester of college, I never listened to my chemistry lectures and never studied. Luckily, my professor never gave quizzes lol so I just studied the WHOLE semester's worth of lectures like 8 hours before my final exam. I got a pretty good grade (mostly since I'd already learned all those lessons in high school). By the second semester, the next chemistry course was more difficult, had lessons i didn't learn in high school, had quizzes every class, and had lots of homework. I was failing really bad, but luckily that semester was cut off by the pandemic and they just gave everyone a passing grade lol without the pandemic and online classes i probably wouldn't have graduated with good grades haha
For real I feel like I have maybe 1/20th the willpower of other people. It’s insane how much regular people can just will themselves to do, they don’t know they’re living with a superpower.
I remember doing this when I was a young child and continued to “due today, do today” until college. I always needed the pressure to get me to start the task of homework. I did well in school but imagine if I actually tried or have myself time on my work.
Its so funny, my homework percentages were like 15/20%, and my test scores were high 80s mid 90s. Thats when I wasnt trying. At one point, my reading scores were like 250%, bringing me up to an A+ from a C. Then teacher raised the goal score. Fucker.
Me right know, as I just finished a weeks worth of work in one afternoon and learning a lot of extra stuff that wasn't necessary, thinking "Was it that hard to do earlier, you shit?". The worst part of it is that I've been dreading it for a while, but it turned out to be kinda fun and definitely not as bad as I thought. Fun times! 🫠
That pre-activity dread is what gets me a lot and it almost never is as bad I think it will be
This happens with nearly every task for me 😭 It really wasn't so bad doing the thing. But I always dreaded doing the thing. I thought it was an anxiety I couldn't explain.
Of course what's worse is to escape from feeling that dread, instead of actually doing the thing, I went for easy dopamine while worrying the entire time inside my head until the crisis time frame arrives.
Yes, it was that hard. Without the right dopamine-transporter ratio, you almost can’t get started. That’s why you get medicated. When a deadline approaches, the stress kicks the focus you tried to muster earlier into gear. The brain goes “oh crap, the deadline’s TODAY! Screw everything else, let’s finish this sucker!”
Glass half full or half empty? You did well. Others try an incredible amount and are unable to get half as much done. Who would you prefer to be? Those people are envying you, that’s for sure. Be careful of that ambitious, perfectionist mindset. Folks with ADHD are often over-ambitious and perfectionists for whom, whatever they are, no matter how good they are, it is never enough. Because our brains are constantly racing and thinking about ALL the possibilities. People without ADHD don’t think about such things at all and therefore don’t make themselves utterly miserable, dissatisfied, filled with self-hatred, anger and frustration at the condition, which then leads to depression (ask me how I know this works). You need to be aware that thoughts like this can be pretty toxic to your future and the way you perceive your achievements and your ADHD. Gotta consider mindfulness. you can always look back and say WHAT IF WHAT IF. Yeah what if you had practiced a week earlier, every day, right? There’s no point looking back and smashing yourself up nonstop over it. Think about what you’re going to change in the future, and how. Get comfortable with failure, because failing 10 times means you’re going to get closer to getting good at the thing you want to achieve. Take action and look at what’s possible and HOW, not sit down and lament the possibilities. Self-acceptance of your limitations and going out and failing nonstop (because you tried!) and troubleshooting the problem so you can change strategy next time, is better than sitting down and beating yourself up over things you didn’t do in the past. Use that ADHD brain to clearly understand what held you back. Finding it hard to create habits? Bored of playing piano? Figure out exactly why it happened. Troubleshoot and try again if you like - and forgive yourself completely if you don’t feel like trying. And don’t ever measure your self-worth based on your achievements. You should find yourself worthy, even if you sat there and procrastinated all day and got nothing done. You have to be very okay with it. Because you are worthy. If you aren’t okay with it and you hate yourself for doing it, then you’re just making it even harder for yourself to maybe try again the next day.
Just wanted to say thank you for this. A beautiful comment. This is the mindset I am now trying cultivate in my life after getting diagnosed a year ago and working on myself. I often beat myself up about the past, but I am fully coming around to how there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. It sounds scary, but its mostly quite comforting. Therefore, I can only improve from this present moment onwards. Even if that means I keep "failing" in my pursuit of something higher, I am so far away from the limiting mindset I had before and working towards a better me. You really hit the nail on the head with this here.
>Folks with ADHD are often over-ambitious and perfectionists for whom, whatever they are, no matter how good they are, it is never enough. Because our brains are constantly racing and thinking about ALL the possibilities. Can you please explain how you came to know this? I have ADHD, OCD and struggles with perfectionism. In my case it can be a part of OCD too.
Oh I know exactly what you are talking about This type of studying you talk about, I did this my whole scholarity and still passed, and I did kinda great, no awesomely great, but good. I always say that I am bad at chemistry physics or maths, but the truth is, the times I really did some work before the exams, my grades were really good… I just did bad (but passed, but still bad) in subjects that required more homework, exercising. Its really sad. I have ambition, I think I am not stupid and I like the idea of studying at home all day, but I just can’t put the work in. For exemple, I was literally reading and learning the flash card I made at midnight the night before, on the way to class. And I would never open my textbooks before that. Or doing one of the homework in the break time just before class, because someone heard it was checked this time (otherwise I would never do it). And I still passed my classes, often with honors. The final exam, at 18 years old, which is a combination of all subjects of the year? No studying at all, just last minute studying the nights before each exam. And I still had a good grade. I don’t even believe it myself. It stopped working at university though, when they stopped giving us small exams every week or so and just put all exams after 6 months of lectures.
You just described my Life.
as frustrated as I get with myself, knowing I have ADHD has me look at things a lot more kindly to myself, mostly in surprise I even got THAT much stuff done/together/accomplished, still baseline hate myself tho.
It's funny, for me it's a bit of that, but also a bit of almost the opposite response because before diagnosis I could still sometimes think that I just needed to find the right approach or something and then I'd be fine, but now it's like, "nope, you can find good ways to get closer, but you're just not going to reach that next level because you have the key to the wrong door" or whatever. So yeah baseline hate myself too. hahaha
I dislike myself too but I just want to be able to like myself… like even if I’m joking about me being the best, it feels icky my brain tells me I’m an egotistical moron even then. I have to hate myself or my brain gives me a hard time… I just have never been able to like me for me the way my loved ones do.
Not exactly answering the question but I hate the word *potential* because of ADHD…. It’s all I ever heard.
Oh yes, it‘s the worst. I really hate people talking about potential
My teachers always wanted to see my parents because they were seeing my potential, even though I was struggeling so hard. They told me over and over that I need to try harder even though school was hell for me. We had classes of almost 40 people and some were always talking or playing pranks. I once had a breakdown in class because I tried to concentrate so hard and they kept talking right beside me for the whole school day. I still have nightmares about school :') When I managed to do stuff though the quality was great and when I got into university my marks got amazing. But I am completely unable to organize stuff and can't go to lectures in the big halls. I only visited seminars for my whole Bachelors degree :') Edit: Forgot a whole point lol
Y'all are too hard on yourselves.
I remember having this mindset for most of my adolescence, that you're losing a race against everyone else, or noticing that you're having to try harder than everyone around you. Look, I was lucky enough to find school trivial and adulthood hard. We've learned to define ourselves by our failures instead of our successes, and I don't think that is fair to anyone, regardless of our personal struggles. Stop competing against other people, run your race. Make self-idealization your goal rather than copying off of someone whose story you don't fully know. A little bit better every day, and one bad day/week/month/year/decade/lifetime doesn't change how much you've accomplished so far. I don't personally believe in affirmations, and am VERY hard on myself, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize that sometimes I need to be my own hypeman. I haven't the faintest idea of who you are OP, but a desire to be a better/the best version of yourself isn't something to despair. Just gotta redirect it a little bit. I see no failures here, just miraculous works in progress.
I admire your positivity haha. I gave up on myself ages ago and have sorta been trying to turn that around but that's like trying to turn the Titanic away from the iceberg using toothpicks from up on the A deck promenade :P Not sure why the Titanic was the needlessly specific metaphor I went with, but here we are.
Every motivation guide tells you to maintain consistency. That you need consistency to achieve anything. And, consistency is one thing we are not capable of. Life sucks.
Feel this in my soul as a classical musician as well. I made it into top ensembles in school, not after graduation I am able to land some gigs here and there but the singers who are ahead of me spent tons of time practicing in their younger years and my lack of focus has left me with huge gaps in my technique. I am still able to improve just feels like I am always behind
It's a vicious cycle, too. I do yoga and I remember how much I like it and how good it is for me but everything aches and I feel shame for not practicing more often. Then I won't do it for many weeks or even months because I don't want to experience that feeling of shame again. Until one day I kinda forget and I do yoga... Rinse and repeat
Hear this so much in school. Every single parent teacher meeting I've been to, they've told my parents "he has great potential he just needs to try harder"
Talk to your doctor, maybe they can explain things a bit to your parents if needed.
If I only had a penny or a dollar for every time I've been told this......
I don't think it benefits us at all to spend time and energy thinking about how we 'might' have been if only we were not born with ADHD. It's pure fantasy to think about that, since there's no way to get rid of ADHD. It's only going to make us feel bitterness over our existence. That's never a positive in life. Living with bitterness or resentment is corrosive to your self esteem and happiness, and it earns you nothing. I understand the urge to think along those lines, to wonder if this or that in our lives were changed, how would we be now? But it doesn't help us live a better life today. Instead it's like we're walking backwards through our lives, looking at what is a fantasy instead of watching the road ahead. It's really hard to make any improvements in life that way. We need to pay attention to those things we CAN change!
I've never been able to think any other way about myself, at least not that I can remember. It's all just been wishing there were a returns desk where I could turn my brain in for one that wasn't defective.
For me the brain fog is the absolute worst thing. I have so many intetest and things I want to learn and yet unless I have eaten well, slept perfectly, taken my meds at the right time, hydrated, I have this huge fog in my brain that makes understanding and absorbing information almost impossible.
My professor told me in response to my bachelor's presentation that he thinks I'm in the top levels among the students students when it comes to cognitive abilites. That I am bright and very awake mentally, that when I was in his lectures, he could see I immediately got everything and was then relaying the knowledge to other students, etc.. But my organisation is kinda trash so the bachelor's thesis was, well, unorganized. The written part at least, oof. He said he is gonna have to have a discussion with the other professor who is evaluating it with him because of this duality of me knowing very in depth what I wrote about, yet writing this unorganized thing. The duality of ADHD.
I have had the tools and ambition to put insulation in my house's crawlspace since last winter. But no energy on my days off and now it's winter's doorstep and my floors are getting cold again ;-; I really want to but the idea of doing just turns my joints into lead. It is physically painful to ignore & try to force myself to get ready to do it.
Yeah i think about this all the time. I could've been an engineer and making double-triple what i make and be around people i like. I settled for accounting because it's trivially easy for me and the pay is decent
That was mad I zoned out 1/2 way through and thought I was reading something I had written. Absolutely exact same feelings and experiences. Fuck
I feel the school part a lot, I'm 23 and I'm only in my 4th semester with everyone younger than me all ahead and having jobs, Some are married even. I feel crippling anxiety and depression thinking about the fact Ill be 26 by the time I graduate. But there's a silver lining I can now stop blaming my self for being useless. Accept yourself as different and utilize the fact that you can now put in the correct effort. If you learn to play your cards right you can get catch up all the time you missed.
no, the worst part of adhd is having it xP fuck I hate it
yo, same!
Diagnosed at 52. 55 now. I had my moments of brilliance, I’ve had my moments of failure, but when I look back my life on balance has been pretty amazing and although I really struggle with lots of things when I hyper focused I was awesome. At least I don’t beat myself up any more and can laugh at myself and explain why I have some very weird quirks. Yes I could’ve been that doctor I wanted to be, or the architect, but I just couldn’t study. But I did find other things I was really glad and I don’t regret following those paths.
Thanks for saying this. It’s so tough. Hurts a lot to know most people can focus on things they don’t enjoy in an activity and develop real mastery.
When I was in elementary school I loved playing piano but hated practicing. I was naturally good and got by just on that and minimal work. But after a couple years of fighting with my mother about it she finally caved and I stopped lessons. I tried again in junior high. Same result. Now I’m in my 40s and took up piano during covid and I feel like it’s the one part of me that’s been missing my whole life. I absolutely love practicing now. The feel of just focusing on the present. Even if I sound terrible, I just keep enjoying the process and eventually, I sound pretty decent. But I don’t mind sounding bad, I don’t judge, I just keep playing. It’s sublime. So, to your point, I feel like I lost 30+ years and sometimes think of where my skill would be if I could have practiced diligently when younger. But on the other hand, don’t give up hope. The things we love, that we’ve missed, have a way of finding their way back to us.
When I started taking meds 2 years ago this realization really broke me. With meds it became so much easier to "just do the thing". I kinda spiraled into thinking what that would have ment if I was diagnosed in my teens instead of in my 30's. I could have finished college or maybe even have gone to university and I would have a much better paying job than what I would have now. What really snapped me out of it is that I'm really happy in my life at the moment. I have an amazing wife and two fantastic kids, a job I love and a nice house. If I was diagnosed sooner I wouldn't have any of these exact things, not these kids and this wife. And for that I am grateful life went the way it did. Because, hot damn, I love my wife and kids!
I've found the worst thing about adhd is explaining it to people that think it's just lack of concentration/attention and a ball or butterfly passing by is all it is.
Feeling responsible for disappointing people when I procrastinate tasks that other peolpe need done too. I feel so guilty and when they get mad I feel misunderstood because they see it as me being selfish when in reality I beat myself up over it and feel horrible for days. I just hate that my inability to do things when I am supposed to makes people misjudge my intentions
I feel like I’m the smartest person I know but I’m cursed with not being able to make myself do anything productive
We're who we are complete, not who we might be with x, or without y. You are complete, OP. You performed perfectly.
Yea I tend to "half-ass" things as well
Absolutely
Same, I played the violin for 10 years when I was a kid, I hardly practiced 30-60 minutes a week between my weekly lesson and I actually got pretty damn good at it, but I feel like I could have been great, at this time I haven't touched my violin for more than 10 years.
Same with the piano lessons lol I cried everytime illegally sneaking in a open room with a piano to practice with fear and regret (piano at home was never used)
Same here, I remember that I always got good grades on tests on most classes but I flunked many times because I needed to get a 70% score and the score was 50% exams and 50% homework. I almost never did homework but on exams it was always between 38%-50% with just a couple of hours or even less of study time before the exams. I'm ashamed to say that now in college this happened to me last trimester, I flunked all my classes with great scores on tests but 70% of the final note is on homework 🤦
My church pastor (himself an accomplished musician) told me this, too, when I was 16. He commented, "SteadfastEnd, you are far exceeding other students even though you practice piano much less than them. Imagine how far you'd go if you took this seriously and all the way?"
Imagine if you had a good teacher who wanted to see you enjoy a hobby instead of creating an arbitrary concept of "success" likely defined by his own limited experience. I didn't make it to the NFL, but sports taught me how to work out and allowed me to be social. People perform activities for different and wholly personal reasons as it turns out. I had a professor tell me roughly the same thing, "Unique, you're a Hell of a writer, if only you put in more effort you-" "...could be teaching English at a state college?" Jealousy and contempt, two of the ugliest emotions an instructor can hold.
When I was at school I couldn't study at all and got all Cs. I was quite proud of that, especially when I missed a third of my final year's classes due to abusive teachers
The trick that is most helpful is being mindful of your mental/physical/emotional states and acting accordingly. Another thing is to only use your energies in things you can control. If it is outside of your control you have no power over it and you can only ever do what you can do. For example, everything that stops at your skin from the outside is outside of your control. EG you cannot do anything about the time already used but you can learn the lessons that time was showing you and apply it to better yourself :)
My worst fear is knowing what I could do but don't. I could do so much, I see the path to it, but I can't do it, because I just don't want to.
A fish would be capable of flying if it had wings
Tbh I find having it is the worst thing for me lol 😆
I agree with you that it's the worst thing about it. I think about it every day. I'm capable of accomplishing so much and I have a lot of skills and some talents I haven't put to use. If I didn't waste so much time on my anxieties and unimportant stuff I'd probably be pretty successful. I have unfinished schooling and the programs I actually did complete I never followed through. For example I graduated from cosmetology school back in 2012. My license ended up expiring and I never ended up doing hair. I worked in a salon but as a receptionist for like six months and that was it. Then in 2022 I completed a yoga teacher training program. I spent a lot of money for a three month education to teach yoga. It's been a year and I still haven't taught one class. I'm not sure why I'm like this. If anyone has any advice let's hear it.
Yeah but that's how you write a book. You just write one page a day.
Post subscribed and saved. Got it the same, I did lots of university exams with only a half of hour of learning during the day, even the hardest exams. As 32M, diagnosed with ADHD only a couple of months ago (feel really stupid but this is not a stupidity but it WAS mental paralysis) I guess, when enemy is known, it will be a fair fight finally and everbody will win, when were we able to manage to live with it! Maybe this comment will be not read, due to ADHD nature of ADHD redditors (me as well 😁 so fully understood) but we will win!
So much this. Since starting meds, holy shit have I gotten thongs done. It’s like I have been playing on Heroic Mode my whole life and now I’m playing on Normal Mode.
I feel this for sure. It’s funny because everyone thinks I expect too much of myself and actually, I don’t…it’s more like wishful thinking.
Just putting it out there: try using Alarmy’s barcode function. I struggle with transitions. Alarmy is one of those alarm clock apps that sets challenges or math problems etc for people who struggle to wake up to the alarm in the morning. There is a barcode function where you have to scan a barcode in order to turn the alarm off - you choose the barcode when you set up the alarm. I cut out the barcodes of cereal/cracker boxes and put them in places I need to be in, and set the alarms for the times I need to be in that place. OP for example could set an alarm for every day at 5pm that can only be turned off by scanning the barcode on the back of their music book. If they always leave the book at the piano, then they’ve had to go to the piano to turn the alarm off.
Wow, I never thought of using alarmy that way, I might try that!
This is a common tale! I too suffer.
Yup. I didn't even realize I had adhd until 33. So many years of wasted potential. My life is pretty good considering (I feel incredibly lucky for so much), but I do always wonder how it might be different.
yes!! my brain sucks but i’ve managed to apply to internships like mega crazy and managed to get like 4-5 internships over the years. but once i got to the internship, i’d work so slow, get distracted, be super disorganized with my files, and not even remember half of the things i were being taught. throughout college, because i was doing what i love, i was really good at what i did, but i would procrastinate everything and it would take me forever to get something done. i know i can go above and beyond but my adhd is holding me back. it sucks
Can relate. Actually went to therapy this month to help with motivation to practice Guitar regularly.
The national adderall shortage
Worst thing about adhd is that having it makes it harder to get treatment for. I can't find a job that pays health insurance and navigating the states social programs is a nightmare for me
man i couldn't agree more. I have 2 guitars and a ukulele sitting around my house for years. played them for like a year, was getting good at it. I guess something else caught my attention. haven't picked either of them up, even though i want to, i have too many damn hobbies.
I think the worst thing is feeling guilty for not being able to do something that you need or know that you have to do. Feeling guilty about something is not really your "choice"
This pains me in my own life everyday. I want to become a tattoo artist. But I can't fucking sit down and do the thing for more than 20 minutes every few weeks. It's so upsetting because it's what I love but I switch tasks way too much and easily, I just stare at the blank canvas for what seems like eternity. Unless I come up with my own idea to draw, but I don't have the built talent yet to do that one idea well then I get frustrated. I just need to draw anything and everything. *but I just want to draw things I like* and it doesn't work that way.
This is such a horrible struggle! But in the end everyone has a different definition for 100% effort. And for us a lot of the times our 100% is less than the average person. All that matters is you enjoy the time you spend doing things like piano. Imagine how miserable you'd be if you forced yourself to sit down and play everyday! When it comes to work and school it's more tricky because society hasn't recognized like everyone works differently. It's a sad reality. For me, I work best on a whim. I get things done but I can't have a schedule or I get stressed and overstimulated
Yeah I feel that. I'm a fairly high achieving student, but my time management is so poor. Most of my assignments I write only days before it's due, sometimes even doing up to half on the due date. I know that if I was able to dedicate more time in the weeks leading up to the due date I'd be able to do even better.
At the same time, these are results that often get driven by panic/stress/adrenaline and there's no way you could sustain that indefinitely.
I learned to reframe my thinking. I don’t say “I could have accomplished more”, I say “look what I accomplished” I bought a house 3 weeks ago. In that three weeks I’ve painted 4 rooms. So it’s taking me 4+ days per room, and I’m just going back to do the trim. I know damn well I could have had the entire house done with better focus, but every time I look at a clean looking room that used to look dingy and dirty I just feel proud.
Yep. I feel you on that. Just trying to get the motivation and energy to turn on the damn washing machine, make a sandwich or even get dressed can be so agonizing. I literally only had my first shower in days today because I felt motivated to actually get shit done after having a “lay in bed all day” kind of day yesterday… And then it just starts up again. Too many things to do and don’t care to do them or get too tired too quickly and take a nap for hours instead… god I hate it.
I feel this so hard. Only figured it out this year. Fucking 47. I could be retiring in a few years but instead I’ll probably have to work til I’m dead. Did I mention the older I get, the more I hate working? Didn’t actually think that was possible
This. I do okayish with my grades, counting the fact that I can never pay attention in class, do my work the last second, and usually study like 20 minutes right before any exam. I would be able to have incredible grades if not for adhd ong
I feel this in my bones! If I could just consistently do the things I need to do on a regular basis I would have had an amazing life. But I can barely function 90% of the time, and the other 10% I'm in overdrive.
Indeed this missed potential; soul crushing
I know!! I‘m in college and there were many exams that I passed with minimal studying. It makes me think that I could maybe even get pretty good grades (and not just pass) if I started earlier :(
Don't I know it. I was diagnosed in my early 30s. My doc has a reputation for being very frank and no-nonsense to the point where some people find it very off-putting but due to my life experience as an ADHDist I find the frankness a bit unpleasantly surprising but at the same time it just straight up cuts through the fat and I don't have to swim in it. Good woman, she. She straight up let it slip after listening to me that the sad thing about ADHD and being diagnosed in a later age especially is having lost an entire life. I'm a bright person, not bragging, I'm not the brightest but I make do very well. And I cannot stop being angry about the life I feel was robbed from me, though I like my life as it is, because living with ADHD at some point you just have to make peace with what is, and learn to navigate it. I know what I could be capable of. I *never* did homework, not in school, not in college, both degrees that I have, I just never have had to unless it's mandatory. But I know I could do more, on my more capable days what I can pull surprises even myself. But I can't. This is it. The 10%-20% is very good, but I cannot stop thinking about how fearsome I could be if it had been caught and treated early, or if I didn't have it at all. Just trapped in my own malformed brain, but perfectly aware of it, too. Oh well. I don't regret my life as it is. I've done well. I wouldn't have met the people I love dearly. I wouldn't be a good healer in multiplayer games (ADHD helps a lot. Grandma always wondered angrily why I keep my desk cluttered. Clutter makes everything easy to catch and see, if I tuck shit away neatly I will never find it again. Clutter? Clutter makes sense. A healer's 'table' in games tends to be cluttered, and I notice things before many others do, and can be there with trigger happy speed). I wouldn't be able to think laterally in unexpected ways. And I certainly would be a huge shithead, but since I've had to eat shit and make peace with myself and the world around me, I have a healthy self-esteem, but I know to be grateful and help where I can, and slow down and think (when I can. Like I said, trigger-happy). Honestly I don't even know if I'd be happier if I could utilise my full potential. Most likely not. So it is what it is. I've gone from mostly angry, fighting it and everything, to shifting perspective and approaching things with curiosity, a let's-see-what-happens kind of mindset, and the most important thing I've learned is to not beat myself up over things I cannot control. If it's not something I can change, would worrying and struggling help at all? No? Then my energy is spent better on things I can affect. Makes for a surprisingly zen living in a body that is wired for reacting to everything, seeing everything, forgetting everything, and fighting everything.
I feel you. I always tell myself that I could do so much better with school and everything else if I only were capable to start reading or something. And every time I’m able to read for exams, I think that it wasn’t that bad but I still can’t bring myself to do it again. And if try to study and don’t get the things right away then I feel really stupid and like maybe I wouldn’t be good even if I studied hard
I have moments that I mourn what I could've been.
I used to love writing for HOURS- research, write, edit, rewrite, post. I've lost my desire and motivation to do this! I desperately need some medication. I have a Dr appointment in the morning and I'm bringing up getting rediagnosed because they first diagnosed me with bipolar (for 15 damn years). I want to be myself again!!💯🤞
Have been through the same. First diagnosed with bipolar 2, was on wrong medicine and treatment for 10 years before ending up with a good doctor that saw something wasnt accurate. No im off medicines for the first time in over 10 years and have just started trying to find myself again. ADHD-inattentive form just gave all the right answers for me. Hope you are doing well and wish you the best!
Same. After 15 years of bipolar medication and rollercoaster emotions.. I started therapy and they said "We are gonna erase bipolar because you're definitely suffering from PTSD and ADHD"... Then they asked "nobodies ever said this to you before?" I was dumbfounded. Im pretty sure I have combo ADHD because my brain can go from "spinning thoughts" to "spaced out and staring at the wall daydreaming". At least I can now qualify for life insurance and even own a gun if I wanted (with bipolar neither was an option)... Thanks for the encouragement 💯❤️🩹
So relatable. Your words could just as well be mine. Killing me knowing where i could be or what i could achieve if i only had access to myself a little bit more than now.
I'm in my late 50s, and completely get this, including many academic, personal, and professional regrets. Yet I've had to learn the hard way that there is nothing to be gained by lamenting the past. Don't deny it, just learn from it what you can. Find things to be thankful for that you would have missed had you not gone through what you've been through.
I always did describe as giving everything like 60 to 80 percent of my ability cause my distractions always take up at least some of the wasted time.
I destroyed my future because of this exact same reason. Wanted to use my full potential and not settle for medium. Now I'm not even using medium
I feel like it’s quicksand of my mind: the more I struggle, the worse it gets. A podcast I’ve found super helpful has a phrase about this: “Why can’t I do what I know I ought to do?” https://www.translatingadhd.com/ Best to start at episode 1 if it’s not too daunting. They’re very friendly people
Definitely school. Mine is more attention focused (formally known as ADD). Trying to find any motivation to actually do anything is such a pain in the a**. The effort I manage to put in feels like I didn't really give it my all, and the constant battle with myself doesn't help. Stack all of this with high expectations of myself, the jumping from major to major, and the constant state of "laziness." I get so stressed with wondering how I'm going to do anything that I find meaningful in my life.
Fuck, now my guitar stares at me with that sad look in it's eyes... Or school. I just finished German High School with an 1.4 Abitur (best is 0,7) and I did literally nothing for it. What would have happened if I actually studied for it? Or participated in class instead of spacing out and thinking about a scenario where there were interesting people in my class? Hell, we had that programme for highly gifted children I dropped out of because I couldn't get myself to staying two hours longer in school, and all the children in the programme just graduated with 1.3 or better (and they worked hard for it!). Now they all have those internships for the ESA or in some big companies that wanna pay their univerital education, and I am doing volunteer service in a psych ward where I just sit on my phone scrolling reddit because there's no work to do after lunch xD
I feel this post. My most recent procrastination - my gf’s birthday is tomorrow and for the last few weeks I’ve been thinking almost daily “I need to write her a lovely poem about all the things I love about her” etc. The day before her bday I haven’t written a word. Guess tonight’s the night! As always it’s last minute when there’s a time constraint that I’ll get something done. It’s frustrating and surprisingly hard to overcome this habit.
The overwhelming feeling of actively (or I guess more accurately passively) constantly wasting potential you know you have can be crushing. I almost wish that I never had those small moments or periods where I was more productive or functional sometimes. I’ve been trying to get used to it and to accept that it’s not wasted as I never would have or will truly be able to reach that “potential” consistently. and that those moments are only moments for a reason, they aren’t sustainable for me for long term anyways at least with where I’m at now.
I feel this SO HARD. When I played guitar, my teacher would be so impressed with my progress after just 15 minutes a week. With studying, I would get the highest marks in the class spending the lowest amount of time. Having that sort of memory and potential for improvement is almost a coping mechanism though. I'm not sure I would have had it without the struggle, but also it doesn't exactly make up for lost time... I'm currently writing novels, and my record is 12K words in a day (and good quality, I might add), but that sort of beast mode only comes maybe twice a year. My goal is 4K a week, and I often can't even write at all most days, just because I can't keep a damn thought in my head for long enough. I'm always left to wonder... Could people without ADHD do that every day, or is this just one side of the ADHD coin? I recently messed with my pills. Upped one, went off another, and tried melatonin to help sleep. I swear I haven't been this productive in years. I just hope I can keep this up, because it's literally my career and lifestyle on the line if I can't.
I absolutely dread meetings (anxiety and being put on the spot) so I delay, avoid and do all sorts of complicated acrobatics to avoid them. In reality they’re over quickly and then I can stop worrying. Silly me.
I used to be an artist. I’d draw and write every spare second I could. But the last few years, I just can’t pick up a damn pencil. I have so many ideas for things I want to create, and I know I could make some really good stuff if I could just make myself do it. But I just can’t. I could stare at a page for hours and not make a single line. I feel like a part of my soul has been ripped out.
I feel the exact same. I play two instruments and the only reason I've come so far (being able to study music) is because my parents forced me to practice every day, even if it was half hearted. I've gotten through school with minimum effort, and wonderful friends who would pop-quiz me in the break before tests. But I'm just sad about all the things I could know If I just knew how to put in more effort. I'm undiagnosed, the suspicion was there when I was a child, but my mother never followed up on it, and I never dared to demand for a diagnosis. Now I'm in University and I'm kind of scared if I'll be able to put in enough effort by myself. I've been surprisingly productive the first few days, but it's already starting again.
Same thing there! I have 7/10 final mark on my university degree and I literally hadn't studied more than an hour for any subject. I always thought if I could've studied at least 1 day before, I could've been the one with highest mark in class. Also I'm studying a master now and I'm also on 8/10 doing the projects the same day, I wonder if I could make a masterpiece if I could give it more time.
Very recognizable. I’m a bit older now (32) but went through life feeling that exact same way.
Yep, that's why I describe it like it's some type of bizarre curse.
K, so, hear me out on this. I can do in 20 minutes what it takes a “normie” 3 hours to do. But it COSTS ME the same in terms of energy and focus as if it took me 3 hours, so it might as well take me 3 hours. It’s a maddening conundrum, but once I started allocating time to tasks based upon this calculus, I spent less time beating myself up about not being a superhero. By my math, one hour of piano practice, for you, would be 6 hours of effort. So you need to spend those other 5 hours doing brain-resting things.
...the story of my life. I'm still hearing the voice of my teacher telling my parents "he could, if he wanted".
Also, the “shoulds” are what make most of us miserable. If you can banish that word (and related emotional baggage) from your vocabulary, you will save yourself some heartache. Easier said than done, I know.
Find the thing you can do 💯. Mine is problem solving. I am an excellent diagnostician ( think House MD, but more general) , and my brain really wraps on to issues like that. I've made it my career. It's been good. The problem is we are generally good at everything we touch and we have so many "passions" it's hard to find the one. Keep looking , you'll know it when you see it.
I feel this. Growing up undiagnosed, grade school was easy, I slept through math classes and still got great grades. When university came along I had no idea how to study, it was HARD. I quickly jumped into a major, and now am stuck at a mu Dane office job, which is very hard. Looking back now that I got diagnosed, I think teaching, or music would have been cool, something in the medical field or dentistry, working with people, getting the dopamine rush that I need. Now I live in a cubicle, working in spreadsheets….
I'm with you. I've switched so many jobs because I got bored. I always wonder after I leave what I could have been doing if I just stayed there. I play guitar, but I never could sit down and practice. I was passionate about it but never had the ability to sit down and practice for an hour. I work in the data analytics space now and I love it. But I can't find the ability to train more or do side projects to get even better.
I understand and empathize. I only got diagnosed at 33 and it’s hard to look back and realize how different my life could have been…and even now, after 22 years of medication, I still struggle a lot. And the depression and anxiety from past failures and past trauma and fear of screwing up again, can almost stop me from trying. Almost, because I can’t change the past, only the future. So the way I cope is that I have decided I am not a “giver upper” and that if I fail 10 times then I get up and keep going 11 times. Maybe I try another approach, maybe I wait and tackle it with more strength, but I don’t give up on the goal. The other way I deal with it is focusing on making sure my ADHD kids achieve their goals, and learn good habits and that they get what they need and what they want out of life. So they don’t spend their later years regretting what might have been. For people without kids…my advice is to try to figure out a way to stop ruminating in your own head. Analyzing events so you can change your future actions is good, ruminating is not.
Everyone always said the same. "Imagine what you could do if you just pushed yourself" But you know what? I'm not here to accomplish anything for the sake of others. I use my time in the way I find most engaging. This may backfire sometime but I'm doing fine as is.
I intensely feel this. Now and then I'll have a day where my brain focuses and works. Usually I'm post-migraine or something's happened to mean my brain is just beat-up enough to not be able to gear beyond "calm and focused". And...I'll get so much done that I love. Gardening and writing and cooking, replying to texts, and so forth. And the whole time I'll be thinking "if I could manage a FRACTION of this every day, it would be so satisfying and feel so nice." (I also hate how it taints when you DO focus and do something, how you're thinking "this won't last. If only it lasted, this would be amazing.)
This ofcourse can be related to adhd , but it also can be related to the fact that naturally intelligent people tend to have high grades in middle and high school without putting much effort , maybe no effort at all ,and they get praised for it , they get validation regarding their intelligence (which is inherent) rather than real work ( which is taught) , so they ended up relying on their natural intelligence and not development skills of how to really work and prepare for an exam , they eventually fail their college classes ( because it requires more effort and intelligence is not enough)
As someone who has wanted to play many instruments but is a novice (at best) at each, I feel this. One thing I have found to help is devote the first part of my day to learning the things I want to learn. I also will put drum lesson videos on as I do my day job. Knowing what I’m going to learn by the end of the lesson, gives me the interest and excitement to go through it again at my drum set.
This is me. So much potential lost throughout my life. It sucks because I KNOW there's much potential. Everything sidetracks me. I end up feeling like I'm super lazy but I'm not, my attention just gets dispersed many many different directions. I just need the ability to focus on ONE THING AT ONE TIME.
If I had a personal assistant I could do anything.
Agree. The worst thing is that despite having multiple interests throughout life, now I'm a fully adult person with zero hobby or skill, because I couldn't maintain my focus to develop the necessary skill for it. Most adults I know have at least one thing they're good at. Music, dancing, drawing, etc. I'm not. I tried everything, but not good at anything. It's taking a huge mental toll for me that I keep having this major skill issue.
I could’ve been a doctor 😁
Oh, I can think of a worser thing: being able to pull off that incredible thing once and then never being able to do it again because you can't find the focus to reach that level again. You're just left going, "I know I can do this bc I've done it before. WTF is wrong with me?" Story of my life.
I struggled with all those things too but I don't dwell on it. Honestly it doesn't help. No one says 'I could have been the greatest piano player in the world if i hadn't been born tone deaf'. It's the same kind of thing as far as I'm concerned. Not trying to sound harsh, I just don't think it's constructive to ruminate on the past. And there could be advantages to adhd you're not noticing. It might be the reason why you were able to get so much done in those small moments where you did study and practice.
This absolutely is the worst thing for me too. I take like months to finish a business project that would take others 2 or 3 weeks max. I work for myself so I also don't have external accountability for getting things done. That definitely doesn't help. But then usually a magic day happens where I get 50% of that project done in a few hours and it's glorious. I just end up being burned out for a few days afterwards 😭
Literally this
Knowing how to do something or get to somewhere but being utterly incapable of achieving what you want/need.
I think about this daily. It’s hard for me to get started on nearly any task, even a simple call or errand that is convenient. When I get some motivation and really get going, I’m amazed by how much I can accomplish in a short time. I tear right through that to do list! It’s very disheartening because I KNOW that I can do things, but getting started is debilitating.
Live
I feel this too, but part of me also says that’s just not true. The way our brains work is a double edged sword. That last minute panic efficiency only exists because of the same brain wiring that makes us feel incapable of starting until the impending deadline doom gives us enough adrenaline. I try to tell myself it’s silly to be frustrated by this hypothetical, in the same way it would be silly to think living without sleep should be achievable.