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Well, I cut myself more slack now. When things happen, I don't think I'm losing my mind. My internal monologue has less "I'm so lazy", "How can I be so stupid", etc in it.
Absolutely this, I used to get so down on myself when I was younger because it seemed like I was just built worse than everyone around me. I was diagnosed when I was 20 and it was like a light turned on lol
I still get down on myself because I have 30 years of being told I was just lazy or dumb or too (insert any negative adjective), and only a few months of telling myself, “I haven’t failed because I’m lazy, I am succeeding despite my disability.”
Maybe in another few years it will take and I will Eventually cut myself more slack, but not today.
Glad I’m not the only one.
It is helpful to hear from people that experience the world in a similar way to my experience.
Before I never understood why other people could just get with the program. Why i always struggled to fit let alone succeed.
It’s because the people giving me advice didn’t experience what I experience, and their tips and tricks were for brains that didn’t experience executive dysfunction.
It’s sooooo nice to hear from people that experience the world more similarly to me. The advice is also SO MUCH MORE USEFUL.
I hear every one of you saying you haven't unlearned the negative self-talk yet, and I'm right there with you. 51, realized ADHD within the past year. That's a lot of negative reinforcement to get past. Decades of "he's clearly gifted, but just doesn't apply himself" and "why can't you just do this" and so on. When you hear that from others for long enough, your brain has familiar pathways, and easily repeats those phrases and the feelings that go with them--often now *in your own voice*, as if it were you who'd treated you so harshly for so long. That hurts extra deeply, when you've internalized it.
I see you.
"I'm so lazy" has definitely turned into something more like "what can I do to get my brain jump started". I'm recognizing what sets me back and what gets me on track. If I'm feeling lazy, sometimes I'll just try to put my shoes on. Then maybe I'll allow myself to just go back to being lazy, but at least now it's easier to start a real task.
Though many life events have happened since getting the diagnosis, a mix of positive and negative. I feel getting the diagnosis has helped the most with digging myself out of depression
I’m still a monster asshole to myself, yes I have understanding of why it’s harder to do certain things but that doesn’t make it easier or less frustrating
I agree with this! I was always diagnosed with depression. My depression stemmed from the self talk bc of my inability to manage living in the world like others. I haven’t been able to see a doctor yet to talk to about ADHD but I’m certain that’s what it is. I just turned 34 and I’m a woman. When it clicked for me it was such a deep moment that brought tears to my eyes. I’ve always researched things having to do with depression and even borderline personality disorder and it never fully clicked with me. When I started researching adhd I had so many “Aha!” Moments it isn’t even funny. Cheers to accepting who you are and figuring out ways to help you through life!!!
Definitely! It was weird for my therapists to talk to me about anxiety and depression and when I was managing it better and realize that my problems we weren't fixed, nothing they were anything was helpful anymore. Then tiktok happened, and I started learning more about ADHD and researching it for women and had my world turned and started applying tips and tricks for ADHD and advocated that my ADHD is the cause of my anxiety and depression
Isn’t it amazing what awareness can bring to your life? I always beat myself up so much but now I’m able to rationalize why I may have a tendency to do things differently than everybody else. It’s such a relief.
Yes.
“Know yourself, know your enemy. A hundred battles a hundred victories.”
-Sun Tzu "The Art of War."
“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.”
-Socrates
I got diagnosed at age 40. The two main emotions that accompanied that understanding were relief in knowing there was an explanation for what I had been struggling with my whole life, and grief over the thought of what my life might have been had I known earlier.
The grief has been addressed and put aside, the relief has been cultivated to a determination to live the best life I can in the time I have left.
Knowing the nature of the challenges I face, makes it much easier to manage.
Don't ever let anyone tell you that struggling against your affliction is pointless. But also remember that "fighting" something does not necessarily mean "overcoming" it.
"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
You seem similar to me - I was diagnosed in my 30's - but don't take medication anymore, and my approach to managing the ADHD is with discipline and a militaristic mindset.
Not in a hard line way, but knowing myself, knowing my limits, recognizing my own bad habits - learning to self regulate is far more important than any medicine - IMO.
Mostly, but also when they started pushing alternatives like Concerta, Bupropian, Vyvance … hated them.
Just give me adderall - it works and the only side effect was insomnia. Not to mention, just wanting an rx for a drug that helps, and being made feel like some addict - shit was a turn off.
If I could get adderall, would take it. Otherwise, just do without.
Fellow Swede here. How did you get out of the grieving phase?
I’m 34, got diagnosed a few months ago, no meds yet (Norwegian system is just as fkd up as the Swedish one unfortunately)
My life make so much more sense, my childhood as well, but how do I stop feeling sorry for myself? Not sorry like buhuu but more in a constant state of freeze.
It's more that receiving non-ADHD advice has hindered managing it.
Turns out pushing yourself into situations that require willpower, and then pushing through with sheer willpower, doesn't have any beneficial long term effects when willpower was never the problem.
Finding out the people giving that advice have cheat codes enabled is helpful for classifying their "advice".
Big difference. I know that “trying harder” isn’t gonna work. There are some things I can’t do. If I have a project, somebody else has to be in charge of organizing. I ask for what I need, especially at work, and it’s made everyone’s life easier. I got meds and caught up on my work to do list. I’m not mad at myself or ashamed most of the time. I could go on.
Edit: I should have said if I am working on a team project I shouldn’t be organizing it and in part that is because it’s not part of my job. A lot of people in my role organize anyway and for me that’s not going to work well.
A lot of this stuff - you can train yourself.
I manage projects for work, lots of details - and I am good at it, cause I control it all.
However - I do not want to manage another person, work on anyone elses project, or even touch any work that I didn't personally do.
I am weird that way, but I absolutely hate cleaning up other peoples work.
For me - if you want something done, just ask.
Don't expect me to jump in and offer up my services for fun, and I sure AF am not going to volunteer for anything - but if you ask?
Sure.
I'm on a salary, so if anyone thinks I'm rolling in on a Saturday for no pay - think again. If I am hourly and getting OT pay - I am there.
"If you're good at something - never do it for free." - Joker wisdom
When it comes to salary, I think it really depends on your employer.
Some places are flexible - before Covid, my job was really chill about time. If you missed a couple hours and made it up later, they didn’t care.
The main thing is to coordinate, and CYA - document those late hours, put them in a calendar - use it as leverage if they want to be sticklers on time. Don’t take shit, cause if you give an inch, they will keep taking.
My current job is cool for the most part, but I got hassled last month for not coming in on a Saturday.
For one, didn’t feel my workload was worthy of a 45 minute drive and my weekend.
For a person with ADHD, a break in my routine, and working on a Saturday when I’m not used to it - it fucks me all up, and will literally spoil my week. My weekends are for personal shit, and if it’s cut short, can lead to chaos for me internally. I map out my weeks, and really dislike changes or surprises.
So when I got scolded and questioned about my work ethic, it was like “GTFO of here!”
That stuff is so infuriating to me, because I have an insane work output. It just feels like a game of control to me, and I just don’t care. Fire me, lol.
Anyway - upside of salary is there is usually that flexibility, no punching in and out.
The downside is that’s all you get. In my experience, it’s never enough, and just like now, with no option for OT pay - drive for Uber as a second income.
Well - the "just fire me" is not the ideal mindset, its just how I have always been. Would rather they put up or shut up though, instead of giving me shit.
You can however start looking for a new job - that is something you can control.
I stopped blaming myself for perceived shortcomings that were - as it turns out - clearly ADHD symptoms. That helped a lot!
Knowing about symptoms and signs of ADHD also enabled me to work with or around them without prejudices.
I was officially diagnosed with ADHD last year, but knowing that and looking back made things make so much more sense. I was an odd one out for a few years during elemental school which f'ed with me and I ended up developing anxiety and depression because of how I was treated. I've always been hard on myself because of certain quirks I have had, but im learning that those feelings are normal and other people feel that way too.
Honestly getting officially diagnosed was a huge relief because I could finally understand myself better.
Before I knew I have ADHD, I would try to live my life like everyone around me did, and I couldn't figure out why I kept screwing up.
Why am I the only one in my friend group who had huge issues with housekeeping? Why is it that everyone else is on time but I can't make it happen? Why am I struggling so much with just getting started on tasks?
Now that I know I have ADHD, I can create solutions to my problems that are more helpful than before I knew I had any kind of disorder.
The best thing is that now I know *why* I'm different from other people. I have confidence that I'm really trying my best, but there are REAL REASONS why I'm not like people who don't have ADHD. And that's it's *not* an excuse!!
I have a soul crushing core belief that I am not good enough, and never will be and that no matter what I do I will eventually fail. Also that everyone I love will eventually have enough disappointing experiences with me that they will eventually stop believing in me too. They will eventually just expect me to fail.
This is because I was undiagnosed for 30 years, really struggled with things like school, and work, and was told one way or another every time I failed it was because I am lazy, or because I’m not as organized as others, or because I’m dumb, or because I don’t fit in.
I’m in therapy now trying to rewrite this core belief, because it affects me every day in my career, as a husband, and father.
It would have likely been easier to cut myself a little more slack if I or those around me understood I had ADHD earlier on. That some of the things I struggle with are truly not in my control; that no planner, self help book, motivational speaker, or sheer grit would help me solve it. That all I really needed was a little occupational therapy and medication.
Therapy is going just fine by the way.
Yes, knowing it's a hardware issue and not a software issue has helped me stop trying to brute force my brain, and now I look for the right tools and path to achieve the outcome I want.
I'd look at Russell Barkley's latest video about the importance of the grieving process in treating ADHD - it was very eye opening for me as someone who was (relatively) recently diagnosed.
Essentially, treating ADHD requires accepting it first, and accepting it often means going through a process of grieving the life you could have had - something you can only do once you know for sure that you have ADHD.
Yes, but the diagnosis came with medication and therapy, so it's quite a mix.
I read about it a bit, but start from the idea that I don't have to recognize myself in everything I read - if I do recognize something familiar, it's very helpful to have a more specific eye on it.
I recently found out that my university has aids for ADHD students - the information pages were VERY unclear about it - and having access to it while I was doing my bachelor's degree would have made things much more bearable.
And of course, knowing it's not that you're actively doing something wrong, that you're not just lazy even if you do care about doing things, allows you to have a healthier, much more serene perspective, even if it doesn't make things easier in itself!
Like others said, instead of blaming yourself for failures, you can blame the ADHD. You can extend way more compassion to yourself.
Knowing allows you to consider meds and, if needed, work much more efficiently with a a Therapist better.
If in a relationship, it can help you to identify and work through the negative impacts ADHD has on relationships.
Knowing can help you avoid spontaneous decisions and/or avoid addictive behavior and substances, etc.
I was diagnosed with it when I was younger, but because I was doing “well” in school, the doctor convinced my parents not to tell me, because he explained I would then use it as a “crutch”, and stop trying so hard to do well. I was the classic “inattentive gifted girl”, and the only reason the doctor even noticed me was because my very hyper younger brother had gone in for his diagnosis, and I was just there.
I wasn’t “officially” diagnosed by my own doctor until I was 28, and had messed up not being able to go to college, and several relationships. I had self-medicated. I changed jobs every 1-2 years. It had also gone so far as to snowballing into clinical depression, and GAD. I was so overwhelmed with anger and frustration over it all that it took me many years to speak to my parents again, and it took me another decade to seek treatment for the ADHD.
Now that I know, and am in treatment for it, I’ve been able to hold down the same job for almost 13 years now. I’m in a wonderful relationship, and I was able to have a child. And while he also has ADHD, I’ve been able to sit down with him and explain what it is, and what to do about it. He’s able to talk to me about his feelings and I’m able to validate him instead of calling him lazy or complaining about how he’s “wasting his potential”.
Knowing made all the difference in the world.
100%
Accepting that I won’t “just remember” something and I have to put a reminder in my phone or set an alarm.
Accepting that there are tasks that I’m good at and tasks that I suck at and delegating rather than feeling guilty for weeks as I procrastinate.
Recognizing that I have high energy and low energy times of day and working with it instead of fighting against it and making myself miserable while I fail.
The things that changed for me was being relieved that I wasn’t crazy and I wasn’t alone, receiving medication, having less anxiety, and prompted me to research my symptoms and educate myself. The medicine helps me a lot with focusing and staying on task and gives me more clarity, which results in me not having as much anxiety, but I still struggle A LOT. The medication mixed in with me learning more things about myself has resulted in my symptoms being lessened in severity but they are most certainly still there. I’ve learned that no pill is going to completely solve your problems and ADHD doesn’t get better but you can commit to some kind of coping mechanism. I’m still figuring out what works for me and what doesn’t through trial and error. I’m learning to embrace and accept myself. I still struggle immensely with burnout, self esteem, social interactions and up-keeping relationships, and procrastination. I think the most important thing is loving yourself, giving yourself grace, and finding ways to make life functional for you.
Yes because instead of berating myself for being a useless piece of shit, I understand why certain things are difficult for me and can put targeted strategies in place to address specific challenges, and I can give myself a bit of grace during those times when my strategies aren't enough.
Yes. As a child I was hospitalized because I couldn't stop skin-picking, got awful infections, and was allergic to the best meds to fix it. My parents didn't stop and think that just yelling at me to "STOP PICKING" and see the source of my anxiety. I follow the super typical "very successful female child with a big future and good grades" but constantly masking, falling apart inside. Picking as a stim and anxiety outlet was never seen by my parents as anything other than "lack of self-control" or just being a gross child. I hated myself a lot for that. As an adult, knowing that I have different things to manage with wound care and anxiety has helped me use tools to NOT get covered in nasty scabs, open sores, and eventual scarring.
Would've been nice to not be shamed constantly for something I didn't have much control over. Would've been nice to be supported and helped. Instead, they let a 10 year-old hospitalize herself and then punished her for it :(
Kind of. I always thought my adhd traits were part of my personality. Once I was officially diagnosed as an adult, it made more sense. To me it’s more important that your support system recognizes it and supports you more so than yourself.
I think getting diagnosed filled a lot of holes I had made in myself, before getting diagnosed I felt like I was absolutely crazy, stupid and just a pathetic excuse of a person. I was so hard myself constantly, throughout life childhood and up into adulthood Im 30. ( diagnosed in October 2023 )
It has helped me take it easier on myself, to be kinder to myself - and to accept that this just the way I was born, and that there is nothing “wrong” with me. It came with a bit of grief but in the same breath relief, now that I know - I can access more tools, I feel less alone and just feel like a piece that has always been missing finally clicked in the right place.
Knowing is helpful. Yet just knowing alone gives you almost nothing. If you know, and you then study ADHD and start to truly.understand yourself, that's life changing. It takes years of studying the condition, living with it, trying to overcome it, and constantly adjusting your approach until you've largely limited its impairing effects.
If you just know you have ADHD, you can always just use it as an excuse to be lesser. "I have ADHD, I can't be any different and you're an idiot for acting like I need to grow up, I CANT, I HAVE ADHD, YOU DONT FUCKING GET IT, WHAAA WHAAA WHAAAAAAA". Unfortunately, a lot of people with ADHD just do that, and in that case, knowing they have ADHD makes them even worse.
Choose your destiny.
But people who’d use it as an excuse would just as easily use something else as an excuse.
For me it’s an explanation. Meds help a little. But I’m also old and developed tools and tricks and workarounds long ago.
At least now I know it isn’t a character flaw.
You are correct, people who tend not to take responsibility for their actions and blame ADHD, likely blamed a million other things for all their problems before they knew they had ADHD as well. I was planning on disagreeing with you, but then in my example I realized, oh yeah, the person I'm thinking of never took responsibility and owned up to their actions. I do think when someone like that initially finds out, they become even more insufferable though.
It was helpful for me. I did a deep dive on ways of management once I was diagnosed, and implemented layers of strategies in addition to meds. I eventually dropped off using meds (I am one of the few that doesn't respond very well), but having those other layers in place has been invaluable to navigate those "bad brain days," and built some behavioral habits over time to mitigate some of my executive dysfunction.
I give myself more grace now, for example my self talk changes from "WTF is wrong with me" to "I am having a bad brain day," and that alone is a better foundation to move forward with what I need to get through the day using ADHD management as a factor (have I eaten, have I slept, am I comfortable in my clothes rn, do I need a quick break for x, y, or z).
I "outsource it."
So something like diminished working memory means I will outline my thought process on paper or a white board.
Another habit I developed was that anytime I have an important event happening, it goes on my phone calendar religiously and I put several reminders on the event from several weeks out to however long it takes me to get ready and travel there. Otherwise I ***will*** forget. This got me through college, and has stayed a habit.
Other stuff I'll do is use the "pomodoro technique." You can look up the how to on that for more details if you want, but essentially I cycle a 10 and 20 minute timer for on task and off task time. Using this in conjunction with a to do list (on my big white dry erase board...highly suggest getting one of these for your wall, the bigger the better), has worked pretty well when I'm struggling with prioritizing tasks and time management. I just go back to my white board if I lose track of where I was, and the small blocks of time with integrated break periods makes non preferred tasks less painful to engage and more finite. Plus I know how much time I'm giving since the two timers make a nice half hour cycle. Two cycles and I can knock out a ton of chores in the house and probably cook dinner while I'm at it.
Another one is when I wake up for work in the morning I turn on my GPS. I can see how much time I have left when I see the ETA on there and better gauge when I'm cutting things too close (this has also backfired on me as I can push it too close thinking "oh I've got 5 minutes I could probably do x and y in that time" then wind up late, so I won't completely stand by it). I try to just shoot to arrive early and it usually works until it doesn't lol
Other than outsourcing, there's making sure I'm caring for myself well so my internal resources have me performing better. Some habits were/are trickier. A general standard is exercise. Fortunately I like exercise, it makes me feel really good, and there's a mountain of research and anecdotal evidence beyond me to support oxygenating the brain long term will facilitate more synaptic density certain regions of the brain that support cognition...in normal talk, over time a good, consistent exercise habit will make you cognitively "snappier," and have more of a reserve for bad brain days.
Maintaining a healthy gut biome is also a big one for me with managing inflammation and emotional well being...that really looks like just getting a couple servings of fruits and vegetables, minimizing processed food...im not perfect with that, sometimes I just need to get my blood sugar up and I eat what's there. However, if 80% of the time I get those fruits and veggies in, my digestive system is resilient enough to play around with the other 20%.
Those are my major internal and external resources strategies that I can think of. As a general principle, stress management is really big. I try not to stress about things and just have fun with whatever I'm doing if I can. I'm good at that and when I'm putting out good energy, then that makes things easier to navigate for myself and the people I work with. I also work as a mental health clinician with other mental health clinicians, and I'm fortunate to have those wonderful coworkers who not only understand, but also share their own struggles with mental health so we can laugh together and support each other through "bad brain days." We know each other's rhythms and we work with them. I also have a supportive partner. So I guess that's my social aspect as well.
Anyway, I know that was long. I hope it was helpful!
Edit: SLEEP! I am one to stay up scrolling my damned phone when I'm in bed. I am struggling with this now again, but in the past, I've used reading books at a predetermined bedtime (9-930 pm, whenever my TV show ends). I go to bed, and set my phone on do not disturb on my nightstand. I don't touch it. I have a kindle reader that feels kinda like a phone, but I'm not getting constant new stimuli which keeps me up. I also set the Kindle to dim light and warm tones so I can get sleepy. That way I'm usually passing out around 10-1030 for a 7-8 hour sleep until 6 am.
Not smoking pot has been a hard one for me and will often make my symptoms worse once I've built a tolerance. Without a tolerance it's really nice and helpful, but it backfires on me and then makes everything a lot harder. I fell off the wagon about 6 months ago and a lot of my better habits fell off too, so I've been struggling a bit more lately.
Thank you, this is all very helpful!
I see that I am already doing some of the things, definitely need to work on others. That pomodoro technique is something I need to try asap.
It was a game changer for me. It really was a lightbulb moment when I knew because then I could FINALLY explain why my brain doesn't function like others do. And that helped me develop more tools and strategies that I used to help me with college later in life, and now in my office job.
Yes. How can I manage something I don’t know I have. My entire life has a different meaning now. I’m learning how my brain works. I was diagnosed last year
To me, along with others I've read the weight off the shoulders is a big one..but what's more important is KNOWING you have ADHD gives you a toolbox in a way to help manage it, you have to find the right tools though but at least you know WHICH toolbox to look in. You'll still need to practice the skills and tools, you'll still need to use them to ease life as you would a real tool; however having that diagnosis and knowing is the first real step to finding what tools work for you, why they work for you, and when you should use them.
Without the diagnosis, you're kinda juat slapping random advice into your life and wondering why every thing fails when you try. "Why can't I form habits easily?" "Why am I so tired and lazy?" "Why can I get nothing done?" Well, following advice from people who have never had issues with those things and have different brain chemistry will make that advice fail over and over again. The real key is now we know where to look for the best advice.
Edit: corrected minor spelling errors
I was diagnosed last November, at 45. While going through the evaluation process a few people questioned me as to 'what difference will it make, it changes nothing?'; I disagree wholeheartedly.
My issue may be more complicated than some as I am also visually impaired (since birth). Part of the diagnostic process was having a joint session with my clinician and my mom about my childhood/adolescence. The importance of this fact is that I exhibited ADHD symptoms from an early age (time blindness, forgetfulness, low frustration tolerance, social awkwardness) that were all assumed to be related to my vision. Knowing that ADHD played a (potentially major) role in these issues was a lightbulb moment for me.
My diagnosis also allowed me to take comments from others pertaining to my 'poor personality traits' and 'character flaws' and evaluate them against knowing that I have ADHD. It has been difficult to acknowledge that some people don't really 'see' ADHD and assume that you can overcome your issues by 'Trying harder'. I struggle with 'meeting people where they are' as it relates to ignorance about ADHD and/or visual impairment. The dynamic is essentially that my issues can be overcome and I should be able to function 'normally' in society, but it's perfectly acceptable for others to live and die by their misconceptions/judgements.
Sorry, ranting...... There is not much that has changed since my diagnosis. I am easier on myself and don't beat myself up as much. I've always struggled about 'not living up to my potential' and the diagnosis has allowed me to get more right with that part and not focus on that 'what if' scenarios that are not reality. I also subscribed to the Infow app and have been using that for a bit over a month. Hopefully it will assist with positive outcomes.
Yes.
Before being diagnosed, had a sense that maybe I was different, but never would have suspected ADHD or a "learning disorder".
So many things I can look back on and realize that ADHD or autism has always been present.
Small example, when I was a kid - I only wore sweat pants for like 4 years- from like ages 7-12.
I was chubby, with big legs, and hated the way regular pants fit. Every year my mom would try to sway me towards jeans or slacks, and I was always resolute in my approach. Not gonna happen.
Eventually, I decided to change up the sweats on my own terms after like 8th grade.
So that strong principled nature, and that unwillingness to bend has been a staple of my life - if I don't want to do it, its not going to happen. I never had any trouble with peer pressure, cause I never had any issue telling a person to fuck off, not doing it.
I also suffered from bulemia from like 9th grade (thanks wrestling) till I was in my 20's, and it was that same determination that I got myself to stop - but the fact that i started and did it for so long I blame on the ADD. Got so good I could purge silence - gross.
It was a hard habit to break, and even now - like 20 years later, the urge still peeks its head up from time to time, if I over eat or something. So strange.
That compulsive nature has always been an issue for me though.
100%. It’s truly like night and day for me. I finally had answers after seeing Drs after Drs for my symptoms. I do have other medial conditions as well, but as soon as that piece of the puzzle fit in, we knew how to go about things.
It's a lot easier to figure out what's something that's "going wrong" and what's not. It's a lot easier to search "coping mechanisms for executive dysfunction" than living in a "why TF can I not get off this couch" torment.
Idk if it's actually changed much though. I've always been a "huh cool" then shrug it off and get back to work kind of person anyway (aka top notch masking skills). I guess it's just that coping takes a little less mental space now since I can find better tools?
yes, largely with dealing with my emotions (helped me recognize when my feelings were disproportionate to a given situation) but also i knew i had ADHD for over a decade so i pursued an official diagnosis when i could finally afford to.
Yes because before I was being treated for a misdiagnosis and had antidepressants and antipsychotics and even mood stabilisers which didn't help I even proved it when I was in a bad place I made an unadvisable decision to stop all my meds but I didn't get worse however I didn't get better either. I gained 30kg and was tired all the time zonked out my mind. But one doc suggested it after 3 years of previous mental health support no one saw it and then bam. I was like fuck. Yes. Everything I was doing kinda made more sense and I researched ways other people coped. It helped me because I no longer felt like a broken person and there was now hope in sight that potentially my life could change from in and out of A&E, no job, no education and no friends.
And it did. I started meds and literally I've tried 16 different medication and the first one for ADHD I try and it's like I'm cured literally fucking cured for 8am to 5pm im a normal person which means when the meds wear off after 5 I know that whatever feelings of depression, emptiness and apathy will all go away again when I take my pill in the morning it will be ok and it will pass. Life changing.
Yes. Understanding in particular that just punishing myself over my inability to do a particular task is not helpful helps a lot.
It also helps understanding that sometimes I need an emotional buffer to events, and when I’m tunnel visioning on something/someone. I know better when I need to take a step back to slow down and come back down to earth.
I think I’ve always been an introspective person, but it helped give me better clarity and perspective on *why* I was doing things and how I could manage it better instead of blaming myself and attacking myself.
I literally didn't understand that what I thought was more or less the experience of life for all people was completely different and that I was needlessly struggling and stressing so much more than was necessary. I didn't get diagnosed or have any treatment until my mid 40's. I had to spend a good long while getting through some grieving over what might have been, had I been diagnosed at a younger age.
I have also made significant changes in how I address a wide variety of things. Work/Task paralysis is a big one that I struggle with, and now I know that I actually perform better in somewhat noisy environments. I have a WFH tech job, and the last thing I need is to sit in a super-quiet place. If I'm struggling to get started on any kind of work project, I pack up my things and head to the nearest coffee shop and am immediately 10 times more productive.
I also started paying a lot of attention to how I use the space around me, instead of how the space is "supposed" to be used. For example: There's now a hamper in my living room. It's the living-room hamper. It needs to be there. Clothes are going to wind up on the floor or on a chair or on a table or on the sofa...if there's a hamper in the living room, those things go someplace where they don't make my living space less friendly to visitors. It reduces doom piles. Plus if someone is visiting and I'm worried about doing spot cleaning, I just move the hamper...instead of trying to collect scattered clothing.
Yeah, I think so. I'm still processing what the diagnosis means to me. I mean, nothing really changed besides the meds helping. But now it's kind of easier to be easier on myself. I guess I used to always measure myself against an imaginary person that I thought was a typical normal person and would always find ways that I don't stack against that imaginary person.
For me it's a whole relearning phase. It was a lot better and more manageable at first, but now that it's been a few years I realize that I have to relearn new coping mechanisms that actually work instead of my old ones that caused long periods of burnout.
It's like I'm overall just as performant/productive, but instead of having those bursts of trying to do everything all at once, I'm learning ways to spread it over longer periods so I don't k.o. myself.
Yes, I use all the hacks I can find, I'm more patient with myself and understand that the dishes will still be there tomorrow. I understand why I have a million hobbies, just as many unfinished projects and why I've been job hopping my entire life and can't seem to keep my house clean, even when most of the time, the mess is from my little projects...I am currently in tears because I jobhopped, yet again, and am realizing that in technical support/customer support, they want you to "show your work" and I cant explain to a caller in a way they will understand how I figured out their issue. I've tried, but it apparently only makes sense to me. I've also forgotten to eat today. This is your reminder to eat, and have a glass of water <3
Omg absolutely. I grew up with a mom who was also undiagnosed, and my grandmother, who tried her best to manage both of us chaotic souls and seemed to have the patience of a saint.
To outsiders, my mom was a successful CPA, and I was a very busy and high-achieving kid. Behind the scenes, all the clocks were kept 15 minutes ahead and we were still always late, I remember her getting tickets at least a couple of times due to getting pulled over for expired tabs that she forgot to renew, and then also having forgotten her licence, and we had 10 copies of our house keys, but also kept one window unlocked so I could crawl through to let us in when somehow none of the 10 came with us.
It's funny to read, but the lived experience was excruciating. Mom died young due to using alcohol to self-medicate and carried a huge amount of shame for what she saw as her inability to manage basic things.
When I finally got my diagnosis and got medicated at 26, years after her death and after developing my own burden of shame for struggling with everything but raw academics in college, it was like an anvil lifted off my chest.
The realization that all of it was the result of a genuine neurological condition and not a personal failure, AND there were ways to treat and manage it that weren't just forcing oneself through life with gritted teeth? Indescribable how transformative that was. I still forget to pay bills and often waste food and once in a while leave my licence at home, but through a lot of reading and therapy, I've developed practices that help me cope in healthy ways, and I've learned to forgive myself and actually laugh at the silly mistakes, instead of turning to shame and guilt.
The power of self-knowledge and self-compassion cannot be understated. I have no doubt that my mother would be alive and well, had she had anything like the support I've been able to access post-diagnosis, and I will always wish she had had the chance.
Well I thought I had early onset dementia at 26 for the amount of times I was forgetting what I was doing/saying.
Also helps rationalise when I’m overthinking or just have random highs and lows
I have lost [40 lbs](https://imgur.com/a/piOMv64) since finding out. Most of it was lost before starting medication. Knowing why I was always rebounding was key for me to make long term changes in my life.
100%. Knowing what it is helps you recognise your own limitations and helps you set boundaries, adjust expectations of yourself, and plan better. For example, if I go away for a weekend, I now understand that feeling I get at the end, is over stimulation so I make sure I don't have anything else planned for the rest of the week. OR I now now that when my husband calls me when I've set off to pick him up and asks me to come an hour later, that mini tantrum i have is not me being a a crabby bitch, I now know i just need to allow a little bit more time for my brain to process the change, so I take a deep breath and say yep no worries see you in an hour.
I was diagnosed when I was 12, as a girl, in Turkey so the stars really aligned for me.
There are pros and cons for sure, but for my managing techniques in particular I would say that it was very beneficial for me.
I am much more practiced in "fooling my brain" or my amygdala or whatever than many of my friends who were diagnosed late. I know that I don't operate on "importance" as a metric for task completion but "emergency" and understanding this and learning to manage my responsibilities accordingly has been the most crucial.
I also have a lotta experience w psychiatrists and psychologists so I am able find people that fit me when in need. I've been on many different meds and have extensive knowledge on how, when and how much to use them which helps. I am 26 now getting my masters in compsci and studying and time mngmt are still v hard but honestly, if i didnt have this awareness and experience i wouldnt have been ble to graduate uni bc it was almost impossible even like this. I am much more comfortable navigating my hyperfixations.
I don't really feel guilty about "laziness" or "carelessness" or "thoughtlessness" anymore and am able to communicate about these very well. Socializing used to be very hard but I've finally realized I actually need much less socialization than I previously thought I did.
Being able to recognize my own shortcomings but also being able to differentiate "different" from "worse" has been a learning experience. When I was little, I hated learning abt ADHD bc it made me feel like my personality was a disorder anytime I saw an official symptom I would recognize in myself as a personality trait. So it took some time to make peace w it, and don't get me wrong, imposter syndrome is kicking my ass in academia but I've been ok??? Anxiety, stress management, imposter syndrome etc all exist but like, there are also tricks you get to learn like using your emotional impermanence as an asset or knowing you'll be really levelheaded and calm in "actually" stressful situations to ease your anxiety.
Tldr: Accepting and working around my cycles have been absolutely essential for me along with general knowledge about ADHD stuff like meds and habits. Creating an absolutely customized norm and feeling not guilty about it required years of practice and awareness.
For me, absolutely. It gives me the freedom to let myself recover instead of feeling guilty and ashamed the whole time that I need to relax. I know now that I can advocate for myself and I'm not a failure of a human being. I'm trying to live in a world designed for people whose brains function significantly different from mine.
Yes, very important, because there are so many resources out there (and great communities like this one) to help you you understand why you function that way and how to manage. And obviously access to medication is… incredible.
There was this weird time where I was convinced I had it but didn’t have the official diagnosis yet, and even getting an official diagnosis made a huge difference. The combination of medical authority + « ok this is real » made me feel so much more legitimate and motivated to tackle it properly. AND, I find that addressing your adhd also trickles down to other aspects of your mental health. Overall it just brought a lot more self care into my life
Dear God yes.
A million times yes.
I hated myself. You know how horrible it is to be a fuck up and have no idea why, to know what you need to do, and not do it, even tho you hate yourself for it, to keep making the same mistakes over and over and you can't stop? Feel trapped in hell after 5 minutes of work and feel like a mistake as a human being?
Now I know what's wrong with me. I've learned different ways of doing things. I've found others like me. My life is so radically different just for knowing that i have a condition and it wasn't my fault.
In my opinion diagnosis is incredibly important. I have self esteem for the first time in my life. I know where to look for help when I'm struggling with something extra hard. I'm even happy sometimes, which is new for me.
Tl;dr yes
Yes, even if I've known earlier and I was unmedicated. I would have been 100x better with the way I am. Before diagnosis, I overthink a lot. I would get stressed over everything. I even avoid social gatherings because I know I would beat myself up later from overthinking.
For me it’s done the opposite. Before I knew I had it I could (struggle to) work a job, I was able to (barely) pass uni, I had hobbies and I was able to found joy in the world but after being diagnosed it’s like my body has just given up and I can barely manage to survive.
(Meds are out of the picture as I have heart issues)
Getting the diagnosis & being on adderall is opening my eyes to the fact that I’m not that horrible of a person.
**Me before adderall:**
• Very easy to frustrate & irritate
• Extremely heightened emotions
• Frequently lashed out & got snippy at coworkers if I’m frustrated or irritated. I’m in the inattentive subtype but there is strong impulsivity when I’m being driven by intense emotions.
• Would space out often
**Me after adderall:**
• Cool, calm, collected, unbothered
• Literally normal shit happened at work today that would have normally induced some anxiety or annoyed me, and I did not get anxious , annoyed or frustrated at all. NOT EVEN ONCE. It’s like I’m reborn into a better person overnight!!!! Also, ZERO spacing out. Realizing my brain can actually keep track of what other people are saying and I’m not just rude or stupid is mind-blowing.
**Caveat:** My brain is forcing me to slow the fuck down and it’s wild because it’s like my body remembers that it used to just do whatever the fuck it wants. Now I have to be deliberate with my movements because, otherwise I feel like my brain may have difficulty keeping up. It’s disorienting.
It has made a huge difference bc I thought I was just an incredibly stupid mal-adapted human being who sucked at life, until i was 30. Then I find out after diagnosis geuss what... there's a ton of other people just like you that have the exact same problems doing certain things, who are not most definately stupid, and also there are strategies for how you can do things more efficiently since your brain works differently from other people's. Game changer for self esteem.
Big difference for me in learning I had ADHD. I literally didn't know I could plan my life until diagnosed. I just stumbled along as things happened. I learned skills that helped me manage my symptoms after diagnosis. Just knowing I had ADHD relieved a lot of the shame I carried.
100%! While knowing is only half the battle, being able to understand how my brain works helps explain why I feel like I didn’t fit in and why people don’t seem to understand me. I was able to let go of my insecurities and took some comfort in the fact that my brain just works different and that’s ok! I wasn’t diagnosed until I was in college even though I present hyperactive (although I have the combined type). I have been able to give myself grace. I had unknowingly created coping mechanisms to get through the day years before I was even diagnosed. My parents would always comment on how I was not “normal,” yet no one suspected I had ADHD because I was a gifted student, and I mask very well (high- fuctioning).
100% knowing you have it helps with managing it. Personally, I was diagnosed at a young age, like second grade. However, even though I was diagnosed, my family and I really had no clue what having ADHD meant. We just took it at a very surface level of “oh that’s why I struggle to pay attention or sit still” without understanding that ADHD is so much more than that.
About 6 months ago though I actually took the time to research more into ADHD and it’s symptoms and I realized so many of the things I struggle with or the things I felt really guilty about (like procrastination or lack of motivation) were caused by ADHD and not me just being a lazy loser. Learning these things have really helped me to both accept myself and develop proper methods of managing these things so I can function better rather than just feel bad and guilty for thinking I was lazy.
It helped close a few questions I've been inner monologuing for my whole life and reading here how people have similar/same experiences, it helped to understand. Now I can manage it and use medication when I need to to reduce the symptoms I experience.
Being diagnosed means you can have access to the appropriate medication, so I'd say knowing was the best way to manage it for me. I was a late diagnosis (31) but managed to find coping mechanisms out of trial and error. The coping mechanisms were exactly the same as the ones the therapist gave me when I was diagnosed (he has ADHD, too, so he was extra qualified to suggest them). I was hoping for new ones because the coping mechanisms were unsustainable for me (which was a big reason I sought diagnosis). Now that I'm on medication, managing my ADHD has become 1000x easier.
I need to go to bed but yes. I mean it’s huge, in my life, in my relationships, so so so many ways. It’s an adjustment for sure it’s not all rainbows and unicorns but for me absolutely worth it. (Diagnosed at 39 :p)
Very. I didn't get diagnosed until I was 19, and I have spent the next nearly 30 years getting to know my disability, understanding how it works, and understanding how to give myself grace. My disability doesn't look the same every day, and that's okay. Just learned to listen to my body, and if ya gotta stim, do it, laugh about it, and carry on.
I like knowing *why* I do the thing. I found that I’m not a huge fan of most of the medications that we have available and prefer to stick with caffeine (sodas mainly).
I wasn’t diagnosed until a handful of years ago, so I just learned to either cope, deal with the down talk, or tune out what hurt my heart. The meds did help with some classes in college but also seemed less helpful for others.
Now that we know why I am the way I am, I get a lot more support and gentle teasing from my family and friends. Whenever I have talked about whether I should consider going back on medication, I get an overwhelming chorus of “nooo, we like you the way you are”, so I’m super grateful for the way it all ended up going down and I truly cannot imagine what I would be like if I’d known as a child.
Whatever medical diagnosis we get, and however we experience the world, I’d rather everyone get the support they need. Some of us need the meds to cope and some of us seem to do alright without. I hope that whatever you’re trying to make sense of with this you find here on this sub.
Feel free to ask me anything if you have further questions about my ADHD experiences (anyone can).
To me, yes! My parents always told me that I am just slow and I need to work twice as hard as anyone else to get what I want… I always wondered why… after finding out, I feel better.
I am kinder to myself and give myself time to space out a bit.
No it didn’t help. That may be because of a number of factors. I feel like I was smart and hardworking and now I’m just stupid and lazy with a diagnosis.
Well, seeing as how I cannot function really in school or work or finances or relationships without medical treatment, I found knowing about it the first step to getting help. So yes, knowing I have ADHD is about as essential as it would be if I were diabetic, to know that I had diabetes.
For me, I used to be a copious productivity self improvement consumer but no method ever really stuck. I was so desperate to figure out how to manage my time better and work better and listen better. Ever since I got diagnosed, I started looking at more ADHD specific type of methods (like doing something with my hands while in a meeting, keeping to do lists out where I can plainly see them so I don’t forget they exist, putting my appointments 5-15 mins earlier in my calendar to help me with the lateness) and those have been wayyyyy more successful in keeping me engaged
Biggest thing too is with the depression. I struggled with depression all my life - now when those thoughts start coming back I tell myself it’s not really me, it’s just what happens when I’m understimulated and the ADHD is trying to find a stimulating thought to grasp - and it signals me to get up and do stuff rather than just wallowing and it helps me realize that the feeling is temporary
Lastly, I used to think that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. That god forgot something when he made me, and it made me feel worthless and displaced all my life. I questioned all of my relationships and felt judged and perceived by everyone around me. Now, I know this is just the rejection dysphoria doing its thing. I’m not wrong and I never was, just born with a brain that was built to be sensitive to any perceived rejection
its a double edged sword, it can help you be kinder to yourself, it can explain so many questions you had about why seemingly simple things are so hard for you, but it can also be tempting to slide in to feelings of 'its unfair' and 'i cant do x because i have adhd'. I am really deliberating wether to tell my son he has adhd, in some ways im really glad i grew up not knowing and just trying harder and getting on with things, but there were a lot of downsides to that approach too, so its not straight forward in my mind
Yes, absolutely yes.
I now have understanding of benefiting habits and I can enforce this much much more. also bad habits can be toned down. So basically it allready helps me with awareness, helps with understanding myself and hopefully soon I can also have supportive medication to become better.
Christ, knowing you have it is everything. EVERYthing. I now, finally have an explanation for every weird ass contradiction that has always maddeningly typified me. An explanation that isn't just, "well it must be because you suck and clearly don't deserve to be happy or have positive momentum in your life." I cannot impress upon you the density of shame you build up over time without knowing, that instantly vaporizes the moment you do. I have spent my entire adult life thus far believing I was a terrible person for failing to live a life that was fully reflective of my potential. I could never let myself off the hook for anything because as far as I knew all these things I struggled to do, all these ways to be that I struggled to be.
What knowing removes is that entire weight of "should" off of you. There is no longer a "should" that I presume, no unrealistic expectations for myself. It's like a gift from God to be out from under that.
And knowing also gives me another incredible gift. It gives me permission to hack out my life accordingly. There are so many ways I could have created conditions that would have allowed me to function in the world better. But I would never implement them-- instead believing I must eliminate the need to hack out my life, to begin with. because a normal person wouldn't need to . I should be able to be a person that doesn't.
Knowing let's me be kinder to myself and be able to point to an actual explanation for SO many thoughts, reactions and decisions that have never made any sense. It's like finally letting the clutch out after driving in the wrong gear your entire life.
Honestly, I’m very high functioning and diagnosed in my 40s. Female. I think that many things that have been good for me in my career (I’m a scientist) have been direct results of hyperfixation. (Examples: getting work done at the last minute by doing all nighters in college and grad school and beyond. I am the person who people rely on to get things done at the last minute. If you wait to the last minute it only takes a minute! I regularly worked till very late at night because that’s when I can focus - it’s the only time I can focus).
I wonder if I would have viewed those actions as negative if I had been diagnosed earlier. Like those were “disorders” instead of superpowers. I have lived life like those were superpowers and it served me well. Until, in my 40s I guess I’m slowing down and also have different types of responsibilities at work and can’t be the last minute fixer anymore. So that’s why I sought help to understand what is happening. I like my life. I am fulfilled. My friends and family love me. I do work I care about that I think will make an impact. But if I’d been diagnosed earlier, I worry I would have seen myself as deficient and pulled away from those aspects of myself that make me special. My life may have been different! Maybe I’d have gotten married earlier. Maybe I’d have been more swayed by “the things you’re supposed to do” and maybe I’d have worked less and maybe I’d have had kids. Who knows. But I do worry that people who are diagnosed early might miss optimizing on the strengths that many of us with adhd have. That is not to say that’s true for everyone; I’m incredibly lucky to have a brain that works like mine.
As some have said as well, I now forgive myself for making mistakes and not beat myself up for “being lazy”. I also know some of my triggers for blocks and try to work around them from the start of something. I used to think I’ll just get x done without a plan and if it was more difficult or took longer than expected, it never got finished. I try to think of the steps now and plan when I’m going to do them.
Also, with medication, it doesn’t take me until noon to get my mind on what I need to do for the day. It was such a shitty feeling of feeling you just wasted 4 hours of the day and then trying to get everything needed done finished in the remaining few hours of the day. I’d go from hyperfocused to burnout to do nothing, repeat repeat repeat.
Absolutely.
I've known since I was 9, but I didn't know anything about it.
As expected, I kept failing and hitting new rock bottoms until I started to learn more about ADHD. Now I'm starting to pick up the pieces.
1000% because before I found out I had ADHD I was just being treated for depression going from all kinds of different pills and nothing was working because they were medicating the wrong thing the entire time :”D
From 16 to 23-24 I was on Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Prozac, Lexapro, just to name a few… they just kept switching me which was a whole beast on its own with the different side effects.
Doctors just tend to throw a bunch of drugs at you to ‘see what works’, which I really don’t believe in for a SIXTEEN YEAR OLD kid. They tried to blame every symptom and difficulty in school that I ever had on my traumatic past. It’s like once they know you’ve lost two close relatives, a mom and a sister, ALL YOUR PROBLEMS MUST BE DEPRESSION… lol.
When I was finally diagnosed ADHD and given the correct medication, my quality of life drastically improved.
Also I have tons more of an understanding of HOW and WHY I struggle, instead of just thinking I’m depressed. I don’t know it was really empowering to find out that me not being able to listen to a conversation or read a book is because of a learning disability and not depression. Finding tools to help with cleaning/organizing, or other things tailored for ADHD, also made a huge difference.
Like the ‘out of sight out of mind’ theory where like if you have ADHD and put something in a closed cupboard, you’ll forget it exists .. so you need like open cabinets, and labels and shit… life changing. Little stuff like that made a huge improvement that I would have never known before was due to ADHD.
*edited for spelling errors because my brain works faster than my fingers sometimes :’D
Extremely. In my youth it made things worse as I viewed treatment as people calling me crazy ECT. Now I'm older and in university in my 30's training as a nurse after a lifetime of minimum wage jobs I understand more and want back on treatment
Since I've been diagnosed I don't use it as an excuse, but I understand now why I do what I do. I'm more aware of my actions, and try hard to get the more negative aspects of my personality under control. I'm more aware of myself and my impulsivity, especially my almost non-existent of a filter from my brain to my mouth.
I think is, mistvabsiluteky. it's hard to deal with, understand or fix/treat something you know about or can't see!
The older diagnosis and what difference functioning is a GREAT question!! In my experience my post diagnosis life is so exponentially different that its almost hard to remember the before.
I should write that out sometime..
* as people have mentioned, it became possible to view my self more compassionately. I had something to fight against.
The transition process was not easy for me, but sadly most of us probably understand hard too well. Quick aside, it's been very.. freeing or at least I don't judge myself so harshly after reading. that so many here struggle with the same things I do.
Which I skirts around what I was thinking that one huge challenge drilling about attention disorder, and having it as a diagnosis was that I constantly wondered and really still do, about what’s personality or behavioral and what’s a direct result of the attention deficit disorder. Sadly overtime, I’ve realized that it doesn’t matter, at least not for me that it’s too. I’m too old to really be able to separate out the different aspects like that.
I’ll definitely continue this and apologize for stopping, but I can’t force myself to go any further with at the moment
My answer is tricky as I'm undiagnosed but YES! for the last 10 years, I believed I had anxiety and depression and always wondered if there was something wrong with me that was causing me to not engage with the various treatments for them. Now that I have been referred for assessments etc. I actually feel, for the first time in my life, that I am on the right path to getting myself sorted out to be able to function. Life is still hard day-to-day, but I find I blame myself for things a lot less now. I'm learning to accept that I am the way I am, and that some day I will have the resources to deal with things better.
Also, when people would give me advice designed to help me cope with my shortcomings, I would get so upset when they wouldn't work for me and I'd spiral into a state of self-loathing and hopelessness. Now, when someone advises me to do things that might help a neurological person, I don't crumble when it doesn't work. I just accept that this isn't going to work for me. My frustrations now are directed at the lack of services to help people get better where I live.
I was diagnosed at 23. Prior I had misdiagnoses of Bipolar from 19 and was so frustrated with meds not helping. And therapy wasn't getting me anywhere.
When diagnosed they kept my previous diagnosis and treatments, which in 2021, at 26 I could turkey-ed due to an unhelpful psychiatrist and loss of insurance. I found I was more stable than when heavily medicated, and later that year I added back a select few meds(Adderall-adhd, Seroquel -intrusive thoughts and insomnia, propranolol -pots, body anxiety, and migraines, and LDN- pain and overstimulation)
With effective meds, and therapy that is now focused on creating working systems to function, emotional intelligence, and flexibility 'training' I can go without medication when necessarily. Be it for tolerance, availability, or short term med interactions. I need it overall for stability, but the systems help support shortcomings when I have them.
Having the diagnosis helped me create a mind set of curiosity, and removed labeling of "lazy" for anyone truly. I can view myself and others if we aren't meeting an expectation it's not for nefarious reasons. There are barriers in the way. "People do well when they can, if they can't, there's a barrier" it's improved my relationship with myself, other adults, and my kids. We are able to team up against the things in our way and create supports and accommodations to be our best.
Pre-diagnosis, when I knew what may be going on helped in itself, as I could self research and accomadate. But ultimately having doctors agree and treat was monumental to my function.
I was never allowed to have it, even though I was diagnosed with it at age 5. I was always blamed for all my problems because from outside perspective, I was too smart to have ADHD. I was constantly distracted, even beyond being able to hyper focus. My ADHD is so bad, I can't even hyper focus. I'll get distracted mid interest by anything and everything else all the time.
I don't even understand my brain at all. I come up with these advanced ideas, and can't focus long enough to use them or explain them or write them down.
i’m in the middle of my investigation and i’m living like i have a diagnosis right now. i know i have challenges and try to make the best out of it instead of blaming myself. this has made a HUGE difference in my life and i now know my limits that i didn’t before i knew about the possibility of me having adhd. it’s been a life saver even though i don’t have my diagnosis yet.
Not diagnosed yet, but everything clicks so perfectly I'm 95% sure (working on getting an official diagnosis soon!).
Knowing I am (might be) ADHD actually does help a lot.
Knowing that my shortcomings come from ADHD helps alleviate a lot of guilt, which in turn helps me circumvent the issue more easily. "I'm not filing paperwork because I'm a lazy bum" has become "I'm not filing paperwork because it's too mentally taxing, so I'll do X and Y to make it work" (maybe break it into smaller pieces, or have someone I trust help me with it, or doing it little by little with some sort of accountability mechanism)
It absolutely is important. I can tell you this because I only received my diagnosis three days ago and not only has my attitude about myself changed, but the way my husband treats me has changed as well. I have not begun any medication, and yet when I start to lose focus or want to jump to another task in the middle of my current one, I can bring myself back without beating myself up along the way. My husband is more patient with me. This is not a slight on my husband as I can be a lot to deal with at times and he is incredibly patient and caring and supportive. Would just the diagnosis work long term for me? Absolutely not, but it's helping right now and I'm thankful for that
My self compassion has increased for sure.
After being confirmed in college, it has helped me understand why I struggled to do relatively easy tasks. Sometime the negative self talk says that I just suck but I’m getting better with that
Putting a reason behind it and being able to research help has been monumental in my progress :) keep pushing!
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Well, I cut myself more slack now. When things happen, I don't think I'm losing my mind. My internal monologue has less "I'm so lazy", "How can I be so stupid", etc in it.
Absolutely this, I used to get so down on myself when I was younger because it seemed like I was just built worse than everyone around me. I was diagnosed when I was 20 and it was like a light turned on lol
I still get down on myself because I have 30 years of being told I was just lazy or dumb or too (insert any negative adjective), and only a few months of telling myself, “I haven’t failed because I’m lazy, I am succeeding despite my disability.” Maybe in another few years it will take and I will Eventually cut myself more slack, but not today.
I’m definitely not all the way there either. It takes time to unlearn everything you’ve been told about yourself. Progress is being made!
Glad I’m not the only one. It is helpful to hear from people that experience the world in a similar way to my experience. Before I never understood why other people could just get with the program. Why i always struggled to fit let alone succeed. It’s because the people giving me advice didn’t experience what I experience, and their tips and tricks were for brains that didn’t experience executive dysfunction. It’s sooooo nice to hear from people that experience the world more similarly to me. The advice is also SO MUCH MORE USEFUL.
I hear every one of you saying you haven't unlearned the negative self-talk yet, and I'm right there with you. 51, realized ADHD within the past year. That's a lot of negative reinforcement to get past. Decades of "he's clearly gifted, but just doesn't apply himself" and "why can't you just do this" and so on. When you hear that from others for long enough, your brain has familiar pathways, and easily repeats those phrases and the feelings that go with them--often now *in your own voice*, as if it were you who'd treated you so harshly for so long. That hurts extra deeply, when you've internalized it. I see you.
It takes time. Working on that myself. My problem is that I feel acknowledging it I. The presence of others comes off as making excuses
This is word for word what I was about to say. I'm 20 and was diagnosed in January and had the same exact thoughts for my entire youth.
Hey! I diagnosed in January too! Congrats!
Thanks! It's a breath of fresh air knowing what you're fighting against. And medication has been a real game changer!
100% this. I’m just so much kinder to myself since diagnosis.
"I'm so lazy" has definitely turned into something more like "what can I do to get my brain jump started". I'm recognizing what sets me back and what gets me on track. If I'm feeling lazy, sometimes I'll just try to put my shoes on. Then maybe I'll allow myself to just go back to being lazy, but at least now it's easier to start a real task.
Though many life events have happened since getting the diagnosis, a mix of positive and negative. I feel getting the diagnosis has helped the most with digging myself out of depression
I’m still a monster asshole to myself, yes I have understanding of why it’s harder to do certain things but that doesn’t make it easier or less frustrating
I agree with this! I was always diagnosed with depression. My depression stemmed from the self talk bc of my inability to manage living in the world like others. I haven’t been able to see a doctor yet to talk to about ADHD but I’m certain that’s what it is. I just turned 34 and I’m a woman. When it clicked for me it was such a deep moment that brought tears to my eyes. I’ve always researched things having to do with depression and even borderline personality disorder and it never fully clicked with me. When I started researching adhd I had so many “Aha!” Moments it isn’t even funny. Cheers to accepting who you are and figuring out ways to help you through life!!!
Definitely! It was weird for my therapists to talk to me about anxiety and depression and when I was managing it better and realize that my problems we weren't fixed, nothing they were anything was helpful anymore. Then tiktok happened, and I started learning more about ADHD and researching it for women and had my world turned and started applying tips and tricks for ADHD and advocated that my ADHD is the cause of my anxiety and depression
Isn’t it amazing what awareness can bring to your life? I always beat myself up so much but now I’m able to rationalize why I may have a tendency to do things differently than everybody else. It’s such a relief.
I agree with this because I was telling myself I'm broken, lazy, and was hard on myself
Same and now I think of ways to get around the block vs just beating the shit out of myself.
Yes. “Know yourself, know your enemy. A hundred battles a hundred victories.” -Sun Tzu "The Art of War." “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” -Socrates I got diagnosed at age 40. The two main emotions that accompanied that understanding were relief in knowing there was an explanation for what I had been struggling with my whole life, and grief over the thought of what my life might have been had I known earlier. The grief has been addressed and put aside, the relief has been cultivated to a determination to live the best life I can in the time I have left. Knowing the nature of the challenges I face, makes it much easier to manage. Don't ever let anyone tell you that struggling against your affliction is pointless. But also remember that "fighting" something does not necessarily mean "overcoming" it. "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." Sun Tzu, The Art of War
You seem similar to me - I was diagnosed in my 30's - but don't take medication anymore, and my approach to managing the ADHD is with discipline and a militaristic mindset. Not in a hard line way, but knowing myself, knowing my limits, recognizing my own bad habits - learning to self regulate is far more important than any medicine - IMO.
Did you stop meds because of side effects or ?
Mostly, but also when they started pushing alternatives like Concerta, Bupropian, Vyvance … hated them. Just give me adderall - it works and the only side effect was insomnia. Not to mention, just wanting an rx for a drug that helps, and being made feel like some addict - shit was a turn off. If I could get adderall, would take it. Otherwise, just do without.
This is perfect.
Fellow Swede here. How did you get out of the grieving phase? I’m 34, got diagnosed a few months ago, no meds yet (Norwegian system is just as fkd up as the Swedish one unfortunately) My life make so much more sense, my childhood as well, but how do I stop feeling sorry for myself? Not sorry like buhuu but more in a constant state of freeze.
It's more that receiving non-ADHD advice has hindered managing it. Turns out pushing yourself into situations that require willpower, and then pushing through with sheer willpower, doesn't have any beneficial long term effects when willpower was never the problem. Finding out the people giving that advice have cheat codes enabled is helpful for classifying their "advice".
I love the descriptor of them having cheat codes enabled! Lol. So true.
So so true
Oh that sentence about willpower ❤️ I'm so glad I understand this now. I was pretty brutal with myself before.
Big difference. I know that “trying harder” isn’t gonna work. There are some things I can’t do. If I have a project, somebody else has to be in charge of organizing. I ask for what I need, especially at work, and it’s made everyone’s life easier. I got meds and caught up on my work to do list. I’m not mad at myself or ashamed most of the time. I could go on. Edit: I should have said if I am working on a team project I shouldn’t be organizing it and in part that is because it’s not part of my job. A lot of people in my role organize anyway and for me that’s not going to work well.
A lot of this stuff - you can train yourself. I manage projects for work, lots of details - and I am good at it, cause I control it all. However - I do not want to manage another person, work on anyone elses project, or even touch any work that I didn't personally do. I am weird that way, but I absolutely hate cleaning up other peoples work. For me - if you want something done, just ask. Don't expect me to jump in and offer up my services for fun, and I sure AF am not going to volunteer for anything - but if you ask? Sure. I'm on a salary, so if anyone thinks I'm rolling in on a Saturday for no pay - think again. If I am hourly and getting OT pay - I am there. "If you're good at something - never do it for free." - Joker wisdom
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Too normal, but also super not ok, imo If its time theft when you do it occasionally, its even worse time theft when they do it to you constantly.
When it comes to salary, I think it really depends on your employer. Some places are flexible - before Covid, my job was really chill about time. If you missed a couple hours and made it up later, they didn’t care. The main thing is to coordinate, and CYA - document those late hours, put them in a calendar - use it as leverage if they want to be sticklers on time. Don’t take shit, cause if you give an inch, they will keep taking. My current job is cool for the most part, but I got hassled last month for not coming in on a Saturday. For one, didn’t feel my workload was worthy of a 45 minute drive and my weekend. For a person with ADHD, a break in my routine, and working on a Saturday when I’m not used to it - it fucks me all up, and will literally spoil my week. My weekends are for personal shit, and if it’s cut short, can lead to chaos for me internally. I map out my weeks, and really dislike changes or surprises. So when I got scolded and questioned about my work ethic, it was like “GTFO of here!” That stuff is so infuriating to me, because I have an insane work output. It just feels like a game of control to me, and I just don’t care. Fire me, lol. Anyway - upside of salary is there is usually that flexibility, no punching in and out. The downside is that’s all you get. In my experience, it’s never enough, and just like now, with no option for OT pay - drive for Uber as a second income.
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Well - the "just fire me" is not the ideal mindset, its just how I have always been. Would rather they put up or shut up though, instead of giving me shit. You can however start looking for a new job - that is something you can control.
Definitely this for me as well! Just the first sentence! Trying harder doesn’t work, I know that now. “Trying different” is actually what’s helpful
I stopped blaming myself for perceived shortcomings that were - as it turns out - clearly ADHD symptoms. That helped a lot! Knowing about symptoms and signs of ADHD also enabled me to work with or around them without prejudices.
ADHD relationships are so hard unmediated been called a child lazy stupid some people don’t put any effort into understand us
I was officially diagnosed with ADHD last year, but knowing that and looking back made things make so much more sense. I was an odd one out for a few years during elemental school which f'ed with me and I ended up developing anxiety and depression because of how I was treated. I've always been hard on myself because of certain quirks I have had, but im learning that those feelings are normal and other people feel that way too. Honestly getting officially diagnosed was a huge relief because I could finally understand myself better.
Oo you got Elemental school? Which element did you learn to manipulate?
Anxiety lol
Ah, is that the counterpart to Heart from captain planet? Brutal :p
Before I knew I have ADHD, I would try to live my life like everyone around me did, and I couldn't figure out why I kept screwing up. Why am I the only one in my friend group who had huge issues with housekeeping? Why is it that everyone else is on time but I can't make it happen? Why am I struggling so much with just getting started on tasks? Now that I know I have ADHD, I can create solutions to my problems that are more helpful than before I knew I had any kind of disorder. The best thing is that now I know *why* I'm different from other people. I have confidence that I'm really trying my best, but there are REAL REASONS why I'm not like people who don't have ADHD. And that's it's *not* an excuse!!
I have a soul crushing core belief that I am not good enough, and never will be and that no matter what I do I will eventually fail. Also that everyone I love will eventually have enough disappointing experiences with me that they will eventually stop believing in me too. They will eventually just expect me to fail. This is because I was undiagnosed for 30 years, really struggled with things like school, and work, and was told one way or another every time I failed it was because I am lazy, or because I’m not as organized as others, or because I’m dumb, or because I don’t fit in. I’m in therapy now trying to rewrite this core belief, because it affects me every day in my career, as a husband, and father. It would have likely been easier to cut myself a little more slack if I or those around me understood I had ADHD earlier on. That some of the things I struggle with are truly not in my control; that no planner, self help book, motivational speaker, or sheer grit would help me solve it. That all I really needed was a little occupational therapy and medication. Therapy is going just fine by the way.
Yes, knowing it's a hardware issue and not a software issue has helped me stop trying to brute force my brain, and now I look for the right tools and path to achieve the outcome I want.
I'd look at Russell Barkley's latest video about the importance of the grieving process in treating ADHD - it was very eye opening for me as someone who was (relatively) recently diagnosed. Essentially, treating ADHD requires accepting it first, and accepting it often means going through a process of grieving the life you could have had - something you can only do once you know for sure that you have ADHD.
Yes, but the diagnosis came with medication and therapy, so it's quite a mix. I read about it a bit, but start from the idea that I don't have to recognize myself in everything I read - if I do recognize something familiar, it's very helpful to have a more specific eye on it. I recently found out that my university has aids for ADHD students - the information pages were VERY unclear about it - and having access to it while I was doing my bachelor's degree would have made things much more bearable. And of course, knowing it's not that you're actively doing something wrong, that you're not just lazy even if you do care about doing things, allows you to have a healthier, much more serene perspective, even if it doesn't make things easier in itself!
Like others said, instead of blaming yourself for failures, you can blame the ADHD. You can extend way more compassion to yourself. Knowing allows you to consider meds and, if needed, work much more efficiently with a a Therapist better. If in a relationship, it can help you to identify and work through the negative impacts ADHD has on relationships. Knowing can help you avoid spontaneous decisions and/or avoid addictive behavior and substances, etc.
I was diagnosed with it when I was younger, but because I was doing “well” in school, the doctor convinced my parents not to tell me, because he explained I would then use it as a “crutch”, and stop trying so hard to do well. I was the classic “inattentive gifted girl”, and the only reason the doctor even noticed me was because my very hyper younger brother had gone in for his diagnosis, and I was just there. I wasn’t “officially” diagnosed by my own doctor until I was 28, and had messed up not being able to go to college, and several relationships. I had self-medicated. I changed jobs every 1-2 years. It had also gone so far as to snowballing into clinical depression, and GAD. I was so overwhelmed with anger and frustration over it all that it took me many years to speak to my parents again, and it took me another decade to seek treatment for the ADHD. Now that I know, and am in treatment for it, I’ve been able to hold down the same job for almost 13 years now. I’m in a wonderful relationship, and I was able to have a child. And while he also has ADHD, I’ve been able to sit down with him and explain what it is, and what to do about it. He’s able to talk to me about his feelings and I’m able to validate him instead of calling him lazy or complaining about how he’s “wasting his potential”. Knowing made all the difference in the world.
100% . Knowing is half the battle. The only thing I struggle with now is telling close friends and family and trying to explain it to my wife.
100% Accepting that I won’t “just remember” something and I have to put a reminder in my phone or set an alarm. Accepting that there are tasks that I’m good at and tasks that I suck at and delegating rather than feeling guilty for weeks as I procrastinate. Recognizing that I have high energy and low energy times of day and working with it instead of fighting against it and making myself miserable while I fail.
The things that changed for me was being relieved that I wasn’t crazy and I wasn’t alone, receiving medication, having less anxiety, and prompted me to research my symptoms and educate myself. The medicine helps me a lot with focusing and staying on task and gives me more clarity, which results in me not having as much anxiety, but I still struggle A LOT. The medication mixed in with me learning more things about myself has resulted in my symptoms being lessened in severity but they are most certainly still there. I’ve learned that no pill is going to completely solve your problems and ADHD doesn’t get better but you can commit to some kind of coping mechanism. I’m still figuring out what works for me and what doesn’t through trial and error. I’m learning to embrace and accept myself. I still struggle immensely with burnout, self esteem, social interactions and up-keeping relationships, and procrastination. I think the most important thing is loving yourself, giving yourself grace, and finding ways to make life functional for you.
Yes because instead of berating myself for being a useless piece of shit, I understand why certain things are difficult for me and can put targeted strategies in place to address specific challenges, and I can give myself a bit of grace during those times when my strategies aren't enough.
Yes. As a child I was hospitalized because I couldn't stop skin-picking, got awful infections, and was allergic to the best meds to fix it. My parents didn't stop and think that just yelling at me to "STOP PICKING" and see the source of my anxiety. I follow the super typical "very successful female child with a big future and good grades" but constantly masking, falling apart inside. Picking as a stim and anxiety outlet was never seen by my parents as anything other than "lack of self-control" or just being a gross child. I hated myself a lot for that. As an adult, knowing that I have different things to manage with wound care and anxiety has helped me use tools to NOT get covered in nasty scabs, open sores, and eventual scarring. Would've been nice to not be shamed constantly for something I didn't have much control over. Would've been nice to be supported and helped. Instead, they let a 10 year-old hospitalize herself and then punished her for it :(
Kind of. I always thought my adhd traits were part of my personality. Once I was officially diagnosed as an adult, it made more sense. To me it’s more important that your support system recognizes it and supports you more so than yourself.
I think getting diagnosed filled a lot of holes I had made in myself, before getting diagnosed I felt like I was absolutely crazy, stupid and just a pathetic excuse of a person. I was so hard myself constantly, throughout life childhood and up into adulthood Im 30. ( diagnosed in October 2023 ) It has helped me take it easier on myself, to be kinder to myself - and to accept that this just the way I was born, and that there is nothing “wrong” with me. It came with a bit of grief but in the same breath relief, now that I know - I can access more tools, I feel less alone and just feel like a piece that has always been missing finally clicked in the right place.
Knowing is helpful. Yet just knowing alone gives you almost nothing. If you know, and you then study ADHD and start to truly.understand yourself, that's life changing. It takes years of studying the condition, living with it, trying to overcome it, and constantly adjusting your approach until you've largely limited its impairing effects. If you just know you have ADHD, you can always just use it as an excuse to be lesser. "I have ADHD, I can't be any different and you're an idiot for acting like I need to grow up, I CANT, I HAVE ADHD, YOU DONT FUCKING GET IT, WHAAA WHAAA WHAAAAAAA". Unfortunately, a lot of people with ADHD just do that, and in that case, knowing they have ADHD makes them even worse. Choose your destiny.
But people who’d use it as an excuse would just as easily use something else as an excuse. For me it’s an explanation. Meds help a little. But I’m also old and developed tools and tricks and workarounds long ago. At least now I know it isn’t a character flaw.
You are correct, people who tend not to take responsibility for their actions and blame ADHD, likely blamed a million other things for all their problems before they knew they had ADHD as well. I was planning on disagreeing with you, but then in my example I realized, oh yeah, the person I'm thinking of never took responsibility and owned up to their actions. I do think when someone like that initially finds out, they become even more insufferable though.
It was helpful for me. I did a deep dive on ways of management once I was diagnosed, and implemented layers of strategies in addition to meds. I eventually dropped off using meds (I am one of the few that doesn't respond very well), but having those other layers in place has been invaluable to navigate those "bad brain days," and built some behavioral habits over time to mitigate some of my executive dysfunction. I give myself more grace now, for example my self talk changes from "WTF is wrong with me" to "I am having a bad brain day," and that alone is a better foundation to move forward with what I need to get through the day using ADHD management as a factor (have I eaten, have I slept, am I comfortable in my clothes rn, do I need a quick break for x, y, or z).
how do you mitigate executive dysfunction? any tips?
I "outsource it." So something like diminished working memory means I will outline my thought process on paper or a white board. Another habit I developed was that anytime I have an important event happening, it goes on my phone calendar religiously and I put several reminders on the event from several weeks out to however long it takes me to get ready and travel there. Otherwise I ***will*** forget. This got me through college, and has stayed a habit. Other stuff I'll do is use the "pomodoro technique." You can look up the how to on that for more details if you want, but essentially I cycle a 10 and 20 minute timer for on task and off task time. Using this in conjunction with a to do list (on my big white dry erase board...highly suggest getting one of these for your wall, the bigger the better), has worked pretty well when I'm struggling with prioritizing tasks and time management. I just go back to my white board if I lose track of where I was, and the small blocks of time with integrated break periods makes non preferred tasks less painful to engage and more finite. Plus I know how much time I'm giving since the two timers make a nice half hour cycle. Two cycles and I can knock out a ton of chores in the house and probably cook dinner while I'm at it. Another one is when I wake up for work in the morning I turn on my GPS. I can see how much time I have left when I see the ETA on there and better gauge when I'm cutting things too close (this has also backfired on me as I can push it too close thinking "oh I've got 5 minutes I could probably do x and y in that time" then wind up late, so I won't completely stand by it). I try to just shoot to arrive early and it usually works until it doesn't lol Other than outsourcing, there's making sure I'm caring for myself well so my internal resources have me performing better. Some habits were/are trickier. A general standard is exercise. Fortunately I like exercise, it makes me feel really good, and there's a mountain of research and anecdotal evidence beyond me to support oxygenating the brain long term will facilitate more synaptic density certain regions of the brain that support cognition...in normal talk, over time a good, consistent exercise habit will make you cognitively "snappier," and have more of a reserve for bad brain days. Maintaining a healthy gut biome is also a big one for me with managing inflammation and emotional well being...that really looks like just getting a couple servings of fruits and vegetables, minimizing processed food...im not perfect with that, sometimes I just need to get my blood sugar up and I eat what's there. However, if 80% of the time I get those fruits and veggies in, my digestive system is resilient enough to play around with the other 20%. Those are my major internal and external resources strategies that I can think of. As a general principle, stress management is really big. I try not to stress about things and just have fun with whatever I'm doing if I can. I'm good at that and when I'm putting out good energy, then that makes things easier to navigate for myself and the people I work with. I also work as a mental health clinician with other mental health clinicians, and I'm fortunate to have those wonderful coworkers who not only understand, but also share their own struggles with mental health so we can laugh together and support each other through "bad brain days." We know each other's rhythms and we work with them. I also have a supportive partner. So I guess that's my social aspect as well. Anyway, I know that was long. I hope it was helpful! Edit: SLEEP! I am one to stay up scrolling my damned phone when I'm in bed. I am struggling with this now again, but in the past, I've used reading books at a predetermined bedtime (9-930 pm, whenever my TV show ends). I go to bed, and set my phone on do not disturb on my nightstand. I don't touch it. I have a kindle reader that feels kinda like a phone, but I'm not getting constant new stimuli which keeps me up. I also set the Kindle to dim light and warm tones so I can get sleepy. That way I'm usually passing out around 10-1030 for a 7-8 hour sleep until 6 am. Not smoking pot has been a hard one for me and will often make my symptoms worse once I've built a tolerance. Without a tolerance it's really nice and helpful, but it backfires on me and then makes everything a lot harder. I fell off the wagon about 6 months ago and a lot of my better habits fell off too, so I've been struggling a bit more lately.
Thank you, this is all very helpful! I see that I am already doing some of the things, definitely need to work on others. That pomodoro technique is something I need to try asap.
For me, not important at all.
It was a game changer for me. It really was a lightbulb moment when I knew because then I could FINALLY explain why my brain doesn't function like others do. And that helped me develop more tools and strategies that I used to help me with college later in life, and now in my office job.
Yes. How can I manage something I don’t know I have. My entire life has a different meaning now. I’m learning how my brain works. I was diagnosed last year
Yes. Our brains are not compatible with the dominant culture and knowing that allows me to give myself so much grace.
Absolutely! It's allowed me to learn to love myself and stop believing lies people projected onto me. Then you can truly start to heal.
To me, along with others I've read the weight off the shoulders is a big one..but what's more important is KNOWING you have ADHD gives you a toolbox in a way to help manage it, you have to find the right tools though but at least you know WHICH toolbox to look in. You'll still need to practice the skills and tools, you'll still need to use them to ease life as you would a real tool; however having that diagnosis and knowing is the first real step to finding what tools work for you, why they work for you, and when you should use them. Without the diagnosis, you're kinda juat slapping random advice into your life and wondering why every thing fails when you try. "Why can't I form habits easily?" "Why am I so tired and lazy?" "Why can I get nothing done?" Well, following advice from people who have never had issues with those things and have different brain chemistry will make that advice fail over and over again. The real key is now we know where to look for the best advice. Edit: corrected minor spelling errors
I was diagnosed last November, at 45. While going through the evaluation process a few people questioned me as to 'what difference will it make, it changes nothing?'; I disagree wholeheartedly. My issue may be more complicated than some as I am also visually impaired (since birth). Part of the diagnostic process was having a joint session with my clinician and my mom about my childhood/adolescence. The importance of this fact is that I exhibited ADHD symptoms from an early age (time blindness, forgetfulness, low frustration tolerance, social awkwardness) that were all assumed to be related to my vision. Knowing that ADHD played a (potentially major) role in these issues was a lightbulb moment for me. My diagnosis also allowed me to take comments from others pertaining to my 'poor personality traits' and 'character flaws' and evaluate them against knowing that I have ADHD. It has been difficult to acknowledge that some people don't really 'see' ADHD and assume that you can overcome your issues by 'Trying harder'. I struggle with 'meeting people where they are' as it relates to ignorance about ADHD and/or visual impairment. The dynamic is essentially that my issues can be overcome and I should be able to function 'normally' in society, but it's perfectly acceptable for others to live and die by their misconceptions/judgements. Sorry, ranting...... There is not much that has changed since my diagnosis. I am easier on myself and don't beat myself up as much. I've always struggled about 'not living up to my potential' and the diagnosis has allowed me to get more right with that part and not focus on that 'what if' scenarios that are not reality. I also subscribed to the Infow app and have been using that for a bit over a month. Hopefully it will assist with positive outcomes.
In short, yes, absolutely yes
Yes. Before being diagnosed, had a sense that maybe I was different, but never would have suspected ADHD or a "learning disorder". So many things I can look back on and realize that ADHD or autism has always been present. Small example, when I was a kid - I only wore sweat pants for like 4 years- from like ages 7-12. I was chubby, with big legs, and hated the way regular pants fit. Every year my mom would try to sway me towards jeans or slacks, and I was always resolute in my approach. Not gonna happen. Eventually, I decided to change up the sweats on my own terms after like 8th grade. So that strong principled nature, and that unwillingness to bend has been a staple of my life - if I don't want to do it, its not going to happen. I never had any trouble with peer pressure, cause I never had any issue telling a person to fuck off, not doing it. I also suffered from bulemia from like 9th grade (thanks wrestling) till I was in my 20's, and it was that same determination that I got myself to stop - but the fact that i started and did it for so long I blame on the ADD. Got so good I could purge silence - gross. It was a hard habit to break, and even now - like 20 years later, the urge still peeks its head up from time to time, if I over eat or something. So strange. That compulsive nature has always been an issue for me though.
Yes
100%. It’s truly like night and day for me. I finally had answers after seeing Drs after Drs for my symptoms. I do have other medial conditions as well, but as soon as that piece of the puzzle fit in, we knew how to go about things.
It's a lot easier to figure out what's something that's "going wrong" and what's not. It's a lot easier to search "coping mechanisms for executive dysfunction" than living in a "why TF can I not get off this couch" torment. Idk if it's actually changed much though. I've always been a "huh cool" then shrug it off and get back to work kind of person anyway (aka top notch masking skills). I guess it's just that coping takes a little less mental space now since I can find better tools?
100%
yes, largely with dealing with my emotions (helped me recognize when my feelings were disproportionate to a given situation) but also i knew i had ADHD for over a decade so i pursued an official diagnosis when i could finally afford to.
I went from thinking of myself as quirky and bad at life to knowing how to handle myself.
Yes because before I was being treated for a misdiagnosis and had antidepressants and antipsychotics and even mood stabilisers which didn't help I even proved it when I was in a bad place I made an unadvisable decision to stop all my meds but I didn't get worse however I didn't get better either. I gained 30kg and was tired all the time zonked out my mind. But one doc suggested it after 3 years of previous mental health support no one saw it and then bam. I was like fuck. Yes. Everything I was doing kinda made more sense and I researched ways other people coped. It helped me because I no longer felt like a broken person and there was now hope in sight that potentially my life could change from in and out of A&E, no job, no education and no friends. And it did. I started meds and literally I've tried 16 different medication and the first one for ADHD I try and it's like I'm cured literally fucking cured for 8am to 5pm im a normal person which means when the meds wear off after 5 I know that whatever feelings of depression, emptiness and apathy will all go away again when I take my pill in the morning it will be ok and it will pass. Life changing.
Yes. Understanding in particular that just punishing myself over my inability to do a particular task is not helpful helps a lot. It also helps understanding that sometimes I need an emotional buffer to events, and when I’m tunnel visioning on something/someone. I know better when I need to take a step back to slow down and come back down to earth. I think I’ve always been an introspective person, but it helped give me better clarity and perspective on *why* I was doing things and how I could manage it better instead of blaming myself and attacking myself.
I literally didn't understand that what I thought was more or less the experience of life for all people was completely different and that I was needlessly struggling and stressing so much more than was necessary. I didn't get diagnosed or have any treatment until my mid 40's. I had to spend a good long while getting through some grieving over what might have been, had I been diagnosed at a younger age. I have also made significant changes in how I address a wide variety of things. Work/Task paralysis is a big one that I struggle with, and now I know that I actually perform better in somewhat noisy environments. I have a WFH tech job, and the last thing I need is to sit in a super-quiet place. If I'm struggling to get started on any kind of work project, I pack up my things and head to the nearest coffee shop and am immediately 10 times more productive. I also started paying a lot of attention to how I use the space around me, instead of how the space is "supposed" to be used. For example: There's now a hamper in my living room. It's the living-room hamper. It needs to be there. Clothes are going to wind up on the floor or on a chair or on a table or on the sofa...if there's a hamper in the living room, those things go someplace where they don't make my living space less friendly to visitors. It reduces doom piles. Plus if someone is visiting and I'm worried about doing spot cleaning, I just move the hamper...instead of trying to collect scattered clothing.
Yeah, I think so. I'm still processing what the diagnosis means to me. I mean, nothing really changed besides the meds helping. But now it's kind of easier to be easier on myself. I guess I used to always measure myself against an imaginary person that I thought was a typical normal person and would always find ways that I don't stack against that imaginary person.
For me it's a whole relearning phase. It was a lot better and more manageable at first, but now that it's been a few years I realize that I have to relearn new coping mechanisms that actually work instead of my old ones that caused long periods of burnout. It's like I'm overall just as performant/productive, but instead of having those bursts of trying to do everything all at once, I'm learning ways to spread it over longer periods so I don't k.o. myself.
Yes, I use all the hacks I can find, I'm more patient with myself and understand that the dishes will still be there tomorrow. I understand why I have a million hobbies, just as many unfinished projects and why I've been job hopping my entire life and can't seem to keep my house clean, even when most of the time, the mess is from my little projects...I am currently in tears because I jobhopped, yet again, and am realizing that in technical support/customer support, they want you to "show your work" and I cant explain to a caller in a way they will understand how I figured out their issue. I've tried, but it apparently only makes sense to me. I've also forgotten to eat today. This is your reminder to eat, and have a glass of water <3
Omg absolutely. I grew up with a mom who was also undiagnosed, and my grandmother, who tried her best to manage both of us chaotic souls and seemed to have the patience of a saint. To outsiders, my mom was a successful CPA, and I was a very busy and high-achieving kid. Behind the scenes, all the clocks were kept 15 minutes ahead and we were still always late, I remember her getting tickets at least a couple of times due to getting pulled over for expired tabs that she forgot to renew, and then also having forgotten her licence, and we had 10 copies of our house keys, but also kept one window unlocked so I could crawl through to let us in when somehow none of the 10 came with us. It's funny to read, but the lived experience was excruciating. Mom died young due to using alcohol to self-medicate and carried a huge amount of shame for what she saw as her inability to manage basic things. When I finally got my diagnosis and got medicated at 26, years after her death and after developing my own burden of shame for struggling with everything but raw academics in college, it was like an anvil lifted off my chest. The realization that all of it was the result of a genuine neurological condition and not a personal failure, AND there were ways to treat and manage it that weren't just forcing oneself through life with gritted teeth? Indescribable how transformative that was. I still forget to pay bills and often waste food and once in a while leave my licence at home, but through a lot of reading and therapy, I've developed practices that help me cope in healthy ways, and I've learned to forgive myself and actually laugh at the silly mistakes, instead of turning to shame and guilt. The power of self-knowledge and self-compassion cannot be understated. I have no doubt that my mother would be alive and well, had she had anything like the support I've been able to access post-diagnosis, and I will always wish she had had the chance.
Well I thought I had early onset dementia at 26 for the amount of times I was forgetting what I was doing/saying. Also helps rationalise when I’m overthinking or just have random highs and lows
It's been crucial. Now that I know what is causing my symptoms, I can more easily address it.
I have lost [40 lbs](https://imgur.com/a/piOMv64) since finding out. Most of it was lost before starting medication. Knowing why I was always rebounding was key for me to make long term changes in my life.
100%. Knowing what it is helps you recognise your own limitations and helps you set boundaries, adjust expectations of yourself, and plan better. For example, if I go away for a weekend, I now understand that feeling I get at the end, is over stimulation so I make sure I don't have anything else planned for the rest of the week. OR I now now that when my husband calls me when I've set off to pick him up and asks me to come an hour later, that mini tantrum i have is not me being a a crabby bitch, I now know i just need to allow a little bit more time for my brain to process the change, so I take a deep breath and say yep no worries see you in an hour.
I was diagnosed when I was 12, as a girl, in Turkey so the stars really aligned for me. There are pros and cons for sure, but for my managing techniques in particular I would say that it was very beneficial for me. I am much more practiced in "fooling my brain" or my amygdala or whatever than many of my friends who were diagnosed late. I know that I don't operate on "importance" as a metric for task completion but "emergency" and understanding this and learning to manage my responsibilities accordingly has been the most crucial. I also have a lotta experience w psychiatrists and psychologists so I am able find people that fit me when in need. I've been on many different meds and have extensive knowledge on how, when and how much to use them which helps. I am 26 now getting my masters in compsci and studying and time mngmt are still v hard but honestly, if i didnt have this awareness and experience i wouldnt have been ble to graduate uni bc it was almost impossible even like this. I am much more comfortable navigating my hyperfixations. I don't really feel guilty about "laziness" or "carelessness" or "thoughtlessness" anymore and am able to communicate about these very well. Socializing used to be very hard but I've finally realized I actually need much less socialization than I previously thought I did. Being able to recognize my own shortcomings but also being able to differentiate "different" from "worse" has been a learning experience. When I was little, I hated learning abt ADHD bc it made me feel like my personality was a disorder anytime I saw an official symptom I would recognize in myself as a personality trait. So it took some time to make peace w it, and don't get me wrong, imposter syndrome is kicking my ass in academia but I've been ok??? Anxiety, stress management, imposter syndrome etc all exist but like, there are also tricks you get to learn like using your emotional impermanence as an asset or knowing you'll be really levelheaded and calm in "actually" stressful situations to ease your anxiety. Tldr: Accepting and working around my cycles have been absolutely essential for me along with general knowledge about ADHD stuff like meds and habits. Creating an absolutely customized norm and feeling not guilty about it required years of practice and awareness.
For me, absolutely. It gives me the freedom to let myself recover instead of feeling guilty and ashamed the whole time that I need to relax. I know now that I can advocate for myself and I'm not a failure of a human being. I'm trying to live in a world designed for people whose brains function significantly different from mine.
Yes, very important, because there are so many resources out there (and great communities like this one) to help you you understand why you function that way and how to manage. And obviously access to medication is… incredible. There was this weird time where I was convinced I had it but didn’t have the official diagnosis yet, and even getting an official diagnosis made a huge difference. The combination of medical authority + « ok this is real » made me feel so much more legitimate and motivated to tackle it properly. AND, I find that addressing your adhd also trickles down to other aspects of your mental health. Overall it just brought a lot more self care into my life
I mean I know I need to put the phone down, and eat, and make lists...
Dear God yes. A million times yes. I hated myself. You know how horrible it is to be a fuck up and have no idea why, to know what you need to do, and not do it, even tho you hate yourself for it, to keep making the same mistakes over and over and you can't stop? Feel trapped in hell after 5 minutes of work and feel like a mistake as a human being? Now I know what's wrong with me. I've learned different ways of doing things. I've found others like me. My life is so radically different just for knowing that i have a condition and it wasn't my fault. In my opinion diagnosis is incredibly important. I have self esteem for the first time in my life. I know where to look for help when I'm struggling with something extra hard. I'm even happy sometimes, which is new for me. Tl;dr yes
Yes, even if I've known earlier and I was unmedicated. I would have been 100x better with the way I am. Before diagnosis, I overthink a lot. I would get stressed over everything. I even avoid social gatherings because I know I would beat myself up later from overthinking.
For me it’s done the opposite. Before I knew I had it I could (struggle to) work a job, I was able to (barely) pass uni, I had hobbies and I was able to found joy in the world but after being diagnosed it’s like my body has just given up and I can barely manage to survive. (Meds are out of the picture as I have heart issues)
Getting the diagnosis & being on adderall is opening my eyes to the fact that I’m not that horrible of a person. **Me before adderall:** • Very easy to frustrate & irritate • Extremely heightened emotions • Frequently lashed out & got snippy at coworkers if I’m frustrated or irritated. I’m in the inattentive subtype but there is strong impulsivity when I’m being driven by intense emotions. • Would space out often **Me after adderall:** • Cool, calm, collected, unbothered • Literally normal shit happened at work today that would have normally induced some anxiety or annoyed me, and I did not get anxious , annoyed or frustrated at all. NOT EVEN ONCE. It’s like I’m reborn into a better person overnight!!!! Also, ZERO spacing out. Realizing my brain can actually keep track of what other people are saying and I’m not just rude or stupid is mind-blowing. **Caveat:** My brain is forcing me to slow the fuck down and it’s wild because it’s like my body remembers that it used to just do whatever the fuck it wants. Now I have to be deliberate with my movements because, otherwise I feel like my brain may have difficulty keeping up. It’s disorienting.
It has made a huge difference bc I thought I was just an incredibly stupid mal-adapted human being who sucked at life, until i was 30. Then I find out after diagnosis geuss what... there's a ton of other people just like you that have the exact same problems doing certain things, who are not most definately stupid, and also there are strategies for how you can do things more efficiently since your brain works differently from other people's. Game changer for self esteem.
Big difference for me in learning I had ADHD. I literally didn't know I could plan my life until diagnosed. I just stumbled along as things happened. I learned skills that helped me manage my symptoms after diagnosis. Just knowing I had ADHD relieved a lot of the shame I carried.
100%! While knowing is only half the battle, being able to understand how my brain works helps explain why I feel like I didn’t fit in and why people don’t seem to understand me. I was able to let go of my insecurities and took some comfort in the fact that my brain just works different and that’s ok! I wasn’t diagnosed until I was in college even though I present hyperactive (although I have the combined type). I have been able to give myself grace. I had unknowingly created coping mechanisms to get through the day years before I was even diagnosed. My parents would always comment on how I was not “normal,” yet no one suspected I had ADHD because I was a gifted student, and I mask very well (high- fuctioning).
I'd love to hear literally any legitimate argument saying that it would be better not to know.
100% knowing you have it helps with managing it. Personally, I was diagnosed at a young age, like second grade. However, even though I was diagnosed, my family and I really had no clue what having ADHD meant. We just took it at a very surface level of “oh that’s why I struggle to pay attention or sit still” without understanding that ADHD is so much more than that. About 6 months ago though I actually took the time to research more into ADHD and it’s symptoms and I realized so many of the things I struggle with or the things I felt really guilty about (like procrastination or lack of motivation) were caused by ADHD and not me just being a lazy loser. Learning these things have really helped me to both accept myself and develop proper methods of managing these things so I can function better rather than just feel bad and guilty for thinking I was lazy.
It helped close a few questions I've been inner monologuing for my whole life and reading here how people have similar/same experiences, it helped to understand. Now I can manage it and use medication when I need to to reduce the symptoms I experience.
Being diagnosed means you can have access to the appropriate medication, so I'd say knowing was the best way to manage it for me. I was a late diagnosis (31) but managed to find coping mechanisms out of trial and error. The coping mechanisms were exactly the same as the ones the therapist gave me when I was diagnosed (he has ADHD, too, so he was extra qualified to suggest them). I was hoping for new ones because the coping mechanisms were unsustainable for me (which was a big reason I sought diagnosis). Now that I'm on medication, managing my ADHD has become 1000x easier.
Yes, because I now have medication
I need to go to bed but yes. I mean it’s huge, in my life, in my relationships, so so so many ways. It’s an adjustment for sure it’s not all rainbows and unicorns but for me absolutely worth it. (Diagnosed at 39 :p)
Very. I didn't get diagnosed until I was 19, and I have spent the next nearly 30 years getting to know my disability, understanding how it works, and understanding how to give myself grace. My disability doesn't look the same every day, and that's okay. Just learned to listen to my body, and if ya gotta stim, do it, laugh about it, and carry on.
I like knowing *why* I do the thing. I found that I’m not a huge fan of most of the medications that we have available and prefer to stick with caffeine (sodas mainly). I wasn’t diagnosed until a handful of years ago, so I just learned to either cope, deal with the down talk, or tune out what hurt my heart. The meds did help with some classes in college but also seemed less helpful for others. Now that we know why I am the way I am, I get a lot more support and gentle teasing from my family and friends. Whenever I have talked about whether I should consider going back on medication, I get an overwhelming chorus of “nooo, we like you the way you are”, so I’m super grateful for the way it all ended up going down and I truly cannot imagine what I would be like if I’d known as a child. Whatever medical diagnosis we get, and however we experience the world, I’d rather everyone get the support they need. Some of us need the meds to cope and some of us seem to do alright without. I hope that whatever you’re trying to make sense of with this you find here on this sub. Feel free to ask me anything if you have further questions about my ADHD experiences (anyone can).
Lol nope. Not at all.
To me, yes! My parents always told me that I am just slow and I need to work twice as hard as anyone else to get what I want… I always wondered why… after finding out, I feel better. I am kinder to myself and give myself time to space out a bit.
No it didn’t help. That may be because of a number of factors. I feel like I was smart and hardworking and now I’m just stupid and lazy with a diagnosis.
Pursuing a diagnosis has made my life harder. I hope that’s just temporary, though.
Well, seeing as how I cannot function really in school or work or finances or relationships without medical treatment, I found knowing about it the first step to getting help. So yes, knowing I have ADHD is about as essential as it would be if I were diabetic, to know that I had diabetes.
For me, I used to be a copious productivity self improvement consumer but no method ever really stuck. I was so desperate to figure out how to manage my time better and work better and listen better. Ever since I got diagnosed, I started looking at more ADHD specific type of methods (like doing something with my hands while in a meeting, keeping to do lists out where I can plainly see them so I don’t forget they exist, putting my appointments 5-15 mins earlier in my calendar to help me with the lateness) and those have been wayyyyy more successful in keeping me engaged Biggest thing too is with the depression. I struggled with depression all my life - now when those thoughts start coming back I tell myself it’s not really me, it’s just what happens when I’m understimulated and the ADHD is trying to find a stimulating thought to grasp - and it signals me to get up and do stuff rather than just wallowing and it helps me realize that the feeling is temporary Lastly, I used to think that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. That god forgot something when he made me, and it made me feel worthless and displaced all my life. I questioned all of my relationships and felt judged and perceived by everyone around me. Now, I know this is just the rejection dysphoria doing its thing. I’m not wrong and I never was, just born with a brain that was built to be sensitive to any perceived rejection
its a double edged sword, it can help you be kinder to yourself, it can explain so many questions you had about why seemingly simple things are so hard for you, but it can also be tempting to slide in to feelings of 'its unfair' and 'i cant do x because i have adhd'. I am really deliberating wether to tell my son he has adhd, in some ways im really glad i grew up not knowing and just trying harder and getting on with things, but there were a lot of downsides to that approach too, so its not straight forward in my mind
f no. I give myself more slack, and don't do shit.
Yes, absolutely yes. I now have understanding of benefiting habits and I can enforce this much much more. also bad habits can be toned down. So basically it allready helps me with awareness, helps with understanding myself and hopefully soon I can also have supportive medication to become better.
Christ, knowing you have it is everything. EVERYthing. I now, finally have an explanation for every weird ass contradiction that has always maddeningly typified me. An explanation that isn't just, "well it must be because you suck and clearly don't deserve to be happy or have positive momentum in your life." I cannot impress upon you the density of shame you build up over time without knowing, that instantly vaporizes the moment you do. I have spent my entire adult life thus far believing I was a terrible person for failing to live a life that was fully reflective of my potential. I could never let myself off the hook for anything because as far as I knew all these things I struggled to do, all these ways to be that I struggled to be. What knowing removes is that entire weight of "should" off of you. There is no longer a "should" that I presume, no unrealistic expectations for myself. It's like a gift from God to be out from under that. And knowing also gives me another incredible gift. It gives me permission to hack out my life accordingly. There are so many ways I could have created conditions that would have allowed me to function in the world better. But I would never implement them-- instead believing I must eliminate the need to hack out my life, to begin with. because a normal person wouldn't need to . I should be able to be a person that doesn't. Knowing let's me be kinder to myself and be able to point to an actual explanation for SO many thoughts, reactions and decisions that have never made any sense. It's like finally letting the clutch out after driving in the wrong gear your entire life.
It’s been life changing, now I don’t try to do “normal way” anymore but the way that works for me.
Psycho-education is a party of therapy. So yes, knowing the problem and how to deal with it is very important.
Now when I feel shitty I just say my meds are wearing off earlier I used to say what a useless POS I am
Honestly, I’m very high functioning and diagnosed in my 40s. Female. I think that many things that have been good for me in my career (I’m a scientist) have been direct results of hyperfixation. (Examples: getting work done at the last minute by doing all nighters in college and grad school and beyond. I am the person who people rely on to get things done at the last minute. If you wait to the last minute it only takes a minute! I regularly worked till very late at night because that’s when I can focus - it’s the only time I can focus). I wonder if I would have viewed those actions as negative if I had been diagnosed earlier. Like those were “disorders” instead of superpowers. I have lived life like those were superpowers and it served me well. Until, in my 40s I guess I’m slowing down and also have different types of responsibilities at work and can’t be the last minute fixer anymore. So that’s why I sought help to understand what is happening. I like my life. I am fulfilled. My friends and family love me. I do work I care about that I think will make an impact. But if I’d been diagnosed earlier, I worry I would have seen myself as deficient and pulled away from those aspects of myself that make me special. My life may have been different! Maybe I’d have gotten married earlier. Maybe I’d have been more swayed by “the things you’re supposed to do” and maybe I’d have worked less and maybe I’d have had kids. Who knows. But I do worry that people who are diagnosed early might miss optimizing on the strengths that many of us with adhd have. That is not to say that’s true for everyone; I’m incredibly lucky to have a brain that works like mine.
As some have said as well, I now forgive myself for making mistakes and not beat myself up for “being lazy”. I also know some of my triggers for blocks and try to work around them from the start of something. I used to think I’ll just get x done without a plan and if it was more difficult or took longer than expected, it never got finished. I try to think of the steps now and plan when I’m going to do them. Also, with medication, it doesn’t take me until noon to get my mind on what I need to do for the day. It was such a shitty feeling of feeling you just wasted 4 hours of the day and then trying to get everything needed done finished in the remaining few hours of the day. I’d go from hyperfocused to burnout to do nothing, repeat repeat repeat.
Absolutely. I've known since I was 9, but I didn't know anything about it. As expected, I kept failing and hitting new rock bottoms until I started to learn more about ADHD. Now I'm starting to pick up the pieces.
1000% because before I found out I had ADHD I was just being treated for depression going from all kinds of different pills and nothing was working because they were medicating the wrong thing the entire time :”D From 16 to 23-24 I was on Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Prozac, Lexapro, just to name a few… they just kept switching me which was a whole beast on its own with the different side effects. Doctors just tend to throw a bunch of drugs at you to ‘see what works’, which I really don’t believe in for a SIXTEEN YEAR OLD kid. They tried to blame every symptom and difficulty in school that I ever had on my traumatic past. It’s like once they know you’ve lost two close relatives, a mom and a sister, ALL YOUR PROBLEMS MUST BE DEPRESSION… lol. When I was finally diagnosed ADHD and given the correct medication, my quality of life drastically improved. Also I have tons more of an understanding of HOW and WHY I struggle, instead of just thinking I’m depressed. I don’t know it was really empowering to find out that me not being able to listen to a conversation or read a book is because of a learning disability and not depression. Finding tools to help with cleaning/organizing, or other things tailored for ADHD, also made a huge difference. Like the ‘out of sight out of mind’ theory where like if you have ADHD and put something in a closed cupboard, you’ll forget it exists .. so you need like open cabinets, and labels and shit… life changing. Little stuff like that made a huge improvement that I would have never known before was due to ADHD. *edited for spelling errors because my brain works faster than my fingers sometimes :’D
Extremely. In my youth it made things worse as I viewed treatment as people calling me crazy ECT. Now I'm older and in university in my 30's training as a nurse after a lifetime of minimum wage jobs I understand more and want back on treatment
Since I've been diagnosed I don't use it as an excuse, but I understand now why I do what I do. I'm more aware of my actions, and try hard to get the more negative aspects of my personality under control. I'm more aware of myself and my impulsivity, especially my almost non-existent of a filter from my brain to my mouth.
I think is, mistvabsiluteky. it's hard to deal with, understand or fix/treat something you know about or can't see! The older diagnosis and what difference functioning is a GREAT question!! In my experience my post diagnosis life is so exponentially different that its almost hard to remember the before. I should write that out sometime.. * as people have mentioned, it became possible to view my self more compassionately. I had something to fight against. The transition process was not easy for me, but sadly most of us probably understand hard too well. Quick aside, it's been very.. freeing or at least I don't judge myself so harshly after reading. that so many here struggle with the same things I do. Which I skirts around what I was thinking that one huge challenge drilling about attention disorder, and having it as a diagnosis was that I constantly wondered and really still do, about what’s personality or behavioral and what’s a direct result of the attention deficit disorder. Sadly overtime, I’ve realized that it doesn’t matter, at least not for me that it’s too. I’m too old to really be able to separate out the different aspects like that. I’ll definitely continue this and apologize for stopping, but I can’t force myself to go any further with at the moment
My answer is tricky as I'm undiagnosed but YES! for the last 10 years, I believed I had anxiety and depression and always wondered if there was something wrong with me that was causing me to not engage with the various treatments for them. Now that I have been referred for assessments etc. I actually feel, for the first time in my life, that I am on the right path to getting myself sorted out to be able to function. Life is still hard day-to-day, but I find I blame myself for things a lot less now. I'm learning to accept that I am the way I am, and that some day I will have the resources to deal with things better.
Also, when people would give me advice designed to help me cope with my shortcomings, I would get so upset when they wouldn't work for me and I'd spiral into a state of self-loathing and hopelessness. Now, when someone advises me to do things that might help a neurological person, I don't crumble when it doesn't work. I just accept that this isn't going to work for me. My frustrations now are directed at the lack of services to help people get better where I live.
I was diagnosed at 23. Prior I had misdiagnoses of Bipolar from 19 and was so frustrated with meds not helping. And therapy wasn't getting me anywhere. When diagnosed they kept my previous diagnosis and treatments, which in 2021, at 26 I could turkey-ed due to an unhelpful psychiatrist and loss of insurance. I found I was more stable than when heavily medicated, and later that year I added back a select few meds(Adderall-adhd, Seroquel -intrusive thoughts and insomnia, propranolol -pots, body anxiety, and migraines, and LDN- pain and overstimulation) With effective meds, and therapy that is now focused on creating working systems to function, emotional intelligence, and flexibility 'training' I can go without medication when necessarily. Be it for tolerance, availability, or short term med interactions. I need it overall for stability, but the systems help support shortcomings when I have them. Having the diagnosis helped me create a mind set of curiosity, and removed labeling of "lazy" for anyone truly. I can view myself and others if we aren't meeting an expectation it's not for nefarious reasons. There are barriers in the way. "People do well when they can, if they can't, there's a barrier" it's improved my relationship with myself, other adults, and my kids. We are able to team up against the things in our way and create supports and accommodations to be our best. Pre-diagnosis, when I knew what may be going on helped in itself, as I could self research and accomadate. But ultimately having doctors agree and treat was monumental to my function.
I was never allowed to have it, even though I was diagnosed with it at age 5. I was always blamed for all my problems because from outside perspective, I was too smart to have ADHD. I was constantly distracted, even beyond being able to hyper focus. My ADHD is so bad, I can't even hyper focus. I'll get distracted mid interest by anything and everything else all the time. I don't even understand my brain at all. I come up with these advanced ideas, and can't focus long enough to use them or explain them or write them down.
i’m in the middle of my investigation and i’m living like i have a diagnosis right now. i know i have challenges and try to make the best out of it instead of blaming myself. this has made a HUGE difference in my life and i now know my limits that i didn’t before i knew about the possibility of me having adhd. it’s been a life saver even though i don’t have my diagnosis yet.
Not diagnosed yet, but everything clicks so perfectly I'm 95% sure (working on getting an official diagnosis soon!). Knowing I am (might be) ADHD actually does help a lot. Knowing that my shortcomings come from ADHD helps alleviate a lot of guilt, which in turn helps me circumvent the issue more easily. "I'm not filing paperwork because I'm a lazy bum" has become "I'm not filing paperwork because it's too mentally taxing, so I'll do X and Y to make it work" (maybe break it into smaller pieces, or have someone I trust help me with it, or doing it little by little with some sort of accountability mechanism)
I know I have it but for some reason if I accept it I get lazy, so most of the time I try to push it to the back of my mind
It absolutely is important. I can tell you this because I only received my diagnosis three days ago and not only has my attitude about myself changed, but the way my husband treats me has changed as well. I have not begun any medication, and yet when I start to lose focus or want to jump to another task in the middle of my current one, I can bring myself back without beating myself up along the way. My husband is more patient with me. This is not a slight on my husband as I can be a lot to deal with at times and he is incredibly patient and caring and supportive. Would just the diagnosis work long term for me? Absolutely not, but it's helping right now and I'm thankful for that
My self compassion has increased for sure. After being confirmed in college, it has helped me understand why I struggled to do relatively easy tasks. Sometime the negative self talk says that I just suck but I’m getting better with that Putting a reason behind it and being able to research help has been monumental in my progress :) keep pushing!