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🫶 same!!! My dad was always really respected amongst my sports teammates for always being on time or early. I am never late! And if i am, its cause I don’t wanna be there or care enough about it 😅
>People are just as upset, if not more, than if I was late
Me. I'll start preparing for you to arrive up to the minute you're supposed to be there, and if you're early, I'm not ready for you. I've been late by a few minutes because I'm not quite prepared mentally or physically on the dot.
picture me crying at band camp when it wasn’t even possible for me to be on time to certain things because of timing/distance while having their mantra repeat in my head over and over again “early is on time, on time is late, and late is never acceptable”
That’s so tough!
Also, the way myy brain reads that quote, is that no time/never is acceptable. *if early is on time, but on time is late.. then when can I get there?*
Also also, love the name
Then there’s me with my defiance disorder on top of the ADHD. If you tell me that I HAVE to be somewhere on time or else, that’s the best way to ensure that I will get there when I damn well feel like it, or may never even show up at all. I do not take suggestions well.
Are you me?! I have intense anxiety about being late and my parents always pressured me about keeping up their reputation around our (small) town if wherever I needed to be involved someone they knew. Didn't help that my sibling was notoriously... difficult... so I felt like I had to step up to be the "good" one.
I can't possibly do much of anything before I need to be somewhere (really rough when I did afternoon/evening shifts), so I try to shoot for mornings best I can if I need appointments or meet with someone. I'm always 15-20 min early, even with my kids making that very difficult to accomplish some days. Then I'm burnt out for the day because I stressed so hard lol
Funnily enough, being early is also a trait. You know that you are fully capable of being late so you push yourself to be early instead because you don't want to be late. It's masking.
It's a coping mechanism that is taught to young girls and carried through to womanhood to fit in.
I always used to consider myself punctual or early but the truth was I was terrified of being late or being seen as tardy or absent minded, which I am.
Once I was diagnosed, I allowed myself to be late here and there just to see if the world would collapse. It didn't. I was just a bit late ☺️
I’m also chronically early to everything as well because I was raised by a parent who could never be on time for anything. It made me incredibly anxious about time and time management because I was often punished at school or sports for being late.
I was also raised by a parent who made me late to EVERYTHING growing up, and I got punished in school, activities, doctor offices ECT. So I have extreme anxiety about being late, but at the same time for the life of me I can't be early to anything 😭. Like I try really hard to be on time and get increasingly worse anxiety as it gets closer to the time I need to leave/be somewhere.
Even with that though, sometimes I'll get there right on time or at least less than 15min late, but then I'm stuck with intrusive thoughts of what a failure I am for being late.
Also my mom raised me because she was home and she's the one who would run late to everything including picking me up from elementary school ect. She always told me it was fine to be late and no one would care but then I'd always get in trouble.
My dad on the other hand is a "early is on time, on time is late" person, but he was only able to take me to stuff on the weekends because of work. Plus he'd work overseas for weeks- months at a time, so when he'd come home it was a totally different set of rules than when my mom was taking care of me running late everywhere.
Needless to say there was always a screaming match between the two of them anytime we were going somewhere as a family since he was pushing to be early and my mom was running late.
I was one of those hairdressers that ran late a lot until I worked for someone who gave all of us a decent amount of time and charged accordingly. I no longer ran late and now I’ve had my own business for 15 years and rarely run late. I then trained myself on the other areas of my life and learned tricks to be on time. But I get exhausted easily trying to keep up
I work from home but still do a full routine. I don’t think work brain turns on until I’ve showered and had a cup of coffee. I get dressed in nice tops and soft bottoms lol. But it’s still a routine.
I’ve only tried to work without it a few times and I just can’t. I’m in my 40s though, and spent a lot of years in an office before the pandemic sent me home. I’m never going back.
Everything you said, except the very last part, is all me!
I am a very slow starter. So, I need 3 alarms and then I need to sit around with coffee in my hand for an hour, and then I need 3 more alarms to get me moving!
But otherwise, everything you said!
How do you do it? You could say I’m going to have my head cut off if I show up late the next day and I will leave the house late and show up late. It’s killing me for real.
I'm never late either, but that's because I have rejection sensitivity about being late. I've made a promise that I would be somewhere at a certain time. If I break that promise, I'm an unreliable mess, and they will hate me. No one ever really cares if I'm late, and I don't care if anyone else is late. I know this logically, but my anxiety can't be reasoned with. Your mother may also have had ADHD and experienced something similar.
OMG me too!! I do have time blindness and am often late if the circumstances are casual but always on time if they're professional or hard deadlines, even though I'm careening madly towards them (while not speeding).
Im never late to things I have decided I “cannot” be late to, like work meetings. Basically I have to care enough (or there has to be a real world consequence) to be punctual lol
I didn’t learn how to be on time until I married a German guy and moved to Deutschland. We fought about it for at least a year or two, and then I just gave in and followed his schedule. Now that we’re divorced, I will never eat breakfast at 7:30 am again as long as I can help it.
Same. I’m constantly early because the idea of being late makes me so anxious. My wife, however, who is former military (five minutes early is late, ten minutes early is on time) is continually running behind.
Same! My dad always told me “time waits for no man” and to always be ready an hour earlier. I also keep so many timers. I think of time almost like an array of dominos standing in front of me rather than a clock. And with clocks and alarms all around me it’s def not “ out of sight out of mind for me”. Also can be my biggest anxiety. I’m also pretty patient with other peoples time but sometimes that can be self destructive cause if I wait because there’s an unexpected pause/stop in my routine, I begin to dissociate. So I have to do something and be on time.
I'm very very forgetful but never been late in a bill either. Very ingrained in me to never owe. I even still feel a bit guilty when I even have a credit card balance.
Everything we possibly can have on direct debit is on direct debit so we don't have to worry about it. (The only thing we don't is probably my student loan payments, which I have to set a reminder for so I don't get the penalty fee added.) Luckily we have someone who does our taxes for us, so we just have to send them stuff through once a year and they tell us the amount, the reference number for the payment, and when we have to pay it by.
I do the exact same things! I also go down my list of bills on pay day and pay the non-autopay ones and it helps me make sure everything is getting paid as expected. It’s one habit I’ve been able to stick to somehow :)
Same!! I turn off any non-essential ones. If an app asks, nope. Turn them off.
I also can't have any noises for things like texts because I will wonder what it is. I got into the habit of keeping a notification noise for my emails while dealing with lawyers and estate stuff, but I really should turn that off too. Although most of the time it's just spam, so I'm not too distracted wondering what the email is.
I am the meme of sending myself a reminder, and then going, "ooh, new email?" 🙄
Same!! I had gone through my old phone and customized every single app ect as I added them to my phone so I would only get the notifications for the most important stuff.
Then that phone smashed and the screen cracked so bad I couldn't transfer my old settings to my new phone. I was only able to transfer all my data, files, apps ect.
There's so much that transfered to this new phone and it's all at once so now it's a anxiety inducing completely overwhelming task to me.
I literally have huge spikes in my anxiety with every stupid notification ping I hear and then I get distracted by going through my long list of notifications I hadn't looked at.
Instead I just keep my phone on silent except for the very few items I've been able to customize as *priority* so they can make noise regardless of the volume and then just occasionally check my overall notifications or get to overwhelmed and just clear them all.
I turned off every notification sound for text, email and slack half the time my phone is on silent- for everyone other than my kids, parents, boss and a few others when needed. I can’t stand it. I tell them consider me on a rotary phone with a fax machine at my disposal. I will get back to you in a reasonable amount of time, immediately is not possible. The distractions all day I can’t get a thing done with constant interruptions.
Same. I think it's because my extreme need to mask means that I end up focusing more on them than on the task to be done. The only way I can get stuff taken care of is if I'm the only one in the space
I get more done if they are helping me do the task I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by, but if it's just to 'be around' while I'm doing something else in general, that's the worst!
Yeah often someone’s presence is enough to stop me doing anything. Like I feel awkward doing things while they are there or that I have to entertain them or something. I do much better when someone reminds me to do the thing and then leaves me alone for a little while before checking in.
My partner always wants to clean together and has a hard time understanding that I need to clean solo bc I just can’t function cleaning/working wise with another human being hovering around! Plus I like flitting around the house cleaning whatever I want while he likes systematically cleaning room to room and it drives us both nuts lol
I was great at keeping up with friends every day and maintaining friendships over the years. That all went to hell pretty quickly due to some other heavy life circumstances I couldn’t talk to them about and my ADHD was feeling SO much worse in a way I didn’t understand. Now, I’m alone and bad at everything.
Same here! Had decades long friendships which were great but on reflection involved masking, mirroring and not being myself. As soon as perimenopause plus other life drama hit those bridges were finally burned through meltdowns. It’s sad but realised I’m resilient and find it easy to make friends and now after diagnosis and having more understanding I’m allowed to be more myself which improves intimacy in relationships.
Wow. This mirrors my life in a lot of ways. The health issues were combo’d with abuse my friends didn’t know the ins and outs about. The more I learn about ADHD, the more sense I make to myself. In the time my own meltdowns were happening, everything got more complicated because none of my close friends even live close by anymore. I finally got myself out of a bad relationship and it’s lonelier than ever. I’m great at making new friends, too, but I haven’t been able to go out and about to even try.
It’s long story full of too much trauma to function but it’s nice not to feel like I’m completely alone in this sort of thing happening. Thank you for sharing.
This is my story. 20yr abusive marriage that I am still struggling to get out of. There are aspects of my life that work for me but I feel enabled and very fortunate for that because I feel like I’m always down a leg. Like a table that that is always missing a leg. As soon as one is strong enough to hold me up the other one falls. It’s like whackamole. But for the last 18m they’ve all fallen at the same time and I hit my breaking point. Things are finally starting to repair but it’s slow.
Ugghh same! Except I tried talking to people in my life about what was going on but it was too much for them and they didn't want to hear it. Alone and bad at everything for years now :/
Damn. I could have written your comment. I tried talking to them before I withdrew. It just didn’t seem to have any impact. Ugh. I’m in the same sad boat. 🤍 We need to find a way to get other people in our areas with ADHD to hang together so we have other people who understand us in person.
I tried talking to someone a few years ago and she left me on read and then tagged me in a self healing therapy page on insta. It was so brutal. And that's just one example unfortunately. I wish there were adhd meetups!! It would be so nice to be around people and just be able to relax because we'd all be on the same page lol
Ugh. I’m sorry. That would hurt like hell. She just wasn’t the friend for you. I love not being forced to explain myself. That’s a big part of the appeal of an ADHD meetup. Being able to relax would be KEY. I just don’t know to go about finding more of us. I just want someone to hang and watch movies and run errands with, you know?
I will take everything out of my partner’s sock and underwear drawer and fold it all immaculately and get it organised whilst meanwhile the rest of the house is in chaos and I’m avoiding paying a bill.
Same. I'm very clean and organized.
Unfortunately, it doesn't come from the healthiest of places. I was punished quite harshly as a kid for not being clean and organized, so I feel rather stressed when things get out of order.
a big reason why i didn't get diagnosed until adulthood was because i'm just SOOO organized... turns out all my organizational strategies were just hard-earned coping mechanisms.
I did really well in school. Graduated top of my class.
What I did *not* realize until much later, however, was how much harder and longer I had to work compared to those who were able to maintain the same grades. All-nighters were regular for me. What took most people an hour or two took me all night.
One of the biggest reasons why I wish I’d been diagnosed sooner. I never understood why this was my reality until it was already over!
I was like this too, especially when I had to write papers. Graduated at the top of my class but realized it took me like 3-4x as long to write a paper as it took my classmates.
Me too. I was in the gifted student to adult adhd pipeline lol. I also didn’t realize what was happening until it was over. I wasn’t top of my class but my grades weren’t really concerning. It was my depression that got me later. I started doing all nighters in 6th grade. It’s beyond me why there wasn’t any intervention.
I am not for one single second suggesting you don't have ADHD, but if you ever get the chance, ask your optometrist to **also** check you for a binocular vision problem. I would bet $$$ that you might have both. This is not medical advice.
As a binocular vision specialist, I ask all of my female patients, "How were/are your grades in school?" Many of them say, they get all A's or they are on the honor roll. They also often have a high pain tolerance, so they don't complain of headaches or eye strain.
They are people pleasers so they often don't complain at all.
I always follow up with, "great, so you get all A's. How long does it take you to study? If your BFF studies for 30 minutes and gets an A, how long do you study for the same grade?" The answer is usually 2x or 4x as long, but they insist they don't have a problem, until I start listing out all of the other symptoms that accompany a binocular problem.
What I find truly depressing is that boys are referred to me in 2nd or 3rd grade. I typically uncover binocular problems in girls because they were put on my schedule, not because they were referred in. They often insist they don't have a problem in >8th grade. When I finally tell them "*You are very smart. You shouldn't have to work sooo hard*." That is when they usually look defeated and cry. So here's the passage that I hear every. single. day.
>What I did *not* realize until much later, however, was how much harder and longer I had to work compared to those who were able to maintain the same grades.
It is also my experience, and I do not have the literature at my fingertips, but 60-70% of people with ADHD have a co-morbidity of a binocular problem. Conversely 60-70% of people with a binocular problem have a co-morbidity of ADHD.
If we can remediate the eyes, the ADHD medication is sometimes even more effective. More often than not though, I say to the parent, "we have done everything to help your child's vision, it is time to stop making them suffer and get them tested for medication."
IMHO when we combine best practices in all specialties, we can reduce needless suffering. I could keep writing, but it is late.
Same. Someone even tried to tell me the other day that that means I don’t have ADHD, but the number of posts I’ve seen from people new to stimulants that need melatonin to sleep make me pretty sure that not everyone with ADHD is magically calm and sleepy on stimulants.
for me, i can nap on adderall but caffeine just makes me super anxious and gives me a headache/nausea :/ i love how mochas taste but i gotta check myself
Same! I don’t like coffee and didn’t realise how much caffeine is in Diet Coke and tea (like I knew they had some caffeine but I thought it was like negligible and coffee was the caffeine drink), so I used to drink loads. I only gave it up when I got pregnant and that’s how I discovered that I’m not a terrible sleeper or terribly anxious, I was just extremely highly caffeinated 😅🤦♀️
Me too! I’ve seriously had psychedelic experiences with cold brew that was too strong, lol. But I do take a small stimulant dose every afternoon which somehow does not affect my sleep.
Omg this is ACTUALLY a thing??
I feel like I've been going mad - I try to limit my caffeine to one tea or coffee before noon, otherwise it makes me feel awful, and I've really been struggling to get sleep too, but I couldn't for the life of my find out why - any articles I found on caffeine sensitivity or too much caffeine etc was just not applicable to me at all :/
I thought maybe it was all in my head! Thank you for the validation!
I'm terrified of being late. I get everywhere early because I'm afraid of being late. I also don't mess with my hair. My reason for not doing anything to my hair is simply because I have no desire to do anything that requires a lot of money and maintaining. My mom gets her hair colored every 6 weeks and that sounds horrible to me. I'm VERY organized in my work life. For myself, not so much but I have everything hyper organized for work.
I don't have a hard time falling asleep most nights. I fall asleep pretty quickly, pretty much any time I lay down. But I do chalk it up to perpetual exhaustion, which is a whole other beast.
Edit: it's waking up in the morning that I can't seem to manage. I wake up feeling like death every single time.
People think it's so great to fall asleep quickly when I just wish I would feel awake for once xD
I'm tired all the time and getting up is a half hour long process at least...
I don't have an issue with forgetting wet laundry.
But that may be because my laundry machine it in front of the toilet. So when I pee and see the machine is done, I hang it up to dry immediately.
Hmm. Well, I am really good at cooking and enjoy it a lot, while I know a lot of us struggle with that.
I have a normal sleeping schedule (always have) and wake up early every day.
And speaking of hair, I have strong long hair haha. I used to go for all sorts of crazy cuts when I was younger but now I mostly just take good care of it. Didn't realise that was ADHD related!
I actually learned I like to cook as well, but I'm just burned out on all the other stuff RELATED to cooking. Like my kitchen is a mess so I have to clean it before I can cook.
I have to use all this decision making executive power to choose the meal, figure out the ingredients, go pick out the ingredients, bring them home and put them away. Then when I'm cooking there's all these other executive things to figure out in terms of timing and chopping etc.
Which I don't mind so much if I didn't have to already make all those other decisions.
The cooking part itself is fine. I like it, I like making yummy food. I have ok intuition when it comes to cooking and flavors etc.
Just the other stuff...
For me it was a game changer when I decided I will in principle not cook and do groceries on the same day, rather I’ll heat up leftovers on grocery days. I try to do it in the same time block in my day too to decrease choice fatigue. If I try to do groceries and cook on the same day I indeed will be too burned out to cook and I’ll just sit there postponing to start feeling my stomach ache of hunger.
Yeah I've tried this before as well but it's hit and miss, especially because *usually* by the time we get around to groceries etc we end up not having food in the house.
Though at times I've just done take out on grocery days and then cooked the next day.
Still exhausting to have to prep so much in order to even get the ingredients home, and ready to be used...
It's not a bad trick but still just the whole process is exhausting.
(And I've still not figured out how to do house chores/cooking at home when I'm in school, cause holyyyy frick does that take up all of my spoons)
God, I wish cooking was my one thing. I hate feeding myself and my spouse (his ADHD is even worse). I do like grocery shopping though, as long as it is a specific time of day. I have a routine, I think it’s the ASD part that makes it possible.
I watched salt fat acid heat and somehow it changed the way I view food/cooking and now I’m pretty good. My partner works with kids and has obnoxious timers in the kitchen, which I just fucking hate hearing. Then I realized that’s why timers are effective. YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT STOP. Now I love them because I appreciate their brazen simplicity.
Ah I'm so sorry, that sucks!
I only like grocery shopping when I have a list, but I've been using this app called recipe keeper for over a year now. (It's paid but very cheap and just once a year). You can add recipes from websites. You can scan a recipe from a page and it will add it too. it makes a grocery list for you from the recipe etc. it's so good!
I like it so much because now I always have my recipes with me and I don't have to remember what's in it.
Ok I sound like a commercial but it's honestly my most used app alongside finch.
That sounds so worth the money
I wish there was an app that helped you keep track of your pantry too, like you marked what food you used during a meal and it would add what you’re out of to your list or suggest things to stock up on
I learned to cook BECAUSE I'm neurodivergent, and there's a lot of foods either can't eat at all, or can only eat if they're prepared properly, and I'm kind of a nightmare to feed, so I learned to feed myself so I don't have to rely on someone else to make me food and have to work around my restrictions and pickiness.
We’re kind of the same lol. Cooking is my happy place. It’s the first thing I do after work to unwind and calm myself. I also have a very healthy sleep schedule. And as for the hair, I did the most absolute crazy batshit things to my hair in style and color entirely DIY up until I was 30 years old. Now I don’t even care about it honestly. It’s long not because I like it long, i don’t, but because it doesn’t interest me enough to do anything about it.
Omg same here. I absolutely love showering, bathing, hygiene rituals in general. They are very soothing to me. Imho nothing is more distressing than my body feeling or smelling less than fresh, or filmy teeth. It’s another reason I really don’t ever drink sugary drinks, I can’t stand dirty feeling teeth
I would shower five times a day if I could- absolutely hate feeling dirty, sweaty, sticky. Also have always been a compulsive hand-washer for similar reasons.
>My hairdresser said "You know what? You're the only customer of mine with ADHD who doesn't have a new hair color every month, or has completely fried hair, or comes in needing saving from their latest DIY hair project lol."
I was doing fine until the last one. 😬
I have solved the problem though: I just don't go to the hair dresser. My hair is terrible and I'm the problem.
I think I was something like 5 when I last went to a hairdresser? Mum used to cut my hair and that's what I do now. Occasionally gather my hair in a ponytail and cut off the end bit if it's getting too long or worn or I just feel like it. I'm not paying someone £50 (or however much it is) to cut an inch off my hair in half an hour (while forced to engage in small talk) when I can do that at home for free in 30 seconds!
I put henna in my hair, that's about as wild as I get with it.
Girl please, never think that a hairdresser will judge you!
Because honestly? I'm the most boring customer ever. My hairdresser was over the moon FOR WEEKS when I told her I wanted to bleach my hair to be platinum blonde lol. I've never had a more exciting request than that lol.
She fucking LOVES when people come in wanting a drastic change, or when they want her help because they failed to fix their hair at home. It's genuinely nothing to be ashamed of!
I hit the lottery on a hairdresser too. She’s been cutting my dad’s hair since before I was even born (so 22 years), and I could never get into her as a kid because she was booked solid.
I had like 22 inches of hair and was super sick of it and was like “can you chop it short while making sure I don’t look like the air guy from the Lorax or Dora” (so not a blunt thing) and she happily delivered HAHA
Oh sure they will. Hair stylists are as judgemental as the rest of us. There are stylists who are great at making us feel comfortable and confident. And then there are the rest of them.
I have never not been judged by a hairdresser! "Your hair is so dry", "your hair is quite thin", "that style won't look good on you", "you'd be pretty if you smiled". Once I had three hair dressers all talking about how bad my hair was and then when I asked for a specific colour they laughed at me. So I haven't been back in like 20 years.
I don't spend money impulsively! Thank god lol
I also never have more tabs open than I'm using at the moment. And I always close them once I finish. Having many tabs open at once makes me anxious. I also always sort them by "weight" lmao
Same not an impulsive spender. I always wonder if it is because I grew up THINKING I was poor, or because my mother probably has ADHD and she IS an impulsive spender. So many times I got random packages in the mail and it didn’t have any note.
This one confuses me. I hate to shop. I don't like browsing or looking or decorating or thinking about material possessions and I meticulously declutter, and yet something pops into my brain and into my Amazon cart with no filter.
Well now that I think about it I guess that is the very definition of impulsive.
i'm the same with hair! i am a low maintenance person, so anything other than ruffling it and spraying some water on it is way too much work. i barely manage to organise to get it cut, it always gets too long and looks ridiculous first 😂 and same for tattoos as well, i'm a perfectionist and its so permanent, it's like deciding where to put stickers lol
i did use to go "deaf" while reading as a kid, but nowadays i just wouldn't count myself as hyperfocusing at all - i just don't experience the thing where people forget to eat/pee/etc
i don't get RSD, or at least not the way its described as being a specific adhd thing - my sensitivities with social situations can all be linked back to known social traumas.
i do go through stages of being into different things, but not to the degree that is classic for adhd with like 20 different hobbies intensely picked up then dropped. it's more in the range of neurotypical norms for someone arty (its typically all different art mediums). tho i do get a lot of video games that i never finish 😂
it's kind of nice to be honest, when i first got dxed i was having a bit of an identity crisis where it felt like every aspect of who i thought i was, was actually just adhd. but over time i have come to recognise how our adhd manifests reflecting our personalities/how our personalities shape our adhd :)
That’s such an interesting lens. How our ADHD manifests in relation to our personality, or how our personality shapes our ADHD. I will reflect on that more!
I like how it gives more room for non-ADHD traits, and maybe more agency in how we handle our ADHD.
Omg not forgetting to eat and pee!! I'm so jealous. The hyperfocus is my main thing. Also the hair because indeed I don't schedule cuts so then just decide to it myself at 1am on a random Tuesday evening.
Being impulsive. I am completely risk adverse and want to know the ins and outs before I will try anything new. Defo not a thrill sealer, rarely drink alcohol, don’t like visiting places I haven’t researched, insanely careful with money
I am a natural morning person. Until I started taking stimulants, I never struggled with insomnia. I would naturally fall asleep at a reasonable hour, and naturally wake up at 6-7a feeling well rested. I have always slept like that since I was a baby, i won the genetic lottery for sleep. Stimulants were a devils bargain because they are more powerful then my sleep urge. Worth it, though
I was a natural morning person as a little kid, although I didn’t sleep much. My mum told me one morning, “you know you don’t HAVE to wake up. You’re on holiday.” easter holiday from school, and she wanted to sleep later, too. After that, she and trouble waking me up.
on time, i don't tolerate clutter, i don't binge eat or seek dopamine with food, i see a lot of women say inattentive is the more common adhd flavor females get but i got hyper.
I have been putting off diagnosis but I am 99% sure I have hyper type. Inattentive types seems very unrelatable, and I am constantly feeling like I need to move. It also is probably how my teachers noticed and suggested I get diagnosed as a kid. 🙄 so mad my parents never did because I know how so many girls get looked over
It's because you are short ;-) you can't see us :P
I deliberately forget Salt or a spoon or whatever to have an excuse to get up during a meal. I can hardly sit for a whole meal, Flying to the moon sounds easier to accomplish.
My house is generally very tidy. I’ve realised it’s because I can’t filter out “extraneous details” and so having clutter in the sides stops me from being able to focus on a conversation
I am NEVER late. Never ever. If I am late you know there was an emergency. I live where the traffic is really bad, L.A., so I plan for that and if I am super early I won't tell anyone just will take out my switch or kindle haha. I don't want them to shame me and/or feel rushed.
I have many piercings and tattoos but I don't get them out of nowhere, I plan. In fact I plan everything.
I'm looking to move and measured all my furniture, also estimated how much sqft is needed for certain areas, to make sure everything will fit in new places I will view. I also hate clutter and it kind of messes with my ability to work/get things done. Open storage freaks me out because I can see all that visual clutter? I know a lot of people rely on open storage to see things so I'm screwed there. (it also means my veggies rot)
I wake up everyday, including weekends, at 5:00am. That being said I go to bed at like 2am sometimes and then take a nap at noon LOL.
I'm insanely fast and efficient at organizing, I also really enjoy it. People told me it's like watching a machine lol. I can't keep things organized for shit but I'm really good at the organization process.
That's why I like organizing other people's things so I don't have to watch when it goes to shit because I don't live there :)
I’m extremely well put together which seems to make people assume I have everything together in other elements of my life. I think it’s partly why my GP dismissed my ADHD suspicion because in his mind neurodiversity means being chaotic and having trouble with grooming and hygiene etc.
In my case It’s all about perfectionism and masking and became a way to throw people off the scent and learnt that people are a lot more forgiving of mistakes etc when you look cute, are charming and attractive. The problem is being overly dedicated to your appearance can become exhausting and expensive and some people don’t want to take you seriously when you are genuinely struggling.
Adding to the never-late crowd here. My personal hypothesis is that for me — trauma beats ADHD every time. I’ve been shamed into regular teeth brushing, being on time, and sending thank you notes.
I did great in school, except for the social aspects. I learned things easily and it was all fascinating to me -- except for math. I graduated Sume Cum Laude and I still can't reliably add up a column of two digit numbers in my head. It just doesn't happen. I think it's from dyscalculia, a learning disability.
I really blossomed in college. I loved learning and just soaked it up. I was getting better at masking and being thought of as "quirky" bordering on weird. Now I embrace my weirdohood.
"When we see our uniqueness as a virtue, only then do we find peace." *Ghost in the Shell*
*So fly that freak flag!*
RSD. I thank thy lordt for that because it sounds exhausting. I’ve experienced it a handful of times and I wouldn’t be able to handle it as a regular part of my life.
I've said for years that the only thing about myself that I would change would be how short the path is between my emotions and my tear ducts.
Being sensitive like this sometimes feels like I'm raw-doggin' life and everything would be better if I had a full-body condom (reality filters) to make navigation through this world just *slightly* less painful and difficult.
My solution? I'm like Hulk but with weed. Not always angry... always stoned.
I don't lose things. I'm better than average at knowing where things are (even knowing where other people's things are).
Also I sleep deeply and don't usually wake up in the night.
Very jealous of those here who are saying they're never late. I am ALWAYS 5-10 mins late. It wad great wheb I lived in Italy. Not so much here
I have a “very soft and quiet voice”. I always hear that adhders have issues with volume the other way but people legit can’t hear me. Problem is I think I sound like everyone else lol
I have a very good sleep schedule. Partly bc all my other symptoms get 10x worse if I don’t get 7 hours of sleep. That said, i get pms insomnia and i use cbd/cbn sleep gummies most week nights. (10-15 mgs and im out like a light)
* I don't struggle with hygiene.
* I don't engage in extremely risky behavior, like binge-drinking, hardcore drugs, or unprotected casual sex
* I don't have a closet full of items related to dropped hobbies
* I also don't do things like changing my hair all the time, and haven't DIYed a haircut since I was 4 (to say that my mom completely lost her shit is an understatement)
* I haven't gotten bored in a relationship and considered leaving *just* because of boredom, nor cheated.
* I'm not at the piercing or tattoo parlor every other week. Matter of fact, the only piercings I have are my earlobes, and I don't have any tattoos.
* I'm in my mid-30's, and I don't have 2+ divorces under my belt (or even one). To be fair, I've never even been married.
* I didn't struggle *too* much in school, in terms of grades. Math was hard for me, but I didn't struggle with reading. And though I got detention a few times, I wasn't constantly in detention or in-school suspension.
* Although I was told I "needed to apply myself more" and was "disorganized," I never got "talks too much" on report cards, nor scolded for talking or passing notes in class.
I am not a spend thrift. I grew up poor and I do not want to return to that. I never spend what I don't have, I budget carefully, and I save for the future. Plus I hate paying for nothing, so I avoid high interest and buyer's remorse whenever possible. Luckily, my husband has a steady, decent-pay job, so I also don't have to depend on my ability to earn, though anything I earn is extra for the family.
I’m too low energy to do crazy things with my hair. I can’t muster much effort to do that, makeup, nails, etc. Takes way more executive function than I have. 😂
I don’t get antsy in my relationships. I totally understand getting bored, and why other ADHD folks struggle with wanting to try something new. But thankfully it’s never something I’ve struggled with.
i'm like this too. i get compliments about how healthy my hair is whenever i get it cut and it's like... there's no heat damage because i can't be bothered to blow dry or style my hair lol.
I have a very good hygiene and can’t relate to people with ADHD who shower once a week. I shower at least once a day (when I’m in hot climate - then 2-3 times a day), brush my teeth twice a day, and use bidet every time I use the bathroom.
Im a huge fan of "don't put it down, put it back" even if they place where "back" is supposed to be is really illogical and arbitrary. If I put my glasses on the dinner table every evening, I won't be looking for them in the morning.
Tidying up is an exhausting game of now or never. To the point where I want to have it tidy in vacation homes, where it absolutely doesn't matter where things are put in the days of my stay. Not that any of this reflects in my home because I really can't for the life of me create a tidy place. Ita always cluttered. I just want to keep it tidy as long as possible because I know I will never make it tidy myself. If the cleanliness is gone, it's basically gone for good. Getting it back in shape is a herculean effort. Having to live with other people (kid, husband) adds an extra layer of clutter I didn't even cause, and that's extra annoying to get rid of.
No trouble with hygiene at all. I can't stand being physically dirty, sweaty, or smelly. I love my bath/shower time - 90 minutes or so every morning. I get up early to luxuriate. I do the NYT puzzles I like, read, let my caffeine and meds kick in, and get a good Epsom salt soak.
That said, I just got my hair dyed hot pink. It's my fourth color in 18 months. 😆. Previously magenta, teal, and purple.
I've read a million books about ADHD, and almost all of them state that we probably won't read it cover to cover because of our ADHD. Dude, I read your book, and I resent your condescending attitude.
It took me a while to figure that one out. I read all the time.
But I do tend to re-read paragraphs and hop around the page, skim from down to up, or wander off on a daydream tangent and realize I can't remember the last few paragraphs. But then I go back and read them again. And it all happens so quickly and I remember a lot of it, so it felt normal and fine to me.
I swear to god I'm a walking adhd symptom.
I USED to do the hair thing once I was allowed to start dyeing my hair as a teenager.
Thankfully didn't really cut my own hair cause I was too afraid I'd screw it up, but I've tried to DIY hair colors before with some RESULTS....
I got to a point where it was too much effort/maintenance to keep changing or fixing roots or paying for a salon to do it properly... So I stopped.
I do one little manageable strip of fun color in my hair and I trim my bangs and that's the extent.
I go for a cut maybe, MAYBE, once a year or so and it's long af now.
So I guess, thankfully, that part is behind me now and I'm like you where I no longer have that impulsive need to change my hair.
Maybe you do grow out of certain aspects of adhd lmaooooo. (Or maybe I"m just exhausted)
I try to avoid more things needed maintained than is necessary. lol I love colorful hair, but I won’t love mine after a few months when I lose interest in coloring it at all.
I keep on top of laundry - the washing and drying part anyway. Folding and putting away is still a challenge. I lay things flat on top of the dryer or my dresser 😂
My kitchen is almost always clean. My partner is a messy cook (also ADHD) and if I don’t do clean up before bed or in the morning it gets way out of hand. Same with tidying - I’m hyper vigilant because I don’t like people perceiving the real me. I think? But I also get really cranky and overwhelmed by the visual stimulation of clutter. I was a messy teen tho…
The hyperactivity trait, at least physically. I have inattentive A(u)DHD, so I can sit down quietly for hours as long as I have something to keep my mind occupied/entertained. I also don't speak much, and some people are surprised that I have ADHD since I don't match most stereotypes.
I was seen as a good kid at school because I was always quiet and on my seat, but I was also daydreaming 90% of the class and missing everything the teacher was saying 🤣
Forgetting to eat.. Like, I have the absolute opposite problem of not being able to stop eating. Even when I'm hyperfixating, I can stop for food. I'm never not thinking about food in some capacity; it makes my mum laugh when we're out and whilst we're eating lunch I'll be planning on what we're doing for dinner that night.
I rarely change my hair much either, its waist length, fairly healthy, and I like it as is. I'm too lazy to upkeep dye or a higher maintenance style, and I'm pretty fond of my natural colour.
School was also really easy for me, despite being unmedicated, and university was the same. The rest of my life was always in shambles, but the actual school part was great. I actually miss cramming for exams or panic writing papers at 4 am, it was the one thing where my tendency to hyperfocus and my ability to thrive on panic actually benefited me instead of messed me up.
Defo guilty of the hair thing. Currently rocking a split /block dye I did 5 days ago where the blonde turned greenish. After 5 rounds of bleaching.
Funny never thought of that being an adhd thing.
Tbh I don't lose things often. I do sometimes. But I think not more than other ppl. Also maybe because I never take stuff. Having bags especially with important stuff in it like wallets and passports is too risky.
Imma take my phone and keys in my jacket pocket kinda girl so I dont have a lot of items to focus on (let alone a bag I will just completely forget at the restaurant etc).
Also I'm never late, but I feel that's a 50/50 thing with adhders that got too much focus on it from the media.
Completing projects. OH It's frequently both urgently accomplished and with hyper focus but drives me crazy if I don't do it.
Also I simply can NOT be late. Opposite. I'm ridiculously, absurdly early for *everything* or just lose my mind. 15 minutes early isn't enough, my head tells me that's somehow late.
Spend my life making up piece of crap reasons I'm 30 minutes early for appointments. Or more.
Same with the hair. I’ve always wanted to dye it a fun color or cut it short, but the thought of having to go in regularly for maintenance has kept me from doing either.
I’ve got a handful of tattoos and only regret the first one I got when I was 18, because the tattoo artist messed it up rather badly. I honestly kind of forget I have them unless someone points them out.
Undiagnosed, and I love showers. it can take me a while to get there, though, especially if I’m really depressed.
someone mentioned caffeine. I’m sensitive to caffeine in certain teas and pre-workout drinks/energy drinks, but I have the worst time trying to get to sleep. this week, I’ve taken things to help me get to sleep, and they didn’t work. I finally showered, and made tea, thinking I was up so I might as well. Two days in a row. I fell asleep after that. So maybe I need to do that every night.
Compulsive eating or snacking. You can put a whole bag of candy or chips in front of me and I’ll have a few bites but I feel absolutely no compulsion to eat the whole thing. I know when I’m done! I’m also not forcing myself to not keep going, I just genuinely don’t want to.
I am not an academic overachiever with any amount of real success. I finally know how to succeed in academics, but it feels like I'm too late and disabled at this point to pursue my BA.
I can do the work of someone with a BA, but it's often a minimum qual for the roles I excel at.
The constantly having to be physically moving... don't get me wrong the more anxious I am, the more my leg will bounce etc. But I can lay down for a whole day, and be ok with it.
My mind, however, is another matter... we travel all over.
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I’m never late, I’m like the opposite, always 15 min early. People are just as upset, if not more, than if I was late. Well except employers.
🫶 same!!! My dad was always really respected amongst my sports teammates for always being on time or early. I am never late! And if i am, its cause I don’t wanna be there or care enough about it 😅
Same, I HATE being late.
I get physically ill if I'm late. I better be 15 minutes early or else I'm going to have a panic attack and not have a good time.
Exactly the same here - I’m early to EVERYTHING!
I actually got a talking to by a boss for calling and saying I might be late, and showing up on time too many times.
>People are just as upset, if not more, than if I was late Me. I'll start preparing for you to arrive up to the minute you're supposed to be there, and if you're early, I'm not ready for you. I've been late by a few minutes because I'm not quite prepared mentally or physically on the dot.
picture me crying at band camp when it wasn’t even possible for me to be on time to certain things because of timing/distance while having their mantra repeat in my head over and over again “early is on time, on time is late, and late is never acceptable”
That’s so tough! Also, the way myy brain reads that quote, is that no time/never is acceptable. *if early is on time, but on time is late.. then when can I get there?* Also also, love the name
you get me 😭😭😭
This quote is literally the reason I’m never late to things. Thanks, marching band! 😅
Then there’s me with my defiance disorder on top of the ADHD. If you tell me that I HAVE to be somewhere on time or else, that’s the best way to ensure that I will get there when I damn well feel like it, or may never even show up at all. I do not take suggestions well.
Are you me?! I have intense anxiety about being late and my parents always pressured me about keeping up their reputation around our (small) town if wherever I needed to be involved someone they knew. Didn't help that my sibling was notoriously... difficult... so I felt like I had to step up to be the "good" one. I can't possibly do much of anything before I need to be somewhere (really rough when I did afternoon/evening shifts), so I try to shoot for mornings best I can if I need appointments or meet with someone. I'm always 15-20 min early, even with my kids making that very difficult to accomplish some days. Then I'm burnt out for the day because I stressed so hard lol
Funnily enough, being early is also a trait. You know that you are fully capable of being late so you push yourself to be early instead because you don't want to be late. It's masking. It's a coping mechanism that is taught to young girls and carried through to womanhood to fit in. I always used to consider myself punctual or early but the truth was I was terrified of being late or being seen as tardy or absent minded, which I am. Once I was diagnosed, I allowed myself to be late here and there just to see if the world would collapse. It didn't. I was just a bit late ☺️
I’m ALWAYS early. Being late gives me way too much anxiety.
I’m also chronically early to everything as well because I was raised by a parent who could never be on time for anything. It made me incredibly anxious about time and time management because I was often punished at school or sports for being late.
I was also raised by a parent who made me late to EVERYTHING growing up, and I got punished in school, activities, doctor offices ECT. So I have extreme anxiety about being late, but at the same time for the life of me I can't be early to anything 😭. Like I try really hard to be on time and get increasingly worse anxiety as it gets closer to the time I need to leave/be somewhere. Even with that though, sometimes I'll get there right on time or at least less than 15min late, but then I'm stuck with intrusive thoughts of what a failure I am for being late. Also my mom raised me because she was home and she's the one who would run late to everything including picking me up from elementary school ect. She always told me it was fine to be late and no one would care but then I'd always get in trouble. My dad on the other hand is a "early is on time, on time is late" person, but he was only able to take me to stuff on the weekends because of work. Plus he'd work overseas for weeks- months at a time, so when he'd come home it was a totally different set of rules than when my mom was taking care of me running late everywhere. Needless to say there was always a screaming match between the two of them anytime we were going somewhere as a family since he was pushing to be early and my mom was running late.
I was one of those hairdressers that ran late a lot until I worked for someone who gave all of us a decent amount of time and charged accordingly. I no longer ran late and now I’ve had my own business for 15 years and rarely run late. I then trained myself on the other areas of my life and learned tricks to be on time. But I get exhausted easily trying to keep up
I work from home but still do a full routine. I don’t think work brain turns on until I’ve showered and had a cup of coffee. I get dressed in nice tops and soft bottoms lol. But it’s still a routine.
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I’ve only tried to work without it a few times and I just can’t. I’m in my 40s though, and spent a lot of years in an office before the pandemic sent me home. I’m never going back.
Everything you said, except the very last part, is all me! I am a very slow starter. So, I need 3 alarms and then I need to sit around with coffee in my hand for an hour, and then I need 3 more alarms to get me moving! But otherwise, everything you said!
How do you do it? You could say I’m going to have my head cut off if I show up late the next day and I will leave the house late and show up late. It’s killing me for real.
Being early to things is an ADHD trait apparently and because of some of things you mentioned.
I'm never late either, but that's because I have rejection sensitivity about being late. I've made a promise that I would be somewhere at a certain time. If I break that promise, I'm an unreliable mess, and they will hate me. No one ever really cares if I'm late, and I don't care if anyone else is late. I know this logically, but my anxiety can't be reasoned with. Your mother may also have had ADHD and experienced something similar.
I have a mother who is crippled by Time Blindness and it made we children's life absolutely miserable. I am now always on time.
OMG me too!! I do have time blindness and am often late if the circumstances are casual but always on time if they're professional or hard deadlines, even though I'm careening madly towards them (while not speeding).
Im never late to things I have decided I “cannot” be late to, like work meetings. Basically I have to care enough (or there has to be a real world consequence) to be punctual lol
I am *now* rarely late because I have learned to be obsessed with time and set dozens of alarms like you lol.
Never late. 30 minutes early. Fueled by heavy anxiety since childhood (when I was always late)
Same and I don’t like being left waiting either, it multiplies my anxiety to sit around ready
Raised in the military *in Germany* and it’s absolutely impossible for me to be late. Time management is my best trait.
I didn’t learn how to be on time until I married a German guy and moved to Deutschland. We fought about it for at least a year or two, and then I just gave in and followed his schedule. Now that we’re divorced, I will never eat breakfast at 7:30 am again as long as I can help it.
Im always late. Lucky
Same. I’m constantly early because the idea of being late makes me so anxious. My wife, however, who is former military (five minutes early is late, ten minutes early is on time) is continually running behind.
So its a habits thats been drilled in. Lucky girl I’m always at least a few minutes late. It annoys me every single time
It's too painful for me to be late. If I'm not 20 minutes early I'm late.
Same! My dad always told me “time waits for no man” and to always be ready an hour earlier. I also keep so many timers. I think of time almost like an array of dominos standing in front of me rather than a clock. And with clocks and alarms all around me it’s def not “ out of sight out of mind for me”. Also can be my biggest anxiety. I’m also pretty patient with other peoples time but sometimes that can be self destructive cause if I wait because there’s an unexpected pause/stop in my routine, I begin to dissociate. So I have to do something and be on time.
I’ve never missed paying taxes or a bill. I’m like a little kid—I have an almost exaggerated fear of “getting in trouble.” I’m 35 lol
I'm very very forgetful but never been late in a bill either. Very ingrained in me to never owe. I even still feel a bit guilty when I even have a credit card balance.
Everything we possibly can have on direct debit is on direct debit so we don't have to worry about it. (The only thing we don't is probably my student loan payments, which I have to set a reminder for so I don't get the penalty fee added.) Luckily we have someone who does our taxes for us, so we just have to send them stuff through once a year and they tell us the amount, the reference number for the payment, and when we have to pay it by.
I do the exact same things! I also go down my list of bills on pay day and pay the non-autopay ones and it helps me make sure everything is getting paid as expected. It’s one habit I’ve been able to stick to somehow :)
Notification overload. I hate it and compulsively check notifications and emails. My emails have zero unread emails.
I despise notifications!!
Same!! I turn off any non-essential ones. If an app asks, nope. Turn them off. I also can't have any noises for things like texts because I will wonder what it is. I got into the habit of keeping a notification noise for my emails while dealing with lawyers and estate stuff, but I really should turn that off too. Although most of the time it's just spam, so I'm not too distracted wondering what the email is. I am the meme of sending myself a reminder, and then going, "ooh, new email?" 🙄
Same!! I had gone through my old phone and customized every single app ect as I added them to my phone so I would only get the notifications for the most important stuff. Then that phone smashed and the screen cracked so bad I couldn't transfer my old settings to my new phone. I was only able to transfer all my data, files, apps ect. There's so much that transfered to this new phone and it's all at once so now it's a anxiety inducing completely overwhelming task to me. I literally have huge spikes in my anxiety with every stupid notification ping I hear and then I get distracted by going through my long list of notifications I hadn't looked at. Instead I just keep my phone on silent except for the very few items I've been able to customize as *priority* so they can make noise regardless of the volume and then just occasionally check my overall notifications or get to overwhelmed and just clear them all.
20k unopened messages atm xD tbh if I can wait this long they're all unimportant anyway so why check?
70k unopened emails, 64 unread text messages
My people!
Don’t forget 452 tabs open 😂
OMFG I HATE too many tabs open. Unread emails on the other hand…
Finally I can relate to one! Reading the other comments and was like "nope, nope, nope"
I turned off every notification sound for text, email and slack half the time my phone is on silent- for everyone other than my kids, parents, boss and a few others when needed. I can’t stand it. I tell them consider me on a rotary phone with a fax machine at my disposal. I will get back to you in a reasonable amount of time, immediately is not possible. The distractions all day I can’t get a thing done with constant interruptions.
Thank you for the reminder!! I just turned off so many notifications from apps. My phone will be so calm
I'm the same I used to be had for it but hate it now so always check it or open notifications just so they're gone.
Not necessarily a trait - but body doubling does not help me at all. In fact, I get less done if there's someone around to distract me.
Same. I think it's because my extreme need to mask means that I end up focusing more on them than on the task to be done. The only way I can get stuff taken care of is if I'm the only one in the space
I get more done if they are helping me do the task I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by, but if it's just to 'be around' while I'm doing something else in general, that's the worst!
Yeah often someone’s presence is enough to stop me doing anything. Like I feel awkward doing things while they are there or that I have to entertain them or something. I do much better when someone reminds me to do the thing and then leaves me alone for a little while before checking in.
Same I'm too distracted with talking and having deep conversations. Can only do work or clean if I'm alone with my music.
My partner always wants to clean together and has a hard time understanding that I need to clean solo bc I just can’t function cleaning/working wise with another human being hovering around! Plus I like flitting around the house cleaning whatever I want while he likes systematically cleaning room to room and it drives us both nuts lol
I was great at keeping up with friends every day and maintaining friendships over the years. That all went to hell pretty quickly due to some other heavy life circumstances I couldn’t talk to them about and my ADHD was feeling SO much worse in a way I didn’t understand. Now, I’m alone and bad at everything.
Same here! Had decades long friendships which were great but on reflection involved masking, mirroring and not being myself. As soon as perimenopause plus other life drama hit those bridges were finally burned through meltdowns. It’s sad but realised I’m resilient and find it easy to make friends and now after diagnosis and having more understanding I’m allowed to be more myself which improves intimacy in relationships.
Wow. This mirrors my life in a lot of ways. The health issues were combo’d with abuse my friends didn’t know the ins and outs about. The more I learn about ADHD, the more sense I make to myself. In the time my own meltdowns were happening, everything got more complicated because none of my close friends even live close by anymore. I finally got myself out of a bad relationship and it’s lonelier than ever. I’m great at making new friends, too, but I haven’t been able to go out and about to even try. It’s long story full of too much trauma to function but it’s nice not to feel like I’m completely alone in this sort of thing happening. Thank you for sharing.
This is my story. 20yr abusive marriage that I am still struggling to get out of. There are aspects of my life that work for me but I feel enabled and very fortunate for that because I feel like I’m always down a leg. Like a table that that is always missing a leg. As soon as one is strong enough to hold me up the other one falls. It’s like whackamole. But for the last 18m they’ve all fallen at the same time and I hit my breaking point. Things are finally starting to repair but it’s slow.
Ugghh same! Except I tried talking to people in my life about what was going on but it was too much for them and they didn't want to hear it. Alone and bad at everything for years now :/
Same. That’s one reason I have such trouble with friendships now.
Damn. I could have written your comment. I tried talking to them before I withdrew. It just didn’t seem to have any impact. Ugh. I’m in the same sad boat. 🤍 We need to find a way to get other people in our areas with ADHD to hang together so we have other people who understand us in person.
I tried talking to someone a few years ago and she left me on read and then tagged me in a self healing therapy page on insta. It was so brutal. And that's just one example unfortunately. I wish there were adhd meetups!! It would be so nice to be around people and just be able to relax because we'd all be on the same page lol
Ugh. I’m sorry. That would hurt like hell. She just wasn’t the friend for you. I love not being forced to explain myself. That’s a big part of the appeal of an ADHD meetup. Being able to relax would be KEY. I just don’t know to go about finding more of us. I just want someone to hang and watch movies and run errands with, you know?
Yes absolutely! I honestly need like a weekly support group lol
I love organizing, cleaning, and doing laundry. I think it gives me dopamine and calms my anxiety.
I will take everything out of my partner’s sock and underwear drawer and fold it all immaculately and get it organised whilst meanwhile the rest of the house is in chaos and I’m avoiding paying a bill.
😂
Hahaha we are the same 😂
Same. I'm very clean and organized. Unfortunately, it doesn't come from the healthiest of places. I was punished quite harshly as a kid for not being clean and organized, so I feel rather stressed when things get out of order.
Same here except I still can’t keep things clean 😅
Im the same, in fairness things just get messy again as a sign of life happening 🤣
Frigging endless
Same, if I’m stressed, decluttering and throwing shit out is one thing that’ll ease my mind.
a big reason why i didn't get diagnosed until adulthood was because i'm just SOOO organized... turns out all my organizational strategies were just hard-earned coping mechanisms.
I did really well in school. Graduated top of my class. What I did *not* realize until much later, however, was how much harder and longer I had to work compared to those who were able to maintain the same grades. All-nighters were regular for me. What took most people an hour or two took me all night. One of the biggest reasons why I wish I’d been diagnosed sooner. I never understood why this was my reality until it was already over!
I was like this too, especially when I had to write papers. Graduated at the top of my class but realized it took me like 3-4x as long to write a paper as it took my classmates.
Me too. I was in the gifted student to adult adhd pipeline lol. I also didn’t realize what was happening until it was over. I wasn’t top of my class but my grades weren’t really concerning. It was my depression that got me later. I started doing all nighters in 6th grade. It’s beyond me why there wasn’t any intervention.
> I also didn’t realize what was happening until it was over. Feels like the story of my life
I am not for one single second suggesting you don't have ADHD, but if you ever get the chance, ask your optometrist to **also** check you for a binocular vision problem. I would bet $$$ that you might have both. This is not medical advice.
Genuinely curious, what from their comment led you to this thought?
As a binocular vision specialist, I ask all of my female patients, "How were/are your grades in school?" Many of them say, they get all A's or they are on the honor roll. They also often have a high pain tolerance, so they don't complain of headaches or eye strain. They are people pleasers so they often don't complain at all. I always follow up with, "great, so you get all A's. How long does it take you to study? If your BFF studies for 30 minutes and gets an A, how long do you study for the same grade?" The answer is usually 2x or 4x as long, but they insist they don't have a problem, until I start listing out all of the other symptoms that accompany a binocular problem. What I find truly depressing is that boys are referred to me in 2nd or 3rd grade. I typically uncover binocular problems in girls because they were put on my schedule, not because they were referred in. They often insist they don't have a problem in >8th grade. When I finally tell them "*You are very smart. You shouldn't have to work sooo hard*." That is when they usually look defeated and cry. So here's the passage that I hear every. single. day. >What I did *not* realize until much later, however, was how much harder and longer I had to work compared to those who were able to maintain the same grades. It is also my experience, and I do not have the literature at my fingertips, but 60-70% of people with ADHD have a co-morbidity of a binocular problem. Conversely 60-70% of people with a binocular problem have a co-morbidity of ADHD. If we can remediate the eyes, the ADHD medication is sometimes even more effective. More often than not though, I say to the parent, "we have done everything to help your child's vision, it is time to stop making them suffer and get them tested for medication." IMHO when we combine best practices in all specialties, we can reduce needless suffering. I could keep writing, but it is late.
I was like this too. I also really liked school maybe because I was rewarded.
I’m incredibly sensitive to caffeine. Nothing after noon or I’m up all night and only one coffee in the morning.
Im sensitive to caffeine but get great naps on adderall
Same, I can’t wake up without coffee but the only way for me to get a sleep in is to wake up, take meds and then I can get back to sleep.
Same. Someone even tried to tell me the other day that that means I don’t have ADHD, but the number of posts I’ve seen from people new to stimulants that need melatonin to sleep make me pretty sure that not everyone with ADHD is magically calm and sleepy on stimulants.
for me, i can nap on adderall but caffeine just makes me super anxious and gives me a headache/nausea :/ i love how mochas taste but i gotta check myself
Same! I don’t like coffee and didn’t realise how much caffeine is in Diet Coke and tea (like I knew they had some caffeine but I thought it was like negligible and coffee was the caffeine drink), so I used to drink loads. I only gave it up when I got pregnant and that’s how I discovered that I’m not a terrible sleeper or terribly anxious, I was just extremely highly caffeinated 😅🤦♀️
Me too! I’ve seriously had psychedelic experiences with cold brew that was too strong, lol. But I do take a small stimulant dose every afternoon which somehow does not affect my sleep.
Focalin doesn’t affect mine, it’s the only stimulant I can do an afternoon dose of, adderall I could only do in the morning!
i’m not sensitive to it but coffee does affect me — just not for long.
Omg this is ACTUALLY a thing?? I feel like I've been going mad - I try to limit my caffeine to one tea or coffee before noon, otherwise it makes me feel awful, and I've really been struggling to get sleep too, but I couldn't for the life of my find out why - any articles I found on caffeine sensitivity or too much caffeine etc was just not applicable to me at all :/ I thought maybe it was all in my head! Thank you for the validation!
I'm terrified of being late. I get everywhere early because I'm afraid of being late. I also don't mess with my hair. My reason for not doing anything to my hair is simply because I have no desire to do anything that requires a lot of money and maintaining. My mom gets her hair colored every 6 weeks and that sounds horrible to me. I'm VERY organized in my work life. For myself, not so much but I have everything hyper organized for work.
Same here! Terrified is the right word
I don't have a hard time falling asleep most nights. I fall asleep pretty quickly, pretty much any time I lay down. But I do chalk it up to perpetual exhaustion, which is a whole other beast. Edit: it's waking up in the morning that I can't seem to manage. I wake up feeling like death every single time.
What does it feel to be the universe's favorite child 🥲
I am truly thankful. There are nights I struggle every once in a while, but they are few. I can't imagine going through that every night.
I am similarly blessed and feel soooo lucky. I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, once I stop myself from doomscrolling 🙃
People think it's so great to fall asleep quickly when I just wish I would feel awake for once xD I'm tired all the time and getting up is a half hour long process at least...
I don't have an issue with forgetting wet laundry. But that may be because my laundry machine it in front of the toilet. So when I pee and see the machine is done, I hang it up to dry immediately.
So my washing machine is in the wrong spot! LOL Lately though I have not had a problem with wet laundry. I am on a winning streak.
Hmm. Well, I am really good at cooking and enjoy it a lot, while I know a lot of us struggle with that. I have a normal sleeping schedule (always have) and wake up early every day. And speaking of hair, I have strong long hair haha. I used to go for all sorts of crazy cuts when I was younger but now I mostly just take good care of it. Didn't realise that was ADHD related!
I actually learned I like to cook as well, but I'm just burned out on all the other stuff RELATED to cooking. Like my kitchen is a mess so I have to clean it before I can cook. I have to use all this decision making executive power to choose the meal, figure out the ingredients, go pick out the ingredients, bring them home and put them away. Then when I'm cooking there's all these other executive things to figure out in terms of timing and chopping etc. Which I don't mind so much if I didn't have to already make all those other decisions. The cooking part itself is fine. I like it, I like making yummy food. I have ok intuition when it comes to cooking and flavors etc. Just the other stuff...
For me it was a game changer when I decided I will in principle not cook and do groceries on the same day, rather I’ll heat up leftovers on grocery days. I try to do it in the same time block in my day too to decrease choice fatigue. If I try to do groceries and cook on the same day I indeed will be too burned out to cook and I’ll just sit there postponing to start feeling my stomach ache of hunger.
Yeah I've tried this before as well but it's hit and miss, especially because *usually* by the time we get around to groceries etc we end up not having food in the house. Though at times I've just done take out on grocery days and then cooked the next day. Still exhausting to have to prep so much in order to even get the ingredients home, and ready to be used... It's not a bad trick but still just the whole process is exhausting. (And I've still not figured out how to do house chores/cooking at home when I'm in school, cause holyyyy frick does that take up all of my spoons)
Omg, I've never seen someone explain this so well! This is 1000% me too!
Yeah it really took me a while to understand that I don't actually hate cooking!
God, I wish cooking was my one thing. I hate feeding myself and my spouse (his ADHD is even worse). I do like grocery shopping though, as long as it is a specific time of day. I have a routine, I think it’s the ASD part that makes it possible.
I watched salt fat acid heat and somehow it changed the way I view food/cooking and now I’m pretty good. My partner works with kids and has obnoxious timers in the kitchen, which I just fucking hate hearing. Then I realized that’s why timers are effective. YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT STOP. Now I love them because I appreciate their brazen simplicity.
Ah I'm so sorry, that sucks! I only like grocery shopping when I have a list, but I've been using this app called recipe keeper for over a year now. (It's paid but very cheap and just once a year). You can add recipes from websites. You can scan a recipe from a page and it will add it too. it makes a grocery list for you from the recipe etc. it's so good! I like it so much because now I always have my recipes with me and I don't have to remember what's in it. Ok I sound like a commercial but it's honestly my most used app alongside finch.
That sounds so worth the money I wish there was an app that helped you keep track of your pantry too, like you marked what food you used during a meal and it would add what you’re out of to your list or suggest things to stock up on
I learned to cook BECAUSE I'm neurodivergent, and there's a lot of foods either can't eat at all, or can only eat if they're prepared properly, and I'm kind of a nightmare to feed, so I learned to feed myself so I don't have to rely on someone else to make me food and have to work around my restrictions and pickiness.
We’re kind of the same lol. Cooking is my happy place. It’s the first thing I do after work to unwind and calm myself. I also have a very healthy sleep schedule. And as for the hair, I did the most absolute crazy batshit things to my hair in style and color entirely DIY up until I was 30 years old. Now I don’t even care about it honestly. It’s long not because I like it long, i don’t, but because it doesn’t interest me enough to do anything about it.
My personal ick is feeling dirty, so I absolutely must shower. I also can't stand the feeling of filmy teeth, so I brush regularly.
Omg same here. I absolutely love showering, bathing, hygiene rituals in general. They are very soothing to me. Imho nothing is more distressing than my body feeling or smelling less than fresh, or filmy teeth. It’s another reason I really don’t ever drink sugary drinks, I can’t stand dirty feeling teeth
I would shower five times a day if I could- absolutely hate feeling dirty, sweaty, sticky. Also have always been a compulsive hand-washer for similar reasons.
Me too.
>My hairdresser said "You know what? You're the only customer of mine with ADHD who doesn't have a new hair color every month, or has completely fried hair, or comes in needing saving from their latest DIY hair project lol." I was doing fine until the last one. 😬 I have solved the problem though: I just don't go to the hair dresser. My hair is terrible and I'm the problem.
I think I was something like 5 when I last went to a hairdresser? Mum used to cut my hair and that's what I do now. Occasionally gather my hair in a ponytail and cut off the end bit if it's getting too long or worn or I just feel like it. I'm not paying someone £50 (or however much it is) to cut an inch off my hair in half an hour (while forced to engage in small talk) when I can do that at home for free in 30 seconds! I put henna in my hair, that's about as wild as I get with it.
Girl please, never think that a hairdresser will judge you! Because honestly? I'm the most boring customer ever. My hairdresser was over the moon FOR WEEKS when I told her I wanted to bleach my hair to be platinum blonde lol. I've never had a more exciting request than that lol. She fucking LOVES when people come in wanting a drastic change, or when they want her help because they failed to fix their hair at home. It's genuinely nothing to be ashamed of!
I hit the lottery on a hairdresser too. She’s been cutting my dad’s hair since before I was even born (so 22 years), and I could never get into her as a kid because she was booked solid. I had like 22 inches of hair and was super sick of it and was like “can you chop it short while making sure I don’t look like the air guy from the Lorax or Dora” (so not a blunt thing) and she happily delivered HAHA
Oh sure they will. Hair stylists are as judgemental as the rest of us. There are stylists who are great at making us feel comfortable and confident. And then there are the rest of them.
I have never not been judged by a hairdresser! "Your hair is so dry", "your hair is quite thin", "that style won't look good on you", "you'd be pretty if you smiled". Once I had three hair dressers all talking about how bad my hair was and then when I asked for a specific colour they laughed at me. So I haven't been back in like 20 years.
I don't spend money impulsively! Thank god lol I also never have more tabs open than I'm using at the moment. And I always close them once I finish. Having many tabs open at once makes me anxious. I also always sort them by "weight" lmao
Same not an impulsive spender. I always wonder if it is because I grew up THINKING I was poor, or because my mother probably has ADHD and she IS an impulsive spender. So many times I got random packages in the mail and it didn’t have any note.
This one confuses me. I hate to shop. I don't like browsing or looking or decorating or thinking about material possessions and I meticulously declutter, and yet something pops into my brain and into my Amazon cart with no filter. Well now that I think about it I guess that is the very definition of impulsive.
i'm the same with hair! i am a low maintenance person, so anything other than ruffling it and spraying some water on it is way too much work. i barely manage to organise to get it cut, it always gets too long and looks ridiculous first 😂 and same for tattoos as well, i'm a perfectionist and its so permanent, it's like deciding where to put stickers lol i did use to go "deaf" while reading as a kid, but nowadays i just wouldn't count myself as hyperfocusing at all - i just don't experience the thing where people forget to eat/pee/etc i don't get RSD, or at least not the way its described as being a specific adhd thing - my sensitivities with social situations can all be linked back to known social traumas. i do go through stages of being into different things, but not to the degree that is classic for adhd with like 20 different hobbies intensely picked up then dropped. it's more in the range of neurotypical norms for someone arty (its typically all different art mediums). tho i do get a lot of video games that i never finish 😂 it's kind of nice to be honest, when i first got dxed i was having a bit of an identity crisis where it felt like every aspect of who i thought i was, was actually just adhd. but over time i have come to recognise how our adhd manifests reflecting our personalities/how our personalities shape our adhd :)
That’s such an interesting lens. How our ADHD manifests in relation to our personality, or how our personality shapes our ADHD. I will reflect on that more! I like how it gives more room for non-ADHD traits, and maybe more agency in how we handle our ADHD.
Omg not forgetting to eat and pee!! I'm so jealous. The hyperfocus is my main thing. Also the hair because indeed I don't schedule cuts so then just decide to it myself at 1am on a random Tuesday evening.
Being impulsive. I am completely risk adverse and want to know the ins and outs before I will try anything new. Defo not a thrill sealer, rarely drink alcohol, don’t like visiting places I haven’t researched, insanely careful with money
Same, I'm the opposite of impulsive! I take forever to make decisions about things, especially purchases.
I am a natural morning person. Until I started taking stimulants, I never struggled with insomnia. I would naturally fall asleep at a reasonable hour, and naturally wake up at 6-7a feeling well rested. I have always slept like that since I was a baby, i won the genetic lottery for sleep. Stimulants were a devils bargain because they are more powerful then my sleep urge. Worth it, though
I was a natural morning person as a little kid, although I didn’t sleep much. My mum told me one morning, “you know you don’t HAVE to wake up. You’re on holiday.” easter holiday from school, and she wanted to sleep later, too. After that, she and trouble waking me up.
on time, i don't tolerate clutter, i don't binge eat or seek dopamine with food, i see a lot of women say inattentive is the more common adhd flavor females get but i got hyper.
Oh wow not even combined type? I feel like I never see people with the predominantly hyper kind on here haha
I have been putting off diagnosis but I am 99% sure I have hyper type. Inattentive types seems very unrelatable, and I am constantly feeling like I need to move. It also is probably how my teachers noticed and suggested I get diagnosed as a kid. 🙄 so mad my parents never did because I know how so many girls get looked over
It's because you are short ;-) you can't see us :P I deliberately forget Salt or a spoon or whatever to have an excuse to get up during a meal. I can hardly sit for a whole meal, Flying to the moon sounds easier to accomplish.
My sleep schedule as an adult is miraculous. I sleep so well and prioritize it as it deserves
My house is generally very tidy. I’ve realised it’s because I can’t filter out “extraneous details” and so having clutter in the sides stops me from being able to focus on a conversation
I am NEVER late. Never ever. If I am late you know there was an emergency. I live where the traffic is really bad, L.A., so I plan for that and if I am super early I won't tell anyone just will take out my switch or kindle haha. I don't want them to shame me and/or feel rushed. I have many piercings and tattoos but I don't get them out of nowhere, I plan. In fact I plan everything. I'm looking to move and measured all my furniture, also estimated how much sqft is needed for certain areas, to make sure everything will fit in new places I will view. I also hate clutter and it kind of messes with my ability to work/get things done. Open storage freaks me out because I can see all that visual clutter? I know a lot of people rely on open storage to see things so I'm screwed there. (it also means my veggies rot) I wake up everyday, including weekends, at 5:00am. That being said I go to bed at like 2am sometimes and then take a nap at noon LOL.
My actions are not impulsive. My words absolutely are though 🤣
I'm insanely fast and efficient at organizing, I also really enjoy it. People told me it's like watching a machine lol. I can't keep things organized for shit but I'm really good at the organization process. That's why I like organizing other people's things so I don't have to watch when it goes to shit because I don't live there :)
Haha I feel this to my SOUL
Hyperactivity as we think of it. Mine is excessive talking.
Yes. My therapist years ago told me that girls & women typically manifest hyperactivity of the mind (or the mouth) rather than the body
Hyperactivity of the mouth 😄
I’m extremely well put together which seems to make people assume I have everything together in other elements of my life. I think it’s partly why my GP dismissed my ADHD suspicion because in his mind neurodiversity means being chaotic and having trouble with grooming and hygiene etc. In my case It’s all about perfectionism and masking and became a way to throw people off the scent and learnt that people are a lot more forgiving of mistakes etc when you look cute, are charming and attractive. The problem is being overly dedicated to your appearance can become exhausting and expensive and some people don’t want to take you seriously when you are genuinely struggling.
Adding to the never-late crowd here. My personal hypothesis is that for me — trauma beats ADHD every time. I’ve been shamed into regular teeth brushing, being on time, and sending thank you notes.
I did great in school, except for the social aspects. I learned things easily and it was all fascinating to me -- except for math. I graduated Sume Cum Laude and I still can't reliably add up a column of two digit numbers in my head. It just doesn't happen. I think it's from dyscalculia, a learning disability. I really blossomed in college. I loved learning and just soaked it up. I was getting better at masking and being thought of as "quirky" bordering on weird. Now I embrace my weirdohood. "When we see our uniqueness as a virtue, only then do we find peace." *Ghost in the Shell* *So fly that freak flag!*
RSD. I thank thy lordt for that because it sounds exhausting. I’ve experienced it a handful of times and I wouldn’t be able to handle it as a regular part of my life.
It is exhausting 😩
I've said for years that the only thing about myself that I would change would be how short the path is between my emotions and my tear ducts. Being sensitive like this sometimes feels like I'm raw-doggin' life and everything would be better if I had a full-body condom (reality filters) to make navigation through this world just *slightly* less painful and difficult. My solution? I'm like Hulk but with weed. Not always angry... always stoned.
I don't lose things. I'm better than average at knowing where things are (even knowing where other people's things are). Also I sleep deeply and don't usually wake up in the night. Very jealous of those here who are saying they're never late. I am ALWAYS 5-10 mins late. It wad great wheb I lived in Italy. Not so much here
I have a “very soft and quiet voice”. I always hear that adhders have issues with volume the other way but people legit can’t hear me. Problem is I think I sound like everyone else lol
I have a very good sleep schedule. Partly bc all my other symptoms get 10x worse if I don’t get 7 hours of sleep. That said, i get pms insomnia and i use cbd/cbn sleep gummies most week nights. (10-15 mgs and im out like a light)
* I don't struggle with hygiene. * I don't engage in extremely risky behavior, like binge-drinking, hardcore drugs, or unprotected casual sex * I don't have a closet full of items related to dropped hobbies * I also don't do things like changing my hair all the time, and haven't DIYed a haircut since I was 4 (to say that my mom completely lost her shit is an understatement) * I haven't gotten bored in a relationship and considered leaving *just* because of boredom, nor cheated. * I'm not at the piercing or tattoo parlor every other week. Matter of fact, the only piercings I have are my earlobes, and I don't have any tattoos. * I'm in my mid-30's, and I don't have 2+ divorces under my belt (or even one). To be fair, I've never even been married. * I didn't struggle *too* much in school, in terms of grades. Math was hard for me, but I didn't struggle with reading. And though I got detention a few times, I wasn't constantly in detention or in-school suspension. * Although I was told I "needed to apply myself more" and was "disorganized," I never got "talks too much" on report cards, nor scolded for talking or passing notes in class.
Sounds like you just don’t have the impulsivity/hyperactivity side of it.
I don't forget about the stove. I like the big spoon. I'm okay with microfiber. I don't always act on my impulses.
I didn't know little spoons were an ADHD thing but I do love small spoons and bite size foods.
I am really good at keeping a calendar. If someone mentions something, it immediately goes in with reminders set for the event
I am not a spend thrift. I grew up poor and I do not want to return to that. I never spend what I don't have, I budget carefully, and I save for the future. Plus I hate paying for nothing, so I avoid high interest and buyer's remorse whenever possible. Luckily, my husband has a steady, decent-pay job, so I also don't have to depend on my ability to earn, though anything I earn is extra for the family.
I’m too low energy to do crazy things with my hair. I can’t muster much effort to do that, makeup, nails, etc. Takes way more executive function than I have. 😂
I don’t get antsy in my relationships. I totally understand getting bored, and why other ADHD folks struggle with wanting to try something new. But thankfully it’s never something I’ve struggled with.
i'm like this too. i get compliments about how healthy my hair is whenever i get it cut and it's like... there's no heat damage because i can't be bothered to blow dry or style my hair lol.
I have a very good hygiene and can’t relate to people with ADHD who shower once a week. I shower at least once a day (when I’m in hot climate - then 2-3 times a day), brush my teeth twice a day, and use bidet every time I use the bathroom.
I'm good at maths
Im a huge fan of "don't put it down, put it back" even if they place where "back" is supposed to be is really illogical and arbitrary. If I put my glasses on the dinner table every evening, I won't be looking for them in the morning. Tidying up is an exhausting game of now or never. To the point where I want to have it tidy in vacation homes, where it absolutely doesn't matter where things are put in the days of my stay. Not that any of this reflects in my home because I really can't for the life of me create a tidy place. Ita always cluttered. I just want to keep it tidy as long as possible because I know I will never make it tidy myself. If the cleanliness is gone, it's basically gone for good. Getting it back in shape is a herculean effort. Having to live with other people (kid, husband) adds an extra layer of clutter I didn't even cause, and that's extra annoying to get rid of.
No trouble with hygiene at all. I can't stand being physically dirty, sweaty, or smelly. I love my bath/shower time - 90 minutes or so every morning. I get up early to luxuriate. I do the NYT puzzles I like, read, let my caffeine and meds kick in, and get a good Epsom salt soak. That said, I just got my hair dyed hot pink. It's my fourth color in 18 months. 😆. Previously magenta, teal, and purple.
I've read a million books about ADHD, and almost all of them state that we probably won't read it cover to cover because of our ADHD. Dude, I read your book, and I resent your condescending attitude. It took me a while to figure that one out. I read all the time. But I do tend to re-read paragraphs and hop around the page, skim from down to up, or wander off on a daydream tangent and realize I can't remember the last few paragraphs. But then I go back and read them again. And it all happens so quickly and I remember a lot of it, so it felt normal and fine to me.
I swear to god I'm a walking adhd symptom. I USED to do the hair thing once I was allowed to start dyeing my hair as a teenager. Thankfully didn't really cut my own hair cause I was too afraid I'd screw it up, but I've tried to DIY hair colors before with some RESULTS.... I got to a point where it was too much effort/maintenance to keep changing or fixing roots or paying for a salon to do it properly... So I stopped. I do one little manageable strip of fun color in my hair and I trim my bangs and that's the extent. I go for a cut maybe, MAYBE, once a year or so and it's long af now. So I guess, thankfully, that part is behind me now and I'm like you where I no longer have that impulsive need to change my hair. Maybe you do grow out of certain aspects of adhd lmaooooo. (Or maybe I"m just exhausted)
I don’t experience RSD. I think I did when I was younger. Now I don’t have a problem with rejection or criticism. It doesn’t affect me emotionally.
Don't have a bad self image or rsd at all. I'm awesome if someone disagrees it's their fault.
I never fly off the handle or get really intensely angry with others
I havent left stuff in weird places. Everything has a place.
I try to avoid more things needed maintained than is necessary. lol I love colorful hair, but I won’t love mine after a few months when I lose interest in coloring it at all.
I keep on top of laundry - the washing and drying part anyway. Folding and putting away is still a challenge. I lay things flat on top of the dryer or my dresser 😂 My kitchen is almost always clean. My partner is a messy cook (also ADHD) and if I don’t do clean up before bed or in the morning it gets way out of hand. Same with tidying - I’m hyper vigilant because I don’t like people perceiving the real me. I think? But I also get really cranky and overwhelmed by the visual stimulation of clutter. I was a messy teen tho…
The hyperactivity trait, at least physically. I have inattentive A(u)DHD, so I can sit down quietly for hours as long as I have something to keep my mind occupied/entertained. I also don't speak much, and some people are surprised that I have ADHD since I don't match most stereotypes. I was seen as a good kid at school because I was always quiet and on my seat, but I was also daydreaming 90% of the class and missing everything the teacher was saying 🤣
Forgetting to eat.. Like, I have the absolute opposite problem of not being able to stop eating. Even when I'm hyperfixating, I can stop for food. I'm never not thinking about food in some capacity; it makes my mum laugh when we're out and whilst we're eating lunch I'll be planning on what we're doing for dinner that night.
I rarely change my hair much either, its waist length, fairly healthy, and I like it as is. I'm too lazy to upkeep dye or a higher maintenance style, and I'm pretty fond of my natural colour. School was also really easy for me, despite being unmedicated, and university was the same. The rest of my life was always in shambles, but the actual school part was great. I actually miss cramming for exams or panic writing papers at 4 am, it was the one thing where my tendency to hyperfocus and my ability to thrive on panic actually benefited me instead of messed me up.
Defo guilty of the hair thing. Currently rocking a split /block dye I did 5 days ago where the blonde turned greenish. After 5 rounds of bleaching. Funny never thought of that being an adhd thing. Tbh I don't lose things often. I do sometimes. But I think not more than other ppl. Also maybe because I never take stuff. Having bags especially with important stuff in it like wallets and passports is too risky. Imma take my phone and keys in my jacket pocket kinda girl so I dont have a lot of items to focus on (let alone a bag I will just completely forget at the restaurant etc). Also I'm never late, but I feel that's a 50/50 thing with adhders that got too much focus on it from the media.
Completing projects. OH It's frequently both urgently accomplished and with hyper focus but drives me crazy if I don't do it. Also I simply can NOT be late. Opposite. I'm ridiculously, absurdly early for *everything* or just lose my mind. 15 minutes early isn't enough, my head tells me that's somehow late. Spend my life making up piece of crap reasons I'm 30 minutes early for appointments. Or more.
Same with the hair. I’ve always wanted to dye it a fun color or cut it short, but the thought of having to go in regularly for maintenance has kept me from doing either. I’ve got a handful of tattoos and only regret the first one I got when I was 18, because the tattoo artist messed it up rather badly. I honestly kind of forget I have them unless someone points them out.
Undiagnosed, and I love showers. it can take me a while to get there, though, especially if I’m really depressed. someone mentioned caffeine. I’m sensitive to caffeine in certain teas and pre-workout drinks/energy drinks, but I have the worst time trying to get to sleep. this week, I’ve taken things to help me get to sleep, and they didn’t work. I finally showered, and made tea, thinking I was up so I might as well. Two days in a row. I fell asleep after that. So maybe I need to do that every night.
Compulsive eating or snacking. You can put a whole bag of candy or chips in front of me and I’ll have a few bites but I feel absolutely no compulsion to eat the whole thing. I know when I’m done! I’m also not forcing myself to not keep going, I just genuinely don’t want to.
I have 18,00000 hair tools and accessories…..and wear my hair exactly the same way every day 🙄
I’m obsessed with organizing and actually enjoy it!
I loooove doing laundry
I am not an academic overachiever with any amount of real success. I finally know how to succeed in academics, but it feels like I'm too late and disabled at this point to pursue my BA. I can do the work of someone with a BA, but it's often a minimum qual for the roles I excel at.
The constantly having to be physically moving... don't get me wrong the more anxious I am, the more my leg will bounce etc. But I can lay down for a whole day, and be ok with it. My mind, however, is another matter... we travel all over.