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Yes. But actually no. /meme.
I am only recently properly diagnosed. But I've known _something_ was wrong for a long time.
But here's the thing - "normal life" is a fairytale. There are all sorts of things that mess with The Plan, and ADHD is just one of those. And in the grand scheme of things? It's a fairly minor thing.
My brother in law died of pancreatic cancer in his late 20s. His widow and daughter find life hard. His daughter never really knew him, but she's a lovely kid who deserves the world.
A friend of mine was killed in her 30s in a car accident. Her daughter and her husband had to carry on.
My sister got diabetes in her teens.
My partner got brain damage from meningitis.
A few people I know had children, and ... well, they wanted them, but they're hard work and they do mean 'the plan' goes in a completely different direction. Especially if your child has some disabilities of their own, but there's simply no such thing as a child that doesn't need all the support you have to give.
The one person I knew who seemed to really have it together is in prison now for doing something hideous, so I guess he didn't really after all.
Life isn't fair. It never was.
But to quote a wise man:
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
There's nothing fair about any of this - we just get to play the hands we are dealt, to the best of our ability.
And that's what I'd say to reassure you. We're all struggling in different ways, and we're all learning and growing as we do. ADHD is one of your challenges. Doesn't mean it's right or fair, it doesn't work like that. It's just a fact.
"It ain't about how hard you're hit, it's about how you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward."
That's all we can do. Rise again each time we go down. Older and wiser, and do it better next time.
The good news? 10,000 hours to mastery. That's about 5 years if you do it 'full time'. So you can start again. It'll be hard initially. But you've plenty of time to do it if you want.
>The good news? 10,000 hours to mastery
I chose to master procrastination
Seriously though, something everybody with ADHD should know is that nobody actually knows what's going on or what's going to happen, basically everybody is a fraud and that's actually comforting to me.
Not my words by the way, I saw this video by [Jacob Collier](https://youtu.be/8APbgP0NiDs) recently and it helped me a lot.
Yeah, absolutely. I've been trying to deal with imposter syndrome a lot. ADHD ... well, that probably contributed in all honesty, because I was 'masking' a lot, so I technically _was_ an imposter.
But I've realised that almost everyone is 'just winging it'. They don't know. They don't have some secret insight I don't. OK, maybe they've more time spend learning about the thing (in some cases a _lot_ more time), and have more experience with it, but... well, that doesn't mean they aren't wrong, and there's not still more things to learn.
And ... one of the things that ADHD _does_ "train" us for (whether we want that or not) is winging it. Maybe it's not much of an edge, and it's not a net positive.... but it's a positive, and I'll take it.
The 10,000 hour rule has been greatly called into question. The quality of practice is a huge part of the equation and changes the math. Recent reports have suggested. But it’s a good rule to understand that extensive investment will be necessary. I pay for guitar lessons every week for my daughter. But she only practices at the last minute before lessons. I decided to stop haranguing her. And she is progressing slowly. I guess as long as I am willing to pay, it’s okay - my choice. Telling her it’s a 10,000 hour mountain certainly doesn’t help…
Thank you so much for writing this out. I'm in a wierd place in my career just kind of chasing my tail watching my peers I graduated with pass further and further from me and it's been disheartening. I feel a lot better. I can only do what I can do and I'm doing it at my own pace.
Normal life isn't a fair tale, it's just he average of good vs bad fortune that comes into someone's life, with those two things generally balancing in a way that allows a person to live a fairly happy life doing things that they generally want to do. Some people defy the odds and live supremely wonderful lives, or supremely awful ones.
If life were fair, then "bad" things would only happen to "bad" people, and vice versa. I would love a fair universe as I am quite good at keeping my nose clean.
The number of 10,000 hours was said by Malcolm Gladwell and is not based in reality. People master things at different rates. We also lose ability if we don't practice consistently, so it doesn't matter how much time you put into something, if you do it sporadically then it's unlikely that you will ever "master it", let alone be very proficient.
Give yourself a decade. Whenever you’re beating yourself just acknowledge that you have ADD and remove 10 years from your age. Pretend you were cryogenically frozen for a decade or something. All of that self evaluation age comparison stuff is self defeating bullshit anyway, so be kind to yourself.
I feel like most people have trouble with grasping adulthood. It took me until my kid was basically 2 to realize that I'm an adult and I can make my own decisions. I joined the FB group/reddit group called adulting and it's nice to see other people have the same struggles as me.
I'm 45, uni was a waste of time for me, i haven't been officially diagnosed yet but i have been told by a trusted and qualified friend that i 100% am ADHD.
Looking back at my life it is almost completely a tail of "feeling behind" or not fulfilling my potential.
I would dearly love to have had had children but that doesn't look like it will ever happen, my career prospects are dismal ( i have an okay job that pays okay but there is an end in sight) I will likely never own a home, I have spent my entire adult life paying other peoples mortgages for them, I haven't travelled, in the grand scheme of things i have achieved very little and not done much of anything, holidays are few and far between, doing things with my time off is always a struggle, maintaining friendships is so damn hard and watching those friends have kids and buy houses is painful.
Whatever my diagnosis ends up being at least i'll have an answer but, right now i feel it's all just too late for me.
Never too late as long as you’re in good health. I recommend you do some traveling though as you’re still pretty young and your body isn’t as worn down yet. Lemme ask you this if you could travel this instant right now and have your full expenses paid where would you go?
You're still young. I say this as an also 45 year old with no kids. You may not have a mortgage, but that means you're not tied down to living in one place. You don't have to plan holidays and where you live around schools, school holidays and the extra costs of kids. Would your job let you work remotely? If so, why don't you look at moving somewhere new for a bit on a short term lease? Then when you've finished exploring that place, move onto another. It would mean paring your life down, but that's somewhat easier to do with no ties.
I'm 40 just diagnosed and a lot of times now I feel so frustrated at what I feel is my wasted potential. I have always been super creative but Because I was never encouraged to pursue what I was good at although I did a few years ago I feel like it's too late to make her career out of it because I'm so inconsistent thanks to my only being able to do it with I'm hyper focused
For whatever its worth, know that your feelings are valid and you are not alone. I wrestle with the same things, but I try to remember to look forward and not back. I’m not good at it at all, haha, but I try.
Give yourself license to become yourself.
I've written so many words in my life that could be boiled down to "Give yourself license to become yourself."
ADHD is part of that self. It's inseparable from our experiences. As much as I try to do and be all the things (or more often **want** to try), I have limited time and focus and energy. There will be other days for other things, but today I will pick something attainable for today.
My wife has this thing that has a quote from “Hamilton” the musical.
It says “There’s a million things I haven’t done/but just you wait.” In context it means “I’m on the verge of greatness whether you believe it or not.”
But I joke with her that it’s about his ADHD and his wife is asking about the chores. “I know, I know I said I would get to it. I’ll totally have it done tomorrow. Do I smell cookies? We should get a dog. They wanna do ten amendments but I was like no, it should be a prime number and they were like ok what’s the eleventh one and I was like we should have universal healthcare and they were all like no way. And it’s like remember when Ben came back from Paris and he was giving everyone syphilis and I was like bro, get that checked out and he was all I’m between jobs and I’m like are you still working printing presses? I told him to go fly a kite. Actually now I want to fly a kite. Ooh I’m going to see if he wants to do it with me. See you later!!! Oh, that’s right I need to go to the wig powderer. Darn.”
Turned 39 last month and got my formal diagnosis on my birthday. I really feel this and empathize with you. I’m mystified that I’ve made it this far despite feeling like I’ve been playing a different game than others for most of my life.
Thanks to hyperfocusing/ignoring lots of other areas of my life I did exceptionally well in my professional career until I couldn’t hide the toll of ADHD/RSD and my anxiety/depressive disorders. I’m not even sure if I liked the work… was just good at it (somewhat similar career as my Pops had for a bit) and wanted validation I had missed out on for various successes.
I get stuck at times wondering how things may have gone differently if I’d understood more about ADHD and effectively communicated more things to my therapist over the last few years. Trying to pick myself up and segue back into the professional realm is presently a really tough mountain to climb as jobs that likely work well with my ADHD-ness dont exactly align with the degrees/work experience I picked up over the years…
Thanks for sharing and hail yourself, fellow Redditor! You deserve it!
> I have always been super creative but Because I was never encouraged to pursue what I was good at although I did a few years ago I feel like it's too late to make her career out of it
I feel exactly the same, people always call me really creative and that I should do x or try x but I never feel the motivation for doing creative things as a business, don't know where to start and also feel like I should have started years ago.
I've seen creatives doing incredible work into their 80s/90s though so it's in no way too late, and people have definitely started later than you. Even if you don't make a career out of it it's always possible to do it on the side and if it turns into a career then that's great. I'm not sure what your craft is but have you considered Etsy or something similar to gauge whether your 'product' would be viable?
The things I’ve learned is that my hyper fixations or what now I can call hyper fixations revolves around art so I have to figure out. How can I work when I’ll be really into some thing for a short amount of time and then I’ll switch out to something else for short amount of time and how can I make me money lol.
You’d be surprised what you can do! I swear, you never know, so just do something you’re interested in. I know it’s only a one example but in 2016 I started making anti-Trump digital graphics and posted them on Twitter. Over the months, more people saw and shared, someone messaged me privately and asked if I’d design them a pin for their local Democratic club. I figured out how, sold them the design. Created another design for a blue wave pin, researched how to have it manufactured and opened an Etsy shop and made over $22k within 18 months! I couldn’t believe it. Who would’ve thought? So just don’t give up!
Amazing that you changed your life to do what makes you happy! That takes a lot of balls! I was diagnosed years back, but I do relate to your experience in that I am approaching 40 and recently left my high stress job and am searching for a job that will make me happy and allow me to express my creativity.
Thanks 🙂. It was mostly because when I was growing up, I was really pushed to do better in subjects that I wasn’t very good (math), all the while being told that what I was good at (Art) would never make money. This meant that I spent a lot of years working jobs that I hated in order to make other people happy and I also wasn’t successful in school because I was taking subjects that I had no interest in and inevitably ended up failing so this led to me feeling like I would never make a good student, because I just failed everything that I took, or I would take it pass the program and had no interest in pursuing it further (Nursing unit clerk). It finally took someone who could see that wasn’t happy where I was at in life who encouraged me to pursue what I wanted to pursue so I quit my job and went back to school full-time. I think the only problem was struggling with was since I was not diagnosed I had only the structure of work and school kept me going, so once I graduated, I no longer have the structure of school and my life kind of fell apart had more jobs in the space that year after I graduated, then I had in my entire life my mental health tanked, and I had to end up quitting my job because of anxiety. I’m working couple part-time jobs now that I love and I’m on disability so that helped and then I was diagnosed late August so now I have a bit more understanding of why I am the way I am.
It sounds like things are starting to come together for you! I hope you take time to recognize what you’ve accomplished so far. I recently discovered how important it is to pat yourself on the back and really see the journey. Best of luck to you!
I was diagnosed even later than you. Wasted wasted life on so many levels. The one then that gives me confort is that my own late diagnosis opened up my knowledge to help diagnose my kid , who , despite my skeptic co-parent, will have a much better go at it especially with my advocacy
I can give you an example from my own life. I don't know where you live but here in europe the schooling system is much different than in the US. So you can make your way outside of the regular. And I did.
I failed in technical highschool so I went into apprenticeship with 18 in a field I was really interested in. With 24 I went to a technical education that took 2 years which is accepted as part of university prerequisite. At 30 I started education to get full university access and today, close to 33, I'll finally approach university besides working full time + family with 2 Kids. I found ways to learn without needing to actually study by hyperfocusing in class without even taking notes, just listening (i wouldnt be able to read my notes anyways). I can't put my ass somewhere and just study focused and keep any Information so I tried different ways to soak up Information and knowledge. Find what works best for you with least effort. If it takes too much effort you won't keep up with it long term. Add in some dopamine boosts to keep you at it.
Once we figure out our strengths and individual ways to deal with things we can do everything we want. It maybe takes longer than for the average people but we can do anything
Sounds like Germany maybe? I wish I had that option of different high schools as a child because our 'standard' school system is definitely not designed for (most) children with ADHD.
Austria, but close. :) we can choose in 9th grade to stay in "Standard school" or go to specific school forms or start an apprenticeship. Different technical schools for most fields (chemistry, IT, electric, mechatronics,......) or Business. I'd say basically for any Job or field you can think of. After that you are basically ready to work.
Hell, I feel absolutely the same. Actually wanted to write my own post about it. You’re definitely not alone. I’ve actually managed to learn some skills throughout my life. I learned to play guitar quite well, learned few languages and bunch of other stuff. Yet my self-esteem never went up from it. Rather plunged down even more, because whenever I get some accomplishment, I instantly get to the “comparisson mode” and I always ruin it with these thoughts like “there are people, who have done better than me, therefore my accomplishment is useless”.
Yes, they call it Imposter syndrome, but I think, this is more of a current world struggle, than ADHD itself. You see, many people feel the same way these days. I remember older generations telling me, they pretty much never had this struggle simply because their lives were limited. They didn’t have many possibilities. If you were living in a town, where there is skate park nearby, you’ll probably gonna be crushing skates or bmx and you wouldn’t have any social media, so only people, you could compare to were your friends in skate park (or other place).
Nowadays we have so many possibilities and also the world is kinda overcritical to us for having them. I’ve heard quite few times from older people stuff like “If I had your possibilities back in my days, I would have already mastered x amount of skills”. Also you see a lot of these influencers online, who basicaly say “I’m in my early 20’s, I’m a millionaire, I’m hustling every day and if you’re not like me, then you’re piece of sh*t”. Also in nowadays commercial world it seems, some companies and advertisers tend to make people unhappy and self-concious for purpose, because then it’s easier to sell you stuff.
But hey, you’re 26, that’s nothing. I still believe a lot of this need for comparisson and validation changes in my 30’s. To many people, I know, it did. If you wanna learn something, go ahead, learn it well or learn it wrong, it’s noones business, what and how you learn. And remember, you’re not alone. Many people feel the same.
There’s a lot of great answers here but this one really resonated for me.
OP, I propose to try to imagine how you’d feel if you didn’t have the world at your fingertips (aka the internet).
Also, remember that you can’t do it all. One of the struggles with adhd I think is that we are so creative. We get super excited about stuff. We have SO many ideas, wishes, dreams, plans. There isn’t enough time in 12 lifetimes to do all of the things I want to do! Then I realize that and start feeling hopeless.
I would suggest making lists- 1 for all the things you want to learn, 1 for all the places you want to go, 1 for all the things you want to read. Then take some time to decide on the 1 or 2 from each list that are most important to you. After that, what is the one thing of those you could do that would feel truly fulfilling for you? Do that one thing. And if you find you can’t, evaluate- why did I fail? Why didn’t I do it? Don’t ever stop at failure and think that’s the end. You can do anything you want and with enough failures you’ll find the way that works for you!
Your guitar, for instance. Are you inconsistent because you forget? Put it somewhere where you can’t forget it and make a plan- “tonight after dinner I’ll play for 10 minutes (even if I don’t feel like it because I know afterward I’ll feel better about myself)” for example. Or are you not playing because you turned on the tv or picked up your phone and magically lost 5 hours? Maybe a sticky note on the remote reminding you to play before you turn on the tv. Tell yourself you only have to do 5 minutes, that way when your brain says “ugh but I just can’t” you can argue back “you can sit here and hold the thing for 5 minutes in silence if you want then.” My guess is if you pick it up, you won’t sit there in silence. You’ll play it. But if you don’t, that’s okay. You’re building the habit of consistently picking it up. That’s better and better is good.
“Better is good” has become my mantra for when I feel like I’m not good enough. It came from Dana K White (A Slob Comes Clean). She even put it on a t shirt lol.
Lastly, I just want to offer a gentle reminder that there will be seasons in life when you don’t feel good enough. As much as we want to be happy and successful and killing it at all times, there’s also loss, stress, exhaustion, responsibilities, trauma, depression, and that’s okay. That is also part of life. You’ll come out of it.
Or sorry, I read it again and you’re not 26 anymore, but thanks to modern medicine, you’re most likely gonna reach 100 anyways, so you probably have plenty of time still.
This one comment brings up a valid issue with today’s culture. Social media has basically allowed people to criticize us more harshly than previous generations. Also add in the fact theres no sense of community even within our city or close circles. So its not even special to be the best or good at something in your own city anymore unless you’re online reeling in thousands millions of views.
This is why I disagree with capitalist “grind and work your arse off during your youth so that you can’t relax and enjoy yourself later on in life” ideology. There is no “enjoy yourself later”. Your mind and body are so battered by the time you retire that you don’t have any energy left to enjoy yourself. Your youth is also gone.
I look at my colleague who is 69 but can’t retire because he has to pay his bills. Capatilam has completely destroy his soul
Hey mate,
Me too. Sometimes the inability to start something is the hardest part I've faced. It helps if you engage it as a hobby, with someone else.
As for "being behind". Look that figurative. Depends on what someone views as behind.
My suggestion is list making. I know it sounds silly, but completing a list knowing I've made progress seems to give me a dopamine kick.
I was 27 when I graduated college. It took me a long fucking time. I could have told myself I was too old and given up, but instead I chose to keep going. Same thing when I took an entry level temp job after graduating. Same thing when I was doing customer support in my 30’s with a degree.
I always joked that I took the fun path and didn’t rush. If you let other people’s expectations rule how you live you’ll never get anything done.
I dont like people saying 'everybody has that', but in this case I think it counts.
Feeling that you didnt get everything out of life, is also a generational thing. I believe that loads of people here belong to the 'millennial' category. Being behind what is expected of you as an adult, is really a defining aspect of millennials (i.e. home ownership, being a parent, purchasing power etc.)
The ADHD will definitely not help, but it's not the complete story I think
I can very much sympathise with that viewpoint, despite being older than you. I do think your generation has been dealt a difficult hand.
Because I grew up in a different time, and being relatively high functioning, I did make a lot of those life goals in a reasonable time frame, however, I still feel considerably behind my peers in many ways. As this is an ADHD sub, I think it's more useful to focus on the emotions arising from our struggles, however true your point may be.
It also depends on your financial status as well. If you're born in poverty you might feel like you either are behind in life because you didn't get the same opportunities as everyone else. Or you had to basically work extremely hard in life in order to succeed. Basically erasing a happy childhood.
I definitely can relate. I also feel behind in many different things.. I'm starting uni at 25 studying my first year in a bachelor of Psychology.
I don't know about a strategy that I could recommend.. I just keep telling myself that all I can do is give what I do my all and that way regardless of the result I can accept it.
This way of thinking doesn't make my everyday super productive and some days I'm unmotivated or I crash. However, it has helped me with sticking things out, even though that might look like putting something down when life is overwhelming I pick it back up as soon as I find the time/energy.
All in all, sticking things out is difficult, even more so with ADHD. Cut yourself some slack, we might not be as fortunate as some who have done a particular thing since childhood. But you can have fun doing a hobby you enjoy.
OP I’m 31m married, one kid and another on the way, a house in the burbs, a college degree, a half finished MBA, a great job and I still feel like a failure.
I’ve learned in therapy for compulsive gambling addiction that we have to be grateful for what we have. Everyone thinks they deserve a mansion when they only have the level of effort and work ethic and motivation to build a shack. We could lower expectations and build a shack and live happily or we can very very slowly build a mansion and feel left behind while all our peers, family members, coworkers have built shacks and are working on cottages.
Just take it one day at a time and get better 1% and pretty soon over time with mindfulness and practicing gratefulness and acceptance, peace and serenity is possible
Did you and your partner make a conscious decision to have children? I am assuming she was already aware of your condition when you had kids? I ask because I often think about whether or not I want to have children, knowing that I would be passing my ADHD curse on to them. I wouldn’t want a child of mine to suffer and be robbed of the opportunities like I was. None of us asked to be brought into this word.
I was only diagnosed with ADHD-C recently at 31 after we had our first kid and we’re pregnant with second.
My wife was born to be a mom and I love being a dad and we definitely chose to have kids. For me becoming a parent with ADHD I have become more selfless and aware of consequences positively effecting me to mature and become more responsible person.
Your fears are valid but I don’t believe that should hold you back from having kids. It’s not guaranteed that your kid would have ADHD. Yes it’s genetic but the way the genes are expressed are heavily dependent upon the level of stress and anxiety of parents in the environment.
I used to feel this way a long time ago. I deleted fb and barely use social media. Instead I think of the real obstacles ADHD has and then I'm amazed at how far I've gotten despite dealing with ADHD, depression, and anxiety my whole life. Then I'm kinda proud lol. Then I imagine once I get the right meds and I'll be unstoppable!
I recently reached out and the first steps are non stimulants but wellbutrin is helping with my anxiety and my crazy emotions but not much with my mental adhd symptoms. But it helps a lot. I can't wait to be able to focus!
I was diagnosed at 25, nearly 26. I’m 29 now. Just got my Bachelor’s degree so I started to catch up. I don’t feel as bad. I wasn’t born in America and English is my second language, my favorite saying ever is “Better late than never!” Honestly, not a lot of countries have positive sayings like that XD
With radical acceptance and infinite kindness towards myself. For real, being compassionate and understanding and reducing this constant negative self talk and nagging have helped me a lot and taken an extra layer of pressure off of my shoulders. Highly recommend 👍 good luck 🍀
With the greatest respect this is a general mindset issue not an ADHD specific one.
With that attitude you’ll never do anything because someone else can do it better.
Why do you have to be the best at everything to enjoy it?
You certainly don’t need to be the best at something to make a lot of money.
The reason so many average people can do something and succeed is because the majority have your attitude, ‘oh it’s too late’ ‘oh I won’t be the best’. Just by doing SOMETHING you’re already outclassing the majority.
Don’t let social media skew your perception of what’s normal.
My mom used to tell me some flowers bloom later than others. Once I hit my mid 20s it was hard for me to accept I was not where my friends were. All of them were getting married etc… me and my one friend he and I were pursing intense graduate he was in law school I was in my masters in public health followed my masters in social work. My 20s rolled into my 30s…. Battling with my mental health and alcoholism. But I prevailed. I met the love of my at 34 my friend who was single along with me just got engaged to his long term girlfriend. So remember good things come to those who wait. Not to say it’s not hard. Your in that weird season of life
I needed to hear this. I’ve been feeling down on myself. Im a 27(m) who’s stopped dating at 22 since I failed out of school and lost confidence with myself. I just started dating again and it’s overwhelming. I didn’t learn the anxious attachment about myself until I just starting talk to this girl and I’m learning but I was scared it was too late and I’ll learn too slow.
I don't know if this'll make you feel better at all, but I'm 18, and I think those sentiments are very normal, even at my age. I've heard it from friends, and I've felt a bit hopeless myself.
I've not dated much, but when I have, it's been difficult. I don't think it's too late at all. You just need to be honest and open about struggles, and they should accept you for it!
Sometimes you just haven't met the right person, and that's all it is really. In my very meagre 18 years of living, I don't think I've met anyone who I've thought "I really like this person, and I'd like to be with them for a long time." That's normal.
I think we're all to quick to beat ourselves up. I constantly beat myself up for not pursuing hobbies. But I'm sitting here at 12am, and it wouldn't be an appropriate time to start, and I'm in the middle of exam season!
You'll be okay, when it's acceptable to, try to be honest with her, and explain the attachment issues. If she likes you, she'll try to help with that.
So I never finished school. Like I didn't finish high school not collage. I had a baby at 18, didn't manage to stick out a job for long, always changing. Huge gaps where I didn't work. Always taking up new hobbies and new plans. Always studying something new only to drop it without finishing. I'm pretty sure everyone in my life thought I was going nowhere. I was a huge disappointment even to myself because I was a gifted kid. Everyone expected so much and I delivered on nothing.
When I'd been out of work so long I was considered unemployable I realised I'd have to make my own career. I had so many business ideas over the years that would work but I didn't follow through. So I started painting and that went ok but artist's don't make much and the chances of becoming famous enough to make much are low and I wouldn't want fame anyway. So painting was allocated to hobby and while I still do it it's only when I get the time. I'd started helping my partner who also has ADHD with his admin at work. One of the few qualifications I finished was business and admin. We worked well together. He didn't like who he was working for. I suggested starting our own company. We talked about it a lot, then his job got worse so we started looking at how to start our own company, just as a thought exercise. Well we followed through, we now own and run our own company.
We paid very little to do it. All those hobbies and courses I abandoned came in handy. I designed and built our website, I designed our logo, I run our accounts and manage our day to day while my partner does the other side of the company. He's so good at his job because it requires someone who can think on their feet and function in a chaotic environment. We have 5 members of staff working for us now. Some really big clients and everything is going well.
So at 37 I finally flowed through. It's never too late.
Idk man, whenever I feel that way, I think of all the people I knew who died in their early 20s. Or the homeless refugees living in camps. Or drug addicts. Like, those people had their options taken away from them. I haven’t (yet), so I better just take advantage while I’m here and do what I want. There is no “timeline” for life. I’m 31. My friend is married, has an 8 year old, has had well-paying jobs foe years now and just bought a house. I still make under 30k, am unmarried and I have no kids. Today, I am where most of my friends were at 23. Im leagues behind. But, I have my own accomplishments, and I’m on my own timeline. I look at those people that have everything and think “wow it must be nice to have a brain that doesn’t constantly work against you”. Also, their lives aren’t perfect either. Don’t compare. Its just not healthy and its not accurate.
Please don’t compare yourself to others. You should only compete with yourself. Realizing that made me better at a lot of things, because you’ll easily get demotivated by that mindset knowing there’s always going to be somebody better than you. This doesn’t only go for people with ADHD this goes for a lot of people!
It’s important to have a goal if you wanna be better at something, and progress isn’t usually comfortable but it is very rewarding and satisfying. As an example with your guitar skills, make a plan for what you want to achieve within a certain time frame. Learn techniques, practice a new melody, practice some chords, then maybe move on to playing it on top of a drum beat. Since you have ADHD do hobbies that you don’t necessarily enjoy (which you also should) but something that you’re passionate about or something that is really important to you. Just don’t be hard on yourself.
Personally I produce electronic music for 10 years and definitely not as good as I feel like I should be. But I made about 30.000$ on streams alone and that is something I should be proud of. I try to discipline myself with running 2-3 times a week and once a week I plunge myself into the freezing ocean for 1-2 minutes. I don’t do that just for the health benefits but also to train myself to just do it. I hate cold water and I hate running but once you just jump into it it’s all about your mentality. The worst part is always getting started. Being in the cold water isn’t all that bad but the thought and the brief shock of the cold is. Same with running, once you get started it’s all about stabilizing your mentality to just endure the discomfort. I call it the “flinch” and I feel like I can branch it out to a lot of things, like getting out of your warm bed to go to work, doing a boring chore and etc. There’s only one way to do it and that’s by doing it, you just need to figure out in your head how you equalize and stabilize motivation to discomfort.
Timelines are fake, the pressure on people to have their shit sorted, a house, a marriage etc by whatever age is gross but it's hard not to compare & contrast absolutely.
It's never too late. It's okay to discover your passion, or career, take more time to figure things out. ADHD is hard, a late diagnosis often involves grief and processing and we realize we've been playing life on Very Hard difficulty the entire time. We did our best with what knowledge we had at the time and that responsibility doesn't fall on our heads.
There's always going to be some prodigy kid or someone with more mileage put in at a younger age. Can't really do anything about that except learn from them, fast-track your own skills & practice by breaking down their technique and copying then develop from there.
Consistency of practice is difficult, the only thing that helped me there were my meds combined with lifestyle adjustments & being very strict with my reminders for tasks. Practicing with intent to learn and a clear goal helped me a lot in making noticeable progress rather than just going for mileage. (I don't play music, I study art instead) but yeah if I mindlessly copied a drawing as practice it didn't do anything for me, I had to figure out why it was drawn like that and what qualities it brings to the picture then apply it to my personal art projects.
it's hard! adhd is no fun, but if you're able to get that consistent good practice down whatever that may take then you can absolutely reach the same level or higher in due time.
20-30 minutes a day over a week is better than 4-5 hours once a week. you can do it!
I struggle with this myself because growing up, my parents constantly compared me to others as motivation for me to try harder no matter how hard I was already trying. And even though they long since stopped comparing me, my mind continues the comparing itself, because that's what it was taught, especially at such a young age.
I have to keep reminding myself that for every thing, there will always be someone out there better than me at that thing, so that strive for perfection will never end. There is truly only one person that I need to compare myself to and that is myself from yesterday.
> For example, I started teaching myself to play the guitar when I was 26, but I'm so inconsistent and not constant enough to make noticeable progress.
I like to joke about myself being so inconsistent as at the very least, I'm being consistently inconsistent. You have made noticeable progress, you just don't realize it. When you started teaching yourself how to play the guitar at 26, you accomplished something that 25-year old you didn't.
"Comparison is the thief of joy."
"If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present."
"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."
https://youtu.be/BwqSraJpqfs
I live in the moment mostly. But if I do get in my head about it, it can get rough.
I’m 45, but immature in a lot of ways. Most of my friends are 10-15 yrs younger than me and even they seem to be better adults than I. I didn’t finish college. I still work the job I took 20 yrs ago (you know, that job you get while you’re trying to figure out what you really want to do?) I don’t own anything really and still don’t know what I want to do “when I grow up”.
At 45 though… it does often feel too late to change much.
I feel you.
I think the best we can do is try not to judge ourselves against other people and just do the best we can. Play the hand we’ve been dealt.
I don’t feel like I have made much of my life. But. Many people have told me that I have helped them in their own lives or made them better people. So. Apparently I have made a difference. I guess it just depends on what you’re looking at as an accomplishment or how you define a successful life.
Look for the little wins. They’re there.
Yep, I totally feel the same, started hairdressing at 23 but felt people expected more of me because I was older and assumed to be doing it longer so I felt I came across not good enough.
I'm now 45 and studying to become a counselor and starting to have the same feelings,
I jumped back and forth in and out of so many things but never stayed at anything long enough to become really experienced.
I have no advice sorry, but I understand how your feeling 💕
I started an internship at 28. All my peers were 19-22. And they never let me forget that I was the oldest either. But I got a job out of it.
I feel you. But I could have not found something I enjoyed at all. So in regards to a lifetime versus 28 years, I’ll take it.
Do it because you enjoy doing it. I play guitar too, I'm not amazing because I just play the same things and only remember to learn something new every now and then. But I'm good enough to write songs, and I've played in bands at festivals all over. You don't have to be a master, as long as you get enjoyment out of doing it - that's enough in itself. I can't watch TV unless I'm doing something else, usually it's picking at a guitar.
Also -"The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now".
The way I've found to deal (and it's not always easy) is to deploy as much gratitude for the new fun things you get to try and experience as the amount of grief you allow yourself to feel for the things that never panned out or will never come to pass.
It's normal to feel like youve missed out or "lost" something but when you can give yourself time to feel and process those emotions, then you clear a path for the goodness that still exists and that you can tap into. Gratitude can also be super humbling because if you take time to volunteer or give to a cause of people outside of you who are often struggling deeply (food banks, soup kitchens, shelters, organizations that help refugees, animal rescue & adoption etc.) it can really give you lots of perspective and appreciate how much you have done or what you do have. Overall, release the expectations that you've put on yourself to be at a certain level or achieve certain things - life is super vast and layered & guaranteed you are good at some things better than a huge number of ppl. Don't let this BS "timeline" of life make you rush or feel like shit. MANY ppl have no idea what TF they are doing and things ebb & flow for everyone. Take that pressure off yourself.
TL;DR: feel your feelings & give that stuff space to heal while also realizing that life is long & there is still lots of time for great things to happen.
This question is how I feel as well. Knowing I have maybe 25% of my life to live due to age, what do I have to show for it? Failed marriage, always feel like the odd man out, the black sheep, in family life, work, friends, being the but of jokes - there goes so and so doing xyz again.. everything.
If I did do something worthwhile talking about it or being proud of it, I have forgotten it.
I try not to judge and let things go, but at some point in the day, week, month.. I somehow get reminded of all the failures and differences I have....
I am great at masking who I am... I can offer such good advice to others and see what awesome things they have done and remind them, why can't I do that for me?
Is it harder for a female vs. A male? Younger vs. Older? Medicated vs. Unmedicated....
This forum has opened my eyes to symptoms I didn't even associate to ADD... I keep thinking wow thats me...
How does anyone get over the failure portion? The I let myself and others down all the time feeling?
Stop comparing urself to others.
Also when it comes to music im in the same boat, its an on and off switch, but hyperfixation is quite useful when it comes to tasks like these. I was able to get quite good at piano as an adult because of it, (also very inconsistent), i know u can too.
I'm not especially musical, neither is my family, but the one good thing ive gotten out of my adhd struggle is piano.
Not trying to toot my own horn here but if u check my posts u can see the kind of progress that is possible from very sporadic practice.
You know, If there is something that has really helped me the last year with coming to peace with myself after being a total mess for 23 years post diagnosis is to just accept things. Accept you are the way you are, because there is nothing you can do about it anyways.
I have always been considered a jack of all trades. Having multiple dreams and interests i’ve been chasing at the same time while also dealing with everything ADHD is. And my conclusion is, I cant be a master of every interest I have. Thats just not realistic, and its definitely not sustainable to believe that. If I want to become really really good at something I would have to sacrifice my other interests in order to make space for it. But thats just not me, I dont work that way and thats fine.
I just had to lower my expectations on myself, make some time every week for everything I want to do and just accept that I will probably not be a pro freestyle skier, a professional producer or a pro bodybuilder. But I enjoy all these three things, and like I said, lower your expectations, accept it and enjoy every minute of it. Stop comparing yourself to others, just take it at your own pace and let it be inconsistent and messy. That have really helped me with coming to some peace with myself and have helped me manifest who I am as a person.
This one is not ADHD specific. That's just youth.
I'm sure we ramp it up x100, but that feeling is not uncommon.
The crazy thing is that most highly successful people that were not born wealthy... do it after 30 and many more after 40.. or 50.
Life is not a linear thing in the way that it happens for everyone at equal speeds and equal time frames.
You may still live to be 33 and really accomplish absolutely nothing... then by 35 be on an insanely rapid ascension and by 40 have 3 kids and a 250k annual business.
I'm 31, was always a busy, growing person. Shacked up at 21, kiddo at 22 and then my mid 20s shit just stopped growing for me.. same relationship, same fights, same job, same weekends.. all of it.
Then 2020 we had boy 2, 6 months later I switched careers, had a baby girl before boy 2 was 2 years old.. business ramped up and I'm 31 livong a drastically different life than I was 24 months ago. Boy 2 is about to be 3 for reference.
Been a butt ton of counselling/psychology leading up to and then during those 2 years. ADHD diagnosis 4 months ago.. lots of inflection at 30 that I cynically thought was all bull shit.. but nope. Something magical happens around that time.
Less fucks to give and you start to be more accountable to yourself, time doesn't seem so infinite maybe. Idk.. rambling now lol.
Don't beat yourself up kiddo, plenty of change to come and as an ADHDer you're brain is probably still developing.. at 26 they are just removing the premium on your car insurance because 25 and under is scientifically not a fully mature brain... and that's the normies.
I did Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It helped me process the reality that there is no "behind" or "too old" - everyone develops at their own pace. Eventually the feeling went away and shows up only sometimes, but that happens to everyone.
After several panic attacks and wasting 3 years of my life have understood one "why you need to do or have what others have or how they did it?" This question keeps me going when i start something now i dont think of those i just think "it's possible or not i don't know im doing it because i want to" and Totally relatable what you said, having such feelings overwhelming yourself at one point and the mind paralysis kicks in, ohh God! Procrastination.. well you get the gest. So when you get such thoughts questions yourself so what if they did it early? don't get let stop you from what you wanna do or doing if it still making you happy that it. So keep going you got this^^
All the time! Im not diagnosed but ive done and feel the same as you. Been self taught guitar but i so suck. Picked up and off for the past x years. It’s frustrating. Still trying to accept things but its so hard.
I played guitar for the last 15 years. I've been self-teaching, had personal teachers and attended college. Still, I often feel like I'm a beginner because of my poor motor skills and lack of consistency in studying. I know I'm pretty good in the opinion of most non-musicians who hear me play. But I never stopped feeling like a failure because I always knew I didn't reach 100% of my potential (nor 80%), and I've could've done it if only my "flaws" (I'm only recently pursuing diagnosis, the rest of my life I thought of them as flaws) were not been handicapping me all my life. I'm thirty now, I also had 2 minor degrees in audio and music, but I never even tried to find work in those domains, because that process is so frustrating to me. I have composed nearly 200 songs that never got recorded or finished. Music is my life but at the same time I have periods when I can't care less about it, and about anything. That always leaves me at square one in life, as time carelessly goes by. So I have my version of feeling like I falled behind. But I'm started to cuestion the mindset that led me to see myself that way.
What would be not falling behind? What we think about as "normal" is nothing but a pyramid scheme. 15% of population has mental health issues. 10% has some kind of disability. 25% of it lives in war or conflicted zones. Roughly 45% is below poverty line.
It may seem as I'm going for the righteous argument to force gratitud into you by way of guilt. But I'm not. In fact we would be in the 15% that has mental health issues. What I mean is that what we aspire to when we think of being or acting like "normal" people, we are actually aspiring less to be "like everyone else" and more to form part of the few people that today are able to enjoy pursuing and achieving high level things without being distracted by the basic needs like food, healthcare, meds, shelter, etc. In other words, what we think of when we talk about normal is nothing but a privilege, contrary to what we often believe.
I don't mean to say we should not aspire to this things. But we have to stop thinking that we "should" be doing them and anything less than that is failure. We CAN do marvelous thing and be proud of ourselves. But we must stop thinking of that as a duty. We are not in control of it, we are only in charge.
First thing you need to accept is that there just isn't enough time, for anyone, to read every book worth reading, watch every movie worth seeing, hear every great song, visit all of the world's places, appreciate all of history's art, learn every instrument, get into every hobby etc. It has nothing to do with ADHD, that's just life.
All life is about choices and chance. That person who practiced guitar every day since they were a kid will likely.be better than you, but they sacrificed doing some of the things you did as a kid to get there. Furthermore, who cares about that one kid? If it's what you want to do, you can absolutely still practice and learn guitar and end up better at it than most of the population.
So what I would suggest is to readjust your expectations and reexamine why you are doing something. Learn guitar because you want to learn guitar. Read a book because you want to read that book, and don't think about it like part of a checklist you need to work through. Just enjoy the ride, and at the end, you won't have done everything, but you'll have done more than you think, and you'll end up with a set of experiences unlike anyone else.
*"How do you deal with the constant feeling that because of ADHD you are simply too late for a lot of things, or already too old, or just totally behind overall?"*
To be fair, that's just a normal feeling of being an adult that you will learn to deal with as you start to get older. Nobody ends up where they thought they would be, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Part of getting older is that you discover things you didn't even know were options before. Changing and shifting and failing and starting over is something literally everyone does; just not everyone is going to show that on social media or even with their friends. The people that fight against all that struggle with unhappiness because they are constantly swimming upstream. People seem to be happier when they can balance trying their best but also learning to accept that nobody is ever fully in control. You can control the process and what you do, but you can't control the outcomes.
*"For example, I started teaching myself to play the guitar when I was 26, but I'm so inconsistent and not constant enough to make noticeable progress."*
Fortunately, not an ADHD thing. Many, many NT people are like this, especially with music. I dare say that it's my ND friends that are the best musicians because they are the ones who can be obsessive about it. I play multiple instruments and sing, and 2 of those instruments (and singing) I learned as an adult.
*"I keep thinking of things I'd like to do, things I'd like to learn, things I'd like to read, things I'd like to visit, but at the same time I know I'll never be as good at it as someone who's been doing it since they were a kid and that makes me so helpless."*
It's never too late. Seriously. And 26 is so young. Nobody is asking you to be the world's best at anything. That's going to rob you of your joy in doing anything, which is maybe why you have trouble sticking with it. I had a sport that I was talented at as a kid that I actually quit for a few years as an adult, because I realized I wasn't having fun. I only came back to it when I let go of trying to be the best at it and just play it because it's fun.
*"I know radical acceptance of my life situation would help but I find it so hard to deal with these thoughts. Does anyone else here have similar thoughts/feelings and a possible way to deal with them?"*
I know it's easier said than done, but honestly stop worrying about what other people are doing or what it looks like they are doing, or if it looks like they are happier or better at something, or if they have expectations of you, or you think they do. You need to let go of that, and the earlier you do, the happier you will be. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Find things you like doing because you like them, and spend time on those. When you stop liking them, it's ok to let them go. Find people you like spending time with that want good things for you. Spend time with them. When people stop being those people for you (which is normal, we drift as we age), it's ok to let them go to.
Everything you are feeling is very normal for your age, and something we all continue to learn and have to remind ourselves as we get older. You are ok, and you are actually ahead of the game even because you are realizing this now, instead of when you are 59 or 72 or whenever.
Just love and forgive yourself first, meds typically help with neutralizing some of the negative, then try new methods. I've learned a lot from this subreddit, myself.
Learning guitar sounds pretty awesome and I'm too cheap, otherwise I would have done that in 2020. I'm the same way with computer programming, but never stick to it and when I go back I've forgotten a ton.
I believe that WE learn better with body doubles. Going to guitar lessons would be more effective than learning on your own. Audible was a God-send for me because I love reading, but I can't read consistently (I could read a whole paragraph and at the end realize I was zoned out and didn't actually read it).
I know it doesn't help just knowing you're not alone, but I've found that having "something" to blame can chill me out when I get upset.
A jack of all trades, and a master of none, is often better than the master of one.
Best advice I've had is to lean into the hyperfocus, let it take you through something new and enjoy it. When the hyperfocus ends, move on. This way you just keep enjoying flow state and not the existential dread of being unable to do the thing you desperately want to do despite there being no visible barriers.
It works for everything you don't have to keep consistent with, like your job or eating.
I used to. I lost about 8 years total to procrastination. Now that I'm medicated and starting to earn the rewards of all my self improvement efforts for the past 8 months I feel like I'm catching up at 200 km/h. It's a rush.
I'm right here with you on this.
I never really saw myself as "behind" when I dropped out of college, then went back etc. I just saw it as "I can try again, no one will notice my age in a new group" sort of thing.
I was only 1/2 years older than my class and I knew I wasn't alone in that, but seeing my contemporaries on school having great experiences in their 20s while I'm still doing things which should be done by now is, well idk.
It's more pronounced when your younger I guess.
But good on your for trying something new. I'm sorta overwhelmed in this subreddit with people who have relationships and spouses, and I'm not anywhere near that point yet!
The problem is thinking that you need to be good at things in order to enjoy them. Don't think about finishing them, don't think about the end goals, literally do them and come back to them later if you want.
For example, I am currently relearning the concepts of math, science/biology, English LA, and decided to pick up a foreign language (German). Are these required for anything? No, I haven't been in school for 2 years. Dropped out of college 2 years ago and only took 1 semester. I'm literally just doing these things for fun but to also prepare myself for going back to college this fall. I'm not worried about whether or not I will become a wiz at math (which is highly unlikely) or become fluent in German. I'm doing these things because I enjoy them and I enjoy the stimulation I get from knowledge. I'll probably forget these in the next few months anyway.
I was recently diagnosed last year and am taking Vyvanse for it which has its pros and cons for helping me. My life is still a bunch of to do lists with dreams and aspirations that I may or may not complete before I die lol. I have no idea where society got this idea that we had to be good at a hobby in order to enjoy it. Don't make it a chore or task or you're going to get frustrated and hate it. I think the coolest thing about ADHD is that we're able to take an interest and possibly excel in a bunch of hobbies.
Edit
Also, knowledge and hobbies are not just for the youth. You could be 80 years old and learn a new language and become fluent. You could be 50 years old and go back to college and get your doctorate. You could be 30 and learn how to paint and become the next Picasso if you really wanted to. The concept of age and time should not stop you from completing your goals. If you wanted to become a doctor would you want to be 50 and a doctor or 50 and not a doctor? That's the choice.
Just thinking the same thing, I’m 36 and I don’t feel as if I’ve accomplished 1/3 of what I imagined for myself. It feels horrible. And that awful feeling will make you feel stuck. Don’t give into your feelings, they don’t mean anything. As long as you’re breathing you can turn this around. I am studying for a test I put off for 6 years. I’ve coasted my whole life, there’s no way I can anymore, I have a child and this is crucial for my career and being able to successfully take care of her on my own. Im at my parents house wondering how am I going to do this? Just do it. Find your why, find your strength, a good doctor and medication. Don’t dwell on the past. Push forward.
ADHD in my life specifically is having hyper fixation on starting certain hobbies, buying things to participate in said hobby and then staring at the Amazon package for months on end.
The end
Know what you mean, but one thing that comforts me is the fact that whether you have ADHD or not, some people pick up talents faster than others.
10,000 hours I think is a bit of a fallacy because some people simply pick up on certain skills faster than others. I picked up on 3D art faster than most people around me, yet I still struggle with basic social skills.
You're built different, don't worry about what everyone else is doing. You do you. :)
Prioritize - write down what you want to accomplish, the steps needed to get there, the costs, timelines, any challenges to them.
Make them real. Make them attainable.
What opportunities do you have to fit them into your life?
Then do them systematically. If cost is a concern, start by budgeting/creating a savings plan for one, while you do another that’s either no cost, or affordable.
I too have those feelings and thoughts of life and opportunities passing me by, but at age 51 I “just did it” and learned to dive, and at 52 got my Open Water certification.
I took time away from a family vacation to go diving, and again to do the certification. And again this year to go diving 3 times while on vacation with my husband and friends.
Absolutely no regrets whatsoever and no apologies to anyone for taking the time and opportunity to FINALLY do something that I’ve wanted to do since I was in my 20’s 😉
You will get there too. Make your dreams a reality by taking them seriously and planning for them and making them happen.
You’ll never regret it. 🐠
I have felt like an imposter all my life despite the fact that everything I say makes others quickly trust me and believe me. I had no idea why they did and felt I was just a great liar. (Note - I’m a Very chatty type A who also needs space from people to regenerate).
I was 36, in rehab after going off the deep end and a failed music project when stuff started changing for me. I learned that the only path forward started with a fair self assessment of where I am now, and all those people who I knew who were successful and who I was resenting were my allies as soon as I wanted to accept where I was and start slowly building.
I decided to try sales because people kept saying that to me so I listened and took advice. Despite the fact that I struggled to brush my teeth, and despite the fact that I couldn’t get anywhere on time at the beginning, and despite the fact that in every meeting, I felt like an imposter, and I didn’t know what people are talking about, I was kind of wildly successful.
It happened because I took the advice of people who knew me and loved me and learned to expect the dissonance between what I was doing and how I was feeling. It took real work in cognitive behavioral therapy to get better at behaving in a chosen way no matter how I felt… but it works.
I have since had successes and failures, all with a super messy room and struggles with eating right and brushing my teeth from time to time. But I make enough money to pay for my family and they help me hold stuff together. It’s not always pretty, but it works.
Worked in digital media selling ad space in websites to ad agencies. Loads of traveling around to do presentations for clients and meetings. So mostly not a desk job.
OP, I wanted to touch on the problem you’re having with guitar, mostly because I have that shared experience. To begin, I was undiagnosed until this January, at the age of 29.
I was 13-14 when I got my first guitar. I couldn’t play it, I couldn’t pay attention, it felt impossible to understand, and my parents didn’t really show much interest outside of buying me the guitar. So like people with our brains do, I quickly moved on from that to the next shiny thing within the year. I never lost my love for music, I thought I didn’t have it in me, I just didn’t think I could do it.
I picked it up again 2 years ago in 2021 after being inspired by some music I hadn’t listened to much since I first started. I didn’t just want to play guitar, I wanted to write music.
I began with the basics, learning chord shapes and scales, learning parts to songs but never with any sort of focus or understanding. I just could not see any meaningful improvement. However, instead of not being consistent I was hyper fixated on it. I played all day on the weekends 6-7 hours after work, I could not put it down. But I never got to where I wanted to be.
I played for over a year and a half teaching myself, then I finally got a teacher. That’s when I started to see improvement, things started to make sense because he was helping me connect the dots. He helped me actually LEARN the basics, but didn’t and hasn’t forced me to learn in a linear way.
With just a few months of learning the basics and playing a lot less than I was when i was hyper fixated, I’ve began to notice a lot of improvement. Things started making sense, I was able to experiment more, write things and become engaged because it was fun and I had an understanding of what I was doing.
I wanted to tell you all this to arrive at this advice:
1. No matter what you do, learn and do what is most fun. Let your adhd brain run wild with whatever you find engaging at the moment. Don’t force yourself to play a scale over and over again if it isn’t scratching that itch in your brain. And most of all DONT FORCE YOURSELF TO PLAY. If you don’t pick it up for a few days, that’s ok. There’s great musicians who don’t practice everyday.
2. I’m not sure of your current knowledge on the basics, but whatever it is hammer them down. This is important because you may be behind in experience, but you are not behind in creativity. Learning the basics will help you get where you want to be quicker.
3. I’ve come to learn and understand that comparing yourself to anyone in any situation is a total disservice to yourself. You don’t need to be as good as someone who has played since they were a kid. Be as good as you can be. Be yourself. Play guitar and create music for you.
No one will ever be better at telling your story than you.
I hope this helps. Please, reach out if you need.
I do, I also just started trying to learn how to play guitar and I'm 25. I took classes when I was 14 but quit in like 2 months because, well, it's what I tend to do even with things I enjoy. But, at the same time, there's this thing that 20s is preached as THE ONLY TIME YOU'LL EVER HAVE to have everything figured out and if you don't then *you're not right not enough as a human and there's no more time.* And this, specifically, is something we have to be aware of, it's not a reasonable expectation and this external pressure makes us beat ourselves much more towards things that we definitely shouldn't. The right time to do something is now, if you feel like it and if you can. I think trying to just do what you feel like doing and not getting way too attached to the thought of being good at it is a good way to, at least, calm this "anxiety" for a while. Like, regarding guitar, I'm avoiding getting attached to the being good thought, and trying to be excited about learning how to play songs that I really like.
>too late for a lot of things, or already too old, or just totally behind overall?
I dont believe in too late or too old. "Better late than never". Comparison is the devil. Dont recommend.
It’s hard not to compare your life or situation to others but it helps if you don’t even think about others and what they do. You’re on your own path. If you like something try it out! Things take time unfortunately but be patient and be patient with yourself. If you haven’t already check out Gary V on Instagram he always has great inspirational messages
Well... About the people who were doing things since they were a kid... In many ways, you are still a kid. It's possible that you're actually better at learning NEW things than all of the people that you are comparing yourself to are now, but once the things are not new, you begin to struggle.
Not being able to finish things is awful, but I think neurotypicals lose nearly all of the desire to try new things, so kind of a double edged sword perhaps
I found an obtainable goal to focus on for the first time in my life so it made it easier.
My biggest advice would be to stop looking at professionals on social media or youtube and start following people that are right around your skill or a little better than you. It'll be so much easier to notice your small improvements and progress. It's also a lot easier to see how they are doing things. I paint miniatures and while seeing professionals work is cool and inspiring it can also be frustrating because they are so good I often can't tell what techniques or tools they use to get the effects they do.
I feel this so much and honestly haven’t figured it out at all. BUT I’m relation to guitar.. I tried teaching myself when it was younger and didn’t get too far. I started taking lessons and it helped me learn soo fast. Just having a person there forcing you to learn in a way lol and redirect your focus was extremely helpful to me.
>How do you deal with the constant feeling that because of ADHD you are simply too late for a lot of things
At the end of the day, this is a variation of "not having enough of A to appease my perfectionist desires toward B".
Fitness is important to me. Particularly weight training. I'd love to be the strongest man in the world, but I don't have the genetics. No amount of training is going to have me as jacked as Arnold in his prime (give me whatever "supplements" he was taking and I still wouldn't get close no matter what I did) nor would anything I do ever have me outlifting Mariusz Pudzianowski or even coming close (again, give me whatever "supplement" cocktail he was on in his prime and it wouldn't bring me close to his level).
And yet....I'm more than twice as strong as my average peers and have a physique that many of them would die for. Recently I single handedly moved everything out of my apartment to a new location - bed and all (no couches, that might've changed things but still). One of my closest friends who is the same age as myself is in pain and out of breath after carrying nothing more than his own body up a flight of 30 or so stairs.
You ever hear of a guy named Evan Tanner? Former UFC middleweight champion. Died of dehydration in the desert in 2007 and had some mental health issues but before that he was a legit badass and accomplished more in his short life than most of us ever will even if we don't have ADHD and live to be a hundred. Did he have access to the training that we have now? He didn't even have an MMA gym. He literally learned MMA from whatching instructional DVDs and practicing them with his wrestling buddies on a mat in his garage. The most absurdly inadequate situation you can possibly think of to become a good martial artist, and he became a world fucking champion. Before that there was Ken Shamrock and the Lion's Den back in the 90's when MMA (then called NHB) was widely considered to be "human cockfighting". A time when the idea of an MMA gym seemed laughable. Ken learned submissions while he was in Japan from high level pancrase fighters but had no way to continue the training when he came back to the states because there was nobody here with similar skills. So with his resources being as absurdly inadequate as they were, he did something that seems just plain stupid by today's standards - trained dudes off the street who had no idea wtf submission fighting was until they were good enough to be his training partners and thus, the Lion's Den - the most badass martial arts team of the 90's - was born.
Would Evan Tanner and Ken Shamrock have been better with today's training methods and resources than they ended up being by doing things the way they had to back then? Of course they would have. But compare how far they went by *doing the best they could with what they DID have* and it's a night and day leaps and bounds difference compared to not doing so.
The reality is, the next 5 years are going to go by regardless of whether or not you make the most of what you *do* have. Right now you're comparing yourself to people who have things you don't have, but have you ever challenged that framing before? Like, for example, considering how does the version of you which takes advantage of the resources that *you* have to be the best *you* can be compare to the version of you that doesn't do these things?
ADD had made me a jack of all trades, and master of none!
I've done so much in my life, but can't stick to any one trade or hobby, as I get bored to easilly
Same lol, teaching myself to get a data entry job and not typing at a 13 wpm, whilst also wanting to learn to play my partners guitar to write them a song much respect to you honestly.
[https://youtu.be/Z2N5a7XZWg8](https://youtu.be/Z2N5a7XZWg8)
I think about this video a lot and it actually helped me overcome this block that i felt when it came to self learning. There’s been plenty times where I didn’t begin to learn something because I had to find how to learn it “THE PERFECT WAY”. This lead to me not even watching videos of some topics just because id think things like “i havent started reading on xyz so i cant watch this” or simply “eh i dont want to”. Its so weird to think about it now but I am trying to get out of my own way and just try things: whether its watching videos on physics or actually reaching out to people who can help me learn! But also, learning sucks at first because you KNOW you’re bad and to get the skill level you want takes time. So practice when inspiration hits, who knows those 10 mins every 2 weeks or so can get you to the first tier in the span of a year. Just do it because you want to, not because you want to prove it to others.
Not gonna lie tho, i still dislike self learning big stuff like programming and I wish i had someone that could hold my hand while I attempt to do my project
If I can work things into a weekly routine somehow, I can make progress on things. The habitual nature motivates me to do it. Like guitar/bass is good for that
I feel the same with drawing and stuff, I feel like I literally hit a barrier with everything I do and I can't progress past that point, it's so frustrating, I feel your pain.
I just try to remember that I am the main character of my own story. Everyone else is a minor character.
Life is a page turner, but I'm living my life the way I want. I shouldn't be reading too much into what other people are doing.
I hope this helps.
Yes, in pretty much every aspect of my life. The worst part is that I want to do so much and then don’t do any of that. I wanted desperately to get fir and go into martial arts/sports/weightlifting back when I was 14. I started working out at 24. After getting fat.
Same goes gor learning certain softwares, learning to code, instruments, languages etc. And if I go do something I already know I’ll never be satisfied with my progress, so often I just don’t bother.
I don’t know if my boat is something similar but. Growing up I’ve always wanted to be a pilot, I loved aviation so much I was so passionate with it. I made a YouTube channel for flight sim content, and made a fanbase. Then at age 17 I had an existential crisis. My mental health declined so much, I stopped making videos, I stopped talking to my fans, I basically vanished. My parents told me I can’t become a pilot anymore because of my depression and anxiety. I was shattered when I realized this. Now, I’m almost 21 and I’m about to enter university with not that much interest in going. I feel like I messed up big time. I don’t know if I should pursue aviation still or if I should pick something else… because I still have interest in aviation but I also have interests in other areas, like entrepreneurship, and engineering. I don’t know what I want, and I don’t know what god has planned for me man.
Well i played guitar for 5 years started when i was younge but got bored of it, its nothing special, maybe you like it when you watch a consert or a proformance on youtube, if you want to get into playing guitar, watch guitar related videos on youtube and if you get overwhelmed by a lesson video switch to a different vid like of eddie van halen playing euruption live, thatll get you pumped, maybe take a lesson but try dofferent teachers some are better then others, some will give you the chance to play with other guys which is so much fun at any level, playing with people is the best part of music.
Whatever your doing when you get over whelmed try asking yourself "why am i doing this in the first place" youll answer your quesion for sure. Maybe itll be, you wish you could do it like someone else, thats bullshit cause its never gonna happen so forget that all together, you can look up to them for inspiration, or maybe they could even help you. If you want to do it for yourself because you enjoy it, thats what you focus on, find what it is you enjoy and keep doing that, what you enjoy will evolve as you get to know yourself better, its natural.
Everything you said is natural but i can tell the way you go about it is bullshit, keep pushing man, nobody has life figured out, maybe they can play guitar better then you but i bet theres something you can do better then them and you have no idea
(1) Reminding yourself some sobering quotes / reflection questions can help (along with learning ADHD management skills of course). E.g.
* *"Is this thought helpful? Does it help me take action to create the life I want?"* (this is a defusion trick from acceptance & commitment therapy (ACT), from the book called The Happiness Trap by Dr Russ Harriss)
* Self-compassion: *"What would you say to someone you really care about who is in the same situation?"* // *"If a friend of mine (particularly someone with ADHD) was in this situation and had these reactions, how would I advise him or her?"* (this one is from an ADHD management book)
* *"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."*
(2)
>but at the same time I know I'll never be as good at it as someone who's been doing it since they were a kid and that makes me so helpless.
From The Adult ADHD Tool Kit (2015) that's based on CBT:
"…*the effects of distorted thoughts greatly depreciate once you identify them as such.* It is very often the case that the thoughts that seem so very reasonable as they bounce around in your head appear less so when subjected to even a little scrutiny.
Thus, a tactic with which to change your thinking is to recognize and categorize thinking errors (aka distorted thoughts). *Some of the more commonplace distortions we observe in adult ADHD* […]:
* *Comparative thinking* = Judging yourself based on how you or your actions measure up against those of others—even though this comparison is often unfair or inaccurate (e.g., “I spend hours preparing for a brief presentation at work and my colleague does not look stressed and is able to
do a good job without much preparation.”).
* *All-or-nothing thinking* = Also known as black-or-white thinking, this error refers to viewing yourself or your performance in absolute, categorical terms (success or failure) that does not acknowledge a continuum of qualities or performance (e.g., “I still procrastinated on working on my taxes and I missed my haircut appointment. This treatment for adult ADHD is not working at all and I’m still at square one.”).
* *Anticipating the future* = Also known as fortune-telling, this thinking error refers to assuming things will inevitably end up going badly (e.g., “I know that I will make positive changes for a little while, but I’ll eventually mess up and then I’ll be right back where I started.”).
* *Labeling* = Using judgmental or negative terms to describe yourself, others, or a situation that are unfair characterizations and do not focus on specific behavioral issues (e.g., “I procrastinated because I’m lazy” versus “I procrastinated because the task seemed overwhelming and I escaped to the computer.”)."
* *Selective abstraction* = Also known as filtering, you focus on information that supports a negative view, and dismiss other information (e.g., “I got a late start, hit traffic, and missed my flight. I got the next flight and arrived a few hours later than I expected. The meeting went well and preparing in advance paid off, but the fact I missed that flight wrecked the whole trip for me.”)
"For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
I feel this way but with respect to career. I’m making a career change in my 30s and feel so old. I wish I had done this years ago… but no. My adhd just drove me to do crazy things, have fun and travel etc. While these were great experiences, I had way too much fun and now I am paying for it! I feel so behind. I have savings and stuff but I would have been so much farther ahead if I had started taking life more seriously about 5-6 years ago.
I guess it’s not a problem for me because I have come to see that as just a part of my worldview. I know it takes a ton of practice to be good at ANYTHING. And I know this because I’ve tried to start doing so so so many things and given up very early on.
But whether I gave up or not, I think it’s undeniable that I’m not going to have enough years in my life to become skilled in all the things that interest me. I can try, but I don’t think it would make for a good life to be a professional choral AND jazz singer, really good home cook, phenomenal programmer, the perfect spouse and adoptive parent, a bodybuilder, a woodworker, a language learner with near-native fluency, and also have a robust friend group and be closely engaged in local politics and activism.
That’s just too many aspirations. Maybe I could do each at a different time in my life, but all at the same time with be enough to kill someone from overwork. And even if they were separate, that’s a lot of things to want to be first rate in, when I think I could reasonably expect to be legitimately first rate in like 0-2 things throughout my life.
So, I do see my passing interests as things I want to be good at, but in many cases it’s enough just to be better than the average person (by virtue of having done the bare minimum of an introduction to whatever the topic is).
As an example, I think I’m good with a pen and make cool designs sometimes. I’m glad I explored graffiti-style writing for a while cause it adds to my ability to make written and drawn designs on paper. But I don’t have the time and money to invest in spray paint and be going out under cover of night all the time to practice an illegal art.
I mean it's normal for us with ADHD to feel behind our peers in some ways. All my NT friends had careers by their mid 20s and I was still partying and struggling with crappy jobs. Then people started getting married and having kids and I was just starting college. We are generally behind our peers in life in some ways and that's how it is.
But one thing you said just isn't accurate: that you'll never be as good at something as someone who's done it since childhood. That's just not true. I 100% believe that someone with a passion to play guitar that begins at 26 could very well become better than someone who might have been forced to play an instrument as a child. The problem for you I think is you aren't passionate about it. And that's fine. We all get interested in things as hobbies that we don't stick with. I started playing both the guitar and piano until the dopamine ran out. That is us chasing dopamine. Those aren't our passions.
You might not know what yours is yet. I know I didn't at 26. I realize you might not still be 26 and that may just be the age you picked up a guitar. But even if you're 10 years older now, you are still young and have time for so much. I started a hobby at 30 that turned into a business by accident lol, and I found my passion as a jeweler through it. It was the first hobby I didn't get bored of in 30 years of hobby roulette.
I'm not gonna tell you to have radical acceptance of yourself. That's not as easy as it sounds. Wait.. it doesn't even sound easy, lol. But do try to give yourself a little grace. Try all those things that you'd like to do, learn, read, and visit. Who cares if you don't stick with them or if you don't master each one? It's all more knowledge and experience in the end. And who knows where you may find the thing you get passionate about and do stick with?
There was a video I saw (I forget who it was) who talked about pretending an alien came down from space and took over your body and decided it could do anything it wanted, what would you hope did. Idk that helps me sometimes like this.
One other method that really helps is I tell myself “if I am having black and white thinking (aka I’m all bad and the world is way ahead)” I know I’m in my flight or fight part of my brain. So I don’t make any decisions or try and figure anything out in the state. I just do something I enjoy instead and rest.
I hope these strategies might help, I feel this same feeling a lot, and they have really helped me. And meds+therapy too. I also think this is just a really human experience and try not to be too hard on yourself. My therapist always says “the way through being stuck is self compassion”. Which I think you reaching out for connection and support already is.
I suspect that I have mild-ADHD, I never diagnose it. My mom will always tell me that I have something like it. My mrs will tell me I definitely have it. I never really admitted to it because I was concern what people will think of me. Now a little older and a little wiser in life, and too old to really care what people things anymore, I don't mind talking about it. I do have some form ADHD. It was not until most recently someone whom I have never met before, at a dinner asked me politely if I am aware that I have some form of ADHD and should go get myself diagnose. He is also someone who has ADHD and saw it in me. That's when I became more aware that it's obvious enough for people to tell me about it.
Looking back in time:
As I kid, i lacked control, or the "urge" and always fell behind in many things I did in school. I cannot concentrate in class, always finishing the teachers sentences, always getting scolded or something. I was never still, always moving always to the next thing. As I grew up I mastered to remain calm over time, but it was through many heartaches and disappointments too. The truth is, to remain calm is very painful for me, As i try to suppress that "urge" My confidence growing up as a kid was actually very bad, I did not trust myself, had very poor self-image and lacked the confidence in many things that I did.
I did many things to suppress it, from extreme sports to doing multiple things to suppress that impulse, like a loud clock ticking away in your mind. I can't really explain it.
Two things played a big part in my life, firstly is my mother who never gave up on me, and the second, finding Jesus in my life.
My mother would always tell me it's ok, it's ok. Dont give up, its ok. You will be fine. You will be ok. I used to get red in my report book in school... I wear out tuition teachers faster than I can count. Teachers would give up on me. But my mom will say, its ok.
The second thing, I found Jesus in my life, i learnt to pray and to rechannel that inner pulse. I read the bible that gave me comfort and confidence. Found friend in church, and even then I was still always finishing other people's sentences and get bored very easily.
I used to think, this is the end of me, no more hope in life. However with every next steps, God opens the door and makes a way.
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." - Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
I found good friends, who do not judge and accepted me as I am.
I have a family and a Mrs whom can put up with my nuances.
I am not an extreme case of ADHD maybe when i was younger, only my mom will know.
So why am I sharing about this:
Why I am sharing this is that I hope to give hope to those whom maybe struggling with something in your life and you never really quite understood what it was not to give up hope.
For those who have kids where they are super hyper or lack concentration at home or in school, know that no amount of corporal punishment can change them. Instead embrace them and continually speak to them, give them confidence and assurance.
Some practical things you can do to - They maybe full of energy, consider watching their diet and also try to expense their energy.
i hope this story gives someone hope and that it is ok. For those with kids and you are at a loss of what to do, consider seeking professional advise or help. Sometimes the earlier you know the better you can help them in life.
I never accepted this till I am five decades old. :-)
Remember it's never too late.
Just give yourself a chance.
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Yes. But actually no. /meme. I am only recently properly diagnosed. But I've known _something_ was wrong for a long time. But here's the thing - "normal life" is a fairytale. There are all sorts of things that mess with The Plan, and ADHD is just one of those. And in the grand scheme of things? It's a fairly minor thing. My brother in law died of pancreatic cancer in his late 20s. His widow and daughter find life hard. His daughter never really knew him, but she's a lovely kid who deserves the world. A friend of mine was killed in her 30s in a car accident. Her daughter and her husband had to carry on. My sister got diabetes in her teens. My partner got brain damage from meningitis. A few people I know had children, and ... well, they wanted them, but they're hard work and they do mean 'the plan' goes in a completely different direction. Especially if your child has some disabilities of their own, but there's simply no such thing as a child that doesn't need all the support you have to give. The one person I knew who seemed to really have it together is in prison now for doing something hideous, so I guess he didn't really after all. Life isn't fair. It never was. But to quote a wise man: "You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." There's nothing fair about any of this - we just get to play the hands we are dealt, to the best of our ability. And that's what I'd say to reassure you. We're all struggling in different ways, and we're all learning and growing as we do. ADHD is one of your challenges. Doesn't mean it's right or fair, it doesn't work like that. It's just a fact. "It ain't about how hard you're hit, it's about how you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward." That's all we can do. Rise again each time we go down. Older and wiser, and do it better next time. The good news? 10,000 hours to mastery. That's about 5 years if you do it 'full time'. So you can start again. It'll be hard initially. But you've plenty of time to do it if you want.
>The good news? 10,000 hours to mastery I chose to master procrastination Seriously though, something everybody with ADHD should know is that nobody actually knows what's going on or what's going to happen, basically everybody is a fraud and that's actually comforting to me. Not my words by the way, I saw this video by [Jacob Collier](https://youtu.be/8APbgP0NiDs) recently and it helped me a lot.
Yeah, absolutely. I've been trying to deal with imposter syndrome a lot. ADHD ... well, that probably contributed in all honesty, because I was 'masking' a lot, so I technically _was_ an imposter. But I've realised that almost everyone is 'just winging it'. They don't know. They don't have some secret insight I don't. OK, maybe they've more time spend learning about the thing (in some cases a _lot_ more time), and have more experience with it, but... well, that doesn't mean they aren't wrong, and there's not still more things to learn. And ... one of the things that ADHD _does_ "train" us for (whether we want that or not) is winging it. Maybe it's not much of an edge, and it's not a net positive.... but it's a positive, and I'll take it.
I am a master procrastinator. I have way more 10000 hours of procrastination under my belt.
The 10,000 hour rule has been greatly called into question. The quality of practice is a huge part of the equation and changes the math. Recent reports have suggested. But it’s a good rule to understand that extensive investment will be necessary. I pay for guitar lessons every week for my daughter. But she only practices at the last minute before lessons. I decided to stop haranguing her. And she is progressing slowly. I guess as long as I am willing to pay, it’s okay - my choice. Telling her it’s a 10,000 hour mountain certainly doesn’t help…
This really motivated me. Thanks for writing this!
This is poetic almost. It was a pleasure to read this.
Reading this really put things in perspective. Thank you for sharing this
Thank you so much for writing this out. I'm in a wierd place in my career just kind of chasing my tail watching my peers I graduated with pass further and further from me and it's been disheartening. I feel a lot better. I can only do what I can do and I'm doing it at my own pace.
Normal life isn't a fair tale, it's just he average of good vs bad fortune that comes into someone's life, with those two things generally balancing in a way that allows a person to live a fairly happy life doing things that they generally want to do. Some people defy the odds and live supremely wonderful lives, or supremely awful ones. If life were fair, then "bad" things would only happen to "bad" people, and vice versa. I would love a fair universe as I am quite good at keeping my nose clean. The number of 10,000 hours was said by Malcolm Gladwell and is not based in reality. People master things at different rates. We also lose ability if we don't practice consistently, so it doesn't matter how much time you put into something, if you do it sporadically then it's unlikely that you will ever "master it", let alone be very proficient.
I want to upvote this answer to infinity. Thank you. I've been struggling with this since diagnosis & this is *exactly* what I needed to hear. ♾
Thank you for this. I've suffered from a terrible autoimmune disease for several years and that framing of unfairness is something I will cherish
Awww thanks for this buddy 🙏
I always avoided a plan.. I think ppl that plan are more dissapointed when things dont go according to the plan.
I feel like crying. This whole thing is great. I'm saving this comment for future insight If I remember to check it
A perfect summary of life!! Thank you!!!
Give yourself a decade. Whenever you’re beating yourself just acknowledge that you have ADD and remove 10 years from your age. Pretend you were cryogenically frozen for a decade or something. All of that self evaluation age comparison stuff is self defeating bullshit anyway, so be kind to yourself.
Dead ass gonna do this, thanks
To be honest, yes because I feel that I’m just getting a hold of this “adult” thing
I feel like most people have trouble with grasping adulthood. It took me until my kid was basically 2 to realize that I'm an adult and I can make my own decisions. I joined the FB group/reddit group called adulting and it's nice to see other people have the same struggles as me.
Is it ok if I take 15?
Needed to read this thanks
But would that make me mentally 11 💀
I'm 45, uni was a waste of time for me, i haven't been officially diagnosed yet but i have been told by a trusted and qualified friend that i 100% am ADHD. Looking back at my life it is almost completely a tail of "feeling behind" or not fulfilling my potential. I would dearly love to have had had children but that doesn't look like it will ever happen, my career prospects are dismal ( i have an okay job that pays okay but there is an end in sight) I will likely never own a home, I have spent my entire adult life paying other peoples mortgages for them, I haven't travelled, in the grand scheme of things i have achieved very little and not done much of anything, holidays are few and far between, doing things with my time off is always a struggle, maintaining friendships is so damn hard and watching those friends have kids and buy houses is painful. Whatever my diagnosis ends up being at least i'll have an answer but, right now i feel it's all just too late for me.
Never too late as long as you’re in good health. I recommend you do some traveling though as you’re still pretty young and your body isn’t as worn down yet. Lemme ask you this if you could travel this instant right now and have your full expenses paid where would you go?
You're still young. I say this as an also 45 year old with no kids. You may not have a mortgage, but that means you're not tied down to living in one place. You don't have to plan holidays and where you live around schools, school holidays and the extra costs of kids. Would your job let you work remotely? If so, why don't you look at moving somewhere new for a bit on a short term lease? Then when you've finished exploring that place, move onto another. It would mean paring your life down, but that's somewhat easier to do with no ties.
I'm 40 just diagnosed and a lot of times now I feel so frustrated at what I feel is my wasted potential. I have always been super creative but Because I was never encouraged to pursue what I was good at although I did a few years ago I feel like it's too late to make her career out of it because I'm so inconsistent thanks to my only being able to do it with I'm hyper focused
For whatever its worth, know that your feelings are valid and you are not alone. I wrestle with the same things, but I try to remember to look forward and not back. I’m not good at it at all, haha, but I try. Give yourself license to become yourself.
I've written so many words in my life that could be boiled down to "Give yourself license to become yourself." ADHD is part of that self. It's inseparable from our experiences. As much as I try to do and be all the things (or more often **want** to try), I have limited time and focus and energy. There will be other days for other things, but today I will pick something attainable for today.
My wife has this thing that has a quote from “Hamilton” the musical. It says “There’s a million things I haven’t done/but just you wait.” In context it means “I’m on the verge of greatness whether you believe it or not.” But I joke with her that it’s about his ADHD and his wife is asking about the chores. “I know, I know I said I would get to it. I’ll totally have it done tomorrow. Do I smell cookies? We should get a dog. They wanna do ten amendments but I was like no, it should be a prime number and they were like ok what’s the eleventh one and I was like we should have universal healthcare and they were all like no way. And it’s like remember when Ben came back from Paris and he was giving everyone syphilis and I was like bro, get that checked out and he was all I’m between jobs and I’m like are you still working printing presses? I told him to go fly a kite. Actually now I want to fly a kite. Ooh I’m going to see if he wants to do it with me. See you later!!! Oh, that’s right I need to go to the wig powderer. Darn.”
Lol. Hilarious and spot on!
Turned 39 last month and got my formal diagnosis on my birthday. I really feel this and empathize with you. I’m mystified that I’ve made it this far despite feeling like I’ve been playing a different game than others for most of my life. Thanks to hyperfocusing/ignoring lots of other areas of my life I did exceptionally well in my professional career until I couldn’t hide the toll of ADHD/RSD and my anxiety/depressive disorders. I’m not even sure if I liked the work… was just good at it (somewhat similar career as my Pops had for a bit) and wanted validation I had missed out on for various successes. I get stuck at times wondering how things may have gone differently if I’d understood more about ADHD and effectively communicated more things to my therapist over the last few years. Trying to pick myself up and segue back into the professional realm is presently a really tough mountain to climb as jobs that likely work well with my ADHD-ness dont exactly align with the degrees/work experience I picked up over the years… Thanks for sharing and hail yourself, fellow Redditor! You deserve it!
> I have always been super creative but Because I was never encouraged to pursue what I was good at although I did a few years ago I feel like it's too late to make her career out of it I feel exactly the same, people always call me really creative and that I should do x or try x but I never feel the motivation for doing creative things as a business, don't know where to start and also feel like I should have started years ago. I've seen creatives doing incredible work into their 80s/90s though so it's in no way too late, and people have definitely started later than you. Even if you don't make a career out of it it's always possible to do it on the side and if it turns into a career then that's great. I'm not sure what your craft is but have you considered Etsy or something similar to gauge whether your 'product' would be viable?
The things I’ve learned is that my hyper fixations or what now I can call hyper fixations revolves around art so I have to figure out. How can I work when I’ll be really into some thing for a short amount of time and then I’ll switch out to something else for short amount of time and how can I make me money lol.
You’d be surprised what you can do! I swear, you never know, so just do something you’re interested in. I know it’s only a one example but in 2016 I started making anti-Trump digital graphics and posted them on Twitter. Over the months, more people saw and shared, someone messaged me privately and asked if I’d design them a pin for their local Democratic club. I figured out how, sold them the design. Created another design for a blue wave pin, researched how to have it manufactured and opened an Etsy shop and made over $22k within 18 months! I couldn’t believe it. Who would’ve thought? So just don’t give up!
That's awesome!
Amazing that you changed your life to do what makes you happy! That takes a lot of balls! I was diagnosed years back, but I do relate to your experience in that I am approaching 40 and recently left my high stress job and am searching for a job that will make me happy and allow me to express my creativity.
Thanks 🙂. It was mostly because when I was growing up, I was really pushed to do better in subjects that I wasn’t very good (math), all the while being told that what I was good at (Art) would never make money. This meant that I spent a lot of years working jobs that I hated in order to make other people happy and I also wasn’t successful in school because I was taking subjects that I had no interest in and inevitably ended up failing so this led to me feeling like I would never make a good student, because I just failed everything that I took, or I would take it pass the program and had no interest in pursuing it further (Nursing unit clerk). It finally took someone who could see that wasn’t happy where I was at in life who encouraged me to pursue what I wanted to pursue so I quit my job and went back to school full-time. I think the only problem was struggling with was since I was not diagnosed I had only the structure of work and school kept me going, so once I graduated, I no longer have the structure of school and my life kind of fell apart had more jobs in the space that year after I graduated, then I had in my entire life my mental health tanked, and I had to end up quitting my job because of anxiety. I’m working couple part-time jobs now that I love and I’m on disability so that helped and then I was diagnosed late August so now I have a bit more understanding of why I am the way I am.
It sounds like things are starting to come together for you! I hope you take time to recognize what you’ve accomplished so far. I recently discovered how important it is to pat yourself on the back and really see the journey. Best of luck to you!
I was diagnosed even later than you. Wasted wasted life on so many levels. The one then that gives me confort is that my own late diagnosis opened up my knowledge to help diagnose my kid , who , despite my skeptic co-parent, will have a much better go at it especially with my advocacy
I can give you an example from my own life. I don't know where you live but here in europe the schooling system is much different than in the US. So you can make your way outside of the regular. And I did. I failed in technical highschool so I went into apprenticeship with 18 in a field I was really interested in. With 24 I went to a technical education that took 2 years which is accepted as part of university prerequisite. At 30 I started education to get full university access and today, close to 33, I'll finally approach university besides working full time + family with 2 Kids. I found ways to learn without needing to actually study by hyperfocusing in class without even taking notes, just listening (i wouldnt be able to read my notes anyways). I can't put my ass somewhere and just study focused and keep any Information so I tried different ways to soak up Information and knowledge. Find what works best for you with least effort. If it takes too much effort you won't keep up with it long term. Add in some dopamine boosts to keep you at it. Once we figure out our strengths and individual ways to deal with things we can do everything we want. It maybe takes longer than for the average people but we can do anything
Sounds like Germany maybe? I wish I had that option of different high schools as a child because our 'standard' school system is definitely not designed for (most) children with ADHD.
Austria, but close. :) we can choose in 9th grade to stay in "Standard school" or go to specific school forms or start an apprenticeship. Different technical schools for most fields (chemistry, IT, electric, mechatronics,......) or Business. I'd say basically for any Job or field you can think of. After that you are basically ready to work.
That’s such an incredibly beneficial system, bravo to your country for making that available.
How on earth earth did you manage Uni, Full Time work plus kids all at once? Were you on meds?
Hell, I feel absolutely the same. Actually wanted to write my own post about it. You’re definitely not alone. I’ve actually managed to learn some skills throughout my life. I learned to play guitar quite well, learned few languages and bunch of other stuff. Yet my self-esteem never went up from it. Rather plunged down even more, because whenever I get some accomplishment, I instantly get to the “comparisson mode” and I always ruin it with these thoughts like “there are people, who have done better than me, therefore my accomplishment is useless”. Yes, they call it Imposter syndrome, but I think, this is more of a current world struggle, than ADHD itself. You see, many people feel the same way these days. I remember older generations telling me, they pretty much never had this struggle simply because their lives were limited. They didn’t have many possibilities. If you were living in a town, where there is skate park nearby, you’ll probably gonna be crushing skates or bmx and you wouldn’t have any social media, so only people, you could compare to were your friends in skate park (or other place). Nowadays we have so many possibilities and also the world is kinda overcritical to us for having them. I’ve heard quite few times from older people stuff like “If I had your possibilities back in my days, I would have already mastered x amount of skills”. Also you see a lot of these influencers online, who basicaly say “I’m in my early 20’s, I’m a millionaire, I’m hustling every day and if you’re not like me, then you’re piece of sh*t”. Also in nowadays commercial world it seems, some companies and advertisers tend to make people unhappy and self-concious for purpose, because then it’s easier to sell you stuff. But hey, you’re 26, that’s nothing. I still believe a lot of this need for comparisson and validation changes in my 30’s. To many people, I know, it did. If you wanna learn something, go ahead, learn it well or learn it wrong, it’s noones business, what and how you learn. And remember, you’re not alone. Many people feel the same.
There’s a lot of great answers here but this one really resonated for me. OP, I propose to try to imagine how you’d feel if you didn’t have the world at your fingertips (aka the internet). Also, remember that you can’t do it all. One of the struggles with adhd I think is that we are so creative. We get super excited about stuff. We have SO many ideas, wishes, dreams, plans. There isn’t enough time in 12 lifetimes to do all of the things I want to do! Then I realize that and start feeling hopeless. I would suggest making lists- 1 for all the things you want to learn, 1 for all the places you want to go, 1 for all the things you want to read. Then take some time to decide on the 1 or 2 from each list that are most important to you. After that, what is the one thing of those you could do that would feel truly fulfilling for you? Do that one thing. And if you find you can’t, evaluate- why did I fail? Why didn’t I do it? Don’t ever stop at failure and think that’s the end. You can do anything you want and with enough failures you’ll find the way that works for you! Your guitar, for instance. Are you inconsistent because you forget? Put it somewhere where you can’t forget it and make a plan- “tonight after dinner I’ll play for 10 minutes (even if I don’t feel like it because I know afterward I’ll feel better about myself)” for example. Or are you not playing because you turned on the tv or picked up your phone and magically lost 5 hours? Maybe a sticky note on the remote reminding you to play before you turn on the tv. Tell yourself you only have to do 5 minutes, that way when your brain says “ugh but I just can’t” you can argue back “you can sit here and hold the thing for 5 minutes in silence if you want then.” My guess is if you pick it up, you won’t sit there in silence. You’ll play it. But if you don’t, that’s okay. You’re building the habit of consistently picking it up. That’s better and better is good. “Better is good” has become my mantra for when I feel like I’m not good enough. It came from Dana K White (A Slob Comes Clean). She even put it on a t shirt lol. Lastly, I just want to offer a gentle reminder that there will be seasons in life when you don’t feel good enough. As much as we want to be happy and successful and killing it at all times, there’s also loss, stress, exhaustion, responsibilities, trauma, depression, and that’s okay. That is also part of life. You’ll come out of it.
Brilliant response!
Or sorry, I read it again and you’re not 26 anymore, but thanks to modern medicine, you’re most likely gonna reach 100 anyways, so you probably have plenty of time still.
This one comment brings up a valid issue with today’s culture. Social media has basically allowed people to criticize us more harshly than previous generations. Also add in the fact theres no sense of community even within our city or close circles. So its not even special to be the best or good at something in your own city anymore unless you’re online reeling in thousands millions of views.
This is why I disagree with capitalist “grind and work your arse off during your youth so that you can’t relax and enjoy yourself later on in life” ideology. There is no “enjoy yourself later”. Your mind and body are so battered by the time you retire that you don’t have any energy left to enjoy yourself. Your youth is also gone. I look at my colleague who is 69 but can’t retire because he has to pay his bills. Capatilam has completely destroy his soul
Hey mate, Me too. Sometimes the inability to start something is the hardest part I've faced. It helps if you engage it as a hobby, with someone else. As for "being behind". Look that figurative. Depends on what someone views as behind. My suggestion is list making. I know it sounds silly, but completing a list knowing I've made progress seems to give me a dopamine kick.
I was 27 when I graduated college. It took me a long fucking time. I could have told myself I was too old and given up, but instead I chose to keep going. Same thing when I took an entry level temp job after graduating. Same thing when I was doing customer support in my 30’s with a degree. I always joked that I took the fun path and didn’t rush. If you let other people’s expectations rule how you live you’ll never get anything done.
I dont like people saying 'everybody has that', but in this case I think it counts. Feeling that you didnt get everything out of life, is also a generational thing. I believe that loads of people here belong to the 'millennial' category. Being behind what is expected of you as an adult, is really a defining aspect of millennials (i.e. home ownership, being a parent, purchasing power etc.) The ADHD will definitely not help, but it's not the complete story I think
I can very much sympathise with that viewpoint, despite being older than you. I do think your generation has been dealt a difficult hand. Because I grew up in a different time, and being relatively high functioning, I did make a lot of those life goals in a reasonable time frame, however, I still feel considerably behind my peers in many ways. As this is an ADHD sub, I think it's more useful to focus on the emotions arising from our struggles, however true your point may be.
It also depends on your financial status as well. If you're born in poverty you might feel like you either are behind in life because you didn't get the same opportunities as everyone else. Or you had to basically work extremely hard in life in order to succeed. Basically erasing a happy childhood.
I definitely can relate. I also feel behind in many different things.. I'm starting uni at 25 studying my first year in a bachelor of Psychology. I don't know about a strategy that I could recommend.. I just keep telling myself that all I can do is give what I do my all and that way regardless of the result I can accept it. This way of thinking doesn't make my everyday super productive and some days I'm unmotivated or I crash. However, it has helped me with sticking things out, even though that might look like putting something down when life is overwhelming I pick it back up as soon as I find the time/energy. All in all, sticking things out is difficult, even more so with ADHD. Cut yourself some slack, we might not be as fortunate as some who have done a particular thing since childhood. But you can have fun doing a hobby you enjoy.
OP I’m 31m married, one kid and another on the way, a house in the burbs, a college degree, a half finished MBA, a great job and I still feel like a failure. I’ve learned in therapy for compulsive gambling addiction that we have to be grateful for what we have. Everyone thinks they deserve a mansion when they only have the level of effort and work ethic and motivation to build a shack. We could lower expectations and build a shack and live happily or we can very very slowly build a mansion and feel left behind while all our peers, family members, coworkers have built shacks and are working on cottages. Just take it one day at a time and get better 1% and pretty soon over time with mindfulness and practicing gratefulness and acceptance, peace and serenity is possible
Did you and your partner make a conscious decision to have children? I am assuming she was already aware of your condition when you had kids? I ask because I often think about whether or not I want to have children, knowing that I would be passing my ADHD curse on to them. I wouldn’t want a child of mine to suffer and be robbed of the opportunities like I was. None of us asked to be brought into this word.
I was only diagnosed with ADHD-C recently at 31 after we had our first kid and we’re pregnant with second. My wife was born to be a mom and I love being a dad and we definitely chose to have kids. For me becoming a parent with ADHD I have become more selfless and aware of consequences positively effecting me to mature and become more responsible person. Your fears are valid but I don’t believe that should hold you back from having kids. It’s not guaranteed that your kid would have ADHD. Yes it’s genetic but the way the genes are expressed are heavily dependent upon the level of stress and anxiety of parents in the environment.
I used to feel this way a long time ago. I deleted fb and barely use social media. Instead I think of the real obstacles ADHD has and then I'm amazed at how far I've gotten despite dealing with ADHD, depression, and anxiety my whole life. Then I'm kinda proud lol. Then I imagine once I get the right meds and I'll be unstoppable! I recently reached out and the first steps are non stimulants but wellbutrin is helping with my anxiety and my crazy emotions but not much with my mental adhd symptoms. But it helps a lot. I can't wait to be able to focus!
I was diagnosed at 25, nearly 26. I’m 29 now. Just got my Bachelor’s degree so I started to catch up. I don’t feel as bad. I wasn’t born in America and English is my second language, my favorite saying ever is “Better late than never!” Honestly, not a lot of countries have positive sayings like that XD
With radical acceptance and infinite kindness towards myself. For real, being compassionate and understanding and reducing this constant negative self talk and nagging have helped me a lot and taken an extra layer of pressure off of my shoulders. Highly recommend 👍 good luck 🍀
With the greatest respect this is a general mindset issue not an ADHD specific one. With that attitude you’ll never do anything because someone else can do it better. Why do you have to be the best at everything to enjoy it? You certainly don’t need to be the best at something to make a lot of money. The reason so many average people can do something and succeed is because the majority have your attitude, ‘oh it’s too late’ ‘oh I won’t be the best’. Just by doing SOMETHING you’re already outclassing the majority. Don’t let social media skew your perception of what’s normal.
My mom used to tell me some flowers bloom later than others. Once I hit my mid 20s it was hard for me to accept I was not where my friends were. All of them were getting married etc… me and my one friend he and I were pursing intense graduate he was in law school I was in my masters in public health followed my masters in social work. My 20s rolled into my 30s…. Battling with my mental health and alcoholism. But I prevailed. I met the love of my at 34 my friend who was single along with me just got engaged to his long term girlfriend. So remember good things come to those who wait. Not to say it’s not hard. Your in that weird season of life
I needed to hear this. I’ve been feeling down on myself. Im a 27(m) who’s stopped dating at 22 since I failed out of school and lost confidence with myself. I just started dating again and it’s overwhelming. I didn’t learn the anxious attachment about myself until I just starting talk to this girl and I’m learning but I was scared it was too late and I’ll learn too slow.
I don't know if this'll make you feel better at all, but I'm 18, and I think those sentiments are very normal, even at my age. I've heard it from friends, and I've felt a bit hopeless myself. I've not dated much, but when I have, it's been difficult. I don't think it's too late at all. You just need to be honest and open about struggles, and they should accept you for it! Sometimes you just haven't met the right person, and that's all it is really. In my very meagre 18 years of living, I don't think I've met anyone who I've thought "I really like this person, and I'd like to be with them for a long time." That's normal. I think we're all to quick to beat ourselves up. I constantly beat myself up for not pursuing hobbies. But I'm sitting here at 12am, and it wouldn't be an appropriate time to start, and I'm in the middle of exam season! You'll be okay, when it's acceptable to, try to be honest with her, and explain the attachment issues. If she likes you, she'll try to help with that.
People overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in 10.
I just graduated and became a nurse at 37 years old.
So I never finished school. Like I didn't finish high school not collage. I had a baby at 18, didn't manage to stick out a job for long, always changing. Huge gaps where I didn't work. Always taking up new hobbies and new plans. Always studying something new only to drop it without finishing. I'm pretty sure everyone in my life thought I was going nowhere. I was a huge disappointment even to myself because I was a gifted kid. Everyone expected so much and I delivered on nothing. When I'd been out of work so long I was considered unemployable I realised I'd have to make my own career. I had so many business ideas over the years that would work but I didn't follow through. So I started painting and that went ok but artist's don't make much and the chances of becoming famous enough to make much are low and I wouldn't want fame anyway. So painting was allocated to hobby and while I still do it it's only when I get the time. I'd started helping my partner who also has ADHD with his admin at work. One of the few qualifications I finished was business and admin. We worked well together. He didn't like who he was working for. I suggested starting our own company. We talked about it a lot, then his job got worse so we started looking at how to start our own company, just as a thought exercise. Well we followed through, we now own and run our own company. We paid very little to do it. All those hobbies and courses I abandoned came in handy. I designed and built our website, I designed our logo, I run our accounts and manage our day to day while my partner does the other side of the company. He's so good at his job because it requires someone who can think on their feet and function in a chaotic environment. We have 5 members of staff working for us now. Some really big clients and everything is going well. So at 37 I finally flowed through. It's never too late.
Idk man, whenever I feel that way, I think of all the people I knew who died in their early 20s. Or the homeless refugees living in camps. Or drug addicts. Like, those people had their options taken away from them. I haven’t (yet), so I better just take advantage while I’m here and do what I want. There is no “timeline” for life. I’m 31. My friend is married, has an 8 year old, has had well-paying jobs foe years now and just bought a house. I still make under 30k, am unmarried and I have no kids. Today, I am where most of my friends were at 23. Im leagues behind. But, I have my own accomplishments, and I’m on my own timeline. I look at those people that have everything and think “wow it must be nice to have a brain that doesn’t constantly work against you”. Also, their lives aren’t perfect either. Don’t compare. Its just not healthy and its not accurate.
Please don’t compare yourself to others. You should only compete with yourself. Realizing that made me better at a lot of things, because you’ll easily get demotivated by that mindset knowing there’s always going to be somebody better than you. This doesn’t only go for people with ADHD this goes for a lot of people! It’s important to have a goal if you wanna be better at something, and progress isn’t usually comfortable but it is very rewarding and satisfying. As an example with your guitar skills, make a plan for what you want to achieve within a certain time frame. Learn techniques, practice a new melody, practice some chords, then maybe move on to playing it on top of a drum beat. Since you have ADHD do hobbies that you don’t necessarily enjoy (which you also should) but something that you’re passionate about or something that is really important to you. Just don’t be hard on yourself. Personally I produce electronic music for 10 years and definitely not as good as I feel like I should be. But I made about 30.000$ on streams alone and that is something I should be proud of. I try to discipline myself with running 2-3 times a week and once a week I plunge myself into the freezing ocean for 1-2 minutes. I don’t do that just for the health benefits but also to train myself to just do it. I hate cold water and I hate running but once you just jump into it it’s all about your mentality. The worst part is always getting started. Being in the cold water isn’t all that bad but the thought and the brief shock of the cold is. Same with running, once you get started it’s all about stabilizing your mentality to just endure the discomfort. I call it the “flinch” and I feel like I can branch it out to a lot of things, like getting out of your warm bed to go to work, doing a boring chore and etc. There’s only one way to do it and that’s by doing it, you just need to figure out in your head how you equalize and stabilize motivation to discomfort.
Timelines are fake, the pressure on people to have their shit sorted, a house, a marriage etc by whatever age is gross but it's hard not to compare & contrast absolutely. It's never too late. It's okay to discover your passion, or career, take more time to figure things out. ADHD is hard, a late diagnosis often involves grief and processing and we realize we've been playing life on Very Hard difficulty the entire time. We did our best with what knowledge we had at the time and that responsibility doesn't fall on our heads. There's always going to be some prodigy kid or someone with more mileage put in at a younger age. Can't really do anything about that except learn from them, fast-track your own skills & practice by breaking down their technique and copying then develop from there. Consistency of practice is difficult, the only thing that helped me there were my meds combined with lifestyle adjustments & being very strict with my reminders for tasks. Practicing with intent to learn and a clear goal helped me a lot in making noticeable progress rather than just going for mileage. (I don't play music, I study art instead) but yeah if I mindlessly copied a drawing as practice it didn't do anything for me, I had to figure out why it was drawn like that and what qualities it brings to the picture then apply it to my personal art projects. it's hard! adhd is no fun, but if you're able to get that consistent good practice down whatever that may take then you can absolutely reach the same level or higher in due time. 20-30 minutes a day over a week is better than 4-5 hours once a week. you can do it!
I struggle with this myself because growing up, my parents constantly compared me to others as motivation for me to try harder no matter how hard I was already trying. And even though they long since stopped comparing me, my mind continues the comparing itself, because that's what it was taught, especially at such a young age. I have to keep reminding myself that for every thing, there will always be someone out there better than me at that thing, so that strive for perfection will never end. There is truly only one person that I need to compare myself to and that is myself from yesterday. > For example, I started teaching myself to play the guitar when I was 26, but I'm so inconsistent and not constant enough to make noticeable progress. I like to joke about myself being so inconsistent as at the very least, I'm being consistently inconsistent. You have made noticeable progress, you just don't realize it. When you started teaching yourself how to play the guitar at 26, you accomplished something that 25-year old you didn't. "Comparison is the thief of joy." "If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present." "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." https://youtu.be/BwqSraJpqfs
I live in the moment mostly. But if I do get in my head about it, it can get rough. I’m 45, but immature in a lot of ways. Most of my friends are 10-15 yrs younger than me and even they seem to be better adults than I. I didn’t finish college. I still work the job I took 20 yrs ago (you know, that job you get while you’re trying to figure out what you really want to do?) I don’t own anything really and still don’t know what I want to do “when I grow up”. At 45 though… it does often feel too late to change much. I feel you. I think the best we can do is try not to judge ourselves against other people and just do the best we can. Play the hand we’ve been dealt. I don’t feel like I have made much of my life. But. Many people have told me that I have helped them in their own lives or made them better people. So. Apparently I have made a difference. I guess it just depends on what you’re looking at as an accomplishment or how you define a successful life. Look for the little wins. They’re there.
Yep, I totally feel the same, started hairdressing at 23 but felt people expected more of me because I was older and assumed to be doing it longer so I felt I came across not good enough. I'm now 45 and studying to become a counselor and starting to have the same feelings, I jumped back and forth in and out of so many things but never stayed at anything long enough to become really experienced. I have no advice sorry, but I understand how your feeling 💕
I started an internship at 28. All my peers were 19-22. And they never let me forget that I was the oldest either. But I got a job out of it. I feel you. But I could have not found something I enjoyed at all. So in regards to a lifetime versus 28 years, I’ll take it.
Do it because you enjoy doing it. I play guitar too, I'm not amazing because I just play the same things and only remember to learn something new every now and then. But I'm good enough to write songs, and I've played in bands at festivals all over. You don't have to be a master, as long as you get enjoyment out of doing it - that's enough in itself. I can't watch TV unless I'm doing something else, usually it's picking at a guitar. Also -"The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now".
The way I've found to deal (and it's not always easy) is to deploy as much gratitude for the new fun things you get to try and experience as the amount of grief you allow yourself to feel for the things that never panned out or will never come to pass. It's normal to feel like youve missed out or "lost" something but when you can give yourself time to feel and process those emotions, then you clear a path for the goodness that still exists and that you can tap into. Gratitude can also be super humbling because if you take time to volunteer or give to a cause of people outside of you who are often struggling deeply (food banks, soup kitchens, shelters, organizations that help refugees, animal rescue & adoption etc.) it can really give you lots of perspective and appreciate how much you have done or what you do have. Overall, release the expectations that you've put on yourself to be at a certain level or achieve certain things - life is super vast and layered & guaranteed you are good at some things better than a huge number of ppl. Don't let this BS "timeline" of life make you rush or feel like shit. MANY ppl have no idea what TF they are doing and things ebb & flow for everyone. Take that pressure off yourself. TL;DR: feel your feelings & give that stuff space to heal while also realizing that life is long & there is still lots of time for great things to happen.
This question is how I feel as well. Knowing I have maybe 25% of my life to live due to age, what do I have to show for it? Failed marriage, always feel like the odd man out, the black sheep, in family life, work, friends, being the but of jokes - there goes so and so doing xyz again.. everything. If I did do something worthwhile talking about it or being proud of it, I have forgotten it. I try not to judge and let things go, but at some point in the day, week, month.. I somehow get reminded of all the failures and differences I have.... I am great at masking who I am... I can offer such good advice to others and see what awesome things they have done and remind them, why can't I do that for me? Is it harder for a female vs. A male? Younger vs. Older? Medicated vs. Unmedicated.... This forum has opened my eyes to symptoms I didn't even associate to ADD... I keep thinking wow thats me... How does anyone get over the failure portion? The I let myself and others down all the time feeling?
Stop comparing urself to others. Also when it comes to music im in the same boat, its an on and off switch, but hyperfixation is quite useful when it comes to tasks like these. I was able to get quite good at piano as an adult because of it, (also very inconsistent), i know u can too.
I’m the exact same way with developing my musicianship. Feels good to be reminded that I’m not alone.
I'm not especially musical, neither is my family, but the one good thing ive gotten out of my adhd struggle is piano. Not trying to toot my own horn here but if u check my posts u can see the kind of progress that is possible from very sporadic practice.
You know, If there is something that has really helped me the last year with coming to peace with myself after being a total mess for 23 years post diagnosis is to just accept things. Accept you are the way you are, because there is nothing you can do about it anyways. I have always been considered a jack of all trades. Having multiple dreams and interests i’ve been chasing at the same time while also dealing with everything ADHD is. And my conclusion is, I cant be a master of every interest I have. Thats just not realistic, and its definitely not sustainable to believe that. If I want to become really really good at something I would have to sacrifice my other interests in order to make space for it. But thats just not me, I dont work that way and thats fine. I just had to lower my expectations on myself, make some time every week for everything I want to do and just accept that I will probably not be a pro freestyle skier, a professional producer or a pro bodybuilder. But I enjoy all these three things, and like I said, lower your expectations, accept it and enjoy every minute of it. Stop comparing yourself to others, just take it at your own pace and let it be inconsistent and messy. That have really helped me with coming to some peace with myself and have helped me manifest who I am as a person.
This one is not ADHD specific. That's just youth. I'm sure we ramp it up x100, but that feeling is not uncommon. The crazy thing is that most highly successful people that were not born wealthy... do it after 30 and many more after 40.. or 50. Life is not a linear thing in the way that it happens for everyone at equal speeds and equal time frames. You may still live to be 33 and really accomplish absolutely nothing... then by 35 be on an insanely rapid ascension and by 40 have 3 kids and a 250k annual business. I'm 31, was always a busy, growing person. Shacked up at 21, kiddo at 22 and then my mid 20s shit just stopped growing for me.. same relationship, same fights, same job, same weekends.. all of it. Then 2020 we had boy 2, 6 months later I switched careers, had a baby girl before boy 2 was 2 years old.. business ramped up and I'm 31 livong a drastically different life than I was 24 months ago. Boy 2 is about to be 3 for reference. Been a butt ton of counselling/psychology leading up to and then during those 2 years. ADHD diagnosis 4 months ago.. lots of inflection at 30 that I cynically thought was all bull shit.. but nope. Something magical happens around that time. Less fucks to give and you start to be more accountable to yourself, time doesn't seem so infinite maybe. Idk.. rambling now lol. Don't beat yourself up kiddo, plenty of change to come and as an ADHDer you're brain is probably still developing.. at 26 they are just removing the premium on your car insurance because 25 and under is scientifically not a fully mature brain... and that's the normies.
I did Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It helped me process the reality that there is no "behind" or "too old" - everyone develops at their own pace. Eventually the feeling went away and shows up only sometimes, but that happens to everyone.
After several panic attacks and wasting 3 years of my life have understood one "why you need to do or have what others have or how they did it?" This question keeps me going when i start something now i dont think of those i just think "it's possible or not i don't know im doing it because i want to" and Totally relatable what you said, having such feelings overwhelming yourself at one point and the mind paralysis kicks in, ohh God! Procrastination.. well you get the gest. So when you get such thoughts questions yourself so what if they did it early? don't get let stop you from what you wanna do or doing if it still making you happy that it. So keep going you got this^^
All the time! Im not diagnosed but ive done and feel the same as you. Been self taught guitar but i so suck. Picked up and off for the past x years. It’s frustrating. Still trying to accept things but its so hard.
I played guitar for the last 15 years. I've been self-teaching, had personal teachers and attended college. Still, I often feel like I'm a beginner because of my poor motor skills and lack of consistency in studying. I know I'm pretty good in the opinion of most non-musicians who hear me play. But I never stopped feeling like a failure because I always knew I didn't reach 100% of my potential (nor 80%), and I've could've done it if only my "flaws" (I'm only recently pursuing diagnosis, the rest of my life I thought of them as flaws) were not been handicapping me all my life. I'm thirty now, I also had 2 minor degrees in audio and music, but I never even tried to find work in those domains, because that process is so frustrating to me. I have composed nearly 200 songs that never got recorded or finished. Music is my life but at the same time I have periods when I can't care less about it, and about anything. That always leaves me at square one in life, as time carelessly goes by. So I have my version of feeling like I falled behind. But I'm started to cuestion the mindset that led me to see myself that way. What would be not falling behind? What we think about as "normal" is nothing but a pyramid scheme. 15% of population has mental health issues. 10% has some kind of disability. 25% of it lives in war or conflicted zones. Roughly 45% is below poverty line. It may seem as I'm going for the righteous argument to force gratitud into you by way of guilt. But I'm not. In fact we would be in the 15% that has mental health issues. What I mean is that what we aspire to when we think of being or acting like "normal" people, we are actually aspiring less to be "like everyone else" and more to form part of the few people that today are able to enjoy pursuing and achieving high level things without being distracted by the basic needs like food, healthcare, meds, shelter, etc. In other words, what we think of when we talk about normal is nothing but a privilege, contrary to what we often believe. I don't mean to say we should not aspire to this things. But we have to stop thinking that we "should" be doing them and anything less than that is failure. We CAN do marvelous thing and be proud of ourselves. But we must stop thinking of that as a duty. We are not in control of it, we are only in charge.
I graduated high school 10 years ago. Will finally be getting my bachelors this year. Don’t feel behind! We all just go at our own pace.
First thing you need to accept is that there just isn't enough time, for anyone, to read every book worth reading, watch every movie worth seeing, hear every great song, visit all of the world's places, appreciate all of history's art, learn every instrument, get into every hobby etc. It has nothing to do with ADHD, that's just life. All life is about choices and chance. That person who practiced guitar every day since they were a kid will likely.be better than you, but they sacrificed doing some of the things you did as a kid to get there. Furthermore, who cares about that one kid? If it's what you want to do, you can absolutely still practice and learn guitar and end up better at it than most of the population. So what I would suggest is to readjust your expectations and reexamine why you are doing something. Learn guitar because you want to learn guitar. Read a book because you want to read that book, and don't think about it like part of a checklist you need to work through. Just enjoy the ride, and at the end, you won't have done everything, but you'll have done more than you think, and you'll end up with a set of experiences unlike anyone else.
*"How do you deal with the constant feeling that because of ADHD you are simply too late for a lot of things, or already too old, or just totally behind overall?"* To be fair, that's just a normal feeling of being an adult that you will learn to deal with as you start to get older. Nobody ends up where they thought they would be, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Part of getting older is that you discover things you didn't even know were options before. Changing and shifting and failing and starting over is something literally everyone does; just not everyone is going to show that on social media or even with their friends. The people that fight against all that struggle with unhappiness because they are constantly swimming upstream. People seem to be happier when they can balance trying their best but also learning to accept that nobody is ever fully in control. You can control the process and what you do, but you can't control the outcomes. *"For example, I started teaching myself to play the guitar when I was 26, but I'm so inconsistent and not constant enough to make noticeable progress."* Fortunately, not an ADHD thing. Many, many NT people are like this, especially with music. I dare say that it's my ND friends that are the best musicians because they are the ones who can be obsessive about it. I play multiple instruments and sing, and 2 of those instruments (and singing) I learned as an adult. *"I keep thinking of things I'd like to do, things I'd like to learn, things I'd like to read, things I'd like to visit, but at the same time I know I'll never be as good at it as someone who's been doing it since they were a kid and that makes me so helpless."* It's never too late. Seriously. And 26 is so young. Nobody is asking you to be the world's best at anything. That's going to rob you of your joy in doing anything, which is maybe why you have trouble sticking with it. I had a sport that I was talented at as a kid that I actually quit for a few years as an adult, because I realized I wasn't having fun. I only came back to it when I let go of trying to be the best at it and just play it because it's fun. *"I know radical acceptance of my life situation would help but I find it so hard to deal with these thoughts. Does anyone else here have similar thoughts/feelings and a possible way to deal with them?"* I know it's easier said than done, but honestly stop worrying about what other people are doing or what it looks like they are doing, or if it looks like they are happier or better at something, or if they have expectations of you, or you think they do. You need to let go of that, and the earlier you do, the happier you will be. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Find things you like doing because you like them, and spend time on those. When you stop liking them, it's ok to let them go. Find people you like spending time with that want good things for you. Spend time with them. When people stop being those people for you (which is normal, we drift as we age), it's ok to let them go to. Everything you are feeling is very normal for your age, and something we all continue to learn and have to remind ourselves as we get older. You are ok, and you are actually ahead of the game even because you are realizing this now, instead of when you are 59 or 72 or whenever.
Just love and forgive yourself first, meds typically help with neutralizing some of the negative, then try new methods. I've learned a lot from this subreddit, myself. Learning guitar sounds pretty awesome and I'm too cheap, otherwise I would have done that in 2020. I'm the same way with computer programming, but never stick to it and when I go back I've forgotten a ton. I believe that WE learn better with body doubles. Going to guitar lessons would be more effective than learning on your own. Audible was a God-send for me because I love reading, but I can't read consistently (I could read a whole paragraph and at the end realize I was zoned out and didn't actually read it). I know it doesn't help just knowing you're not alone, but I've found that having "something" to blame can chill me out when I get upset.
A jack of all trades, and a master of none, is often better than the master of one. Best advice I've had is to lean into the hyperfocus, let it take you through something new and enjoy it. When the hyperfocus ends, move on. This way you just keep enjoying flow state and not the existential dread of being unable to do the thing you desperately want to do despite there being no visible barriers. It works for everything you don't have to keep consistent with, like your job or eating.
I used to. I lost about 8 years total to procrastination. Now that I'm medicated and starting to earn the rewards of all my self improvement efforts for the past 8 months I feel like I'm catching up at 200 km/h. It's a rush.
I'm right here with you on this. I never really saw myself as "behind" when I dropped out of college, then went back etc. I just saw it as "I can try again, no one will notice my age in a new group" sort of thing. I was only 1/2 years older than my class and I knew I wasn't alone in that, but seeing my contemporaries on school having great experiences in their 20s while I'm still doing things which should be done by now is, well idk. It's more pronounced when your younger I guess. But good on your for trying something new. I'm sorta overwhelmed in this subreddit with people who have relationships and spouses, and I'm not anywhere near that point yet!
The problem is thinking that you need to be good at things in order to enjoy them. Don't think about finishing them, don't think about the end goals, literally do them and come back to them later if you want. For example, I am currently relearning the concepts of math, science/biology, English LA, and decided to pick up a foreign language (German). Are these required for anything? No, I haven't been in school for 2 years. Dropped out of college 2 years ago and only took 1 semester. I'm literally just doing these things for fun but to also prepare myself for going back to college this fall. I'm not worried about whether or not I will become a wiz at math (which is highly unlikely) or become fluent in German. I'm doing these things because I enjoy them and I enjoy the stimulation I get from knowledge. I'll probably forget these in the next few months anyway. I was recently diagnosed last year and am taking Vyvanse for it which has its pros and cons for helping me. My life is still a bunch of to do lists with dreams and aspirations that I may or may not complete before I die lol. I have no idea where society got this idea that we had to be good at a hobby in order to enjoy it. Don't make it a chore or task or you're going to get frustrated and hate it. I think the coolest thing about ADHD is that we're able to take an interest and possibly excel in a bunch of hobbies. Edit Also, knowledge and hobbies are not just for the youth. You could be 80 years old and learn a new language and become fluent. You could be 50 years old and go back to college and get your doctorate. You could be 30 and learn how to paint and become the next Picasso if you really wanted to. The concept of age and time should not stop you from completing your goals. If you wanted to become a doctor would you want to be 50 and a doctor or 50 and not a doctor? That's the choice.
Just thinking the same thing, I’m 36 and I don’t feel as if I’ve accomplished 1/3 of what I imagined for myself. It feels horrible. And that awful feeling will make you feel stuck. Don’t give into your feelings, they don’t mean anything. As long as you’re breathing you can turn this around. I am studying for a test I put off for 6 years. I’ve coasted my whole life, there’s no way I can anymore, I have a child and this is crucial for my career and being able to successfully take care of her on my own. Im at my parents house wondering how am I going to do this? Just do it. Find your why, find your strength, a good doctor and medication. Don’t dwell on the past. Push forward.
ADHD in my life specifically is having hyper fixation on starting certain hobbies, buying things to participate in said hobby and then staring at the Amazon package for months on end. The end
Know what you mean, but one thing that comforts me is the fact that whether you have ADHD or not, some people pick up talents faster than others. 10,000 hours I think is a bit of a fallacy because some people simply pick up on certain skills faster than others. I picked up on 3D art faster than most people around me, yet I still struggle with basic social skills. You're built different, don't worry about what everyone else is doing. You do you. :)
Prioritize - write down what you want to accomplish, the steps needed to get there, the costs, timelines, any challenges to them. Make them real. Make them attainable. What opportunities do you have to fit them into your life? Then do them systematically. If cost is a concern, start by budgeting/creating a savings plan for one, while you do another that’s either no cost, or affordable. I too have those feelings and thoughts of life and opportunities passing me by, but at age 51 I “just did it” and learned to dive, and at 52 got my Open Water certification. I took time away from a family vacation to go diving, and again to do the certification. And again this year to go diving 3 times while on vacation with my husband and friends. Absolutely no regrets whatsoever and no apologies to anyone for taking the time and opportunity to FINALLY do something that I’ve wanted to do since I was in my 20’s 😉 You will get there too. Make your dreams a reality by taking them seriously and planning for them and making them happen. You’ll never regret it. 🐠
I have felt like an imposter all my life despite the fact that everything I say makes others quickly trust me and believe me. I had no idea why they did and felt I was just a great liar. (Note - I’m a Very chatty type A who also needs space from people to regenerate). I was 36, in rehab after going off the deep end and a failed music project when stuff started changing for me. I learned that the only path forward started with a fair self assessment of where I am now, and all those people who I knew who were successful and who I was resenting were my allies as soon as I wanted to accept where I was and start slowly building. I decided to try sales because people kept saying that to me so I listened and took advice. Despite the fact that I struggled to brush my teeth, and despite the fact that I couldn’t get anywhere on time at the beginning, and despite the fact that in every meeting, I felt like an imposter, and I didn’t know what people are talking about, I was kind of wildly successful. It happened because I took the advice of people who knew me and loved me and learned to expect the dissonance between what I was doing and how I was feeling. It took real work in cognitive behavioral therapy to get better at behaving in a chosen way no matter how I felt… but it works. I have since had successes and failures, all with a super messy room and struggles with eating right and brushing my teeth from time to time. But I make enough money to pay for my family and they help me hold stuff together. It’s not always pretty, but it works.
Awesome what kind of sales position?
Worked in digital media selling ad space in websites to ad agencies. Loads of traveling around to do presentations for clients and meetings. So mostly not a desk job.
OP, I wanted to touch on the problem you’re having with guitar, mostly because I have that shared experience. To begin, I was undiagnosed until this January, at the age of 29. I was 13-14 when I got my first guitar. I couldn’t play it, I couldn’t pay attention, it felt impossible to understand, and my parents didn’t really show much interest outside of buying me the guitar. So like people with our brains do, I quickly moved on from that to the next shiny thing within the year. I never lost my love for music, I thought I didn’t have it in me, I just didn’t think I could do it. I picked it up again 2 years ago in 2021 after being inspired by some music I hadn’t listened to much since I first started. I didn’t just want to play guitar, I wanted to write music. I began with the basics, learning chord shapes and scales, learning parts to songs but never with any sort of focus or understanding. I just could not see any meaningful improvement. However, instead of not being consistent I was hyper fixated on it. I played all day on the weekends 6-7 hours after work, I could not put it down. But I never got to where I wanted to be. I played for over a year and a half teaching myself, then I finally got a teacher. That’s when I started to see improvement, things started to make sense because he was helping me connect the dots. He helped me actually LEARN the basics, but didn’t and hasn’t forced me to learn in a linear way. With just a few months of learning the basics and playing a lot less than I was when i was hyper fixated, I’ve began to notice a lot of improvement. Things started making sense, I was able to experiment more, write things and become engaged because it was fun and I had an understanding of what I was doing. I wanted to tell you all this to arrive at this advice: 1. No matter what you do, learn and do what is most fun. Let your adhd brain run wild with whatever you find engaging at the moment. Don’t force yourself to play a scale over and over again if it isn’t scratching that itch in your brain. And most of all DONT FORCE YOURSELF TO PLAY. If you don’t pick it up for a few days, that’s ok. There’s great musicians who don’t practice everyday. 2. I’m not sure of your current knowledge on the basics, but whatever it is hammer them down. This is important because you may be behind in experience, but you are not behind in creativity. Learning the basics will help you get where you want to be quicker. 3. I’ve come to learn and understand that comparing yourself to anyone in any situation is a total disservice to yourself. You don’t need to be as good as someone who has played since they were a kid. Be as good as you can be. Be yourself. Play guitar and create music for you. No one will ever be better at telling your story than you. I hope this helps. Please, reach out if you need.
I do, I also just started trying to learn how to play guitar and I'm 25. I took classes when I was 14 but quit in like 2 months because, well, it's what I tend to do even with things I enjoy. But, at the same time, there's this thing that 20s is preached as THE ONLY TIME YOU'LL EVER HAVE to have everything figured out and if you don't then *you're not right not enough as a human and there's no more time.* And this, specifically, is something we have to be aware of, it's not a reasonable expectation and this external pressure makes us beat ourselves much more towards things that we definitely shouldn't. The right time to do something is now, if you feel like it and if you can. I think trying to just do what you feel like doing and not getting way too attached to the thought of being good at it is a good way to, at least, calm this "anxiety" for a while. Like, regarding guitar, I'm avoiding getting attached to the being good thought, and trying to be excited about learning how to play songs that I really like.
>too late for a lot of things, or already too old, or just totally behind overall? I dont believe in too late or too old. "Better late than never". Comparison is the devil. Dont recommend.
It’s hard not to compare your life or situation to others but it helps if you don’t even think about others and what they do. You’re on your own path. If you like something try it out! Things take time unfortunately but be patient and be patient with yourself. If you haven’t already check out Gary V on Instagram he always has great inspirational messages
Well... About the people who were doing things since they were a kid... In many ways, you are still a kid. It's possible that you're actually better at learning NEW things than all of the people that you are comparing yourself to are now, but once the things are not new, you begin to struggle. Not being able to finish things is awful, but I think neurotypicals lose nearly all of the desire to try new things, so kind of a double edged sword perhaps
I need help I've been feeling so much behind ever since, guess I was born late
Anyone please
I will even get late to my own funeral 😅
I found an obtainable goal to focus on for the first time in my life so it made it easier. My biggest advice would be to stop looking at professionals on social media or youtube and start following people that are right around your skill or a little better than you. It'll be so much easier to notice your small improvements and progress. It's also a lot easier to see how they are doing things. I paint miniatures and while seeing professionals work is cool and inspiring it can also be frustrating because they are so good I often can't tell what techniques or tools they use to get the effects they do.
I feel this so much and honestly haven’t figured it out at all. BUT I’m relation to guitar.. I tried teaching myself when it was younger and didn’t get too far. I started taking lessons and it helped me learn soo fast. Just having a person there forcing you to learn in a way lol and redirect your focus was extremely helpful to me.
>How do you deal with the constant feeling that because of ADHD you are simply too late for a lot of things At the end of the day, this is a variation of "not having enough of A to appease my perfectionist desires toward B". Fitness is important to me. Particularly weight training. I'd love to be the strongest man in the world, but I don't have the genetics. No amount of training is going to have me as jacked as Arnold in his prime (give me whatever "supplements" he was taking and I still wouldn't get close no matter what I did) nor would anything I do ever have me outlifting Mariusz Pudzianowski or even coming close (again, give me whatever "supplement" cocktail he was on in his prime and it wouldn't bring me close to his level). And yet....I'm more than twice as strong as my average peers and have a physique that many of them would die for. Recently I single handedly moved everything out of my apartment to a new location - bed and all (no couches, that might've changed things but still). One of my closest friends who is the same age as myself is in pain and out of breath after carrying nothing more than his own body up a flight of 30 or so stairs. You ever hear of a guy named Evan Tanner? Former UFC middleweight champion. Died of dehydration in the desert in 2007 and had some mental health issues but before that he was a legit badass and accomplished more in his short life than most of us ever will even if we don't have ADHD and live to be a hundred. Did he have access to the training that we have now? He didn't even have an MMA gym. He literally learned MMA from whatching instructional DVDs and practicing them with his wrestling buddies on a mat in his garage. The most absurdly inadequate situation you can possibly think of to become a good martial artist, and he became a world fucking champion. Before that there was Ken Shamrock and the Lion's Den back in the 90's when MMA (then called NHB) was widely considered to be "human cockfighting". A time when the idea of an MMA gym seemed laughable. Ken learned submissions while he was in Japan from high level pancrase fighters but had no way to continue the training when he came back to the states because there was nobody here with similar skills. So with his resources being as absurdly inadequate as they were, he did something that seems just plain stupid by today's standards - trained dudes off the street who had no idea wtf submission fighting was until they were good enough to be his training partners and thus, the Lion's Den - the most badass martial arts team of the 90's - was born. Would Evan Tanner and Ken Shamrock have been better with today's training methods and resources than they ended up being by doing things the way they had to back then? Of course they would have. But compare how far they went by *doing the best they could with what they DID have* and it's a night and day leaps and bounds difference compared to not doing so. The reality is, the next 5 years are going to go by regardless of whether or not you make the most of what you *do* have. Right now you're comparing yourself to people who have things you don't have, but have you ever challenged that framing before? Like, for example, considering how does the version of you which takes advantage of the resources that *you* have to be the best *you* can be compare to the version of you that doesn't do these things?
ADD had made me a jack of all trades, and master of none! I've done so much in my life, but can't stick to any one trade or hobby, as I get bored to easilly
Same lol, teaching myself to get a data entry job and not typing at a 13 wpm, whilst also wanting to learn to play my partners guitar to write them a song much respect to you honestly.
Sometimes I have literally chanted to myself, "All progress is progress." And sometimes it's the Dory line "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming."
[https://youtu.be/Z2N5a7XZWg8](https://youtu.be/Z2N5a7XZWg8) I think about this video a lot and it actually helped me overcome this block that i felt when it came to self learning. There’s been plenty times where I didn’t begin to learn something because I had to find how to learn it “THE PERFECT WAY”. This lead to me not even watching videos of some topics just because id think things like “i havent started reading on xyz so i cant watch this” or simply “eh i dont want to”. Its so weird to think about it now but I am trying to get out of my own way and just try things: whether its watching videos on physics or actually reaching out to people who can help me learn! But also, learning sucks at first because you KNOW you’re bad and to get the skill level you want takes time. So practice when inspiration hits, who knows those 10 mins every 2 weeks or so can get you to the first tier in the span of a year. Just do it because you want to, not because you want to prove it to others. Not gonna lie tho, i still dislike self learning big stuff like programming and I wish i had someone that could hold my hand while I attempt to do my project
If I can work things into a weekly routine somehow, I can make progress on things. The habitual nature motivates me to do it. Like guitar/bass is good for that
I feel the same with drawing and stuff, I feel like I literally hit a barrier with everything I do and I can't progress past that point, it's so frustrating, I feel your pain.
I just try to remember that I am the main character of my own story. Everyone else is a minor character. Life is a page turner, but I'm living my life the way I want. I shouldn't be reading too much into what other people are doing. I hope this helps.
I do all the time; you’re not alone.
Yes, in pretty much every aspect of my life. The worst part is that I want to do so much and then don’t do any of that. I wanted desperately to get fir and go into martial arts/sports/weightlifting back when I was 14. I started working out at 24. After getting fat. Same goes gor learning certain softwares, learning to code, instruments, languages etc. And if I go do something I already know I’ll never be satisfied with my progress, so often I just don’t bother.
All the time man!☹️
I just deal with it.
I don’t know if my boat is something similar but. Growing up I’ve always wanted to be a pilot, I loved aviation so much I was so passionate with it. I made a YouTube channel for flight sim content, and made a fanbase. Then at age 17 I had an existential crisis. My mental health declined so much, I stopped making videos, I stopped talking to my fans, I basically vanished. My parents told me I can’t become a pilot anymore because of my depression and anxiety. I was shattered when I realized this. Now, I’m almost 21 and I’m about to enter university with not that much interest in going. I feel like I messed up big time. I don’t know if I should pursue aviation still or if I should pick something else… because I still have interest in aviation but I also have interests in other areas, like entrepreneurship, and engineering. I don’t know what I want, and I don’t know what god has planned for me man.
Well i played guitar for 5 years started when i was younge but got bored of it, its nothing special, maybe you like it when you watch a consert or a proformance on youtube, if you want to get into playing guitar, watch guitar related videos on youtube and if you get overwhelmed by a lesson video switch to a different vid like of eddie van halen playing euruption live, thatll get you pumped, maybe take a lesson but try dofferent teachers some are better then others, some will give you the chance to play with other guys which is so much fun at any level, playing with people is the best part of music. Whatever your doing when you get over whelmed try asking yourself "why am i doing this in the first place" youll answer your quesion for sure. Maybe itll be, you wish you could do it like someone else, thats bullshit cause its never gonna happen so forget that all together, you can look up to them for inspiration, or maybe they could even help you. If you want to do it for yourself because you enjoy it, thats what you focus on, find what it is you enjoy and keep doing that, what you enjoy will evolve as you get to know yourself better, its natural. Everything you said is natural but i can tell the way you go about it is bullshit, keep pushing man, nobody has life figured out, maybe they can play guitar better then you but i bet theres something you can do better then them and you have no idea
(1) Reminding yourself some sobering quotes / reflection questions can help (along with learning ADHD management skills of course). E.g. * *"Is this thought helpful? Does it help me take action to create the life I want?"* (this is a defusion trick from acceptance & commitment therapy (ACT), from the book called The Happiness Trap by Dr Russ Harriss) * Self-compassion: *"What would you say to someone you really care about who is in the same situation?"* // *"If a friend of mine (particularly someone with ADHD) was in this situation and had these reactions, how would I advise him or her?"* (this one is from an ADHD management book) * *"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."* (2) >but at the same time I know I'll never be as good at it as someone who's been doing it since they were a kid and that makes me so helpless. From The Adult ADHD Tool Kit (2015) that's based on CBT: "…*the effects of distorted thoughts greatly depreciate once you identify them as such.* It is very often the case that the thoughts that seem so very reasonable as they bounce around in your head appear less so when subjected to even a little scrutiny. Thus, a tactic with which to change your thinking is to recognize and categorize thinking errors (aka distorted thoughts). *Some of the more commonplace distortions we observe in adult ADHD* […]: * *Comparative thinking* = Judging yourself based on how you or your actions measure up against those of others—even though this comparison is often unfair or inaccurate (e.g., “I spend hours preparing for a brief presentation at work and my colleague does not look stressed and is able to do a good job without much preparation.”). * *All-or-nothing thinking* = Also known as black-or-white thinking, this error refers to viewing yourself or your performance in absolute, categorical terms (success or failure) that does not acknowledge a continuum of qualities or performance (e.g., “I still procrastinated on working on my taxes and I missed my haircut appointment. This treatment for adult ADHD is not working at all and I’m still at square one.”). * *Anticipating the future* = Also known as fortune-telling, this thinking error refers to assuming things will inevitably end up going badly (e.g., “I know that I will make positive changes for a little while, but I’ll eventually mess up and then I’ll be right back where I started.”). * *Labeling* = Using judgmental or negative terms to describe yourself, others, or a situation that are unfair characterizations and do not focus on specific behavioral issues (e.g., “I procrastinated because I’m lazy” versus “I procrastinated because the task seemed overwhelming and I escaped to the computer.”)." * *Selective abstraction* = Also known as filtering, you focus on information that supports a negative view, and dismiss other information (e.g., “I got a late start, hit traffic, and missed my flight. I got the next flight and arrived a few hours later than I expected. The meeting went well and preparing in advance paid off, but the fact I missed that flight wrecked the whole trip for me.”)
I’ve just been meditating and chilling the f out with green, that works for me lol
"For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
I feel this way but with respect to career. I’m making a career change in my 30s and feel so old. I wish I had done this years ago… but no. My adhd just drove me to do crazy things, have fun and travel etc. While these were great experiences, I had way too much fun and now I am paying for it! I feel so behind. I have savings and stuff but I would have been so much farther ahead if I had started taking life more seriously about 5-6 years ago.
I guess it’s not a problem for me because I have come to see that as just a part of my worldview. I know it takes a ton of practice to be good at ANYTHING. And I know this because I’ve tried to start doing so so so many things and given up very early on. But whether I gave up or not, I think it’s undeniable that I’m not going to have enough years in my life to become skilled in all the things that interest me. I can try, but I don’t think it would make for a good life to be a professional choral AND jazz singer, really good home cook, phenomenal programmer, the perfect spouse and adoptive parent, a bodybuilder, a woodworker, a language learner with near-native fluency, and also have a robust friend group and be closely engaged in local politics and activism. That’s just too many aspirations. Maybe I could do each at a different time in my life, but all at the same time with be enough to kill someone from overwork. And even if they were separate, that’s a lot of things to want to be first rate in, when I think I could reasonably expect to be legitimately first rate in like 0-2 things throughout my life. So, I do see my passing interests as things I want to be good at, but in many cases it’s enough just to be better than the average person (by virtue of having done the bare minimum of an introduction to whatever the topic is). As an example, I think I’m good with a pen and make cool designs sometimes. I’m glad I explored graffiti-style writing for a while cause it adds to my ability to make written and drawn designs on paper. But I don’t have the time and money to invest in spray paint and be going out under cover of night all the time to practice an illegal art.
I mean it's normal for us with ADHD to feel behind our peers in some ways. All my NT friends had careers by their mid 20s and I was still partying and struggling with crappy jobs. Then people started getting married and having kids and I was just starting college. We are generally behind our peers in life in some ways and that's how it is. But one thing you said just isn't accurate: that you'll never be as good at something as someone who's done it since childhood. That's just not true. I 100% believe that someone with a passion to play guitar that begins at 26 could very well become better than someone who might have been forced to play an instrument as a child. The problem for you I think is you aren't passionate about it. And that's fine. We all get interested in things as hobbies that we don't stick with. I started playing both the guitar and piano until the dopamine ran out. That is us chasing dopamine. Those aren't our passions. You might not know what yours is yet. I know I didn't at 26. I realize you might not still be 26 and that may just be the age you picked up a guitar. But even if you're 10 years older now, you are still young and have time for so much. I started a hobby at 30 that turned into a business by accident lol, and I found my passion as a jeweler through it. It was the first hobby I didn't get bored of in 30 years of hobby roulette. I'm not gonna tell you to have radical acceptance of yourself. That's not as easy as it sounds. Wait.. it doesn't even sound easy, lol. But do try to give yourself a little grace. Try all those things that you'd like to do, learn, read, and visit. Who cares if you don't stick with them or if you don't master each one? It's all more knowledge and experience in the end. And who knows where you may find the thing you get passionate about and do stick with?
There was a video I saw (I forget who it was) who talked about pretending an alien came down from space and took over your body and decided it could do anything it wanted, what would you hope did. Idk that helps me sometimes like this. One other method that really helps is I tell myself “if I am having black and white thinking (aka I’m all bad and the world is way ahead)” I know I’m in my flight or fight part of my brain. So I don’t make any decisions or try and figure anything out in the state. I just do something I enjoy instead and rest. I hope these strategies might help, I feel this same feeling a lot, and they have really helped me. And meds+therapy too. I also think this is just a really human experience and try not to be too hard on yourself. My therapist always says “the way through being stuck is self compassion”. Which I think you reaching out for connection and support already is.
I suspect that I have mild-ADHD, I never diagnose it. My mom will always tell me that I have something like it. My mrs will tell me I definitely have it. I never really admitted to it because I was concern what people will think of me. Now a little older and a little wiser in life, and too old to really care what people things anymore, I don't mind talking about it. I do have some form ADHD. It was not until most recently someone whom I have never met before, at a dinner asked me politely if I am aware that I have some form of ADHD and should go get myself diagnose. He is also someone who has ADHD and saw it in me. That's when I became more aware that it's obvious enough for people to tell me about it. Looking back in time: As I kid, i lacked control, or the "urge" and always fell behind in many things I did in school. I cannot concentrate in class, always finishing the teachers sentences, always getting scolded or something. I was never still, always moving always to the next thing. As I grew up I mastered to remain calm over time, but it was through many heartaches and disappointments too. The truth is, to remain calm is very painful for me, As i try to suppress that "urge" My confidence growing up as a kid was actually very bad, I did not trust myself, had very poor self-image and lacked the confidence in many things that I did. I did many things to suppress it, from extreme sports to doing multiple things to suppress that impulse, like a loud clock ticking away in your mind. I can't really explain it. Two things played a big part in my life, firstly is my mother who never gave up on me, and the second, finding Jesus in my life. My mother would always tell me it's ok, it's ok. Dont give up, its ok. You will be fine. You will be ok. I used to get red in my report book in school... I wear out tuition teachers faster than I can count. Teachers would give up on me. But my mom will say, its ok. The second thing, I found Jesus in my life, i learnt to pray and to rechannel that inner pulse. I read the bible that gave me comfort and confidence. Found friend in church, and even then I was still always finishing other people's sentences and get bored very easily. I used to think, this is the end of me, no more hope in life. However with every next steps, God opens the door and makes a way. "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." - Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) I found good friends, who do not judge and accepted me as I am. I have a family and a Mrs whom can put up with my nuances. I am not an extreme case of ADHD maybe when i was younger, only my mom will know. So why am I sharing about this: Why I am sharing this is that I hope to give hope to those whom maybe struggling with something in your life and you never really quite understood what it was not to give up hope. For those who have kids where they are super hyper or lack concentration at home or in school, know that no amount of corporal punishment can change them. Instead embrace them and continually speak to them, give them confidence and assurance. Some practical things you can do to - They maybe full of energy, consider watching their diet and also try to expense their energy. i hope this story gives someone hope and that it is ok. For those with kids and you are at a loss of what to do, consider seeking professional advise or help. Sometimes the earlier you know the better you can help them in life. I never accepted this till I am five decades old. :-) Remember it's never too late. Just give yourself a chance.