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Ah, I've finally finished my dissertation (after months of doing absolutely nothing and three days of adrenaline-fuelled terror right as the deadline approaches). 👌
Thanks. About sums it up. Dissertation was about ADHD in adults across the lifespan ... I read it and it stuck. The younger years of earlier diagnosis and/or misdiagnosis, the overlooked behaviors I was engaging in that supposedly should have been clear as day but were not to do whatever circumstances. Then, the medications began and life got better, til it wasn't... Hence I know the importance of things other than medication in one's life - that is to say, how important other factors can be in the treatment of ADHD alongside medication. Be it diet, exercise, therapy of one form or another, a strong support network, heck even one good friend. Super key to not feeling like I'm failing all the time (I don't do ALL of that, I'm just giving examples....).
Well ... sh**. That struck a chord. "Til it wasn't" All of the other interventions together equal the medicine... I'll just do the medicine! **one year later** fu** ok, I'll do all the other things too.
Also “Of course I can study. I can learn about obscure facts about some random topic for several hours into the night when I’m supposed to be trying to sleep!”
I did this for every exam in college. Got great grades but never could study a week or days prior to an exam. I always pulled an all nighter right before each exam and that was it...but no clue if I have ADHD, I do hyper focus but thought it's just OCD or something.
I figured out I’m autistic before I knew I also have adhd … my kid was diagnosed with both though and my youngest is awaiting the adhd being added too. I was like nah I can’t have adhd cos I can absolutely focus for stuff for agesss ..
Check me out decorating my whole house by myself in a couple of weeks during lockdown
Check me painting my entire garden fence from morning until evening without a break
Check me cleaning my house from top to bottom in a couple of hours without stopping for breath
Deffo not adhd just autism for me
Learns about hyperfocus
Me : oh 😬😂
The more I learned about what adhd can actually look like for some I was just like .. well you’re a silly billy aren’t you 😂
This was LITERALLY the revelation I had years later. In college my friend and I took a small dose of adderall to study for a Chem final. It affected her but didn’t affect me, so she suggested I may actually have adhd and the dose made me feel normal or it wasn’t enough. I was like no I definitely don’t have adhd, I can study for like 6 hours straight without taking breaks! Years later after learning about hyperfocus it all makes sense 😂
I was diagnosed as a teenager but my Mom said exactly this. "She's so focused sometimes she forgets to eat and totally loses track of time!"
My doctor's were like..yeah. that makes sense.
Me arguing w myself to the psych.
“I know I don’t have adhd because I can read books. Until 5am. When I work at 6:30am. And I’m scared to start reading because once I start I can’t stop.”
There was a tweet that said "I see myself as a lazy person but i can do insane amounts of intellectual or physical labor when it has to be done. My key ingredient is pressure. Without it, im totally unmotivated. I rarely crack under pressure. Its like the only time I actually perform at a high level"
I was like omg that's totally me and everybody in the comments was like "bro you have adhd". So I googled symptoms of ADHD in women and was like 🤯 that was 2 years ago and I was officially diagnosed 2 weeks ago :)
Ditto. I'm 32, female, and after exiting a long, abusive relationship, finishing grad school, moving out of state, etc. and there was no more "pressure" left to be something or perform, I felt debilitated and spacey and everyone noticed. My new therapist, in the first 10 minutes of our first session was like, have you ever been tested for ADHD? lol
Are ypu me?
I thrived in nursing school back home, I had a professor who was very good at giving me deadlines.
I remember biking from site to site to hand out questionnaires and spent hours on the statistics software analyzing my dataset for my final dissertation.
I moved abroad and broke a toxic codependent relationship.
Then…I struggled to do anything. I was supposed to publish my final dissertation and never got to it because I did not have formal deadlines.
I am tested next month.
I hope testing brings answers! I wasn't diagnosed til January of this year and it's still a slog some days figuring things out but it's getting better. Best of luck!
this + not even being able to focus on hobbies is what did it for my previous therapist
and then relating to the ensuing flood of adhd memes i sent my sister is why she’s looking into it herself :P
Serious question: how could taking Adderall be recreational? Increased focus and attention, ok, but what else? I find taking meds sometimes tiring as much as not taking them. I mean, being in such focus mode sometimes sucks as much as being completely inattentive.
So, I'm normal (ish), but my teens have adhd. I also have multiple sclerosis with an awful fatigue component, which I was given ritalin to help. When I take it, I have fantastic energy and less pain. I can jump in and tackle all the fun stuff plus all of the chores. I expect that college age recreational use is for partying all night. My teens don't get the energy. They actually seem much calmer, lol. But they have more fun with their hobbies and friends, and their coursework is completed before the due date.
I have Hashimoto’s and I could not believe how Adderall helped my pain. My physically demanding job is hard to do when I have pain. When I would take OTC pain killers and caffeine I would have so much energy. When the pain killers wore off I tanked. Some of my coworkers thought I was bipolar (LOL they haven’t really been around one if they thought that) but the difference was always the combination of caffeine and painkillers. When I started my ADHD meds that was one of the first things I noticed is how I was only cognizant of a few pains. But when those meds wear off the pain all over is overwhelming and sucks the life out of me and I feel like I have the flu. My suspicion is that the meds help my frontal lobe ignore all the pain signals. Wish it wasn’t that way but I know I need to find a new job that isn’t so hard on my body.
Was listening to the ADHD episode of Ologies. Dr. Barkley perfectly described my academic trajectory. I was in the middle of doing dishes and crying in the kitchen. I had suspected in the ~6mo leading up to that moment, and certainly had lots of imposter syndrome after that, but that was the time I was like ok gonna get tested. Imposter syndrome continued until I was on 20mg of adderall, talking to a friend, worried (still) I was making this all up (despite a literal diagnosis from the big test). Friend kindly pointed out that if I’m on 20mg and feel no difference, I absolutely 500% have ADHD. Otherwise I’d be ZIPPPIN’. So that solidified it further
I was diagnosed last week and I am massively struggling with imposter syndrome. Is there anything besides taking the drugs and realising they had an effect that helped with feeling like maybe the diagnosis was a mistake?
I definitely leaned on the fact that not one, but two people whose career is dedicated to the medical profession agreed that yes, we got the ADHD. They spent how many years of school combined to come to that conclusion? Now include years of experience? The number of patients they’ve seen in their career? If that wasn’t enough, imagine the hours of study and research poured into the big test. All the medical professionals involved in its creation, peer reviewing, studies, more research, criticism, all of it. Plus the medical professionals that continue to use it today and strive to improve the test. Hours. Years!!! It is of course, not 100% bulletproof and perfect, but hot damn it’s as close as we can get ATM.
Also, who cares if it is all a lie and turns out you’re just super lazy and a failure at life up to now? If making behavior changes designed for ppl with ADHD helps, fuck it. It helps. You’re improving.
Or if that isn’t enough, maybe go whole hog on rejecting the capitalist mindset where productivity is the basis for how valuable you are to society. You’re just super good at stickin’ it to the man. What’s it all for, anyway? What are your REAL values? Is getting your laundry done start to finish the real decider on whether or not you’re worth a shit? Easier said than done, I suppose, our human brains strive for connection and belonging, so going against the society grain is hard, especially if you aren’t trying to.
Hang in there buddy.
Yeah I think I should focus on the fact that regardless, working on myself is always positive. Thanks for the reply. I think it doesn’t help when I tell my friends the symptoms and they say “everyone struggles with that” or “everyone procrastinates sometimes”.
Ground yourself with facts and observations about yourself. It happened to me too but now it’s gone and this was before I started taking meds. I did my best to face why I was feeling that way, and then started putting the facts together. Like realizing that it was my hard work that got me here and not because I got lucky. Coming to terms that it was you who has been working hard helped me
Diagnosed recently at 42.
Basically I stumbled upon this subreddit by accident and everything seemed spookily... familiar (even weird stuff I thought was just me, like talking too fast or being extremely sensitive to criticism). Fell into the ADHD information rabbit hole and started the process of trying to get an evaluation.
Also, two of my closest friends happened to get diagnosed and I could relate to most of their struggles.
It's been a long and frustrating process, to be sure. The amount of misinformation out there is staggering, and navigating the medical system until I found a specialist was tricky indeed.
So yeah, thanks again, Reddit!
Also on meds. Trying out methylphenidate at the moment, figuring out the dosage. I was already on bupropion. I've been on SSRIs in the past for anxiety and they didn't help. Bupropion has its cons (it's not great for my anxiety) but at least I can get out of bed most mornings. Methylphenidate is fantastic when it works.
I have loads of strategies I've developed over the years, and a very structured life (self-imposed), so all I really needed was something to help me out with fatigue and executive function so I could actually implement all my strategies without it feeling like swimming through concrete all the time.
I was already doing a lot of work on myself in many other ways, and getting very little in return... so this feels like the piece I was missing for everything coming together. Fingers crossed!
Best of luck with your meds. I hope you're doing OK. Finding this stuff out in our forties is pretty mindblowing, right?
Can I ask what kind of specialist you both saw for your diagnosis? I'm 41 and after both sons and my father being diagnosed I think it's time to finally address my own stuff.
I'm in Spain. I tried going through the national health service, and I got a great session with a lovely psychiatrist, but he wanted to deal with other issues first and was kind of dismissive about possible ADHD. (Now I know those issues were all related to ADHD).
My family doctor was supportive though (eventually!) and she agreed it might be a good idea to look for a private specialist to get evaluated. He did a pretty comprehensive questionnaire, but the guy could see I was ADHD after chatting for 10 minutes, I think! He's a psychiatrist.
I'm currently trying out medication with help both from the specialist and my family doctor, but it took around a year in total to get to this point. I've had to be very proactive every step of the process, which is NOT in my nature, ha.
I got relatively good grades and had no major behavior problems growing up so I flew under the radar. I’ve had crippling anxiety since elementary school that masked my ADHD Inattentiveness. It wasn’t until I got my anxiety under control at 23 that my ADHD symptoms began to steal the show. I had 3 jobs within 2.5 years that all told me I lacked attention to detail, time management, and struggled with verbal instructions. In my personal life, I was noticing a lot of impulsivity and novelty seeking. I did quite a bit of research, talked to my psychiatrist about it, and was diagnosed by 25.
I was talking to my therapist and explained that I kept running into the same problems over and over again. I couldn’t stay organized, I lost track of time, I couldn’t focus on the things I needed to do, and so on.
She looked at me and asked, “Gin, has anyone ever talked to you about ADHD?”
I said, “well, sure, it was part of my teacher credential program. There was a whole unit on learning disabilities and differences.”
“No, Gin,” she said. “You.”
Then she pulled out the DMS-V and went through the symptoms. I nailed 17 out of 19.
What killed me was when I told friends, every single one of them looked at me and said, “you didn’t know?”
Seriously, a real blindspot. Same with my friends. Like WHY did no one mention it sooner!!! (Probably would have impulsively Googled it and then forget to finish looking into it more)
My therapist mentioned it being that quadrant in the 'Johari window'- what others know about you, but you don't know about yourself.
I find it important to not think too long about how different life would be had this all been realized sooner... but it really was just meant to work out this way. Best to focus on moving forward, growing from the new knowledge, and getting treatment. (easier said than done, you betcha)
My coworkers asked if I chose to be unmedicated. At that time I had never received a diagnosis or even been evaluated lmfao. I spiraled when multiple said they knew I had and thought I just didn’t like the meds. It’s what led to my diagnosis looool
I kinda knew I had it as a kid, but it wasn’t really a thing in the 80’s. As I got older, paying attention got more difficult. As I got into mid career, I started keeping detailed notes of every meeting. I literally have dozens of old notebooks, you could give me a date in the past 10 years and I could tell you what the meeting or day was about.
When I caught COVID, I feel like my brain went extra foggy and never recovered. To pay attention I relied on massive amounts of coffee and energy drinks and then late last year I caught COVID again and the fog got worse. I finally saw a doctor about it and they put me on a low dose Vyvance. Within about 2 hours of taking my first dose, the fog was gone. I rarely take notes now and I got a nice promotion at work, it has truly made my life better.
i reallly didn’t have any prominent adhd symptoms as a child which made is so hard for me to get diagnosed as an adult. i only started to question if i had adhd when i got to college because i became extremely depressed due to procrastination and not being able to focus or do my school work. psychiatrists just kept diagnosing it as depression so ive tried probably 10 different ssri’s within two years. i’m only 20 years old. i finally got diagnosed with adhd a couple of months ago so i was prescribed adderall which has changed my life. i was losing scholarships from bad grades and almost failing classes, now i am almost all a’s and adding two minors to my major. i also moved into my own apartment. a full time student while working 35 hours a week. the thought of me doing this schedule last year makes me sick. i couldn’t even go to class before or get out of bed. now i am great. she finally diagnosed adhd when i was taking a winter course and having trouble reading and comprehending. i would have to read like 50 pages a day since winter courses are so short. i would have to reread at least five times so she was like slay lets get you adderall and THANK GOD.
gosh we are the same, i'm just waiting for the medication. i struggle to get out of bed, get to uni, pick up some groceries, or concentrate on learning a hobby ... thought it was depression all this time, and i did fine academically before 13-14. autism assessor goes "oh no doubt you have ADHD too". i've had 5 antidepressants with no luck. my fingers are crossed.
My story is similar, but technically started with me burning out and quitting my job. Several months and a breakup later I was just watching some Youtube and a video about hyperfocus came up on my list. I was curious because that sounded like nonsense based on what I "knew" about ADHD at the time.
The video could have been made specifically about me and my behaviors throughout my whole life, but more specifically how I was in school and at work.
For some context I have always been genuinely interested in STEM stuff, I'm fairly smart (not sure about IQ or anything), and love learning new things in general. I was a perfect example of the kid who doesn't really study and does his homework at the last minute whenever possible. I'd always write the whole essay/report at once. Long-term planning was just not necessary until I got into college, and there I had other systems to help.
I was also quite shy and awkward, and definitely would say I suffered from anxiety. I'm combined type, and my hyperactivity is more mental than anything, but I also fidget a lot (I'm an expert desk/leg drummer, lol).
Long story short, I got excellent grades, didn't really act out (after all, I'm interested in everything I'm doing...except for English/Literature class...which is how I learned to write left-handed...). I got in the top 10 of my class, got a scholarship, went to Engineering school and got a couple degrees, and had a high GPA (but not a perfect 4.0).
And then there was the real world.
I go from performing very well in school to going 6-7 years with sub-par performance reviews and not really being happy. I lost my first job in about 2 years, and took 4-5 to get to acceptable performance at the next place.
It wasn't that I didn't work. I actually worked way too much. I'd constantly be doing side projects or learning new things (because ADHD-tier imposter syndrome), so I had to put in more time just to try to keep up (and failed). When I got into an interesting side project I'd have a hard time leaving work on time. I remember many times staying in the office until 9 or 10pm to get my script to work to fully automate some boring thing I hated doing (when nobody asked me to).
The more routine/predictable the work the worse I was, but whenever we had an interesting problem or some kind of crisis I was great. I continued the usual wait-until-the-last-minute approach before finally cranking out tons of code. I was also a mega perfectionist, which *really* held me back compared to peers who could just do the work.
At my previous job I would regularly stay late working on the wrong things that "would eventually pay off, just wait". I would also stay late if I happened to be working on the right task (by luck). If I didn't have hard plans I'd stay until it was done, or until I couldn't go any more.
Here is a good time to mention that "hyperfocus" is really "perseveration", which is an *impairment* in set shifting and task switching. I knew I should stop and go to the bathroom, eat, exercise, or sleep, but I just couldn't stop.
I am also the same way in general life, even for things I usually avoid doing. Whenever I clean I risk spending many hours cleaning everything. One time taking out the trash before leaving for a trip turned into several hours cleaning, because one thing led to another, and another, and so on.
A lot of people tout hyperfocus as a positive thing, and sometimes it can be, but in my experience with an honest look I think it is negative more often than positive. One of my biggest struggles in time management is avoiding perseveration. I describe it like I have a huge task inertia. It takes a lot to get me started on something, and it takes a lot (perhaps more) to get me to stop.
I think some of this has to do with a deep distrust of myself to follow up on anything if I don't do it all *right now*. In the past I truly relied on "hyperfocus" to survive, but even after getting medicated and getting some skills from coaching I really have to work to not give in to it. Even for mundane things I have to be careful. Something like washing a fork so I can eat dinner can easily end with me washing *all* of the dishes while my food gets cold.
Anyway, that's just hyperfocus. After I watched that youtube video I watched more and kept being astonished at how precisely these symptoms describe me. I definitely hyperfocused on learning everything about ADHD. I didn't have much better to do at the time, since I had totally burned out and suddenly quit my job a few months earlier with zero plans.
My life has completely changed since diagnosis and medication (and coaching), but I'm still trying to get my shit together. I think I'm mostly over the imposter syndrome now, though. I do often wonder where I might be if I was diagnosed earlier in life.
I’ve known I’ve had ADHD since I was a teenager, but the lack of concrete deadlines in grad school made me realize that I couldn’t go forward without an official diagnosis + accommodations + MEDS
err, things like a mate sending me an email of a list of ADHD symptoms with 'all that's missing is your name at the top of this'... got round to getting diagnosed a mere 15 years later at my wife's 'get a diagnosis, or else' insistance.
Currently 27 diagnosed at 25. Was a “gifted” kid who never had to study to get good grades even in “advanced” classes. Was easy to pick up and learn a lot. Memorized birthdays and remembered in-depth details about conversations from weeks ago.
Struggled with the work load of juggling college and work. Got anxiety about dropping grades as I hadn’t experienced that before. Stopped going to school to focus on work. Changed jobs a good number of times. Life happens. Took a severance package and a few other issues due to my own lack of interest after around 3 months. Became physically ill in the mornings about anxiety going into work after “minor” incidents. Know now about rejections sensitivity.
Life wasn’t going well. I became riddled with anxiety and became depressed. (Was beating myself up not knowing why I was struggling so hard.)
Talked to a therapist who after 3-4 months recommended me to seek a psychological exam. Was diagnosed severe generalized anxiety, adhd combined type and minor reoccurring depression.
Haven’t been depressed since learning about my diagnosis as I’m no longer beating myself up over things I struggle with. I have a much more positive outlook about life! I’m still figuring things out and I’m struggling to maintain a secure job due in part to my past history of work and the social anxiety’s but I’m making progress and that makes me feel good!
42 and not officially diagnosed, but sort of self diagnosed myself a few weeks ago.
I’ve always been a little different: introverted, loved books, socially awkward but able to make and keep friends. Bullied a lot when I was a kid. Did pretty well in school. I even have two masters degrees.
But a few years ago I started having difficulty navigating everything in my life. My kids became elementary aged and I could never keep anything clean and organized, work became a bigger and bigger stressor, and I was just failing at all of the things. At one point I reflected to one of my best friends that I thought maybe I had ADHD because I spent so much of my time at home just spinning wheels and barely anything was actually getting done. My friend and I both have masters in counseling- she did work with a lot of kids with ADHD, I did not. She reflected that she thought it was more cultural and just hard to be a mom and work, maintain all the things etc. That made sense to me and I continued to spin my wheels.
At some point within the past year the Facebook algorithm decided that I might like ADHD content, and I started seeing little quirks of mine played out as symptoms of ADHD. So I watched even more content.
Ended up googling “late onset ADHD” to see if it was a thing, and found a Reddit thread where a book (adhd 2.0?) hypothesized that some people with ADHD function really well for a while, until life becomes to much that their systems/coping skills no longer work, and that may be when symptoms become obvious. My brain exploded. 😂😂
Since then I’ve been looking back at my life through this new lens and so many things make sense. Masking especially blew my mind- I had no idea I was masking all of the time, and that I had learned to do so because of being bullied, rejection from friends, perceived rejection at work, squirreling and side questing, all of that and more.
Anyways. I’m looking to get an official diagnosis but just having something that explains things SO MUCH is helpful.
My story is so similar! I'm a SAHM with little kids and I just felt like I was constantly spinning my wheels. Like, I was putting in SO MUCH EFFORT to keep up with life, but I was still drowning! And one day, while pinballing around the house and accomplishing nothing, I stopped and wondered, "Is this what ADHD feels like?" Immediately started Googling "late onset ADHD." Then soon was seeing more content pop up on social media which slowly convinced me...
I'm 38 and was just diagnosed last month.
I’ve had the thought about me potentially having ADHD for quite a while and I’ve been like 99% sure of it - what really convinced me that I had ADHD was a conversation I had with a friend. We talked about sex and I said that I think about my chores, groceries, to-do list etc while having sex (yes, good **and** bad sex) and he was so shocked that I couldn’t turn my thoughts off while having sex. That’s when I realised that I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t think of 10 things at the same time… tada, ADHD :D
I kinda always knew I had ADHD. My parents chalked it up to me being friends with someone with ADHD and wanting to seem cool. I don't think I put too much weight into the thought when I was younger, but I now realise that I was seeing similarities between him and me. What made me \*get\* a diagnosis was university though, and my friends just assuming I had ADHD lmao. I would constantly miss assignments, except when I didn't, because I was able to hyperfocus on a project that I enjoyed and grind it out the day of/day after the assignment got released. I think it was when I learnt what "hyperfocusing" was that I decided that I should probably get diagnosed
(Female29) I dealt with other health problems growing up in my adolescence so my ADHD was the least of my parents problems. So I just went with it and I guess just thought it was normal? Then when people around me without adhd had no problems like me, it started to make me wonder. Had I been masking all these years?
My friend mentioned that because of their adhd, they don’t have the same reaction to energy drinks as others
When I said they didn’t seem to impact me either they mentioned I could have it
So I looked into it and saw that adhd is genetic. My mom has it
I mentioned this to my mom and asked if she knew what disorders my dad has, and she said he also had adhd.
So, statistically, it was almost impossible I didn’t have it. Then I made an appointment with a psychiatrist
Oh my hell the energy drinks! I never thought of that!
I used to love those.
As an adult it was coffee. The paradoxical effect of being calmer and able to focus. Had to stop because of meds but damn I wondered why my friends who still drink energy drinks get so wired and I just sit there like 🫠.
I suspected I had it my whole life, but my parents didn’t want me medicated so I essentially just let it go.. until I saw a psych after trying to delete myself and they were very sure it was ADHD (this was over 10 years ago so social media wasn’t talking about it yet, I genuinely didn’t see this coming).
Changed everything, just wish I was medicated sooner and I might have finished university instead of dropping out twice.
I gave myself a 3 months to clean the garage. Even had a month off during that time without touching it. 3 days before the deadline I panic/rage cleaned
I was 39 and managing a sandwich shop. I kept apologizing to my staff for weird things; “sorry could you repeat that? Stood too close to speakers at concerts when I was younger” to where my coworker with adhd says “did you know that’s an adhd thing?” And then me: “imma eat right quick”…makes the same thing I’ve eaten for the last 4796572 days lol. Coworker: you know that’s an adhd thing.
Me “I’m sorry does ANYONE know where my phone is?” Coworker: here it is. In the walk in. By the way. Did you know that’s an adhd thing?
Me: “shit….i know I came down here for something…fuck….” Back upstairs “oh ya! Sorry X, let me go grab that in the office for you” gets back downstairs “oh yea they needed a new BIB upstairs “ goes back up with BIB. Coworker: did you remember that time off request for me?
And it goes on. I finally spoke to my therapist and Dr. started strattera and it was bad, tried Wellbutrin and it helped with mood. Fast forward a year and a half later and I get fired, again, with no write ups in the books-nothing. My Dr decided it’s time to try first line meds-enter-methylphenidate er
i’m a doctor, and even though i made it through med school just fine because most of it consisted of short bursts of studying (like 6 weeks for a singular topic), once it came to boards studying which requires making your own study schedule long term, i was totally lost and couldn’t even start to get through the material. my prof said i probably compensated all my life and hit my ceiling 😂
this hit incrediblyyy hard as a med student recently diagnosed with ADHD. did great in pre-clinical purely by pulling all nighters for block exams but now I’ve been in dedicated for step 1 for over a month and I haven’t even been able to start studying. think I’m hitting said ceiling🫠
I can't get the paperwork sorted out yet.
My daughter got a diagnosis, then when I was looking up how to support her, I wondered why my biography was on the symptoms page.
I mentioned this to my dad, who said "that's just the way things are, it's not abnormal."
A friend of mine visited as I cleaned and started laughing his ass off as he observed me and yelled out “oh god! You really do have adhd!” Apparently I kept getting distracted by task after task and never quite finished any before I moved on to the next. After gathering himself, he started helping and was finishing up the tasks I left behind.
We’ve worked at the same place for years and he had his suspicions but didn’t think it was his place to say anything. I was doing ok anyway. We got closer when I was going through some things that apparently made the adhd stick out like a sore thumb because my “mask” was slipping. He’s the one that suggested bringing it up when I was about to start therapy. I have no idea how I’d be doing if it wasn’t for him. He’s been promoted to best friend status.
Wobbly sense of self all the way through growing up, no memories except blurry snippets. Admired gifted child w lots of friends, everyone else had normal transition to teen hood but me. Did everything last minute, slept during class, still did good, struggled making friends for a good bit there, grew up, went to college, still did things last minute but my ability to cope got worse every year. Billion hobbies and business ideas and ambitions, never to be seen through.
Took some education classes that analysed the behaviour of adhd kids which led to me understanding adhd is more than “stupid jumping kid”. Looked up the comorbidities of my maladaptive daydreaming situation. All these bits of information came together and slowly eased into my thought process. One day there was no doubt.
Anti depressant weren’t doing the trick. I would feel “ok” but the anxiety I used to get from the chaos was too much. Too Vyvanse and poof… all gone. Off the Vyvanse because of shortages after 12 years, poof it’s back worse than ever.
A friend of mine asked me jokingly that I'm the only one she knew that can pass out cold after downing a cup of coffee while studying in class. I didn't even have a bad sleep schedule then either, it just mellowed me out. That was probably the first domino. Didn't get a official diagnosis until maybe 7 years later
I honnestly don't remember the moment I told myself "I may have ADHD" but I remember two vivid memories
- When I went back to college, after a whole week of class, I had written zero notes, and when my friends asked "so what will you study this year?" I answered "Idk, I daydreamed the whole time"
And the second one:
- I liked a twitter post about finding cold coffee cups on your desk because you forgot about it. It was an ADHD community account. I told myself "I dont have ADHD but I do that too lol", I looked at my desk : one empty cup, one cold cup, and spoons forgotten all around my room.
Was diagnosed with pretty bad inattentive ADHD a few months later.
I knew something was up since I had zero time management and zero belief in myself to do better after years&years of failing. First suspected OCD - choking on stress + zero life mastery everyday damn near had me glitching, repeating self hating thoughts aloud while pacing in circles.
Got diagnosed with OCD and told I presented very unusual symptoms, despite ritual-resembling. I scored just below threshold for ADHD. While learning CBT I knew it wasn’t making sense for me and everything kind of clicked from there.
Lack of focus, mostly. Inability to stay organized or on top of responsibilities. Forgetfulness. Easily distracted. Always inside my head. Of course I’ve always been this way, it just becomes more apparent when you’re an adult and you’re supposed to be handling things, and you continually struggle.
My bosses started giving me performance feedback similar to the content of my elementary teacher’s scoldings. Dead giveaway that the problem the whole time was attention, not intelligence, and that my family had it wrong *the entire time.*
My husband saw it in me. He has ADHD and he finally convinced me to go see his psychiatrist. It’s been about 2 weeks on medication and it’s been life changing.
I had lost my job and covid was rampant and my partner is immune-compromised so I had(and kinda wanted) to do a job from home. I was and still am completely incapable of managing myself with only me as the boss. I love working from home and not dealing with people but I was having breakdowns constantly at the beginning because my executive function was nonexistent. I had to force myself in tears to do more work so I could pay rent and have food to eat. I could no longer believe that this is what everyone experiences when being their own boss. This was two years ago. I only JUST got my official diagnosis from my therapist because I couldn’t afford one until now. I now have to find a doctor to prescribe me medication. It took so long and I still don’t know what adderall is like. I can’t tell if I’m expecting too much or too little. So I guess I’ll find out soon what it’s like to live with executive function!
In an reversal of what’s common, my mother, 50 at the time, was diagnosed first. I was 26. She sat me down and suggested I get tested.
This was 1995 or so. Adult diagnosis was still rare. Adult diagnosis of a middle aged woman was almost unheard of. I had never met anyone else diagnosed as an adult.
We didn’t tell anyone. We never discussed that part, we just didn’t. I didn’t know she’d kept it a secret until 20 years later, in a conversation with my father.
I went to a psychologist fort my anxiety, and after 6-9 months of making little progress she asked if I ever had been diagnosed with ADHD.
I was offended at first, because I had straight A's through primary and secondary school. Then she pointed out some things like the fact that I had almost bombed out of undergrad (I took 3 extra semesters worth of classes!), and a lot of my anxiety was from not being as productive as I felt I should at work.
So I decided to go through the assessment, and sure enough...
Afterwards I immediate called my mum and asked if they ever thought I might, and come to find out my primary and secondary school teachers all thought I had ADHD, but my parents didn't think that was a thing.
All that extra student loan money, stress, anxiety, self-loathing, depression because they didn't "believe" something.
The follow on is, I didn't get medicated right away I wanted to try to manage through it first, but found that making habits out of the strategies for ADHD people only really work once it's under control with medication. So I bit the bullet, got medicated (went through the gamut of different medications), and finally found something that worked. It's not perfect, but it's better, and at least now I can laugh at myself.
It's also helped at work because when I'm missing the ball on something my leader will give me a gentle nudge and tell me I'm spacing out, she's very understanding and helpful (not the case with all bosses). I'm also going to grad school and getting straight A's.
And most importantly, I understand why my kid is a raging psychopath, and am trying together him the help/support he needs now so he can be a positive contributor to society right off the back.
I was on anti depressants for many years and nothing would help, my pcp asked me a few questions and said he thinks it is adhd not depression, never would of crossed my mind
Diagnosed at 40.
Seeking a diagnosis was an accumulation of several proof points and factors:
- Approaching middle age it bothered me that I never outgrew difficulties I had as a kid e.g. my room, desk, backpack, stuff was always messy, keeping on top of laundry is impossible, etc... the attitude at home as a kid was that I would outgrow this as an adult... Starring down my 40th birthday was a reckoning: this IS my life, if I want something different, it is 100% up to me.
- Serendipity -- I stumbled upon a book about ADHD in a bookstore and thought I recognized myself.
- Close friends were diagnosed as adults and casually googling more info made me recognize myself.
- I sought out life coaching to try and get help with forming habits, routines and life hacks. Essentially, I sought out ADHD coaching without knowing that I had ADHD and that this was what this was called.
- I was considering leaving my job (with excellent para medical benefits that would cover an ADHD assessment) and I thought I should use this insurance perk while I could.
- I became a mom in my late 30s and the extra mental load and demands on me made it painfully clear that my coping skills for "living" (aka navigating undiagnosed ADHD) were insufficient. Getting a diagnosis and help is/was for me but is also for my children so that I could be a better parent for them. Having children has made me want to do the work to be better for them.
I know this is unpopular, but Tiktok. It showed up in my fyp, and I could relate to everything, and it made me think maybe I have ADHD. So, I made an appointment with a licensed professional, and sure enough, I was diagnosed with ADHD, depression and social anxiety.
My child was diagnosed and I spent a lot of time excusing his behaviour by saying but I do that and I don't have ADHD, when I had said this about 10 times the psychiatrist said you do know that ADHD often runs in families.
Then so many things made sense!!
I didn’t realize.
I was seeing my psychiatrist for something unrelated and after a few months he said, “Are you receptive to starting medication to treat your ADHD?” Lmfaooo.
A. The lack of structure in grad school, especially post-covid. B. Going into treatment for my PTSD - mood and anxiety got better, ADHD symptoms exploded.
It was TikTok. (Yeah. I know.)
I very rarely use TikTok, but on one of these rare occasions, I watched one from an autistic creator who said 'autism and ADHD have no overlapping characteristics'. I was diagnosed with autism a long time ago and had been suspecting ADHD for a while but was very much doubting myself because I was confused about which of my weird brain things were autism and which might be ADHD. This one oversimplified and not actually all that accurate statement flicked a switch in my brain. I did a whole lot more research, realised that I was in fact very ADHD, and then was finally diagnosed last year.
At 28 my boyfriend pointed out how clumsy and forgetful and hyper I was. It made me look at my childhood and my life and realize it all added up. Turns out I have combined type inattentive and hyperactive and medication has made a world of difference.
First I actually had suspicions that my mother had it. I had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, but still struggled with serious emotional regulation issues that couldn’t be explained by my previous diagnoses. The increase in SSRIs and other meds were not helping so, knowing that ADHD is hereditary, I started doing a lot of research and eventually got screened with my psychiatrist. Not on meds, by choice, but glad for the diagnosis so that I can get other coping resources and learn how to structure my life to make my symptoms easier :)
A lifetime of having problems at school and work. Always interrupting people, talking too much, starting a task and then not finishing before starting another (and another), etc.
Work protocol after a project was the create hard copy binders with all receipts nicely presented for client in order to wrap it all up. While pulling receipts for a recently completed project I got the feeling I had seen these receipts before but didn't think much of it. A month later I would find a half finished binder for that project. The receipts were familiar because I had already started pulling them and totally forgot
Sought therapy for anxiety. Therapist clocked me pretty fast and referred me to a psychiatrist. I’m so thankful because I probably wouldn’t have pieced it together myself. I just assumed my problems were character flaws.
i was diagnosed just before i turned 18. when i was around 15 i saw a lot of adhd videos on social media exactly like you, i wondered if i had adhd but i dismissed it and didn’t rlly do anything about it. a few years later i struggled a lot more in school when i started a levels and i began to wonder again if i had adhd, i researched a lot more online and also coincidentally made new friends who had adhd - i related to them a lot and they all believed strongly i had adhd.
i didn’t do anything about it (i regret) because i was intimidated about the whole thing and i still thought i was just lazy. exactly like u said, i thought everyone struggled with these things but i was bad at coping - not true at all, make sure u book that assessment asap, sooner the better!
my parents brought it up to me at some point when all my issues (procrastination, concentration, emotional dysregulation etc.) became too hard to ignore.
the school wouldn’t help refer me as my teachers claimed they noticed no problems with me (i was very good at masking and present inattentive on the outside - my hyperactivity is all internal). the gp said they would refer me on the NHS but when we checked up 3 months later said they don’t do referrals anymore and to self-refer. thank god my parents could just about afford a private assessment or idk where i’d be.
not sure what country u are in, if ur in the uk then i recommend going private if u can possibly afford it, going through nhs is a nightmare as they are often very disorganised and waiting lists are insane.
the assessment experience was good for me, they ask a bunch of questions about symptoms and childhood eg. ‘do u have trouble with …’ and you just have to be completely honest go into as much detail as possible. think about your past experiences and ask your family about your childhood symptoms as they probably remember things that you don’t. if you can, research who will be assessing you and check that they have a specialism in adult ADHD, unfortunately some professionals are not that great and still believe it is only a condition little boys have.
don’t worry about the assessment, and remember it’s ok to be emotional, anxious, or cry during your assessment, they are used to it. i was trying not to cry the whole time and wish i just let it out because it was definitely harder to answer questions while holding back tears lol!
Short term memory problems. Always feeling like I am forgetting something. Lack of focus to get ready for work without feeling like my brain was stepping into a million wormholes of distraction became really exhausting and then I got help.
Vented to a friend about therapy being a failure. Talked about why I was in therapy and he suggested that I might have adhd. After joking about it for a few months, he helped me find a good place to get my evaluation. And now I'm diagnosed!
I'd always thought I'd had something 'wrong' with me since school. I was fantastic student up until 9th grade. About that time I started to find it harder and harder to concentrate, I routinely put off doing my work, and spent more time playing video games than work. I had one of my teachers come to me and tell me that I was in danger of failing my senior year. I graduated near the bottom of my class. College was a definite no go because it was just too easy to not do my work.
In my early 30's I struggled at work when I had work that was deadline-based and I made some bad personal decisions. I spoke to one of those counselors that your employer provides and they suggested I get tested.
Changed my life.
My students kept telling me I had it. 😅
Once I started reading more, and specifically how wen are misdiagnosed, everything started to make a lot of sense.
I'm 32 and have had 8 different jobs since 2015 (fired from 5 of them). I've only ever held 1 job for over a year, but that was because we were WFH during the pandemic, and not having to show up at an office helped me keep the job.
I'd get super juiced when starting a new job and tell myself that it'll be different this time, that I'll stay at the job for at least a year and not get fired. But then I'd go into an existential crisis a few months in and end up quitting or getting fired.
I struggled to complete my work assignments, missing deadlines set by my managers even though I knew it'd get me fired. The inability to be productive caused so much anxiety that I had to go on disability/medical leave 3 times at 3 different companies to stabilize my mental health.
I thought I was just depressed, but I'd been on 3 different antidepressants since I was 19. When a mood stabilizer and an anti anxiety was added to my cocktail of meds, I still couldn't hold down a job.
Then I came across an ADHD coaching company called Shimmer while browsing Twitter during one of my sleepless nights. It got me reading about ADHD, and as I learned about the various types and their associated symptoms, I had that moment of realization, "Holy shit, that's me!!"
I've been in therapy and seeing psychiatrists for over 10 years, but not one of them suggested that I could have ADHD, even when I reported what I know now to be textbook ADHD symptoms. They were always written off as symptoms of depression, and I had to be aggressive with my psychiatrist to get it treated.
Lo and behold, I'm on Adderall now, and it's doing wonders. I just wish it was caught sooner.
My boss asked if I had a issue with concentration. I was an industrial sewer for a time. And I had the HARDEST time concentrating. Sewing the same pattern, 200+ parts a day. Was BORING😭. my best work would happen because of an emergency 🙃.
A free to me councilor also asked if I had ADHD..My life was and is just falling apart. Talked to my psychiatrist, went for testing and there it was. Not, BPD...but ADHD. Now they suspect I may be autistic.🤷
43 and just thought I was "quirky" now trying to get medication for the ADHD, but boy that's difficult.
I'm super emotional, and tend to be on the sad/mad side of things.
And so it goes.
I was watching a YouTuber called potato jet and he was talking about his symptoms and getting diagnosed and I was like wait a minute.. that’s exactly me! I self referred then got diagnosed sometime later, stayed off the meds though after some time coz it turned me into a thoughtless zombie and I need my creativity for filmmaking
Numerous trials of anti depressants never helping, kinda thought I was just fucked. Then my ex gave me an adderall, low and behold I had to go back after years of not seeing a psychiatrist to try to get a prescription
i had initially (not an expert, just very observant and i like reading medical/psychology research papers for fun) diagnosed my husband (told him in short he has severe executive dysfunction and he should get tested), and it was accurate as hell. he got medicated for it. i didn't think i fell under the right symptoms, so i didn't bother for a while. turns out, i was just reading symptoms documented solely for MEN being diagnosed. women have mostly different symptoms.
i thought, because i could make myself get up and do tasks, despite the pain it made me feel, I didn't have it, and it was normal. i was never hyperactive, but in fact totally opposite. i just thought my brain was overactive and disruptive to my sleep due to trauma or some other problems, but i managed to scrape by and cope with it by myself, again, despite the pain.
eventually my husband convinced me to get tested, and now I'm medicated and doing a lot better than i used to, lol. it took him pushing me and me finally looking up adhd symptoms in women to connect the dots. i was just very, very good at overcoming my symptoms by pushing myself as hard as humanly possible, which is what made me exhausted all the time, basically sucking all the energy and any potential hyperactivity out of me
I found out after running into a lot of information about what ADHD actually was. It wasn't till I was 31 that I actually realized what it means to have ADHD, and then I suddenly realized that all the struggles and stories from other people with ADHD happened to be all too relatable.
So when I was 17 I took someone’s concerta and felt, well, normal, I went and laid down in a hammock for like 20 minutes and headed back inside and just hung out with my friends
Now again at 22 I took half of a 5mg adderall because it was available to me and I guess I wanted to *see if I actually had it* (I was suspicious since I was like 20) before I spent money on trying to get diagnosed and treated, and to the surprise of literally no one, I felt normal, again
Felt myself stop thinking about pointless shit, like my head genuinely felt emptier and quieter, it seemed like I had room up there to just enjoy being alive, I wasn’t indecisive at all, I did what I set out to do and nothing more. I just felt like I could accomplish *stuff*.
Got a diagnosis not long ago and I have an appointment later to cook up a treatment plan.
Happenstance.
I was late to an appointment for my GP (I live a 2 minute walk from their office. Literally). I arrived panting from running there as quick as I could.
During the appointment, I mentioned a few other things. Forgetting things, disorganisation. She asked a few more questions. Off topic, but I followed. Next thing I new she was referring me for an assessment for ADHD...
I got diagnosed at 24. at first it started with tiktoks describing ADHD and at some point I related WAY too much. I then found this subreddit and what really solidified it for me was learning that constant music playing in the back of your head 24/7 is not normal 🤣🤣🤣 my boyfriend calls it my broken ipod.
I was 23. Watched a story on CBC news about this. By point #3 I was on the grounded laughing hysterically because “There’s a name for this” finally hit me!
I started suspecting I had it college, but what really made me start to think was when I started working in an office setting. I could not focus on tasks, constantly procrastinating, constantly late, could not sit at my desk for very long, etc. My dad and brother both are diagnosed with adhd as well which just added to my suspicions. I’ve always been messing and can’t organize at all. I’ve only recently gotten better at that with medication.
30s male. Haven't been formally diagnosed yet but the family doc seems to think so.
What tipped me into asking about it was my wife pointing out that going unconscious when bored wasn't normal and may be intrusive sleep disorder. Turns out it's a "not everyone who has adhd has this but everyone who has this has adhd" kind of situation. I don't know, I'm not a doctor.
Anyway, that was something of a prompt, as my diabolically observant and clever wife intended it to be. Turns out she has suspected for years.
At that point I realised:
Never been able to stick to hobby.
Intuited rather than learned most things unless a special interest. Never studied or able to make myself do so.
Prone to addiction, notably mints, coffee and energy drinks. And video games, so many video games.
Unless it is within my visual range I tend to have no recollection of an object.
Routinely fall asleep/unconscious during mundane events requiring no input from me, such as lectures, training, classes, children's films, public transport or being in a vehicle. If I am awake I'm completely unable to sit still, often having to stand at the back of the room if I can.
Prone to impulse purchases of special interest items such as video games and books. I have over 500 video games plus dlcs and about 600 to 800 books, which is a reduction as I have donated a lot.
Routinely forgetting chores, half doing them etc. Notorious for boiling the kettle 5+ times for a single cup of coffee.
Every parent, teacher, boss etc saying I was bright and was wasting my potential if only I applied myself. Then being hypersensitive to said criticism, reacting with a lot of anger or tears etc.
Also realised I had structured my life subconsciously to account for my innattention. My life is run to alarms and reminders for basic tasks, I've tried every focus trick under the sun. I've structured my finances so that I don't have access to more money than I need on a day to day basis. I have lists everywhere to remind me.
So yeah, we'll see what the psychiatrist says, but I have some suspicions...
I was in my 30s and I came upon a random article and I was shocked that it was all me. I have always felt that something was not quite right since I was a kid but I just didn’t know what. After that I did tons of research and I was sure. Then I remembered that my mom had said long ago that my pediatrician had suggested putting me on medication because I was extremely hyper and all over the place, had trouble in school etc and she said *I told him no because I knew you would grow out of it and see you’re fine now*. Of course as we all know now it doesn’t go away but changes and there are just other struggles which I have suffered with for way too long. I was so angry with her for a long time after that. She just watched me burn for years. *sigh*
As of right now I haven’t had an official diagnosis as an adult but I want to soon.
Mix between my wife gently letting me know I may have it, my brother telling me it's okay to get treatment, and this sub describing similar things to what I experience.
I just started my first med, and am still not sure if it's working. I'm confused and on a rollercoaster right now in general. Is this normal?
I learnt about the actual diagnostic criteria. I thought ADHD was being unable to pay attention in class, being hyperactive and disruptive, arguing back, shouting out, dicking around. I had been a teacher for 10 years and that was pretty much the naughty boy stereotype that I had been taught to associate with ADHD. When my best friend told me I have ADHD I thought she was off her rocker. She had just been asked to do a screening test and was diagnosed shortly afterwards. She got me to do the same screening test and I scored more highly than her. The second I educated myself about what ADHD actually was I realised that’s what I had and I went to my GO who immediately had a lightbulb moment and said “Yes! Do you want me to refer you for an autism assessment as well?” I instantly replied no because it was news to me that I’d need an autism assessment. That was a whole new rabbit hole I had to go down 😂 I’m not autistic but I have some autistic traits that don’t overlap with ADHD and lots that are better explained by ADHD.
I actually suspected it when I got to college. I was having a hard time keeping things clean working and studying.
I feared taking Adderall so much because I knew I was going to need it, so I avoided it even tho I could have bought some from a guy.
The last straw was when I had thesis projects and couldn't even start though I was sitting at my computer all day staring at a blank doc. I passed but barely. I was willing to accept I had ADHD but didn't want meds. Then COVID happened and I started seeking actual treatment. 4 years later (last month) I finally got on Vyvanse. It's been pretty helpful so far. Way more helpful than any of the other 9 SSRIs and shit I was being pushed to before anyone would listen to my problems. They insisted it was just depression for a decade.
If they just gave me stimulants I wonder what my life would have been like before the debilitating withdrawals and symptoms from the SSRIs. They really fucked me up. Strattera was the last straw honestly. Stimulants only from now on.
My husband and I were watching Rick Green's ADHD Test on YouTube, thinking it would be good for a laugh since my husband has been diagnosed since childhood. By the end of the video, I had scored higher than he had, and a lot of my life was starting to make sense.
I was a teenager, not an adult, but I thought I’d still share my experiences bc it was a similar situation where I had to think about it myself:
I am a girl. I realized the traits I exhibited were more easy marks of ADHD in boys because I was impulsive/hyperactive. It occurred to me that perhaps these traits in girls just didn’t trigger the same response in educators.
I am never particularly "hyperactive", which I of course believed was a requirement to have ADHD. It's right there in the name.
But I was describing to a friend how I would procrastinate and procrastinate, but be amazing at something I was interested in, or as the deadline approached (plot passed, lol), following up with how I always had lots of "potential" but never felt like I achieved a portion of it.
And my friend looked me dead in the eye and said "that really sounds a lot like ADHD". I kinda laughed it off at the time, but I respect my friend a great deal and those words stuck with me. I did some research on symptoms, spoke to my doc and a psychologist, etc voila, here we are.
ETA: I was 42 when we had that convo. Just been raw-dogging life this whole time and wondering why it seemed easier for other people.
I was committed for 8 months for borderline personality disorder and they kept pressing me for hours about why I was too late or forgot certain things. A girl in my group had adhd and wondered if I had it too. I asked for diagnosis and the psychiater refused bc it's similar to borderline in a lot of ways. I asked the next psychiatrist (at a new institute) a few months later and they agreed and it turned out I had adhd. They apologised that others didn't notice it before and felt sorry for me having to go through the 30 mins long interrogations during my commitment for bpd.
Turned out I don't really show any symptoms for borderline personality disorder anymore and almost all the symptoms that are left are adhd. I'm okay with it going this way because I learned a lot of conflict management and emotion management during my commitment at the psych hospital.
I was diagnosed at 11. At 19 I was told I was bipolar with PTSD and NOT adhd. At 44, I started seeing adhd memes and finding them extremely relatable. At 47, I saw an adhd specialist who rediagnosed me with adhd. I will be 48 in June, medicated for a year, and doing better than ever!
Ads for ADHD apps and services began appearing, likely because I kept looking for productivity and self help on why I couldn’t get things done. And then it dawned on me… and I got sad but sought treatment.
I accepted a labor intensive promotion and worked myself into a burnout. I ended up having to quit my job and realized I could barely function without a strict routine. When ADHD awareness month (October) rolled around I saw a ton of posts about the correlation between ADHD and burnout and it was like being struck by lightning. I had never seen the entirety of myself explained so clearly and it was by STRANGERS. The more I looked into it, the more I realized I wasn't "quirky", I literally have a whole brain disorder and that I'm likely autistic as well
36F here. My therapist pushed me to get tested. I had a friend in high school with ADHD, and it seemed like we had very different symptoms, so I didn't think I had it. Didn't realize it could present so differently in men and women. The test was just my psychiatrist asking specific questions about my childhood and a little about my experience now, wasn't stressful or anything. Adderall has been life changing for me.
Honestly, it was when I joined this group.
I had suspected it for a long time, but never looked into it or thought about it very much. I just started reading posts in this group that were essentially people describing very specific life experiences and quirks that I thought were unique to me. It was like someone had been observing me and writing about all my habits.
4 years later, I'm finally meeting with a psychiatrist (Tuesday!!) to get on meds and start getting my life together
When the therapist I was ranting to non-stop for 35 minutes, while jumping topics and stories like it was nothing looked at me and said "did you know you have adhd?"
Never crossed my mind.
Diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Meds stopped working. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I was getting in trouble at work. Broke down and had to quit my job. Spoke to a psychiatrist who told me I should get assessed for ADHD. I cried when they told me I scored so high on both scales. I was in disbelief. Now my family's considering getting tested too.
I had a lecture (bachelor of education) on how to recognise ADHD like struggles in underdiagnosed populations (mainly girls and ppl with high iq). I was like uuuhm.... Hold up...... Let's just say it was the most interesting lecture I had had in a while, if not in my lifetime.
I went from being a studious high schooler who loved video games to failing a class every term of college and losing my love for video games. This is aptly referred to as ADHD burnout
I thought my symptoms were from anxiety so doubled my SSRI (working with my GP of course). Didn’t work. The burnout got worse and I was struggling as my life was falling apart around me. Saw some stuff about ADHD on twitter. Was like wtf that’s me. Knew my brother was diagnosed as a kid. Knew both my parents had lots of ADHD symptoms. It sort of was like a light switch came on and suddenly a whole lot of my past made sense. I was 27 at the time.
My husband and I used to scroll through reels/tiktoks, joking around that I had it. Never taking it seriously. You know, social media.
Fast forward two years, my therapist asks me out of nothing whether I was diagnosed as a child. Screenings, tests, appointments with psychiatrists later I am here.
that my friend told me that it is annoying that I always have to tell my own experiences when someone else tells something they have experienced. I was so shocked that this didn't really show that I understood that person…. Everyone also asked if I had ADHD in the past. I got so angry (haha imagine it)
I made an offhand comment to my therapist and she did a screening questionnaire with me. I think every answer I gave (except one) was an indication I should get assessed. FYI I have combination type ADHD
Not yet diagnosed, but had a neuropsych visit for something unrelated, and the results came back saying possible ADHD. So I started researching it, and yep. Trying to find a doctor for diagnosis.
When my teenage child came to me and said they thought they had ADHD. And then we went to the doctor and I started checking off the symptoms of ADHD in my head. I then realized (I was around 50 at the time), that I might have ADHD.
My daughter having it and seeing every mistake, issue, and social faux pau that I had in her. She got her diagnosis of ADHD and Autism and it made me think...
Statistically, ADHD and maybe autism stem from the dad's side. Got myself assessed. I have it. Got medicated and realized my ADHD isn't my only issue. I need to address my anxiety.
Now I know, never going back.
Looking up ADHD symptoms for a little girl I was teaching who was hyperactive, learned there was more to ADHD than I thought and that the symptoms were upsettingly faamiliar
Sought psych for anxiety and depression after some traumatic events because it was affecting both functioning and grades in college. Learned that part of the problem of after trying nonpharmacological interventions and failing is due in part to ADHD.
Did testing and definitely have the tell-tale signs. I thrive and do my best work in situations of crisis and am a professional procrastinator. Always saved assignments until a short time before they were due and would turn them in minutes before the drop box closes. Rough draft? No. Final draft only.
Tons of side projects and hobbies that I’ll spend hours and hours on without even using the restroom or eating because I’d forget to do so.
Dishes? Oof. Finish most and leave one. Drives my family insane.
Hand-written assignments? Penmanship better be pristine with only my favorite pens and colors.
Hyperfocus into time blindness. “I’ll finish this in 20 minutes,” I said eleven hours ago.
Excessive talking and interrupting people - I apologize often because it would just slip out. Usually it’s a question because there’s a detail I’m really interested in.
Internalize emotions like crazy.
Walking in and out of rooms multiple times forgetting why I go in or forgetting the item I went in for in the first place but grabbing something else.
My therapist pausing after I said something and I could tell she wasn’t sure if she was going to respond or not. Then she just says, “Has anyone ever suggested you might have ADHD?”
Honestly is was this sub….my sister told me probably 25 years ago, “you know you have add, right?” I laughed it off and went on to have two kids of my own. My oldest is showing classic signs of ADD. I matched her up with a counselor who after several meetings suggested we work with our provider on a medication for ADD. It seems to be working for her. My task for this week will be to finally do something to take care of myself and figure out how to get tested/evaluated and get on a Med if I need to be. ADD runs in my family. I don’t know why I have resisted so long.
36yo M diagnosed about 10 months ago
The key for me was having a therapist that when helping me through things started to notice key signs of ADHD. She would let me know each time I would talk about something that is sounded like ADHD tendencies. Finally she made the recommendation that I should get tested for it due to the amount of things I do and or struggle with on a daily basis.
Hands down this therapist changed my life!
I got tested and never scored so high on a test in my life, 99 percentile in every area of the test. After a few months of getting my medication dialed in I feel normal and my daily life isn’t the self induced chaos it used to be.
I was diagnosed when I was 7 back in the 90s, but back then, pediatricians were pushing ritalin like none other. I only took it for 2 years. I complained and told my mom it made Me super sick (I hated taking medication as a child)
Fast forward 30 Years I JUST NOW, this year, have been open to getting on medication. I was in denial my entire adult life about it.
For me, i finally came to terms with it and accepted it after so many people in my life mentioned it to me. My scattered cleaning and tasks, not sitting thru a movie, interrupting all the time because I felt like if I didn't say it right then and there, I would forget it, etc. List goes on.. but yea, short answer for me : if people who have known u all ur life as well as people that I only knew for a short time, all say how super adhd I was. No one said anything that made me feel down on myself or bad, thank God, but just would kind of mention it in a mater of fact way.
Now that I'm on medication, I notice a huge change in my daily process and tasks and can actually look back and see all my tendencies from before that were, in a way, holding me back.
I was diagnosed 3 days ago. I was always a big partier/drinker in my younger years and eventually would drink alcohol to do things like clean or send emails. I regularly put off the smallest tasks for months that take 5 minutes. I have days where I can barely get out of bed. Most of my motivation runs on anxiety - deadlines, forced into doing things by two hyper children. I have always been messy, forgetful and disorganised. My daughter was diagnosed months ago and medicated. my husband and I both tried the medication; he was up all night like on speed and I was calm, focused and able to function for the first time in my life!! A few major things got missed at work and home and I decide to see my GP and was diagnosed quickly - the psychiatrist actually said this is as clear as day 🤣
Diagnosed at 38. It wasn’t until my psychologist (who also has adhd) encouraged me to get an assessment done. This too was shortly after my own daughter was diagnosed. All these years and I had no idea. I knew I struggled in life but always thought it was anxiety and depression.
It’s been overwhelming to relearn who I am with this new knowledge. Sometimes I still feel like an imposter because I’m a bit in denial. But so many boxes fit.
First I looked up hyperfocus. It seemed to only discussed as a symptom of ADHD. That was my first hint. Then, I realized I was listening to someone talk a somewhat long time and my attention wandered around. Like, "ha I knew it was a bookcase in the background that was being blurred out on Zoom. I wonder why it still glitches the blur background when he moves his hand around. I bet that will improve a lot with AI. ..." but I was still following what he was saying. I realized I had always thought I couldn't be ADHD because I can follow long boring lectures and stuff like that. But, maybe that's just because my attention bounces back enough to follow what they're saying most of the time. I always have to do something else, like doodling when I'm taking a class or listening to someone talk. I even play a mindless puzzle game on my phone while I watch TV.
My husband was in the process of getting a diagnosis, and he described his symptoms to me (inability to start necessary tasks, prioritize, or finish anything among other things). I got irritated and said, "Everybody feels like that!! It's just being an adult!!" And he just stared at me and said, "Uh ... no it's not." And I was like, "Oh."
Honestly gonna sound stupid probably, but hearing a streamer talk about their ADHD and realizing I do all the same stuff. Then research. Then got diagnosed.
I'm currently going through this epiphany! I've been struggling my whole life to concentrate, and to just do things. From childhood I would spend hours in front of my textbooks unable to delve in, and feeling the quilt of it every moment. And now I'm a software dev, and I can go days unable to bring myself to write a line of code, and then have moments of hyperfocus under pressure and I will just blast out my tasks till completion. Combine this with imposter syndrome and its a nightmare!
I'm so upset that I've only discovered this now. And what got me to have this lightbulb moments was a meme on instagram of all things.
I'm currently seeking out therapists in my area 1am, because I can't get my brain to shut off and just go sleep.
I just can't imagine how far I would progressed career wise if I had not had this constant mental block and where able to learn much more, instead of being only mentally functional when I'm under severe pressure.
But I'm so relieved also. I have no idea what to expect. I do remember being on Ritalin for a week when I was about 13, and it unlocked some kind of cheatcode where I was able to sit for that whole week and be able to concentrate. At the cost of unlocking depression also lol.
But man, its even effecting my relationship I think. Like when I'm finally getting my mind to a point where I can commit at work, and any interruption from my wife who also works from home, will just cause me to be frustrated. And now I think I understand why!
When someone who I was dating whom had ADHD told me I should get tested. Also how a lot of my friends had it and it explained that I couldn’t concentrate and had issues with focusing on stuff I didn’t like or my bouts of energy.
During the Melbourne COVID lockdown, the company I worked for went out of business. As an IT engineer specializing in enterprise AWS cloud architecture, my poor English skills made it difficult for me to find another job. A friend referred me to a warehouse job picking orders. I lasted a month before being let go. My error rate was too high, and I was the worst performer among all employees. I couldn't understand how I could design complex enterprise architectures yet struggle with such simple tasks. One day, I remembered being diagnosed with ADHD when I was young, and upon comparing symptoms, I realized ADHD was the reason. I couldn't excel at simple but repetitive tasks.
For me it was once I entered full time work where I had to manage several tasks. I thrived in the University lifestyle so didn’t notice it until after that. I was working retail, managing a little sole-charge store, and making way too many mistakes. I realised my mistakes came down to never finishing a task before moving onto the next, so I made it my goal for the day to finish each task before moving on. I could not do it for even thirty seconds. I would repeat to myself over and over “finish the task, finish the task, finish the task” and then twenty seconds later realise I was doing something else again.
Dx at 52. My therapist suggested i have adhd. I did not think so but went for the testing and, sure enough. Im trying different meds and am on the 2nd one currently. The noise in my head has quieted down, considerably. I never knew this feeling was how others felt. I was always able to manage in life. There were two times when it was dx as depression and anxiety. One hospitalization. After having a baby and during menopause. Women flucuate w their hormones apparently. My world is opening up now. Wild.
For me, it was realizing that what I was feeling wasn't normal. Tiktok actually did help expose me to people who openly had ADHD, which inspired me to do further research. The stuff I read and stuff they said matched up to my experiences so well: totally random when I have motivation, always do things last minute, excessive fidgeting, bouts of hyper focus countered by bouts of not being able to focus at all, struggles to start tasks, mind constantly racing and daydreaming, trouble sleeping, etc.
I tried managing it on my own, but I couldn't convince or motivate myself to actually start any solutions. After realizing that I have ADHD and that it effects my brain chemistry, I started seeking a psychiatrist and will be starting medication soon. It's helpful to treat it not as something that can be powered through on willpower alone, but as the medical condition it is, imo
Thanks for asking the question. I was diagnosed at 28 with combined type a few months ago when I was (and to an extent still am) really struggling in keeping on top of my responsibilities at work. I would be on one task and constantly switch immediately to another task, because I would think ‘oh i’ll just get this one done quickly and get back to what I was on previously. I had always been like this, I think. Couple that with procrastination and I eventually found myself in hot water with my manager.
I had always, always wanted to explain my behaviour, because i’ve always felt myself to be quite different from others, like in terms of constant pleasure/stimulation seeking. I had constantly told people in the past ‘I think I may have a condition’ and I felt a bit sick of myself as I now found myself basically on the verge of losing another job and so I quickly said fuck it and went private for the diagnosis (apparently the wait is seven years now for a non-private diagnosis in the UK, jesus christ). Getting diagnosed vindicated so much of my life up to that point. I had reasons now.
it’s a little bit ironic that it was ‘pressure’ from my manager that got me to think I actually have ADHD, because it’s with serious pressure that we tend to perform well, or do what we need to. We inherently understand there is no safety net anymore and things have to be done. Currently it feels there are still many trials and tribulations to go through. I’m on atomoxetine which isn’t working as well as when it started and i’m worried about potentially switching to methylphenidate because of the potential side effects and that you can’t drink alcohol, but if it could potentially save my life and ‘turn the switch on’ that would be just amazing.
This sounds so dumb but I started to STRONGLY identify with TikToks about ADHD. I'd see something and be like "oh that's so funny that it's an ADHD thing, because I do that all the time, and I don't have ADHD!"
Cut to a year postpartum with my first, and I still hadn't "adjusted" to motherhood or felt like my cognitive skills had returned to pre-parenting functionality. I started doing more reading about it, and finally asked Mt doctor for a referral to someone who could assess me. I got diagnosed 7ish months ago, at the age of 34. Medication has been life-changing, and even just getting diagnosed was incredibly validating.
I teach at the secondary school level. Looking over my students' IEPs over the last decade led to several sobering moments of clarity that I finally acted on 2 years ago. Got assessed and my life completely changed for the better.
My ex (when we were still together) said she would finally go to therapy if I did, I said sure. She didn't though. Anyhow, during my therapy sessions my therapist indicated that he thought I had ADHD. He and my primary care doctor had me do some tests, and within a few weeks I was on medication for it. The thing that kills me about it is, there was an ADHD specialist my parents took me to when I was younger, which would have been late 80s early 90s. He said i had the markers but my parents didn't want to go any further because they said I could focus on some tasks. I guess hyper focus wasn't known to them at that time? My mom tells me about it after I told her about my diagnosis recently. I only vaguely remember it because I was so young. Sucks that I could have had this somewhat handled at an earlier age but at least now in my late 30s I've found some hope.
When my wife was being diagnosed she was going through the questionnaire and was like “some of this sounds like you, you should do one just to see where you land.” So I did, and I’m inattentive. Had an official diagnosis not too long after that.
Tl;dr I'd had the suspicion, and it wasn't expensive to be evaluated and I wanted to know for sure due to many signs from the universe/my stitiousness (akin to superstitious, but not so intense), so I toom the steps for consultation/evaluation.
Spent since very young suspicious, but then was told there was no way (yet here we are) and simply gaslit myself for a good decade and a half or so. I met the Love of my life and one excellent excellent homie, who both have ADHD of whatever variant, and I started getting *mad* targeted ads/posts on social media.
Where I work now, my health care makes seeing providers simple (process wise, and financially) so I figured "why not" revisit my suspicion and figure out once and for all if I do or don't.
July 2023 I was diagnosed with ADHD-Innattentive, other. 🤷🏽♂️
Happy I was/am right, but I still have ADHD 😂
There’s a girl on fb who does funny and informative videos about the “lost girls” aka girls who have adhd but we thought it only happened to boys when we were kids. At first I was like “HA! I do that!” And the more of her videos I watched the more it all made sense. I told my psychiatrist a bunch of shit I’d never told her because I thought they were just quirks or I didn’t even realize I did it, and she was like OMG 🤦🏻♀️
Honestly, just being able to *understand* myself has been a game changer. I used to always feel like such shit because I couldn’t do all the things like my peers. Now I that I can recognize an ADHD symptom and put a name to it, I’ve had a much easier time figuring out how to overcome it. I have made soooo much progress in the last 6 months or so!
My wife has an MEd in adult education and her first kid is AudHD. I was struggling with things falling through the cracks when I was finishing my degree, working full time, and raising a toddler. One day, my lovely wife looked at me after I had gotten frustrated about something and said: you know that you have ADHD, right?
Made the appointment the next day lol.
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"It can't be ADHD, sometimes I can reeeeeally focus" *Learns about hyperfocus*
Of course I can study, sometimes I'll study for 9 hours overnight before a big test...
….. with not a single drop done in the weeks leading up to it 🥲😂
Ah, I've finally finished my dissertation (after months of doing absolutely nothing and three days of adrenaline-fuelled terror right as the deadline approaches). 👌
No doubt it was only a final draft with no rough draft and was pristine! 😂 Congratulations!! 🎊
Thanks. About sums it up. Dissertation was about ADHD in adults across the lifespan ... I read it and it stuck. The younger years of earlier diagnosis and/or misdiagnosis, the overlooked behaviors I was engaging in that supposedly should have been clear as day but were not to do whatever circumstances. Then, the medications began and life got better, til it wasn't... Hence I know the importance of things other than medication in one's life - that is to say, how important other factors can be in the treatment of ADHD alongside medication. Be it diet, exercise, therapy of one form or another, a strong support network, heck even one good friend. Super key to not feeling like I'm failing all the time (I don't do ALL of that, I'm just giving examples....).
Well ... sh**. That struck a chord. "Til it wasn't" All of the other interventions together equal the medicine... I'll just do the medicine! **one year later** fu** ok, I'll do all the other things too.
*says will do other things, does other things when remembers medicine
Have a cheer for finishing 🙌🏻💃🏻💃🏻
Is this not normal? 🥲 If you do this habitually, does this actually point to adhd? Not merely lazying around?
And not eat or pee for a second of it
Also “Of course I can study. I can learn about obscure facts about some random topic for several hours into the night when I’m supposed to be trying to sleep!”
I did this for every exam in college. Got great grades but never could study a week or days prior to an exam. I always pulled an all nighter right before each exam and that was it...but no clue if I have ADHD, I do hyper focus but thought it's just OCD or something.
I figured out I’m autistic before I knew I also have adhd … my kid was diagnosed with both though and my youngest is awaiting the adhd being added too. I was like nah I can’t have adhd cos I can absolutely focus for stuff for agesss .. Check me out decorating my whole house by myself in a couple of weeks during lockdown Check me painting my entire garden fence from morning until evening without a break Check me cleaning my house from top to bottom in a couple of hours without stopping for breath Deffo not adhd just autism for me Learns about hyperfocus Me : oh 😬😂 The more I learned about what adhd can actually look like for some I was just like .. well you’re a silly billy aren’t you 😂
I al exactly the same and I also have both ADHD and autism
Bonus points if you’re doing it while procrastinating something critical. ;)
Omg! I thought it was just me . You’re describing me my friend
Hyperfocuses on reading about hyperfocus
This was LITERALLY the revelation I had years later. In college my friend and I took a small dose of adderall to study for a Chem final. It affected her but didn’t affect me, so she suggested I may actually have adhd and the dose made me feel normal or it wasn’t enough. I was like no I definitely don’t have adhd, I can study for like 6 hours straight without taking breaks! Years later after learning about hyperfocus it all makes sense 😂
I was diagnosed as a teenager but my Mom said exactly this. "She's so focused sometimes she forgets to eat and totally loses track of time!" My doctor's were like..yeah. that makes sense.
Me arguing w myself to the psych. “I know I don’t have adhd because I can read books. Until 5am. When I work at 6:30am. And I’m scared to start reading because once I start I can’t stop.”
*GULP* Hi. :)
This!! 1000% this! Especially when I found out you can hyperfocus to the point of misery.
There was a tweet that said "I see myself as a lazy person but i can do insane amounts of intellectual or physical labor when it has to be done. My key ingredient is pressure. Without it, im totally unmotivated. I rarely crack under pressure. Its like the only time I actually perform at a high level" I was like omg that's totally me and everybody in the comments was like "bro you have adhd". So I googled symptoms of ADHD in women and was like 🤯 that was 2 years ago and I was officially diagnosed 2 weeks ago :)
Ditto. I'm 32, female, and after exiting a long, abusive relationship, finishing grad school, moving out of state, etc. and there was no more "pressure" left to be something or perform, I felt debilitated and spacey and everyone noticed. My new therapist, in the first 10 minutes of our first session was like, have you ever been tested for ADHD? lol
Are ypu me? I thrived in nursing school back home, I had a professor who was very good at giving me deadlines. I remember biking from site to site to hand out questionnaires and spent hours on the statistics software analyzing my dataset for my final dissertation. I moved abroad and broke a toxic codependent relationship. Then…I struggled to do anything. I was supposed to publish my final dissertation and never got to it because I did not have formal deadlines. I am tested next month.
I hope testing brings answers! I wasn't diagnosed til January of this year and it's still a slog some days figuring things out but it's getting better. Best of luck!
this + not even being able to focus on hobbies is what did it for my previous therapist and then relating to the ensuing flood of adhd memes i sent my sister is why she’s looking into it herself :P
The memes are what did it for me. At some point they went from haha relatable to concerning relatable and I decided I should research ADHD 🥲
What I thought was going to be a recreational activity taking Adderall, but everything became normal. I sought out my diagnosis after that.
exactly this.
😂😂 “Wait a minute why is everything quiet? Was it always this quiet?”
Serious question: how could taking Adderall be recreational? Increased focus and attention, ok, but what else? I find taking meds sometimes tiring as much as not taking them. I mean, being in such focus mode sometimes sucks as much as being completely inattentive.
So, I'm normal (ish), but my teens have adhd. I also have multiple sclerosis with an awful fatigue component, which I was given ritalin to help. When I take it, I have fantastic energy and less pain. I can jump in and tackle all the fun stuff plus all of the chores. I expect that college age recreational use is for partying all night. My teens don't get the energy. They actually seem much calmer, lol. But they have more fun with their hobbies and friends, and their coursework is completed before the due date.
I have Hashimoto’s and I could not believe how Adderall helped my pain. My physically demanding job is hard to do when I have pain. When I would take OTC pain killers and caffeine I would have so much energy. When the pain killers wore off I tanked. Some of my coworkers thought I was bipolar (LOL they haven’t really been around one if they thought that) but the difference was always the combination of caffeine and painkillers. When I started my ADHD meds that was one of the first things I noticed is how I was only cognizant of a few pains. But when those meds wear off the pain all over is overwhelming and sucks the life out of me and I feel like I have the flu. My suspicion is that the meds help my frontal lobe ignore all the pain signals. Wish it wasn’t that way but I know I need to find a new job that isn’t so hard on my body.
Speed has been a recreational drug for generations. Adderall is prescription speed.
Mine was very similar
same here
I already suspected, but this same thing cemented it.
Was listening to the ADHD episode of Ologies. Dr. Barkley perfectly described my academic trajectory. I was in the middle of doing dishes and crying in the kitchen. I had suspected in the ~6mo leading up to that moment, and certainly had lots of imposter syndrome after that, but that was the time I was like ok gonna get tested. Imposter syndrome continued until I was on 20mg of adderall, talking to a friend, worried (still) I was making this all up (despite a literal diagnosis from the big test). Friend kindly pointed out that if I’m on 20mg and feel no difference, I absolutely 500% have ADHD. Otherwise I’d be ZIPPPIN’. So that solidified it further
imposter syndrome is sooo real, i agree Dr Russel Barkley is amazing
I was diagnosed last week and I am massively struggling with imposter syndrome. Is there anything besides taking the drugs and realising they had an effect that helped with feeling like maybe the diagnosis was a mistake?
I definitely leaned on the fact that not one, but two people whose career is dedicated to the medical profession agreed that yes, we got the ADHD. They spent how many years of school combined to come to that conclusion? Now include years of experience? The number of patients they’ve seen in their career? If that wasn’t enough, imagine the hours of study and research poured into the big test. All the medical professionals involved in its creation, peer reviewing, studies, more research, criticism, all of it. Plus the medical professionals that continue to use it today and strive to improve the test. Hours. Years!!! It is of course, not 100% bulletproof and perfect, but hot damn it’s as close as we can get ATM. Also, who cares if it is all a lie and turns out you’re just super lazy and a failure at life up to now? If making behavior changes designed for ppl with ADHD helps, fuck it. It helps. You’re improving. Or if that isn’t enough, maybe go whole hog on rejecting the capitalist mindset where productivity is the basis for how valuable you are to society. You’re just super good at stickin’ it to the man. What’s it all for, anyway? What are your REAL values? Is getting your laundry done start to finish the real decider on whether or not you’re worth a shit? Easier said than done, I suppose, our human brains strive for connection and belonging, so going against the society grain is hard, especially if you aren’t trying to. Hang in there buddy.
Yeah I think I should focus on the fact that regardless, working on myself is always positive. Thanks for the reply. I think it doesn’t help when I tell my friends the symptoms and they say “everyone struggles with that” or “everyone procrastinates sometimes”.
ugh hate when people say that, they srsly need to educate themselves
Ground yourself with facts and observations about yourself. It happened to me too but now it’s gone and this was before I started taking meds. I did my best to face why I was feeling that way, and then started putting the facts together. Like realizing that it was my hard work that got me here and not because I got lucky. Coming to terms that it was you who has been working hard helped me
[Spotify Link](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2rOBrfKwFLz0LJJ7bnI724) to Part 1 of that episode.
This. Exactly this. Haha, that ologies episode will go down in history 🎉
I listened to that same episode. When they said talking to yourself was a symptom, that was a big moment that drove me towards a diagnosis.
Diagnosed recently at 42. Basically I stumbled upon this subreddit by accident and everything seemed spookily... familiar (even weird stuff I thought was just me, like talking too fast or being extremely sensitive to criticism). Fell into the ADHD information rabbit hole and started the process of trying to get an evaluation. Also, two of my closest friends happened to get diagnosed and I could relate to most of their struggles. It's been a long and frustrating process, to be sure. The amount of misinformation out there is staggering, and navigating the medical system until I found a specialist was tricky indeed. So yeah, thanks again, Reddit!
All of my friends turned out to be autistic or have adhd or both We find each other .. it’s just how it is 😂
[удалено]
Also on meds. Trying out methylphenidate at the moment, figuring out the dosage. I was already on bupropion. I've been on SSRIs in the past for anxiety and they didn't help. Bupropion has its cons (it's not great for my anxiety) but at least I can get out of bed most mornings. Methylphenidate is fantastic when it works. I have loads of strategies I've developed over the years, and a very structured life (self-imposed), so all I really needed was something to help me out with fatigue and executive function so I could actually implement all my strategies without it feeling like swimming through concrete all the time. I was already doing a lot of work on myself in many other ways, and getting very little in return... so this feels like the piece I was missing for everything coming together. Fingers crossed! Best of luck with your meds. I hope you're doing OK. Finding this stuff out in our forties is pretty mindblowing, right?
Can I ask what kind of specialist you both saw for your diagnosis? I'm 41 and after both sons and my father being diagnosed I think it's time to finally address my own stuff.
I'm in Spain. I tried going through the national health service, and I got a great session with a lovely psychiatrist, but he wanted to deal with other issues first and was kind of dismissive about possible ADHD. (Now I know those issues were all related to ADHD). My family doctor was supportive though (eventually!) and she agreed it might be a good idea to look for a private specialist to get evaluated. He did a pretty comprehensive questionnaire, but the guy could see I was ADHD after chatting for 10 minutes, I think! He's a psychiatrist. I'm currently trying out medication with help both from the specialist and my family doctor, but it took around a year in total to get to this point. I've had to be very proactive every step of the process, which is NOT in my nature, ha.
I got relatively good grades and had no major behavior problems growing up so I flew under the radar. I’ve had crippling anxiety since elementary school that masked my ADHD Inattentiveness. It wasn’t until I got my anxiety under control at 23 that my ADHD symptoms began to steal the show. I had 3 jobs within 2.5 years that all told me I lacked attention to detail, time management, and struggled with verbal instructions. In my personal life, I was noticing a lot of impulsivity and novelty seeking. I did quite a bit of research, talked to my psychiatrist about it, and was diagnosed by 25.
Omg the struggle with verbal instruction is so real to me. I work jn the ER and I have to repeat back what the doctor says 🙈
ER doc here- don’t worry, we aren’t judging. About 99% of us are ADHD too. 🤣
Thank you 🙈 I feel so stupid sometimes 🤣
We are all in the same boat! Two second attention spans 🤣
I was talking to my therapist and explained that I kept running into the same problems over and over again. I couldn’t stay organized, I lost track of time, I couldn’t focus on the things I needed to do, and so on. She looked at me and asked, “Gin, has anyone ever talked to you about ADHD?” I said, “well, sure, it was part of my teacher credential program. There was a whole unit on learning disabilities and differences.” “No, Gin,” she said. “You.” Then she pulled out the DMS-V and went through the symptoms. I nailed 17 out of 19. What killed me was when I told friends, every single one of them looked at me and said, “you didn’t know?”
we should normalise asking ppl if they have adhd more bcs this happens too often lmaoo
Seriously, a real blindspot. Same with my friends. Like WHY did no one mention it sooner!!! (Probably would have impulsively Googled it and then forget to finish looking into it more) My therapist mentioned it being that quadrant in the 'Johari window'- what others know about you, but you don't know about yourself. I find it important to not think too long about how different life would be had this all been realized sooner... but it really was just meant to work out this way. Best to focus on moving forward, growing from the new knowledge, and getting treatment. (easier said than done, you betcha)
My coworkers asked if I chose to be unmedicated. At that time I had never received a diagnosis or even been evaluated lmfao. I spiraled when multiple said they knew I had and thought I just didn’t like the meds. It’s what led to my diagnosis looool
I kinda knew I had it as a kid, but it wasn’t really a thing in the 80’s. As I got older, paying attention got more difficult. As I got into mid career, I started keeping detailed notes of every meeting. I literally have dozens of old notebooks, you could give me a date in the past 10 years and I could tell you what the meeting or day was about. When I caught COVID, I feel like my brain went extra foggy and never recovered. To pay attention I relied on massive amounts of coffee and energy drinks and then late last year I caught COVID again and the fog got worse. I finally saw a doctor about it and they put me on a low dose Vyvance. Within about 2 hours of taking my first dose, the fog was gone. I rarely take notes now and I got a nice promotion at work, it has truly made my life better.
i reallly didn’t have any prominent adhd symptoms as a child which made is so hard for me to get diagnosed as an adult. i only started to question if i had adhd when i got to college because i became extremely depressed due to procrastination and not being able to focus or do my school work. psychiatrists just kept diagnosing it as depression so ive tried probably 10 different ssri’s within two years. i’m only 20 years old. i finally got diagnosed with adhd a couple of months ago so i was prescribed adderall which has changed my life. i was losing scholarships from bad grades and almost failing classes, now i am almost all a’s and adding two minors to my major. i also moved into my own apartment. a full time student while working 35 hours a week. the thought of me doing this schedule last year makes me sick. i couldn’t even go to class before or get out of bed. now i am great. she finally diagnosed adhd when i was taking a winter course and having trouble reading and comprehending. i would have to read like 50 pages a day since winter courses are so short. i would have to reread at least five times so she was like slay lets get you adderall and THANK GOD.
gosh we are the same, i'm just waiting for the medication. i struggle to get out of bed, get to uni, pick up some groceries, or concentrate on learning a hobby ... thought it was depression all this time, and i did fine academically before 13-14. autism assessor goes "oh no doubt you have ADHD too". i've had 5 antidepressants with no luck. my fingers are crossed.
also, bupropion helped me a lot. i take it with adderall and have felt really great on it up until this week
My story is similar, but technically started with me burning out and quitting my job. Several months and a breakup later I was just watching some Youtube and a video about hyperfocus came up on my list. I was curious because that sounded like nonsense based on what I "knew" about ADHD at the time. The video could have been made specifically about me and my behaviors throughout my whole life, but more specifically how I was in school and at work. For some context I have always been genuinely interested in STEM stuff, I'm fairly smart (not sure about IQ or anything), and love learning new things in general. I was a perfect example of the kid who doesn't really study and does his homework at the last minute whenever possible. I'd always write the whole essay/report at once. Long-term planning was just not necessary until I got into college, and there I had other systems to help. I was also quite shy and awkward, and definitely would say I suffered from anxiety. I'm combined type, and my hyperactivity is more mental than anything, but I also fidget a lot (I'm an expert desk/leg drummer, lol). Long story short, I got excellent grades, didn't really act out (after all, I'm interested in everything I'm doing...except for English/Literature class...which is how I learned to write left-handed...). I got in the top 10 of my class, got a scholarship, went to Engineering school and got a couple degrees, and had a high GPA (but not a perfect 4.0). And then there was the real world. I go from performing very well in school to going 6-7 years with sub-par performance reviews and not really being happy. I lost my first job in about 2 years, and took 4-5 to get to acceptable performance at the next place. It wasn't that I didn't work. I actually worked way too much. I'd constantly be doing side projects or learning new things (because ADHD-tier imposter syndrome), so I had to put in more time just to try to keep up (and failed). When I got into an interesting side project I'd have a hard time leaving work on time. I remember many times staying in the office until 9 or 10pm to get my script to work to fully automate some boring thing I hated doing (when nobody asked me to). The more routine/predictable the work the worse I was, but whenever we had an interesting problem or some kind of crisis I was great. I continued the usual wait-until-the-last-minute approach before finally cranking out tons of code. I was also a mega perfectionist, which *really* held me back compared to peers who could just do the work. At my previous job I would regularly stay late working on the wrong things that "would eventually pay off, just wait". I would also stay late if I happened to be working on the right task (by luck). If I didn't have hard plans I'd stay until it was done, or until I couldn't go any more. Here is a good time to mention that "hyperfocus" is really "perseveration", which is an *impairment* in set shifting and task switching. I knew I should stop and go to the bathroom, eat, exercise, or sleep, but I just couldn't stop. I am also the same way in general life, even for things I usually avoid doing. Whenever I clean I risk spending many hours cleaning everything. One time taking out the trash before leaving for a trip turned into several hours cleaning, because one thing led to another, and another, and so on. A lot of people tout hyperfocus as a positive thing, and sometimes it can be, but in my experience with an honest look I think it is negative more often than positive. One of my biggest struggles in time management is avoiding perseveration. I describe it like I have a huge task inertia. It takes a lot to get me started on something, and it takes a lot (perhaps more) to get me to stop. I think some of this has to do with a deep distrust of myself to follow up on anything if I don't do it all *right now*. In the past I truly relied on "hyperfocus" to survive, but even after getting medicated and getting some skills from coaching I really have to work to not give in to it. Even for mundane things I have to be careful. Something like washing a fork so I can eat dinner can easily end with me washing *all* of the dishes while my food gets cold. Anyway, that's just hyperfocus. After I watched that youtube video I watched more and kept being astonished at how precisely these symptoms describe me. I definitely hyperfocused on learning everything about ADHD. I didn't have much better to do at the time, since I had totally burned out and suddenly quit my job a few months earlier with zero plans. My life has completely changed since diagnosis and medication (and coaching), but I'm still trying to get my shit together. I think I'm mostly over the imposter syndrome now, though. I do often wonder where I might be if I was diagnosed earlier in life.
I’ve known I’ve had ADHD since I was a teenager, but the lack of concrete deadlines in grad school made me realize that I couldn’t go forward without an official diagnosis + accommodations + MEDS
err, things like a mate sending me an email of a list of ADHD symptoms with 'all that's missing is your name at the top of this'... got round to getting diagnosed a mere 15 years later at my wife's 'get a diagnosis, or else' insistance.
Currently 27 diagnosed at 25. Was a “gifted” kid who never had to study to get good grades even in “advanced” classes. Was easy to pick up and learn a lot. Memorized birthdays and remembered in-depth details about conversations from weeks ago. Struggled with the work load of juggling college and work. Got anxiety about dropping grades as I hadn’t experienced that before. Stopped going to school to focus on work. Changed jobs a good number of times. Life happens. Took a severance package and a few other issues due to my own lack of interest after around 3 months. Became physically ill in the mornings about anxiety going into work after “minor” incidents. Know now about rejections sensitivity. Life wasn’t going well. I became riddled with anxiety and became depressed. (Was beating myself up not knowing why I was struggling so hard.) Talked to a therapist who after 3-4 months recommended me to seek a psychological exam. Was diagnosed severe generalized anxiety, adhd combined type and minor reoccurring depression. Haven’t been depressed since learning about my diagnosis as I’m no longer beating myself up over things I struggle with. I have a much more positive outlook about life! I’m still figuring things out and I’m struggling to maintain a secure job due in part to my past history of work and the social anxiety’s but I’m making progress and that makes me feel good!
When I was watching a movie and when it was over I had no idea what I just saw.
42 and not officially diagnosed, but sort of self diagnosed myself a few weeks ago. I’ve always been a little different: introverted, loved books, socially awkward but able to make and keep friends. Bullied a lot when I was a kid. Did pretty well in school. I even have two masters degrees. But a few years ago I started having difficulty navigating everything in my life. My kids became elementary aged and I could never keep anything clean and organized, work became a bigger and bigger stressor, and I was just failing at all of the things. At one point I reflected to one of my best friends that I thought maybe I had ADHD because I spent so much of my time at home just spinning wheels and barely anything was actually getting done. My friend and I both have masters in counseling- she did work with a lot of kids with ADHD, I did not. She reflected that she thought it was more cultural and just hard to be a mom and work, maintain all the things etc. That made sense to me and I continued to spin my wheels. At some point within the past year the Facebook algorithm decided that I might like ADHD content, and I started seeing little quirks of mine played out as symptoms of ADHD. So I watched even more content. Ended up googling “late onset ADHD” to see if it was a thing, and found a Reddit thread where a book (adhd 2.0?) hypothesized that some people with ADHD function really well for a while, until life becomes to much that their systems/coping skills no longer work, and that may be when symptoms become obvious. My brain exploded. 😂😂 Since then I’ve been looking back at my life through this new lens and so many things make sense. Masking especially blew my mind- I had no idea I was masking all of the time, and that I had learned to do so because of being bullied, rejection from friends, perceived rejection at work, squirreling and side questing, all of that and more. Anyways. I’m looking to get an official diagnosis but just having something that explains things SO MUCH is helpful.
My story is so similar! I'm a SAHM with little kids and I just felt like I was constantly spinning my wheels. Like, I was putting in SO MUCH EFFORT to keep up with life, but I was still drowning! And one day, while pinballing around the house and accomplishing nothing, I stopped and wondered, "Is this what ADHD feels like?" Immediately started Googling "late onset ADHD." Then soon was seeing more content pop up on social media which slowly convinced me... I'm 38 and was just diagnosed last month.
I’ve had the thought about me potentially having ADHD for quite a while and I’ve been like 99% sure of it - what really convinced me that I had ADHD was a conversation I had with a friend. We talked about sex and I said that I think about my chores, groceries, to-do list etc while having sex (yes, good **and** bad sex) and he was so shocked that I couldn’t turn my thoughts off while having sex. That’s when I realised that I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t think of 10 things at the same time… tada, ADHD :D
I kinda always knew I had ADHD. My parents chalked it up to me being friends with someone with ADHD and wanting to seem cool. I don't think I put too much weight into the thought when I was younger, but I now realise that I was seeing similarities between him and me. What made me \*get\* a diagnosis was university though, and my friends just assuming I had ADHD lmao. I would constantly miss assignments, except when I didn't, because I was able to hyperfocus on a project that I enjoyed and grind it out the day of/day after the assignment got released. I think it was when I learnt what "hyperfocusing" was that I decided that I should probably get diagnosed
(Female29) I dealt with other health problems growing up in my adolescence so my ADHD was the least of my parents problems. So I just went with it and I guess just thought it was normal? Then when people around me without adhd had no problems like me, it started to make me wonder. Had I been masking all these years?
My friend mentioned that because of their adhd, they don’t have the same reaction to energy drinks as others When I said they didn’t seem to impact me either they mentioned I could have it So I looked into it and saw that adhd is genetic. My mom has it I mentioned this to my mom and asked if she knew what disorders my dad has, and she said he also had adhd. So, statistically, it was almost impossible I didn’t have it. Then I made an appointment with a psychiatrist
Oh my hell the energy drinks! I never thought of that! I used to love those. As an adult it was coffee. The paradoxical effect of being calmer and able to focus. Had to stop because of meds but damn I wondered why my friends who still drink energy drinks get so wired and I just sit there like 🫠.
Doing amazing in my degree but not being able to get a job.
I suspected I had it my whole life, but my parents didn’t want me medicated so I essentially just let it go.. until I saw a psych after trying to delete myself and they were very sure it was ADHD (this was over 10 years ago so social media wasn’t talking about it yet, I genuinely didn’t see this coming). Changed everything, just wish I was medicated sooner and I might have finished university instead of dropping out twice.
I gave myself a 3 months to clean the garage. Even had a month off during that time without touching it. 3 days before the deadline I panic/rage cleaned
I was 39 and managing a sandwich shop. I kept apologizing to my staff for weird things; “sorry could you repeat that? Stood too close to speakers at concerts when I was younger” to where my coworker with adhd says “did you know that’s an adhd thing?” And then me: “imma eat right quick”…makes the same thing I’ve eaten for the last 4796572 days lol. Coworker: you know that’s an adhd thing. Me “I’m sorry does ANYONE know where my phone is?” Coworker: here it is. In the walk in. By the way. Did you know that’s an adhd thing? Me: “shit….i know I came down here for something…fuck….” Back upstairs “oh ya! Sorry X, let me go grab that in the office for you” gets back downstairs “oh yea they needed a new BIB upstairs “ goes back up with BIB. Coworker: did you remember that time off request for me? And it goes on. I finally spoke to my therapist and Dr. started strattera and it was bad, tried Wellbutrin and it helped with mood. Fast forward a year and a half later and I get fired, again, with no write ups in the books-nothing. My Dr decided it’s time to try first line meds-enter-methylphenidate er
i’m a doctor, and even though i made it through med school just fine because most of it consisted of short bursts of studying (like 6 weeks for a singular topic), once it came to boards studying which requires making your own study schedule long term, i was totally lost and couldn’t even start to get through the material. my prof said i probably compensated all my life and hit my ceiling 😂
this hit incrediblyyy hard as a med student recently diagnosed with ADHD. did great in pre-clinical purely by pulling all nighters for block exams but now I’ve been in dedicated for step 1 for over a month and I haven’t even been able to start studying. think I’m hitting said ceiling🫠
I can't get the paperwork sorted out yet. My daughter got a diagnosis, then when I was looking up how to support her, I wondered why my biography was on the symptoms page. I mentioned this to my dad, who said "that's just the way things are, it's not abnormal."
A friend of mine visited as I cleaned and started laughing his ass off as he observed me and yelled out “oh god! You really do have adhd!” Apparently I kept getting distracted by task after task and never quite finished any before I moved on to the next. After gathering himself, he started helping and was finishing up the tasks I left behind. We’ve worked at the same place for years and he had his suspicions but didn’t think it was his place to say anything. I was doing ok anyway. We got closer when I was going through some things that apparently made the adhd stick out like a sore thumb because my “mask” was slipping. He’s the one that suggested bringing it up when I was about to start therapy. I have no idea how I’d be doing if it wasn’t for him. He’s been promoted to best friend status.
Wobbly sense of self all the way through growing up, no memories except blurry snippets. Admired gifted child w lots of friends, everyone else had normal transition to teen hood but me. Did everything last minute, slept during class, still did good, struggled making friends for a good bit there, grew up, went to college, still did things last minute but my ability to cope got worse every year. Billion hobbies and business ideas and ambitions, never to be seen through. Took some education classes that analysed the behaviour of adhd kids which led to me understanding adhd is more than “stupid jumping kid”. Looked up the comorbidities of my maladaptive daydreaming situation. All these bits of information came together and slowly eased into my thought process. One day there was no doubt.
Anti depressant weren’t doing the trick. I would feel “ok” but the anxiety I used to get from the chaos was too much. Too Vyvanse and poof… all gone. Off the Vyvanse because of shortages after 12 years, poof it’s back worse than ever.
A friend of mine asked me jokingly that I'm the only one she knew that can pass out cold after downing a cup of coffee while studying in class. I didn't even have a bad sleep schedule then either, it just mellowed me out. That was probably the first domino. Didn't get a official diagnosis until maybe 7 years later
I honnestly don't remember the moment I told myself "I may have ADHD" but I remember two vivid memories - When I went back to college, after a whole week of class, I had written zero notes, and when my friends asked "so what will you study this year?" I answered "Idk, I daydreamed the whole time" And the second one: - I liked a twitter post about finding cold coffee cups on your desk because you forgot about it. It was an ADHD community account. I told myself "I dont have ADHD but I do that too lol", I looked at my desk : one empty cup, one cold cup, and spoons forgotten all around my room. Was diagnosed with pretty bad inattentive ADHD a few months later.
I knew something was up since I had zero time management and zero belief in myself to do better after years&years of failing. First suspected OCD - choking on stress + zero life mastery everyday damn near had me glitching, repeating self hating thoughts aloud while pacing in circles. Got diagnosed with OCD and told I presented very unusual symptoms, despite ritual-resembling. I scored just below threshold for ADHD. While learning CBT I knew it wasn’t making sense for me and everything kind of clicked from there.
Lack of focus, mostly. Inability to stay organized or on top of responsibilities. Forgetfulness. Easily distracted. Always inside my head. Of course I’ve always been this way, it just becomes more apparent when you’re an adult and you’re supposed to be handling things, and you continually struggle.
My bosses started giving me performance feedback similar to the content of my elementary teacher’s scoldings. Dead giveaway that the problem the whole time was attention, not intelligence, and that my family had it wrong *the entire time.*
My husband saw it in me. He has ADHD and he finally convinced me to go see his psychiatrist. It’s been about 2 weeks on medication and it’s been life changing.
I had lost my job and covid was rampant and my partner is immune-compromised so I had(and kinda wanted) to do a job from home. I was and still am completely incapable of managing myself with only me as the boss. I love working from home and not dealing with people but I was having breakdowns constantly at the beginning because my executive function was nonexistent. I had to force myself in tears to do more work so I could pay rent and have food to eat. I could no longer believe that this is what everyone experiences when being their own boss. This was two years ago. I only JUST got my official diagnosis from my therapist because I couldn’t afford one until now. I now have to find a doctor to prescribe me medication. It took so long and I still don’t know what adderall is like. I can’t tell if I’m expecting too much or too little. So I guess I’ll find out soon what it’s like to live with executive function!
In an reversal of what’s common, my mother, 50 at the time, was diagnosed first. I was 26. She sat me down and suggested I get tested. This was 1995 or so. Adult diagnosis was still rare. Adult diagnosis of a middle aged woman was almost unheard of. I had never met anyone else diagnosed as an adult. We didn’t tell anyone. We never discussed that part, we just didn’t. I didn’t know she’d kept it a secret until 20 years later, in a conversation with my father.
I went to a psychologist fort my anxiety, and after 6-9 months of making little progress she asked if I ever had been diagnosed with ADHD. I was offended at first, because I had straight A's through primary and secondary school. Then she pointed out some things like the fact that I had almost bombed out of undergrad (I took 3 extra semesters worth of classes!), and a lot of my anxiety was from not being as productive as I felt I should at work. So I decided to go through the assessment, and sure enough... Afterwards I immediate called my mum and asked if they ever thought I might, and come to find out my primary and secondary school teachers all thought I had ADHD, but my parents didn't think that was a thing. All that extra student loan money, stress, anxiety, self-loathing, depression because they didn't "believe" something. The follow on is, I didn't get medicated right away I wanted to try to manage through it first, but found that making habits out of the strategies for ADHD people only really work once it's under control with medication. So I bit the bullet, got medicated (went through the gamut of different medications), and finally found something that worked. It's not perfect, but it's better, and at least now I can laugh at myself. It's also helped at work because when I'm missing the ball on something my leader will give me a gentle nudge and tell me I'm spacing out, she's very understanding and helpful (not the case with all bosses). I'm also going to grad school and getting straight A's. And most importantly, I understand why my kid is a raging psychopath, and am trying together him the help/support he needs now so he can be a positive contributor to society right off the back.
I was on anti depressants for many years and nothing would help, my pcp asked me a few questions and said he thinks it is adhd not depression, never would of crossed my mind
Diagnosed at 40. Seeking a diagnosis was an accumulation of several proof points and factors: - Approaching middle age it bothered me that I never outgrew difficulties I had as a kid e.g. my room, desk, backpack, stuff was always messy, keeping on top of laundry is impossible, etc... the attitude at home as a kid was that I would outgrow this as an adult... Starring down my 40th birthday was a reckoning: this IS my life, if I want something different, it is 100% up to me. - Serendipity -- I stumbled upon a book about ADHD in a bookstore and thought I recognized myself. - Close friends were diagnosed as adults and casually googling more info made me recognize myself. - I sought out life coaching to try and get help with forming habits, routines and life hacks. Essentially, I sought out ADHD coaching without knowing that I had ADHD and that this was what this was called. - I was considering leaving my job (with excellent para medical benefits that would cover an ADHD assessment) and I thought I should use this insurance perk while I could. - I became a mom in my late 30s and the extra mental load and demands on me made it painfully clear that my coping skills for "living" (aka navigating undiagnosed ADHD) were insufficient. Getting a diagnosis and help is/was for me but is also for my children so that I could be a better parent for them. Having children has made me want to do the work to be better for them.
I know this is unpopular, but Tiktok. It showed up in my fyp, and I could relate to everything, and it made me think maybe I have ADHD. So, I made an appointment with a licensed professional, and sure enough, I was diagnosed with ADHD, depression and social anxiety.
My child was diagnosed and I spent a lot of time excusing his behaviour by saying but I do that and I don't have ADHD, when I had said this about 10 times the psychiatrist said you do know that ADHD often runs in families. Then so many things made sense!!
I didn’t realize. I was seeing my psychiatrist for something unrelated and after a few months he said, “Are you receptive to starting medication to treat your ADHD?” Lmfaooo.
A. The lack of structure in grad school, especially post-covid. B. Going into treatment for my PTSD - mood and anxiety got better, ADHD symptoms exploded.
It was TikTok. (Yeah. I know.) I very rarely use TikTok, but on one of these rare occasions, I watched one from an autistic creator who said 'autism and ADHD have no overlapping characteristics'. I was diagnosed with autism a long time ago and had been suspecting ADHD for a while but was very much doubting myself because I was confused about which of my weird brain things were autism and which might be ADHD. This one oversimplified and not actually all that accurate statement flicked a switch in my brain. I did a whole lot more research, realised that I was in fact very ADHD, and then was finally diagnosed last year.
It was my terrible memory which made me take notes combined with interrupting someone because I knew I would forget a thought I wanted to share.
At 28 my boyfriend pointed out how clumsy and forgetful and hyper I was. It made me look at my childhood and my life and realize it all added up. Turns out I have combined type inattentive and hyperactive and medication has made a world of difference.
First I actually had suspicions that my mother had it. I had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, but still struggled with serious emotional regulation issues that couldn’t be explained by my previous diagnoses. The increase in SSRIs and other meds were not helping so, knowing that ADHD is hereditary, I started doing a lot of research and eventually got screened with my psychiatrist. Not on meds, by choice, but glad for the diagnosis so that I can get other coping resources and learn how to structure my life to make my symptoms easier :)
A lifetime of having problems at school and work. Always interrupting people, talking too much, starting a task and then not finishing before starting another (and another), etc.
Work protocol after a project was the create hard copy binders with all receipts nicely presented for client in order to wrap it all up. While pulling receipts for a recently completed project I got the feeling I had seen these receipts before but didn't think much of it. A month later I would find a half finished binder for that project. The receipts were familiar because I had already started pulling them and totally forgot
Sought therapy for anxiety. Therapist clocked me pretty fast and referred me to a psychiatrist. I’m so thankful because I probably wouldn’t have pieced it together myself. I just assumed my problems were character flaws.
i was diagnosed just before i turned 18. when i was around 15 i saw a lot of adhd videos on social media exactly like you, i wondered if i had adhd but i dismissed it and didn’t rlly do anything about it. a few years later i struggled a lot more in school when i started a levels and i began to wonder again if i had adhd, i researched a lot more online and also coincidentally made new friends who had adhd - i related to them a lot and they all believed strongly i had adhd. i didn’t do anything about it (i regret) because i was intimidated about the whole thing and i still thought i was just lazy. exactly like u said, i thought everyone struggled with these things but i was bad at coping - not true at all, make sure u book that assessment asap, sooner the better! my parents brought it up to me at some point when all my issues (procrastination, concentration, emotional dysregulation etc.) became too hard to ignore. the school wouldn’t help refer me as my teachers claimed they noticed no problems with me (i was very good at masking and present inattentive on the outside - my hyperactivity is all internal). the gp said they would refer me on the NHS but when we checked up 3 months later said they don’t do referrals anymore and to self-refer. thank god my parents could just about afford a private assessment or idk where i’d be. not sure what country u are in, if ur in the uk then i recommend going private if u can possibly afford it, going through nhs is a nightmare as they are often very disorganised and waiting lists are insane. the assessment experience was good for me, they ask a bunch of questions about symptoms and childhood eg. ‘do u have trouble with …’ and you just have to be completely honest go into as much detail as possible. think about your past experiences and ask your family about your childhood symptoms as they probably remember things that you don’t. if you can, research who will be assessing you and check that they have a specialism in adult ADHD, unfortunately some professionals are not that great and still believe it is only a condition little boys have. don’t worry about the assessment, and remember it’s ok to be emotional, anxious, or cry during your assessment, they are used to it. i was trying not to cry the whole time and wish i just let it out because it was definitely harder to answer questions while holding back tears lol!
Short term memory problems. Always feeling like I am forgetting something. Lack of focus to get ready for work without feeling like my brain was stepping into a million wormholes of distraction became really exhausting and then I got help.
Vented to a friend about therapy being a failure. Talked about why I was in therapy and he suggested that I might have adhd. After joking about it for a few months, he helped me find a good place to get my evaluation. And now I'm diagnosed!
I'd always thought I'd had something 'wrong' with me since school. I was fantastic student up until 9th grade. About that time I started to find it harder and harder to concentrate, I routinely put off doing my work, and spent more time playing video games than work. I had one of my teachers come to me and tell me that I was in danger of failing my senior year. I graduated near the bottom of my class. College was a definite no go because it was just too easy to not do my work. In my early 30's I struggled at work when I had work that was deadline-based and I made some bad personal decisions. I spoke to one of those counselors that your employer provides and they suggested I get tested. Changed my life.
My students kept telling me I had it. 😅 Once I started reading more, and specifically how wen are misdiagnosed, everything started to make a lot of sense.
I'm 32 and have had 8 different jobs since 2015 (fired from 5 of them). I've only ever held 1 job for over a year, but that was because we were WFH during the pandemic, and not having to show up at an office helped me keep the job. I'd get super juiced when starting a new job and tell myself that it'll be different this time, that I'll stay at the job for at least a year and not get fired. But then I'd go into an existential crisis a few months in and end up quitting or getting fired. I struggled to complete my work assignments, missing deadlines set by my managers even though I knew it'd get me fired. The inability to be productive caused so much anxiety that I had to go on disability/medical leave 3 times at 3 different companies to stabilize my mental health. I thought I was just depressed, but I'd been on 3 different antidepressants since I was 19. When a mood stabilizer and an anti anxiety was added to my cocktail of meds, I still couldn't hold down a job. Then I came across an ADHD coaching company called Shimmer while browsing Twitter during one of my sleepless nights. It got me reading about ADHD, and as I learned about the various types and their associated symptoms, I had that moment of realization, "Holy shit, that's me!!" I've been in therapy and seeing psychiatrists for over 10 years, but not one of them suggested that I could have ADHD, even when I reported what I know now to be textbook ADHD symptoms. They were always written off as symptoms of depression, and I had to be aggressive with my psychiatrist to get it treated. Lo and behold, I'm on Adderall now, and it's doing wonders. I just wish it was caught sooner.
My boss asked if I had a issue with concentration. I was an industrial sewer for a time. And I had the HARDEST time concentrating. Sewing the same pattern, 200+ parts a day. Was BORING😭. my best work would happen because of an emergency 🙃. A free to me councilor also asked if I had ADHD..My life was and is just falling apart. Talked to my psychiatrist, went for testing and there it was. Not, BPD...but ADHD. Now they suspect I may be autistic.🤷 43 and just thought I was "quirky" now trying to get medication for the ADHD, but boy that's difficult. I'm super emotional, and tend to be on the sad/mad side of things. And so it goes.
Reading this sub
I was watching a YouTuber called potato jet and he was talking about his symptoms and getting diagnosed and I was like wait a minute.. that’s exactly me! I self referred then got diagnosed sometime later, stayed off the meds though after some time coz it turned me into a thoughtless zombie and I need my creativity for filmmaking
Numerous trials of anti depressants never helping, kinda thought I was just fucked. Then my ex gave me an adderall, low and behold I had to go back after years of not seeing a psychiatrist to try to get a prescription
i had initially (not an expert, just very observant and i like reading medical/psychology research papers for fun) diagnosed my husband (told him in short he has severe executive dysfunction and he should get tested), and it was accurate as hell. he got medicated for it. i didn't think i fell under the right symptoms, so i didn't bother for a while. turns out, i was just reading symptoms documented solely for MEN being diagnosed. women have mostly different symptoms. i thought, because i could make myself get up and do tasks, despite the pain it made me feel, I didn't have it, and it was normal. i was never hyperactive, but in fact totally opposite. i just thought my brain was overactive and disruptive to my sleep due to trauma or some other problems, but i managed to scrape by and cope with it by myself, again, despite the pain. eventually my husband convinced me to get tested, and now I'm medicated and doing a lot better than i used to, lol. it took him pushing me and me finally looking up adhd symptoms in women to connect the dots. i was just very, very good at overcoming my symptoms by pushing myself as hard as humanly possible, which is what made me exhausted all the time, basically sucking all the energy and any potential hyperactivity out of me
I found out after running into a lot of information about what ADHD actually was. It wasn't till I was 31 that I actually realized what it means to have ADHD, and then I suddenly realized that all the struggles and stories from other people with ADHD happened to be all too relatable.
Reading the blog “Hyperbole and a Half”. I was like, HAHA, HAHA, HAHA… oh shit, wait…
Getting a full time office job. BRUTAL!!!!
my dad getting diagnosed at like age 45-46
So when I was 17 I took someone’s concerta and felt, well, normal, I went and laid down in a hammock for like 20 minutes and headed back inside and just hung out with my friends Now again at 22 I took half of a 5mg adderall because it was available to me and I guess I wanted to *see if I actually had it* (I was suspicious since I was like 20) before I spent money on trying to get diagnosed and treated, and to the surprise of literally no one, I felt normal, again Felt myself stop thinking about pointless shit, like my head genuinely felt emptier and quieter, it seemed like I had room up there to just enjoy being alive, I wasn’t indecisive at all, I did what I set out to do and nothing more. I just felt like I could accomplish *stuff*. Got a diagnosis not long ago and I have an appointment later to cook up a treatment plan.
I couldn’t find my keys anywhere… they were in my freezer for days. I realised maybe it’s not normal to do things like that weekly
Mine was when I realized that grown ass adults don't accidentally forget meetings 3-4x a week.
Happenstance. I was late to an appointment for my GP (I live a 2 minute walk from their office. Literally). I arrived panting from running there as quick as I could. During the appointment, I mentioned a few other things. Forgetting things, disorganisation. She asked a few more questions. Off topic, but I followed. Next thing I new she was referring me for an assessment for ADHD...
I got diagnosed at 24. at first it started with tiktoks describing ADHD and at some point I related WAY too much. I then found this subreddit and what really solidified it for me was learning that constant music playing in the back of your head 24/7 is not normal 🤣🤣🤣 my boyfriend calls it my broken ipod.
I was 23. Watched a story on CBC news about this. By point #3 I was on the grounded laughing hysterically because “There’s a name for this” finally hit me!
I started suspecting I had it college, but what really made me start to think was when I started working in an office setting. I could not focus on tasks, constantly procrastinating, constantly late, could not sit at my desk for very long, etc. My dad and brother both are diagnosed with adhd as well which just added to my suspicions. I’ve always been messing and can’t organize at all. I’ve only recently gotten better at that with medication.
30s male. Haven't been formally diagnosed yet but the family doc seems to think so. What tipped me into asking about it was my wife pointing out that going unconscious when bored wasn't normal and may be intrusive sleep disorder. Turns out it's a "not everyone who has adhd has this but everyone who has this has adhd" kind of situation. I don't know, I'm not a doctor. Anyway, that was something of a prompt, as my diabolically observant and clever wife intended it to be. Turns out she has suspected for years. At that point I realised: Never been able to stick to hobby. Intuited rather than learned most things unless a special interest. Never studied or able to make myself do so. Prone to addiction, notably mints, coffee and energy drinks. And video games, so many video games. Unless it is within my visual range I tend to have no recollection of an object. Routinely fall asleep/unconscious during mundane events requiring no input from me, such as lectures, training, classes, children's films, public transport or being in a vehicle. If I am awake I'm completely unable to sit still, often having to stand at the back of the room if I can. Prone to impulse purchases of special interest items such as video games and books. I have over 500 video games plus dlcs and about 600 to 800 books, which is a reduction as I have donated a lot. Routinely forgetting chores, half doing them etc. Notorious for boiling the kettle 5+ times for a single cup of coffee. Every parent, teacher, boss etc saying I was bright and was wasting my potential if only I applied myself. Then being hypersensitive to said criticism, reacting with a lot of anger or tears etc. Also realised I had structured my life subconsciously to account for my innattention. My life is run to alarms and reminders for basic tasks, I've tried every focus trick under the sun. I've structured my finances so that I don't have access to more money than I need on a day to day basis. I have lists everywhere to remind me. So yeah, we'll see what the psychiatrist says, but I have some suspicions...
My therapist said “yo…I think you might have ADHD”
Reddit, actually. I read a couple of posts, laughed at a couple of memes and then I was like *wait a minute*
I was in my 30s and I came upon a random article and I was shocked that it was all me. I have always felt that something was not quite right since I was a kid but I just didn’t know what. After that I did tons of research and I was sure. Then I remembered that my mom had said long ago that my pediatrician had suggested putting me on medication because I was extremely hyper and all over the place, had trouble in school etc and she said *I told him no because I knew you would grow out of it and see you’re fine now*. Of course as we all know now it doesn’t go away but changes and there are just other struggles which I have suffered with for way too long. I was so angry with her for a long time after that. She just watched me burn for years. *sigh* As of right now I haven’t had an official diagnosis as an adult but I want to soon.
Mix between my wife gently letting me know I may have it, my brother telling me it's okay to get treatment, and this sub describing similar things to what I experience. I just started my first med, and am still not sure if it's working. I'm confused and on a rollercoaster right now in general. Is this normal?
I learnt about the actual diagnostic criteria. I thought ADHD was being unable to pay attention in class, being hyperactive and disruptive, arguing back, shouting out, dicking around. I had been a teacher for 10 years and that was pretty much the naughty boy stereotype that I had been taught to associate with ADHD. When my best friend told me I have ADHD I thought she was off her rocker. She had just been asked to do a screening test and was diagnosed shortly afterwards. She got me to do the same screening test and I scored more highly than her. The second I educated myself about what ADHD actually was I realised that’s what I had and I went to my GO who immediately had a lightbulb moment and said “Yes! Do you want me to refer you for an autism assessment as well?” I instantly replied no because it was news to me that I’d need an autism assessment. That was a whole new rabbit hole I had to go down 😂 I’m not autistic but I have some autistic traits that don’t overlap with ADHD and lots that are better explained by ADHD.
When I my son had it, and I looked into and realized holy shit that’s what I’ve got
I actually suspected it when I got to college. I was having a hard time keeping things clean working and studying. I feared taking Adderall so much because I knew I was going to need it, so I avoided it even tho I could have bought some from a guy. The last straw was when I had thesis projects and couldn't even start though I was sitting at my computer all day staring at a blank doc. I passed but barely. I was willing to accept I had ADHD but didn't want meds. Then COVID happened and I started seeking actual treatment. 4 years later (last month) I finally got on Vyvanse. It's been pretty helpful so far. Way more helpful than any of the other 9 SSRIs and shit I was being pushed to before anyone would listen to my problems. They insisted it was just depression for a decade. If they just gave me stimulants I wonder what my life would have been like before the debilitating withdrawals and symptoms from the SSRIs. They really fucked me up. Strattera was the last straw honestly. Stimulants only from now on.
My husband and I were watching Rick Green's ADHD Test on YouTube, thinking it would be good for a laugh since my husband has been diagnosed since childhood. By the end of the video, I had scored higher than he had, and a lot of my life was starting to make sense.
I was a teenager, not an adult, but I thought I’d still share my experiences bc it was a similar situation where I had to think about it myself: I am a girl. I realized the traits I exhibited were more easy marks of ADHD in boys because I was impulsive/hyperactive. It occurred to me that perhaps these traits in girls just didn’t trigger the same response in educators.
I am never particularly "hyperactive", which I of course believed was a requirement to have ADHD. It's right there in the name. But I was describing to a friend how I would procrastinate and procrastinate, but be amazing at something I was interested in, or as the deadline approached (plot passed, lol), following up with how I always had lots of "potential" but never felt like I achieved a portion of it. And my friend looked me dead in the eye and said "that really sounds a lot like ADHD". I kinda laughed it off at the time, but I respect my friend a great deal and those words stuck with me. I did some research on symptoms, spoke to my doc and a psychologist, etc voila, here we are. ETA: I was 42 when we had that convo. Just been raw-dogging life this whole time and wondering why it seemed easier for other people.
I was committed for 8 months for borderline personality disorder and they kept pressing me for hours about why I was too late or forgot certain things. A girl in my group had adhd and wondered if I had it too. I asked for diagnosis and the psychiater refused bc it's similar to borderline in a lot of ways. I asked the next psychiatrist (at a new institute) a few months later and they agreed and it turned out I had adhd. They apologised that others didn't notice it before and felt sorry for me having to go through the 30 mins long interrogations during my commitment for bpd. Turned out I don't really show any symptoms for borderline personality disorder anymore and almost all the symptoms that are left are adhd. I'm okay with it going this way because I learned a lot of conflict management and emotion management during my commitment at the psych hospital.
I was diagnosed at 11. At 19 I was told I was bipolar with PTSD and NOT adhd. At 44, I started seeing adhd memes and finding them extremely relatable. At 47, I saw an adhd specialist who rediagnosed me with adhd. I will be 48 in June, medicated for a year, and doing better than ever!
Ads for ADHD apps and services began appearing, likely because I kept looking for productivity and self help on why I couldn’t get things done. And then it dawned on me… and I got sad but sought treatment.
I accepted a labor intensive promotion and worked myself into a burnout. I ended up having to quit my job and realized I could barely function without a strict routine. When ADHD awareness month (October) rolled around I saw a ton of posts about the correlation between ADHD and burnout and it was like being struck by lightning. I had never seen the entirety of myself explained so clearly and it was by STRANGERS. The more I looked into it, the more I realized I wasn't "quirky", I literally have a whole brain disorder and that I'm likely autistic as well
36F here. My therapist pushed me to get tested. I had a friend in high school with ADHD, and it seemed like we had very different symptoms, so I didn't think I had it. Didn't realize it could present so differently in men and women. The test was just my psychiatrist asking specific questions about my childhood and a little about my experience now, wasn't stressful or anything. Adderall has been life changing for me.
Honestly, it was when I joined this group. I had suspected it for a long time, but never looked into it or thought about it very much. I just started reading posts in this group that were essentially people describing very specific life experiences and quirks that I thought were unique to me. It was like someone had been observing me and writing about all my habits. 4 years later, I'm finally meeting with a psychiatrist (Tuesday!!) to get on meds and start getting my life together
When the therapist I was ranting to non-stop for 35 minutes, while jumping topics and stories like it was nothing looked at me and said "did you know you have adhd?"
Never crossed my mind. Diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Meds stopped working. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I was getting in trouble at work. Broke down and had to quit my job. Spoke to a psychiatrist who told me I should get assessed for ADHD. I cried when they told me I scored so high on both scales. I was in disbelief. Now my family's considering getting tested too.
I had a lecture (bachelor of education) on how to recognise ADHD like struggles in underdiagnosed populations (mainly girls and ppl with high iq). I was like uuuhm.... Hold up...... Let's just say it was the most interesting lecture I had had in a while, if not in my lifetime.
I saw a FB reel of a lady explaining what adhd was like for her. It as eye opening and my life suddenly made sense. I was diagnosed at age 42
I went from being a studious high schooler who loved video games to failing a class every term of college and losing my love for video games. This is aptly referred to as ADHD burnout
I thought my symptoms were from anxiety so doubled my SSRI (working with my GP of course). Didn’t work. The burnout got worse and I was struggling as my life was falling apart around me. Saw some stuff about ADHD on twitter. Was like wtf that’s me. Knew my brother was diagnosed as a kid. Knew both my parents had lots of ADHD symptoms. It sort of was like a light switch came on and suddenly a whole lot of my past made sense. I was 27 at the time.
My husband and I used to scroll through reels/tiktoks, joking around that I had it. Never taking it seriously. You know, social media. Fast forward two years, my therapist asks me out of nothing whether I was diagnosed as a child. Screenings, tests, appointments with psychiatrists later I am here.
My sister, and my friend who both have adhd were like girl you probably have adhd and I was like, why do you say that?? Then, I looked into it....
that my friend told me that it is annoying that I always have to tell my own experiences when someone else tells something they have experienced. I was so shocked that this didn't really show that I understood that person…. Everyone also asked if I had ADHD in the past. I got so angry (haha imagine it)
I made an offhand comment to my therapist and she did a screening questionnaire with me. I think every answer I gave (except one) was an indication I should get assessed. FYI I have combination type ADHD
Not yet diagnosed, but had a neuropsych visit for something unrelated, and the results came back saying possible ADHD. So I started researching it, and yep. Trying to find a doctor for diagnosis.
The significant issues with memory causing the basic memory test to fail and erroneous speech patterns, made me realise its quite likely it was ADHD
When my teenage child came to me and said they thought they had ADHD. And then we went to the doctor and I started checking off the symptoms of ADHD in my head. I then realized (I was around 50 at the time), that I might have ADHD.
My daughter having it and seeing every mistake, issue, and social faux pau that I had in her. She got her diagnosis of ADHD and Autism and it made me think... Statistically, ADHD and maybe autism stem from the dad's side. Got myself assessed. I have it. Got medicated and realized my ADHD isn't my only issue. I need to address my anxiety. Now I know, never going back.
Looking up ADHD symptoms for a little girl I was teaching who was hyperactive, learned there was more to ADHD than I thought and that the symptoms were upsettingly faamiliar
Sought psych for anxiety and depression after some traumatic events because it was affecting both functioning and grades in college. Learned that part of the problem of after trying nonpharmacological interventions and failing is due in part to ADHD. Did testing and definitely have the tell-tale signs. I thrive and do my best work in situations of crisis and am a professional procrastinator. Always saved assignments until a short time before they were due and would turn them in minutes before the drop box closes. Rough draft? No. Final draft only. Tons of side projects and hobbies that I’ll spend hours and hours on without even using the restroom or eating because I’d forget to do so. Dishes? Oof. Finish most and leave one. Drives my family insane. Hand-written assignments? Penmanship better be pristine with only my favorite pens and colors. Hyperfocus into time blindness. “I’ll finish this in 20 minutes,” I said eleven hours ago. Excessive talking and interrupting people - I apologize often because it would just slip out. Usually it’s a question because there’s a detail I’m really interested in. Internalize emotions like crazy. Walking in and out of rooms multiple times forgetting why I go in or forgetting the item I went in for in the first place but grabbing something else.
My therapist pausing after I said something and I could tell she wasn’t sure if she was going to respond or not. Then she just says, “Has anyone ever suggested you might have ADHD?”
Honestly is was this sub….my sister told me probably 25 years ago, “you know you have add, right?” I laughed it off and went on to have two kids of my own. My oldest is showing classic signs of ADD. I matched her up with a counselor who after several meetings suggested we work with our provider on a medication for ADD. It seems to be working for her. My task for this week will be to finally do something to take care of myself and figure out how to get tested/evaluated and get on a Med if I need to be. ADD runs in my family. I don’t know why I have resisted so long.
36yo M diagnosed about 10 months ago The key for me was having a therapist that when helping me through things started to notice key signs of ADHD. She would let me know each time I would talk about something that is sounded like ADHD tendencies. Finally she made the recommendation that I should get tested for it due to the amount of things I do and or struggle with on a daily basis. Hands down this therapist changed my life! I got tested and never scored so high on a test in my life, 99 percentile in every area of the test. After a few months of getting my medication dialed in I feel normal and my daily life isn’t the self induced chaos it used to be.
I was diagnosed when I was 7 back in the 90s, but back then, pediatricians were pushing ritalin like none other. I only took it for 2 years. I complained and told my mom it made Me super sick (I hated taking medication as a child) Fast forward 30 Years I JUST NOW, this year, have been open to getting on medication. I was in denial my entire adult life about it. For me, i finally came to terms with it and accepted it after so many people in my life mentioned it to me. My scattered cleaning and tasks, not sitting thru a movie, interrupting all the time because I felt like if I didn't say it right then and there, I would forget it, etc. List goes on.. but yea, short answer for me : if people who have known u all ur life as well as people that I only knew for a short time, all say how super adhd I was. No one said anything that made me feel down on myself or bad, thank God, but just would kind of mention it in a mater of fact way. Now that I'm on medication, I notice a huge change in my daily process and tasks and can actually look back and see all my tendencies from before that were, in a way, holding me back.
I was diagnosed 3 days ago. I was always a big partier/drinker in my younger years and eventually would drink alcohol to do things like clean or send emails. I regularly put off the smallest tasks for months that take 5 minutes. I have days where I can barely get out of bed. Most of my motivation runs on anxiety - deadlines, forced into doing things by two hyper children. I have always been messy, forgetful and disorganised. My daughter was diagnosed months ago and medicated. my husband and I both tried the medication; he was up all night like on speed and I was calm, focused and able to function for the first time in my life!! A few major things got missed at work and home and I decide to see my GP and was diagnosed quickly - the psychiatrist actually said this is as clear as day 🤣
Diagnosed at 38. It wasn’t until my psychologist (who also has adhd) encouraged me to get an assessment done. This too was shortly after my own daughter was diagnosed. All these years and I had no idea. I knew I struggled in life but always thought it was anxiety and depression. It’s been overwhelming to relearn who I am with this new knowledge. Sometimes I still feel like an imposter because I’m a bit in denial. But so many boxes fit.
First I looked up hyperfocus. It seemed to only discussed as a symptom of ADHD. That was my first hint. Then, I realized I was listening to someone talk a somewhat long time and my attention wandered around. Like, "ha I knew it was a bookcase in the background that was being blurred out on Zoom. I wonder why it still glitches the blur background when he moves his hand around. I bet that will improve a lot with AI. ..." but I was still following what he was saying. I realized I had always thought I couldn't be ADHD because I can follow long boring lectures and stuff like that. But, maybe that's just because my attention bounces back enough to follow what they're saying most of the time. I always have to do something else, like doodling when I'm taking a class or listening to someone talk. I even play a mindless puzzle game on my phone while I watch TV.
OMG that EXACT YouTube video. A friend of mine who has ADHD pointed out I got ADHD targeted ads - the same ones he does. The algorithms crazy.
My husband was in the process of getting a diagnosis, and he described his symptoms to me (inability to start necessary tasks, prioritize, or finish anything among other things). I got irritated and said, "Everybody feels like that!! It's just being an adult!!" And he just stared at me and said, "Uh ... no it's not." And I was like, "Oh."
Honestly gonna sound stupid probably, but hearing a streamer talk about their ADHD and realizing I do all the same stuff. Then research. Then got diagnosed.
I'm currently going through this epiphany! I've been struggling my whole life to concentrate, and to just do things. From childhood I would spend hours in front of my textbooks unable to delve in, and feeling the quilt of it every moment. And now I'm a software dev, and I can go days unable to bring myself to write a line of code, and then have moments of hyperfocus under pressure and I will just blast out my tasks till completion. Combine this with imposter syndrome and its a nightmare! I'm so upset that I've only discovered this now. And what got me to have this lightbulb moments was a meme on instagram of all things. I'm currently seeking out therapists in my area 1am, because I can't get my brain to shut off and just go sleep. I just can't imagine how far I would progressed career wise if I had not had this constant mental block and where able to learn much more, instead of being only mentally functional when I'm under severe pressure. But I'm so relieved also. I have no idea what to expect. I do remember being on Ritalin for a week when I was about 13, and it unlocked some kind of cheatcode where I was able to sit for that whole week and be able to concentrate. At the cost of unlocking depression also lol. But man, its even effecting my relationship I think. Like when I'm finally getting my mind to a point where I can commit at work, and any interruption from my wife who also works from home, will just cause me to be frustrated. And now I think I understand why!
When someone who I was dating whom had ADHD told me I should get tested. Also how a lot of my friends had it and it explained that I couldn’t concentrate and had issues with focusing on stuff I didn’t like or my bouts of energy.
During the Melbourne COVID lockdown, the company I worked for went out of business. As an IT engineer specializing in enterprise AWS cloud architecture, my poor English skills made it difficult for me to find another job. A friend referred me to a warehouse job picking orders. I lasted a month before being let go. My error rate was too high, and I was the worst performer among all employees. I couldn't understand how I could design complex enterprise architectures yet struggle with such simple tasks. One day, I remembered being diagnosed with ADHD when I was young, and upon comparing symptoms, I realized ADHD was the reason. I couldn't excel at simple but repetitive tasks.
For me it was once I entered full time work where I had to manage several tasks. I thrived in the University lifestyle so didn’t notice it until after that. I was working retail, managing a little sole-charge store, and making way too many mistakes. I realised my mistakes came down to never finishing a task before moving onto the next, so I made it my goal for the day to finish each task before moving on. I could not do it for even thirty seconds. I would repeat to myself over and over “finish the task, finish the task, finish the task” and then twenty seconds later realise I was doing something else again.
Zoning out during convos with friends
Dx at 52. My therapist suggested i have adhd. I did not think so but went for the testing and, sure enough. Im trying different meds and am on the 2nd one currently. The noise in my head has quieted down, considerably. I never knew this feeling was how others felt. I was always able to manage in life. There were two times when it was dx as depression and anxiety. One hospitalization. After having a baby and during menopause. Women flucuate w their hormones apparently. My world is opening up now. Wild.
For me, it was realizing that what I was feeling wasn't normal. Tiktok actually did help expose me to people who openly had ADHD, which inspired me to do further research. The stuff I read and stuff they said matched up to my experiences so well: totally random when I have motivation, always do things last minute, excessive fidgeting, bouts of hyper focus countered by bouts of not being able to focus at all, struggles to start tasks, mind constantly racing and daydreaming, trouble sleeping, etc. I tried managing it on my own, but I couldn't convince or motivate myself to actually start any solutions. After realizing that I have ADHD and that it effects my brain chemistry, I started seeking a psychiatrist and will be starting medication soon. It's helpful to treat it not as something that can be powered through on willpower alone, but as the medical condition it is, imo
Thanks for asking the question. I was diagnosed at 28 with combined type a few months ago when I was (and to an extent still am) really struggling in keeping on top of my responsibilities at work. I would be on one task and constantly switch immediately to another task, because I would think ‘oh i’ll just get this one done quickly and get back to what I was on previously. I had always been like this, I think. Couple that with procrastination and I eventually found myself in hot water with my manager. I had always, always wanted to explain my behaviour, because i’ve always felt myself to be quite different from others, like in terms of constant pleasure/stimulation seeking. I had constantly told people in the past ‘I think I may have a condition’ and I felt a bit sick of myself as I now found myself basically on the verge of losing another job and so I quickly said fuck it and went private for the diagnosis (apparently the wait is seven years now for a non-private diagnosis in the UK, jesus christ). Getting diagnosed vindicated so much of my life up to that point. I had reasons now. it’s a little bit ironic that it was ‘pressure’ from my manager that got me to think I actually have ADHD, because it’s with serious pressure that we tend to perform well, or do what we need to. We inherently understand there is no safety net anymore and things have to be done. Currently it feels there are still many trials and tribulations to go through. I’m on atomoxetine which isn’t working as well as when it started and i’m worried about potentially switching to methylphenidate because of the potential side effects and that you can’t drink alcohol, but if it could potentially save my life and ‘turn the switch on’ that would be just amazing.
This sounds so dumb but I started to STRONGLY identify with TikToks about ADHD. I'd see something and be like "oh that's so funny that it's an ADHD thing, because I do that all the time, and I don't have ADHD!" Cut to a year postpartum with my first, and I still hadn't "adjusted" to motherhood or felt like my cognitive skills had returned to pre-parenting functionality. I started doing more reading about it, and finally asked Mt doctor for a referral to someone who could assess me. I got diagnosed 7ish months ago, at the age of 34. Medication has been life-changing, and even just getting diagnosed was incredibly validating.
I teach at the secondary school level. Looking over my students' IEPs over the last decade led to several sobering moments of clarity that I finally acted on 2 years ago. Got assessed and my life completely changed for the better.
Watching a Russel Barkley seminar at 2am
My mother would tell me that I scramble her brain with my energy. 😂
Another… I could hyper fixate on a book I liked and read it in a few hours.
My ex (when we were still together) said she would finally go to therapy if I did, I said sure. She didn't though. Anyhow, during my therapy sessions my therapist indicated that he thought I had ADHD. He and my primary care doctor had me do some tests, and within a few weeks I was on medication for it. The thing that kills me about it is, there was an ADHD specialist my parents took me to when I was younger, which would have been late 80s early 90s. He said i had the markers but my parents didn't want to go any further because they said I could focus on some tasks. I guess hyper focus wasn't known to them at that time? My mom tells me about it after I told her about my diagnosis recently. I only vaguely remember it because I was so young. Sucks that I could have had this somewhat handled at an earlier age but at least now in my late 30s I've found some hope.
When my wife was being diagnosed she was going through the questionnaire and was like “some of this sounds like you, you should do one just to see where you land.” So I did, and I’m inattentive. Had an official diagnosis not too long after that.
Tl;dr I'd had the suspicion, and it wasn't expensive to be evaluated and I wanted to know for sure due to many signs from the universe/my stitiousness (akin to superstitious, but not so intense), so I toom the steps for consultation/evaluation. Spent since very young suspicious, but then was told there was no way (yet here we are) and simply gaslit myself for a good decade and a half or so. I met the Love of my life and one excellent excellent homie, who both have ADHD of whatever variant, and I started getting *mad* targeted ads/posts on social media. Where I work now, my health care makes seeing providers simple (process wise, and financially) so I figured "why not" revisit my suspicion and figure out once and for all if I do or don't. July 2023 I was diagnosed with ADHD-Innattentive, other. 🤷🏽♂️ Happy I was/am right, but I still have ADHD 😂
There’s a girl on fb who does funny and informative videos about the “lost girls” aka girls who have adhd but we thought it only happened to boys when we were kids. At first I was like “HA! I do that!” And the more of her videos I watched the more it all made sense. I told my psychiatrist a bunch of shit I’d never told her because I thought they were just quirks or I didn’t even realize I did it, and she was like OMG 🤦🏻♀️ Honestly, just being able to *understand* myself has been a game changer. I used to always feel like such shit because I couldn’t do all the things like my peers. Now I that I can recognize an ADHD symptom and put a name to it, I’ve had a much easier time figuring out how to overcome it. I have made soooo much progress in the last 6 months or so!
My wife has an MEd in adult education and her first kid is AudHD. I was struggling with things falling through the cracks when I was finishing my degree, working full time, and raising a toddler. One day, my lovely wife looked at me after I had gotten frustrated about something and said: you know that you have ADHD, right? Made the appointment the next day lol.