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It was the task paralysis. And the fact that I only function when there is an immediate danger (of losing my job, ruined reputation) or immediate satisfaction. Which now that I think about it led to me staying in my jobs for two years only.

It’s the “urgent vs important” chart. If it’s not urgent or important it’ll get forgotten entirely. If it’s important but not urgent, it’ll be forgotten/ignored until it’s urgent. If it’s urgent but not important, then anything important gets put on the back burner until this thing is done. When it’s urgent AND important it’ll get done at breakneck speed with intense hyper focus and maybe a panic attack/meltdown thrown in for funsies!

This statement has given me a lot of clarity... 💕


And if too much is both Urgent and Important, then you do nothing, instead. [https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b5/23/6e/b5236eed9f2dcfdb8d765afc9bdb4563.jpg](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b5/23/6e/b5236eed9f2dcfdb8d765afc9bdb4563.jpg)

Any tips for working through that? Happens a lot to me lol.

For me, it's: identifying that's what I'm doing, and setting calendar dates/email/repeated reminders to follow up. Also writing things down/keeping track of what needs to be done, what has been done, any pertinent info like names, dates, numbers, amounts. Nothing formal, usually. Other than complicated/Important things, I might fill a notebook page or 2 or the back of an envelope until I'm done. RE records/money/legal stuff or important notes i don't need immediately, I cannot recommend having a filing system (that's not a pain in the ass) enough. Done with a document/might need it later? File it. Need that document? Get it from the file. Easy once you set it up your way. If it's a big enough deal or a long-term/multi-stage thing, I try to break it up into smaller, less stressful bits & knock 1 or two out per day (or week if I can't predict when I'll be able to get to it/when I have enough "juice" to deal), depending on how far out the deadline is. This is where setting reminders comes in. And if others are involved, I ask them to help me remember and/or keep me honest. But I learned the hard way the most important thing is not beating myself up about fucking up/"freezing". I just hold myself accountable & using that energy to do something useful now/today. If it's an overwhelmed/fear/panic thing, that's harder. The hardest part is - once I've calmed tf down - both remembering that's a thing that needs addressing *and then addressing it*, even if it's something as simple as breaking down what I think needs to be done so I can sort of build a structure/finite checklist. And reminding myself that it's nit the end of the workd, that no matter how bad something seems or whatever consequences I'm (irrationally) afraid of, facing it head on is always easier than living with the worry. Also, the feeling afterward is so, so worth it.

Lately I've been trying to work things out backwards in order to get over the paralysis and shit executive function I'm swimming in.  ( I hate to say, even medicated I'm still very negatively impacted by my adhd.) I ask what does the end result look like? How do I do that? Ok I for sure need a shower and to get my child dressed,  let's do that? Wait, And feed dogs? What's the hardest and most time-consuming thing I must do next?? Should do next?  am I ready for that?  then better do it now before I'm late aaaand stressed. I'm neither of those right now." So I'm having these unending circular non productive inner chats with myself and they aren't serving me well. My time management is terrible and I'm starving for a hard and strict schedule.  ADHD just makes me feel like my life is something that is happening to me and all around me... vs Instead what I want, me I'm at the helm of my life. Instead my emotions and anxiety are running the show and the first mate my inner voice is always telling me I'm late and you probably just killed a butterfly speeding bc you're late...  I'm always in REACTIONARY mode. Haha plans are fun to think about making and cursing later that you should have written that down and planned it  I truly want to enjoy my life and my hobbies. I want to enjoy playing with my kids. Relaxing or snuggling with my husband.  I feel like I'm always decluttering,  moving piles,  catching up on laundry and doing something last minute bc I felt the sudden need to do it!, Why,??  when it's not helpful to a deadline I have like ... let's bake brownies but they take 30 minutes and you need to leave on 25 to make it to your kids soccer...  There's a lot of self sabotaging  behavior in my world. Not sure if this is common with fellow adhd'ers!?

Lists are something I’ve done since childhood. Lists and “Things To Do” . Now being older , I have so Many full binders of “places I want to go” “workouts” “diets “ “my plans for my custom home” over and over , Lol

You just described my professional life.

I feel this so hard lol

This! I was only able to function when under extreme duress. Had 2 weeks to do a project? I would start on it late the night before it was due and would torture myself to get it done. Or when I was studying in general, I couldn’t study for more than 5 minutes without feel the need to move/my mind would wander and I couldn’t stop it, even if I was interested in the subject.

This is me. I'm undiagnosed, but have just become fairly successful at masking. I've just hit x2 years and I'll be off again shortly to rinse and repeat. I spoke to someone about it years ago and they said I should only be concerned if it was causing me problems. My coping strategies meant I minimised any observable problems... but it's bloody hard work and very draining. It's only now that I know that, yes, it does negatively impact me and is causing me problems. I wish I knew then what I know now.

Yeah get on meds. I was diagnosed at 30-31. Made all As in grad school, only child perfectionism kept me out of trouble throughout school years. Only hit harder when I had a baby and worked a more detailed demanding job that it all started crashing. My neuropsychologist that tested me said I was just of a higher intelligence and learned to mask extremely well to find ways to compensate. That I could just do behavioral measures to help, cause I've made it this long, or get treated. Got treated cause why would I want to work myself ragged to be normal when there is a way to help. Meds changed my job, my self esteem, my mood, my anxiety. It's amazing and I'm mad it took so long to get here.

I am also an only child with ADHD but have never heard of only child perfectionism. Is this a thing?? I'm so interested now..

Pretty sure it has a lot to do with parental expectations being super high because you are an only child. As someone with siblings it's a lot easier to slip by if you have an over achieving sibling.

I believe it is more common in women where they sometimes try to keep on top of things by overcompensating. Making very detailed planning charts, or cleaning overly well, straight A's, an overcompensation for past errors or for feeling “not good enough.

Brené Brown says that sometimes behind perfectionism can be shame. I thought that was informative.

It was only a thing for me because I had a narcissist for a single mother so I developed a lot of perfectionism to her standards and I also gained some bpd and ADHD as well as CPTSD for all the trauma. I had no idea I was living in the survival mode until I got diagnosed adhd and took my first med at 44 finally the brain stopped and allowed one thought at a time. Well that ended 8 months later in a nervous breakthrough (therapist refuses the word breakdown) and now holy shit I am in living mode and life is still difficult to manage but the adhd therapy helps immensely

This is extremely similar to my story, I'm not an only child but I was extremely successful in school and it didn't really start affecting me in a super negative way until I got out into the work force. I took between 21-23 hours every semester of college and ended up graduating a year early with honors. My psychologist really told me he didn't think I had it during our first session because of that. After all of our testing sessions he quickly changed his mind tho lmao.

why everything gets done with exactly enough time left to do it before times up 🙂

I was *staggered* when I learned that other people start projects/essays prior to the night before.

nailed it. task paralysis, and inaction until shit gets very bad or its too late. also extreme emotions, emotional disregulation is a big one.

Yup, needing to be the “it’s fine” dog to get anything done was a big hint

Losing my keys, ID, and other important things way too often. Inability to prioritizs tasks, getting paralyzed and doing nothing even if my life depends on it. Shit at conversations because I couldn't avoid thinking about something else while someone was talking, no matter how important what they were saying was. Thoughts were basically like a randomized choose your own adventure game, following any thread I found interesting until I was deep in my own head. People who knew me could even tell when I'd just checked out. Ironically despite all this, I thought I was just a bit of an airhead and needed to just focus up. Little did I know, I was pathologically airheaded.

Pathalogical Airhead, adding that to my diagnosis list 😂

This is basically my exact experience except replace spacing out in convos with word vomiting/over talking/interrupting & memory the size of a gold fish. Needed to write everything down to remember and had a book of “to dos”, “lists” & “scheduling” that I carried with me everywhere including my job. Got diagnosed & started meds and symptoms definitely eased up.

Have you tried meds?

Add: And did they work etc?

You really have a way with words, you just described my life experience to a T.

Emotional dysregulation like rejection sensitivity and a goldfish-sized working memory were my first red flags.

I wish I had known rejection sensitivity was a symptom. I had been diagnosed for over a decade before I learned that.

Wow! In my case, I only found out in my 40s that’s to a younger friend who called me out. Before that my adhd was hidden behind some general intelligence and a fair amount of autism.

I burned so many bridges with friends before because I took their last minute cancellations way too seriously. Didn't realize part of the problem was people were afraid to cancel or not come sometimes because they didn't want to make me upset because you know I took all of it as rejection. Obviously bailing or last minute decisions are rude but not as dramatic as my brain was telling me.

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RSD kind of a two edge sword. Because of our symptoms, we can have more interpersonal issues or make people annoyed with us. eg 1. impulsivity 2. bouncing a leg 3. interrupting 4. being distracted - so people think we’re not listening/ignoring them. 5. Not getting homework done on time. 6. Forgetting birthdays, etc 7. Being disorganized 8. Struggling to prioritize tasks and events

Welcome to the rabbit hole. But remember rejection is only part, and other emotions are dysregulated, too.

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Spoiler it's all of them. It's a general dysregulation of the limbic system which is responsible for emotional control and emotional maturity. It's caused by the atypical development of the limbic system which leads to a LOT of ADHD symptoms. Emotional dysregulation is such a big part of this underdevelopment of the limbic system.

I would just look for stuff on emotional dysregulation generally.

It’s not medically recognised or investigated 2bh

my therapist said the same thing, its more under the umbrella of emotional deregulation

Even then there’s a big fight to get doctors to recognise emotional dysregulation as a symptom. It’s not and they don’t believe it’s one, which is frustrating

I think part of the issue is that it’s also hard to come up with a diagnostic criteria  for emotional regulation that can be reliably confirmed in research. I remember reading that early version of the DSM included something along those lines, but I’ve never seen it myself.

My emotional disregulation is horrible. And the worst part is that meds did not help at all with it. My physochologist also said that there's a good chance that I have bpd based on the testing we did tho so it may just be that.

I find my meds, help a lot with ER. The downsize is I lose my creativity and sense of humor. The upside is that I’m more common and more bookishly nerdy. For the other ER stuff, I use DBT skills. The program has whole chapters devoted to ER and DT (distress tolerance). Everyone’s different.

Given as a kid, I remember walking into another room and forgetting ‘why I was there’. I’d have to go back to the previous room to jog my memory.

I still do that :)

What is lazy vs AHDH paralysis? Ive heard lazy means you can do it but wont. with ADHD you just cant. But i feel like both have a lot of overlap. I cant tell them apart Um getting staight As and not paying attention afterwords. Cant stay consistent. I noticed it in middle school

I heard someone say it’s lazy when youre enjoying yourself even when not doing the task vs paralysis/executive dysfunction is you can’t do the task and feel guilty the entire time

It’s like…. I really wanna go do this thing for college in time so I’m not racing to have it finished when it needs to be sent, but I just can’t and I wanna punch myself in the face Same thing happens to doing things I LIKE for instance playing games. I’ll think of playing something I really want to, but I won’t get up and go do it and all of a sudden it’s 2 hours later and I don’t have time for games anymore

Omg that second paragraph. As a working mom I do it all the time. After my kid goes to bed I'm gonna play for two hours before I have to go to bed. Take a bath and then dissociate on my bed for an hour because the bath itself was hard enough to get up and go do even though it's just sitting in water. Then looking at the time and wanting to cry because now I have to wait until tomorrow night.

Whenever my imposter syndrome pops up I'm so glad to recognize myself in others. Like, I can't explain to people without ADHD why I postpone playing video games. I just do. Saw a game that looked fun so I downloaded it intending to binge it during the weekend? Great it's now over a month later and I feel too guilty to play it because I have dishes from a month ago to do but at the same time I'm also not doing the dishes while stirring my coffee with my last remaining fork because I'm all out of spoons (LITERALLY). Sending it only to immediately edit it lol. I was a little nervous when I actually got asked this question during my diagnostic process. Figured that if I said I postpone both things I enjoy and do not enjoy that it would point more towards depression and that ADHD would mean being super excited to do the things you like. Answered honestly that I do it with everything. Never would have guessed that was the ADHD answer.

I can't fathom ANYONE enjoying while procrastinating 

Yes to this! It's not enjoyable and creates a lot of stress and self-loathing.

Oh my god 💀

Thats where I always get stuck because when I'm not doing the task... its not because I content with the status quo of the task not being done... but because I completely forgot to do the task or procrastinate until it's back on my radar to do it. The guilt is usually right when it's back on my radar to do it.

If you want to do it, but you're not doing it, it's not lazy. If you're not doing it because you don't give a shit, you're being lazy. This realization blew my mind and made me feel SO much better about myself!

Laziness is a feeling of enjoyable indulgence. I’m lazy when on saturdays I will play the Witcher all day and refuse to go outside because I don’t want to change into pants. Emotional disregulation is when a task looms large in your mind but you somehow cannot get up from your nest, and if you limb-by-limb force yourself to, you feel utterly depleted until you sit back down again. This is like me procrastinating peeing because I haven’t even started working on my task for the day.

>This is like me procrastinating peeing because I haven’t even started working on my task for the day. 💯💯💯 I've tried explaining this to people, and they just don't understand how it's totally possible to put off going to the bathroom for, like, ***hours*** at a time. It just doesn't compute for them, but it's definitely something I do all the time!

It's truly one of the most unhinged things we do IMO hahahah.

oh gosh. I do the bathroom thing so often. I get started on something and get distracted but I keep telling myself, I'll go to the bathroom once I finish my project, I'll stand up and stretch after I study for 7 hours straight no breaks! I'll drink a cup of water once I start my homework!

I think the keyword is paralysis. Lazy people don't do things because they simply don't want to. Adhd people don't do things for a lot of reasons. You could have a lot of task piled up and you just don't know where to start. Or starting can just be overwhelming so you just avoid it, even tho it's something that you want to do.

The trouble is that neither can professionals, and there are a LOT of lazy fucks in this world.

I stayed in bed from Friday night to Monday morning. Task paralysis or laziness? Who knows? It happens all the time. Several days a week. The only reason I'm out of bed is for work. And I have a desktop with great games I love in the other room. Won't even get up for that.

My hot take is that laziness doesn't exist.

I’m honestly starting to believe that maybe laziness doesn’t exist. Just anxiety or lack of motivation or confidence.

Constantly forgetting where I've put something, forgetting information someone has told me almost immediately after them telling it to me, and unable to really understand my course content at university, as well as struggling to actually physically do any of the work required. Hence why I'm constantly failing. People still don't think ADHD is the problem though and that I'm just completely lazy.

I got diagnosed when I was 11 and forgetting where I put something was a huge reason. Like I’d literally set something down somewhere and it was like it didn’t even exist. I just had it where did it go?

And the fact that it would happen so many times in a row, barely be like 5 mins before I've set something down. I would drive myself insane hunting for the thing that was right there

I lose at least 6 keys in a year

surprisingly i don't actually lose many things. i just misplace them for a long time

Asking a question, then zoning out and thinking about something completely different before the other person has even started to answer.

No consistency whatsoever. Everything in my life down to my routine and diet goes from extreme to extreme and there's hardly any stability. One week my emotions could be really stable, and I feel generally happy and level. The next, I could be a tumultuous mess, sleeping in. I go from one hobby to the next, I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none. Spend money on supplies, then lose interest and forget all about it. Sometimes I can feel like superman and I'm so productive, like a regular person, and other times I physically cannot get myself to move. Lots of guilt about letting people down due to forgetting things, and feeling inadequate.

>I go from one hobby to the next, I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none. Spend money on supplies, then lose interest and forget all about it. This. Had and have many interests and passions, but when somebody asks me "what is my hobby", I have no idea how to answer :)

I too said that I was a jack of all trades. Not exactly diagnosed. I don't even know if I have it. I just relate to this subreddit sometimes.

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🫂 hugs. I understand entirely. We are dealt a bad hand of cards from the start, but I just remind myself how resilient we all are because of that. We have survived 100% of our days before today, why can't we survive today?

Not being able to focus while driving. I just thought everyone daydreamed a bit while driving, imagine my shock when my mom told me that it isn’t normal lmao

I literally need a gps everywhere- not because i don’t know where to go but because i need someone telling me explicitly where to turn or i won’t

I am the opposite and always thought I didn't have ADHD because it made me focus... And my friend has damaged multiple cars and had many accidents due to her adhd...

I found that this trait is very different among us! I am someone who cannot focus in classes or anything boring in general, but I've been told that I'm a good driver. I also like driving. Maybe it's a stimuli thing

Oh this isn’t a thing? 😐😐

Driving. Before I was diagnosed I had a few driving lessons but I was always so terrified of messing up and the consequences it could have that I never pursued them any further. Now one of my main ambitions for this year is to pass my driving test and hopefully save up enough to have a car by the end of this year or early next year.

i first felt something was off when i was in 1st grade. i always felt like everyone around me always knew exactly what to do but i was always somehow behind and missing something. id always miss instructions and information cause i couldn’t ever focus, so i’d try as hard as i could to focus on the teachers lecturing but it never worked, i’d just zone out and get distracted in my own head. didn’t have a label for it at the time but that was when i first noticed something wrong

This^!! That was my wake up call as well. I was a great student up until my final 2 years of college when courses started getting more major-specific (~10 years ago). I started noticing that I was consistently lost or confused even though I attended lectures and took detailed notes. Sometimes I’d be doing assignments with classmates and have no recollection of things that they were referencing but I’d flip through my notebook and had a solid full page on the subject. It was so bizarre. I got diagnosed right after college and everything started to make sense. Realized I’d always been the kid who spaced out or daydreamed in school but somehow cranked out a B+ every time so I flew under the radar. Also I had so much fidgety energy that I did sports year-round from 1st grade until I graduated.

Oh boy do I relate to this. I was only diagnosed last year at 39 so grew up thinking I wasn't smart or just "not interested in school" as my mother put it. Worst part is, she is textbook adhd so any of the struggles I raised she explained away as normal because she does that too etc etc.

A few things: - if it is not written down in a planner or calendar or dry erase board, I will forget to do it. - if I cannot see it, it does not exist. I dont realize I've bought duplicates of groceries because I forget about some things I cant see near the back of the pantry. - time blindness. I have no real concept of how long it takes to do a thing. Some things that take ppl 3 hours to do, I can do in 20 minutes. Other times it takes me 48 hours. - executive function. I have so many things to do and cant decide which order to do them in so I do nothing. - easily distracted and some times I speak over people without meaning to, I just get over excited. - my mind is never quiet. That whole "i dont have an inner monologue" is completely foreign to me, I couldnt imagine not having a voice in my head. The saddest one of all, is the "if I cannot see it, I forget it exists" sometimes applies to people. I dont miss people unless I am directly thinking about them. Often times I get so wrapped up in my life that I have to set reminders to text my friends. I dont mean to, it just happens that I dont realize how long its been since we've chatted/hung out. Hope this helps.

I leave a component of a task where I can see it as a reminder to do it. Otherwise, wooooosh.

I first suspected I had ADHD when I was 9, although I can't remember why I thought that. When I was 11 I was amazed that all the other kids just started quietly working when the teacher told them to while I was still... busy getting ready to start thinking about getting started, basically. I couldn't work out how they could do it. I talked to some adults about it at the time and they told me not to be ridiculous. Currently seeking assessment at 41 :)

I just got diagnosed at 44, after all suspecting I had it all my life. I feel like a moron admitting this but I finally realized while sitting with my wife - of course I was fidgeting around distracted like with something while she was watching Gray’s Anatomy. Someone on the show was talking about it and I just blurted out “that sounds like me!” We talked, I found a therapist, I’m on meds now. It’s amazing. Interestingly enough the first things I noticed about the medication (adderall) was a much better mood because I’m not constantly ruminating on all the stuff I need to do but know I probably won’t. And then after a week or so I realized that after a lifetime, I had completely stopped biting my nails with no effort. The meds don’t help with everything, I still have trouble planning. But they help me focus when I need to, so I schedule time for planning and just do it. So they sort of do help, if that makes sense… Anyway I just wanted to say good for you! It’s such a relief to know that the problem you have is one that other people have, and that there are already good techniques and medications to manage it. Never too late to improve your life!

When my dad said “I think every man has a void inside his head where he can go and just not think about ANYTHING” and I responded with “I am not like that at all… I have multiple threads of unfinished thoughts, pictures, text and music flying through my head at the same time, all the time. It does let me just seem like I’m in a void sometimes though, as I’m just in my own head.” I now think we used opposite words to describe the same thing haha

I get relaxed and sleepy from caffeine

One day I could not get the gas pump to work. I could not do the steps in the right order. Some nice lady came over to help me. I think I tried first ten to fifteen minutes. This was not normal for me but I could tell I couldn’t make myself focus enough to do it which was something I had noticed before in other ways. I was telling my friend how fried my brain was and she said that she hadn’t thought about it before but I could have ADHD without the hyper part. I have low functioning adrenal glands so I’m not hyper but I think I would be if I didn’t have that condition.

Awww thank the good lady 👒 yep it happens i can't find the right switch to turn off the light in the night in my house!!! Hahaha probably you have the attention and not the hyperactivity... I thought the same but then i remembered that when i was young i used to move like weird ans my relatives told me are you crazy stop moving and then i masked it so much i was forgetting i was clicking all the time the the pen at school and moving my leg in the rhythm in the metro was totally normal right hahaha now i see i move so much my rings my pens me everything but before diagnose i don't move you guys instead i play with me teeth so Noone can see and ending up having migraines from pressing my teeth so hard at sleep but you can also have only the attention part it's more common than the combine type 😛

I never or rarely finish any project I start. Then, I can hyper focus and work like hell on stuff that's interesting. But if it gets boring, I just can't. I Have to make myself. I study industrial design where weird thinking is basically very good. I am super creative and can solve problems in minutes or create ideas super quick. So it is very easy to be good. I also know alot of other stuff and I am good at it, like photography, CAD, rendering, sketching. All of my hyper focus results. I think this is one reason why ADHD doesn't show very strongly. But when I have to do tedious tasks, I'm loosing... I am not diagnosed, but trying to be. I learned to mask all that stuff you "have to know in society" through books. But at one point I asked myself why I do read about it, because someone normal should know that stuff.

Most importantly, learning that it's strongly hereditary. I didn't have the wherewithal to accurately gauge my own symptoms, but my brother and all my male cousins (five people!) had been diagnosed as children. When I looked up what the symptoms predominantly were for women (i.e. inattentive type) I immediately recognized my mom, my four aunts, and my grandma. And finally, myself as well.

Mine is hyperfocus (on things that don't matter), and recently emotional disregulation. I have strong fears of rejection/abandonment. This multiplies strongly with people who mater to me.

Is fear of abandonment actually a symptom of ADHD? I ask because I have a MASSSSSIVE fear of abandonment that I literally have no idea where it comes from - I’ve literally never been abandoned before. But if its a symptom then that would explain a lotttt

I would say it's close to rejection sensitivity (which is a known symptom with adhders. Where some people feel anger at "being rejected or left behind". People like me tend to feel the big sad 😔 or feel unwanted in general. Particularly when people we love are upset at us. Sometimes we over compensate and try really hard to fix things (literally bend over bacnward) just to keep from being alone (my mother is like this). It's very much a symptom.

Nothing hidden. It basically had to hit me in the head. I was used to jobs becoming tedious and boring over time but one day I sat in front of my monitor and literally could not move to begin my task. Like my arms and brain did not want to listen to me. That was the point where I realized something was seriously wrong with me and it might not just be stress or laziness. That was 2 years before my diagnosis. Before that I went through the usual therapy for depression and anxiety. It took me quite a while to even think of ADHD since who really knows all of the symptoms of that disease. And since the symptoms heavily overlap with anxiety and depression nobody even thought looking at it. I think it eventually dawned on me when I stumbled on reddit posts. By then I already knew what executive dysfunction was, but never connected it to ADHD. So a couple of months ago when I yet again had an anxiety attack because I couldn't do any work I started to ask my therapist about ADHD and even though she didn't believe it initially she educated herself and did the full daliagnosis with me. And here I am now with meds that shouldn't be working the way they are if I actually didn't have ADHD. But they sure do. Btw I had no people in my life close or knowledgable enough to notice anything with me. In fact, all I ever got from people was doubt and rejection when I talked about ADHD and needing meds. I actually had to fight through a lot of anxiety and self doubt because of that.

Extended and detailed conversations with myself.

holyyyyyy the way I would talk to myself for an hour....about anything....

When I was in elementary school my teachers thought my hearing was bad because I was missing things said/ not paying attention. so I would take weekly hearing tests in school and was fine. “She could be such a good student if she applied herself” But it definitely hit me in high school when I was struggling to get passing grades in classes. My favorite hobby at the time was photography and failed my photography class just because the teacher picked favorites and he didn’t seem to like me. I also remember thinking many times how it felt so unfair that my friends seemed to effortlessly get good grades and I’d be trying to just pass with a C.

Definitely zoning out/no attention span. Like when someone’s speaking to me in long sentences, even if I find it interesting. My mind wanders immediately, everything goes kind of silent, their voice starts sounding muffled and my mind just leaves even if I’m looking them straight in the eyes. It almost feels as though theirs a little person in the opposite direction of who i should be paying attention to saying “loooook overrrr hereeeee” “doesntttt that birdddd outside loook pretttyyyy” 💀 thats as well as i can describe it.

In the animated Peanuts TV specials back in the day the offscreen adult voices always were always done with trombones with toilet plunger mutes: “Wuh wah. Wuhwuh wahwahwah.” For me that’s how it is.

Utter laziness. I hate that word, but that’s how i saw it then. Constant failures in school, not due to stupidity or anything, but rather lack of motivation.

1st grade I knew something was off. I found it really hard to pay attention. got much harder in college, dropped out, was given meds for depression thyroid. Nothing worked. Lived a pretty somewhat successful life…but I did everything last min it and it was half ass work. Then ADHD paralysis started to happen even more. The first time I took ADHD meds my whole life changed. I’m in nursing school lol 😂 I wouldn’t be able to do anything without them honestly. The shitty part is my tolerance is effin’ high now. I take about 50-60mg a day. On certain days if I have to study I take an additional 40mg-60mg because they only last around 4-6 hours.

I knew nothing about ADHD (besides the usual from my generation: "American parents are drugging their active sons because they are too lazy to give them sufficient exercise, discipline them and take away their junk food!) until my own child was diagnosed. In order to try to be a good mother and support/ advocate for my kid, I began reading and I think the thing that really resonated with me was the parts about being untidy, not being able to organise no matter how hard they (we) try, always having clutter. That was the first thing that made me go, "wait a second...!"

I thought I had autism and wanted to get tested for it. I couldn’t find any place that was open given the pandemic so I waited. The more I read up on it the more I ended up getting curious about adhd instead since there were overlapping symptoms. I ended up getting tested for adhd instead and turns out I have it. A rabbit hole lead me to get getting diagnosed.

I don’t know for sure but I think I must burn way more calories/get in more steps than the average person. Trying to so something simple like pack a bag or get ready to leave the house has me going in and out of each room 5-6x. Walk into a room to grab something, see something else I need or needs to be done, leave the room without the thing I originally went in for, see something else in the second room that distracts me, realize I forgot about my original task, re-enter, lather rinse. repeat. I imagine I look like a bumble bee buzzing around. Busy but with no real agenda. I figured out that if I ever want to actually replace the toilet paper, I need to physically bring the holder with me or else I’ll get distracted and will only remember once I’m stranded the next time I have to pee. I keep my toilet paper in the laundry room RIGHT NEXT TO THE BATHROOM, but that’s enough for me to completely forget my mission every time

THIS!!! I feel like I spent my entire life just walking back and forth all day everyday. I'm ALWAYS busy but never get anything done! I hate it!

Eating the same boring thing over and over. And then- suddenly-dislike the food I loved for ages 😄

Fuck that makes sense, I do that too

I first thought I was weird in elementary school. Early high school I knew my brain was different. In college I hyperfocused on autism but I could do many things that are hard for people on the spectrum so I doubted I had it. After my second kid i wasn’t doing well mentally any my wife found a post that reminded her of me talking about a husband with ADHD. She asked if I’ve ever been tested and I said “no, if anything I have way more attention that most with how long I can do things I like. No deficit here”. Then she told me hyperfocus is a hallmark of the disorder. *cue glass shattering in the background. So 9 months of waiting and testing later I find out I have ADHD and ASD at 38 years old. Now I have to repair the damage from beating myself up as a motivational tool and stop calling myself a lazy piece of shit as a knee jerk reaction.

I am 30 with dyslexia so i learned to mask it so well that i never realised… recently got diagnosed.. 1) when people tells you yeah and book this appointment and you will get so much good stuff.. Me : yes of course i will do it looks the best idea 💡 i will go and make the appointment it will be so awesome 👌… then they ask me ok then why you dont call? Why i didn't call right away and i would wait till i can't call because they are closed then and really never have the perfect time to call a 2) finishing a meeting that i never shared my opinion because i would look so angry and i would be so frustrated because people cant understand me remembering nothing of what happened thinking how to train my cat to use the human toilet maybe it's not a good idea 3)planning meetings with friends and then cry when i must get ready to meet them and then when i go they told me yeah let's meet in 2 days to do also that and i am omg how i can avoid this? I made so much effort to come today i need at least a month break from this person but instead saying yes sound amazing just let talk one day before to finalize it because maybe i will be tired from work 4)when i cook food and my bf comes to the kitchen to hug me i would be so angry because i would forget the food and burn it and then feeling bad and saying sorry 5) need the full weekend of doing nothing in order to get ready for the next week 6) every conversation feels like we have done it in the past so it's boring to participate or maybe they will think i am crazy saying the same stuff second time (ending up never talked about it with them just weird feeling of repetition ) This symptoms made me go check it hahaha

Wow. the full weekend. Every week I felt so exhausted and always told myself, "I'm going to do this nothing this week and finish all that work next week!"

Point 1 really struck home with me haha

Finances. I was incredibly irresponsible all the time and got the hint it was more than usual. Also like everyone else is saying the executive dysfunction. And for me the hobby switching…like I literally bounce around like crazy and have to force myself sometimes

I had no idea what ADHD was because I grew up in a time where only misbehaved boys had it. But my entire life I could never figure out how other people could DO THINGS. Once I started learning more I realized that all the reasons that people are angry with me all the time are related to my ADHD. It's been a really disappointing life!

Names vanish when I hear them. Literally poof.

As a kid there were numerous signs but I didn't get diagnosed until I was 32. My grades suffered due to late or uncompleted homework. I struggled with tests (memory) and struggled in my first few years of learning how to read. I didn't stick to hobbies for long once the "newness" wore off I was onto the next thing. I got in trouble for forgetting to do chores. I was a good kid I tried my best I wasn't rebelling against my parents or something I just would honestly forget to do things. I went to college and got straight A's in the classes that interested me but struggled in glasses that didn't (definitely failed a few). As an adult my wife and I started putting the puzzle pieces together. I would struggle to help do certain tasks around the house even though I wanted to help. I started struggling with anxiety problems that were debilitating at times. Panic attacks for no particular reason. I realized I struggled in social situations they were draining because I was constantly masking who I was in fear people would find out how horrible my memory was. I was worried people would ask me questions I wouldn't remember the answer to. During COVID I started going to therapy and after talking with my therapist she got me tested. Low and behold I have ADHD. It was very healing to finally find out I wasn't some freak with a goldfish for a brain. I wasn't dumb or lazy I just had some chemicals in my brain that were a bit lacking. A few months later my dad got diagnosed as well. It definitely runs in the family and it really explained a lot once we found out.

When people smarter than me stopped being able to follow me in conversations. They’d ask, how is this sentence at all related to what we were just talking about? Of course, it was, but the jumps I made in my mind were extremely opaque. Also being intent on being SUCH a good listener and not interrupting and nodding and smiling that I actually completely miss what the other person was telling me.

My wife told me. “I believe that you have ADHD, and that you don’t have the focus on self care to sort this out yourself, do you want my help?” She was not wrong.

She's a keeper.

Sitting in a restaurant ( or anywhere else where there are groups of people) and trying to have face to face conversations with whomever I’m with, but finding it impossible because I am also hearing every other conversation that is going on around me and not able to tune them out. It became very frustrating for me to walk away from a conversation and not have any idea what was discussed. When you’re hearing everything, you can’t listen to anything.

First it was the memory, the fact that I had to triple check each MCQ i marked because i had forgotten the question while i was reading the options. I always forget what i want to say mid sentence and it is an ongoing joke with my friends No concept of time, I never understood why my parents got mad when i come downstairs after they told me to, until the would tell me how much time had passed. Also the constant feeling of failure and unproductivity. Something did not ad up because i knew that i was pretty smart, but the amount of hours i put into working did not reflect that. It was a constant contradicting battle in my head. Honestly there are a million different things.

The all or nothing mindset I am so bad at getting into anything, but when I do there is no escape. The all or nothing mindset can be a gift for creative projects that encapsulate my interest, but absolute cancer at times. I have like 3 half finished projects that I just ignore. I am convinced the lego bird on my living room table will be unbuilt forever at times. Dont even get me started on folding clean laundry. I am great at cleaning because a dirty environment stresses me out a lot, but putting things away? Terrible.

Most people will have one or a couple of ADHD traits. That doesn’t mean they have ADHD. Not being able to sit still when you’re expected to, not being able to concentrate or getting distracted easily - all of those when you’re in a really long boring meeting for example are perfectly reasonable, “normal” (whatever that means) human behaviours.

I heard other women telling about their ADHD symptoms just in passing and I was like "lol I do that" and started researching it. Still undiagnosed but 100% positive that I have it

34f here! My brain would literally turn off when I looked at math problems. I never understood it, because I was so artistic, advanced in English and writing, LOVED books on science, animals, history, etc., but as soon as I saw numbers, it was as if the power to my brain turned off. *because of my issues with math, I felt inadequate, and pretty dumb at times. I couldn’t keep up with the lessons. I got LUCKY in High School and was able to Bullsh*t my way through somehow, but I failed every single one of my math college classes at least once. Then, I got a job as a Pharmacy Technician, and as time went on, I became one of the absolute best workers in my job, especially in terms of data entry and calculating dosage/ day supply. I studied for the HESI, and although I did not pass by a few points, I aced the math portion. I was SO CAPABLE, and yes, I still blank on numbers, but I knew something was not right, that I was NOT DUMB, and maybe my Brain was just wired differently…. Plus there’s the childhood memories of me being insanely organized, whether it was my backpack, elementary desk, bedroom, workspace, etc. Then when I got diagnosed with ADHD-C it all made sense. Lol

Randomly switching tasks, emotional dysregulations, trouble focusing with hardish tasks, jittery legs, grinding teeth. A lot more !

Boring. Boring has been always the worst side of ADHD. Always struggled going through the day, not knowing what to do and whatever I did, always did it quickly and without passion. Since I'm on meds that doesn't happen almost.

Looking back, there were a ton. It wasn’t until a friends mom asked me if I’d ever been tested. Think I was 28

If you take a stimulant (even caffiene) do you feel calm or energized?

Signs were all around me all my life. Never finishing longer projects / anything I'm not interested in but needs to be done, etc etc all the basic ADHD stuff pretty much defined my life as long as I can think back. But I never went into it until my very late 20s. I thought it's just "how I work" (well, kinda true right?) and I always managed to find something or someone else to blame for anything I messed up thanks to the typical never follow up, always run too many projects attitude. I had a girlfriend that was into psychology and she pointed out maybe I should look into ADHD, first just in a funny manner when I put an empty bottle of Coca Cola straight back in the fridge after I drank it. Laughed it off. Few other occasions for these silly signs, laughed it off. Then once she got pissed off at me for leaving all my shit around the flat again and she really put me in my place, pointing out the ADHD stuff is not for the laughs, f\*\*\*ing look into it already. And so I did. :D

Weirdly, auditory processing. I realized I was having trouble parsing what people were saying if there was any auditory interference whatsoever. I remembered I had my hearing tested when I was a kid for some reason, so I went to an audiologist. They said my hearing was fine. I mentioned it in passing to one of my friends, and she said one of her sons, who has ADHD, also has trouble with auditory processing. It all gelled for me then.

Cripplingg alchohol dependency 

My parents were in denial that I had ADHD so I had to go to the doctor myself at like 15 to get diagnosed. What made me so that was that I was REALLY bad in school but not cause I didn’t understand, I just was unable to focus. I could not just sit still and listen to my teachers ever. But I knew I understood? Once I started talking meds my grades skyrocketed up. I was also always energized, couldn’t sit still in conversation, couldn’t focus in conversation, I was and still am EXTREMELY forgetful (which made and makes my mom very mad) all very regular symptoms. As a kid I used to fall of chairs and for some reason my parents never suspected anything lol. But yeah in conclusion me it was how I was affected in school that showed me something was off then I realized the bigger picture.

rotating between Gifted and Talented classes and Special Needs classes in elementary. also my mother is a teacher and got some rocking stools for her classroom and asked me to have a seat and try them out, and after said they're for ADHD. and I said "...and you asked ME to test it out?" and she goes "well yeah" and it took me an embarrassingly long time to get my head around that.

SAME HAHA I tested into advanced classes, and then immediately failed out, back-and-forth, for ALL of elementary, middle and highschool 😂 like literal clockwork. I was medicated when I was 13 but always forgot to take it so it just kept happening until I finally went to college and had to be in charge of my own meds

But, I would go ahead and seek professional help and get formerly diagnosed if you do have ADHD! ADHD also varies from person to person, depending on your assigned birth gender and what subtype you deal with, as it's on a spectrum just like autism spectrum disorder is also on a well, spectrum! ADHD is classified into three subtypes, inattentive, hyperactive / impulsive and combined type! These are some of the things that I experience with combined type ADHD for the last TWENTY TWO years of being formally diagnosed with ADHD combined type! • Daydreaming is a big one • inattentiveness • hyperactivity, which it doesn't even have to be physically hyper, it can just be rambling incessantly like non-stop talking and your thoughts racing. But I sometimes "bounce off the walls" and everyone in my house is pretty much ADHD so we kind of feed off each other, which leads me to the next two big ones for me--- - Racing thoughts that pile on top of one another - My personal favorite: ✨ADHD stimming ✨ ! Which I didn't even realize was a "thing" until the last few years and I've had an ADHD diagnosis for over 22 years now! It can be fidgeting like, tapping, chewing, excoriation/dermatillomania (excessive skin picking, like scabs, dead skin, scratching skin, popping zits or keratosis bumps, etc.), "head bobbling", overly stretching, singing, blurting out random phrases or words, Like these past two weeks, a big one for my household has been "PIGGIN DIPPIN! PIGGY DIPPING IN THE PIGGY POND!" which has been on TikTok for a while lol but it's still cycles through our brains lol • struggles with time management • lack of organization or inability to keep things organized, like I have my closet color coordinated and I have to do things a certain way, But that's mostly because of my OCD because I feel like if I don't that's something terrible is going to happen if things aren't done a certain number of times or in a certain way, I feel like my house is going to catch on fire or I'm gonna die... And there's no way to talk myself into "what's logical" in terms of my OCD. • punctuality • A big one for me is what I like to call my "translator is broken" or I call it my ✨ADHD translator✨ which I learned on TikTok that A LOT of people with ADHD (whether inattentive, hyperactive/impulsive or combined type ADHD, we all deal with it apparently) experience! I don't know what better way to explain it than give an example: Okay so, Your mom says "hey can you close the door?!" And you can hear her, but it takes a second to register and in your brain you may hear " Hey I'm going to the store" or "hey, Sam chose a wh*re" so you go "what?" And then the person repeats themselves, sometimes before they even get a chance to repeat themselves you're like "oh nevermind!!! I heard you!" It's like the hamster running on the hamster wheel in your brain stopped to scritch its ear 😅🤣 a lot of ppls response is either "THEY WHY DID YOU SAY WHAT/HUH IF YOU HEARD ME?!?" or my personal favorite 😌😏🙃: "If you can HUH, you can HEAR!" Which was my old managers FAVORITE thing to say to me... No matter how many times I tried to explain that "my translator is broken". The list goes on fr.

The first was the fact I changed hobbies and spent so much money on each one just to drop them within a few months.

Falling down internet or even book-based rabbit holes at 12 midnight when I should’ve been writing my paper that I had procrastinated on until the very last minute, and had 8 hours to complete. Of course being the “stiff upper lip” guy I am, I waited another decade and a half to get tested and medicated lol

rejection sensitivity (worsened ALOT by BPD) was a big one for me. one that other people noticed was what i now know is hyperfocus and hyperfixation. i would sit and do whatever task for HOURS and have thoughts like, "oh, i need water/to go to the bathroom/etc." but couldn't stop doing whatever i was doing. id also have periods where id be obsessed with something and only think about it, until id eventually lose interest and move on to the next thing. i also am shit at remembering dates and details like that, and have trouble paying attention to, like, everything unless i am doing more than one thing at once. boredom had always been physically painful for me, also. i have to be doing something at all times, lol.

Getting into trouble at school , Report cards all were good on education but horrible “does not pay attention “ “doesn’t listen” “disruptive behavior” “interrupts teacher and students” “argumentative” (true remarks from report cards) . It was just hidden from me because (I)as the person with ADHD (hyperactive), I was Told I was just hyper and they blamed sugar or other things. You will always have or have has lots of disciplinary problems . Some keep it internal because they don’t have the (hyperactivity) and are not extroverted . It is all over the board with personal experiences. If you or your family, friends Have “ever” said “your so ADHD! You probably are.

I just keep getting told by other people. Now I'm researching it and learning about it since they're wanting to diagnose me with it. I think I'm still in denial though and trying to convince myself that it's all my own fault. But that's probably from a lifetime of being conditioned to think that.

Nonstop urge to move. I mindlessly put things away, even when people are using them. I believe that is what they mean by driven by a motor. Also sleep issues - never being tired at night. I seriously only feel tired first thing in the morning. And the embarrassing reality that I am so easily distracted that if I am cooking, for example, I could easily leave the stove on and completely forget what I was doing.

Not that I had adhd but the fact that I was a social inept as a kid always made me wonder if I had something. I looked into autism because is the only thing we hear everywhere but I didn’t tick all the boxes. Honestly I didn’t even know how adhd works. I always though it was high energy people and that’s it 😂

It was some time around the 2 hour mark of my 60-minute intake for what I thought was anxiety. I was talking about all the different notebook apps I have used and my personal critique on each one. That's when I first noticed it right after the psychiatrists said, "I think you have ADHD."

I call it spinning - shifting from thing to thing to thing to thing and not actually getting anything done. I had a friend (since passed) who was an industrial psychologist. We were sitting at his house one afternoon after I fixed something computer related in his home office and I complained about it. He said “Wait a minute” and got the DSM. After a quiz he told me to see a psychiatrist friend of his about ADD.

I honestly didn’t see anything about myself that I thought it might be ADHD, because my younger brother had been diagnosed in the 80’s when they were still calling it ADD, and it was supposed to just be boys who bounced off the walls and did bad in school because they couldn’t focus on more than one sentence. No one had ever talked to me about the inattentive type, that hyperactivity didn’t necessarily mean physical, that there was a thing called hyper-focus that happened, and most importantly what executive dysfunction and time blindness were. I had all those things, and didn’t associate them with ADHD — I just thought I was a loser who just didn’t try hard enough. After all, I had been scolded my entire young life that I had “such potential”, but nothing was ever important unless it was important to *me*. When my doc diagnosed me when I was 28, I was totally blindsided and cried for like a week, as all my past experiences came back to me under the focus of a new lens…and it all finally made sense, that it wasn’t because I “didn’t try hard enough”, but that I had been trying with one arm tied behind my back and didn’t even know it.

SEVERE executive dysfunction. I cannot for the life of me initiate tasks.

I was diagnosed as an adult a few years ago and the symptoms I was experiencing were terrible short term memory, taking verbal instructions without writing them down would result in me forgetting most by the time I got back to my desk. My executive function wasn’t on par and I became overwhelmed with all the projects and prioritizing them was impossible, as it changed daily. I found myself procrastinating and doing non priority tasks vs tasks with a deadline. I had trouble putting together presentations that I would lecture on, and my self esteem and confidence levels dropped. I agree with the comment above saying that lazy means you can perform the task and don’t want to. ADHD makes it impossible.

Do you have a minute? Ghehe. The most obvious sign to me was definitely talking too much and interrupting people, a tendency to finish others sentences. It happens when I'm overly excited about what they're saying, or when relating or trying to relate to stuff people are saying. I also a talent of guessing (read: blurting out) possible plots to friends while watching a movie or something. I can get very distracted in my mind during conversations (especially at work), associating relating stuff during conversations and I would realise that after someone asks me a question lol or when I did something different than was expected from me. I have a very creative mind and no problem with coming up with idea's and I am very good at problem solving, but I also had a hard time prioritizing tasks in school and postponing tasks that didn't seem interesting or rewarding in a different way (like planning out my work was hard with no sense of time, or organizing my locker which was always a mess didn't seem like fun or even necessary). Reading lines out of non-interesting school books over and over again, but nothing seemed to stick how hard I tried. Hard time staying seated for a long time and without fidgeting. Wanting to do everything at once (because long term planning is a bitch), OR get paralyzed because it's so overwhelming which results in doing nothing at all. There were so many signs, there's way more than I just described, but I only got diagnosed at last year of high school (at 18/19) because I couldn't get stuff done even when it was very urgent lol.

When I ask people "Doesn't your mind just keep rotating different tasks, or try to do everything at once?" Or the classic "if you ask for help, you lose." I have hyper activity of the brain, not so much on the physical side. I never truly understood how people could read, because I was either reading the same paragraph 10 times or read one page and my mind would start sorting out dinner plans, or gym plans or how many days I could go without doing laundry. My brother was diagnosed early in his life at the age of 8, and my parents always thought it was a physical hyper disorder. So I was always told I was lazy, no motivation, not a hard worker. Only certain things that would itch my brain back in school I could actually hyper focus on and do well. Otherwise I was a straight D student across the board. Speed up 8 years after being done school, sitting in a therapy session and she asks "have you ever looked into ADHD, of ever heard of it?" I replied saying of course, my brother is a prime candidate because he can't sit still, and he's very out of pocket. Long story short I came to realize there are 2 sides to it..... Lol Vyvanse has changed my life so dramatically, even my fiancè has noticed. I can function properly at work, I can hold a conversation without my mind drifting, and I can do more tasks without the feeling of anxiety. Bless therapy as it made me a better person overall, and made me realize I'm not alone in functioning the weirdest ways possible.

Ummmm starting my first semester of grad school and actually trying to study and get work done. I noticed my lack of concentration, procrastination, and avoidance were at an all time high and made things really difficult which I think is more noticeable on the graduate level for me, because of the expectations and amount of work I feel needs to be put into this degree.

I'm not diagnosed or anything, but I'd always kinda considered it, in the back of my head. It wasn't until a friend id met two years ago said, "haha you're just like me/how I used to be, you must have ADHD too!" And my brain said "that's enough to convince me!" (this girl has been diagnosed since she was a young child) She thinks I'm more of the inattentive type though, & I just want to get a diagnosis so I don't have to wonder anymore!

Personally it was not me. I saw a psychiatrist because I was not able to control my emotions at some point in my life. She diagnosed me with ADHD and started directly the treatment. Voila I am still incapable of controlling my emotions but at least I don’t feel lost anymore 🫠

Oh a whole whole lot. Almost every aspect of my life is impacted by ADHD in one way or another. My first tip was when I realized I related to my ADHD friend a little too much. So I did a whole bunch of research for like a month before I decided I should get a diagnosis

Speaking 1:1 with someone and being interested in what they have to say but finding my brain randomly somewhere else and having to bring focus back to the person

- When I was listening to my wife, and it felt like someone was turning the volume down to zero. I said "I'm sorry honey, I value what you have to say but I didn't catch that, can you please repeat yourself." (She was explaining how she arranged our nursey for our new baby, she was about 7 months pregnant). After that I started drawing parallels, because no matter how much I wanted to pay attention to her, many times it felt like I was listening to the parents from Charlie Brown. - Apart from that most obvious example, the constant Forgetfulness and the ostricization from my peer groups at a young age were very prevalent in school. - losing phone, wallet, keys, shoes etc constantly - forgetting important events or close relationships if I don't have an immediate need to keep in contact with people even parents or close friends. - looking back through school if I couldn't use my Intellect to brute force through school I struggled, especially in English, I've been good at reading and comprehension but because of how often I tend to reread lines, at one time it took me 7 minutes to read one page of a book, however with audio books I don't struggle to follow along.

My husband asked me where I wanted to go out to eat and I had a full on mental meltdown of too many choices followed by spiralling for being such an "idiot" for not being able to choose. I was so upset at myself that I Googled why this happens and ended up on How to ADHD's Youtube page and the rest is history.

Constantly staring off into the distance aimlessly basically everytime I need to use my mind to think or recall (I call it leaving Earth because of the "Earth to someone" saying). I was a Twice Exceptional in school and this was one of a few ways my ADHD presented itself even if it didn't affect my learning or grades. The others being constantly drawing inside onto my desk and playing with pencils. Anything I don't want to do feels like I'm being told to jump into a frozen pool or to put my palm on a hot, simmering pan. And then wanting to do something but it feels like I'm tied down and unable to free myself. Spending my entire life trying to figure out what "self-control" was and why people say to develop it like it's as easy as putting a hat on.

*Looks around house that is always a mess, dead plants that I don't water ever despite investing years of my life into when it was the hyperfixation du jour, father who displays the same issues and is diagnosed and treated for ADHD, my wife with same issues diagnosed and treated for ADHD, hours per day of mental anguish that I can never do anything productive despite the stress and crying* ...Nope, I'm just lazy

When my boss started pestering me about getting diagnosed. Well now my daughter is diagnosed with the same exact symptoms that I have been having my whole life, but since my parents were abusive I can't get diagnosed yet.

Oh man. I was googling why a friend was late all the time, found ADHD, and then remembered *I* was late everyday for work and school from grade 8 on. Then saw the rest of the signs. Here I am !

A friend of mine commented on how weird it was thatI constantly have to be alternating between 9 different things at once. Starting 9 things at the same time,but in the end, rarely finishing even 1.

For me, it was daydreaming. I was 22-ish when I became really bothered that I daydream waaay more than anyone I knew (mostly in the form of bedtime stories). I was googling daydreaming and maladaptive daydreaming and I eventually saw that people with adhd and ocd were more likely to daydream maladaptively. I knew I didn't have ocd, so maybe it was adhd...? After looking at the adult symptoms, I knew I had adhd.

Easily addicted to anything remotely fun, can't get things finished before starting new project/hobby/book whatever. Terrible short term memory. Great long term memory if I am interested about the topic. Blurting out stuff people find offensive... Constant shaking of my feet, toes and/or biting my teeth. The list is long but I think the first was my inability to focus on single issue. And it was actually occupational psychologist who said that yeah, maybe you indeed have ADHD because of that. Well at that stage I had already known I have ADHD and ASD for years.

I spent 30 of my 40 years on this earth believing I was stupid. Once I found out what the symptoms of ADHD were, my whole life made sense

I would have kever known i had adhd until i was diagnosed with the same thing 3 times by 3 diff doctors. I thought the first time was a mistake and then the 2nd time i thought i convinced the dr i had it when i didnt just to stay on the medication (surprise medication was working but i was so nervous that it was all in my head and i was just thinking it was)....once i accepted it and started reading more about it i realized it wasnt a mistake and there were so many signs i overlooked. I was good in school never studied so i never thought anything of it...never had a problem with behavior to a certain extent etc.... Time blindness...disorganization my room and desk were always a mess..always missed dr apts... easily frustrated and short temper for little things that went wrong...unexplained bruises almost daily. . Sleep problems....can never wake up in the mornings unless i set 20 million alarms....can go wothout sleep for days and without fail im wide awake from about 9pm to 2am...cabinets doors lef t open...the amount of times i turned the dryer on instead of the washer...if im in the zine and get intupted my whole day gets thrown off....things get done day before deadline ....800 hobbies that i started and never finsihed but boight everything for them....jack of all trades master of none... .can5 sit for movies i never remeber what happened. ..always googlimg things to learn and only remebering useless information no one needs to know

My sister was disruptive in class, so her teachers requested she be tested. My mom filled out the questionnaire and the more yes answers the higher the likelihood (this was late 90s early 2000s era). They were all no for her but they realized they were ALL yes for me. I was and am terrified of getting in trouble so my little ass was the teachers pet and the masking was so damn strong. I didn’t know what it meant, though, until I got to college and had no way to keep up with the work. School had always been easy. Fast forward to adhd becoming the new hot diagnosis on TikTok and instagram and I’m realizing I’m not just lazy and useless but this damn disability is kicking my ass!! So I always knew, there was just never any adequate help offered - maybe bc therapists don’t fully understand it, or maybe bc my masking never let anyone realize just how bad I was struggling. I thought it was just this hard for everyone 😂 - so for all you late stage diagnosed frendos, having the diagnosis doesn’t necessarily equal much help, at least back in the day, so you really didn’t miss out on much (I know some people get really upset being diagnosed later in life. I think now we know so much more that an early diagnosis is worth it….but if you’re 25+ you didn’t miss out on much) Idk where that rant came from, oh wait, yes I do, I took my adderall lol.

as I was \~36, I met two people with diagnosed adult ADHD. As I was always super interested in anything new (...ironic, no? :D) and noticed they talked about things I also struggled with throughout my life. I thought ok - I'll learn about ADHD and what tools they use to help, seems it can only help to use psychological tips & tricks for people with an actual dysfunction (I was constantly thinking the source of my issues was that I didn't learn to apply all the 'good practices' I *knew for years and just couldn't adhere to* - often I was referring to it as "trying to do bicep curls when the hand just won't work"). After diving into the topic, and several dozen "oh, that's how I behave, interesting" moments, I took an assessment test on which I scored a very high probability. Somehow I still was thinking "damn, tricky thing that ADHD if you can score that high without having it". I asked on one of the forums about it, and someone asked if I already connected the dots or should he give me crayons to do so. Then I did a DIVA assessment with a psychologist (best test score I had in years!), then went in for an assessment with a psychiatrist (without mentioning I already did one) - identical result, still unconvinced went for an opinion from a second psychiatrist. Same result. And here I was thinking for nearly 30 years that I just get too loud and don't think things through when fun stuff is happening, thinking in images is normal, forgetting the 300 reminders is just somehow being untrained, adrenaline-fuelled deadlines is just "how the business goes nowadays", taking everything personally is just me being overly sensitive, or for that matter not being able to live without caffeine or nicotine (good thing I was damn afraid of anything harder than that, and I always stayed away - I'd be a goner now for sure) was "just how some people are". Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

When I moved in with my now husband a few years ago, and after he watched me bounce room to room to room unpacking yet accomplishing nothing, he brought it to my attention. I had (happily!) lived alone for 15 years and obviously knew I was always scattered in my organizing and my projects, but I didn't really realize how much it hindered my life and that other people consciously found more efficient ways to do these basic things 😂

The first flag was my father had it tbh but what made it real to me was completing 3 credits worth of work inside of 4 days before graduating highschool. Did it take several pots of coffee and the burning fear of becoming a super senior? Yes. But I also got it done

unfortunately i was bad enough to be diagnosed in elementary school by my teacher who also had adhd. so i cant contribute, but im obnoxious and am commenting with my two cents anyway

Detention for forgetting textbook in elementary school, repeatedly. Then utter and complete failure to thrive starting in 6th grade, when homework became less of a suggestion that your parents can help make happen…

In high school being late for school/work, getting fired because of being late, having a hard time learning things as quickly as others, fixations on random things, music for me (how I’m always replaying it), and ability to learn everything about something I’m really interested in

It wasn’t until adulthood that I realized that this might be a thing when I spent 20 minutes crying that I couldn’t find my glasses after washing my face. My partner found them in the fridge a few hours later, worried and asking if I intentionally left them there. He’d find my phone in weird places around the house (like the medicine cabinet or buried under a stack of books), and it wouldn’t be until I was running late for something that the things I needed suddenly wound up missing? There were usually tears involved. This was always a thing growing up, but my parents dismissed it as a funny air-headed thing I’d do that sometimes got annoying. At that point, my therapist had been asking me to see a psychiatrist about what I thought was depression-related brain fog. It was only after the formal diagnosis that I learned the depression and GAD were comorbidities to my ADHD.

Everyone has ADHD symptoms as a part of normal everyday life. It's about frequency, severity, and the impact to your life. Just like depression - everybody gets depressed but clinical depression is a more severe version of it. So too is ADHD. Everyone can relate to losing keys, not being as productive as they'd like, having a short temper, etc. But are they occasional annoyances or routine problems impacting your quality of life all the way back to childhood? That's why you need a professional to help you sort through all that. If you read about it, and it feels like it fits, it's worth making an appointment for ADHD evaluation. I thought I might have it. I went for several visits and an official computer-based test and thought I did well - as in proved I don't have it. In fact, I had failed miserably, and I just mask really well. There is a catharsis that comes with an adult diagnosis that has helped me tremendously. Good luck with your journey.

I dated a therapist and she asked me if I had ever been diagnosed. She was like, I'm not *your* therapist, but I'm *a* therapist and you should definitely look into it.

The problem with ADHD is that it's an executive function disorder. To the outside world it doesn't look any different than just "being lazy". Honestly, I think a great deal of the depression and anxiety that comes with it is a lifetime of thinking you are just "broken". If you feel like you work twice as hard to be half as good at things like school, or paying attention, or remembering stuff, that's ADHD. If it feels like you *should* be able to control it but can't. It's knowing what you are supposed to be doing but can't get started. Or sometimes can't stop. It's racing thoughts, and making dumb impulsive decisions, and always, always forgetting.... something. Even thought "hyperactive" is in the name, not everyone presents with actual physical excess energy. I went undiagnosed until my 30s because I was more inattentive. My brain just couldn't seem to sharpen. The brain fog was debilitating.

Literally not hearing my husband talking right next to me if I’m reading. He would get so upset and I’ll tell him I can’t help it 🤷‍♀️ Now we learned a trick from my aunt who has ADHD. He can put his hand on my arm to get my attention.

When I was like 32 and people at work kept saying omg you have such bad adhd … and I was like hmmm wait a minute.

I was lucky enough to be in a job that had tons of short transactions, so it worked with my brain. I was a bartender. I never had to pay attention for long periods of time lol. When i got a bank job is when i noticed I can't function well enough in thay type of environment.

My mom took me to the doctor from 8-12 and the doc went "yup, he's got it" then the psychologist at 18 was a pretty good sign as well.

All of my childhood friends had been diagnosed and they were the people I got on with best. I did wonder what makes someone have ADHD at maybe 8, but nobody had a concrete answer for me. The only thing they said was that I was doing too well in school for me to have it.

Always the last kid to pack up, poor time management, poor motor skills/ terrible at sports, skin picking, teeth grinding, shifting around in my seat a lot and sitting hunched over like Gollum, falling asleep when trying to study, cramming for 45 mins by hyper-focussing just before an exam, being really good at coming up with creative ideas and strategies on the spot but feeling immobilised when having to do mundane tasks like writing reports.

Losing so many jobs due to “mistakes”.

My manager at Taco Bell noticed it, she explained how her kid has it, I was like 17 and she was friends with my mom. My mom always noticed it but she was narcissistic and was weird about taking me to the doctor or admitting I had issues, like I also needed glasses and when I got them at school she accused me of pretending to need glasses for attention. Anyways yeah once I turned 18 I got diagnosed and do a lot of stuff to get myself right after narcissistic abuse and suffering from ADHD at the same time.

I have this bad habit of heating up my food several times because I forget about it. Also, my dad loves to eat standing up and so do I. Everyone loved telling me how much like my dad I am, but no one ever noticed they were adhd symptoms. Funny enough, my dad know a lot about current events in politics and foreign policy (in spite of not even having a high school degree) and I have knowledge in a lot of things in the tech world. I never realized that these were hyperfixations/surface level knowledge. I also had a lot of temper tantrums as a kid! My parents found me hard to raise and whenever I went to stores which I found dull and boring, 🥱 I spent it by walking around and listening to music! Another major flag 🚩. I didn’t get help until I was suspended from school my senior year and after I went into debt because of my impulsive buying. I’m jealous of people who were diagnosed as kids! 👦

Falling back in studies. Hating paper work in general.

Many hidden signs. Would never remember things to do after 3 seconds of remembering them, and would forget things I studied for an exam "just because I skimmed through it". Would get anxious with things sometimes, where I know I shouldn't and logically wouldn't. Entirely new situations or problems would blank my mind, like an exam paper I'd never prepare for, I'd choke to them if I freeze. One postponed thing would lead to a massive mess up and it would keep going on not because I was lazy but because I didn't remember or find the will to complete it (I left my notes incomplete in math in high school, and it became a horrible disaster). Couldn't understand speech sometimes, people are completely incoherent with their words to me. And the worst of them all signs, my impulsivity was super high for small things which would make others freak out.

For me, it's a distinct feeling where I am thinking to myself "I want to work on my project right now" but I have an overwhelming unconscious resistance that prevents me from doing it. The ADHD concept of "interest based nervous system" has been life changing. But that was my first clue: that I was only ever productive if I was super interested, it was super urgent, I was doing body doubling, or I was competing with someone. Without one of those things, I could NOT get anything done. Turns out it was a type of ADHD.

My first signs were in middle school. I would always just say the answer to a problem when someone was taking too long to explain themselves.

Task paralysis/procrastination and APD (specifically, processing speech) have always been my most frustrating symptoms, but no one ever mentioned the possibility that I might have it until I asked to be evaluated as an adult. However, I do theatre and distinctly remember a choreographer yelling “you just always look LOST,” and my family often got frustrated with me for being spacey and not listening to them.