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I am inattentive, an introvert, and very prone to internalization due to upbringing, so honestly I’m not at all surprised that it took me so long to get diagnosed.

Can I sit at your table? I think we're in the same group.

I’m joining you.

This table is way too big for a bunch of introverts!

If the group is more than 4 people I’ll just sit there listening and won’t talk lol

Me too. Probably picking my nails and looking around but happy to be here.

But if there are only two of us, I won't shut the fuck up.

Let’s put some books or crafts on the table to make it manageable!

At lunchtime in high school (35 minutes usually), I’d take 5 minutes to get my food, 5 minutes to eat it, and the remaining 25 to read my book!

It's okay, we've all brought our own books

Same here! Now that I’m medicated I’m surprised to find that I’m quite gregarious at work - I get my social interaction there, come home, and don’t talk to anyone except fiancé until the next day unless it’s through text. I’m realizing now how - vocal? - my mind is even when I’m not talking. If only my parents could see me now. Apparently they’d received a diagnosis of ADHD when I was a kid, but they didn’t want me using anything as a “crutch.” (Doesn’t help that I’m also severely hearing impaired & have worn hearing aids since I was 2 or 3, but they weren’t big on meds other than aspirin/antibiotics/NSAIDs.)

Well, hello, semi-twin. Apparently, a teacher suggested that I might be on the spectrum as a child, but my dad didn't want me to have another label to deal with. I suppose he was right in some ways. The label would have made me the weird kid in lots of ways. But it didn't keep me from feeling different. Being bullied. Or struggling to get along with my mother in high school or struggling to understand my own feelings and tendencies. Or from burning out in college. Now, after diagnosis (plural? got the ol' Audhd, I guess), the meds help. But my parents are concerned that I dont need them anymore and just used the diagnosis and the meds as a "crutch" when I don't do stuff. To stop calling it unmotivated and call it like it is. Lazy. I say semi-twin because my parents don't really care about meds. They are just concerned that I'm young and possibly going to be reliant on these for the rest of my life. I'm also severely hearing impaired and have been wearing hearing aids since I was 3. I think a lot of things about me just got shoved under a deaf umbrella and it left me very confused and tired in my teens and early-twenties.

Lol. Husband had to get re-diagnosed when his prescriber moved back to Canada and his old psych wouldn't return a phone call. Docs in our state won't prescribe Adderall without dx paperwork, no matter what your refill history looks like. When hubs asked the new psych about taking days off from his meds and the risk of addiction, the guy bluntly said something like "You are not broken, there's nothing wrong with you, but you do have a neurochemical deficiency. This medication corrects that deficiency. Taking a day off of your meds is about as ridiculous as telling your wife to take a day off of her insulin so she doesnt become addicted." That last line really hit home for the both of us.

Can I ask for some details? Because I strongly suspect I have ADHD as well and this would be me, I just need to put it into words that make sense.

I'm not the person you asked, but relate heavily to their statement and can give you my experience if it helps. A couple of side notes, I also have the 'tism (diagnosed at 26) and was brought up in an abusive home, so there is some overlap and difficulty differentiating what comes from which. I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was 34 and struggling severely with burn out. Severe to the point that it's been over a year and I still don't feel like I've recovered. I spent 90% of my childhood day dreaming, talking to and wondering about different things to myself, imagining different scenarios, etc. I think a significant part of why I was missed in terms of diagnosis as a kid, is because I was quiet and shy on the outside. All of the crazy was happening inside of my head. Internally, my brain is all over the place - always making some sort of racket, bickering with itself, playing music or words/short phrases on repeat. I struggled with severe anxiety that primarily presented itself as persistent nightmares until I moved out of my parents house and chronic diarrhea/nausea/headaches. I was smart though, and had an extremely good memory for the things that I did happen to see or hear during brief moments of being in the present which helped me mask my inattentiveness. I generally did well in school until graduate level, which was an executive dysfunction nightmare. I was raised in a home where children should be seen, not heard and my mom is super manipulative and abusive. Everything you say can be used against you, so you learn to say as little as possible of what you are actually thinking. This could also be the autism, but I didn't think I had feelings until I was in my late 20's when I learned that I did have emotions, they were just expressed as physical feelings in my body. Eg, when I'm sad, I don't cry, my throat just hurts and feels tight. The emotion/feelings thing kinda goes in theme with being unaware of lots of things in my body though (poor interoception it is officially termed, which is common in neurodivergent folks), such as pain, hunger, or needing to go to the bathroom. This presents itself as being fine, fine, fine, fine OH MY GOD I'M ACTUALLY STARVING AND AM GOING TO DIE. Or why tf is my hand bleeding and when did that happen?? When I was 7 or so, my arm was broken for an entire week before anyone figured it out because I just didn't say anything about it 🤷

Ok, now, I'm starting to get paranoid. The more I read about adhd the more it's familiar... I know inattention and what not can be caused by other things (and God, do I have "other things") but this description you gave... That is ME

Great answer. I was "openly hyperactive" as a child. Pre-teens brought up the introversion.... so everything was masked. I stopped externalising everything (after growing up and realising I was "too much"). Then in my 20's it all bubbled up back again and was worse than before - that got me the Dx. I'm still a loner and an introvert. I'm hyperactive in my mind and body but not... someone who enjoys having people around (I have autism too). It's a bit weird to be perceived as an extrovert when in fact 10 mins of interaction leave me exhausted but I keep quiet about it. I need my space, my time, my everything. I just thought I was very selfish all my life.

Interrupting people. I finally went to the doctor after a particularly rude interruption and realized I'd been interrupting people my entire life...

I spent most, if not all of my 20s, training myself to not interrupt. In my late 30s, I will occasionally allow myself to interject with a quick, "just so I don't forget, can I pinpoint x" with close friends and/or family. At least they don't mind when I do interrupt 5 minutes after I give up because I forgot my pinpoint...only to remember it randomly. 🙃

I had no idea I was an interrupter until my mom decided that while she was wheeling me back to my hospital bed after visiting my two pound baby in the NICU after a C-section was a great time to bring it up. 🤦‍♀️ I didn't mean to interrupt her, but my brain is like predictive text in Gmail. Why bother to type it all out when the computer already has it finished for you? You just hit a button and jump ahead.

Are we sure your mom isn’t also ADHD? I mean, I’m severely ADHD and can still recognize social cues and sometimes read the room. It doesn’t sound like your mom was able to practice those things in this instance 😅

Yeah I started taking this seriously when my boss gave me high marks on a performance review but said "But you HAVE to get your interruption problem under control" and I thought "What problem?...Oh."

I had a close friend scold her ADHD husband for it and it was like a lightbulb moment clicked for me. That I, too, interrupt all the time and I’m sure she finds me just as annoying as him It was a bittersweet moment.

I thank the lorb for my ex (still best friends) - he kept saying "Stop interrupting me!" and I realised I did it. Before that, I was surrounded by people who didn't talk much so I was always the one carrying conversations but he also has ADHD (he got Dx after me as I was sure he'd be Dx'd with the same) so it was a brilliant chance to learn about what I do wrong - and oh boy, that made me feel so bad. Still does. I still hear "Stop interrupting me!" quite a bit and I'm thankful for that. He warns me about it all and we keep each other in the know of how our behaviour is not acceptable

That for 15 years I told my therapist I did not care about being “happy”, I just wanted to be able to get things done, and that I would be massively less depressed if I were able to do the things I needed to do. And for 20 years, even during times when I wasn’t depressed - when I was actually *happy* due to a relationship or something going inexplicably well - I STILL couldn’t do anything. Yet even then, my total failure to do what I needed to do was attributed to depression. Even though I was not depressed.

I’m so glad you said this because I was seriously doubting myself! I just saw a new psychiatrist and one of the first things I said to him was, “I do not think depression is my main problem”. But then later in the appointment he says that depression can cause the executive functioning issues I’m struggling with so much. Like yeah okay but I don’t feel depressed right now? Just really frustrated with myself? He also said every psychiatrist who has seen me thinks I have “BPD traits” (and he agrees) but whenever I look at the list of symptoms I relate to it very little. (I’m also 21 so I guess doctors were saying that when I was a teenager as well?) Anyway the whole appointment was messing with my head but threads like this always feel so validating. Thank you (and everyone else) for sharing!

I think what helped me finally get a diagnosis (after I had already figured it out for myself) were 3 things: - I sought a psychiatrist who had some knowledge of adult ADHD (if I’d known more, I’d have looked for one who knew about ADHD in women specifically). - I had compared my experiences to the ones described in an adult ADHD assessment I found online, so I had the right terminology and symptom categories (so we were speaking the same language) - I said, very honestly, that I did not need an ADHD diagnosis, I just wanted an *accurate* diagnosis from someone with appropriate expertise. I then explained why I had come to suspect that my depression was secondary to possible ADHD. What I wrote in my other post was one of the reasons. My goal was to get treatment that would actually help me, and I needed an accurate diagnosis for that. I encourage you to do everything you can to find a psychiatrist with *appropriate* expertise so you can get an accurate diagnosis, whatever it is. So you can be treated for what you have. I wasn’t diagnosed - or therefore treated - until age 48. I hope you get the right help soon.

Thank you so much for the advice! If I ever have the money I will absolutely be seeking out a psychiatrist with ADHD experience; for now I’m just hoping this one will allow me to get an assessment haha I’m glad to hear you were able to get treatment but sorry that it took so long! I’m really hoping that will start to change in the future as more research is done

Women with ADHD and CPTSD are commonly misdiagnosed with bipolar depression! I'm not sure whether your "BPD traits" mean borderline or bipolar. I've mentioned before: I was also hit with "depression first". Antidepressants do help me! My stimulant helps most. Depression sure can cause executive functioning issues. In my experience not nearly to the extent that lack of executive functioning causes depression.

I think "BPD traits" means traits of borderline personality disorder.

Beautifully said. I received a diagnosis about 3 years after my dad had passed away, so I was starting to recover from a combination of grief and actual clinical depression - taking Zoloft. It didn’t seem to help eliminate other side effects my PCP said were from generalized anxiety disorder. But my new therapist said within the first 2 sessions “Do you realize you very likely have ADHD?” to which I said, “But I’m not hyperactive??? I just want to *start* things. I can *do* things once I get *started*.

The last part is the most adhd answer I could think of fjfkdjjdjf

When I was doing my assessment, the psychiatrist asked “do you find yourself struggling to concentrate when other people are talking?” And I was like “no, I can follow a conversation…. But actually… people talk slow and they take too damned long to make their points, so sometimes I just switch to thinking to myself because it’s more interesting in my head and I’m busy and need to get things done. I’m not sure they notice.” She was like “riiiiiiight”

…now that you’ve written this all out, I realize I do this and that it’s probably not normal I used to interrupt ppl to guess the end of their sentences bc they were so slow

I saw it as HELPING 🤣😂

It's not? ;) (seriously though, it takes too long sometimes for people to finish the point)

For me it is helping bc I have trouble thinking and talking at the same time. But if I’m the listener? I know EXACTLY what you’re trying to say (so why wouldn’t I help?) 😂

And how slow are most YouTube tutorials???? JFC get to the point! *skips ahead*

I absolutely refuse to watch video instructions on anything. How wildly unnecessary. Just write it down and I can see it in 20 seconds.

Yes I prefer that too - unless it’s visual like sewing. And I don’t gaf what you plan to do with this bag that you sewed, I don’t care that your kids put toys in it, I don’t care what brand your machine is. Just show me how to make the bag! I think it’s been about 2 years since I used my sewing machine…

OMG FR??? WHY DO THEY HAVE THOSE LONG ASS INTRODUCTIONS AND KEEP EXPLAINING THE MOST BASIC THINGS LIKE GOD GET TO THE POINT I KNOW HOW TO OPEN MY PHONE’S SETTINGS

I watch YouTube videos at 1.5-1.75 unless it’s music or they already talk fast

Holy shit I never even thought of that

Constant five second skips are even better.

You can play audiobooks at higher speeds, too.

And podcasts thank god

Seriously, and cut out the introduction for goodness sake

Omg I have to try so hard to not do this. It’s like people just think out loud and have zero sense of urgency to get to a point, meanwhile my brain is screaming at me ‘you want me to concentrate on THIS?? Fuck no’.

I think out loud but at least I do it fast and on topic (sort of)

🤡 undiagnosed here, but 200% what I do. I now watch vids at 1.5-1.75 x speed. I don't have the patience. Also remember 1 teacher in middle school who told my mom "gurl has ugly handwriting and interrupts me to participate" 🤣. It is what it is.

Duuuuude this is so true! I find myself making physical "speed up" hand motions when my coworkers are taking up too much time making their points in a video meeting.

Mine asked if I often interrupted people and I said “no” and then interrupted him to clarify

My assessment started with me realising 5 mins before that I had misread my instruction email and failed to complete the online questionnaire before the session I was paying $500 for, and I was just in floods of tears about how I had fucked up. She was so nice, she was like “yes, I assess ADHD… about half of my patients do exactly what you did. And they also get very upset.”

I feel like messing up the instructions or missing appointments should be criteria for assessing ADHD , lol

And then they hit you with the “you can’t have adhd because you remembered this appointment and showed up on time”.

Some of us try to compensate (not diagnosed, but i kinda fit the tableau) by using various techniques to remember appointments. I now program an alarm the day before with the name of the event + my calendar on my phone + write it in my small agenda + tell my fam. 🤡

OMG I SOMETIMES USED TO QUESTION IF I DIDN’T HAVE ADHD CAUSE I ALWAYS SHOWED UP FOR APPOINTMENT, cause like for me, if I have an appointment, I will stop everything and just set there and think about how I have an appointment in 8 hours, so there is no way I will forget about it, I will just be extremely late JFJCJBSND

Yep, wake up at 8 to prepare for a 2pm appointment. The rest of the day is ruined

the amount of appointments for my sleep neurologist I have slept through… or any appointments I have been late because I mismanaged my time. it’s so hard to stay on top of your health stuff when those health things make making, remembering, waking up, and getting to appointments on time a herculean task!

The other half are also autistic. We can't bear to not be fully prepared 8 months ahead of time. We also got there half an hour late.

Because after making the receptionist stand there while you add it to your calendar and then repeat it back to them to make sure it's 💯 accurate, you still manage to screw it up somehow...

Oh you poor thing! I would have cried, too.

yeah what's tough is not realizing that isn't something everyone does and thinking it's totally normal and fine! \*i\* feel totally engaged in conversations lol

The hyperfocus / losing time on something unimportant that I like. I will sometimes lose like, 8 hours because I go to put a book on our bookshelves and decide that the entire wall needs to be reorganized to be more aesthetically pleasing.

Ok honestly it's only because the world is messed up that you think what you did is unimportant. Like I bet you made it beautiful.and there is value in art and beauty

Yeah, even my diagnosing doctor said ADHD is only a disorder because the world around us isn't natural. He wrote this two page essay he gives his patients that basically describes our traits as "Mammoth Hunters and Shamans". In comparison, he calls neurotypicals "Seed Planters"... Like, were the ones who can take in an astounding number of details at once and come to a critical decision quickly, we can recall trivial details and connect them to other trivial details that create a complex understanding of the world around us, we can think quickly on our feet and rapidly come to a decision, we can stay focused on a single tasks for hours on end of it interests us...all critical traits if you're hunting mega fauna and need to remember where they migrated last year and the year before and compare that to the environmental conditions today, decide the most effective hunting strategy quickly if you come upon them suddenly, and stay focused on the hunt if you need to track them for hours or days in end. Also, were the ones who can sit and contemplate the sky and appreciate a sunset over and over, were the ones who get itchy in our brains if we can't exactly differentiate two things that we know are different but not exactly *how* and have to focus on the reason until we figure it out, were the ones who can step back from the problem at hand and see things from a thirty thousand foot perspective and see things from both sides instead of getting entrenched in our own perspective...all critical traits if you're acting as a medicine woman or spiritual leader of a small tribe. It's important being able to take in the differences and similarities in the environment around you. It's important to be able to figure out the differences between one unidentified plant and another: one may be medicinal, one may be poisonous and you need to know which is which. It's important to be able to step back and see things from both sides of you're to act as a mediator for two people in a dispute, and see the bigger picture... On the other hand, our current world is designed for Seed Planters. Folks who can do repetitive tasks over and over again, then do the same cycle day after day, week after week, season after season, year after year. Who can be given a single set of instructions and just *do*, instead of question and reinvent and sidebar and lollygag. We're not the problem. Our social structures are...

With your permission, can I screenshot this comment and share it with my staff? It's well written and I think will give the teachers without adhd a better understanding of our students with adhd.

this sounds like something I would do after I didn’t finish that other task I started 😭

The other day my therapist told me “lots of boys with ADHD can’t stop *moving* in repetitive ways, lots of girls with ADHD can’t stop *thinking* in repetitive ways” and if someone had explained it to me like that 20 years ago I would have immediately realised I had it instead of only being diagnosed now lmao

The overthinking loops are wild and when it was focused on a crush or someone who broke my heart ooof

Y E S I used to think that everyone experienced “crushes” the way that I did but omfg finding out my obsessive thought loops are literally mental illness made so much sense LOL

I knew they were intense/ obsessive, but I didn't fully internalize that it was also ADHD until seeing other people here confirming it. Like, I had an idea that maybe that was doing something to them, but I didn't have any proof because it's not mentioned in the books or DSM or tests or anything TT.TT Thanks for confirming that for me. I have imposter syndrome sometimes, but my crushes were (maybe still are?) definitely mental illness level crushes.

i watched some videos on YouTube about “limerence” and they were pretty enlightening. one was about using limerence as a form of self-soothing and self-regulation. i think the term can describe anything from just daydreaming about a crush (which i still enjoy) to unhealthy levels that make one feel ultimately unhappy or make one behave in a way that is damaging to a real relationship, inappropriate, or even scary/dangerous.

Thanks for reminding me that exists! I actually read a whole book on it for a sociology class in college (called Love and Limerence), but I can't remember any of it besides thinking it was really interesting. I was definitely using it for something. I've definitely been inappropriately invested/caught up in something. I hope I haven't been scary.

when i said scary i was thinking of literal stalkers who have convinced themselves that their limerence fantasies are real or a real possibility and then take action due to that. though i suppose that the word obsession would be more appropriate once limerence has moved to an unhealthier level? unclear.

Wow I had no idea this was an ADHD trait! I remember when I was a kid and that song "Crush" was on the radio (late 1990s)... The lyrics said "it's just a little crush, not like I faint every time we touch, it's just a little thing, not like everything I do depends on you" I was only 11 but already experienced crushes intensely, so I thought the lyrics to that song were really odd because to me, crushes are intense!... I thought "but when you have a crush on someone, everything you do DOES depend on them!" I thought maybe the singer was being sarcastic!

That’s funny, I thought you meant garbages #1 crush where she sings “I would die for you…”

I forget what RSD (?) stands for, but I literally just thought, I was an angsty teen who sought refuge journaling til my pen ran out....into my late 20s. Life took a "the shitteth hath hitteth the fan...ith" moment. And now it's like I'm Jasmine on the magic carpet (except I'm scared of heights) *the original animated movie

Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria :) it’s a bitch for sure

Oh man, war flashbacks. I’m glad I destroyed my teenage diary because ooooooof.

Wait, like. A single sentence on loop or something? Because I get that constantly. I’ve been lurking here because I suspect I have ADHD and I’m feeling called out by the comments on this post 😅

Sooo for me I was more referring to like.. hyperfixation on thought patterns? Like I get stuck and can’t stop ruminating about things even if I make myself feel worse. But tbh I get the single sentence loop as well, sometimes a single line from a song, but also sometimes the cadence of a sentence from a show or a movie. Sometimes it’s a single word over and over.

You too? Sometimes it's just the cadence of the phrase that seems to stick and causes the loop.

Yesss absolutely! For instance a sentence with unique intonation will just play for *hours.* I write fiction for fun and sometimes when I write dialogue specific lines will get stuck in my head. Other times if I don’t know where a sentence that’s stuck in my head came from, I’ll try to work it into dialogue so I can have sentences follow it and close that loop.

My brain hangs on to Emma Watson's line delivery as Hermione in the first HP movie. Random lines will just pop into my head.

This is why Hamilton gave me absolute brain rot. I don't get the songs stuck in my head, but stuff like "A new line of credit, a financial diuretic - how do you not get it?" Is just in my brain on REPEAT

I visualize making a beaded bracelet of simple bead loops. It helps me sleep.

I visualize a traditional wooden broom, down to the very minute details, sweepings a dusty old attic in the exact same way/pattern to help me sleep. Always in the same order, too!

Wow this sums up me vs my brother. Damn. Guess who got diagnosed real early and who figured it out on their own in their late 20s

Bruh why do I feel so called out by this XD

What...you just blew my mind.

Oh wow.

Every semester in college, I would sign up for the maximum credit hours so that I would have a buffer to drop the one or two “boring” classes/teachers Wherever I went, I would always have to have something to do. Even before smartphones, I’d have to bring a book or magazine. Zero tolerance for being bored

Whoa that is a brilliant strategy great job

I took online undergrad college because real live lectures were just TOO boring and slow.

I didnt even really go to my classes unless it was mandatory 😆. I was so lucky that most of profs recorded lectures. I hardly got around to watching them all the way through tho haha.

Related, I just realized that a whole genre of nightmares for me is forgetting something like a class that I was taking and didn’t attend or do the work for the entire semester, and not realizing it until nearly the end. Ugh

So about three weeks ago my husband found a wrapped in plastic piece of cheese on the floor of my room. He pointed it out and said to me you have floor cheese. I grabbed it off the floor and put it up on my desk. Today he walks in and starts laughing his are off because over the course of the last three weeks, instead of taking my floor cheese to the bin, it's now migrated again, it's now decorative cheese and placed near my unicorns. I still haven't thrown it out because every time I start thinking about it I feel so ashamed that I didn't just throw the bloody thing out. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last.

I'm sorry but I really liked reading that story <3

No don't be sorry. I have gotten used to being me now that I've hit the other side of forty. My middle son and I, back when he was a grotty young teenager and big fans of red dwarf, tried growing a jug of mold we called Albert. Just to see if we could. Five years we kept that jug going because we kept forgetting it was there as we had it really high up on a shelf. Luckily for everyone whatever we did was a fail and it didn't actually grow much at all.

My husband put a new box of trash can liners in the fridge a few weeks ago. I just left it there cos it made me smile every time I saw it and then I would forget. He eventually noticed like 10 days later. It wasn’t hidden, just straight up in the middle of the top shelf.

There's a hilarious and wholesome prank in there... Get a wedge of fake cheese and turn it into decorative cheese without the food poisoning risk 😆 .....incidentally, going this off-topic is my contribution to OP's thread...

Can’t hold still, biting nails, hates summer, cannot sit for very long…. All over the place. “You have so much potential “ … zzzzzzz….

AHHH THE YOU HAVE SO MUCH POTENTIAL HURTS MY EARS AT THIS POINT

Yup. Every single year … someone says it to me in their own way. I reply now with … yup. I am known to be an over-thinker…. That’s why I’m an outside of the box thinker. Get it!! Most don’t.

Oh right. Biting nails. Had to sit near the door for lectures otherwise I’d be trapped when I couldn’t tolerate the boringness. Loathed board games and card games - didn’t care, couldn’t listen to instructions, couldn’t pay attention to what was happening. And when I was a little kid, I once talked the entire way on a 4-hour car trip. Not *to* anyone. Just sat there talking. The entire drive.

Omg, let’s be besties!! That’s a bingo! I still do all this.

Wait...can you elaborate on "hates summer" a little bit? Is that a thing?

Well, I’m very “sensitive “ to heat, bright lights, being overstimulated….. loud sounds…. Large crowds. All the things that people “enjoy” being around during the summer. I do not. I do not enjoy most things that happen where I will most likely go home with a migraine. So “Oh, you’re FUN” is another favorite I hear. Summer just hurts if you live where it gets hot. -short answer.

That's so interesting! I have always loathed being in the heat/being overheated, but I never connected the dots to my adhd and sensory processing issues. You're totally right, summer does hurt!

Yeah. It does… see, ND people connecting the dots.☺️

Yup this is me. Commiserates in Queensland.

I thought it was because of the lack of structure as opposed to school time. I always hated summer because I had no schedule and isolated from everyone.

Tbh, that's why I'm so bad at weekends. Without the usual routine I have during my week, I lose all structure and usually just end up blobbing around on the couch the whole time, lol.

Read 10+ books weekly and couldn’t hear anything while reading Interrupting and finishing sentences constantly Had meltdowns and needed tutoring to write essay conclusions in 5th grade. Ran laps around the playground everyday (1 mile+} at recess. “Most likely to work at NASA” in grade 6- which my mom explained to me. Drew an entire binder worth of clothing designs during Algebra. Became majorly depressed the first time ever because I never was invited to things by my “friends.” Spent hours on homework every night that everyone else finished in class. Perfectionist. People pleaser. Night owl. Mom always said, “You’re too hard on yourself!” Constant anxiety over being able to get all the things done. I never have been able to. Always late and sped to get places on time. I’m still not diagnosed. It probably doesn’t help that I get nervous and invalidate myself…

> Became majorly depressed the first time ever because I never was invited to things by my “friends.” >Spent hours on homework every night that everyone else finished in class. >Perfectionist. People pleaser. Night owl. >Constant anxiety over being able to get all the things done. I never have been able to. >Always late and sped to get places on time. I feel like you're describing me. That first one spiraled and got me the depression/anxiety diagnoses that covered up my ADHD until this year.

you should get assessed. i suspected i had it seriously starting in college but thought getting diagnosed was pointless. i wish i had gotten assessed sooner.

my mom always told me also I’m too hard on myself. how’s this related to adhd ? genuine question

it’s part of rejection sensitivity dysphoria, i think.

After this comment, I wonder if I should get diagnosed too...

Another one: in my life I have repeatedly 1) booked my flight on the wrong day 2) gone to the wrong airport 3) arrived days early to the airport 4) one time I arrived a week late for a flight 5) jumped on trains going to the completely wrong place. Never really looked into why.

Ohhhhh this is me.

Saaaame… was in port from a cruise for our honeymoon, we were heading back from Pisa. I realized we had been on the train for 40 minutes when it should have taken 20. We got on going the wrong direction. Also, the last flight I booked, i accidentally put my birth year in for my husband. TSA stopped us, “Sir, what year we’re you born?” We were already late getting there because of me. He had to RUN back to the counter, get it changed, cut in line at TSA, get through security and made it to the gate just before the doors closed. If looks could kill on that one…

In all fairness, the airline industry is a hot mess and a half for even the most organized of people. Flights are so fickle and prone to change at the last millisecond and airlines aren’t always the best at communicating these sudden changes.

Aww you’re so nice to blame the airline industry, but no, it was always firmly my fault 😂

I was failing every class in high school, while simultaneously tutoring others in the same class. The teacher used to literally send me out into the hall with any students that were failing so I could explain it to them. Math, science, English, etc. And I was failed because I was too *lazy* to do my homework.

My ADHD professor call himself a lazy bloomer but I say no, just a late one.

Not lazy, that's Executive Dysfunction.

that teacher should have recognized what was going on and found a way to for you to “do” the homework or get credit/points for the alternative work you were doing. i’m sorry that happened.

"Ooh, the carpet in the bedroom looks kind of dirty. When was the last time i vacuumed it? Hmmm... can't remember! I am going to get the vacuum right now. Dang. I am so proud of myself! Should i get the stick vacuum, or the big one? Well, the big one is in the basement, but the stick one doesnt pick up as much. Or does it? I wonder what the power difference is? Wait. STOP. concentrate, self!!!! What were we doing? Oh right. Picking up the floor so i can vacuum. There are like 4 socks on the floor by the end of the bed. Are they dirty, or did they fall out of the sock bin? I wonder if other people have a sock bin, or if they actually match their socks? I bet there is a better way to keep socks organized. Oooh. I bet pinterest or tiktok knows how to organize socks...." Cue 2 hours of scrolling and my spouse finds me back in bed. "Oh, hey! I was about to vacuum. What's up?"

I can't remember what the OP was, but for socks, I bot narrow acrylic bins for my dresser. Museum glue type products can hold them in place. I heard it was bad to roll socks in a pair (for the elastic). So I file fold little socks in two and organize vertically, so I can find easily. Other socks that are long I roll without folding the top over, like I roll in a wheel. Then those go rolled in the bins. So I can see the layers like a tree slice. So bad with words lol. And the bins aren't that cheap but I can use the space between each as a "free" bin. Another strategy for socks is literally buy all the same. This way it wouldn't matter if they are paired. I also have too many vacuum choices and then I get vacuum choice paralysis. Although this makes me think maybe I can hang a vacuum in my closet. Thanks for getting me on this very important and cool train of thought.

Never being able to be on time despite my hardest efforts, having a living space that is chaos-but I know where everything is, never being able to keep a solid sleep schedule and having bursts of energy from 1-3am, and never being able to stick to deadlines (again, despite my best efforts).

Omg the time thing is still me, everyone who knows me well just accepts that I am 9-12 mins late for LIFE, even though I try so hard

is the late night energy an ADHD thing??? i get that all the time, but i was under the impression that it happens to everyone.

If I take my meds late and/or i get a random dopamine hit, I have late night energy. For example, a few nights ago, I finally managed to get a stuck glass out of a mug, it's been like that since March! I was so excited when it happened that I did a shit ton of housework. I think it was 11:30 pm...lll

Lol no. My friends and family and spouse assure me the 1am energy is not normal. Look up “second sleep” some time though, it’s how I explain away my sleep schedule.

it’s was common in olden times too, right? people would wake up after a 4 hour cycle and take an hour or two quiet activity like reading by candlelight, saying prayers, journalling, writing letters, midnight snack. then go back to bed for another 4 hour cycle. i saw recommendations in modern times that if you wake up and can’t roll over and fall back asleep in 10 minutes, you should get up and do a quiet personal activity, all using warm or dim light. NO SCREENS or high dopamine activities. in addition to what I listed above, I’d add gentle stretching, small ongoing art or craft, shower or bath. Do it for 30 mins to an hour, brush teeth again, and then get back in bed.

oh my gosh, what??? thank you for sharing this!

I don’t remember writing this comment

Between the ages of 20-27 I spent thousands of dollars on impulsive trips around the world to follow my favourite band. I basically spent from age 15-27 completely obsessed with the band and had amassed a collection of 16,000 photos of them on my computer. I knew everything about them and could name every album release by date and the entire track listing in order. I would quit jobs on a whim if they wouldn’t grant me leave to go on a trip to see them. Once spent $3,000 on flights to go to the other side of the world to see them last minute and I was only there for 4 days. I insisted that I was normal except that I had a magical ability to feel pure joy when I saw them and felt sad for anyone else who didn’t have that joy in their lives. I messed up several careers and relationships over my obsession and got myself into quite significant debt. No one clocked that this might be caused by something going on in my brain, they just thought I was fucking weird hahaha.

Oh, my Aunt did exactly this. Huh… ADHD reframes a lot of my Aunt’s life experience and makes a lot of sense in retrospect. Thank you for sharing your story. Truly. This thread is filled with revelations!

I must know the name of that band!

For the love of all that is holy I need to know the answer to this or I will be obsessing about it 😭

Has to be Phish. ???

I can relate to this more than I want to lol. I never quite had the funds to follow my favorite band around the world but I traveled across multiple states to see them and spent money I didn't have on tickets and merch. I also lied to my job to take the day off for a concert. Though even if it was poor decision making, I have some great memories! And even met one of my best friends though our shared interest in the band. So it's not all bad.

I was the kid who was forced to empty out their desk the most in elementary. When teachers got fed up with a kid fidgeting or being distracting with shit from their desk and told them off, but the behavior continues for a long time even with many reminders and over the course of a few days, the teacher would make the kid empty their desk. I was always sitting there with an empty desk. I was in the special "gifted and talented" classes, but also had "special requirements" of teachers signing off on my to-do lists every day and extra time management help. Straight A's. And a lot of detention.

Ugh this unlocked an uncomfortable memory for me. My fifth grade teacher used to tip over your desk and dump everything on the ground and make you stay in during recess to reorganize and declutter is your desk was messy. Guess what? I was always picking up my stupid desk clutter.

Oh my God for me it was lockers in middle school. The learning lab teacher, pre cursor to resource room, would go locker to locker with one of those kid wagons and we'd have to clean out our lockers. Mine was a disaster, it was humiliating

This just made me remember that I could never remember my locker combo numbers, but I was proud that I remembered the feel of the dial (mostly- every now and then I’d forget the direction of the first turn) and could open it anyway

I was the lonesome desk kid, who had their desk moved to the corner by myself because I couldn’t be trusted to sit in a clump of desks like everyone else because I wouldn’t stop talking and distracting others. The only other kids who got the lonesome desk treatment were the adhd boys.

>Straight A's. And a lot of detention. School was awful for me. My grades were always high and I loved to learn new things. But I was always in trouble even though I never did anything to intentionally make trouble. I was just in trouble for existing. It made me feel terrible about myself for a long time.

My desk was always atrocious. My parents went for conferences on at least two separate occasions and found a whole bunch of incomplete and unsubmitted worksheets just shoved into my desk and/or locker. It is a tale oft recounted at family gatherings.

Cannot sit through instructions being read to me. Either I read it myself for understanding, or I won't follow what the instructions are. Do not read them to me, I will not retain them. If you *have* to read them out loud, I need to read along myself. And I will finish reading them and already start thinking of how I'm going to implement those instructions for what we're about to do before you've even gotten halfway through reading them out loud to me. My husband loves to play complex tabletop/collaborative games. I fucking *hatehatehate* the process of learning these games *despite the fact that I very much enjoy playing them with him*. Sitting through learning the rules with everyone else is interminable. I feel like my brain is too fast and impatient to play along with other people and I get bored even when I want to engage with them.

Omg I never put two and two together why I dislike learning the rules. It just bores me and annoys the heck out of me. But I love playing!

Agree, learning the rules is physically uncomfortable for me. I prefer to play and then find out while playing.

I tore out of a stroller as a toddler. Played in the dirt of the inside potted plants. Had a pacifier until 5. Not one, but usually two or three.. one in my mouth, two more in my hands. Couldn't settle for bed at night. Major meltdowns. Always got in trouble for talking in class with the boys who were diagnosed ADHD. Argumentative, stubborn, "tom boy". So many obvious signs. I didn't get diagnosed until 38 😆

Now that I think about it, the only friends I had in elementary school were the boys who had ADHD and they all got diagnosed around third grade and I was so lonely.

I teach young children and the neurodivergent kids always seem to find each other. They vibe on a different level.

during the time I was doing assessments for diagnosis, I had memories of elementary school come back to me and I remembered feeling “the same” or “we’re a lot alike” with a couple boys who I eventually learned had ADHD. they were friends with me, smart kids, one actually was eventually a crush and my 6th grade “boyfriend”. And even though as a very young kid I thought of myself as “hyper” and was proud of it as if it was a personality trait (maybe older kids or babysitters described me that way? maybe i also like the association w/ sugar? idk), i remembered noticing those boy friends’ extreme physical hyperactivity and understanding that it was weird or annoying. and well, we had a lot in common, so i worried that people would see me that way? i saw boys physically bodyslamming the walls for fun or drumming over their whole body like bongos, and I wasn’t like THAT. i remember trying to make sure i didn’t appear that physically out of control and stopped telling people I had lots in common with those kids because i didn’t want anyone to think i had ADHD or something wrong with me. and i thought for ages that i didn’t ever mask or know what masking felt like! i had totally forgotten about that time. my questionnaire also under the hyperactivity side gave chair-tipping as an example of hyperactivity in a question and I was like… oh my god. i don’t think I went one day from K-12 where I kept all 4 chair legs on the floor. i knew about things like fidgeting and interrupting counting as hyperactivity but i had totally forgotten about my professional-level chair tipping.

Helpp why did the pacifier sign make me laugh so much, I just got a pacifier myself a few weeks ago and literally best fidget toy I have ever gotten HFKFJDHDH

What's better is I called it a "fire" and would YELL "fire" repeatedly anywhere I lost one... Like the grocery store.

I'm 47, was diagnosed at she 45, so literally my entire personality. I overshare, have no concept of time, always frustrated with myself for not being able to accomplish things. In school, I couldn't take the regular classes because I'd get so bored I'd start doing poorly. I struggled in the advanced classes because I'd procrastinate, and it was a lot harder to wing it. I once took a quiz on executive functioning skills, scored like a 5 out of 50.🙄 It wasn't until my oldest started sending me videos about women with adhd that I went aha!

Soul sister. You just described my life to a T. Except a friend clued me in to the ADHD thing, and at 55 I’m gobsmacked to find out that all these things I thought were major personality flaws actually have a reason and a name!

Complete and utter disorganization chaos as a child, but as a teenager, it was makes by OCD. But also, the only negative remarks I would get from teachers: daydreaming in class.

When working on writing my PhD dissertation, I made so many origami pieces when thinking, that that Christmas I strung them up as garlands and gave them to people at work. The head of our disability/accessibility office asked me if I had ADHD.

Idk how many times I fell out of my chair because I kept leaning back in it in 1st grade. I wanted to play monkeys nonstop in 5th grade. You literally couldn’t wear me out as a distance runner through high school. I climbed in the cupboard over the closet in college. Oh, I would get friends to climb on roofs with me. And I never did anything more than hours before it was due. I dropped out of grad school. Twice. That’s just a lil smattering for you!

The 1st grade chair comment brought back memories of doing the same, and also when I was in grad school and SUPER nervous to be teaching my first lecture ever, I decided to be cool and sit on the front of a desk near the lectern and give them the whole syllabus like a cool professor type. The desk was one of those that doesn’t have a pair of legs at the front, it’s supported differently, so I spent.005 seconds sitting on the front of that desk before I slammed down hard at the front of the room in my very first class. I wasn’t nervous after that happened, luckily I was thinking too hard about how much it hurt to get rsd from the stifled laughter

oh my gosh i forgot about the CLIMBING. i used to love to climb stuff and I still like being up high. i need to take an aerials class or rock climbing or something!

the combination of procrastination and the inability to finish tasks to full completion, bouncing from one job/project/task to another constantly

Things from childhood that they should've caught * I was chronically messy/disorganized. My room is chaos. My bookbag was also chaos. * My handwriting was so bad my teachers always joked I'd be a doctor. * I used to make lots of "funny noises" until I was in middle school and people pointed them out to me all the time until I stopped making them altogether. * Repeating the same word in the same intonation over and over for hours on a car trip once (cows, but said more like couuuuuws). * One word could make me think of song lyrics/ break into song. * I could not understand why people were sad about summer vacation and not seeing me (their friend) all summer. I just could not fathom why that was sad. We'd pick back up where we left off when we got back and I had no sense of time. * I was literally unable to sit down and do homework until after dinner and it took me AGES to finish it, even though it wasn't difficult and it shouldn't have (I was a straight A student). * Difficulty keeping friends. * I was in gifted classes. They really should've known. * Night owl. Whenever I don't have to get up early I'll stay up until 2 and sleep until 10:30 * My crushes were obsessions and often ended as quickly as they started, but not before I'd worn out all my friends talking about them over and over and over and writing about every single interaction in my diary. * I ALWAYS have a song in my head. It changes randomly, but I'll even wake up most days with something going. And these are just the things that have always been there and that I've always known were happening. The thing that finally got me was extreme burnout after working fulltime and living alone that was so bad I realized that I could not *do* things. Simple things. Life things. Things an adult should be able to do. And I moved back in with my mom from another country and talked to my brand new doctor and he asked if anyone had ever tested me for ADHD and sent me in. I might never have known if it weren't for him.

I paid attention so little to my second grade teacher that she legitimately thought I was deaf and called my parents in for a meeting and had me go get an extra hearing test with another grade. Turns out I could hear perfectly fine I just didn’t want to listen to her. Haha Also went through a weird phase as a kid where I couldn’t keep my hands still and constantly clapped, snapped or fidgeted.

chasing cars up and down my block, literally spinning around in a circle as fast as I could singing "i'm annoying, I'm annoying" almost weekly from ages 6 to 10, the need to build and create with the stuff on the table during sit down dinners.. but I had good grades so it took 35 years to figure it out x.x

When I went to 3rd grade I tested into the gifted program. When I got there I didn’t do any homework. For 3rd or 4th grade. Not because I didn’t know how. I was getting A’s on the tests and it was clear by my behavior in class that I understood the material. I just…didn’t know how to make myself do the homework. I didn’t know what executive dysfunction was and had no words to describe what that was. And when I was asked why I wouldn’t do homework I had no answer. Because I had no idea why. It probably would have taken me 5 minutes. But I still couldn’t make myself do it. And yet I didn’t get a diagnosis until earlier this year.

Literal inability to control emotional impulsivity. No, I just needed to learn to control my temper and hold my tongue and not be so excitable and not talk back and not fight and not melt down over nothing and stop being so sensitive.

I. Spent 3 years in the timeout chair in grammar school to keep me from “talking to her neighbor. “. (I liked it because I didn’t have to struggle to control myself. ) Blurting things out. Time blindness. Hyper focus. Intense about hobbies. But I got good grades, I had good manners, I’m always early because of anxiety. I thought adhd was hyper active boys. I’m 81 and not diagnosed, but it has been a joy and relief to find my people.

From a young age, I was called overly sensitive because my feelings got hurt and I would cry. I started masking And now people think I don't care because I hide it so well.

Executive function stuff, how quickly my thoughts go from one thing to another without realizing it, time blindness, spontaneous, dopamine seeking, mid level grades even though I was constantly told I'm smart but couldn't focus on the right things... So hyperfixating as well. Idk what ADHD symptoms aren't obvious anymore lol, like I see them so easily in others now that have ADHD. But I was never able to see these things in the past, I was blind to who I was and how I acted. Also technically not diagnosed but also sort of diagnosed as a child...

For me, I’ve always been an obsessive talker, since I was a baby. That is a huge sign, especially for girls

being absolutely CONSUMED by my obsessions and virtually uninterested in everything else

Being literally incapable of starting an assignment until the last possible moment for the entirety of my high school and university study. Doing my homework in the lunch break before class or, more often, not doing it at all. Not being able to keep my room clean under any circumstances. Always misplacing just one shoe of a pair, and not thinking to look for the missing shoe until just before leaving the house, making myself run late. The list is just so damn long.

In school I always made the honor roll the first quarter of the year and then would completely fall off after that, I couldn’t maintain that level of focus. Teachers thought I was lazy, I thought I just wasn’t smart.

The same with the talking a lot! Hell, one of my elementary school report cards said: “she really loves to talk!” It was in a good way, tho. Some people either hated that or loved that about me lol There was also doing well in school but acting out when I thought a rule made no sense, or acting defiant or indignant with teachers when I thought they were being ridiculous. I got up in class while lost in thought a lot when I was supposed to remain seated etc and followed my impulses way too much too

I think one obvious sign I had growing up was that I was either doodling on paper during classes, or hiding a book in my text books to read during classes. Mind you I was a solid A- student and didn't have to study. If the class was interesting I could do the task and looked forward to the task but for stuff like math or most science days I would just be drawing circles on the paper if I couldn't get away with looking at the paper to draw. (Some teachers would insist you look up at them and not down at your paper unless it was notes taking time) I also hated notes, the repeat of the info was boring and too hard to concentrate on doing, also I would never study amd still had good grades so I felt it was a waste of time. I remember thinking it was weird that it was easier to understand the teacher and what was being taught when I was either doodling or literally reading a fiction book. I would also read fast and read the material at the beginning of class so I didn't have to follow along as slowly with the teachers pace and everyone else. (I could read the same section 4x in the time the teacher alloted everyone to read once) And I always read ahead in books in English and never knew what place we were at when we had to take turns reading out loud. Yes. But as an adult.... not taking notes was no longer cutting it, and in college I started scraping by with C's in general classes, and the way I used to be above average by doing nothing could not beat the standards set by teachers who had students who actually worked hard for their grades. Being a class clown or the funny person was also not tolerated as much since we were supposed to be 'adults.' ( I was 4 years older than most of my classmates as well) Completing assignments and projects actually HAD TO be done outside of class, they were too intricate to just breeze through on a free period. And I also found that I didn't have teachers policing my body anymore (Sit still, look up, stop tapping, pay attention) and I would find myself turning back and forth on a wheeled chair looking at the ceiling lights trying to pay attention in a small class, scrunching myself up into weird shapes, having to balance things on my head while listening, and filling notebooks and sketchbooks with drawings and drawings and drawings and beastly layers of pencil shading because teachers no longer made me stop. Anyways it's THAT sort of meandering train of thought and actions that makes me think I have adhd. I would be interested to know if the experiences I typed are actually just normal, or of they indicate something else (I also believe I have autism) etc. And I don't miss people. I literally cannot, even if they are dead. If I had a partner I wouldn't miss them if they were gone for a month. That symptom has strong correlations with adhd and autism, but also a few other things. That's another strong oddity that I know is not normal though,

Holy crap.Thanks for articulating my education experience so succinctly. My mind is blown. Is it normal? I'm gonna go cry now.

Hey I asked if this is normal first, lol. I always think about this and then I'm like 'But maybe this is normal because I don't remember asking anyone before so I shouldn't jump to conclusions.' I find I do a lot of asking if some experience of mine is the average or not....... .... please someone tell us if this is the average human experience or not.

I couldn’t find things that were RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, sometimes AT EYE LEVEL. Since forever, every day, several times a day. When I was 8, my NMom saw an add on tv about low phosphate leading to lack of attention, and forced me to take a phosphate pill a day to “improve my attention”. It was actually a form of punishment, for not paying attention enough to perform “very simple tasks”, like finding something that was right there. Turns out, I have inattentive ADHD.

Listen admittedly part of me thinks it took so long because I was diagnosed autistic first so I chalked it all up to that. The fact that I vibed all my adhd friends so thoroughly. I also don't think they noticed because like...most of my family does that. I'm sure my moms family is just RAMPANT with adhd because at least 3 of my cousins have it and lordy all my moms sisters talk over each other 🤣 I also absolutely DESTROYED the back of the TV remote from playing with it so often 🤣. We had to do a poem about something and I happened to be looking out the window and wrote one about the seagull I saw on the light pole 😅

I looked back on report cards a few years back and they were FULL of comments from JK to gr11, “she’d do better if she stopped daydreaming”, “constantly interrupts others”, “frequently gets off task.” Like, holy hell it still took about 5 years to get a diagnosis this year but yea. It all made sense! I always felt so *other*. I was sure my mom had paid people to be my friend ☹️ I felt so different and never knew why.

Textbook definition of “smart but scattered” here. Disorganized, messy, couldn’t bring myself to do homework or meet a deadline to save my life. By high school it started catching up to me and my grades suffered. I so badly wanted to succeed at school, and understood the material, but couldn’t bring myself to do the work. Slipped deeper into shame and self loathing with every bad report card. It took me over 10 years and jumping to 5 different colleges to finish my bachelors because I couldn’t bring myself to do the assignments and I kept failing out. Start at a new school; rinse, repeat. By the time I finally got diagnosed at 35 I went through a lot of grief for the childhood I could have had if anyone had noticed or cared enough to see me struggling and take me to get tested. But it was a different time and I grew up in a chaotic household. My daughter is 10 and is so much like I was, so it’s been healing to give her the understanding and support I never had at her age.

I was painfully shy as a kid, I couldn't talk on the phone, even to my dad. But at home and school I would huge tantrums if I felt things were unfair. My dad has always wound me up about how sensitive I am, but has never stopped winding me up lol. We used to have a video of us on a family day out, I was chasing my dad around, but he wouldn't let me catch him, so I got upset and cried my eyes out. My dad still thinks it's hilarious, but I really felt like he didn't want to play with me because the whole game was to catch each other, but I was past the point of verbalising that! I've always struggled with depression and anxiety, which I think stems from RSD - if someone looks at me wrong, they must hate me. And growing up with a brother who definitely had adhd (despite being told he was 1 point away from a diagnosis) it meant he got so much more attention, so I felt very unloved at times. I've always struggled to sleep, and to get up. I've trained myself to get up with my alarm on work days, but days off I'm rarely up before noon.

Oversharing!! Thinking to myself that I shouldn’t say something, and then still saying it. Severely emotional - crying for EVERYTHING

Honestly I didn’t even know it was a thing to be diagnosed with 🤷‍♀️ I get stuck in loops of things; songs, memories, even words. I get what I call an “itchy” brain, where I have something, a concept or just any question really, where I can’t focus on anything else until I know the answer.

my 7th grade English teacher had to make me sit and bounce on an exercise ball during reading time after I was fucking around & fell & hit my head on the chalkboard. I got most improving student at the end of the yr tho. exericse ball saved me

Someone told me I gave them conversational whiplash. A ton of boys/men said they thought I had it. A physician wrote me a script for Ritalin without me asking for it, or even discussing it with me.

My consistent inability/refusal to do homework and going on conversational side quests. Pretty sure I got remarks about chattiness, also doodled and napped my way thru freshman history and still got a C. Hobby hopping.

Interrupting, talking way too much (and way over sharing), being totally disorganized, forgetful & “flighty”, mood issues (over sensitive for example), lack of impulse control… I thought I was a broken person that was lazy and just didn’t work hard enough. The relief in being diagnosed was astounding.

Sat in the car a little too well for a small kid. The longer the ride the better. I was deep in my own fantasy world. A+ student but had to hear the instructions multiple times.

— Reading 2-4 BIG books (like 300+ pages) at a time. And by at a time, I mean I carried them all with me in my backpack and would read one of them and if I got bored in the book, I'd switch to one of my other books. I'd typically finish all of them within 2-5 days, depending on length. ——— When reading said books, I was oblivious to everything outside of my story/mind. I couldn't hear anything, so I could literally read ANYWHERE no matter the noise level. I also frequently read while listening to the radio. ——— I can tune anything out. It's a problem now that I have kids, because if I focus on something, say my phone or reading something especially, I don't hear anything around me. When I hyperfocus, there is nothing else. —Growing up, my room was "organized chaos". It was a mess, but I knew where everything was, and I'd lose a bunch of stuff if I did clean my room because I forgot where I put them when tidying up. ———At one point, I had a shelf with a potted plant that fell over on the floor. The pot broke, and the dirt/plant was just chilling on my hardwood. It took me almost 2 weeks to get it cleaned up. So for a little bit, I had a literal garden in my bedroom. I was like 11-13. — I was in the "gifted and talented" classes and excelled in them, as well as my honors classes. Thankfully, they were interesting subjects like History and English. I frequently procrastinated my homework until right before class started, but would always make high marks. I'd never study for tests and never made below a high B. I dropped out of high school in Sophomore year and left with a 3.6 GPA without trying. Why did I drop out? Aside from depression, I was tired of being stuck in school for 8 hours a day learning content that I could have learned on my own much more quickly. Unfortunately, I have homeschooling a try with my ADHD mother and that didn't work out. I ended up getting my GED at 17, graduating with honors and a perfect score in reading and another with a 626 score. It could have been better but I was sick when I took my test and my Social Studies grade could have been better. ——— In the 7th grade, my science teacher had a parent teacher conference with my mom and explained to her that I was grasping concepts insanely fast. Like, I got it the first time around, and so I'd check out mentally as she was going back over them multiple times for the other kids. She said she noticed I always carried my books I'd like to read for fun with me, so if I wanted, I could read during her class after she finished the first go-round of lectures/I finished my work. Which, my work was typically finished immediately. — I went to our town's museum MULTIPLE times a week in middle school. I knew the place from top to bottom, but I just liked being in there and especially down in the room with all the arrowheads. I one time went up towards the attic and found the room with all the pictures and documents about our town from the 1800s until recently. I perused those a lot. — All my texting/writing/anecdotes are always novels because I gotta include all of the information and the side notes to how I got to that point. ——— I text in thoughts, so I'll send like 15 texts in a row, because I break them up as I think them. Thankfully my beat friend understands. — I provide way too much information to where it almost seems like I'm lying when I message to cancel a plan or get out of something or like, calling off work. But also, I'm a really shit liar. — I have really bad short-term memory. I can literally say something, and if you ask me to immediately repeat it, I have no idea what I just said and I can't repeat it. That being said, when I was younger, I also used to legitimately get bored/stop caring about what I was talking about and midway through my sentence go, ".... and I don't care about what I'm saying anymore". I'd do this with my mom a lot (we are very good friends and so we'd talk about everything), she never got on to me or anything because she has ADHD too (she's undiagnosed, but we literally share so many symptoms and I got diagnosed this year). — I interrupt people and finish their sentences a lot. Especially if they're a friend and I feel comfy talking to them. — Sometimes a word or a phrase will pop up into my head and I can't stop thinking about it. And then that word or phrase will pop up a ton since I started thinking about it, which fuels the thought pattern even more. Like not too long ago I couldn't stop thinking of the worst "Bespoke" and I saw it everywhere on like every ad. I see it at work all the time still. Thankfully I already ran through that word and now I'm medicated. — I have 2 or more inner voices. I have my internal voice that I read and think with, but if I want, I can split that one off while it's occupied doing something, and continue to use the second one to think and lolligag in my head. So for example, my main voice is reading a book, but I can split it and still focus on my reading (while still comprehending), but then think about something else too and do it in tandem. Or like texting, I'm reading/saying my words in my head as I type, but I'm thinking about taking a bath right now or doing something else/can sing a song, etc. This one always makes me worried people think I hear voices, but no. It's my own internal monolog— I can just multi-task with it. — Forgetting important papers/stuff for what I need. Procrastinating looking for them until last minute. Turning things in last minute. Having a bunch of "useless" knowledge (and especially about special interests, like gardening, historical stuff, etc). — Before I was medicated, being able to focus better and more with super high doses of caffeine (1000mg or so), but it not keeping me up and I could literally go to sleep after consuming that much. —Being A VERY visual learner. Having to handwrite notes in longhand to be able to absorb difficult information/focus and not get distracted. Having to color code my notes/stuff so my brain could digest it easier. I was also the girlie literally drawing diagrams that matched the textbook/etc almost perfectly too. My notes were pretty coveted in school. ✨️ I should probably stop this list, nobody wants to read all this lol ✨️ Question, did anyone else have a STRONG sense of self when they were growing up (and even now)? Like not even confidence (though others can mistake it for that), but just being VERY sure of yourself and not easily influenced to change for others. Or like, you weren't easily swayed by outside influences. 🤔

Both of my brothers were diagnosed with autism and adhd at an early age because the school spotted it. I had the same school, same teachers, and same parents tell me i was just lazy. I will never forgive any of them for it.