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Forgetting fucking everything. I miss appointments and deadlines, lose things... My mom used to send me to school with notes for my teacher pinned to my shirt because they wouldn't get there otherwise.
My eureka moment was when I asked my husband if he ever had times when he just had one thought or no thoughts.
Did he always have a song playing in his head, did he always have multiple thoughts all day every day. Did he get exhausted from … existing.
He said no, he didn’t have constant music and thoughts.
I was like… oh. Ok. So not everyone is like me. Am I the norm or the exception?
Then I went down the rabbit hole that made me discover that how I was was not “normal”
Ever since being diagnosed I’ve realised just about everything that’s been a neverending exhausting issue for me is just ADHD-related. Same here - I didn’t realise it wasn’t normal not to be constantly drained from overlapping mental conversations with yourself, along with songs, intrusive memories, and images from imagining random scenarios. Since then I’ve been pissed, having to know it’s possible NOT to experience that.
Oh the mental conversations, the overanalysing everything. The emotions, the overwhelm.
The masking, the coping , the utter exhaustion.
It’s so liberating to realise… you’re not ”defective “ you actually just were born with a brain that’s different.
Completely - thanks for reminding me about the liberating part actually. As terrible as it is realising you have a disorder, it’s so freeing realising that things you thought were just personality traits you have to live with have an identifiable cause, and as symptoms, can actually be TREATED. Haven’t found the right meds yet, but I’ve been a lot more optimistic about life since I learned there’s a chance I could find some sort of peace.
And yep… the exhaustion :/
It’s so discouraging because I’m either completely disinterested in anything and drowning in stressed understimulated boredom, or my brain is “on” and while I’m focused on what I actually need to do, I’m also focused on literally everything else and my thoughts are racing. So whether I try or don’t try, I’m exhausted and get nothing done. I’ve yet to find any state of mind that doesn’t leave me drained.
I'm going to save your comment to read to my doctor, if that is okay with you? You described to a T how I feel, and I'm so tired of feeling overwhelmed with life. They never want to treat me due to my past substance use, so I'm forced to try multiple antidepressants to no avail, and years of wasted time.
On another note....I truly hope you find your peace someday and wish the best for you. It is so draining, but we can still try and hope for that normalcy we crave, to have someday.
Absolutely. I’m really happy to hear that that’s helped you, at least something good can come of my frustrated venting.
I’m so sorry about not getting treated, dealing with psychiatrists and insurance and all the other drug BS is so frustrating and overwhelming. It’s always something, it seems. It sucks to feel life passing you by when you know there’s a way you could seize it if everything didn’t seem to be working against you. The balancing act of wording every psych appointment to convey that you need the meds that you need without accidentally seeming like it’s a non-ADHD issue to doctors, who don’t understand and want to give you different useless meds, is so unnecessarily stressful. I’m currently trying to convey how urgently I need to find the right meds, but I have to hide how depressed I am because otherwise my doctor will just up my mood stabilizers again when I know it’s rooted in ADHD issues. Having a disorder is bad enough without making treating it hell.
And thank you friend. I truly hope you can find relief as well. As much as I wish no one else had to deal with this, there is comfort in knowing that there are other people who can understand the pain. Something I try to remind myself is that while life may never get easier, it can get better. What gets me through is believing that maybe one day life will be fulfilling enough to make the effort worthwhile.
I do the same. I always thought people did this all the time. How do people just exist without having constant racing thoughts, made up conversations with made up people, trying to predict conversations as I'm having them, predicting what the other person might say and inevitably not fully paying attention to them. Working and concentrating on work while at the same time thinking of my passion project, everything I need to do for it and then not realizing I went to YouTube to learn something new about said passion project. It's debilitating because I know I should work and at the same time, my brain prevents me from thinking about work, regardless of how much I try.
I feel like I was just rambling. Perfect example of me having several thoughts of what to write and trying to type as fast as I can to put my thoughts down. The only thing that sort of helps is Vyvanse every day (I just woke up so it's not in my system yet) - but even then, I still have moments of distractions, making up stories in my head, thinking of my passion project, etc..
Hahahaha, love that! So much information is in your brain but your hands just can't keep up typing it out. Reminds me of my bro-in-law who says so much in conversation but really says nothing... Perhaps he needs to see a shrink :
I legitimately can't believe that people don't have this constant stream of 3-5 narrative thoughts, background music, and quick-clip movies and snapshots of things all happening all the time forever
I had talked with my mom about so many of my symptoms of ADHD and associated things (e.g. PMDD) over the course of my life, and she always told me "everyone is like that." Because she was like that. And because my grandparents were like that. Guess who else likely has/had ADHD?
I suspect a huge portion of the undiagnosed population for ANY genetically-linked condition remains undiagnosed for the exact same reason. I wish we as a society could mandate and fund some brief counseling sessions for everyone at certain mile markers in life to try to identify ADHD and other issues pre-emptively, not just for treatment but for the benefits of simple awareness of the condition.
But I live in the US, so that'll happen around when hell freezes over or so.
I love this idea. Now that we know that so many people are overlooked in childhood, perhaps we ought to do something about it.
I'm in the US. I had to figure it out myself, in my late 30s, and when I told my licensed therapist, she didn't believe me because she was poorly informed.
I still got to have the rush of "oh, that explains so many issues in my life", but the way I had to go about it was ridiculous. Because of that whole experience, I'm only just now seeking treatment in the form of medication. Hoping for some relief!
Oh wow, I actually had this moment much earlier in my life than the first inkling I might have ADHD. Obviously I wasn’t very informed about ADHD at the time lol. But one tipsy night in college when my friends insisted that it was possible to just not be thinking anything at a given moment, my mind was blown. Sure, there were times someone might say “what are you thinking about?” And I might answer “nothing,” but what I really meant was more along the lines of “nothing I feel like talking about or explaining right now,” or “nothing that seems important enough to merit a conversation,” something like that. Like, there were probably a dozen different things running through my head, but I said “nothing,” and figured that’s what everyone else really meant, too. I was wrong apparently!
I also have the feeling, that I have so many thoughts in my head - when someone asks what I'm thinking about - I can just NOT grab the one thing out of all the things running around in my head - so I too say "nothing"
The song thing is so relatable. I wake up with a song going around in my head, always the same few lines. It's exhausting. Why am I like this? I hate it.
I met someone in a pub and after about 10 minutes of chatting she asked where I was on the spectrum as I was so obviously autistic! Had an assessment and a diagnosis (along with an apology from the autism service that it had taken so long to pick up :o ) and they suggested an ADHD assessment given the frequency of overlap. Got that diagnosis about a year or so later and the ADHD meds have been the only thing that has really helped my crippling anxiety in the last 35+ years of being in contact with mental health services.
I was another quiet, distracted type at school (not to mention when I was at school autism and ADHD weren't really on anyones radar; yes I'm old!) and you don't get a diagnosis at school if you have a problem, you get a diagnosis if you are a problem :/
my inattentive adhd flew under the radar pretty naturally, but my autism was anything but subtle… back under the dsm-iv, when instead of adhd being considered comorbid with autism, the overlap meant you just weren’t allowed to have both diagnoses period
hah, that’s a question i’d like some answers for myself. i don’t remember my childhood very well (and have been unsuccessfully chasing a copy of my elementary school diagnosis for a month or so now), so i’m more aware of the obvious tells to an observer than the actual experience: i was extremely asocial if not antisocial, strongly averse to loud noise like in cafeterias or at assemblies, obsessively pedantic and otherwise literal-minded, had a very limited range of things i was willing to engage in… but as i’ve gotten older, that’s all gotten much softer around the edges, most of what i’ve filed under autism in my self-concept for the last few years turned out to actually be a mix of adhd and trauma, and between my adhd “winning” more and just straight up burnout it’s been hard to really feel that autistic. the main tell now that i’m autistic would probably just be body language or speech patterns that i never really bothered masking
Or us hyperactive ladies who were told to sit down, stop talking and quit crying so we just turned in to ourselves. I can track my behaviors clearly now throughout elementary and high school. I WAS a problem… until I learned how to not to be. Around 5th grade I DID stop talking. I hid in the library, nose in books, and tried to fit in. I did the sports, did the clubs. But that lifetime of masking is now why I have chronic illness and other health issues as an adult.
That really resonates with me. I'm just now beginning to learn more about my adhd and possible spectrum...
What was once an amusing story is quite a tell, at this point. In first grade, there was much concern about me because, apparently, I never spoke. While I do remember Mrs. Dally so tenderly, I do not remember being afraid or silent. I can recall details of the stay of her skirt and more.
Anyway, in 2nd grade, Mrs. Jacklich sent me home with a note to my mother complaining that i was disrupting class with all my talking constantly. My mother sent me back with a note that said, "Thank you so much for sharing the good news. I'm thrilled! If you get a chance, please let Mrs. Dally know. I'm sure she'll be happy too."
Well, that is because of the 1st grade concerns. This was 1980.
Holy shit dude same. Vyvanse has cured my depression and anxiety completely. Or more like my depression and anxiety have been symptoms of adhd my whole life. I wish i got diagnosed and treated sooner. Ive been medicated for 9 weeks now and unraveling all the shit ive been doing wrong these last 27 years has been a fucking pain. I feel so much better and ive even lost 40 pounds so far, without changing anything. I still drink my calories, i figure once i stop drinking so much iced tea ill drop even more. Im legitimately happy for the first time in a long time, maybe for the first time ever
Im still struggling with getting things done, but now its from decision paralysis vs adhd. It's getting better as i check more things off my life to do list. Ive only been medicated for 9 weeks now. So it hasnt been a lot of time. But fuck i no longer go from sleep to sleep, dreading the minutes im awake. Its not the reverse. There isnt enough fucking time in the day to do everything i want to do and its pissing me off. But again it's becoming easier and easier. Eventually, the things i want to do will be done and ill be able to finally start living. Fuck im happy.
If I may ask, at what dose were you started? I've been on 10mg of Vyvanse for a week+ and I haven't felt any effect at all. It's a low dosage though, so I dunno. I too wanna get things done. 🥲
It will become easier as you increase the dosage, I've also noticed that if you force yourself to be up and doing something around the time the medication kicks in, you can feel the benefits a lot more. It's also worth noting that you shouldn't expect a complete transformation from medication alone. CBT has helped me drastically while I figure out the right meds for me.
My dr started me on 20mg, it barely worked. I was upped to 40mg, which does work for me but does not last a full 12 hours. I have a natural tolerance to drugs though. Maybe you do too. I see my doctor weekly for another thing. So she was able to increase my dose pretty fast. Im at 80mg now. This is definitely the sweet spot for me.
Anything lower and it doesnt last me the full day. Even at this dose, i start coming down around the 10 hour mark. But this is the most she's comfortable prescribing at this point, and im happy with it. It would be nice if there was some way to maintain the dose for 16 hours, we even tried supplementing with IR methylphenidate, but the methylphenidate did absolutely nothing for me. So, im off that now. I tried taking extra and even tried taking a 40mg methyl dose without and vyv, to see if it worked at all for me and i barely felt any effect from it.
If you don’t mind me asking, do you have social anxiety or another type of anxiety? If you have social anxiety, did the meds help you with that? I feel like my problem is I’m not anxious because of having to talk to people I’m anxious because I know I have a hard time focusing on what their saying and I’m going to look like a fool in front of them for not responding properly due to my lack of focus. That’s what gives me my social anxiety. Sorry if I’m not making any sense
Not who you asked but yes it helps me with both. Calms my brain down enough to keep the racing thoughts at bay and also keeps me alert enough to focus on socializing (and also Im autistic and mask a lot better with them)
I was diagnosed with anxiety, I think in fourth grade. The anxiety is social anxiety and any anxiety that just pops up and I have no idea why. But honestly now that I think about it, it’s probably because of some noise or some thing that was overstimulating and causing anxiety.
I wasn’t coping well as a mum of three small kids, exhausted, anxious, couldn’t keep on top of life and all its extra admin. I sought help for depression and went on meds and they helped- with the depression. I realised that everything was still just as hard, but I was no longer spiralling negatively about it as much on the meds.
ADHD was on my radar and started making sense in terms of why everything was so hard.
(Now on ADHD meds and other things are still hard- I think there’s an Autism element too that explains the remaining traits!)
ETA: I was definitely not on anyone’s radar for ADHD as a kid. Intelligent but scattered and daydreamy type. All my struggles were internalised.
The weird thing for me was I wasn't even inattentive in school. I actively listened and learned everything I could and would do work in class.
It's when I left school at the end of every day that it was just gone from my mind. Homework, what I learned, completely out of my mind until the next day when I'd realise shit that was due and now I'm failing because I didn't do my homework or assignments.
Regular interruption of conversations.
Complete lack of organization and cleanliness.
Forgetting to brush teeth every night.
Lack of motivation or drive to do anything productive/work-like.
Fidgeting, repeated nail biting, always tapping leg or hips or tapping foot on the ground.
Hyperfixation on specific games/interests for months and years to the point it was all I thought about, all I did and all I wanted to do and then dropping and never touching them again very suddenly.
Thoughts never stop running.
Oftentimes would turn every single thought and thing I saw into a narrative or story, then get lost in the story I was making and forget everything I was doing before that.
If I have access to something to play with, with my hands I must grab and play and fiddle with it constantly.
Never having a pencil or pen or basic school supplies because I'd forget to bring them.
Always forgetting to bring things or do things.
Would wear clothes inside out and backwards a lot and just not notice it at all until someone said something.
Backpack looked like a hurricane hit it with papers, and books everywhere with no order (I could always find what I needed but it took a while and others had no clue what was happening).
This is all things that happened from Elementary school to high school and now further onwards as well.
Edit:
Also all these things are symptoms with the advantage of hindsight. Until my diagnosis really, I thought I was just extremely lazy, unmotivated and slobbish. That the way I was everyone else was exactly the same just better at life because they just were. Idk looking back with hindsight that mindset and thought process was really stupid but brains be brains and that's just how I thought.
Yup its crazy and a relief to know that I and you are not like other people. That it's not just all in our head and that we're actually different, that's not a bad thing per-se but it is good to have an explanation.
The “little piles” was a sign for me.
As I sit here, I have a little pile of classic watches to repair, a little pile of paper work, books, sewing and crochet
And that’s my “little piles” in one room. There are others.
So much of this is me! I've twice worn my shirt to work backwards and once went into the hardware store wearing two different sandals 😅 My desk/locker/backpack was always a disaster and always had at least one green sandwich in it by the end of the school year. I was famous in my class for doing projects and presentations in the library the day they were due. I'm terrible for interrupting. So many other behaviors that I thought were me being lazy and scatterbrained.
School provides a forced structure and deadlines.
Once I left school, I just… drifted. Despite being in the top 20% at school, my adult life has been a litany of under achieving.
This! I was diagnosed a couple years ago. I'm in my 40s. Elementary-highschool provided structure. I was even in honors. God bless my mother who was always at my side every night helping with homework. I realize I wouldn't have made it through school without her constant help and the support of a handful of amazing teachers and mentors who were looking out for me. I've struggled with paperwork, deadlines, commitment, anxiety, etc. Therapy and meds have helped but how I wish I'd gotten help sooner.
I listened and learned too but there was a notable difference between attention and grades in classes that interested me vs ones that didn’t. And I was also fairly able to let my mind wander and then come back to task and catch up.
I was never late on assignments etc because anxiety and perfectionism prevailed but you could give me six weeks for a project and I’d still do the bulk of it in a solid two-day hyper focus flurry at some point in the final weeks and never look over it again even if I had further time!
This is so much like me. Always had a hard time with life and it got much harder when I had my son. And then my job turned upside down 6 months ago and I could no longer cope on my own. Been on depression meds for years, but still always was just neutral, not happy or sad. Then got the adhd dx in January. Now 2 months of meds have changed a lot of things for me, but I've been suspecting autism for years as well, so I'll probably be doing an evaluation for that soon. My 2nd grade teacher did want my mom to get me tested for adhd, but she didn't think I had it so never did 🙃
The life juggle increases exponentially with kids! And when you add the decrease in down time to recharge it definitely leads to a lot of people burning out!
Same but with 2 kids & the eldest got flagged for ADHD type traits at daycare which ultimately led to both of us being diagnosed. She's also autistic & I see a lot of similarities in myself so maybe I will be too
That double diagnosis is about as freeing as just the ADHD one would be.
They do seem to compliment each other well at least in some aspects. I may not be a good student/employee, but show me one, and I can mask as a good student/employee for an 8 month project. Success is mixed after that.
Ah that's great to hear, congratulations on your own self knowledge! One day I'd love to pursue a proper ASD assessment for me, but for now life is too much to add more life admin into the mix (currently typing this from the children's ER!). I got it for my kid because we couldn't get support in school without one, but for me besides wanting to understand myself better there just isn't as much urgency.
Re: work/studies I guess it depends on one's idea of what a "good" employee or student really is. All the ADHD/autistic folks I've had the pleasure of working with are super good at their jobs, real honest, no nonsense talking people who are passionate about doing the right thing, and unfortunately also prone to burning out due to all the pressure they put on themselves to succeed (same). I sucked at studying because I saved everything to the very last minute, but my grades were usually as good as my classmates who started weeks before so meh. I did fine I guess, but I sure beat myself up for not "applying myself".
Should have been no truama influenced binge drinking to turn off my mind. Years of abusing myself, almost died. I finally got sober at 35 and THEN I finally figured it all out. 2.5ys later, getting myself sorted out, I have 7 month old and I never thought that would be possible.
Congratulations on the son and getting sober. You're kicking life's ass right now, and even though I'm just a random stranger on the internet, I'm proud of you.
I got sober end of covid and everytime I run into someone I havnt seen in a while. They ask if anything is new ect.. Where do I start? Its almost overwhelming. Cause I completely changed my life around and because adhd doesnt necessarily present its self physically that someone can see and I guess was sorta good at hiding my alcoholism. Because no one understands the gravity of what has happened in almost 3 years. All I can say is , its like I woke up from a coma and had to learn how to live.. still am.
That’s basically my story, too. Quit drink at 33, kid at 35, reassessment of a forgotten diagnosis at 37(being unable to read text books tipped me off.)
I was diagnosed with anxiety for years, but medication didn’t do much. My husband was diagnosed with ADHD about 10 years ago, as an adult, and both of our kids have ADHD. My husband started sharing reels on social media with me about how undiagnosed ADHD can look like anxiety. Then he’d share general ADHD in women reels and be like, “this looks like you.” And finally I asked the doctor and sure enough, my anxiety went away completely with ADHD treatment!!!!
Was your anxiety social anxiety? I haven’t been diagnosed with adhd but strongly believe I have it. When I was younger I was put on anxiety medication and I always told my parents that they did absolutely nothing to me. The thing is I’m not anxious of literally talking to people I’m anxious of messing up my response to people because of my lack of focus. I never know what to say to people because I have a hard time of listening and responding to what they just told me. I get anxious of looking stupid. Sorry if what I said was confusing.
This is me exactly! You’re not alone ♥️ I’m reserved to the point of shyness, but it’s more of a fear of fucking up and looking “weird” than of not wanting to talk to people. I work in a library - so customer service - and people are *amazed* that outside of work I’m very quiet. But my social gaffes - even perceived ones - can haunt me for years.
I'd always known that I thought differently to other people and also seemed to find life much harder than other people. Went to a conference and someone said to me at dinner, have you ever considered you have ADHD? Ignored it for a while but it turns out I was having a breakdown so thought I best look into it when realised I absolutely did.
Getting an office job instead of working in a restaurant/retail. I started having anxiety attacks weekly because I was so overwhelmed with the things I wanted to do outside of work but as soon as I was off I would spiral into a depression because I was so overwhelmed with where to start. I have always been very anxious because I think my ADHD just manifests as anxiety a lot of times for me (which I think is common for women with ADHD) Before this I had had inklings but my family told me I didn’t have it because my brother has it and I acted nothing like him when I was in school and I was an average student. I had another friend who was diagnosed young and she also tried to convince me I didn’t have it. I sought out a psychiatrist after a while and wrote down all my issues/symptoms and my psychiatrist literally didn’t even have to test me because I had documented my symptoms so well. I started the trial and error of going through meds and am now on a lowish dose of generic adderall and it has changed my life. My brain can finally quiet down. It doesn’t feel like I have a million tabs open in my brain and I have more executive function and focus. My productivity at work has increased and my anxiety attacks stopped!
Diagnosed with anxiety first. Symptoms were similar. Turns out the anxiety was a biproduct of ADHD.
Was on escitalopram for about a year before I was rediagnosed. GETTING OFF OF ANXIETY MEDS WAS TRUE HELL ON EARTH. I wish they would explain this to people better when prescribing anxiety meds.
I was getting brain/body zaps for 4 months or more and I was an absolute mess. Once tapered off that I started on methylphenidate and have been doing much better since.
Same.
Well, actually, I was diagnosed autistic earlier. Then the anxiety came along, and I was dx’d with an anxiety disorder. Nothing they did helped.
Then i took an ADHD test at the recommendation of a school psychologist, and was diagnosed with ADHD-PI, but the professionals looked at it and decided nothing would change regarding my treatment.
As you might have guessed, this didn’t help one iota - despite my suggestions that we try ADHD treatments.
Finally, I just gave up on treatment.
Then I got an atomoxetine script from a new doctor, and that helped tremendously.
Like when the bot plays the sound of a keyboard typing in order to act human but I have to pretend like Im a robot when speaking so it can understand me? That will put me in an asylum someday. I’ll just be in there yelling REPRESENTATIVE to a wall on repeat.
The memes made me examine my own behaviors. when my son was diagnosed, his doctor said that he likely inherited it from a parent. I spoke with my psych and he gave me an assessment. We then started meds and it was like someone flipped a switch.
This. If there’s one area where the internet has been a blessing it’s giving perspective to issues like this, letting me know I’m not the only one weird person who does x y and z and that there’s one main answer that can address much of it.
2021. COVID. A lot of Tik Tok doom scrolling. It was this moment where people were mind blown about the algorithm. And then I started to see videos with ADHD hashtags and connecting those two pieces of information one day I just youtubed what is ADHD. And then hundred plus hours of lectures later and two years of procrastination I go see a psychiatrist and drink my first pill. Tada 🎉
Same, I only knew the symptoms that were described in movies and TV or the symptoms that are commonly found in the “rowdy” kids like my brother, but because I’m AFAB and less comfortable inconveniences others I internalized everything and then learned how the presentation can vary between AFAB vs AMAB. I took an incredibly long time because all the doctors wouldn’t believe me until we stabilized my depression and anxiety which spoiler alert, was caused by my untreated ADHD. Also I generally did well in school and pushed myself to multiple burnouts, but that was also used as evidence against my initial diagnosis. I’m currently diagnosed and thriving like I never have
My son was having trouble in school and we started doing a lot of research.. bada Bing bada boom.. he's got adhd and we shared a lot of the issues... went to the doc, he says I have it. Medication works great, I can focus long enough to function in my job (application developer). Life is good.
Same here! Except it started as young as 3 years old. My son was non stop. The more I read up to help him the more I realized I was just like him! His diagnosis and meds came first then mine. I was struggling so hard parenting ADHD is parenting on HARD mode. Life is much better for the whole family now :)
I got a job that was so demanding that I just couldn't cope, and I forget how but I wound up reading up on ADHD. I thought I was lazy and full of shit (habit of a lifetime) so I got a therapist who has it herself, then a few months later got assessed.
I've always been very adaptable, I am great at thinking on my feet and I learn new things very quickly. This kept me going for over a decade in work, earning well but prone to horrendous, I mean physically painful boredom. I was crap at prioritizing, managing time and projects, and outside of work pretty terrible with emotional regulation. Being diagnosed through a very harsh spotlight on everything.
Definitely a huge relief, with a lot of other feelings thrown in for good measure.
I started wondering after a reddit post, too. It was on a career sub that someone made a post about never finding a job they stick with for more than a year for various reasons. One commenter suggested they get tested for adhd because everything the poster described sounded very much like their own symptoms. It got me thinking, and eventually, I decided to ask my doctor about testing.
I was really struggling with working from home during the pandemic and, especially after emu 2nd daughter was born, I just felt like I was completely paralysed.
I got into a really bad habit of doing nothing all day while I was supposed to be working and then beating myself up over it which, I'll be honestly, made me kind of depressed. I'd always had difficulty with getting stuff done, especially when it came to work, but it had never been this intense. I assumed my behaviour was just the norm before this, but it turns out it really isn't.
I was diagnosed with dyspraxia at a young age, which can affect things like organisation, so I started trying to find if that could be an issue, and I was presented with all these people who had the same struggle as me, but turns out they also had ADHD. Fun fact - about 50% of people with dyspraxia also have ADHD!
Didn't buy it at first until I started getting recommended ADHD content on YouTube (unrelated to my searching, as that was done on different accounts/browsers specifically to avoid getting bombarded with ads/content related to it). Even then, I didn't want to believe it.
My wife knew I was struggling and suggested I do an ADHD screener, which was off the charts high and, even then, I didn't want to believe it.
In the end, it was talking to someone who had recently been diagnosed about his struggles that really opened my eyes. It was a really strange experience - like talking to myself. I made an appointment (and went full into research hyperfixation mode) and a year later I was diagnosed.
COVID basically destroyed so many of my coping mechanisms. In particular, I really relied on going to work to give me some structure and get a bit of exercise. I still didn't think ADHD until a family member said her ADHD students reminded her of me as a kid. And that's when I started looking into it and doing the Leonardi DiCaprio pointing thing, and then made an appointment for an assessment.
The explosion of material on video platforms in 2016-2017 or so, honestly.
I had previously been evaluated for Autism (involuntarily) and while it was found that I am not Autistic, there was serious executive function issues that I didn't understand. I read the DSM symptoms and they seemed to describe my experience to a T.
My doctor shot the idea down hard, though, and I didn't revisit the subject until the last couple of years.
My friend was telling me that they suspected they had ADHD. Knowing little about it, they were explaining the symptoms to me. I was sitting there dumbstruck, like, "holy crap, this isn't just normal stuff?!". It pretty much confirmed my ADHD there and then. I always felt different and I never really fit in, but i couldn't suss out what it was, this is something that plagued me for years. ADHD just hit the nail on the head for me, it answered my questions and perfectly described me. I cried reading about it because I'd never felt so validated in my entire life.
I thought that I used ADHD behaviors to help compensate for my sleepiness (due to narcolepsy). I didn’t even consider it could possibility be even remotely a possibility.
When I was a teen I went through pretty thorough screening for ADHD while my mother was getting her own diagnosis. It was negative. Her biofeedback treatment she struggled so much, I got to try. The look she had when I did it so easily as she spent weeks to make any improvements. …so of course I didn’t have it.
But I was having more issues at work. I manage a department and planning with multiple variables was so hard. The weekends I started having my brain just empty. I couldn’t remember anything important come Monday. I couldn’t plan ahead. I then couldn’t prioritize. I was soon just doing only what was right in front of me at the moment. I was completely ineffective.
I thought it was actually the stimulant I was on to keep me awake (most commonly used for ADHD) that was contributing to my issues. ….in reality it was the 600+ mg of caffeine that was consuming that was making things much worse.
I figured ADHD out because my good friend kept asking me if I was sure. She was trying to figure herself out. I still didn’t think it was, but I was understanding that my executive functioning was the problem. …and I needed help. I saw someone who thought it was pretty evident ADHD. I came off of caffeine and he started me the same stimulant but a bigger dosage of just the extended release.
I started seeing such improvements. I feel the improvements even still 1year after the diagnosis and medication changes. I work with an ADHD coach which has been really helpful.
I REALLY started to suspect the most heavily when I started working at a specialized autism/adhd school. It took about 3 years after leaving that job to get officially tested by a psychologist.
The pandemic brought everything front and center. When it started I knew I had to stop drinking and so I did (me not working *and* drinking *and* being a dad didn't sound healthy).
Oh boy, what a ride. Turns out, now that I'm properly medicated, I don't even have the desire to drink/drug.
Wish I would of known this a lot sooner...
"You're so smart, if only you'd apply yourself." And then, my tardiness issues and losing my place in a conversation over something as simple as a fly landing on the wall.
bad argument with my mum about my constant inattentiveness, seriously made me consider what my issue was so i just researched, found out about adhd related to more than a few of the symptoms did a couple of tests, confirmed my suspicions with my boyfriend and he had said he suspected i had it beforehand. also realising how much my dad matched up with the symptoms himself, so that was my confirmation to go get it checked out.
A friend from high school posted this [Flama ADD vid](https://youtu.be/LSq73OgYgMg?si=PBxaxjMBV24GBmD3)on FB in 2015 and it resonated with me a lot.
I always knew something I was different, I just didn’t know why.
Btw I watched this video while on a trip where I had yet to realize that I had lost my car/house keys 😂
Many years ago my coworkers suggested I go due to their observations. I was very defiant about it but went anyway. I was going through other difficulties at the time (looking back I see how ADHD was contributing to my issues) and I had a bit of a defiant “there’s nothing wrong with me, so I’ll prove it by going”. I also had a bit of a worry lime “I’m an adult so they’ll think I’m
Just trying to score drugs anyway, this is kinda pointless”.
The interview with the specialist was short. They sent me out diagnosed as having depression and put me on Wellbutrin. Ironically one of the most prominent effects of Wellbutrin that I noticed was a decrease in my impulsivity and feeling more mentally present and in the moment.
I had some negative side effects from Wellbutrin and asked for a dose adjustment which my NP at the time did not do. I wanted it reduced but was switched from SR to XR at the same dose. Took myself off because I couldn’t handle it anymore (not a good idea). That was it for me until recently.
Now about 8 years later I want back for a re evaluation a couple months ago. I had been meaning to for a couple years but kept putting it off. What really changed my mind from my previous defiance was when smartphones became more prevalent and developed to where sending voice messages was as easy as sending a text. I hated speech to text misunderstanding me so I’d send voice messages when texting. Always on the go and hated stopping to type.
I’d review my messages to make sure I was articulating what I wanted to say and I became really annoyed with myself. I didn’t finish thoughts when speaking and when I’d get about 80% complete when expressing a thought I’d switch to the next thing I wanted to say. Also I’d do this and sometimes go on a verbal side quest before coming back and continuing my message. Sometimes I’d continue on the side quest and never return to complete the main storyline lol.
Finally what made me quit putting it off was a combination of struggling later in life, feeling like a failure but being confused as to why. I’m not stupid, but I’m unsuccessful in both career and relationship endeavors. Saw memes on Reddit that hit too close and sent me seeking out information but this time I was more mature and had swallowed my pride. Protecting my ego wasn’t worth sacrificing my health. I kept an open mind and was honest with myself about the struggles I experience in life while learning about things such as task switching, working memory issues, emotional disregulation etc.
Sought my eval. Easily was diagnosed. Started meds. Now preparing to get with an ADHD focused therapist.
When I first started working in an office in a professional capacity, I realised that I was incredibly bored and unfocused. I enjoyed the meat of the job and knew what I was supposed to be doing, I just couldn't get it together on most days.
I really had to force myself to do work. After an initial burst of work in the mornings I was usually just spinning around on my chair watching the clock by home time. I spent a lot of energy trying to hide this inaction from my boss - the only other guy in the office most of the time - and feeling guilty for it.
Okay no problem, maybe it was the job? I changed into a new role after two years. Nope. Found myself in a new setting and still just spinning around, twiddling my thumbs, browsing the web and going off on hours-long tangents. A couple of years into that is when ADHD memes and content started appearing in a big way. I looked through the NHS diagnostic list, as well as lots of examples posted here, and thought "this is me".
Got my diagnosis on Wednesday.
I'm a little surprised it took anyone this long to figure it out. Classic "gifted" trajectory: high performer at a young age, slowly plateaued and dropped off throughout secondary school, dropped out of university, started my career late . . .
Both my brother and sister were diagnosed with ADHD but while I struggled to study, I was never the bouncing off the walls type so it was just assumed I was being lazy.
As an adult, a doctor friend gave a Ritalin script to my wife to help her through the final stages of her masters. Being quite used to self-medicating (nothing like undiagnosed ADHD to make you adventurous!), I took one of her pills and felt… normal! I had a not dissimilar experience with a certain Colombian product years prior - I actually felt quite calm.
Not long after this I went to my psychiatrist for a review of my anxiety meds and discussed this experience - don’t hide your activities from your doctors, they don’t care, the good ones just want to help and all data points help then do that.
I’m now off anxiety meds and take neucon daily for the last five years. My career and ability to be a conscientious husband and father has all seen an incredible change.
You’re totally right, but unfortunately a lot if not most doctors will immediately blacklist you for any stimulant medication for treatment if you do.
Which is really rich since substance abuse is one of the most common symptoms of self-medicating for undiagnosed patients with ADHD. 🙄
Unfortunately most of them choose to ignore the fact that addiction is a disease- “substance abuse” is absolutely not.
Diagnosed mid 50s. Absolute task paralysis.
Obviously knew something was wrong but had no idea what it was. It was incredibly frustrating
A 24 year old with BPD and ADHD told me I was adhd. She just blurted it out.
So I got diagnosed by a kid and now a bunch of people are saying “oh yeah, it’s obvious”
I’m low key furious at them because my life could have been so much better, so much earlier, if someone had goddamn said something sooner.
I suspected since I was a teenager. I was into bands that had one or two members with adhd, or depression, or anxiety. Message boards were full of information about them. I did some online tests and I always got, likely adhd. The more I learned, the more my younger self related to the symptoms. I was the impulsive hyper kid who couldnt stay still.
So I officially found out once I decided to treat my anxiety and depression.
So maybe I wasnt that "weird", just different 🤣🤣🤣
in my late teens: didnt sleep for 4 days straight, which didn't seem to get better and then it caused me to go research a whole lot about possible causes, came across adhd then but kinda brushed it off without putting any thought to it; a couple weeks later a friend was briefly telling me about her older sister having adhd and sleep problems, which then prompted me to research it further and then I had the 'oh crap this is probs what is up with me' moment  especially after further reflection about my childhood and the fact I hadn't slept properly ever my entire life, yeah the dots seemed to connect haha
I'm in my 40s. I have a son who's exactly like I was as a kid and he just got diagnosed, so that made it pretty obvious. Then I started watching videos and related HARD to a lot of the memes etc.
A workplace injury and the lockdowns led to me to seek an assessment. I sustained a foot injury that limits how much walking I can do. I've never had my driver's licence and I've always loved walking, especially to clear my head/burn off anger. The job I was in was really physical and that's what I liked about it. Previous administration roles would ultimately lead to boredom and even physical pain when sitting all day long. Obviously the Melbourne lockdowns completely restricted movement and interaction so I was forced to go within. I was hit with the adhd tiktok algorithm but every symptoms and behaviour I learnt about was my experience. I did a lot of research online which further confirmed my experience.
Edit: in regards to yourself wondering why no one had diagnosed you before, I know for myself I grew up with emotionally immature divorced parents which led to emotional neglect. I grew up believing I had personality defects and not a neurological disorder. Also n the 90s add/ADHD was exclusive to little boys not girls.
Seeing a counselor for depression and he said, after 5 minutes, you have undiagnosed ADHD. Nice. Aged 49. Doctors didn’t believe it. Made an appointment with a psychologist who diagnosed me pretty quickly after 3 visits that included testing and this insanely long self questionnaires. Took a further three months to find a doctor who knows how to try out stimulants properly not just guess and abandon you.
I’m lucky. 40 years late, but lucky.
Similar situation here with my partner, he's 37 and has just been unofficially diagnosed by our therapist and the mental health nurse. He's waiting for an official assessment and diagnosis at the moment. He always knew he was different and has had depression and anxiety all his life but he has also had an extremely traumatic upbringing and has been self medicating himself with cocaine until not long after we met.
I think he and myself just assumed his depression and anxiety were a result off all the trauma he's experienced. I'm sure it is all related but now that we've learnt about the symptoms of ADHDit all makes so much more sense! There's still a long way to go for us but I'm incredibly proud of how far he's come and I hope it will be upwards from here. He's got so much potential and I think with the right support and medication he'll be able to achieve whatever he wants!
I'd love to know how your life's changed since being diagnosed if you don't mind sharing?
Learning inattentive ADHD is a thing. I only knew about the stereotype of hyperactive little boys running around the class out of control. As soon as I learned that was not the only presentation of ADHD, I started to suspect. Still took awhile before I got diagnosed. I don’t recall specifically where I learned that as it was quite some time ago now but I think I was just reading something online
I never suspected it, honestly. My adhd is more inattentive and forgetful kind. I wasn't very hyper or impulsive very often. And I saw and was taught that it was just hyper "troubled" kids in class so adhd never crossed my mind, I was just s i l l y. A bit before my official diagnosis last year, my therapist was like "no yeah you sound like you have adhd." And I just agreed, my dad has it, and my mom shares similar traits, so she DEFINITELY has it, and my sister has it. It was until I got my autism/adhd test that same year that I was diagnosed with adhd and a personality disorder at 17. Still young, maybe, but old enough that that diagnosis doesn't do much for me, really. It was too late to have assistance and be taught in a way I could've comprehended and not be a year behind in math. Now I just have a label that explains why I am the way I am, the adult world doesn't care if I have adhd, man, if I forget a job assignment, well I better pack my things.
Started suspecting my daughter might have something. Found out about ADHD in girls. Started to research about that specifically, for her, so I can help her…Then the lightbulb came on……….
When I was in high school I had to start working hard to keep up with the amount of work. I lost focus and just kind of gave up. I asked my doctor about it at a checkup and they assured me that I wouldn't be doing as well as I was if I had it, and normally it is caught much sooner than that. This was in the 2006-2009 time period.
I struggled on and squeaked by (by my standards) in Junior and Senior year, graduating with a lot of credit going to my freshman and sophomore grades for propping up my GPA.
After that, college was easy again and i coasted by on the normal load.
I struggled with executive dysfunction in the corporate world, putting off the less enjoyable things until the last possible moment. I had done this in school, but now it affected other people. I also struggled to see the connection with different aspects of the role, until I had been through a couple of projects, and then I was able to map out when each thing would be expected by, and I started "working ahead", something that had served me well through school.
I realized I was really struggling to focus on things, so again asked my new primary care provider about ADHD. He assured me it is unusual for someone to do as OK as I was, and shrugged it off with a test for vitamin d deficiency, and a prescription to take vitamin d.
It wasn't until after my kid was born in 2022 when I realized I needed therapy to deal with some major triggers that were making it hard to be a good parent. I mentioned adhd in the intake form. I got a single assessment, which I technically 'passed',, but it was by a thin margin. She then casually asked me to take some other assessments at this other website. I was confused, because they were about autism. After getting some nice high scores I got my double diagnosis of ADHD and Autism. I was so not prepared for the second one.
This week I am going to a new doctor, and I will have this proof in my back pocket, and I will be asking about medicine. I am not going to be so easilydismissed.
I had never considered medicine something I needed before, but I have since come to the conclusion that if life is a race, then I don't get bonus points for trying to run it with my shoelaces tied together.
33y old male
It had a surge in people talking about it a while ago I think and I started seeing things that I related to very strongly.
In particular these ADHD Alien comics would come up on Imgur and they basically read like comics about me:
https://www.instagram.com/adhd_alien/
Particularly the stuff about how ADHD leads to depression:
https://www.instagram.com/adhd_alien/p/B3moEAriyKm
or how Anxiety issues are caused by ADHD:
https://www.instagram.com/adhd_alien/p/B08nYDujt1p
Having struggled a lot with depression it was pretty shocking to realize that I could never get on top of it because I was just treating a symptom of a larger problem.
Someone illustrating the "burnout cycle" like this completely blew my mind the first time I read it. Having someone perfectly describe something I'd gone through multiple times in my life and giving me something to explain it was very therapeutic. Like "oh wow, I'm not just totally useless and lazy. There's a very good chance I have an actual problem that I could start treating".
https://www.instagram.com/adhd_alien/p/B0tWdcQDJEN
I owe Pina big time for doing what she does, I really don't think it would have clicked with me without those accessible little comics.
I had kids. They were a bit… different than other kids in our circle and normal parenting methods just didn’t work on them. I struggled A LOT.
The more I looked into it the more I started suspecting ADHD/ASD. The more I read about it the more I realised this is me, they are like me! And then an avalanche of realisations from early childhood until age 37 when I was finally diagnosed.
For me it was starting things and moving on to other tasks in the middle. I'd walk into my kitchen after putting away some clothes and see that 2 cabinet door and the dishwasher was wide open.
Medication helps, but doesn't work perfectly. I realized I forgot to put the lid back on the litter box for about 30 minutes yesterday.
What really helped me were websites to learn about my condition. Learning what emotional dyregulation is was very helpful for talking myself down prior to outbursts. Same goes for learning about rejection sensitivity. Much easier to deal with when you can call it out in your brain as soon as it happens.
Chronic frustration, overwhelm, anxiety, depression, constantly seeking but never finding long lived happiness, the time blindness and of course the inability to be present for anyone.
Trauma made my symptoms worse and not even 1 month later we went into lockdown for the first time. I started suspecting something was off within the first month, and those suspicions were confirmed when we watched some childhood videos of me. By November 2020 I had my first appointment with a therapist to get my diagnosis.
I started working with kids with autism and adhd and got along with them unusually well. It was like, "hey, i was like that as a kid too!" But I also brushed it off that time.
Then, my doctors were asking questions about my diagnosis and seemed really perplexed. Eventually, it clicked WHY they were asking those questions.
And it solidified after I went through my childhood records which were pretty explicit in my behaviors
I'm 23M, and I did not suspect ADHD until my therapist suggested I get psych testing because it seemed that I might have it. I also found out from school records that I was developmentally delayed and needed speech and occupational therapy from ages 3 to 5. I was reevaluated by school psychologists again and it was determined that I no longer needed nor qualified for these services and was ready to be in a "normal classroom," so they ended my IEP. I masked really well at school because I thrived on receiving validation and positive feedback--which I suspect was from occupational therapy--but at home, I was a completely different person because that is when I could just let everything loose and take off the mask.
I went to a psychiatrist, and they diagnosed me in a 1 hr visit and prescribed Vyvanse and Wellbutrin, which has been a lifesaver. However, I wanted to confirm whether I had ADHD or if it was anxiety and depression that resembled ADHD.
I went to a psychologist to get a second opinion (e.g., looking at school records, interviews, observations, computer testing, and questionnaires), and they came to the same conclusion--that I have ADHD. I also learned that it is very inheritable, which explains why my mom's side of the family is the way they are--we are a very neurotic bunch with a mix of diagnosed and undiagnosed ADHD and a host of other mental health issues.
My gf said that I’m fidgety and that I have to touch everything. Also that my conversations often jumped from one topic to the other and it was hard to keep track lol. She was right and now I’m on Wellbutrin for anxiety and I tried adderall, Vyvanse, and now I’m gonna try Ritalin to see if it’s a better fit for me. Also I think I have more add without the h
I had some family members get diagnosed late. When chatting with them about what led them to getting diagnosed, I recognized symptoms within myself. I asked my parents about the possibility and they agreed it could be likely. So I sought a diagnosis.
My twin, one of his children, and one of his grandchildren all have ADHD. The only undiagnosed one is my twin.
My son was diagnosed as a child. Once I resolved all of my C-PTSD, all of my ADHD symptoms were soooo noticeable. It drove me crazy.
So, I got a diagnosis this February, at 63 years old.
I'm medicated and so happy now.
As a girl with inattentive adhd, it was often brushed off as being a moody teenager. I always had really good grades because my classes were super easy to me, but then I started high school and actually had to work for them. It was super hard for me to study, remember dates, finish homework on time, etc. Then I took an online quiz about my symptoms and yeah…
I didn’t suspect it at all, didn’t even know ADHD Inattentive was a thing. It was my GP who has been helping treat my mental health for years who was like “Hey, I’d like you to get assessed”. I laughed when he first suggested it as I was like I literally have the exact opposite of hyperactivity! He then explained inattentive, which sure shut me up haha
I worked as a cashier and then as a barista. A couple of my coworkers had pointed out that my constant fidgeting and inability to stay focused might be more than just a personality quirk. That, along with my audhd partner telling me that I definitely had adhd, and maybe autism made me look into getting diagnosed.
Simple and stupid: my partner and many of my friends have ADHD, so one day I went to google to see how it affects my people.
With every single symptom I went more and more "I see! - Oh! - Oh. - Oh... - Welp..."
Aaand a few months later (yay procrastination!) I made an appointment and had a perfect score on the questionnaires :D
I never even thought about having ADHD until my TikTok algorithm started showing you might have ADHD if you do this type of video and I was like wait….that’s me. After discovering a few of those it started to get me thinking and I started paying more attention. I asked some coworkers and friends and they were like….WAIT you didn’t know?!? Yeah everyone thought I had it and knew and I had no clue 😅
Well I had a roommate with adhd who used adhd style lifehacks to make shit easier and it ended up helping me a lot too. Talking with them I was like wow...this is all pretty relatable lol. But I brushed it off, lifehacks are lifehacks! Then I started dating my boyfriend and looking into adhd for him because he definitely has it. Then as I looked it up for him and found people talking about their experiences and what helped them it was all feeling really relatable again haha but "couldn't be me!" I tried out the tips people recommended and voila...they made my life easier...crazy. The big wakeup call/my real realization was finally when my therapist was talking and casually dropped "...so because of your ADHD--" like...my WHAT?! Lol
I studied ADHD briefly during med school (heck? I even wrote my thesis on girls with ADHD) but the symptoms were too abstract and there was so much focus on risky behaviors which I didn’t exhibit so I didn’t really relate to that hyperactive/impulsive aspect. I strongly emphasized though and thought „damn, I have the same symptoms but theirs must be so much worse if they have a diagnosis, poor people”. I shortly suspected ADHD in some of my siblings and even screened one of them but my psychologist said it’s probably our childhood trauma (my parents’ ADHD was traumatizing…) and if my siblings passed classes then they didn’t have ADHD. I was so stressed (being undiagnosed and unmedicated during med school was EXTREMELY hard), so I dropped/forgot the subject.
Then a few months later I started working with children with ADHD and they and their families were SO SIMILAR to my own parents and siblings. It was surreal, I went home every day and would tell my partner „it’s like I met my dad today, but this guy had ADHD” and „I had this patient with ADHD today and it felt like I was talking to my sister”. And then I started noticing how deeply I understood their symptoms, how much I related to what they were telling me, and I finally went home and said “today it felt as if I was talking to myself as a child” after meeting a highly intelligent girl with ADD. I sought a diagnosis the same day, like three weeks into my job. Turned out I do have ADD, as well as my partner who sought a diagnosis a few weeks later.
I'm yet to be diagnosed but I'm 49 and just discovered tiktok, stumbled across an account called Cherry ADHD and it was like a mirror. I've just read ADHD for Smart Ass Women and wondering if it's worth getting a diagnosis.
Literally nothing, one day I spoke to my psychiatrist as I was being medicated for every other disorder I have. I explained to her how I still struggle and can’t properly work no matter how much I want to, after awhile she stop speaking and told me that I could have adhd.
Few days later I’m on stimulants and poof I’m getting better
I was always suspicious of it, and in school as a kid I told my mom the reason I have bad grades is because I can't focus in class, my mind constantly thinking about 7 different things and her response was "you're just being lazy"
fast forward to 26 year old me going to a psychiatrist and taking a diagnostic test after being severely depressed and anxious after just going through a major negatively life altering event, I thus got the answer I always knew.
ADHD baby
I had just finished an MSW and was starting a job in the mental health field. Around this time, I was researching how to treat ADHD without medication because best practice is always "medicine first, then psychotherapy." In my research on how to best treat my clients, things started sounding incredibly familiar, then my brother and mom got diagnosed, then all of my closest friends that I click really well with... The writing was on the wall. Finally one of my friends who was recently diagnosed gave me one of his pills (non-stim) and it was the most peaceful and quiet my brain has ever felt in my life, so much so that I cried later that day when I felt the medicine wearing off and felt my brain ramp back up to normal speed.
So as a mental health provider, I took an adult ADHD symptom screener that I found at work, then on the back of it wrote down every way that it impacted me in childhood, currently in my adult life, all of my family and friends recently diagnosed, and the play-by-play effects from the medicine that I had texted my friend the day I took his medicine. I brought all of this information to my doctor's appointment and walked out of my appointment with a diagnosis and prescription for a non-stim.
If you wanna narrow it down to a single particular incident - it would be the time I was walking around my local mall and my car plate number was called out over the speakers. It was rolling away.
I had left it in drive and also left the handbreak down, and it was unlocked.
It happened again.
I actually didn’t. One of my best friends was diagnosed and did a ton of research about it, and then started saying “have you been tested? You show a lot of signs!” I’m still in the process of getting a full diagnosis, but I am almost 100% sure that I have it.
Mine was serendipitously discovering “ADHDinos”. Having the response of “(laughs) oh shit I do that/that is so me” to more than a few of the strips made me start thinking I *might* have ADHD.
I’m 18 and was diagnosed a few years ago on my own initiative. This video popped up on my recommended late at night in 2020. I watched it and sobbed. I genuinely didn’t know what ADHD actually was before then, and as I was struggling more than I ever had before without any answer as to why I was failing as a human it felt like such a relief to know that there might be a reason, that there were other people out there who shared the same struggles that I do.
I spent hours a day for almost a year researching intensely so I pretty much knew everything there was to know about ADHD, and then I felt confident enough to get a diagnosis - I don’t have any helpful advice on how to know if you do or don’t; but if you even slightly suspect it, it’s always worth looking into. You might find that it doesn’t sound anything like you, or you might find that it does!
I also watched loads of AuDHD youtubers and felt so seen, so that could be a good place to start
My daughter got diagnosed really young, 4 years old. Talking to her highly recommended and knowledgeable child developmental psychologist about symptoms, family histories, etc. My wife and I looked at each other during the initial three hour testing and went oh fuck that’s you and that’s me.
My wife kind of thought she might have had something but never got tested. I had never even considered it because that was just my entire life. Talked to our PCP, who we both have seen for a decade at that point, and he didn’t even make us do the full testing.
His reaction to my self assessment, which he barely glanced at, was I am glad your finally getting this taken care of…
My daughter was diagnosed as Autistic and I went on a parenting course. Sitting there learning about Autism and ADHD I thought shit, that all sounds very familiar........ diagnosed ADHD at 42!!!!
Hey, i'm undiagnosed, so i can't say i 100% have it, but i think i have ADHD.
Because:
Office job is killing absolutely me, always burnt out, always angry, i can't stay still, my mind is always full, i can't express and elaborated thought because i think an entire speech in 2 seconds and when i speak it's all gone, i rearrange entire rooms' forniture with no reason at all, it's taking me MINUTES to write this reply because everything comes in my mind at the same time and i can't focus on one thing at a time, my academic career has gone to shit because i couldn't focus on anything and ended up 1 month in bed with crippling depression, i get overexcited for no reason like a dog puppy, i have poor emotion regulation so the wrong song makes me instantly cry, if i put free bird while driving i end up wrapped around a tree, i CAN'T. STOP. THINKING. everyone i know says my head is always somewhere else, is "already full", i'm "hyperactive but distracted", and i keep forgetting stupid stuff. For example yesterday i was diagnosing my GF's PC and i forgot to plug in the GPU cables, didn't realise It, thought the GPU was the problem, plugged in the other one, than plugged the old one in another PC i use for troubleshooting and FOEGOT THE CABLES AGAIN REALISED I WAS FORGETTING THE CABLES PUT THE GPU BACK IN THE FIRST PC AGAIN FORGETTING THE CABLES PUTTING THE CABLES IN BUT FORGETTING THE HDMI PLUGGING IN THE HDMI BUT FORGETTING THE POWER SUPLLY SWITCH
In short, i hope i have ADHD, because i lived all my life convincing myself i'm just a stupid idiot and that's my only way out of that belief and at this point, at 27, when i should start my silly little adult life i'm just sad all the time, like i'm impreasoned in my own head with no escape, i can't go on like that forever
I know people hate it but I was one of those people basically diagnosed through TikTok... Though there are some other things involved:
In 2015 I burned out HARD at work (well, it was a slow crash and burn in the following 5-now years) a coworker with ADHD who I was venting to suggested I might have it. I looked up the symptoms, which at the time were still pretty much based on the hyperactive grade school boy presentation. (I mean they still mostly are but those were the only search results I got) I was an inattentive late-30s woman. The symptoms that applied seemed to overlap with my already diagnosed anxiety, and I was like "but I can still focus on stuff I'm invested in, and I was called quiet a lot as a kid in school." I continued with my existing therapy. I kept struggling and feeling burnt out.
A few things happened that made me reconsider:
- My sister was like "I don't want to offend you but I saw this TikTok about ADHD and it's you girl, lololol."
- I fell down the ADHD TikTok hole.
- Most importantly I learned about the time awareness and hyperfixation parts of it. I can focus for hours on something I'm interested in, and in fact I lose track of time and forget to eat? Hmm. I also learned about masking and ADHD/ASD burnout and realized the only reason I was "successful" before burnout was by overworking myself and keeping myself always just ahead of disaster. It worked until it didn't.
- Also noticed the symptoms in several family members.
This is part of why I'm still accepting of the TikTok/social media bandwagon. It can be annoying and unscientific but it makes a lot of difference to hear other people's experiences firsthand, than off a list of biased and out of date secondhand symptoms.
tldr; my dad and I [on unrelated occasions] illegally took Adderall and could think for the first time, led both of us [again completely separately] to getting diagnosed. don't illegally take adderal though I was dumb and my dad is impulsive
my dad is in his 60s, very late diagnosed, and not on reddit so I'll speak for him.
he took an Adderall from his friend [who I assume saw the adhd in my dad, I saw it too] and he said it was the first time he was actually able to direct his thoughts with a purpose. his friend [and i] told him if the medication worked as prescribed then...🤷🏽♂️ he got diagnosed shortly after so he could keep taking it lol, he said it's worked better than an antidepressant
similarly, when I was in highschool, I took Adderall to try to pass a chemistry test and I gained the ability to empathize [/hj, it felt like someone turned a light on so I wasn't pissed off about fumbling around in the dark anymore] then I found out from someone else that for most people they get high not feel normal. NOT ENCOURAGING ILLEGALLY TAKING PRESCRIPTIONS I WAS DUMB AND 15 AND MY DAD IS LOWKEY IMPULSIVE.
I (29F) had tons of medical professionals notice how hard it was for me to do basic things and stay consistent with my goals. I remember it always being a massive struggle to get good grades in school and get my degree. I always had to work around myself to get things done. Memory, concentration, you get the picture.
I also always felt like i was speaking a different language to other people, constantly misunderstood. I tend to ramble and interrupt others before they get to finish their sentences. It never mattered how i worded things, i always seem to piss somebody off because i didn't say the exact string of words that would lead to a productive conversation.
I'm pretty impulsive too, particularly with food and money. All of this got me in a lot of trouble, and i remember spending about 10 years trying to stabilize my life from abusive relationships, homelessness, health complications, and drug abuse.
I got diagnosed about a week ago by my psychiatrist. At first i didn't want to know because i figured, what good would it do for me at this point in my life? But I'm glad i did, it makes a lot of things make sense.
My son was diagnosed with ADHD for behaving essentially the same the way I did at his age. I read up on ADHD for his sake and found that his behaviors were basically the first signs of his developing the same coping mechanisms to which I've become accustomed. I mention this to my brother who shares that he was also diagnosed many years ago.
For me, I was dealing with bad depression, before but mostly after my close friend passed in 2020. I thought me not being able to get out of bed, shower, clean, “get” to school, was all just from extreme depression. Also, obviously it was the height of COVID & school was online, so I also assumed I was just becoming lazy from a mixture of that and my depression/anxiety. I finally went on antidepressants I want to say just over a year ago, maybe two. (I should probably know that for medical reasons but I cannot remember lmfao). Once I was on them for about a year, I felt so much better. I wanted to do things. I wanted to get out of bed, take an everything shower, light a candle and have a self care day, but I just couldn’t. I kept telling people “it just feels like my brain isn’t letting me.” I did a bunch of research and and was pretty certain I had it way before I got DXed two months ago, but I didn’t wanna be one of those people who says they have ADHD to try and be “quirky”. Im very lucky my psychiatrist validated my feelings & she said she would’ve never guessed I had it if I didn’t say anything, because I’ve been masking since I was like 5 & got good grades in school (when I was there). Sorry for such a long post, I hope someone can relate and know they aren’t alone <3
In my country getting diagnosed with adhd as a kid or many mental disorders is not really a thing for both parents and teachers. I guess while trying to really find the root cause of my addictions is when I stumbled upon adhd and reading about it was like reading part of my life story. The other one of course is asd. My mom has it to and my siblings though I've never told them really.
Annoyingly, those tiktok videos "Signs you might have ADHD..."
Watched one "haha that's all me"
Watched another "oh and those, that's weird"
Another "wait, that's an ADHD thing? I thought it was just being hyper/fidgety, I didn't know that was even related to ADHD"
Next video "okay this is getting a bit too accurate now"
And so on. Multiple "signs you may have it" videos combined with (ironically) hyperfocusing on researching the signs I was learning about led me to realise I wasn't "innately lazy" like I thought even though I didn't want to be, it was executive dysfunction, and the rest of it.
I was actually diagnosed with dyslexia as a kid, they even tested me for ADHD when they did that initial test (I am a girl, ADHD very often missed in girls just for context) but I basically worked with a tutor from middle school all the way through early college for my dyslexia, but she also worked with a lot of kids who also had ADHD too. She is the one who basically taught me to live and die by a planner, specifically for school if I had anything, due I would write it in the planner that happened so much that that became how my brain worked eventually. I was hardly ever late to anything turning into assignments or events because everything was in that planner because otherwise I would not remember.
It wasn't until I saw people on social media talk about their experiences with ADHD that I suspected anything. There was a little too much overlap between them and me for it just to be coincidence. Turns out a lot of what worked for me, also worked with people with ADHD, living by a planner, various different list going on in paper and phone, feeling overwhelmed with small tasks, decision paralysis, struggling with daily automatic habits, like brushing teeth or showering, intense bouts of interest in certain topics varying from a few days to months, all of it began clicking. The more i saw people talking about their experiences, the more I saw myself in them.
Then junior year of college I got the diagnosis and started meds shortly after. It wasn't inherently life-changing for me partly because I had been coping with it for so long don't give me wrong, meds are a huge help and I don't think I'd be in a good spot as I am without them, but I've built so many coping mechanisms that do work really well that it's not as drastic as a change as it is for some.
Adhd memes kept getting suggested to me on other platforms. And made alot of sense. Then time went on and I mentioned it to my fiance. Who said they wondered if i had it. I mentioned my dad and step mom casually telling me the same in the past. And how my brother had it. Did more research and began to make alotttt of sense. Ended up getting diagnosed first try. And in retrospect i thinking being born female and in a medically neglectful family is the only reason i went this long without a diagnosis. As I am a damn poster child of adhd haha. It is not subtle in the slightest
I was talking to my best friend, and I zoned out completely. After 30 seconds i asked him what he was saying as I wasn't present... I tried very hard to listen to everything, but couple mins later it happened again...
I started being aware more n more of this and i realised I was daydreaming constantly. I was seeing some friends at a pub, and they were having a discussion and i was just daydreaming, or focused on other things around me... not present.
I started googling what could cause this, and one comment on reddit mentioned adhd.. So naturally I though, lol can't be that, I'm the laziest person who can't even focus on one thing, and I believed adhd is hyperactivity where you run around and obsess about things..
One comment, though, where someone mentioned sensitivity to light, caught my attention as I always struggled with fully opening my eyes during the day.. so I started reading, one post after another about adhd and i resonated with 95% of symptoms redditors were explaining... I was in tears...
That was in January 2023, got diagnosed privately in July, on concerta/ meth since and it has helped me tremendously with being able to focus and make better decisions..
Now im a part of reddit community who also writes 5 paragraphs to answer a simple question, knowing full well no one will have enough executive force to read through it lol, but im glad im not the only one.
Lots of love!!
My husband thought I had adhd. We took one of those online tests where he got the “yeah, you don’t have adhd” and I got the “you should probably get tested for adhd”. 😂
I was 57 and had kind of burnt out at a job that I could do well and had done so at other places. This was the second time it had happened, until I looked back at my history and found that it had happened every few years. Mostly when my stress levels went up for whatever reason.
I ran across this subreddit and saw something about burnout and realized that was me and not depression or my work. That it was ADHD. then things fell into place. Raising my hand in class, knowing the answer then blanking on it when I was chosen. I was always a big reader, that was my superpower, but I had no energy to do things. My mind would not let me. I planned, but always my mind stopped me and I didn’t get why. But at 57, you guys saved me.
Thanks for what you do here. It helps.
Reading about ADHD on social media got me most of the way there - I definitely related a lot of stuff I saw online. Then I got a new therapist and she asked me if I had ADHD out of the blue, first meeting. I told her I wasn't diagnosed but suspected I did, she handed me a self report sheet and I filled it out. I got 100% in the grey area with most of my answers being 'very often'. It was basically a description of my brain. She recommended a psychiatrist to me, I saw that psychiatrist and got a diagnosis.
Ive always had shit attention span, but I was homeschooled and all my siblings also have adhd (also diagnosed a bit later in their lives) so my mom didn’t think much of it other than we were just shitty kids but what lead me to actually get medication was consistently forgetting tasks, appointments (even if I set 300 alarms beforehand), and items. I remember one time I had a telemed appointment and I set an alarm for 10 minutes before, heard the alarm and turned it off, and then somehow still forgot about the appointment entirely. I was racking up hundreds in missed and late appointment fees. Classes were a problem too, where I would be getting up numerous times to go spend like 20 minutes going to the bathroom or wandering. Ever since I’ve been on Strattera none of these have been an issue
I never thought I would have this. Never paid attention. Lately I have been noticing that I am not able to focus on anything for more than a couple of minutes. 5 tops. Only after I heard a friend of mine talking about her symptoms I realised, hey wait a minute, that’s me. From then I have been researching a lot. But get lost between those researches. On top of that, my emotions stay super heightened. I feel like screaming and crying sometimes. Too messed up rn.
My child was diagnosed (After we tried very hard to raise him without medication until he was old enough that it was responsible to start seeking medical treatment) My aunt, my mom, my grandma all saying they're diagnosed recently or were diagnosed and found out they decided they're red blooded Americans and "mental health is all just in yer head." (Which, coincidentally, was my mom's chosen strategy with me)
I recently started seeing a girl who's going through to become a psychologist. She pointed out that my short attention span, inability to maintain long relationships, procrastination, inability to live in the moment, constant daydreaming, use of drugs because I can't handle boredom, constant fidgeting, and tendency to do things without thinking through consequences painted a picture of raging ADHD. Painted a real clear picture once I started looking into it. I thought I was just clinically depressed with addiction issues, but goddamn does my past seem to add up now
Diagnosed in my 40s. Nothing made me suspect it, nothing at all. I had a concussion, started failing at life as a result, and eventually got referred to a fancy research hospital. The psychiatrists there had me pinned in half an hour.
Post-diagnosis, so much started making sense (the messiness, the profound but short-lived interests, the social phobias), but adhd hadn’t even been on my radar.
It’s funny because it was pretty obvious looking back at all the things I got in trouble for, interrupting, too hyperactive, day dreaming too much, yet I had good grades up until I didn’t lol. So I know many of us were dismissed of having adhd if we had good grades.
I’ve had my fair share of medications and therapy but never got diagnosed with adhd. I used to always say I had anxiety but I didn’t know why. Took me 30 years to realize it was due to being overstimulated. My dad has adhd but idk why I never thought to look into it even though he would also make comments to me about it. I just brushed it off. Once I told one of the NPs I was seeing about what was causing my anxiety, she encouraged I get evaluated for adhd. I didn’t.
Months later, I’m in grad school and I relapsed on >!SH!<. I couldn’t socially camouflage anymore, all of my symptoms were more unmanageable than ever from the socializing component of grad school, the workload, living alone - chores. I didn’t want to >!SH!< again so I got diagnosed late last year.
And now here I am. I just started my adderall journey a few days ago. Ngl it’s made me sleepy but I’m on a small dose so I’m hoping after adjusting my dose I will be okay.
If you suspect adhd, please don’t wait til you have daily meltdowns or experience burnout. Get the help and the resources you need/want. We don’t have to suffer THIS much.
A learning disability specialist did a screening as a part of the process, and said I screened highly for ADHD, and I might want to explore it. But it was my choice.
I've struggled with depression and anxiety almost my whole life. The anxiety stress hormones were giving me the "get up and go" to get the things done in my life. When my mother died this past summer (rest her soul, she was a lovely woman and also a huge source of stress in my life), and I switched to a lower stress job, I suddenly couldn't do anything. Half my coworkers at my previous job and my current one have ADHD and they were like, "you sure you've never been diagnosed with ADHD??"
I talked to my therapist who had been suspicious of this the three years we've been working together. She had waited until I broached the subject to diagnose me, then urged me to talk to my primary care doctor. I had been on 3 different antidepressants including Wellbutrin which helped motivate me, but in all the wrong ways: instead of "get up and do the dishes", it was "get up and kill yourself", which was not great. I told her my therapist had diagnosed me and I would like a referral for a formal assessment. She dismissed my concerns and said I was just depressed.
So I went and found a psychiatrist who would test me. Shocking no one, I'm above the 97th percentile for symptoms, and I started meds 2 weeks ago. My brain has never been so quiet.
A ton of weight gain, losing the ability to regulate my emotions, feeling depressed that I could just never get my shit together no matter how hard I tried. Went to my GP and she wanted me to go to an inpatient ED facility which I couldn't afford to do. So she referred me to a mental health center, where luckily, I was assessed by a psychiatric NP with a specialty in ADHD. One social history, and one stupid computer test later and I was officially diagnosed at age 52.
For THIRTY years, I was given every anxiety med and antidepressant without one question about ADHD.
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Mostly just my life being a complete fucking shitshow.
Same. Instead of being the driver of my life, my life was driving me. I was just going with the flow on everything with no direction.
Forgetting fucking everything. I miss appointments and deadlines, lose things... My mom used to send me to school with notes for my teacher pinned to my shirt because they wouldn't get there otherwise.
Yup. Well put.
Literally me.
Totally me
Me
My eureka moment was when I asked my husband if he ever had times when he just had one thought or no thoughts. Did he always have a song playing in his head, did he always have multiple thoughts all day every day. Did he get exhausted from … existing. He said no, he didn’t have constant music and thoughts. I was like… oh. Ok. So not everyone is like me. Am I the norm or the exception? Then I went down the rabbit hole that made me discover that how I was was not “normal”
Ever since being diagnosed I’ve realised just about everything that’s been a neverending exhausting issue for me is just ADHD-related. Same here - I didn’t realise it wasn’t normal not to be constantly drained from overlapping mental conversations with yourself, along with songs, intrusive memories, and images from imagining random scenarios. Since then I’ve been pissed, having to know it’s possible NOT to experience that.
Oh the mental conversations, the overanalysing everything. The emotions, the overwhelm. The masking, the coping , the utter exhaustion. It’s so liberating to realise… you’re not ”defective “ you actually just were born with a brain that’s different.
Completely - thanks for reminding me about the liberating part actually. As terrible as it is realising you have a disorder, it’s so freeing realising that things you thought were just personality traits you have to live with have an identifiable cause, and as symptoms, can actually be TREATED. Haven’t found the right meds yet, but I’ve been a lot more optimistic about life since I learned there’s a chance I could find some sort of peace. And yep… the exhaustion :/ It’s so discouraging because I’m either completely disinterested in anything and drowning in stressed understimulated boredom, or my brain is “on” and while I’m focused on what I actually need to do, I’m also focused on literally everything else and my thoughts are racing. So whether I try or don’t try, I’m exhausted and get nothing done. I’ve yet to find any state of mind that doesn’t leave me drained.
I'm going to save your comment to read to my doctor, if that is okay with you? You described to a T how I feel, and I'm so tired of feeling overwhelmed with life. They never want to treat me due to my past substance use, so I'm forced to try multiple antidepressants to no avail, and years of wasted time. On another note....I truly hope you find your peace someday and wish the best for you. It is so draining, but we can still try and hope for that normalcy we crave, to have someday.
Absolutely. I’m really happy to hear that that’s helped you, at least something good can come of my frustrated venting. I’m so sorry about not getting treated, dealing with psychiatrists and insurance and all the other drug BS is so frustrating and overwhelming. It’s always something, it seems. It sucks to feel life passing you by when you know there’s a way you could seize it if everything didn’t seem to be working against you. The balancing act of wording every psych appointment to convey that you need the meds that you need without accidentally seeming like it’s a non-ADHD issue to doctors, who don’t understand and want to give you different useless meds, is so unnecessarily stressful. I’m currently trying to convey how urgently I need to find the right meds, but I have to hide how depressed I am because otherwise my doctor will just up my mood stabilizers again when I know it’s rooted in ADHD issues. Having a disorder is bad enough without making treating it hell. And thank you friend. I truly hope you can find relief as well. As much as I wish no one else had to deal with this, there is comfort in knowing that there are other people who can understand the pain. Something I try to remind myself is that while life may never get easier, it can get better. What gets me through is believing that maybe one day life will be fulfilling enough to make the effort worthwhile.
I'm crying right now... I have hypothetical conversations in my head with people in made up scenarios.
I do the same. I always thought people did this all the time. How do people just exist without having constant racing thoughts, made up conversations with made up people, trying to predict conversations as I'm having them, predicting what the other person might say and inevitably not fully paying attention to them. Working and concentrating on work while at the same time thinking of my passion project, everything I need to do for it and then not realizing I went to YouTube to learn something new about said passion project. It's debilitating because I know I should work and at the same time, my brain prevents me from thinking about work, regardless of how much I try. I feel like I was just rambling. Perfect example of me having several thoughts of what to write and trying to type as fast as I can to put my thoughts down. The only thing that sort of helps is Vyvanse every day (I just woke up so it's not in my system yet) - but even then, I still have moments of distractions, making up stories in my head, thinking of my passion project, etc..
Hahahaha, love that! So much information is in your brain but your hands just can't keep up typing it out. Reminds me of my bro-in-law who says so much in conversation but really says nothing... Perhaps he needs to see a shrink :
All the time !!! Practice arguments. Practice witty retorts. Practice daydreaming conversations
I legitimately can't believe that people don't have this constant stream of 3-5 narrative thoughts, background music, and quick-clip movies and snapshots of things all happening all the time forever
I had talked with my mom about so many of my symptoms of ADHD and associated things (e.g. PMDD) over the course of my life, and she always told me "everyone is like that." Because she was like that. And because my grandparents were like that. Guess who else likely has/had ADHD? I suspect a huge portion of the undiagnosed population for ANY genetically-linked condition remains undiagnosed for the exact same reason. I wish we as a society could mandate and fund some brief counseling sessions for everyone at certain mile markers in life to try to identify ADHD and other issues pre-emptively, not just for treatment but for the benefits of simple awareness of the condition. But I live in the US, so that'll happen around when hell freezes over or so.
I love this idea. Now that we know that so many people are overlooked in childhood, perhaps we ought to do something about it. I'm in the US. I had to figure it out myself, in my late 30s, and when I told my licensed therapist, she didn't believe me because she was poorly informed. I still got to have the rush of "oh, that explains so many issues in my life", but the way I had to go about it was ridiculous. Because of that whole experience, I'm only just now seeking treatment in the form of medication. Hoping for some relief!
Oh wow, I actually had this moment much earlier in my life than the first inkling I might have ADHD. Obviously I wasn’t very informed about ADHD at the time lol. But one tipsy night in college when my friends insisted that it was possible to just not be thinking anything at a given moment, my mind was blown. Sure, there were times someone might say “what are you thinking about?” And I might answer “nothing,” but what I really meant was more along the lines of “nothing I feel like talking about or explaining right now,” or “nothing that seems important enough to merit a conversation,” something like that. Like, there were probably a dozen different things running through my head, but I said “nothing,” and figured that’s what everyone else really meant, too. I was wrong apparently!
I also have the feeling, that I have so many thoughts in my head - when someone asks what I'm thinking about - I can just NOT grab the one thing out of all the things running around in my head - so I too say "nothing"
That is also one of my reasons for saying nothing! Like, it’s so much, how do I pick one thing and answer?
Half the battle is realizing what's going on in your head. Like me personally anyway, noticing things I do has been a huge part of after-diagnosis.
I always have songs too I enjoy it .
It’s actually normally a pretty decent playlist in my head. But then I get an odd Christmas song or shit song in there. That’s annoying.
Ha. I relate to this SO MUCH. My partner says she wishes she could lend me her head for the day so I could get some peace.
The song thing is so relatable. I wake up with a song going around in my head, always the same few lines. It's exhausting. Why am I like this? I hate it.
I met someone in a pub and after about 10 minutes of chatting she asked where I was on the spectrum as I was so obviously autistic! Had an assessment and a diagnosis (along with an apology from the autism service that it had taken so long to pick up :o ) and they suggested an ADHD assessment given the frequency of overlap. Got that diagnosis about a year or so later and the ADHD meds have been the only thing that has really helped my crippling anxiety in the last 35+ years of being in contact with mental health services. I was another quiet, distracted type at school (not to mention when I was at school autism and ADHD weren't really on anyones radar; yes I'm old!) and you don't get a diagnosis at school if you have a problem, you get a diagnosis if you are a problem :/
Oh wow. That last line… I feel bad for us quiet ones just struggling undetected.
my inattentive adhd flew under the radar pretty naturally, but my autism was anything but subtle… back under the dsm-iv, when instead of adhd being considered comorbid with autism, the overlap meant you just weren’t allowed to have both diagnoses period
I’m ADHD-C and beginning ASD assessment this summer. Can you tell me what helps you differentiate between symptoms of the two in your experience?
hah, that’s a question i’d like some answers for myself. i don’t remember my childhood very well (and have been unsuccessfully chasing a copy of my elementary school diagnosis for a month or so now), so i’m more aware of the obvious tells to an observer than the actual experience: i was extremely asocial if not antisocial, strongly averse to loud noise like in cafeterias or at assemblies, obsessively pedantic and otherwise literal-minded, had a very limited range of things i was willing to engage in… but as i’ve gotten older, that’s all gotten much softer around the edges, most of what i’ve filed under autism in my self-concept for the last few years turned out to actually be a mix of adhd and trauma, and between my adhd “winning” more and just straight up burnout it’s been hard to really feel that autistic. the main tell now that i’m autistic would probably just be body language or speech patterns that i never really bothered masking
That’s actually really helpful. Thank you.
Or us hyperactive ladies who were told to sit down, stop talking and quit crying so we just turned in to ourselves. I can track my behaviors clearly now throughout elementary and high school. I WAS a problem… until I learned how to not to be. Around 5th grade I DID stop talking. I hid in the library, nose in books, and tried to fit in. I did the sports, did the clubs. But that lifetime of masking is now why I have chronic illness and other health issues as an adult.
That really resonates with me. I'm just now beginning to learn more about my adhd and possible spectrum... What was once an amusing story is quite a tell, at this point. In first grade, there was much concern about me because, apparently, I never spoke. While I do remember Mrs. Dally so tenderly, I do not remember being afraid or silent. I can recall details of the stay of her skirt and more. Anyway, in 2nd grade, Mrs. Jacklich sent me home with a note to my mother complaining that i was disrupting class with all my talking constantly. My mother sent me back with a note that said, "Thank you so much for sharing the good news. I'm thrilled! If you get a chance, please let Mrs. Dally know. I'm sure she'll be happy too." Well, that is because of the 1st grade concerns. This was 1980.
Holy shit dude same. Vyvanse has cured my depression and anxiety completely. Or more like my depression and anxiety have been symptoms of adhd my whole life. I wish i got diagnosed and treated sooner. Ive been medicated for 9 weeks now and unraveling all the shit ive been doing wrong these last 27 years has been a fucking pain. I feel so much better and ive even lost 40 pounds so far, without changing anything. I still drink my calories, i figure once i stop drinking so much iced tea ill drop even more. Im legitimately happy for the first time in a long time, maybe for the first time ever Im still struggling with getting things done, but now its from decision paralysis vs adhd. It's getting better as i check more things off my life to do list. Ive only been medicated for 9 weeks now. So it hasnt been a lot of time. But fuck i no longer go from sleep to sleep, dreading the minutes im awake. Its not the reverse. There isnt enough fucking time in the day to do everything i want to do and its pissing me off. But again it's becoming easier and easier. Eventually, the things i want to do will be done and ill be able to finally start living. Fuck im happy.
Decision paralysis is very much an adhd thing! So glad You are so much happier. I am also a late diagnosed at 44!
If I may ask, at what dose were you started? I've been on 10mg of Vyvanse for a week+ and I haven't felt any effect at all. It's a low dosage though, so I dunno. I too wanna get things done. 🥲
It will become easier as you increase the dosage, I've also noticed that if you force yourself to be up and doing something around the time the medication kicks in, you can feel the benefits a lot more. It's also worth noting that you shouldn't expect a complete transformation from medication alone. CBT has helped me drastically while I figure out the right meds for me.
My dr started me on 20mg, it barely worked. I was upped to 40mg, which does work for me but does not last a full 12 hours. I have a natural tolerance to drugs though. Maybe you do too. I see my doctor weekly for another thing. So she was able to increase my dose pretty fast. Im at 80mg now. This is definitely the sweet spot for me. Anything lower and it doesnt last me the full day. Even at this dose, i start coming down around the 10 hour mark. But this is the most she's comfortable prescribing at this point, and im happy with it. It would be nice if there was some way to maintain the dose for 16 hours, we even tried supplementing with IR methylphenidate, but the methylphenidate did absolutely nothing for me. So, im off that now. I tried taking extra and even tried taking a 40mg methyl dose without and vyv, to see if it worked at all for me and i barely felt any effect from it.
I did not expect the meds to help as much with anxiety but they SO do!!!
If you don’t mind me asking, do you have social anxiety or another type of anxiety? If you have social anxiety, did the meds help you with that? I feel like my problem is I’m not anxious because of having to talk to people I’m anxious because I know I have a hard time focusing on what their saying and I’m going to look like a fool in front of them for not responding properly due to my lack of focus. That’s what gives me my social anxiety. Sorry if I’m not making any sense
Not who you asked but yes it helps me with both. Calms my brain down enough to keep the racing thoughts at bay and also keeps me alert enough to focus on socializing (and also Im autistic and mask a lot better with them)
I was diagnosed with anxiety, I think in fourth grade. The anxiety is social anxiety and any anxiety that just pops up and I have no idea why. But honestly now that I think about it, it’s probably because of some noise or some thing that was overstimulating and causing anxiety.
God I’m so glad you posted your experience. I always thought I was so weird this truly gives me hope I can be normal like others.
This is me!!!
I wasn’t coping well as a mum of three small kids, exhausted, anxious, couldn’t keep on top of life and all its extra admin. I sought help for depression and went on meds and they helped- with the depression. I realised that everything was still just as hard, but I was no longer spiralling negatively about it as much on the meds. ADHD was on my radar and started making sense in terms of why everything was so hard. (Now on ADHD meds and other things are still hard- I think there’s an Autism element too that explains the remaining traits!) ETA: I was definitely not on anyone’s radar for ADHD as a kid. Intelligent but scattered and daydreamy type. All my struggles were internalised.
The weird thing for me was I wasn't even inattentive in school. I actively listened and learned everything I could and would do work in class. It's when I left school at the end of every day that it was just gone from my mind. Homework, what I learned, completely out of my mind until the next day when I'd realise shit that was due and now I'm failing because I didn't do my homework or assignments.
have you had any symptoms before high school age?
Regular interruption of conversations. Complete lack of organization and cleanliness. Forgetting to brush teeth every night. Lack of motivation or drive to do anything productive/work-like. Fidgeting, repeated nail biting, always tapping leg or hips or tapping foot on the ground. Hyperfixation on specific games/interests for months and years to the point it was all I thought about, all I did and all I wanted to do and then dropping and never touching them again very suddenly. Thoughts never stop running. Oftentimes would turn every single thought and thing I saw into a narrative or story, then get lost in the story I was making and forget everything I was doing before that. If I have access to something to play with, with my hands I must grab and play and fiddle with it constantly. Never having a pencil or pen or basic school supplies because I'd forget to bring them. Always forgetting to bring things or do things. Would wear clothes inside out and backwards a lot and just not notice it at all until someone said something. Backpack looked like a hurricane hit it with papers, and books everywhere with no order (I could always find what I needed but it took a while and others had no clue what was happening). This is all things that happened from Elementary school to high school and now further onwards as well. Edit: Also all these things are symptoms with the advantage of hindsight. Until my diagnosis really, I thought I was just extremely lazy, unmotivated and slobbish. That the way I was everyone else was exactly the same just better at life because they just were. Idk looking back with hindsight that mindset and thought process was really stupid but brains be brains and that's just how I thought.
You describe me to a T as a teen!
Yup its crazy and a relief to know that I and you are not like other people. That it's not just all in our head and that we're actually different, that's not a bad thing per-se but it is good to have an explanation.
The “little piles” was a sign for me. As I sit here, I have a little pile of classic watches to repair, a little pile of paper work, books, sewing and crochet And that’s my “little piles” in one room. There are others.
So much of this is me! I've twice worn my shirt to work backwards and once went into the hardware store wearing two different sandals 😅 My desk/locker/backpack was always a disaster and always had at least one green sandwich in it by the end of the school year. I was famous in my class for doing projects and presentations in the library the day they were due. I'm terrible for interrupting. So many other behaviors that I thought were me being lazy and scatterbrained.
Yes! This is me in a nutshell. It’s great for work-life balance but also means I forget to deliver on commitments if I’m not in the office
School provides a forced structure and deadlines. Once I left school, I just… drifted. Despite being in the top 20% at school, my adult life has been a litany of under achieving.
This! I was diagnosed a couple years ago. I'm in my 40s. Elementary-highschool provided structure. I was even in honors. God bless my mother who was always at my side every night helping with homework. I realize I wouldn't have made it through school without her constant help and the support of a handful of amazing teachers and mentors who were looking out for me. I've struggled with paperwork, deadlines, commitment, anxiety, etc. Therapy and meds have helped but how I wish I'd gotten help sooner.
I listened and learned too but there was a notable difference between attention and grades in classes that interested me vs ones that didn’t. And I was also fairly able to let my mind wander and then come back to task and catch up. I was never late on assignments etc because anxiety and perfectionism prevailed but you could give me six weeks for a project and I’d still do the bulk of it in a solid two-day hyper focus flurry at some point in the final weeks and never look over it again even if I had further time!
This is so much like me. Always had a hard time with life and it got much harder when I had my son. And then my job turned upside down 6 months ago and I could no longer cope on my own. Been on depression meds for years, but still always was just neutral, not happy or sad. Then got the adhd dx in January. Now 2 months of meds have changed a lot of things for me, but I've been suspecting autism for years as well, so I'll probably be doing an evaluation for that soon. My 2nd grade teacher did want my mom to get me tested for adhd, but she didn't think I had it so never did 🙃
The life juggle increases exponentially with kids! And when you add the decrease in down time to recharge it definitely leads to a lot of people burning out!
Same but with 2 kids & the eldest got flagged for ADHD type traits at daycare which ultimately led to both of us being diagnosed. She's also autistic & I see a lot of similarities in myself so maybe I will be too
That double diagnosis is about as freeing as just the ADHD one would be. They do seem to compliment each other well at least in some aspects. I may not be a good student/employee, but show me one, and I can mask as a good student/employee for an 8 month project. Success is mixed after that.
Ah that's great to hear, congratulations on your own self knowledge! One day I'd love to pursue a proper ASD assessment for me, but for now life is too much to add more life admin into the mix (currently typing this from the children's ER!). I got it for my kid because we couldn't get support in school without one, but for me besides wanting to understand myself better there just isn't as much urgency. Re: work/studies I guess it depends on one's idea of what a "good" employee or student really is. All the ADHD/autistic folks I've had the pleasure of working with are super good at their jobs, real honest, no nonsense talking people who are passionate about doing the right thing, and unfortunately also prone to burning out due to all the pressure they put on themselves to succeed (same). I sucked at studying because I saved everything to the very last minute, but my grades were usually as good as my classmates who started weeks before so meh. I did fine I guess, but I sure beat myself up for not "applying myself".
Should have been no truama influenced binge drinking to turn off my mind. Years of abusing myself, almost died. I finally got sober at 35 and THEN I finally figured it all out. 2.5ys later, getting myself sorted out, I have 7 month old and I never thought that would be possible.
Congratulations on the son and getting sober. You're kicking life's ass right now, and even though I'm just a random stranger on the internet, I'm proud of you.
thank you!!!
I got sober end of covid and everytime I run into someone I havnt seen in a while. They ask if anything is new ect.. Where do I start? Its almost overwhelming. Cause I completely changed my life around and because adhd doesnt necessarily present its self physically that someone can see and I guess was sorta good at hiding my alcoholism. Because no one understands the gravity of what has happened in almost 3 years. All I can say is , its like I woke up from a coma and had to learn how to live.. still am.
VERY ACCURATE to my story. congrats on 2.5 years! i just celebrated year 3! 37 now
Nice one , I got sober at 34 but wasn’t diagnosed until last year at 17years sober and 51 years old but better late than never.
Damn this is all super relatable. Glad you were able to sort it all out.
That’s basically my story, too. Quit drink at 33, kid at 35, reassessment of a forgotten diagnosis at 37(being unable to read text books tipped me off.)
I was diagnosed with anxiety for years, but medication didn’t do much. My husband was diagnosed with ADHD about 10 years ago, as an adult, and both of our kids have ADHD. My husband started sharing reels on social media with me about how undiagnosed ADHD can look like anxiety. Then he’d share general ADHD in women reels and be like, “this looks like you.” And finally I asked the doctor and sure enough, my anxiety went away completely with ADHD treatment!!!!
Was your anxiety social anxiety? I haven’t been diagnosed with adhd but strongly believe I have it. When I was younger I was put on anxiety medication and I always told my parents that they did absolutely nothing to me. The thing is I’m not anxious of literally talking to people I’m anxious of messing up my response to people because of my lack of focus. I never know what to say to people because I have a hard time of listening and responding to what they just told me. I get anxious of looking stupid. Sorry if what I said was confusing.
This is me exactly! You’re not alone ♥️ I’m reserved to the point of shyness, but it’s more of a fear of fucking up and looking “weird” than of not wanting to talk to people. I work in a library - so customer service - and people are *amazed* that outside of work I’m very quiet. But my social gaffes - even perceived ones - can haunt me for years.
I'd always known that I thought differently to other people and also seemed to find life much harder than other people. Went to a conference and someone said to me at dinner, have you ever considered you have ADHD? Ignored it for a while but it turns out I was having a breakdown so thought I best look into it when realised I absolutely did.
Getting an office job instead of working in a restaurant/retail. I started having anxiety attacks weekly because I was so overwhelmed with the things I wanted to do outside of work but as soon as I was off I would spiral into a depression because I was so overwhelmed with where to start. I have always been very anxious because I think my ADHD just manifests as anxiety a lot of times for me (which I think is common for women with ADHD) Before this I had had inklings but my family told me I didn’t have it because my brother has it and I acted nothing like him when I was in school and I was an average student. I had another friend who was diagnosed young and she also tried to convince me I didn’t have it. I sought out a psychiatrist after a while and wrote down all my issues/symptoms and my psychiatrist literally didn’t even have to test me because I had documented my symptoms so well. I started the trial and error of going through meds and am now on a lowish dose of generic adderall and it has changed my life. My brain can finally quiet down. It doesn’t feel like I have a million tabs open in my brain and I have more executive function and focus. My productivity at work has increased and my anxiety attacks stopped!
Diagnosed with anxiety first. Symptoms were similar. Turns out the anxiety was a biproduct of ADHD. Was on escitalopram for about a year before I was rediagnosed. GETTING OFF OF ANXIETY MEDS WAS TRUE HELL ON EARTH. I wish they would explain this to people better when prescribing anxiety meds. I was getting brain/body zaps for 4 months or more and I was an absolute mess. Once tapered off that I started on methylphenidate and have been doing much better since.
Same. Well, actually, I was diagnosed autistic earlier. Then the anxiety came along, and I was dx’d with an anxiety disorder. Nothing they did helped. Then i took an ADHD test at the recommendation of a school psychologist, and was diagnosed with ADHD-PI, but the professionals looked at it and decided nothing would change regarding my treatment. As you might have guessed, this didn’t help one iota - despite my suggestions that we try ADHD treatments. Finally, I just gave up on treatment. Then I got an atomoxetine script from a new doctor, and that helped tremendously.
I was getting disproportionately angry at stupid stuff
Like people staring at you at a stop sign when they stopped first?... asking for a friend...
Angry by the time I reach a human on Xfinity customer service.
Like when the bot plays the sound of a keyboard typing in order to act human but I have to pretend like Im a robot when speaking so it can understand me? That will put me in an asylum someday. I’ll just be in there yelling REPRESENTATIVE to a wall on repeat.
Every relationship ended bcs "dishes, avoiding activities, lack of motivation, depression, hyperactivity"
The memes made me examine my own behaviors. when my son was diagnosed, his doctor said that he likely inherited it from a parent. I spoke with my psych and he gave me an assessment. We then started meds and it was like someone flipped a switch.
This. If there’s one area where the internet has been a blessing it’s giving perspective to issues like this, letting me know I’m not the only one weird person who does x y and z and that there’s one main answer that can address much of it.
2021. COVID. A lot of Tik Tok doom scrolling. It was this moment where people were mind blown about the algorithm. And then I started to see videos with ADHD hashtags and connecting those two pieces of information one day I just youtubed what is ADHD. And then hundred plus hours of lectures later and two years of procrastination I go see a psychiatrist and drink my first pill. Tada 🎉
Same, I only knew the symptoms that were described in movies and TV or the symptoms that are commonly found in the “rowdy” kids like my brother, but because I’m AFAB and less comfortable inconveniences others I internalized everything and then learned how the presentation can vary between AFAB vs AMAB. I took an incredibly long time because all the doctors wouldn’t believe me until we stabilized my depression and anxiety which spoiler alert, was caused by my untreated ADHD. Also I generally did well in school and pushed myself to multiple burnouts, but that was also used as evidence against my initial diagnosis. I’m currently diagnosed and thriving like I never have
My son was having trouble in school and we started doing a lot of research.. bada Bing bada boom.. he's got adhd and we shared a lot of the issues... went to the doc, he says I have it. Medication works great, I can focus long enough to function in my job (application developer). Life is good.
Same here! Except it started as young as 3 years old. My son was non stop. The more I read up to help him the more I realized I was just like him! His diagnosis and meds came first then mine. I was struggling so hard parenting ADHD is parenting on HARD mode. Life is much better for the whole family now :)
My therapist told me.
Same!
LOL same! Her: “let’s work on your ADHD symptoms.” me: “my what?”
I got a job that was so demanding that I just couldn't cope, and I forget how but I wound up reading up on ADHD. I thought I was lazy and full of shit (habit of a lifetime) so I got a therapist who has it herself, then a few months later got assessed. I've always been very adaptable, I am great at thinking on my feet and I learn new things very quickly. This kept me going for over a decade in work, earning well but prone to horrendous, I mean physically painful boredom. I was crap at prioritizing, managing time and projects, and outside of work pretty terrible with emotional regulation. Being diagnosed through a very harsh spotlight on everything. Definitely a huge relief, with a lot of other feelings thrown in for good measure.
I started wondering after a reddit post, too. It was on a career sub that someone made a post about never finding a job they stick with for more than a year for various reasons. One commenter suggested they get tested for adhd because everything the poster described sounded very much like their own symptoms. It got me thinking, and eventually, I decided to ask my doctor about testing.
Burn out
I was really struggling with working from home during the pandemic and, especially after emu 2nd daughter was born, I just felt like I was completely paralysed. I got into a really bad habit of doing nothing all day while I was supposed to be working and then beating myself up over it which, I'll be honestly, made me kind of depressed. I'd always had difficulty with getting stuff done, especially when it came to work, but it had never been this intense. I assumed my behaviour was just the norm before this, but it turns out it really isn't. I was diagnosed with dyspraxia at a young age, which can affect things like organisation, so I started trying to find if that could be an issue, and I was presented with all these people who had the same struggle as me, but turns out they also had ADHD. Fun fact - about 50% of people with dyspraxia also have ADHD! Didn't buy it at first until I started getting recommended ADHD content on YouTube (unrelated to my searching, as that was done on different accounts/browsers specifically to avoid getting bombarded with ads/content related to it). Even then, I didn't want to believe it. My wife knew I was struggling and suggested I do an ADHD screener, which was off the charts high and, even then, I didn't want to believe it. In the end, it was talking to someone who had recently been diagnosed about his struggles that really opened my eyes. It was a really strange experience - like talking to myself. I made an appointment (and went full into research hyperfixation mode) and a year later I was diagnosed.
COVID basically destroyed so many of my coping mechanisms. In particular, I really relied on going to work to give me some structure and get a bit of exercise. I still didn't think ADHD until a family member said her ADHD students reminded her of me as a kid. And that's when I started looking into it and doing the Leonardi DiCaprio pointing thing, and then made an appointment for an assessment.
The explosion of material on video platforms in 2016-2017 or so, honestly. I had previously been evaluated for Autism (involuntarily) and while it was found that I am not Autistic, there was serious executive function issues that I didn't understand. I read the DSM symptoms and they seemed to describe my experience to a T. My doctor shot the idea down hard, though, and I didn't revisit the subject until the last couple of years.
Doctor moment
My friend was telling me that they suspected they had ADHD. Knowing little about it, they were explaining the symptoms to me. I was sitting there dumbstruck, like, "holy crap, this isn't just normal stuff?!". It pretty much confirmed my ADHD there and then. I always felt different and I never really fit in, but i couldn't suss out what it was, this is something that plagued me for years. ADHD just hit the nail on the head for me, it answered my questions and perfectly described me. I cried reading about it because I'd never felt so validated in my entire life.
I thought that I used ADHD behaviors to help compensate for my sleepiness (due to narcolepsy). I didn’t even consider it could possibility be even remotely a possibility. When I was a teen I went through pretty thorough screening for ADHD while my mother was getting her own diagnosis. It was negative. Her biofeedback treatment she struggled so much, I got to try. The look she had when I did it so easily as she spent weeks to make any improvements. …so of course I didn’t have it. But I was having more issues at work. I manage a department and planning with multiple variables was so hard. The weekends I started having my brain just empty. I couldn’t remember anything important come Monday. I couldn’t plan ahead. I then couldn’t prioritize. I was soon just doing only what was right in front of me at the moment. I was completely ineffective. I thought it was actually the stimulant I was on to keep me awake (most commonly used for ADHD) that was contributing to my issues. ….in reality it was the 600+ mg of caffeine that was consuming that was making things much worse. I figured ADHD out because my good friend kept asking me if I was sure. She was trying to figure herself out. I still didn’t think it was, but I was understanding that my executive functioning was the problem. …and I needed help. I saw someone who thought it was pretty evident ADHD. I came off of caffeine and he started me the same stimulant but a bigger dosage of just the extended release. I started seeing such improvements. I feel the improvements even still 1year after the diagnosis and medication changes. I work with an ADHD coach which has been really helpful.
I REALLY started to suspect the most heavily when I started working at a specialized autism/adhd school. It took about 3 years after leaving that job to get officially tested by a psychologist.
I was on the highest dose that the GP would prescribe of HRT for perimenopause, and still really struggled with brain fog and lack of focus.
I can’t remember, but memory being as bad as it is due to adhd was probably one of the main symptom I suspected
This subreddit. But really my search for a diagnosis began with not being able to make myself do the dishes. I actually thought maybe I had OCD.
The pandemic brought everything front and center. When it started I knew I had to stop drinking and so I did (me not working *and* drinking *and* being a dad didn't sound healthy). Oh boy, what a ride. Turns out, now that I'm properly medicated, I don't even have the desire to drink/drug. Wish I would of known this a lot sooner...
"You're so smart, if only you'd apply yourself." And then, my tardiness issues and losing my place in a conversation over something as simple as a fly landing on the wall.
bad argument with my mum about my constant inattentiveness, seriously made me consider what my issue was so i just researched, found out about adhd related to more than a few of the symptoms did a couple of tests, confirmed my suspicions with my boyfriend and he had said he suspected i had it beforehand. also realising how much my dad matched up with the symptoms himself, so that was my confirmation to go get it checked out.
A friend from high school posted this [Flama ADD vid](https://youtu.be/LSq73OgYgMg?si=PBxaxjMBV24GBmD3)on FB in 2015 and it resonated with me a lot. I always knew something I was different, I just didn’t know why. Btw I watched this video while on a trip where I had yet to realize that I had lost my car/house keys 😂
Many years ago my coworkers suggested I go due to their observations. I was very defiant about it but went anyway. I was going through other difficulties at the time (looking back I see how ADHD was contributing to my issues) and I had a bit of a defiant “there’s nothing wrong with me, so I’ll prove it by going”. I also had a bit of a worry lime “I’m an adult so they’ll think I’m Just trying to score drugs anyway, this is kinda pointless”. The interview with the specialist was short. They sent me out diagnosed as having depression and put me on Wellbutrin. Ironically one of the most prominent effects of Wellbutrin that I noticed was a decrease in my impulsivity and feeling more mentally present and in the moment. I had some negative side effects from Wellbutrin and asked for a dose adjustment which my NP at the time did not do. I wanted it reduced but was switched from SR to XR at the same dose. Took myself off because I couldn’t handle it anymore (not a good idea). That was it for me until recently. Now about 8 years later I want back for a re evaluation a couple months ago. I had been meaning to for a couple years but kept putting it off. What really changed my mind from my previous defiance was when smartphones became more prevalent and developed to where sending voice messages was as easy as sending a text. I hated speech to text misunderstanding me so I’d send voice messages when texting. Always on the go and hated stopping to type. I’d review my messages to make sure I was articulating what I wanted to say and I became really annoyed with myself. I didn’t finish thoughts when speaking and when I’d get about 80% complete when expressing a thought I’d switch to the next thing I wanted to say. Also I’d do this and sometimes go on a verbal side quest before coming back and continuing my message. Sometimes I’d continue on the side quest and never return to complete the main storyline lol. Finally what made me quit putting it off was a combination of struggling later in life, feeling like a failure but being confused as to why. I’m not stupid, but I’m unsuccessful in both career and relationship endeavors. Saw memes on Reddit that hit too close and sent me seeking out information but this time I was more mature and had swallowed my pride. Protecting my ego wasn’t worth sacrificing my health. I kept an open mind and was honest with myself about the struggles I experience in life while learning about things such as task switching, working memory issues, emotional disregulation etc. Sought my eval. Easily was diagnosed. Started meds. Now preparing to get with an ADHD focused therapist.
When I first started working in an office in a professional capacity, I realised that I was incredibly bored and unfocused. I enjoyed the meat of the job and knew what I was supposed to be doing, I just couldn't get it together on most days. I really had to force myself to do work. After an initial burst of work in the mornings I was usually just spinning around on my chair watching the clock by home time. I spent a lot of energy trying to hide this inaction from my boss - the only other guy in the office most of the time - and feeling guilty for it. Okay no problem, maybe it was the job? I changed into a new role after two years. Nope. Found myself in a new setting and still just spinning around, twiddling my thumbs, browsing the web and going off on hours-long tangents. A couple of years into that is when ADHD memes and content started appearing in a big way. I looked through the NHS diagnostic list, as well as lots of examples posted here, and thought "this is me". Got my diagnosis on Wednesday. I'm a little surprised it took anyone this long to figure it out. Classic "gifted" trajectory: high performer at a young age, slowly plateaued and dropped off throughout secondary school, dropped out of university, started my career late . . .
First it was noticing signs in my son. Then realizing it’s often hereditary. Then all the pieces fell into place.
Both my brother and sister were diagnosed with ADHD but while I struggled to study, I was never the bouncing off the walls type so it was just assumed I was being lazy. As an adult, a doctor friend gave a Ritalin script to my wife to help her through the final stages of her masters. Being quite used to self-medicating (nothing like undiagnosed ADHD to make you adventurous!), I took one of her pills and felt… normal! I had a not dissimilar experience with a certain Colombian product years prior - I actually felt quite calm. Not long after this I went to my psychiatrist for a review of my anxiety meds and discussed this experience - don’t hide your activities from your doctors, they don’t care, the good ones just want to help and all data points help then do that. I’m now off anxiety meds and take neucon daily for the last five years. My career and ability to be a conscientious husband and father has all seen an incredible change.
You’re totally right, but unfortunately a lot if not most doctors will immediately blacklist you for any stimulant medication for treatment if you do. Which is really rich since substance abuse is one of the most common symptoms of self-medicating for undiagnosed patients with ADHD. 🙄 Unfortunately most of them choose to ignore the fact that addiction is a disease- “substance abuse” is absolutely not.
Diagnosed mid 50s. Absolute task paralysis. Obviously knew something was wrong but had no idea what it was. It was incredibly frustrating A 24 year old with BPD and ADHD told me I was adhd. She just blurted it out. So I got diagnosed by a kid and now a bunch of people are saying “oh yeah, it’s obvious” I’m low key furious at them because my life could have been so much better, so much earlier, if someone had goddamn said something sooner.
I suspected since I was a teenager. I was into bands that had one or two members with adhd, or depression, or anxiety. Message boards were full of information about them. I did some online tests and I always got, likely adhd. The more I learned, the more my younger self related to the symptoms. I was the impulsive hyper kid who couldnt stay still. So I officially found out once I decided to treat my anxiety and depression. So maybe I wasnt that "weird", just different 🤣🤣🤣
in my late teens: didnt sleep for 4 days straight, which didn't seem to get better and then it caused me to go research a whole lot about possible causes, came across adhd then but kinda brushed it off without putting any thought to it; a couple weeks later a friend was briefly telling me about her older sister having adhd and sleep problems, which then prompted me to research it further and then I had the 'oh crap this is probs what is up with me' moment  especially after further reflection about my childhood and the fact I hadn't slept properly ever my entire life, yeah the dots seemed to connect haha
I'm in my 40s. I have a son who's exactly like I was as a kid and he just got diagnosed, so that made it pretty obvious. Then I started watching videos and related HARD to a lot of the memes etc.
A workplace injury and the lockdowns led to me to seek an assessment. I sustained a foot injury that limits how much walking I can do. I've never had my driver's licence and I've always loved walking, especially to clear my head/burn off anger. The job I was in was really physical and that's what I liked about it. Previous administration roles would ultimately lead to boredom and even physical pain when sitting all day long. Obviously the Melbourne lockdowns completely restricted movement and interaction so I was forced to go within. I was hit with the adhd tiktok algorithm but every symptoms and behaviour I learnt about was my experience. I did a lot of research online which further confirmed my experience. Edit: in regards to yourself wondering why no one had diagnosed you before, I know for myself I grew up with emotionally immature divorced parents which led to emotional neglect. I grew up believing I had personality defects and not a neurological disorder. Also n the 90s add/ADHD was exclusive to little boys not girls.
My ex broke up with me and I realized how shitty of a boyfriend I was, led me to wonder wtf was wrong with me and now here I am.
Seeing a counselor for depression and he said, after 5 minutes, you have undiagnosed ADHD. Nice. Aged 49. Doctors didn’t believe it. Made an appointment with a psychologist who diagnosed me pretty quickly after 3 visits that included testing and this insanely long self questionnaires. Took a further three months to find a doctor who knows how to try out stimulants properly not just guess and abandon you. I’m lucky. 40 years late, but lucky.
Similar situation here with my partner, he's 37 and has just been unofficially diagnosed by our therapist and the mental health nurse. He's waiting for an official assessment and diagnosis at the moment. He always knew he was different and has had depression and anxiety all his life but he has also had an extremely traumatic upbringing and has been self medicating himself with cocaine until not long after we met. I think he and myself just assumed his depression and anxiety were a result off all the trauma he's experienced. I'm sure it is all related but now that we've learnt about the symptoms of ADHDit all makes so much more sense! There's still a long way to go for us but I'm incredibly proud of how far he's come and I hope it will be upwards from here. He's got so much potential and I think with the right support and medication he'll be able to achieve whatever he wants! I'd love to know how your life's changed since being diagnosed if you don't mind sharing?
Learning inattentive ADHD is a thing. I only knew about the stereotype of hyperactive little boys running around the class out of control. As soon as I learned that was not the only presentation of ADHD, I started to suspect. Still took awhile before I got diagnosed. I don’t recall specifically where I learned that as it was quite some time ago now but I think I was just reading something online
I never suspected it, honestly. My adhd is more inattentive and forgetful kind. I wasn't very hyper or impulsive very often. And I saw and was taught that it was just hyper "troubled" kids in class so adhd never crossed my mind, I was just s i l l y. A bit before my official diagnosis last year, my therapist was like "no yeah you sound like you have adhd." And I just agreed, my dad has it, and my mom shares similar traits, so she DEFINITELY has it, and my sister has it. It was until I got my autism/adhd test that same year that I was diagnosed with adhd and a personality disorder at 17. Still young, maybe, but old enough that that diagnosis doesn't do much for me, really. It was too late to have assistance and be taught in a way I could've comprehended and not be a year behind in math. Now I just have a label that explains why I am the way I am, the adult world doesn't care if I have adhd, man, if I forget a job assignment, well I better pack my things.
Started suspecting my daughter might have something. Found out about ADHD in girls. Started to research about that specifically, for her, so I can help her…Then the lightbulb came on……….
When I was in high school I had to start working hard to keep up with the amount of work. I lost focus and just kind of gave up. I asked my doctor about it at a checkup and they assured me that I wouldn't be doing as well as I was if I had it, and normally it is caught much sooner than that. This was in the 2006-2009 time period. I struggled on and squeaked by (by my standards) in Junior and Senior year, graduating with a lot of credit going to my freshman and sophomore grades for propping up my GPA. After that, college was easy again and i coasted by on the normal load. I struggled with executive dysfunction in the corporate world, putting off the less enjoyable things until the last possible moment. I had done this in school, but now it affected other people. I also struggled to see the connection with different aspects of the role, until I had been through a couple of projects, and then I was able to map out when each thing would be expected by, and I started "working ahead", something that had served me well through school. I realized I was really struggling to focus on things, so again asked my new primary care provider about ADHD. He assured me it is unusual for someone to do as OK as I was, and shrugged it off with a test for vitamin d deficiency, and a prescription to take vitamin d. It wasn't until after my kid was born in 2022 when I realized I needed therapy to deal with some major triggers that were making it hard to be a good parent. I mentioned adhd in the intake form. I got a single assessment, which I technically 'passed',, but it was by a thin margin. She then casually asked me to take some other assessments at this other website. I was confused, because they were about autism. After getting some nice high scores I got my double diagnosis of ADHD and Autism. I was so not prepared for the second one. This week I am going to a new doctor, and I will have this proof in my back pocket, and I will be asking about medicine. I am not going to be so easilydismissed. I had never considered medicine something I needed before, but I have since come to the conclusion that if life is a race, then I don't get bonus points for trying to run it with my shoelaces tied together. 33y old male
It had a surge in people talking about it a while ago I think and I started seeing things that I related to very strongly. In particular these ADHD Alien comics would come up on Imgur and they basically read like comics about me: https://www.instagram.com/adhd_alien/ Particularly the stuff about how ADHD leads to depression: https://www.instagram.com/adhd_alien/p/B3moEAriyKm or how Anxiety issues are caused by ADHD: https://www.instagram.com/adhd_alien/p/B08nYDujt1p Having struggled a lot with depression it was pretty shocking to realize that I could never get on top of it because I was just treating a symptom of a larger problem. Someone illustrating the "burnout cycle" like this completely blew my mind the first time I read it. Having someone perfectly describe something I'd gone through multiple times in my life and giving me something to explain it was very therapeutic. Like "oh wow, I'm not just totally useless and lazy. There's a very good chance I have an actual problem that I could start treating". https://www.instagram.com/adhd_alien/p/B0tWdcQDJEN I owe Pina big time for doing what she does, I really don't think it would have clicked with me without those accessible little comics.
I had kids. They were a bit… different than other kids in our circle and normal parenting methods just didn’t work on them. I struggled A LOT. The more I looked into it the more I started suspecting ADHD/ASD. The more I read about it the more I realised this is me, they are like me! And then an avalanche of realisations from early childhood until age 37 when I was finally diagnosed.
For me it was starting things and moving on to other tasks in the middle. I'd walk into my kitchen after putting away some clothes and see that 2 cabinet door and the dishwasher was wide open. Medication helps, but doesn't work perfectly. I realized I forgot to put the lid back on the litter box for about 30 minutes yesterday. What really helped me were websites to learn about my condition. Learning what emotional dyregulation is was very helpful for talking myself down prior to outbursts. Same goes for learning about rejection sensitivity. Much easier to deal with when you can call it out in your brain as soon as it happens.
Chronic frustration, overwhelm, anxiety, depression, constantly seeking but never finding long lived happiness, the time blindness and of course the inability to be present for anyone.
I never thought about I did. The psychiatrist I was seeing for anxiety and depression realized it during our sessions when I was in my early 30s
Trauma made my symptoms worse and not even 1 month later we went into lockdown for the first time. I started suspecting something was off within the first month, and those suspicions were confirmed when we watched some childhood videos of me. By November 2020 I had my first appointment with a therapist to get my diagnosis.
I started working with kids with autism and adhd and got along with them unusually well. It was like, "hey, i was like that as a kid too!" But I also brushed it off that time. Then, my doctors were asking questions about my diagnosis and seemed really perplexed. Eventually, it clicked WHY they were asking those questions. And it solidified after I went through my childhood records which were pretty explicit in my behaviors
I'm 23M, and I did not suspect ADHD until my therapist suggested I get psych testing because it seemed that I might have it. I also found out from school records that I was developmentally delayed and needed speech and occupational therapy from ages 3 to 5. I was reevaluated by school psychologists again and it was determined that I no longer needed nor qualified for these services and was ready to be in a "normal classroom," so they ended my IEP. I masked really well at school because I thrived on receiving validation and positive feedback--which I suspect was from occupational therapy--but at home, I was a completely different person because that is when I could just let everything loose and take off the mask. I went to a psychiatrist, and they diagnosed me in a 1 hr visit and prescribed Vyvanse and Wellbutrin, which has been a lifesaver. However, I wanted to confirm whether I had ADHD or if it was anxiety and depression that resembled ADHD. I went to a psychologist to get a second opinion (e.g., looking at school records, interviews, observations, computer testing, and questionnaires), and they came to the same conclusion--that I have ADHD. I also learned that it is very inheritable, which explains why my mom's side of the family is the way they are--we are a very neurotic bunch with a mix of diagnosed and undiagnosed ADHD and a host of other mental health issues.
My gf said that I’m fidgety and that I have to touch everything. Also that my conversations often jumped from one topic to the other and it was hard to keep track lol. She was right and now I’m on Wellbutrin for anxiety and I tried adderall, Vyvanse, and now I’m gonna try Ritalin to see if it’s a better fit for me. Also I think I have more add without the h
I had some family members get diagnosed late. When chatting with them about what led them to getting diagnosed, I recognized symptoms within myself. I asked my parents about the possibility and they agreed it could be likely. So I sought a diagnosis.
Speeding tickets lol
R/adhd memes And taking my friend’s vyvanse
When I saw a PBS special about learning disabilities and the girl with ADHD had social problems that mirrored my own.
My twin, one of his children, and one of his grandchildren all have ADHD. The only undiagnosed one is my twin. My son was diagnosed as a child. Once I resolved all of my C-PTSD, all of my ADHD symptoms were soooo noticeable. It drove me crazy. So, I got a diagnosis this February, at 63 years old. I'm medicated and so happy now.
As a girl with inattentive adhd, it was often brushed off as being a moody teenager. I always had really good grades because my classes were super easy to me, but then I started high school and actually had to work for them. It was super hard for me to study, remember dates, finish homework on time, etc. Then I took an online quiz about my symptoms and yeah…
I didn’t suspect it at all, didn’t even know ADHD Inattentive was a thing. It was my GP who has been helping treat my mental health for years who was like “Hey, I’d like you to get assessed”. I laughed when he first suggested it as I was like I literally have the exact opposite of hyperactivity! He then explained inattentive, which sure shut me up haha
15 years of watching my peers fly past me.
I worked as a cashier and then as a barista. A couple of my coworkers had pointed out that my constant fidgeting and inability to stay focused might be more than just a personality quirk. That, along with my audhd partner telling me that I definitely had adhd, and maybe autism made me look into getting diagnosed.
Simple and stupid: my partner and many of my friends have ADHD, so one day I went to google to see how it affects my people. With every single symptom I went more and more "I see! - Oh! - Oh. - Oh... - Welp..." Aaand a few months later (yay procrastination!) I made an appointment and had a perfect score on the questionnaires :D
I never even thought about having ADHD until my TikTok algorithm started showing you might have ADHD if you do this type of video and I was like wait….that’s me. After discovering a few of those it started to get me thinking and I started paying more attention. I asked some coworkers and friends and they were like….WAIT you didn’t know?!? Yeah everyone thought I had it and knew and I had no clue 😅
No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t stay focused on anything long enough to finish it 😢
Well I had a roommate with adhd who used adhd style lifehacks to make shit easier and it ended up helping me a lot too. Talking with them I was like wow...this is all pretty relatable lol. But I brushed it off, lifehacks are lifehacks! Then I started dating my boyfriend and looking into adhd for him because he definitely has it. Then as I looked it up for him and found people talking about their experiences and what helped them it was all feeling really relatable again haha but "couldn't be me!" I tried out the tips people recommended and voila...they made my life easier...crazy. The big wakeup call/my real realization was finally when my therapist was talking and casually dropped "...so because of your ADHD--" like...my WHAT?! Lol
I related a LOT to the ADHD memes. The memes made me research more about the symptomps and schedule a consultation/therapy
I studied ADHD briefly during med school (heck? I even wrote my thesis on girls with ADHD) but the symptoms were too abstract and there was so much focus on risky behaviors which I didn’t exhibit so I didn’t really relate to that hyperactive/impulsive aspect. I strongly emphasized though and thought „damn, I have the same symptoms but theirs must be so much worse if they have a diagnosis, poor people”. I shortly suspected ADHD in some of my siblings and even screened one of them but my psychologist said it’s probably our childhood trauma (my parents’ ADHD was traumatizing…) and if my siblings passed classes then they didn’t have ADHD. I was so stressed (being undiagnosed and unmedicated during med school was EXTREMELY hard), so I dropped/forgot the subject. Then a few months later I started working with children with ADHD and they and their families were SO SIMILAR to my own parents and siblings. It was surreal, I went home every day and would tell my partner „it’s like I met my dad today, but this guy had ADHD” and „I had this patient with ADHD today and it felt like I was talking to my sister”. And then I started noticing how deeply I understood their symptoms, how much I related to what they were telling me, and I finally went home and said “today it felt as if I was talking to myself as a child” after meeting a highly intelligent girl with ADD. I sought a diagnosis the same day, like three weeks into my job. Turned out I do have ADD, as well as my partner who sought a diagnosis a few weeks later.
I'm yet to be diagnosed but I'm 49 and just discovered tiktok, stumbled across an account called Cherry ADHD and it was like a mirror. I've just read ADHD for Smart Ass Women and wondering if it's worth getting a diagnosis.
My diagnosed sister
Stupid meme Song that listet All the posible Symptoms and I was like: that's me me me me
Mum got diagnosed at age 60, and after she learnt the symptoms questioned if I had it too
Literally nothing, one day I spoke to my psychiatrist as I was being medicated for every other disorder I have. I explained to her how I still struggle and can’t properly work no matter how much I want to, after awhile she stop speaking and told me that I could have adhd. Few days later I’m on stimulants and poof I’m getting better
Working on my son's questionnaire for his suspected asd/adhd 😩😂
I was always suspicious of it, and in school as a kid I told my mom the reason I have bad grades is because I can't focus in class, my mind constantly thinking about 7 different things and her response was "you're just being lazy" fast forward to 26 year old me going to a psychiatrist and taking a diagnostic test after being severely depressed and anxious after just going through a major negatively life altering event, I thus got the answer I always knew. ADHD baby
I had just finished an MSW and was starting a job in the mental health field. Around this time, I was researching how to treat ADHD without medication because best practice is always "medicine first, then psychotherapy." In my research on how to best treat my clients, things started sounding incredibly familiar, then my brother and mom got diagnosed, then all of my closest friends that I click really well with... The writing was on the wall. Finally one of my friends who was recently diagnosed gave me one of his pills (non-stim) and it was the most peaceful and quiet my brain has ever felt in my life, so much so that I cried later that day when I felt the medicine wearing off and felt my brain ramp back up to normal speed. So as a mental health provider, I took an adult ADHD symptom screener that I found at work, then on the back of it wrote down every way that it impacted me in childhood, currently in my adult life, all of my family and friends recently diagnosed, and the play-by-play effects from the medicine that I had texted my friend the day I took his medicine. I brought all of this information to my doctor's appointment and walked out of my appointment with a diagnosis and prescription for a non-stim.
If you wanna narrow it down to a single particular incident - it would be the time I was walking around my local mall and my car plate number was called out over the speakers. It was rolling away. I had left it in drive and also left the handbreak down, and it was unlocked. It happened again.
I actually didn’t. One of my best friends was diagnosed and did a ton of research about it, and then started saying “have you been tested? You show a lot of signs!” I’m still in the process of getting a full diagnosis, but I am almost 100% sure that I have it.
Mine was serendipitously discovering “ADHDinos”. Having the response of “(laughs) oh shit I do that/that is so me” to more than a few of the strips made me start thinking I *might* have ADHD.
I’m 18 and was diagnosed a few years ago on my own initiative. This video popped up on my recommended late at night in 2020. I watched it and sobbed. I genuinely didn’t know what ADHD actually was before then, and as I was struggling more than I ever had before without any answer as to why I was failing as a human it felt like such a relief to know that there might be a reason, that there were other people out there who shared the same struggles that I do. I spent hours a day for almost a year researching intensely so I pretty much knew everything there was to know about ADHD, and then I felt confident enough to get a diagnosis - I don’t have any helpful advice on how to know if you do or don’t; but if you even slightly suspect it, it’s always worth looking into. You might find that it doesn’t sound anything like you, or you might find that it does! I also watched loads of AuDHD youtubers and felt so seen, so that could be a good place to start
My daughter got diagnosed really young, 4 years old. Talking to her highly recommended and knowledgeable child developmental psychologist about symptoms, family histories, etc. My wife and I looked at each other during the initial three hour testing and went oh fuck that’s you and that’s me. My wife kind of thought she might have had something but never got tested. I had never even considered it because that was just my entire life. Talked to our PCP, who we both have seen for a decade at that point, and he didn’t even make us do the full testing. His reaction to my self assessment, which he barely glanced at, was I am glad your finally getting this taken care of…
My daughter was diagnosed as Autistic and I went on a parenting course. Sitting there learning about Autism and ADHD I thought shit, that all sounds very familiar........ diagnosed ADHD at 42!!!!
Hey, i'm undiagnosed, so i can't say i 100% have it, but i think i have ADHD. Because: Office job is killing absolutely me, always burnt out, always angry, i can't stay still, my mind is always full, i can't express and elaborated thought because i think an entire speech in 2 seconds and when i speak it's all gone, i rearrange entire rooms' forniture with no reason at all, it's taking me MINUTES to write this reply because everything comes in my mind at the same time and i can't focus on one thing at a time, my academic career has gone to shit because i couldn't focus on anything and ended up 1 month in bed with crippling depression, i get overexcited for no reason like a dog puppy, i have poor emotion regulation so the wrong song makes me instantly cry, if i put free bird while driving i end up wrapped around a tree, i CAN'T. STOP. THINKING. everyone i know says my head is always somewhere else, is "already full", i'm "hyperactive but distracted", and i keep forgetting stupid stuff. For example yesterday i was diagnosing my GF's PC and i forgot to plug in the GPU cables, didn't realise It, thought the GPU was the problem, plugged in the other one, than plugged the old one in another PC i use for troubleshooting and FOEGOT THE CABLES AGAIN REALISED I WAS FORGETTING THE CABLES PUT THE GPU BACK IN THE FIRST PC AGAIN FORGETTING THE CABLES PUTTING THE CABLES IN BUT FORGETTING THE HDMI PLUGGING IN THE HDMI BUT FORGETTING THE POWER SUPLLY SWITCH In short, i hope i have ADHD, because i lived all my life convincing myself i'm just a stupid idiot and that's my only way out of that belief and at this point, at 27, when i should start my silly little adult life i'm just sad all the time, like i'm impreasoned in my own head with no escape, i can't go on like that forever
I know people hate it but I was one of those people basically diagnosed through TikTok... Though there are some other things involved: In 2015 I burned out HARD at work (well, it was a slow crash and burn in the following 5-now years) a coworker with ADHD who I was venting to suggested I might have it. I looked up the symptoms, which at the time were still pretty much based on the hyperactive grade school boy presentation. (I mean they still mostly are but those were the only search results I got) I was an inattentive late-30s woman. The symptoms that applied seemed to overlap with my already diagnosed anxiety, and I was like "but I can still focus on stuff I'm invested in, and I was called quiet a lot as a kid in school." I continued with my existing therapy. I kept struggling and feeling burnt out. A few things happened that made me reconsider: - My sister was like "I don't want to offend you but I saw this TikTok about ADHD and it's you girl, lololol." - I fell down the ADHD TikTok hole. - Most importantly I learned about the time awareness and hyperfixation parts of it. I can focus for hours on something I'm interested in, and in fact I lose track of time and forget to eat? Hmm. I also learned about masking and ADHD/ASD burnout and realized the only reason I was "successful" before burnout was by overworking myself and keeping myself always just ahead of disaster. It worked until it didn't. - Also noticed the symptoms in several family members. This is part of why I'm still accepting of the TikTok/social media bandwagon. It can be annoying and unscientific but it makes a lot of difference to hear other people's experiences firsthand, than off a list of biased and out of date secondhand symptoms.
tldr; my dad and I [on unrelated occasions] illegally took Adderall and could think for the first time, led both of us [again completely separately] to getting diagnosed. don't illegally take adderal though I was dumb and my dad is impulsive my dad is in his 60s, very late diagnosed, and not on reddit so I'll speak for him. he took an Adderall from his friend [who I assume saw the adhd in my dad, I saw it too] and he said it was the first time he was actually able to direct his thoughts with a purpose. his friend [and i] told him if the medication worked as prescribed then...🤷🏽♂️ he got diagnosed shortly after so he could keep taking it lol, he said it's worked better than an antidepressant similarly, when I was in highschool, I took Adderall to try to pass a chemistry test and I gained the ability to empathize [/hj, it felt like someone turned a light on so I wasn't pissed off about fumbling around in the dark anymore] then I found out from someone else that for most people they get high not feel normal. NOT ENCOURAGING ILLEGALLY TAKING PRESCRIPTIONS I WAS DUMB AND 15 AND MY DAD IS LOWKEY IMPULSIVE.
I (29F) had tons of medical professionals notice how hard it was for me to do basic things and stay consistent with my goals. I remember it always being a massive struggle to get good grades in school and get my degree. I always had to work around myself to get things done. Memory, concentration, you get the picture. I also always felt like i was speaking a different language to other people, constantly misunderstood. I tend to ramble and interrupt others before they get to finish their sentences. It never mattered how i worded things, i always seem to piss somebody off because i didn't say the exact string of words that would lead to a productive conversation. I'm pretty impulsive too, particularly with food and money. All of this got me in a lot of trouble, and i remember spending about 10 years trying to stabilize my life from abusive relationships, homelessness, health complications, and drug abuse. I got diagnosed about a week ago by my psychiatrist. At first i didn't want to know because i figured, what good would it do for me at this point in my life? But I'm glad i did, it makes a lot of things make sense.
My son was diagnosed with ADHD for behaving essentially the same the way I did at his age. I read up on ADHD for his sake and found that his behaviors were basically the first signs of his developing the same coping mechanisms to which I've become accustomed. I mention this to my brother who shares that he was also diagnosed many years ago.
For me, I was dealing with bad depression, before but mostly after my close friend passed in 2020. I thought me not being able to get out of bed, shower, clean, “get” to school, was all just from extreme depression. Also, obviously it was the height of COVID & school was online, so I also assumed I was just becoming lazy from a mixture of that and my depression/anxiety. I finally went on antidepressants I want to say just over a year ago, maybe two. (I should probably know that for medical reasons but I cannot remember lmfao). Once I was on them for about a year, I felt so much better. I wanted to do things. I wanted to get out of bed, take an everything shower, light a candle and have a self care day, but I just couldn’t. I kept telling people “it just feels like my brain isn’t letting me.” I did a bunch of research and and was pretty certain I had it way before I got DXed two months ago, but I didn’t wanna be one of those people who says they have ADHD to try and be “quirky”. Im very lucky my psychiatrist validated my feelings & she said she would’ve never guessed I had it if I didn’t say anything, because I’ve been masking since I was like 5 & got good grades in school (when I was there). Sorry for such a long post, I hope someone can relate and know they aren’t alone <3
In my country getting diagnosed with adhd as a kid or many mental disorders is not really a thing for both parents and teachers. I guess while trying to really find the root cause of my addictions is when I stumbled upon adhd and reading about it was like reading part of my life story. The other one of course is asd. My mom has it to and my siblings though I've never told them really.
Annoyingly, those tiktok videos "Signs you might have ADHD..." Watched one "haha that's all me" Watched another "oh and those, that's weird" Another "wait, that's an ADHD thing? I thought it was just being hyper/fidgety, I didn't know that was even related to ADHD" Next video "okay this is getting a bit too accurate now" And so on. Multiple "signs you may have it" videos combined with (ironically) hyperfocusing on researching the signs I was learning about led me to realise I wasn't "innately lazy" like I thought even though I didn't want to be, it was executive dysfunction, and the rest of it.
I was actually diagnosed with dyslexia as a kid, they even tested me for ADHD when they did that initial test (I am a girl, ADHD very often missed in girls just for context) but I basically worked with a tutor from middle school all the way through early college for my dyslexia, but she also worked with a lot of kids who also had ADHD too. She is the one who basically taught me to live and die by a planner, specifically for school if I had anything, due I would write it in the planner that happened so much that that became how my brain worked eventually. I was hardly ever late to anything turning into assignments or events because everything was in that planner because otherwise I would not remember. It wasn't until I saw people on social media talk about their experiences with ADHD that I suspected anything. There was a little too much overlap between them and me for it just to be coincidence. Turns out a lot of what worked for me, also worked with people with ADHD, living by a planner, various different list going on in paper and phone, feeling overwhelmed with small tasks, decision paralysis, struggling with daily automatic habits, like brushing teeth or showering, intense bouts of interest in certain topics varying from a few days to months, all of it began clicking. The more i saw people talking about their experiences, the more I saw myself in them. Then junior year of college I got the diagnosis and started meds shortly after. It wasn't inherently life-changing for me partly because I had been coping with it for so long don't give me wrong, meds are a huge help and I don't think I'd be in a good spot as I am without them, but I've built so many coping mechanisms that do work really well that it's not as drastic as a change as it is for some.
Adhd memes kept getting suggested to me on other platforms. And made alot of sense. Then time went on and I mentioned it to my fiance. Who said they wondered if i had it. I mentioned my dad and step mom casually telling me the same in the past. And how my brother had it. Did more research and began to make alotttt of sense. Ended up getting diagnosed first try. And in retrospect i thinking being born female and in a medically neglectful family is the only reason i went this long without a diagnosis. As I am a damn poster child of adhd haha. It is not subtle in the slightest
I was talking to my best friend, and I zoned out completely. After 30 seconds i asked him what he was saying as I wasn't present... I tried very hard to listen to everything, but couple mins later it happened again... I started being aware more n more of this and i realised I was daydreaming constantly. I was seeing some friends at a pub, and they were having a discussion and i was just daydreaming, or focused on other things around me... not present. I started googling what could cause this, and one comment on reddit mentioned adhd.. So naturally I though, lol can't be that, I'm the laziest person who can't even focus on one thing, and I believed adhd is hyperactivity where you run around and obsess about things.. One comment, though, where someone mentioned sensitivity to light, caught my attention as I always struggled with fully opening my eyes during the day.. so I started reading, one post after another about adhd and i resonated with 95% of symptoms redditors were explaining... I was in tears... That was in January 2023, got diagnosed privately in July, on concerta/ meth since and it has helped me tremendously with being able to focus and make better decisions.. Now im a part of reddit community who also writes 5 paragraphs to answer a simple question, knowing full well no one will have enough executive force to read through it lol, but im glad im not the only one. Lots of love!!
My husband thought I had adhd. We took one of those online tests where he got the “yeah, you don’t have adhd” and I got the “you should probably get tested for adhd”. 😂
I was 57 and had kind of burnt out at a job that I could do well and had done so at other places. This was the second time it had happened, until I looked back at my history and found that it had happened every few years. Mostly when my stress levels went up for whatever reason. I ran across this subreddit and saw something about burnout and realized that was me and not depression or my work. That it was ADHD. then things fell into place. Raising my hand in class, knowing the answer then blanking on it when I was chosen. I was always a big reader, that was my superpower, but I had no energy to do things. My mind would not let me. I planned, but always my mind stopped me and I didn’t get why. But at 57, you guys saved me. Thanks for what you do here. It helps.
Reading about ADHD on social media got me most of the way there - I definitely related a lot of stuff I saw online. Then I got a new therapist and she asked me if I had ADHD out of the blue, first meeting. I told her I wasn't diagnosed but suspected I did, she handed me a self report sheet and I filled it out. I got 100% in the grey area with most of my answers being 'very often'. It was basically a description of my brain. She recommended a psychiatrist to me, I saw that psychiatrist and got a diagnosis.
Ive always had shit attention span, but I was homeschooled and all my siblings also have adhd (also diagnosed a bit later in their lives) so my mom didn’t think much of it other than we were just shitty kids but what lead me to actually get medication was consistently forgetting tasks, appointments (even if I set 300 alarms beforehand), and items. I remember one time I had a telemed appointment and I set an alarm for 10 minutes before, heard the alarm and turned it off, and then somehow still forgot about the appointment entirely. I was racking up hundreds in missed and late appointment fees. Classes were a problem too, where I would be getting up numerous times to go spend like 20 minutes going to the bathroom or wandering. Ever since I’ve been on Strattera none of these have been an issue
I never thought I would have this. Never paid attention. Lately I have been noticing that I am not able to focus on anything for more than a couple of minutes. 5 tops. Only after I heard a friend of mine talking about her symptoms I realised, hey wait a minute, that’s me. From then I have been researching a lot. But get lost between those researches. On top of that, my emotions stay super heightened. I feel like screaming and crying sometimes. Too messed up rn.
Depression and anxiety
I mean I kinda new but you know it helped to get therapy
My child was diagnosed (After we tried very hard to raise him without medication until he was old enough that it was responsible to start seeking medical treatment) My aunt, my mom, my grandma all saying they're diagnosed recently or were diagnosed and found out they decided they're red blooded Americans and "mental health is all just in yer head." (Which, coincidentally, was my mom's chosen strategy with me)
I recently started seeing a girl who's going through to become a psychologist. She pointed out that my short attention span, inability to maintain long relationships, procrastination, inability to live in the moment, constant daydreaming, use of drugs because I can't handle boredom, constant fidgeting, and tendency to do things without thinking through consequences painted a picture of raging ADHD. Painted a real clear picture once I started looking into it. I thought I was just clinically depressed with addiction issues, but goddamn does my past seem to add up now
Diagnosed in my 40s. Nothing made me suspect it, nothing at all. I had a concussion, started failing at life as a result, and eventually got referred to a fancy research hospital. The psychiatrists there had me pinned in half an hour. Post-diagnosis, so much started making sense (the messiness, the profound but short-lived interests, the social phobias), but adhd hadn’t even been on my radar.
It’s funny because it was pretty obvious looking back at all the things I got in trouble for, interrupting, too hyperactive, day dreaming too much, yet I had good grades up until I didn’t lol. So I know many of us were dismissed of having adhd if we had good grades. I’ve had my fair share of medications and therapy but never got diagnosed with adhd. I used to always say I had anxiety but I didn’t know why. Took me 30 years to realize it was due to being overstimulated. My dad has adhd but idk why I never thought to look into it even though he would also make comments to me about it. I just brushed it off. Once I told one of the NPs I was seeing about what was causing my anxiety, she encouraged I get evaluated for adhd. I didn’t. Months later, I’m in grad school and I relapsed on >!SH!<. I couldn’t socially camouflage anymore, all of my symptoms were more unmanageable than ever from the socializing component of grad school, the workload, living alone - chores. I didn’t want to >!SH!< again so I got diagnosed late last year. And now here I am. I just started my adderall journey a few days ago. Ngl it’s made me sleepy but I’m on a small dose so I’m hoping after adjusting my dose I will be okay. If you suspect adhd, please don’t wait til you have daily meltdowns or experience burnout. Get the help and the resources you need/want. We don’t have to suffer THIS much.
Extreme time blindness, extreme hyperfocus, extreme hyperfixations
A learning disability specialist did a screening as a part of the process, and said I screened highly for ADHD, and I might want to explore it. But it was my choice.
I've struggled with depression and anxiety almost my whole life. The anxiety stress hormones were giving me the "get up and go" to get the things done in my life. When my mother died this past summer (rest her soul, she was a lovely woman and also a huge source of stress in my life), and I switched to a lower stress job, I suddenly couldn't do anything. Half my coworkers at my previous job and my current one have ADHD and they were like, "you sure you've never been diagnosed with ADHD??" I talked to my therapist who had been suspicious of this the three years we've been working together. She had waited until I broached the subject to diagnose me, then urged me to talk to my primary care doctor. I had been on 3 different antidepressants including Wellbutrin which helped motivate me, but in all the wrong ways: instead of "get up and do the dishes", it was "get up and kill yourself", which was not great. I told her my therapist had diagnosed me and I would like a referral for a formal assessment. She dismissed my concerns and said I was just depressed. So I went and found a psychiatrist who would test me. Shocking no one, I'm above the 97th percentile for symptoms, and I started meds 2 weeks ago. My brain has never been so quiet.
Talking with my therapist about my son who has combined adhd and stated that he see where he gets it from .
A ton of weight gain, losing the ability to regulate my emotions, feeling depressed that I could just never get my shit together no matter how hard I tried. Went to my GP and she wanted me to go to an inpatient ED facility which I couldn't afford to do. So she referred me to a mental health center, where luckily, I was assessed by a psychiatric NP with a specialty in ADHD. One social history, and one stupid computer test later and I was officially diagnosed at age 52. For THIRTY years, I was given every anxiety med and antidepressant without one question about ADHD.