ADHD in adults

I was diagnosed earlier this year at the ripe old age of 41! It was both a complete shock whilst also being stark nakedly obvious. I’ve come to realise that there are many contradictory aspects of having ADHD.

I’ve tried medication and it just wasn’t for me. By that I mean that I’m not dismissing outright but I feel it dulls my senses and personality that much, that it has to be a last resort for me, once all other options have been explored.

My symptoms are:

Procrastination to the point where it causes anxiety.
I forget things literally as they happen (I’ll go to google search something or look for an email at work and some random thought or noise will distract me and cause I’ll completely forget what I was doing)
I’m impulsive - I can make rash decisions, interrupt people when a thought pops into my head, I can make stupid purchases, speak my mind before fully formulating my idea or opinion etc.
I can stop listening and zone out mid-conversation.
I start a project and be 100% invested in it, only to lose all interest as it goes live (hobbies are the same, relationships were like that until I met my wife and friendships are often like that now)

However now I’m aware I have added several strategies to help me and I keep adding new check points and systems as I go along using trial and error and lots of reading.

One thing that does annoy me is how people on social media try to make it trendy and cool when in most cases it’s actually really debilitating. There are so many misconceptions about neurodivergence still today in 2023 and those posts do not help.

Anyway I’m going off an a tangent now…obviously lol
 
Winston Smith said:
I was diagnosed earlier this year at the ripe old age of 41! It was both a complete shock whilst also being stark nakedly obvious. I’ve come to realise that there are many contradictory aspects of having ADHD.

I’ve tried medication and it just wasn’t for me. By that I mean that I’m not dismissing outright but I feel it dulls my senses and personality that much, that it has to be a last resort for me, once all other options have been explored.

My symptoms are:

Procrastination to the point where it causes anxiety.
I forget things literally as they happen (I’ll go to google search something or look for an email at work and some random thought or noise will distract me and cause I’ll completely forget what I was doing)
I’m impulsive - I can make rash decisions, interrupt people when a thought pops into my head, I can make stupid purchases, speak my mind before fully formulating my idea or opinion etc.
I can stop listening and zone out mid-conversation.
I start a project and be 100% invested in it, only to lose all interest as it goes live (hobbies are the same, relationships were like that until I met my wife and friendships are often like that now)

However now I’m aware I have added several strategies to help me and I keep adding new check points and systems as I go along using trial and error and lots of reading.

One thing that does annoy me is how people on social media try to make it trendy and cool when in most cases it’s actually really debilitating. There are so many misconceptions about neurodivergence still today in 2023 and those posts do not help.

Anyway I’m going off an a tangent now…obviously lol
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This and NoloBoro's last post resonate so much it hurts. The distractions, the losing focus, the interrupting, the impulsive and self-destructive behaviour, taking everything to heart, etc., etc. . GOD! My emotions have been all over the shop since I had my diagnosis on Monday. I was in an emotional mess for most of yesterday and am still having bouts of introspection, doubt and recrimination. I think I need to write it down, draw it, paint it...just do something to get it all out of my head. I just worry if it would ever stop... :D

Thank God for this board and other online forums full of great people where we can vent and share and realise we weren't just lazy oddballs all along.
 
Dealing with your diagnosis is tough. I’ve read people saying things like “it was liberating”. That wasn’t my experience, I actually had a bit of an identity crisis, not knowing what was actually my personality and what was because I have ADHD. Which in hindsight is a bit daft but I really struggled with it at first.

Now that I am aware I can focus on the negative side and control the controllable, an example would be if something was going wrong I’d blame EVERYONE else and think poor me. Now I realise that quite often it’s not about me at all and deal accordingly or change how I feel about it.
 
I was diagnosed about 18 months ago. I tried medication but they didnt make any difference.
I accepted that I fit the profile but I dont see what I have with ADHD as an illness. I see it as parts of my personality.
I have chronic depression - thats my problem. My shrink speculated that the depression follows untreated ADHD but I think we quickly put that right to bed, in may case.
 
Why is it taking someone one to be 30, 40, sometimes 50 + for them to be diagnosed? Is it because not everyone with adhd is super hyperactive? Hyperactivity can be a multitude of things, not necessarily the kid in the class that is running around like a headless chicken.
 
MoggasDog said:
I was diagnosed about 18 months ago. I tried medication but they didnt make any difference.
I accepted that I fit the profile but I dont see what I have with ADHD as an illness. I see it as parts of my personality.
I have chronic depression - thats my problem. My shrink speculated that the depression follows untreated ADHD but I think we quickly put that right to bed, in may case.
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Depression is often misdiagnosed in people with ADHD, being confused with the times when the brain goes into a mental crash, which very many ADHD sufferers experience.

Apologies if this isn't the case with you, but I felt it might help to raise this.
 
GibbosEmpire said:
Why is it taking someone one to be 30, 40, sometimes 50 + for them to be diagnosed? Is it because not everyone with adhd is super hyperactive? Hyperactivity can be a multitude of things, not necessarily the kid in the class that is running around like a headless chicken.
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The hyperactivity is often a hyperactive mind rather than physically hyperactive. It varies from person to person but in my case it’s as if I have a head full of bees and each bee is a thought, flying in and out.
 
NoloBoro said:
The thing is with ADHD, there are some positives. It isn’t all negative.
For instance, it practically impossible to creep up behind me.
For all I lack focus, or at least more so without medication, I miss nothing as far as movement around me.
It’s weird I can’t explain it, if I open a cupboard and something falls out, even if I’m looking the other way, I can always catch it.
I’m a very good driver. Better since advanced training as a rozzer. Can hear the boos 😁
Never been tagged at work.
I wonder if any of you can relate to these things??
Also, if I’m interested in something, it becomes everything, my two things are books and music.
If I hear a song I like, I get the lyrics, straight off, usually in one listen, this was useful when I flirted with the idea of being in a rock band, it didn’t work out as I was painfully shy… well that and the fact that I’d joined the band last and within a fortnight, I’d rattled the lead guitarist’s girlfriend during one of my insane pleasure seeking dopamine hunts, this despite the fact that I really loved the guy. I was sorry as hell afterwards but damage done.
Now for the bad…
I’ve always had a self destruct button the size of a bus steering wheel.
Get really ***ed off at the slightest criticism, taking it as a personal slight.
I can feel wounded by people not doing what I think they should, also take the personally.
Feel things very deeply, quick to anger, quick to calm, them wonder why people are still ***ed off at me when I’m then okay.

Have great ideas, they sweep me up and whoosh, my interest has vanished, usually after enthusing others who them get really annoyed.

This thread has been great, it’s cathartic, I’ve had counselling, it didn’t work, always felt like you were describing the water you were drowning in!

Genuinely interested to hear of others having similar feelings, experiences especially the physical side of things.
Or, as I suspect as I had for years that I’m just plain odd, odd and that now someone has labelled it!

We are all individuals so will have different experiences and ways of interpreting things.

I’m just so glad i understand now why I can’t do things others do, why their sensible adult conversations sometimes seem a mystery and I often wonder wtf they are talking about.
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Love the criticism bit, I've been the same. We (as a company) are big on feedback, so it's always painful to get negative, or what I perceive as negative. However, I do go out of my way to ask for feedback, still nips a bit if it's not positive (I suppose most of us don't like negative feedback), but I think it's good, and show's me how can I improve. Work in progress!

Interest levels are the same, very debatable! It's a 'superpower' the thinking outside the box, so keep that up.

I'm an ask for forgiveness not permission person as well. This initially drove my boss mad, but he understands now. I bypass the hierarchy to get projects or ideas off the ground. The alternative is that things just don't get past the first barrier. He lets me loose now (within reason), as I get things done, my 'Black Ops' as I call it.

Definitely agree about the positives. Passion, drive, focus (as long as the interest levels are there!). There are no set criteria for the 'symptoms', what affects you may not affect me and vice versa.

Physical traits, agree with the quick to anger, 0-100 in milliseconds, road rage then calm straight away! a lot better now with medication.
 
The forgiveness rather than permission but definitely resonates.
Had a positive experience with a mentor at work, was training when I changed roles and he was quite candid regarding shortcomings but did it in a good way, I still take things personally though.
Trying desperately now to work on a reaction gap, this might make sense to you or maybe not but I want to prevent what’s in my head coming out of my mouth, I find a lot of things really funny, before I am able to consider whether some thing is an appropriate response- bang- it’s out.
As for hierarchy, I’ll often only do something if I consider it to be a good idea, caused no end of trouble for me so far 😂
 
Winston Smith said:
The hyperactivity is often a hyperactive mind rather than physically hyperactive. It varies from person to person but in my case it’s as if I have a head full of bees and each bee is a thought, flying in and out.
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Legs always bouncing, or tapping feet, twitching toes etc. singing, whistling drives my missus barmy. She quite often says ffs can’t you sit still.
The bees thing makes sense. I can think of about five or six things at the same time, none of them particularly well mind!
 
NoloBoro said:
The forgiveness rather than permission but definitely resonates.
Had a positive experience with a mentor at work, was training when I changed roles and he was quite candid regarding shortcomings but did it in a good way, I still take things personally though.
Trying desperately now to work on a reaction gap, this might make sense to you or maybe not but I want to prevent what’s in my head coming out of my mouth, I find a lot of things really funny, before I am able to consider whether some thing is an appropriate response- bang- it’s out.
As for hierarchy, I’ll often only do something if I consider it to be a good idea, caused no end of trouble for me so far 😂
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Haha, yup. I'm a bit better with the blurting out, or 'calling it what it is' now.

Same, can't sit still, unless binge watching Netflix or the like, or engrossed in something, book, uni work etc.
 
Jonny Ingbar said:
Depression is often misdiagnosed in people with ADHD, being confused with the times when the brain goes into a mental crash, which very many ADHD sufferers experience.

Apologies if this isn't the case with you, but I felt it might help to raise this.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. My wife has ADHD - took out a loan for a private diagnosis as she was refused access to a level 4 counselling course after a bad reference from a course provider who nonetheless awarded her a Level 3 but had been exasperated by her disorganisation. I told her not to bother: it had long been obvious to me she had ADHD.
I mention this because she was prescribed anti-depressants after her beloved father died and can't get off them. Her brother - also diagnosed with ADHD - has been on them for years and has recently, and somewhat amazingly, managed to come off them and has started microdosing with mushrooms.
The doctor/philosopher Gabor Mate, whose videos my wife is fond of watching, believes ADHD is a defence mechanism linked to childhood fear, pain, distress, trauma. That's why more poor children are diagnised with ADHD. My mother-in-law lost her mother at 7 (leaving her father to raise 7 kids alone in County Mayo) and filled my wife and her brother with anxiety (still does), so fearful was she that that sense of loss she's felt at 7 would be repeated. She wouldn't let them turn the TV over in case they got electrocuted!

Gabor Mate speaking to Steven Bartlett
 
Adrian Chiles was on Winter Walks last night talking about how he has been diagnosed with ADD as opposed to ADHD.
I looked it up afterwards.
"What Is Attention Deficit Disorder? Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) is a term used for people who have excessive difficulties with concentration without the presence of other ADHD symptoms such as excessive impulsiveness or hyperactivity."
 
fmttmadmin said:
Adrian Chiles was on Winter Walks last night talking about how he has been diagnosed with ADD as opposed to ADHD.
I looked it up afterwards.
"What Is Attention Deficit Disorder? Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) is a term used for people who have excessive difficulties with concentration without the presence of other ADHD symptoms such as excessive impulsiveness or hyperactivity."
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I don't think they class it as ADD anymore, it comes under the bracket of ADHD now, I don't have the physical hyperactivity either but my mind is constantly racing, thats the hyperactivity bit for me, like a thousand mice running around and can't stop, it's exhausting.
 
Along with sleep disorders, paralysis, occasional aural hallucinations. Exhausted, gone to bed for an early night an hour ago. Absolute waste of F***ing time. Now I’ll be awake for ages, eventually be brave enough to turn lights off again.
 
h_m_boro said:
Waiting to get my daughter (she's 19) diagnosed as we are convinced she has it. 2 year waiting list or pay over a grand to go private.

Did some research into it and she is ticking all of the boxes, and explains an awful lot of her behaviour.

So we have to struggle on with what has become pretty much a daily rollercoaster - and it's hard, and we can't do a thing about it.
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I feel your pain my 20yr old son is definitely on the spectrum but we were told could be up to3yrs for diagnosis just gotta help them as best we can however hard it is
 
Update since my last post in September.

Last week I wore my very expensive headphones to walk to the pub to listen to a podcast on the way.
made a point to not lose them…. Within the hour they had gone. Didn’t realise until 2 days later 😂

So now I’ve stopped myself from
Taking anything valuable out. I cannot trust myself!

It’s a nightmare but I’m learning all of the time, now I know it can’t be helped.
It certainly takes the pressure off beating yourself up about things.
 
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