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I visited my first psychiatrist this year and told him I have concerns that I was adhd.
I shit you not a fucking Dr of psychiatry told me that was very unlikely because they would’ve caught it when I was a child.
Fucking moron.
I didn’t get diagnosed until I was just under 30, medication has done wonders for myself since. I don’t think my parents had a clue, I was quite smart, if I had medication in my school days I can only wonder what I may have achieved, but I’m a university dropout. Doing okay but I do wonder sometimes.
Saw 3 psychologists (one was a student) and they all blew me off because I was an older woman.
Finally got diagnosed two and a half years ago in my early 60’s.
What has your experience been like after being diagnosed?
I tried meds right after diagnosis but they messed me up something fierce (awake for 36 hrs, etc). Guess my coping/masking was so ingrained that meds didn’t help at all.
Now I’m starting to heal from the burnout but still have issues when there’s too many people around (my brain gets overwhelmed).
Thank you for the input!
It definitely got less hyperactive and more fogbrain, as I like to call it.
Accurate. My wife’s got worse. It went in to bloody overdive when perimenopause started.
Mrs. Warp Core is also going through this very thing. Basically the wild hormone swings hit her hard, right in the executive function. ADHD meds helped, but ultimately weren’t enough. HRT has helped tremendously. That said, we’re now terrified to roll off of that.
Which psychologists are those? A lot of the people I know that have only gone to apsychologist as an adult have been told, “wow did you know you’ve had ADHD you’re whole life,” and they’re like “omg no but that makes so much sense.”
Like I think it’s more common to be an adult who doesn’t know they have ADHD because they don’t go to a psychologist, rather than having been a kid who was told they’d grow out of it by a psychologist, yah know?
I guess my point is this meme creates unnecessary stigma around seeing a psychologist, and you should see one if you think you should.
You just get better at masking the worst effects.
“Psychologist” just means they were able to complete a degree program at all, C’s get degrees
what they mean by that is, “thank god they learned to mask the problem so they stop inconveniencing us”
As someone who has many ADHD traits, but never formally diagnosed, I always view this perspective as strange. Like you’re so incensed by it, you get defensive and almost act like you have zero responsibility on the issue and everyone should just accept you and allow you concessions because you can’t keep your shit together.
I’ve certainly ‘grown’ out of a lot of it, but a lot of it is hard work and establishing habits to minimise issues. It lets me live a better life and to treat it like a disability is only selling yourself short.
I am not diagnosed either and I too have managed my life somewhat okayish so far because I have some really good people around me, but at the same time I know A LOT of ADHDers irl and they are all very different both when it comes to severity of their symptoms and what types of symptoms they have.
What is somewhat manageable to me is impossible to others and what others are able to do, I am unable to myself.
I know high functioning ADHDers and I know severe cases where their symptoms are so bad, even when on medication, that they will never be able to function in society.
If I may compare, you and I may be partially blind. It is definitely enough to affect us in our daily lives. At least it is for me. But we are able to manage and somewhat navigate the world and we can still see shapes and colors, just very out of focus.
What you’re essentially doing with your post is asking someone who was born without eyes to see as well as you do. “Just get some glasses. It worked for me.”
But they are blind, bro. They don’t have eyes. Both of you are blind, but blindness is on a spectrum, just like ADHD is.
I never considered that what I was dealing with could be ADHD because the ADHDers I had known up until that point were the severe cases and they never got any better. Some of them didn’t try at all while others really did their best and yet they still failed constantly.
I’m relatively good at hiding my failings so people don’t notice unless they are paying attention. But I still fail almost daily despite having tried all types of organizing systems, scolding myself into getting my shit together and establishing this and that routine. I always fail. I keep trying, but I will never be able to get good at having structure in my life no matter how much I want it. I can see shapes and colors, but I cannot read you that sign over there. No matter how much I try, I just can’t.
Have you considered the possibility that you don’t have ADHD or that your symptoms are on the very mild side? You clearly have no understanding of executive dysfunction.
Never formally diagnosed lol.
Your experience isn’t everyone’s experience, and judging people who struggle more helps no one. I was medicated as a teenager, grew out of it, then suddenly got whacked over the head by it coming back in my late twenties. Medication has helped, and I’ve learned a lot of tricks to manage it, but the fact that I have to work twice as hard or more to do basic things that other people do without thinking means it clearly is a disability. I’m also autistic and I feel far more disabled by my ADHD than my autism.
Don’t cut yourself on that edge.
It’s not that we think we have zero responsibility or whatever - it’s that, as you described, we put in a lot of effort to find coping mechanisms and management strategies, and then people like this cut-rate psych point to the results of that effort and say ‘See, it’s gone!’ It’s not gone, you dingbat, we have to manage it and it takes a lot of work, and maybe it would be nice - just once - to get some recognition for all that work we’re doing rather than pretending the problem doesn’t exist any more.
Nothing you said is helpful to anyone with this condition, regardless if you have it or not. Please take your organizers and calendars and reminders and bootstraps and kindly post elsewhere.
Most people tend to develop coping mechanisms that help them pass as non-ADHD individuals, by lowering their standards for what they can achieve in life and by accepting the abnormally high amounts of stress that hiding their ADHD causes them.
Psychologists call this “growing out of ADHD”.
“Gifted child, if only they’d apply themselves”, turns into “Average adult, not always reliable and my god have you seen their <thing we ignore because we don’t have the bandwidth> but usually gets things done.”
Well, guess they need to be diagnosed for LBD (Low Bandwidth Disorder).
And then start berating everyone who doesn’t care about the small stuff, instead of letting them say that we are “overreacting”, just because we realise that, under different conditions, ignoring some of that stuff could cause bigger problems.
Took me getting fired from one job and almost a second before I finally got my coping mechanisms figured out. It’s still a struggle and it’s also cost me a significant amount of my ability to enjoy my free time (have to severely limit my investment in anything not work related so I don’t accidentally get consumed by it and lapse at work), but I’m ‘functional’ now.
It’s still a struggle and it’s also cost me a significant amount of my ability to enjoy my free time (have to severely limit my investment in anything not work related so I don’t accidentally get consumed by it and lapse at work)
This path leads to burnout. I have no practical advice since we are kind of required to put work first in order to survive. But the fact that it’s socially acceptable to call this “living” makes me sick to my stomach.
Yup. Currently on my 4th burnout that’s lasted 3 yrs and counting (previous 3 were 1 yr each).
I just don’t have it in me to buck up and try to work again. :/
The problem is that responsibilities seem to grow faster than I can create coping mechanisms…
You’ve got “management” written all over you. I hope you like meetings!
Heading for the top, that’s me. Of an office building or psychiatric ward, remains to be seen.
To be fair, ADHD is a developmental disorder that sometimes can present as delayed development rather than halted development. I.e being behind in executive functioning development but eventually “catching up” to peers.
That said, the severity of cases is still often determined through the lens of “how well do they fit in/mask it” and not “how is their emotional/mental wellbeing”, which definitely gives the impression of kids “growing out of it”.
Well, minds are difficult, patterns are easy.
Not all doctors are going to do it the hard way, same as not all people (encompassing all professions) do it the hard way.
They don’t necessarily lower their standards. Sometimes, they simply “pay” by other means.
I don’t think the ADHD necessarily gets worse, it’s more often that the consequences get worse.
I.e. the intensity of the disorder relative to a given set of stimuli doesn’t increase, but the average significance of the stimuli (and consequently the outcome of one’s reaction to them) does increase.
You could argue that’s a meaningless distinction, but perhaps it’s a helpful change in perspective for someone.
Realistically, it’s utterly dependent on one’s life situation.
When you’re in school, your main focus is trying to get through school, get home, and not get hassled about keeping up with yourself and your things.
Later on, some jobs, are congruent or even complimentary with symptoms, some jobs aren’t. Some partners help compensate, some don’t.
It absolutely will get worse for some, better for others. Some may have consequences that are an issue, some may have circumstances that defuse the consequences.
That’s a valid point. Although I’d add that, as you get older, it’s not only the significance of the stimuli that increases, but the overall levels of stimuli increases. More responsibilities, more burdens, more stress, and less likely to be given any concessions due to being young.
No, it gets worse. Adults don’t have the amount of mental plasticity that younger people have. While it’s possible to make things easier through CBT and learning to cope and deal with certain challenges. The mental load of keeping up with daily life ultimately has its toll. Life is getting harder every year for everyone, and having ADHD makes that mental load just that much harder.
It can get worse after school because not having a schedule imposed on you means you’re left to your own devices and will often focus too much energy towards the wrong endeavors. Building a routine of healthy habits and sticking to it can make a world of difference.
There’s also a tendency to experience a diaspora after, or in the immediate years after, school. Say, your mid-20’s or so. That’s potentially a big chunk of your support network disappearing from your life.
Building a routine of healthy habits and sticking to it can make a world of difference.
Exactly. Those coming to diagnosis and support while young stand a chance to be trained and armed for independence, and an adult life of holding one’s self to one’s own standards (hopefully). For many of us oldsters, being diagnosed later, or only learning about mindfulness and CBT well past our formative years, it’s a huge struggle to cobble together habits and a better mindset.
Of course it got worse, I have to work now
Yeah. I feel like it never bothered me when younger (he’s “gifted and mature”) but you get screwed later on when you have a 8-5 office job where you sit and stare for 9 hours. I can’t focus on boring useless stuff like that. Unfortunately, the alternative is destroy your body doing manual labor to keep moving around. Plus. You make a lot more money sitting and staring at a screen. So just keep it bottled up and pretend you know what you’re doing and don’t feel like going nuts!
This is kinda why I ended up as a manufacturing engineer. It’s technical, well paid, and doesn’t require hard physical labor. But I’m constantly “putting out fires” and going to some forgotten corner of the factory to figure out what broke. “Oops sorry I skipped the meeting - the production line was stopped!” Neurotypicals view this chaos as stressful, but it’s the only way I can flow through the day without hating my job.
Lucked out big time.
Turns out that people don’t “grow out of” physiological differences in how their prefrontal cortex forms. Who would have thought?! /s
I don’t have the ADHD. I am the ADHD.
Made this for ya while procrastinating
We’re all reading this while procrastinating
Hey, I don’t actually have any responsibilities right now! Except planning my lessons for next week, but I’ve got time. I guess I could also do the dishes or hang the laundry or email my advisor about my thesis topic…
Well shit.
I’m reading this and zoning out
Maybe YOU are…
(and also so am I:-)
I read this while not paying attention to an anime intro.
I was picturing that exact thing in my head but didn’t get around to making it. Thank you.
Hmm I’m sure it’s personal for each but me I feel like I didn’t outgrow it. More like I overcame it.
