People with ADHD: What are the things about it that people don't get?

To add to this.

Just because i failed to act on the stuff that needs doing doesn’t mean i had it easy or that am not exhausted.

Usually the reflective awareness of my stuck state drains me way more then if i would you just be able to get up and do it.

I understand that this may come across as flippant and possibly condescending, so apologies in advance, but I mean it as a genuine question.

What would it take to break the... inertia?

I imagine you'd move if your chair caught fire, so there must be some line. How low can the bar be set?

It should really be called Intention Deficit Disorder.

My phone has my undivided attention, there is no deficit here.

You do you, but if getting yelled at worked, things wouldn't be so fucking shit in my life.

There will be pleanty of people yelling at you. Previously, and in the future. They do not need your help.

Peace.

Are you me? Or am I you? The crazy thing is that when I work, I wooork. Like 12 hours without peeing, drinking water, eating, or taking any breaks.

Mine isn't this bad, but I can relate to the first-day-on-Adderall thing. It was wild when I walked into my messy bathroom an hour after that first dose and my brain just went: "It is possible, even reasonable for you to clean this bathroom, in a finite amount of time, without every moment filling you with dread. This task will not consume your whole life day." My brain had simply never done that before. I could just choose to do something and--perhaps more importantly--to stop doing something. I remember I was hyperfixating working on a hobby project at 11 PM on a work night and my brain went: "If you stop working now, brush your teeth and go to bed, this fun project will still be here for you to work on tomorrow. You don't have to keep at it until 6 AM and then go to work without sleeping." That seemed like such a foreign concept at the time. It was weird to hear that from my own brain, not in a "you're being bad" way, but in a "it's going to be okay" way. There was a lot of happy crying those first few weeks.

Just wish I'd been diagnosed in college instead of in my mid-30s. I might have graduated.

People like to throw around the word 'lazy' but it's more like I can't turn it on OR off unless I'm medicated. Once I'm in the zone I will work until I grow a beard, then wither away, then my crumbling skeleton grows a beard. It would be a powerful thing if I could aim it.

It's comments like this that make me think I don't have ADHD and I'm just a bit slow.

My therapist says I'm likely ADHD and I align with a lot in this thread, but this description is about 1000% more dramatic than my day to day life. I guess it's all a spectrum, but I've never felt like I'm living in a fog, I'm very very aware of all of the things I'm fucking up, but my mind doesn't tell my body it's worth fixing yet.

I never "forget" to finish a task, I remember that task needs to get done every 5 mins after I leave it not finished and it pains me to look at it every time I walk by it. But there are more important things to do. Like scrolling Lemmy or IG.

Damn dude 100% very well put

Have you ever considered not paying attention to what people say back?

If it makes you feel better, you can pretend they said good things about what you said.

The most frustrating part? Sometimes, seemingly at random, my brain will just kick into gear and I will be able to focus on something for hours without any effort at all. I can't seem to cause it to happen, I don't know where it comes from.

I reorganized my grandfather's entire tool shed in 5 hours but the chlotes in my room are still on the ground.. this sucks

I remember one time I was hosting a party trying to read the rules for Werewolf, but had to delegate the task to someone else because I couldn't focus on the words. I ended up just slipping out making a joke about having to take my lithium, so I could take my next dose early without being distracted and losing my Strattera pill

I'd second this as something people don't get about ADHD.

So I work in IT support. If I'm absorbed in something complicated and you ask me to stop immediately to help you with your "more urgent" issue, please don't take it personally if I seem annoyed while my brain short circuits trying to deal with the sudden gear change.

ADHD can feel like you're putting in 350% of effort 100% of the time but only achieving 50% of what others achieve, and then being treated like you only put in 10%.

My whole childhood & life before diagnosis, my intelligence and literally everything am good at was used as proof up career & academic & household stuff out of spite.

The paradox of #ADHD - being excellent at complex, high-stimulus tasks and fuck- all at routine, "easy" tasks was a weapon in the hands of parents, teachers, & employers and a constant abusive echo in my brain.

What internalized was that accomplishments that were fun or that came easy to me had no value, only the ones that involve effort "count." But the things that involved the most effort for me were mundane tasks that came easy to others, so they had no value, either.

ADHD involves SO many micromoments of shame. Stepping Over the pile of laundry. Re- remembering the bill you still haven't paid. The sink full of dishes and the fridge leftovers lurking in the back. The small but recurring should have" is cumulative and it's painful.

The last one's text wasn't "Select"able on my phone

Gosh, the micromoments of shame really really hits home

I wasn’t finished talking. I was pausing

This. My boyfriend also has ADHD so our conversations are a nightmare for this exact reason.

You must hate Nike

I've generally found starting the easy part. Maintaining is where it gets hard. Habit building nearly impossible.

Hello me. Be kind to yourself

wow, this sounds like my regular day. Maybe I have that same thing ?

10 times as long beating yourself up? How about at least 35 times at a minimum? Had to fix a little bit of text in some presentation slides for a class, I had from December 24 until January 6th to do it, and I kept beating myself up for not doing it until the night between January 5 to January 6, where I did it all in one sitting, taking me about 6 hours to do it all, and I could have done it even sooner than December 24, all the way back to the beginning of December, but I procrastinated it as well... Fucking hate how I cannot get myself to work on shit until the last fucking minute

I've never had any support from others into managing my adhd so I can't say what helps for sure, but I can shed some light into it so you can try to find a way to help.

. 1. It's very hard for us to associate work and reward unless the reward is immediate. If you tell your kid "if you clean your room we can do X this weekend", they'll want to clean their room, but their "body" will still see it as a pointless chore.

. 2. "out of sight, out of mind". Imagine that people's brains are like an internet browser, with different stuff being in different tabs. For a NT person, there are a few tabs open with the stuff that they are doing that day and anything that is not relevant at the moment is saved on bookmarks to be retrieved at another time. The active tab is the thoughts that are currently going on in the head. For someone with ADHD, this browser would not have bookmarks and in turn it keeps the tabs open forever. As an effect of that, we can no longer manually switch between tabs. Once we switch to a different tab, the old one is lost and the only way to access it again is "clicking on a link to the same page". But we are so used to switching tabs all the time that everything loads instantly already.

Let me try to give practical examples of what I mean with this:

Say you live on the second floor of a building and you need to take the stairs to get home. Going up you notice the first step of the stairs is broken and need repairs. You make a note of it and continues going up. Thats a thought for the "stairs" tab that is currently active. You go into your house and notice your pet's food bowl. The browser now switches to the "feed pet" tab, which makes you realize you haven't done it that day yet. Anything about the stairs is now completely wiped from your head, as if you had never even thought about it. You go feed your pet and on the way you notice a pile of dirty clothes to wash. Your brain now switches to laundry tab and you forget anything about the pet. You start the laundry and go back to your living room, see the pet's food bowl again and goes "oh yeah I need to feed it" - this puts the pet tab back into your head. This time you carry the bowl with you so it keeps that tab active and you can complete the task. At night you're watching some show, commercial break hits and an ad shows someone going up some stairs so you go "fuck, the stairs" but it's night now and you can't do anything about it. Your wife comes in and asks what are you watching. You have no idea because you're on the "stairs" tab now. Commercial break ends, you see one character and that puts you back on the show tab, so you instantly remember the name and the whole plot.

If you expect someone with ADHD to do something, there's only a few ways they'll actually do it:

• there's immediate consequences for doing/not doing it.
• there's something constantly reminding them they need to do it.
• they dedicate their whole day into not forgetting to do it.

That third one is what we've come to call "waiting mode". It's what we do when we have an appointment at a specific time of the day for example. We hold on to that "tab" so hard to ensure we don't lose it, that we basically become unable to do anything else until that is done. When we're in waiting mode, simply looking at a clock will switch the active tab back to that appointment and make us lose track of whatever else we were trying to do. Everybody eventually develops this skill (sacrificing their whole day so they don't forget their appointment) after missing too many things - so don't expect your kid to be able to remember to do things on their own.

. 3. Living like this is tiring. Feeling like we have no control over where our own thoughts go. It's like there are bees inside our head constantly buzzing buzzing. And then at one point you find something that makes the bees sleep. Playing videogames, drawing, solving some logic puzzles - what it is changes for everyone, but your kid will find hobbies that will make the buzzing stop. Such a hobby will give great relief, on top of anything else a hobby gives us. But when the bees are sleeping, we are "frozen" into that tab - if left to our own devices we'll often forget to eat, sleep and everything else. Initially you'll have to ensure your kid doesn't get stuck on their hobby alone. Do remember though that everytime you take your kid off of their hobby, you're waking up the bees in their head. You may notice that their immediate reaction to it might be to be very annoyed. You'll both have to learn to manage it, but what I recommend is trying to keep interruptions to a minimum. If the kid needs to do things, try to get them to do them all at once so they can have more ininterrupted time too. If you wake the bees every 10 minutes, it can be infuriating.

. 4. Any relief that we get from doing rewarding things or from "putting the bees to sleep" are also contained to that "tab". If your kid spends a whole afternoon resting they'll feel rested during that afternoon, but as soon as you ask them to do some chore, it's as if they hadn't rested at all. Imagine like you had a clone of yourself and you have your clone do everything you don't like doing. It's kinda like that, but instead of being two different beings, your kid is switching between being the one that only rests and the one that only works. Doing the same chores every day feels more and more annoying every time we do it.

. 5. Kinda repeating one of my previous posts, but anything that is stashed away somewhere will eventually be forgotten. Things that are kept in plain sight will naturally see more use. Things may end up being suddenly forgotten too. For example if the kid is learning to play guitar and they practice every day for months, then one day they don't and it goes on for six weeks before they even remember they were learning the guitar, at which point the habit is completely broken. Habits in general are harder to form and once formed, we still need to put effort into keeping it or it may just vanish.

I could still write a lot more, but I should get going now, writing this made the bees sleep and I forgot to go to work.

It's very different for everybody, but here are things that would apply to SOME:

• She might reject "must do now" orders. Instead of saying "Start your homework now and do it until it is finished", change both the start and duration to something manageable. "Hey, you are home! Just relax for 20 minutes, and 5 minutes before dinner starts, get everything for your homework ready on your desk." Starting the actual homework is far less overwhelming, then. And instead of "... until it's done", make a deal like: "You only have to do 12 minutes of the task, but with a challenge: 12 minutes of maximum efficiency and performance!". When it is about cleaning the room, also provide a clear unit of work, such as a time constraint (with stopwatch, never wing it!), or toys only, dirty laundry only, a well-defined section only.
• She might already be the willpower equivalent of a body builder, because she has to do with force of will what other people have done for them, be it the frontal lobe breaking down a task, or handing out dopamine rewards that she does not get. When she starts a task such as homework, she has to face the whole tree of little steps and what could go wrong: Find the backpack, alternative plan for when the math book is not in it, the notebook has half a page left, so she will have to stop in the middle to find the new one (where is it?), ...
• When she is on a productive obsession, such as reading, an instrument, an area of knowledge, let it run its course undisturbed. There might be phases in which everything feels like too much, so these phases are invaluable. Much of her skillset might come from intense obsessions rather than continuous habits.
• Focus on finding a starting point to an overwhelming task, such as point 1: Get the homework ready and in place, then do something else. It might trigger a thing where she WANTS to start immediately, and otherwise, the start will be so much easier.
• Allow her to skip homework when it is too much and write a note for the teacher. E. g. got back home sick, doctor visit on the afternoon, exhausted and unable to finish homework, but did a start. When necessary.

What are things people have said or done for you that helped you feel seen and loved?

So I can't give much on the coping mechanisms - she'll have to figure her own flavor of ADHD and coping mechanisms out, likely by trial and error.

But things that make me feel seen and loved / things that made me feel small and worthless, I can talk about.

My parents actually knew I had ADHD - turns out I got diagnosed as a kid and they did fuck all about it and never mentioned it - and figured the best thing for me was "tough love". I was routinely punished for things they made very clear to me as an adult that they knew were symptoms, and I was acutely aware of just how inconvenient and difficult I was for everyone else in my life. They figured if they let me "deal with the consequences of my own actions", I'd "learn", but all that did was make me feel miserable, worthless, alone, and anxious.

My husband couldn't be more different about it. ADHD is insanely frustrating - for no one more acutely than the sufferer. You spend most of your life actively fighting yourself about everything from brushing your teeth to doing your own hobbies. He is incredible about not making it about him, and making it really, REALLY clear that he doesn't love me less because of the ADHD and he couldn't possibly love me more without it. He helps me constantly and without fanfare - I joke he can read my mind because often by the time I get "now where did I put my--" out of my mouth he is placing my missing phone/keys/headphones/water bottle into my hand (it turns out phones don't go on top of the laundry hamper and your wife in the other room will likely want that soon).

While it is clear that my ADHD is our common enemy, it isn't because he feels like it picks fights with him - it is because he chooses to fight it alongside me because it makes me miserable and therefore has chosen violence. He is willing to sit quietly next to me when I need a little more structure, brain storm strategies and priorities for busy weekends, listen to me talk about things he doesn't understand while I sort out my thoughts, never makes me the butt of jokes, and has some incredible problem solving skills when all I remember is that I put something "away" and it isn't actually "AWAY-away" (recent example - I lost my headphones for days, and I could remember I had been sitting at my desk, specifically rolled them up, and put them "away" in that desk, but they weren't there. Or in any other drawer, or under the desk, or my nightstand drawer, or my backpack, or any pockets, or purse -- he walked to my desk, turned 180 degrees and a few feet back to the infrequently used sewing table behind me, opened the "equivalent" drawer, and behold!! Headphones. "I knew it!! It's the same wood as your desk!!" Besides my ADHD apparently, who thinks like that??).

Some of this is implicit, a lot of it is explicit - he reminds me frequently that he's not upset with me, asks how he can help, and jumps in immediately. For me, the most important part of all of it is his attitude - he doesn't make a big deal out of it, he stays positive, he's reassuring, he's involved, and he's never resentful. For me, we are confident that short of some medical breakthrough I will never really be as functional or happy independently as I can be with someone else providing external support, structure, and executive function, but he's verbally and cheerfully told me he's ready to be my Tactical Support Husband for the rest of my life.

I make his favorite desserts a lot.

Kids with ADHD often have days and weeks and months and years in which almost every interaction with a parent or teacher is mostly negative. It doesn't take long for this conditioning to make kids feel bad about themselves--e.g., see themselves as stupid and lazy--and feel bad about the parents and teachers. They often become secretive or otherwise avoid the people they've had thousands of bad experiences with.

If there's any way to shift that balance, it will be powerful for your daughter and for your relationship with her later. Sometimes this means just letting go of certain things. Sometimes it means letting her get away with stuff. If she has siblings, it probably means looking like you're treating your kids unfairly. Sometimes it might mean reaching out with love and kindness when there seems to be no chance that will be received well. You can potentially be one of the best things in her life, but the path of least resistance--and the path that "normal" parenting leads to--is a world where you are an agent of unpleasantness or punishment for her more often than of happiness and comfort.

As she grows up she will learn lots of things adults need to know; some quickly, some very slowly. She'll need help at a lot of points, and if you can be a person she asks for help, her life will be better. When she's 20 or 30 she'll be independent and living a life, no matter what your parenting style was. At that point, the relationship she has with you depends a lot on her accumulated memory and gut-level conditioning from years of being around you.

I'm choking up as I write this because I have a daughter and I know I'm not a perfect dad. I want very much to have a good relationship with her as she grows up, and I know I don't always make that easy. It's a huge challenge. I say this because what I wrote sounds really preachy; I'm preaching to myself as much as to anyone else.

The hardest years are still ahead of you. I have ADHD and was undiagnosed until junior year of high school. I was doing amazing in school until things started getting hard enough that I couldn't just rely on my current knowledge and had to actually study. Make sure she develops strong study/organizational habits now before she gets into high school, because that's when things can really start to fall apart. It sounds like you are already doing a great job, and more than my parents did at that age, so you might have far less of an issue.

Helping her develop coping skills. These cannot come from you, but from her. You just help maintain and adjust home life to them. They can look like...problem: never being able to find what she is looking for. Solution: things get one place they are allowed to go and that is where it lives (eg: shoes by the door, pencil/pen in a drawer or bucket, keys on a keyring by the door, tools in a toolbox). Hell, I've found my keys in the fridge before. I can't tell you how much it drives me nuts not being able to find my tools and then my kids used them and left them in their rooms.

Sometimes these coping mechanisms are socially-based. Sitting down at the same time in a designated spot everyday to do homework with someone else until it's done (enough for the day). That used to be me for my kids, now it's a friend who is also ADHD whom they worked out a method that works for both of them. Some of the things seem silly, but matter greatly, like the environment that something is done in being very important in helping guide that focus. Again, let her guide that, because it varies by person. She may want something on in the background like music or a show. Let that happen, but it shouldn't be a visual distraction or need any sort of constant maintenance to continue (eg: a playlist, not being able to see the screen, but can hear a familiar show playing, not one that she hasn't seen before). Ask her and let her guide it, but help ensure that the visual stimulus or the need to keep queuing up a new song isn't there.

Elementary and maybe even middle school tends to be easier for ADHD kids, then they hit a wall in middle/high school when the class structure changes. Meet with the school counselor and (US specific) set up a 504 plan asap (accomodations outside school policy). This can be the ability to take breaks, listen to music in class, being able to take a test in a different environment (such as without other kids in a library or office), have more time for test-taking. This is something she will also need to decide.

You may be hesitant about stimulants and other ADHD meds, but for many ADHD people, they are life-changing. It feels like getting your life back after it was taken away, so they are worth exploring. They aren't all limited to stimulants and can be safer for younger children such as guanfacine/intuniv. Even with stimulants such as methylphenidate derivatives, these meds can help regulate many things other than just "attention". They can help with maintaining sleep schedules and often are found to be more effective at regulating mood than typical depression meds like SSRIs.

The struggles to fit into a world not built for ADHD people can be a major contributor to depression. It makes me think of myself and others as addicts searching for their next fix of dopamine at times. If you don't help regulate this, she WILL develop other methods to do this: alternative stimulants such as caffeine and nicotine or escape methods such as social media, video games, tv, fiction stories. When she hits middle school, you've lost the battle and she will have access to these things through other kids. It's part of why you see some ADHD people turn to cigarettes/vapes or drinking caffeine from the beginning of the day until they go to bed. These low levels of stimulants help them regulate everything going on in their head and function in a world not built to accommodate them. When we can't do that, many of us turn to methods to escape reality or get small rewards-based dopamine fixes. You will not be able to eliminate all of these alternatives that can become pitfalls and unhealthy, but you can help her get meds that fill the same need so those other things don't become actual problems and can be consumed in a healthy way.

There is little you can probably say to help her besides just listening to her, maybe show her this post to start? There is a lot you can do to hurt her and her image of herself that will seem innocuous to you or might be said in frustration. I suggest reading through what others have said about what they are told. The most recent thing for me was having a boss say he believed ADHD was over diagnosed and overhyped these days when I was trying to let him know I was ADHD and how he could use that to the benefit of both of us. This was coming from someone with a child on the autism spectrum, so not something I expected. My mother unintentionally hurt me by trying to encourage me when I was young, saying that I could do and accomplish anything I wanted. This was kind, but when reality hits and I struggle to do seemingly simple things or live up to her great expectations that were not real and only built up in my mind through my youth, it leaves me with a deep sense of shame.

The best thing you can do is listen to her and let her know you accept her for who she is and what she chooses to do with her life and that you will love her regardless of anything she does or does not accomplish in life. Let her know that your love is not tied to her worth as society (school, work, movies, fiction) defines it and that those societal expectations are not realistic to human existence. When she comes to you to show-off something she is proud of her work on, let her know you are proud of her for that work too.

Hyper focus is a real problem for me. I don’t even realize I’m hungry or that my bladder is full until I’m feeling nauseous or light headed. What feels like 15 minutes is actually hours.

At the same time, if I don’t complete a project from start to finish in one sitting, it’s nearly impossible to restart.

I don’t get basic things done like laundry or remembering to make appointments because I'm stuck on one task. Sometimes I'm afraid to do things I love because I can’t just do it for 20 minutes. Especially video games. I want to relax after work and play but I know I can’t let myself or I might not eat that evening.

Ah shit. I need to learn this.

I think ADHD often does to us sort of what some other conditions do to others: beats us down. By the time we reach adulthood, we've learned from millions of experiences not to bother with certain things. At the same time, many adults I know with ADHD are much more anxious, especially in social or work situations, than they appear.

How do I upvote a million times?

At least that point in time exists.

The worst thing for me when I got diagnosed was the realisation of how much of me is just ADHD/ASD. I'm very high masking according to my doctor, and now I understand why I often feel completely drained of energy. It's pretty mad...

If you feel like you have ADHD, getting diagnosed is absolutely worth it. Even though it will probably wreck your perception of yourself, everything will probably make sense in hindsight. It's very strange yet liberating.

Hello me, that was very succinct. I don't get how so often they say "oh, everyone dislikes doing x, you just do it" ah, see that's the problem right there

What is that medication ? you just described my daily experience, I wonder if maybe I'm suffering from the same exact thing. I knew everybody didn't struggle like I do

Hey, it's me! Have you tried one of those weekly medicine pill dividers? I did. I think I filled it once, then went back to my daily routine of forgetting my meds. ADHD fucking blows.

Living on my own I was really good about any mess I made in an instant being dealt with immediately. Dishes would not pile up, etc. Any problem with a longer accumulation time might as well be there forever though, dust bunnies can have eternal lifespans.

I didn't find it so bad, but a switch to living with someone who just does occasional cleaning can throw your living space into chaos. The tiny psychological difference between "making a new mess" and "contributing to an existing mess" has way too much impact on what tasks will get addressed, and it's difficult as all hell to break free from that.

Unless I expect to see it, I cannot see it.

I don't know if it's a gift or a curse, but around my house, I'm the only one who can find anything - but it's not because I scan the room and see it, but because at some point in the past, I happened to notice, and I just remember where nearly everything is, whether I want to or not. I guess it's my coping mechanism.

We I have the fun combination with (undiagnosed) autism and t Which one had primary control at any time is a scrap shoot.

Even medicated I can not see the clutter... Until it's all I can see and I start AuDHD cleaning.

so it's those but more of them

Yeah it’s always „why don’t you just…“ or „why can’t you „

I'll begin to get a conversation going

Note: ADHD is very real and very hard on people who have it.

I know two people with diagnosed ADHD, and as with many disorders, it is common that people expect others without it to be completely lacking, or, this case, have only mild experiences of a similar kind.

Regular people absolutely get most of the common experiences of an ADHD individual: they can quickly get overwhelmed, struggle with motivation to do some basic everyday things and then get hyperfocused on something and forget the rest completely, can have impulses they don't control. They, too, manage to develop a lot of tricks for maintaining motivation and going through the everyday issues.

What matters for diagnosis is the severity of these events and how often they occur. With ADHD, all those events happen so often that it gets impossible or strikingly hard to pursue what you need without using techniques/medication to manage your behavior.

This is why many regular people may not understand or not accept ADHD as something valid and why it may not help to list to them the kind of limitations you have - they have all the same experiences, it's just that they are less common and severe, and so they manage to force through them while you may get overwhelmed.

A more helpful approach could probably be to come from the fact it's a real diagnosis, and outlining just what it means exactly to have ADHD, to talk about the severity of the episodes and how they are not only experienced by you personally, but also described in the medical literature. This still probably won't change the mind of some bigots, but it might help other people to understand it better.

Hope there is some insight in here.

Uhh why you hijacking the discussion, go make a new post...

This one exactly, while every normal person loses their mind in s stressful situation, adhd people can be calm and collected.

I would have kicked ass at emergency medicine.

Unfortunately, the first lull that came along, I'd fuck up and people would die.

What? I wash and reuse cutlery indefinitely

dont like that approach since mental illnesses are typically underdiagnosed rather than overdiagnosed. If someone says they have adhd they do until proven otherwise.

.....what?

Sometimes I do, if it falls squarely in the realm of one of my obsessions

Speak for yourself.