It took me ages to realise this. People with ADHD are always portrayed as lazy but they don’t struggle with hard work, they struggle with boring work. Before I knew I had ADHD I always found I was getting in trouble for not finishing boring work so I always used to prioritise tasks by how much fun they were and start with the most boring. I just ended up getting nothing done.
I feel fucking seen by this post
It rings right to my core
Same, feels very uncomfortable to confront personally. Ooof size: collosal.
Keep it up with these posts, if I share enough of them with my clearly very painfully obviously super adhd girlfriend I might eventually convince her to go see a therapist and seek a diagnosis someday
Call her doctor, make an appointment, save it in her calendar, remind her in the lead up, drive her there, get the referral. Walk her to the post box to send it off, sit next to her to phone the intake office to confirm they got the referral, set appointments on her phone for every 6 months to sit with her and call to check the cancellation list until you get an appointment. Drive her to that appointment.
If she has ADHD, the steps involved in getting a diagnosis are bigger than Mt Everest, she will need a neurotypical Sherpa.
Oh I fully plan to, I'm not super neurotypical myself but I manage fine. There's extenuating circumstances involving family insurance that means she probably can't do it for another year or so but once that's over I'm gonna drag her to all of that stuff.
I hope she does. I don't think I'm ADHD but my partner was just diagnosed a few months ago. Now that we think about it it's not a surprise at all lol
It feels really nice to have more understanding and more context for both of us.
Add the extra layer of my mother not appreciating my interests and thinking what I now do for a living was a waste of time... And a dash of expecting me to somehow just be able to perfectly do chores they never taught me how to do when I was young. Yes, this is the first time I've ever mopped a floor at 17 years old. How the fuck is that my fault?
As a child of Baby Boomers, they really never wanted an answer - they just wanted to complain about something. And they probably never wanted to be parents in the first place.
Shit, sounds a lot like my mom. She always complained I never helped with chores, but she never asked or told me to do any. Worse, whenever I did anything, like washing the dishes, instead of saying "thanks", she would tell me to stop because she'd do it.
I remember this progress as a kid. Nothing was taught until after I did something wrong. It ended up discouraging me from trying, because every time I did something that I thought was "right," my mom complained about it.
At first the rule was "put dirty dishes in the sink."
Then when I put dishes in the sink, the complaint became, "Why did you put dishes in the sink without washing them?"
So then I learned to wash dishes, and set them in the drying rack. To which my mom would complain, "Why are there dishes in the drying rack? You should put them away."
Okay, so I washed and put dishes in the cabinets. "Why are the dishes all wet?"
...
How about teaching kids each step beforehand, instead of complaining that they don't magically know/do everything?
This so much.
It's actually the normies who can't even do laundry without a little neurotransmitter bottle from mommy frontal cortex. We fight demons every day.
For fucking real. Same deal with autism for me.
I'm getting a sort of buffer underrun when doing routine so I'll always try and make trivial tasks or busywork faster, more efficient, or superfluous through process design. When I cannot do that, I'll listen to music or podcasts, that helps somewhat.
The main drawback of this condition is that many employers think I simply "like to work" and bury me in even more busywork.The reward for being good at toil is more toil.
Signed,
The guy who was good at streamlining and ended up with 3-4 different jobs but only one salaryThis is the ultimate lesson, especially if you're in a for-profit venture. That is what I have learned from decades of working: Never do more work than the minimum that is expected from you.
It isn't as bad if you work at an NGO or in public service of some type, because at least the fruits of your labor don't go directly into the pockets of uber-wealthy CEOs. But if you're in the private sector, fuck all that shit.
What hurts is guessing wrong what people around you care about and then realizing that what they care about is the thing you cared about before you realized that they actually just didn't understand what you were actually worried about. It starts to feel like the matrix but you aren't NEO you're just the cat.
I did the opposite for the last part. I just went the "lazy" path of just doing hard things. As they were easy for me and rewarded more. If the hard things were rewarded less, why bother in the first place?
So I got based by teachers as "not precise enough" because they could clearly see I totally understood what the exercise wanted me to do, I just didn't do "the easy part" of writing it properly.
I don't have a diagnosis yet but this is extremely relatable to me and I hope it gets better when I get one
Most of the drug users and smokers are above average intelligence. Most of the intelligent people are depressed.
Great job world.
Yep. I've had substance abuse problems and severe depression my whole life. I've had people telling me I have "genius" intelligence but I can't do some of the most basic tasks like paying bills and managing finances and making any plans for my future whatsoever.
But I know quantum physics! Lots of use for that shit, right?? I can't count the number of job interviews where the hiring manager asked me about interactions between quarks and the strong nuclear force.
As an aside my therapist just diagnosed me as autistic, as a middle-aged man that's a whole basket of cats I don't know what to do with yet.
There are lots of boring un stimulating tasks that are super important that’s the issue. I have adhd and I cope with my issues to be able to be a functional adult. Things like the dishes and the laundry and cleaning need to be done. Some task that seem repetitive for forcing a basic understanding of the subject. I’ve met so many people in my field who are adhd and say they are super productive on complex tasks but lack basic understanding on fundamental subjects in the field because they skip all the “boring stuff”. Life is not always exciting or stimulating sometimes you have to force yourself to do something. Neurotypicals do the same thing.
The difference with ADHD, especially untreated ADHD, and the idea of "sometimes you have to force yourself to do something" is that, as a person with ADHD, trying to force myself to do stuff, without the assistance of medication, can often be a bit like trying to nail jello to the wall.
It might work for a short time, but eventually, it'll be laying on the floor, not doing what you want it to do.... Much like me.
The paralysis is very real and very strong. The contrary feelings fighting eachother in your head, one voice saying how important it is and that you need to do it, another that's breaking down the task into every motion required, so one job becomes a quintillion individual steps, which makes you feel overwhelmed and anxious at even the thought of trying to do the job, and another voice berating you for being a lazy fuck who can't even do the most simple shit, like get off the couch and do the thing.
In the end you just feel horrible, both about the thing you should have done and about your worth as a person, leading to depression, which exacerbates the issue further.
It's a cycle of violence that most ADHD people have suffered with for their entire life.
Well thanks for confirming that I've had undiagnosed ADHD for my entire life.
I know. I am diagnosed adhd and untreated training your willpower and your self control is possible. It requires dedication and finding what works right for you. For me I use extreme scheduling, I wake up at the same time every day and sleep at the same time, every meal same time. As soon as I know I need to do something I immediately right it down, dishes cleaning everything is scheduled. It took years but it’s also been working for years. Start small force yourself to do small things. It is harder than it is for a neurotypical but that’s the burden we bare. Best you can do is deal with it using medication, therapy and mindfulness. You are more then your serotonin levels you don’t need to enjoy something to do it. You don’t even need to be engaged. The neurotypical secret is most the things they do they half ass, don’t worry about perfection just do. Another thing I see adhd people have trouble with is trying to multi task all the time. Don’t it’s a trap your brain isn’t ment for context switching that much. You can modulate yourself a lot better then you think you can. It’s just hard but that’s doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing
I don't know if it's harder to force ourselves to do the "boring stuff" more than neurotypicals, but I know the main reason I do the things I do is "because someone has to do it." Kind of a sucky reason to do anything, but it at least helps me get through some of the everyday tasks, even if not completely. Everyone has to find their own way to cope, doesn't matter if we have ADHD or something "wrong" with us or not. One thing to keep in mind is an imperfect something is better than a perfect nothing
Exactly, personally I use the mantra “do what must be done” and try to make it feel inevitable
having grown up with ADD and ADHD being huge in schools and then reading countless studies over the past few decades about how inaccurate diagnoses and the understanding of ADD and ADHD are, I will be very cautious in administering any medication to my children for popular syndromes.
neurodivergence, adhd included, is actually widely underdiagnosed - some doctors estimate 1 in 5 people is neurodivergent. And those rates have been rising (though possibly because of increased acceptance)
I recently read an article about a doctor who was making a case that the issue is not that those 1 in 5 are "neurodivergent", but our current society is causing harm. When he sees ADHD symptoms his first "treatments" are proper nutrition, making sure they feel like they're doing meaningful things in life, enough exercise, etc...
I'm also sometimes starting to wonder if for a part we're not just medicating people to "thrive" in a society that's inhuman, rather than make society work for as many people as possible.
But it's of course a very complex & grey area, and let's be honest, something as vague as ADHD probably encompasses a lot of different causes. And it'll probably take decades of research before we actually manage to split up all the things that are today lumped together into the separate things with each their own propert treatment.
right, and with that sort of prevalence, and so little detrimental effects to society, there isn't good enough evidence for advocating "treatment" of most people who just think differently than other people.
largely, they notice or pay attention to different things, so "treatments" are unnecessary, obtrusive or damaging.
exception given to extreme cases, "treating" ADHD seems a lot like removing funding for arts courses because school administrators don't value the arts.
I grew up in such times, myself. I was diagnosed as likely ADHD as a child but never treated because of a mix of stigma and my parents taking that exact reasoning. This led to a childhood of anxiety, academic issues, depression, social awkwardness, and struggling in university, despite having no problems understanding the coursework. As an adult, it caused problems in work and relationships.
I received a diagnosis of "minor adult ADHD" about 5 years ago and received treatment for the first time in my life, which has been life-changing.
My point is: don't underestimate the impact and trauma caused by living in this society without help to compensate for the challenges that neurodivergent brains have to deal with.
yep, exactly.
for those whom treatment is necessary, safe, effective, and desired, treatment should be available.
While I have empathy, the reason we're in the state of recognising and intervening with neurodiversity is the work that educators, parents and researchers have done over the past sixty years. Pleae recognise this for the progress it represents.
People do the best with what they have and what they know. No it's not your fault. Neither is it your parents or teachers when they don't have the knowledge or tools to help them. There is a solid chance that they were as lost, frustrated and confused as you. Or they're simply shitty people..
In 50 years time there will be another condition that we don't know about now, for which we are not providing accommodation, which causes kids harm, that your kids will look back on and be absolutely shocked, like why the fuck was this ever tolerated and how could we not know. Obesity? Usage of social media? Assessment?
I wholeheartedly support this viewpoint.
I was diagnosed with ADHD at 38 and to say my life was a mess beforehand would be a massive understatement. Without making this too long, I’ve had between 50-60 jobs and would lose them from just not turning up if I couldn’t get out of bed or just being confrontational with people if they treated us like shit etc.
In the 3 years since my diagnosis and medication I managed to train to be a software developer and landed my dream job doing it for a living.
The horrible thing to think about is if I didn’t luck myself into working for Apple at the Genius Bar, I wouldn’t have been diagnosed. They gave free healthcare (UK, we have the NHS but mental health is underfunded and the wait times for things like this would be over a year). Apple literally changed my life; not just with the diagnosis, but with helping people see their potential.
The hardest part of a late diagnosis which still to this day it’s hard to let the past be the past, but it’s the what ifs, what if I got diagnosed earlier etc. the amount of money I’ve spent on weed, Xanax, coke, and messing about with friends (most of which likely have ADHD, due to being very similar and people in these drug circles all have that in common) I could have my own house and be set and only need to work part time (still done think I’m built for a 9-5 and still get depressed over the hours).
All this said, I don’t blame anybody for the late diagnosis. Like you say people were working with the knowledge they had at the time and although my issues perfectly aligned with ADHD and the content in this post, people just didn’t know enough back then and it is what it is.
Couldn't read the post because it's blocked by a wall of arrogance. Suck it up, but treat people better than you were treated
