That’s like climbing Mt. Everest
March 7, 2019 10:24 AM   Subscribe

"29. We need you to understand that we don't intend to upset you with what seem like failures to you. We don't mean to let you down. When you have ADHD it's like seeing what you want in a glass case you don't have access to. We want to accomplish so much, we just need the keys." Yashar Ali talks about what it's like to live with ADHD as an adult in a twitter thread (link to twitter moment).
posted by lunasol (51 comments total) 53 users marked this as a favorite
 
The link goes to a specific tweet (tweet #29 of the thread) that, for whatever reason, threads back to #28 and then stops, at least for me. If anybody else is having that problem, here's a link to the moment that worked for me.

Also, this is a great thread. I have loved ones with ADHD, and have worked with the disability community, but there is a lot of new territory here and worth reading.
posted by gauche at 10:31 AM on March 7, 2019 [7 favorites]


I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was in grade school. I can't speak for the author's experience, but my experience with the medication was every bit as difficult as my experience being unmedicated. The meds are great when your dose is right, but the right dose was, for me, a constantly-moving target. Miss the target and you're either manic/paranoid with a racing heartbeat or feeling like you haven't slept in a week. I stopped taking the medication and chose to simply live with it about eight years ago.

Again, I can only speak for my experience, but the only effective treatment I've found is a daily meditation practice. 45 minutes every morning. It calms my inner monologue and enables me to be aware of impulses and distractions before they capture my attention.
posted by TrialByMedia at 10:37 AM on March 7, 2019 [7 favorites]


I just finally, at 35, got to a doctor to deal with my adult ADHD yesterday, so today's my first day of treatment for it since 4th grade. Parents and teachers and doctors were focused only on the disruptions I caused when hyperactive, not the rest of the disorder, so after the hyperactivity symptoms faded and I went off the meds the first time, the other symptoms still stuck around but I was told (and told myself for far too long) that those problems were just caused by me being lazy or undisciplined. And it took all this time to just pick up the phone and call a doctor, my very first regular primary care physician since becoming an adult. So this was great to read. Here's hoping off-label bupropion is less of a rollercoaster than I remember Ritalin being.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:44 AM on March 7, 2019 [17 favorites]


(Oops, thanks gauche, that is very ADHD of me (I can say that cause I actually have it!). I emailed the mods to ask them to swap it out.)
posted by lunasol at 10:54 AM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


Thank you for sharing this; I have been off Twitter so I would have missed it otherwise. I had no idea Yashar had ADHD and I love him for this entire thread, which is so true to my experience I could have written it myself. I hope people share this with their ADHD and non ADHD loved ones alike so that more people understand that it's not a joke/throwaway diagnosis nor is it a "procrastination" thing.
posted by nightrecordings at 10:56 AM on March 7, 2019 [5 favorites]


Thanks for the link in the first place, lunasol -- this is a very good post!
posted by gauche at 10:57 AM on March 7, 2019


And it took all this time to just pick up the phone and call a doctor, my very first regular primary care physician since becoming an adult.

Yep, I didn't have a regular primary care physician until my early 30s, and she's the one who helped me get diagnosed and prescribed meds to be, which turned out to be so life-changing that I haven't missed an annual physical since then (among other life-changing things). Good luck with your new meds!
posted by lunasol at 10:57 AM on March 7, 2019


ADHD meds have improved a ton, jason_steakums! I remember Ritalin being awful, but I've found extended release Adderall to be fine. I don't have any crash at all. You may have to experiment a bit, but I bet you'll find something that works for you.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:58 AM on March 7, 2019 [5 favorites]


Related: today's Ask a Manager open thread is about working while neurodivergent. ADHD comes up a bit.
posted by gauche at 11:00 AM on March 7, 2019 [12 favorites]


@jason_steakums, that was my experience too...

The medication did help in one sense, by expanding how I thought about the process of thinking. My thinking was so clearly different when I was on medication, it suddenly became obvious that the mind can run fast or slow, and that's a physical fact and not a moral failing. Because it was such a huge and obvious difference, I got a lot better at identifying which state I was in also.

That's why overall, I don't regret taking medication; however, I would never want to take this medication on a regular schedule over the long term.
posted by subdee at 11:10 AM on March 7, 2019 [4 favorites]


I wish twitter would shut its stupid face and stop talking about me in public

I was diagnosed at 33. By then my marriage had completely disintegrated already through repeated cycles of "Why the fuck can't you do this simple thing?" and angry withdrawal/stonewalling. Two years later I got out of there. Everyone says there's no excuse for emotional abuse, but threads like this do make me wonder. I literally wasn't able to fold the laundry in under two weeks, ever, in all my six years as a stay at home mother. That kind of thing does drive a man to start hating his wife, doesn't it? I couldn't help being this way, but neither could he help his anger at me bleeding into every area of the marriage. I wanted to go to counseling, but in his view, I just had to do this one simple thing, why the fuck did we need counseling? .. I'm bummed out all over again.
posted by MiraK at 11:13 AM on March 7, 2019 [21 favorites]


I have decided that I really hate the "deficit" in Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder, because I don't really have an attention deficit. I have an inability to regulate attention. I hyperfocus, and when I do that, I can concentrate on the same thing for hours and hours. I just can't make myself hyperfocus, and my only other mode is complete distraction. I understand why people think I'm faking it, because it is weird that I can do this thing so well sometimes and not at all other times. But there you go. I can't regulate my attention, and I promise you that it is even more annoying for me than it is for you, whomever you may be.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:24 AM on March 7, 2019 [42 favorites]


My old boss was ADHD and I didn't know that until she mentioned it. That information was incredibly helpful, since it made me proactively think about both of our communication and work patterns. It also made me more tolerant of behavior that didn't quite make sense to me, for example she would sometimes hyperfocus on things that seemed completely random and unimportant. When she was changing her medication (Or going off it? I don't know exactly.) she also let us know and I again found it very helpful as it explained some of her behavioral changes. For example, she had suddenly become really, really, bad at responding to e-mail. After that, I felt more comfortable changing my behavior so if an e-mail needed an urgent response I would verbally mention to her when she walked by or, if she was working remotely, I'd send a text.

We are different people and even without ADHD I'm sure we would have different communication styles and work preferences, but her providing that information helped shaped my perspective and pushed me to really think about how I interact with others (not just her). She was a chronic overshare, which sometimes was a little awkward, but I really think it helped create a good work environment (i.e. she encouraged us to go to the doctor, take care of our mental and physical health, and take a break OR work hard when the times called for it) and I'm grateful for it.
posted by lucy.jakobs at 11:39 AM on March 7, 2019 [6 favorites]


Ugh I get so frustrated by people who abuse Adderall and related drugs. A few years ago I tried getting treatment for my own severe ADHD (although personally I've never experienced the H part of it), and every therapist I called wanted me to assure them that I wasn't just looking for an Adderall prescription. Which I couldn't do, because that's exactly what I was looking for. So I never got treatment, and I remain untreated to this day. "Oh sure, we'll help, but not if you tell us you're having trouble concentrating in school."

I really, really want to be treated for this. It's absurd that I can't get what I need to function.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 11:44 AM on March 7, 2019 [22 favorites]


Sometimes I wonder if there is any such thing as laziness, procrastination, or lack of discipline at all. Maybe they are just old ideas that turned out to be inaccurate or inapplicable to the largely inhumane machinery we built around ourselves that's chewing us up and spitting us out?
posted by bleep at 11:47 AM on March 7, 2019 [21 favorites]


Also, I haven't read all of these yet, but does he talk about the tendency for people to ignore ADHD in favor of something else? I only found out a couple years ago that I was diagnosed with an executive functioning disorder as a child. I think part of what has made it so hard to get treatment as an adult is that multiple people have overlooked that childhood diagnosis (which I got after many hours of testing over multiple days) to tell me that I don't have ADHD or anything like it. "I think the real problem is that depression and anxiety make it hard for you to focus."

So then I go in for treatment for that stuff, which is useful and valuable, but I continue to struggle with basic stuff. I'm beginning to wonder how much of my depression and anxiety is related to the difficulties I've had with executive functioning. Like, it's kind of hard to lose the anxious feeling that you've forgotten something if you keep constantly forgetting things. If I had to choose (which, this being America, is very likely), I'm starting to think I'd rather address the attention-related stuff, rather than the other mental health stuff.

Has anyone else had experience with this?
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 11:50 AM on March 7, 2019 [14 favorites]


Sometimes I wonder if there is any such thing as laziness, procrastination, or lack of discipline at all.

I think there absolutely are such things. These are words used to describe specific behaviors: not working, not starting, not keeping up. I suppose what we're learning now is that the moral condemnation attached as connotations to these words is damaging and inaccurate (most of the time).
posted by MiraK at 12:17 PM on March 7, 2019 [9 favorites]


I have decided that I really hate the "deficit" in Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder, because I don't really have an attention deficit. I have an inability to regulate attention. I hyperfocus, and when I do that, I can concentrate on the same thing for hours and hours. I just can't make myself hyperfocus, and my only other mode is complete distraction. I understand why people think I'm faking it, because it is weird that I can do this thing so well sometimes and not at all other times. But there you go. I can't regulate my attention, and I promise you that it is even more annoying for me than it is for you, whomever you may be.

Emphasis mine, because I relate to that so much. My therapist did some tests on me a yearish back at this point, and I basically got a "passing" grade of not having an easy, clear ADHD diagnosis by the skin of my teeth, which is cool.

People talk about a "one track mind" disparagingly sometimes. I don't have that. I have like, five to seven tracks, but I have only indirect control over the junctions that allow track switching. The junctions are sometimes all locked so that I'm going straight on one track. The junctions are sometimes all in their switching state, so that the mine car of my mind is sliding back and forth between different tracks constantly, as if my mind was a video game character in a mine cart where you have to dodge back and forth between tracks to dodge boulders. (This problem is exacerbated by how smoothly internet browser tabs work these days, when I'm using a computer.)

I can't control how the junctions are set directly. I have to call over the radio to a slow, sleepy guy who controls them, and sometimes it takes a few junctions before he can actually manage to shift a junction up ahead of me. If I'm reading something interesting, or even just thinking about something hard, and you start talking to me, a few junctions are probably going to go by before I get the track shifted to "comprehend words being said to me." Sometimes, if the thing I was reading or doing or thinking about is still easily available (particularly a problem with subjects of hard thought) one of the junctions up ahead will be set to shift me back to the first thing if you pause for a fraction too long, where the "you" in this equation is my wife or my family or my in-laws, because anyone else I'm around seldom enough that I can yell furiously at Sleepy Junction Guy to keep all the junctions locks such that I can mostly focus on other people. Mostly. Sleepy Junction Guy's sleepiness is related to my own, which is often considerable, because it's also often hard to pull into a station for the night.

I have no idea if my multi-clause rambling writing style is ADHD related or just me reading too much Stephen King during formative years.
posted by Caduceus at 12:26 PM on March 7, 2019 [19 favorites]


I spelled Stephen right the first time, yay.
posted by Caduceus at 12:27 PM on March 7, 2019 [4 favorites]


Fucking comment took me an hour and a half to write.
posted by Caduceus at 12:27 PM on March 7, 2019 [24 favorites]


My biggest frustration is that I certainly look like I'm procrastinating, and the effect is the same, but in truth my obligations literally don't even cross my mind at all, and if I write them all down, the thought of referring back to the list doesn't cross my mind either. It's like I don't have object permanence for responsibilities.
posted by jason_steakums at 12:36 PM on March 7, 2019 [23 favorites]


but in truth my obligations literally don't even cross my mind at all

See, for me they are so constantly on my mind that the effect is paralysis: I don't know where to begin, it's overwhelming, etc.
posted by MiraK at 12:38 PM on March 7, 2019 [14 favorites]


You can remember how to spell Stephen by saying "step-hen" to yourself. This always reminds me of a legislative proofreading job where we had to say all the punctuation aloud.
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:57 PM on March 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


Fucking comment took me an hour and a half to write.

Yes, that is my participation on this site, too. Usually abandoned.
posted by ambrosen at 1:01 PM on March 7, 2019 [6 favorites]


See, and I cycle between “blank slate re: obligation” and “paralyzed by awareness of obligations” and cannot actually DO SHIT in either state.

I have also been known to say, verbatim, that “anxiety is just sort of what happens when you constantly feel like you might have forgotten something important, and you’re right about half the time.” I said it this morning to my doctor, who I started seeing last year and who is the first primary care physician I have had as an adult. I am 33.

Thanks for calling me out personally for this entire comment thread, guys.
posted by nonasuch at 1:01 PM on March 7, 2019 [16 favorites]


My whole life is a battle against akrasia. The film Memento was very helpful for me in coping with executive dysfunction. It planted the seed that one can invent systems to overcome brain function deficiencies. This has woven itself into an important piece of my life philosophy.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 1:07 PM on March 7, 2019 [5 favorites]


The linked thread is...not awesome, in some ways, because it seems to be describing a constellation of symptoms that are absolutely not unique to ADHD, but which can occur in ADHD. Only he keeps saying stuff like "if you don't have ADHD you don't understand."

I mean, yes, I do, executive functioning problems and attention regulation / cognitive problems are not exclusive to ADHD. They also occur in ASDs and as a result of CPTSD and developmental trauma, amongst, I'm sure, other things.

This weird flag-planting is not awesome because ADHD becomes the go to explanation, especially for self-diagnosis, but also for professionals who should know better, and ADHD meds are, um, not benign. I was misdiagnosed with ADHD by one of those professionals and given meds that were supremely dangerous for me; it took years to undo some of that damage, and some of it will never be undone.

It's also just...pretty ignorant. So. Some side eye, here.
posted by schadenfrau at 1:17 PM on March 7, 2019 [12 favorites]


I was diagnosed with ADD and prescribed Adderall at the end of January 2019 so just a month-ish ago. It's changed my life. All of these things I'd internalized about myself and coping mechanisms... it was an undiagnosed illness beyond depression and anxiety. Fuck. Adderall also somehow makes me sleepy, and I will take naps on it.

My last conversation with my dad, which was the best we've ever had, was when he heard about my diagnosis and medication from my mom and called me with a really great heart-to-heart about how he saw a lot of that in himself looking back. Too bad we can't talk more about it now or he can't see if there was treatment for him available.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 1:18 PM on March 7, 2019 [5 favorites]


I guess another way of saying this: claiming these difficulties as exclusive to ADHD, particularly as some sort of public service, really, really, really isn't benign, either. It's also just...weird.

So for anyone reading this thread who read the twitter thread and was like, "oh my god that's me, has it been ADHD this whole time?"

Maybe? Maybe not! But definitely investigate more, because no one should have to live without effective treatment for whatever it is that is going on.
posted by schadenfrau at 1:20 PM on March 7, 2019 [8 favorites]


I have a friend (cough) who is reasonably sure they've suffered from ADHD for most of their life, but when they tried to have it diagnosed they were treated for what they believe is a symptom (associated depression) instead. Any recommendations for how to find a local expert to do a proper diagnosis?
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 1:29 PM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


If their doctor won't take them seriously, they should talk to another doctor. After my therapist did some questions with me, I read a book that spoke to me. When I went into my doctor he had me discuss what was going on now, my childhood and college/early working years. Then he said would you like to try this? I did.

That same doctor had also treated me for depression, but I wasn't depressed so that wasn't a discussion. I was clear that these issues had persisted.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 1:39 PM on March 7, 2019


After my therapist did some questions with me, I read a book that spoke to me.
Yes! That's the book that really got them thinking more seriously about ADHD.
If their doctor won't take them seriously, they should talk to another doctor.
Thank you.
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 1:45 PM on March 7, 2019


I am currently off adderall, and I cannot figure out if it has had much effect. I mean, probably? But it was overall losing its effectiveness in any case.

My symptoms manifest as:

1. "There is plenty of time to get that done."
2 - 9. Repeat 1.
10. Deadline looms or goes whooshing by.

Plus the hyper focus thing where you look up and what felt like an hour's work was 4 hours, but you can't bring yourself to do something which you know is going to take 10 minutes for days at a time.

I hate it all.
posted by maxwelton at 1:46 PM on March 7, 2019 [18 favorites]


My biggest frustration is that I certainly look like I'm procrastinating, and the effect is the same

My biggest frustration is that sometimes I'm paralyzed by anxiety, sometimes I'm distracted by the off-topic hyperfocus of ADHD, and sometimes I engage in I-could-stop-if-I-so-choose-but-nope procrastination. It's frustrating because I often can't tell the difference. That's a problem because they call for different strategies. Sometimes raw willpower really is the solution, which creates the illusion that Green-Lanterning can solve all problems, followed by guilt when it doesn't.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:01 PM on March 7, 2019 [6 favorites]


I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 42 (after decades of suspecting I had something like it), took Adderall for a year, and then went off it. I was more productive on the medication, but the side effects of muscle tension, insomnia, and other stuff, in addition to the expensive hassle of obtaining my prescription each time, just wasn't worth it to me. Additionally, it was very effective for the first few months, then by month 4 or so, it wasn't very effective. So they raised the dose, and the cycle repeated. I just didn't want to have to continually raise my dose just to get the same benefit. If I really need to focus, I will drink a crapload of caffeine, which gives me similar focusing effects.

My particular deficits are in prioritizing tasks, and remembering lists. Everything becomes the new immediate priority for me, and I forget all about the other things that require my attention, even if I'm literally right in the middle of doing it. So I spend an awful lot of emotional labor in organizing and prioritizing my tasks. If I have a list of 3-4 items, I have no problem remembering it. 5 items, maybe. 6 or more, and I don't just forget #6 and all those after it, I forget ALL the items. Phone numbers, to-do lists, my brain just hits the delete button and I'm left with a blank.

Over the years, I've created several coping mechanisms which are pretty effective. I have a whiteboard on my fridge, which lets me write down and cross off items whenever I'm nearby, and I'm in the kitchen frequently enough that I get plenty of reminders of what's on the list. I usually use this for chores around the house, which I break up into small tasks. I don't just put "Clean the house" or "vacuum", I break it up into "Wash load of whites" and "Lysol kitchen counters". It's validating to be able to cross things off, and it's less overwhelming to know that these are jobs that only take 10-20 minutes each. I make a point to keep the list short in order to keep from feeling overwhelmed by too many chores.

I've also found that my Echo Dots are super useful in several ways: first, I don't have to interrupt myself in order to add things to my lists. I can just say, "Add eggs to grocery list" whenever I think of it, and then I don't have to think about it anymore until I'm at the store and look up my grocery list in the app. The reminders are also great, because it doesn't just send a notification to your device, it TELLS you if you're near the device. If someone lends me their cake pan on Friday, I can create a reminder, "Put cake pan in work bag" for 6:30pm Sunday evening. It just makes it so much easier to remember things in the moment and make the notes I need, without having to stop and reprioritize.

My job is also ideal for the ADHD brain: lots of short-term projects with tight deadlines, and a workflow that is highly streamlined and organized by due date. It's a job where having to drop everything and focus on the latest thing is a frequent requirement, so I get to turn a detriment into a benefit.
posted by Autumnheart at 2:02 PM on March 7, 2019 [17 favorites]


And yeah, I have tons of times where "I could do this but nah", and the whiteboard does an okay job of helping mitigate that. If I'm up anyway, I may as well empty the dishwasher or take the trash out. There are still plenty of times where I waste my chore time playing on my iPad, or whatever, but overall I get, let's say, 80% of stuff done when I would prefer to have done it.
posted by Autumnheart at 2:07 PM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


I was diagnosed when I was 33, or maybe 34. I'm 41 now. And I'm still so angry that when I told my grandmother (the woman who raised me) about getting a diagnosis, she somewhat flippantly said, "Oh, yeah... I always figured you had that. Probably should have gotten you tested when you were a kid." But... I mean, this is the woman who saw me, a deeply depressed teenage girl floundering in every area of life, and responded by bringing home a bottle of St. John's wort. Getting any kind of help at all from her was a losing proposition. But I'm still so angry, because my life has changed and improved SO MUCH since getting an official diagnosis, and I could have had all of this when I was so much younger. It literally would have changed everything about my life if I'd gotten help when I was a kid, or even a teenager. I'm on pretty decent footing now, even unmedicated, although meds would probably help if I were willing to go back on them, and I'm finally able to actually like myself and appreciate the fucking awesome ways my brain works, but... god, to have had this 20 years ago. I would give almost anything.
posted by palomar at 2:14 PM on March 7, 2019 [21 favorites]


I guess another way of saying this: claiming these difficulties as exclusive to ADHD, particularly as some sort of public service, really, really, really isn't benign, either. It's also just...weird.

Completely agree with this. I was diagnosed with ADHD 2 years ago at 26, but I’m still not really sure if the diagnosis is the best explanation for my particular challenges. I scored pretty high for ASD traits, and can think of a bunch of other plausible explanations for my difficulty starting tasks, short term memory problems and so on.

I’ve been on medication off and on since then. The medication definitely helps with getting stuff done, but also changes me in ways I’m not comfortable with. The discussion about over/underdiagnosis is difficult, and I don’t really know which side I’m on, but the promise of a pharmacological solution to your problems if you get ADHD instead of ASD (or something else) in the diagnosis lottery unquestionably makes it a more attractive alternative to a lot of people. It certainly was to me anyway.
posted by sov at 2:55 PM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]


Apologies folks, I skipped over your comments, they just seemed too long. Yes, also ADHD. I knew it as soon as ADD became a diagnosis. It wasn't when I was a kid, so I was just stupid and bad. Still, I didn't get an actual diagnosis until I was about 40. I got enough meds to get through the semester of college I was in, which happened to save my college career. I got my degree and a job that I've been in since. However, at that time I had no insurance so I couldn't get more meds. I've been living this way since. I've never been able to approach my primary care about it. I guess as a sober addict, I'm afraid he'll think I'm drug seeking.
posted by evilDoug at 3:12 PM on March 7, 2019


It makes me sad to see people getting frustrated by ADHD treatment. I've been taking adderall since I was 25 and it'll be 14 years this fall. Meds make me feel different, better, but it took me a long time to realize that they don't reverse ADHD. The cognitive processes I've had since I was a kid are still there, and it's taken me years to change the ways I do things, but every year, things are noticeably better.
posted by afiler at 3:48 PM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


My therapist brought up the fact that I have ADHD 2 months ago. I’m 34. I immediately countered with “no you see I can’t have that because 1) I can focus on interesting things for such a long time, so hard that I ignore everything else and 2) I’m actually very patient and great at waiting because then I can zone out and think about 500 other things all at once” which it turns out is not actually evidence for not having adhd. It has actually been kind of unsettling to learn that I’m not just... kind of lazy and shitty. This was a good twitter conversation.
posted by a hat out of hell at 3:57 PM on March 7, 2019 [17 favorites]


I’m continually amazed that my roommate can just... do things when she wants to. If she wants to cook every night, she just does it. She can cook a personal pizza, have dinner and clean the dishes in under an hour. I can manage to cook once a week, and I fight through a fog of distraction and decision paralysis for hours before starting. Meal planning and shopping and cooking for me is as difficult as going to the airport for a typical person.
posted by cricketcello at 4:18 PM on March 7, 2019 [20 favorites]


Sometimes I wonder if there is any such thing as laziness, procrastination, or lack of discipline at all. Maybe they are just old ideas that turned out to be inaccurate or inapplicable to the largely inhumane machinery we built around ourselves that's chewing us up and spitting us out?

Yup. This really resonated with me when it was going around last year, and helped frame this question in a way that made sense:

Laziness Does Not Exist

from the FPP: we don't talk about it with our friends & certainly don't talk about it at work (I know this is a generalization and may not be true for you)

I used to think it would be career suicide to disclose my ADHD to my managers/coworkers/etc. and would be a quick ticket to looking for another job - I'm a lawyer, after all, and a lawyer with admitted executive functioning problems is an unemployed lawyer. But in fact it's been kind of the opposite. At my previous jobs my managers wanted explanations for my troubles with hitting deadlines, and instead of being honest about my disorder I attempted to take full agency/responsibility and said "there's no excuse and I'll do better next time / it won't happen again." So when I inevitably failed to hit a deadline after that, there was nothing else I could really say. At my current job I reluctantly disclosed it, and immediately my manager was like "oh, we have a few people with ADHD here and we have some strategies and ideas about how to help you work through it for your particular job demands, we can adapt to your needs" and 1) it was such a big relief to not shoulder every burden out of a misplaced kowtowing to the dogma of personal responsibility and individual failure, 2) it framed my issues in a way that made sense to my superiors and made them see it as a challenge to be overcome (managers like solvable challenges!) rather than them being confused and frustrated with me, and 3) it was so not a big deal at all to bring it up, in retrospect, and a relief to know others in my position are also dealing with it.

That's just one data point, YMMV, I don't want to be responsible for any action you take and every workplace is different - but for me, bringing it up at work is important. I have medication and I'm developing coping strategies, but I still run into issues, and some of the suggestions that my superiors brought up in changing my workflow made my job SO much easier and shaved DAYS off my workweek (yes, I was working nights and weekends regularly and still not hitting my deadlines) - paying for a dictation service that I can record voice files for instead of me sitting down and writing 40 pages for each project? Uh, yes, please.
posted by naju at 6:21 PM on March 7, 2019 [13 favorites]


This is so painfully relevant for me right now. I have two talks to give in....5 days. One is well drafted but needs.... a lot of work. The other is...a series of bullet points. It is literally making me sweat and if I could just rein in a tiny bit of focus I could do the thing. But I keep getting distracted by having bodily functions, random anxiety, the whistling radiator, traffic noise outside, the guy singing upstairs, footsteps in the hallway, life maintenance things that are scheduled and I cannot be late for, the hours it takes me to get dressed on some days but not others, realizing that I had a four hour block of time set aside that has now been whittled down to 30 minutes, and what useful product can I emit in 30 measly minutes (a lot, but tell my roving brain that)?

Ahhhh a friend just reached out and offered me a pep talk, reminding me that I've been doing this work (for the first talk) for years and that my attention to detail and my persistence in getting the drafts written is beyond what some people do for talks they give. So I'm going to go have a bit of a cry, over being so seen here and in many of my friendships and then the words will come tonight or tomorrow. The pressure is intense because these talks will represent a huge part of my portfolio in my current job hunt and then in mid April I have another talk to give and it's totally different from these two.

Also, I have to pack for an international trip, departure is Sunday night. Can we talk about packing? I could talk about packing for days. Small suitcase, things need to be mix and match, and not show wear, and go with all the types of weather I'm expecting, be suitable for casual and professional events, and look and FEEL good, while not taking up too much space. And while I'm packing I'll get distracted by the to-do list for the apartment crap like taking the trash AND compost out has to be on a literal checklist or else I'll come back in ten days to a stinking compost can.
Crap. I just realized I forgot to buy travel insurance. So now I'm investigating that.

As a public service request, please do not refer to my rapidly changing attention focus as "manic," which manages to be dismissive of two conditions at once.

I have not yet had an insurance plan that covers non-stimulant medication. Stimulant medications make me question why anyone does amphetamines for fun. Nauseated, anxious, feeling like I'm literally vibrating out of my skin. Not for me, though I did try really hard to harness the bits of attention I gained on them, I found mostly that I ended up hyperfocusing on things that were not relevant to my needs, with a loss of appetite thrown in for extra difficulty.
posted by bilabial at 6:51 PM on March 7, 2019 [6 favorites]


My adult daughter says people keep asking her if she has ADHD. She tells them no, she was raised by someone with ADHD so she has the interaction style. It seems normal to her. She deals really well with people who have ADHD, and they are astounded and touched by the matter-of-fact way she deals with them; it's how she deals with me too. She sometimes laughs too knowingly when I diverge from the topic in a way that makes sense to me. The upside (or is it a downside?) is that she reads me incredibly well and knows when I'm hyperfocusing. Everyone else has always just gotten bewildered, annoyed, or impressed by the way I operate.

I hate seeing myself on video. I talk so fast. I twitch. It doesn't feel like that inside.

My poor mother. Toward the end of her life, she informed me that she and my sister had taken an online test as if they were me. "You really do have it," she said, still unbelieving. No duh, mom. Dear lord, she thought I was doing it all on purpose to drive her crazy.

I'm 67. I don't procrastinate. I fold my clothes neatly and put them away (it still makes me jitter and feel annoyed, but I do it). My house is scary tidy. And I have achieved a lot. But it took decades.
posted by Peach at 7:57 PM on March 7, 2019 [8 favorites]


bilabial, did they start you on a very low dose and work slowly up to find your sweet spot? And did they try both methylphenidate and amphetamine based meds? Because often only one of them works (methylphenidate gives me nothing but nausea and headaches) and dosage is different for everyone. 20mg adderall is vibration and anxiety for me, 15 mg works well without those side effects.

And someone mentioned being tested for ADHD.. There are no tests for ADHD that are diagnostic. Diagnosis is made via an interview.

And to the person wondering if ADHD is sometimes misdiagnosed as depression and anxiety.. according to ADHD experts yes, all the time. Everyone gets plenty of training in treating depression and anxiety so it's the go to diagnosis for those less trained in adhd. And a lot of adults diagnosed with adhd spent years being treated unsuccessfully for depression and anxiety beforehand. Treatment was unsuccessful because the depression is caused by low self worth from years of failure to achieve what you know you should be able to do but just can't. I had social anxiety that it turns out was caused by a lifetime of failures in social interactions because I just couldn't stay focused on conversations no matter how much I wanted to so I alternately looked bored with people, jumped in with non -sequitors or commented on something that everyone else had moved on from.

Life has gotten a lot easier since I got on meds (I was only just diagnosed at 41). And my apple watch helps a lot. Having siri on my wrist lets me add todos and grocery list items as I think of them and calendar alerts that buzz my wrist keep my on time for appointments (when I remember to put them in my calendar).
posted by antinomia at 8:03 PM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]


There is no single test for ADHD that is diagnostic. But about 20 years ago I shelled out big money to a neuropsychologist who specialised in adult ADHD. This guy gave me a series of tests in addition to a lengthy interview in order to assess whether I had ADHD. His assessment was that I had "mild to moderate" ADHD. He was wrong about the mild part. I was 43 and I was bitter for a long time that it took so many years before I found out why I was so "lazy."
posted by Bella Donna at 9:34 PM on March 7, 2019 [2 favorites]


And a lot of adults diagnosed with adhd spent years being treated unsuccessfully for depression and anxiety beforehand. Treatment was unsuccessful because the depression is caused by low self worth from years of failure to achieve what you know you should be able to do but just can't. I had social anxiety that it turns out was caused by a lifetime of failures in social interactions because I just couldn't stay focused on conversations no matter how much I wanted to so I alternately looked bored with people, jumped in with non -sequitors or commented on something that everyone else had moved on from.

All of this 100x. Thought for years / decades that I had some combination of depression and social anxiety. Both were underlying symptoms of the ADHD, and went away as soon as that was treated.

When I think about the enormous extent to which untreated ADHD wreaked havoc on every single aspect of my life until I finally went to a doctor at 36, I get angry at the people who failed to spot this very important thing to spot - particularly my parents (who continually stigmatized mental illness and discouraged me from treatment to the point where they told me "if you go to a psychiatrist and they diagnose you with something, it will be on your public records, you won't be able to get any good jobs, and your insurance premiums will be higher for the rest of your life", none of which are remotely true) and my teachers / school system (who kept praising and making an example out of me because I got good grades, as if that precludes you from having ADHD). It doesn't really do much good for me to dwell on the past or harbor resentment, but it's staggering when I think about where my life could've gone if I'd had this under control since I was a young kid.
posted by naju at 11:02 PM on March 7, 2019 [5 favorites]


I am a person with ADHD. It can be astonishingly debilitating. I represent an extreme example of what can happen. Untreated, I ended up with anxiety and avoidant personality disorder. I have agoraphobia. As you might expect, I'm also depressed. I am also incredibly fortunate despite all of this. Medications help, some. After many years, on my best days I can pass for normal for hours at a time.

I've been taking stimulants for around 15 years, and other psych meds for years before that. He's wrong about having to go to multiple pharmacies because of casual abuse of Adderall. It's not that it isn't abused, but this is a poor characterization and overly reductive. The supply chain is tightly controlled, so on a local level, pharmacies may happen to be out of stock on a given day if they aren't expecting to fill a prescription for it. And over the past 15 years there have been shortages every few years due to drug manufacturing issues of various kinds.

If the argument is that neurotypicals should just stop doing what humans often do with things that make them feel good, well, when that happens I'm sure that I'll get that rainbow pony I've always wanted. Along with complete nuclear disarmament, universal healthcare, UBI, and a colony on the moon because it makes sense to do that before going to flipping Mars.

I have so many more things that I've tried to say here without sounding dismissive or like a jerk. I've been at this on and off for over 7 hours. That's enough time to agonize over this.
posted by monopas at 11:23 PM on March 7, 2019


I wasn’t diagnosed til my 6 year old son was and I had to fill out a little survey. I realized that it was perfectly describing me. I was already seeing a psychiatrist for depression so she diagnosed me and started me on meds. It was truly life changing. I still procrastinate, but I am able to function, really well, at work.
Both my sons have it, as well as executive function disorder, so watching us get ready in the morning is like watching...I don’t know! Actually, my husband always described it as a musical monkey fire drill and that just about sums it up.
posted by Biblio at 4:57 AM on March 8, 2019 [4 favorites]


The fantastic Dani Donovan has a series of ADHD Comics that feel deeply true to my experience of ADD!
posted by nicodine at 2:05 PM on March 8, 2019 [2 favorites]


« Older Carolee Schneemann, Avant-Garde Artist &...   |   The yips are an exercise in loneliness. Until you... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments