Why does no one talk about the more extreme traits of ADHD?

That’s exactly how I feel. I really identify with the way you’ve described the emotion. Especially when you say is there an element of wanting the chaos/non conformity.

I have been on my phone too much today. So I haven’t gotten work done. I now have to do homework etc. And make a World Book Day Costume. I have left myself in a situation where I have too little time for what I need to do.

Part of it is we had a really busy weekend with one of the kid’s birthdays. I find it really hard to adjust again after an event. Party was on Sat. I needed to do a proper clean up on Sun but I felt exhausted. So Monday morning was digging the lunchboxes from Friday out of bags (fairly BAU in my house). But at some point yesterday I though “I need to get organised for tomorrow” and then I just…didn’t

That last point. Is that ADHD or it depression? I don’t think it hugely matters in terms of the language used, but maybe what’s key is trying to figure out if you could do certain things if you felt more optimistic. If that were the case, maybe working on how you feel about the future and why would help?

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I've just failed to execute my bit of a collaborative plan with DH. I tried to do it, but I had loads of problems - largely because everything involved an app some kind of long winded computer process with no humans involved to speak to when I hit a problem, and then at one point my phone randomly stopped accepting text messages so I didn't get important alerts and I gave up for (checks notes) over a month now because I just feel I can't cope. Still need to do it.

Oh yeah, this is completely useless for helping @Cantfinishanything with her struggles with ADHD. I’m just saying that sometimes it might look like people aren’t dealing with the traits of ADHD when they are but society has deemed it acceptable. But having spoken to some other ND mine isn’t considered “real” because it’s not old car, Pokémon or what ever. Mostly, I think gamerfication is really powerful. But I don’t have have combined type or hyperactivity, but the attention deficit so what’s useful for me is probably fucking useless for most people with ADHD

I’m ADHD and autistic. Much of what you have described I have although I do find I need a routine eg listslists lists. I have a ADHD planner and it follows me everywhere

It also depends on who you have around you I suspect. The idea of having a DH who understands and helps is... well, I wish that were my life.

I don't think he'd help any more (or criticise less) if I had a diagnosis though. Surely either people are kind about these things and recognise everyone is different in what they can cope with or not.

Does anybody have any ideas for rebuilding bad credit?

When my ex left he quoted the house always being a mess as one of the main factors. Plus me failing to execute on collaborative plans. It felt very personal. I'd really try to the organise and tidy to the point of me having intense anxiety whenever he would come home and then it would all fail and crash from the exhaustion of trying to keep it up.

This is an interesting point of view.

But of course depending on your hyperfixation you may get penalised by society or not and need help or not.

So for people whose hyperfixation/special interest is making money then they're not going to need as much help around debt as OP who's in debt.

@Cantfinishanything

Thanks to you and your thread, and to everyone who's posted, I got such a rush from talking about this and reading everyone's struggles, that I managed to clear and clean my kitchen table. Things had been piling up and falling off and been repiled up for weeks and weeks!

Thank you!!! ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

I hear you and also get tired of watching people on social media misplace their car keys and think they are in the trenches. I have ADHD and it’s debilitating. I’m on meds and can just about function but I’m heavily supported by my husband day to day. I’d be living in a cardboard box surrounded by my latest hobby purchases if left unchecked. I ruin lots of things, including jobs and relationships. It’s grim at times but like others have said it’s a cycle and right now I’m just about coping. Strength to you all.

I think you’ve also touched on something there which is important. “Being hyper organised is boring”. I think that’s one of the ways some people look like they have it together, that their hyperfixations/special interests are considered “useful” by society.

I get a weird dopamine rush when I reach the bottom of washing basket, I look up all the differences in detergents and the science behind each type, Ive read my washing manual and tried to discuss it with my husband like it’s some sort of intellectual treatise, I’ve been known to try and take parts out of my washing machine to methodically clean and to see how they work. And you know what? The washing gets done but I’m under no illusion that’s how NT people approach it. Also any other job where I don’t get that buzz just doesn’t get done. It’s odd but I’m not going to think about it too hard incase it goes away and I’m stuck with no clean clothes for my kids.

I hear you OP. My son has autism and severe adhd. The type of ADHD that makes his life incredibly difficult and very obvious. I am fed up with people self diagnosing it because they meet a couple of things the saw on a video online and parents who insist there child has ADHD because they struggle to focus after spending hours gaming. Thats not ADHD its poor parenting. The other one is I think my child has ADHD whilst ignoring and refusing to install any type od boundaries, discipline or rules on there child who just punched another kid because they didn't get there own way. Thats not ADHD its poor parenting.

I want to send solidarity to you OP and sympathy.

I strongly suspect I'm on the less severe end of the ADHD spectrum. I pick my skin constantly, find everything boring, am horrendously disorganised. I don't have a good job and I'm only good at the 'firefighting' bits of it. The boring admin (like as you say mileage claims) I simply can't do in the way I'm expected to - always behind deadline. I excelled academically but lost my interesting job after having children (and due to DH's career - long story) and ever since have been bored to tears (literally, I cry a lot at times).

I agree with what you say. Whilst I may well be ADHD I'm not at the point I can't cope at all - I struggle to cope, yes, and feel like I'm only just keeping my head above water all the time which I guess is 'masking'. I have small to medium things I fail at, but I don't have loads of debt (other than mortgage which I do have) or serious problems from it.

If I told anyone other than on here I think I'm ADHD then I'd probably be in that group you describe of people who appear to be coping. I forget to take my medication sometimes,(not ADHD meds), despite alarms and reminders (and it's important I take it so not good this happens) but I'm just about coping. I'm on HRT which has not helped at all and I do think peri / menopause made it all worse but I've always been like this to a certain extent and there's huge ND in my family. As a girl and compared to the more obvious struggles of the boys, growing up, it was all dismissed and jokes made like 'Ginny's always late' 'Ginny's messy' etc.

I do feel that there are so many people claiming ADHD and ASD that it actually makes it harder for people who can't cope because of the severity of their conditions and for whom there are serious consequences. And also much harder to access support too because there's only so much to go around, and this is the real unfairness.

So on the one hand I sympathise and empathise but on the other I'm clearly not as badly affected as you are OP, I'm on the milder end of the spectrum. I don't think it's the same thing at all and honestly it's really sort of unhelpful that different ends of the spectrum are called the same thing.

Your example of that is a good one - it's like if 'rich', 'middle-income' and 'poor' were all called the same thing and it was just a question of degree of amount of money - a 'spectrum'. But obviously the outcomes and lives of people who are very rich, middling or poor are entirely different. There's a big difference between being able to feed your family or not, or pay your bills or not.

Take me & my boss for example. She is hyper organised, Im not. But hyper organised takes a lot of effort, it energy, it’s boring. She can manage it and I can’t seem to or not consistently anyways. So what’s the difference between us?

I let things pile up, and then anxiety kicks in and stuff starts going wrong.

I know the things other people use to stay on top of things - lists, prep the night before and yet I almost never seem to do any of it, not to mind consistently.

Today, I’m WFH, distracted all day, no one has any clean underwear, I forgot my son’s after school club wasn’t on. I haven’t eaten a proper dinner in weeks.

My boss who is ten years older has clearly been productive all day as she is everyday as far as I can see, and doing an extreme sport. She snapped at me once that I needed to make a list.

You need to make one small change @Cantfinishanything . Just one. Even if it is 'I'll set myself 3 alarms in the morning.' Yes, I know, you can ignore the alarms and it feels like a demand...but if you want it you have to accept that it will be painful somehow.

DH has (yet to be diagnosed but clear) ADHD. He has alarms for everything he does at work. Different alarms for different things, with different sound effects. It would drive me crazy but the variety is what allows him to attend to them. If it was the same noise each time, he would just filter it out. He incorporates new activities into his routine, but if the day changes due to a bank holiday, he'll forget.

Do you have friends or relatives? You could say 'The kids have a play at this time on this day. I always forget and they're really sad about it. Could you possibly phone me an hour before the play to remind me to go?'

There are coping strategies. Not easy ones, but they are there. You have to decide if it's worth the struggle of using them.

I'm going to choose that you mean on the fence about if YOU have ADHD, and not about if it exists at all, which is one way your post could be interpreted!

I'm late diagnosed. I beat myself up for years - still find myself doing it now - for not "just being more organised" and "just" doing the thing that needs doing.

I think it's a really difficult disability to wrap your own head around, so it's no wonder family and friends often don't get it. Executive functioning tasks seem so simple and so easy. And yet...

Thanks so much for replying. That sounds really depressing for you, having to resort to putting on weight so you don't want to buy new clothes.
Supposing your salary was paid into someone else's account, and they paid your important bills every month including something to clear your debts, then moved a set amount into a savings account and transferred spending money into your account say twice a month. Would that help? It would mean your debts gradually reducing and you always having some spending money if you want to buy something.

A lot of people will have had bad outcomes in different ways. Everyone’s struggle will be slightly different. You do sound as if you would benefit from some meds or counselling though OP. Despite all your despair you do sound as if you have things going for you. Part of functioning better is acknowledging where you struggle and trying to be a bit kinder in yourself.

you would look at me now and think what’s the issue. But… while I haven’t got CCJs I have defaulted on loans in the past, which affected my credit rating for years. I’m still not the best with finances and neither is DH. I have just made peace with always having balances on credit cards because neither of us can manage to not impulse buy that thing we want.

You said you failed your masters, that means you must have completed your bachelors. I have done this now but there is no way I could have accessed doing so at 18, I couldn’t even manage GCSEs or college back then. It nearly killed me in my 30s but I did it.

im currently sat working from home (clearly distracted as I’m on mumsnet) on a falling apart dining table and chairs because I seem incapable of making grown up financial decisions. So I haven’t brought a decent table but I do have a shiny new pair of running shoes and have a fun weekend away booked on impulse!

relationships I’m ok because I have found someone equally as rubbish and impulsive, but in a slightly different way, to bimble through life with.

im not overweight and never really have been partly because im not a stress eater. I go the other way if im stressed and i actually lost loads of weight in the last year of my degree because I would go whole days without eating due to the stress of getting things done and meeting deadlines. It’s not really a good thing, you end up feeling really weird both mentally and physically. I’m also very into running, it’s a bit of a hyper fixation, but a healthy one. That said, I don’t know when to quit and I have ended up very very injured before because I cannot make the sensible choice and not race when I know I shouldn’t.

it’s not a race to the bottom. We are all individuals with individual needs but it does sound like you could do with some more support.

I’m can relate to much of this and the OP’s posts. But I’m still on the fence about the whole ADHD thing.
Is it just not working hard enough. I often feel I could try harder, yet I never seem to get there or when I do get there I never keep it up.
All people find aspects of work boring etc.

Is it a case of forgetting the anxiety of the past and trying harder in the conventional ways that people do - calendars etc.

I kept saying I’d make a photo calendar for 2025, it’s now March 2026 and I haven’t made one for either.

I have been diagnosed with inattentive adhd by a psychologist recently but I don’t struggle as much as you do op. The reason I get up and do things is mainly fear based, I’m terrified of fucking things up and I feel like I’m on a tightrope all the time and any wrong foot will mean my whole life falls apart. I make myself do stuff for my dc or other people as letting people down hurts me far more than the effort that goes into making myself do things I’d rather not do. I have had several breakdowns and have had suicidal thoughts my whole adult life, I’ve never felt good enough and I think everyone hates me. I’ve mainly picked very intense jobs so I have to do rather than think and then I burnout.

I make anything and everything I can automated so I don’t have to think or remember. I get very stressed when anything I have set up changes and I have to do something. Over the years I’ve reined in my maladaptive coping mechanisms to just chocolate and overeating and overworking. I’ve recently found out about limerence and adhd which explains some stupid and dangerous situations over the years.

I coined a phrase which people at work have started using, that my brain is a "butterfly Tigger" - fluttering from subject to subject like a butterfly whatever grabs my attention for a second and bouncing around like Tigger from each to the next.

I've had a bit of success with people who just can't understand what it's like having ADHD explaining that when some people have something on their mind they talk about it going round and round like a hamster on a wheel; well it can be the same for me except I have 8-10 hamsters all spinning round on their wheels at the same time.

Impulsiveness is the root of many of my issues. Financial ones of course, but also just interjecting into what someone is saying without waiting for them to finish or thinking whether what I'm saying is appropriate/will be received well/relevant etc. It doesn't help with the eating thing either, I eat and then think actually I'm too fat, that food isn't good for me, then the guilt starts, which leads to comfort eating...

I am exactly like you, OP, and I have no answers. I try my best, but always come up short. Never stay in any job for long, always late, always messy, can't organise myself to go places or do things. It's crippling. I do get annoyed when people think ADHD is just getting bored when reading a long book or misplacing your keys every now and then. It's so, so much more than that, and I find masking hard to understand because I don't feel like I can mask at all. I don't understand how people with ADHD can have all this discipline and drive when I can barely remember to brush my teeth.