Adult ADHD support thread

[Completmentfille]

Hi,

I was diagnosed with combined type ADHD last year at the grand old age of 30 and am medicated. Medication very much helps but I still struggle with lots of things day to day, and lockdown has not helped.

I just wondered if there were any more of us about and if a support thread would be helpful?

[explorerdog]

Since I read the OP and had my lightbulb moment I have realised that I need to make lists of everything that needs doing and make myself accountable.
I had the day off work today and achieved 3 things I've been putting off for a year. I know it won't always be that simple. I think the motivation is linked to increasing my anxiety meds dose.
Anxiety definitely makes the ADHD stuff worse.
I've always been very all or nothing. I either don't drink any alcohol or I drink at least a bottle of wine. Impulse control is definitely one of my issues.

Thanks for posting this OP. It's been massively enlightening and helpful

[Completmentfille]

Oh im glad it's helped :) its so easy to feel alone I think. I just thought I was broken for many years.

[audweb]

This is me but I’ve never broached the subject with anyone. I have no idea how to start thinking about getting diagnosed as an adult. Looking back it’s always been me. Teachers moaning about my inability to concentrate at school, being obsessive about hobbies (teaching myself to play piano), struggling to focus then cramming it all in at the last minute, I have no patience for waiting will literally drive ten miles to avoid sitting in traffic...

[audweb]

Sorry I thought I had quote 🤦🏻‍♀️

[GloGirl]

Have my diagnosis this year, I'm so happy and looking forward to the good drugs! Fingers crossed titration treats me kindly.

Finding out I had ADHD was like a movie scene where the hero of the story finally comes home. I found my community, my comfort and an understanding. Spent all my life thinking I was defective and now I realise I was playing life with a different deck of cards than most other people.

[Nearlysantatime]

@BertieBotts relating hard to your post about jobs etc. I am clever, I know that I am but due to teenage pregnancies haven’t really managed to make anything of myself yet. I’m really not where I should be at all. A Psychiatrist I saw basically said that because I’m in a job I can’t have it but I know that I should be in a much better job.

[Sleephead1]

@Completmentfille Thank you for your reply I appreciate it. He is starting Xaggitin xl next week so we shall see what happens. He hasnt been offered therapy or anything yet but maybe that happens after they have started the medication. They are also referring him for a asd assessment but the wait is about a year and a half.

[BertieBotts]

I can't believe doctors are repeating this crap about if you have a job or have done well in school then you can't have it still! I mean I can but it's exasperating!

[Mixedupworld]

I haven't read all the comments yet so I don't know if this has been covered.

I'm undiagnosed.

What were you like as a child? I was painfully shy to the point I once wet myself at school because I was terrified to ask to go to the toilet. However at home I was awful and I feel ashamed of how I was. I basically screamed and shouted if things didnt go my way. I suppose looking back I was controlling,.even as a very young child. I don't have a close relationship with my brother now as he just remembers how I was as a child and that really hurts but I don't blame him.

[Gilead]

Dx 30 odd years ago. Still struggle some days.

[BertieBotts]

I was the child with my ponytail always half fallen out and my cardigan inside out or buttoned up wrong. And one sock trailing around my ankle. And my skirt tucked into my pants in one spot. Wearing clashing colours or six different patterns at once, because I just chose clothes that I liked (it didn't occur to me that people choose clothes which go together until I was about 27).

I was constantly daydreaming, and would crash into people because no spatial awareness. I loved reading and drawing/painting even though I wasn't actually very good at drawing! Everyone said I was, but I don't have the natural talent/coordination that really good drawers have.

I was not popular at school. I had absolutely no sense of what was or wasn't "cool" so people thought I was weird. I just wanted to do stuff that I found fun! Which was mainly playing complicated imaginative games. If people couldn't keep up with my imagination then they didn't like me either because I was weird. Weird was a feature of my childhood - so many people seemed to form this opinion of me. Most of the time, I found a couple of also-weird friends and so I didn't really mind. But several times throughout school for one reason or another I found myself without my one-other-weirdo friend, and then I felt incredibly lonely because I had no idea how to actually interact with anybody else in a way they found acceptable.

[BertieBotts]

I don't remember what I was like at home behaviour wise, but that contrast between almost too-well-behaved at school and then constantly on a knife edge of losing it at home is extremely common with neurodiverse children and is called after-school restraint collapse. If you google that phrase you'll find many descriptions of children just like this although of course the advice/info is more for parents. But it might help you understand what was happening a bit better, and frame it differently than you just being an awful child!

[ChocsAway2]

Some life or health insurance premiums in UK may be higher or not eiligible if you have ever seen a psychiatrist. In response to a PP. Get insurance first? Ironic as if you have ADHD getting insurance is low on the list! If there is even a list.

I can't think of other negatives.

[Polishedandbatty]

I had life insurance already so not sure if ADHD would have affected it or not.

[ChocsAway2]

This I like.

Always crops up on these threads- Russell Barkely ADHD essentials on You Tube is a good starting place.

[Nearlysantatime]

I could hypefocus on Russell Barkely all day. The man just gets me!

[Nearlysantatime]

Wondering this morning if anyone else really struggles to get up in the morning? Even after 8 or 9 hours it’s an absolute fight for me to get out of bed.

Also - overeating? Is it a dopamine thing?

[GloGirl]

No answers for you @Nearlysantatime but yes on both counts!!!

[BertieBotts]

Yes I struggle to wake up. Apparently this is due to low cortisol.

[xtinak]

May I join you. I have booked an assessment but currently worrying I will be told I don't have it, which I would find so disheartening. I feel like having a diagnosis would be so validating and enable me to believe that some of the things I've found hard were not my fault. I'm also worried about getting someone to fill in their observations for the assessment and what if they don't recognise my symptoms the way I do.

[ShinySquirrel]

Who are you thinking of asking to do the form, @xtinak? I know they prefer someone who has known you from childhood, but it doesn't need to be. My family would have been a disaster. I can imagine my mum writing 'Don't know' for every answer. My dad almost certainly has undiagnosed ADHD and wouldn't entertain the possibility of being different, so he'd complete them from the perspective that it's all a load of rubbish as he is like that and he is 'fine'.

I haven't told my family about my diagnosis yet. I wonder why? Ha.

My DH filled mine in. He's known me for 13 years and was able to say I've had my issues and quirks since he's known me. We discussed the forms together and you can do that too, you don't have to get your person to complete it without help.

What helped both of us was having examples of ADHD symptoms, and the diagnostic criteria. TikTok was good too, as watching people talk about their difficulties made us both realise I do those things and it helped us think of different examples. There was one TikTok video where the person filmed themselves getting a glass of water and my DH laughed and went 'You do that'. They'd gone through the kitchen opening cupboards and drawers, and moving things around, then got the water and put it down and wandered off without it...

[BertieBotts]

:o I do that when getting drinks as well...

My mum and DH did my forms.

[UserGeneratedContent]

I've got my DH to do it too. He's known me for the best part of a decade and probably has the best insight over that time. I'm too embarrassed to ask my parents. I'm also not sure their insights would be the most useful in a way. I can see why no one might have picked up ADHD in childhood as I was living with very extreme anxiety that virtually blotted out everything else, probably from their perspective and the psychiatrists who treated me. It seems logical now that the two are related of course! I also believe my dad very clearly has it. I used to think he had bipolar but now ADHD seems to make a lot more sense.

I absolutely relate to the glass of water.

[Nearlysantatime]

Desperate to pay for an assessment but just don’t have the spare cash just now! Hopefully after Christmas.

[UserGeneratedContent]

It is so expensive. If only there weren't so many hurdles to jump through with the NHS.