ADHD - anyone got any hints and tips for coping with life

[Gingernaut]

I have a magic marker in the kitchen, which I use to write the use by or best before dates on jars and packages

I use clear containers and jars so I can see what's in them and what state they're in

I don't have one cupboard for all the cleaning gear. I keep things I use to clean, close to where I use them - bathroom and toilet cleaners in the bathroom, laundry detergents close to the washing machine and shoe care stuff close to my shoes.

I have magnetic boards, lots of magnets and clips and even have magnetic sheets which I can cut and stick to items so that they can go on the boards - phone, frequently used screwdrivers and pen pots are all stuck up on IKEA metal boards

I keep a letter opener handy so that when mail come in, it's opened straight away. I decide whether it needs to be filed or whether something needs to be done and clip it up, ready to be dealt with.

I have lots of mirrors and dry wipe pens - If I need to remember something, I write it on one or more mirrors, so that when I look in the mirror, I'll see the note.

If I need to remember to post a letter or bring something out with me, I place it on the floor, in front of a door I have to pass through to leave the house.

I have magnetic note pads stuck about the place, so that I can write notes to myself wherever I am.

II have a whiteboard in my bedroom - the first and last thing I see when I wake up is what I've written on the board.

New job uses Microsoft Teams - I have my shifts to hand whenever I open the app.

Anyone got anything else?

Apps? Practices?

Can I ask those of you with a diagnosis, was your GP the starting point?

@ToooOldForThis

Can I ask those of you with a diagnosis, was your GP the starting point?

I started with my GP, they said they wouldn’t fund an adult assessment on the nhs, I went private but even private psychologist wanted a GP referral before they saw me, my GP was happy to do that.

Thank you, that's really helpful!

Hi! I hope it is ok to join. These are such great ideas.... I have never been diagnosed but I have always known I'm somehow not as organised and good at managing things as the rest of the world.. and I am wondering why now. I am going to try and pick up some of your suggestions!
Thanks!

Lots of 'boxes of doom' cleared out today! Christmas storage box tidied up. All washing put away.

Podcasts. That's how I'm getting house stuff done. I can't have nothing in my head, it's just so mind numbingly dull dull dull doing house jobs.

Work, I use the app Session on my Mac. Quite expensive app, but I got payback within 1 day on my productivity. I'm more distracted in the mornings, so it keeps me more focused. That and coffee. I use that as my focus meds.

Anyone else use coffee to help them focus?

I never used to understand why coffee was said to 'wire' people. As it has always given me a calmness and makes it easier to focus.

@GrrrlPwr I sort of use coffee. I find that it speeds up my actions to better match the speed of my thoughts! The amount I need for this means I can't sleep though and if I can't get enough sleep I have terrible trouble managing anything at all.

Apologies for the selfish detail, but what would you say are the main differences between ADHD and just scatty and a bit lazy?! I recognise so much of what people on here are saying, but I always assumed it was just normal.

The "putting things down and then never being able to find them again" is a big one for me (I'm a teacher, and at least 2 or 3 times a lesson I'll have to ask the kids to help me find where I've put my board pen 🤦‍♀️) And also, thinking about and dreading a task so much for so long, that I'm as exhausted as I would have been if I'd actually done the bloody task! In fact, exhaustion generally, and a genuine inability to just get started on anything.

I just use the memos on my phone to remind me of stuff.

Ritalin helped as a child but I’m scared to try it now as a truck driver as it would have to be approved by the DVLA with worst outcome potentially being license revoked. In a drug test it comes up as amphetamine so not sure I want to open that can of worms.

@ViceLikeBlip I'm
The same as you. Not diagnosed but I've felt all my life that there is something 'wrong' with me. I've researched BPD exhaustively and was close to asking for an official diagnoses but some of the major aspects of that I didn't meet criteria. Then I came across ADHD and honestly it's like a lightbulb went off in my head. Everything down to racing thoughts, procrastination, disorganisation, anxiety over everything I mess up and mistakes over. But especially losing things! I end up in tears almost every day because I feel so useless. Some days are a chain of events that go like this.

▪️Wake up jump out of bed to get ready for work. Forget the lunch I made night before.
▪️ make sons breakfast with 5 mins to go but can't find car keys
▪️Find car keys get bag together
▪️Put on coat can't find car keys again
▪️ Finally get to station can't find bank card to pay for train ticket
▪️miss my train to go get bank card to pay for ticket
▪️whilst on train forget to pay parking on the app come back after work to find £60 parking fine
▪️on way home can't find return train ticket so pay for another one
▪️Additional £75 paid that day because I lost things and was late for work

That sort of thing happens to me regularly in some way, shape or form. I've managed to be successful in my career but it feels so much harder for me than it does other people but I've always assumed everyone just feels like that. It is hell

@ViceLikeBlip It took me quite a while to recognise myself as adhd because I think there’s a huge gap between the diagnostic criterion and the experience.

I didn’t see myself as someone who had difficulty concentrating - it’s the opposite where I have to be careful not to get sucked into something fascinating and forget everything else for a few days. I saw myself as lazy in regard to struggling with mundane or boring things.

It was only when I started researching adhd in regards to ds, that I started recognising myself in different experiences. And some of the things like Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria and Emotional
Disregulation, that aren’t part of the official diagnosis were jumping off the page.
I would have sworn though that I had no problems in school and childhood (and adhd is lifelong so I thought that ruled me out) but the more I thought about it the more I started to see the adhd traits then too.

All that said - I haven’t been diagnosed and not has my ds (yet) so I could just be scatty and lazy after all.

For me it’s been an ugly duckling experience - I don’t feel the pressure now of being a dysfunctional neurotypical. I just need to figure out how to optimise my neurodiversity.

I too find similar difficulties. I like the quote about being motivated by interest. So what I used to do was to buy a new organising book, or try a new system. This would help greatly for some while, until I managed to outwit myself

until I managed to outwit myself
Exactly

This website seems really good, I just need to stop procrastinating and actually read it more fully and then implement the strategies 🤣

www.additudemag.com/category/manage-adhd-life/

Thanks, Random. Just what I need. Though I must beware thinking I am making progress just by reading it, rather than by implementing it

Well if only I could stop procrastinating long enough to even START reading it 🤣

Ah but reading it is procrastinating

@ToooOldForThis

Can I ask those of you with a diagnosis, was your GP the starting point?

I was bouncing from bank job to bank job around a hospital, when I landed in a paediatric admin post.

I was asked how I coped with my diagnosis and when I asked was my dyslexia that obvious, I was told that it clearly more than that.

I was pointed towards online questionnaires, I printed and completed them and brought them to the GP.

At first. she laughed, then she looked through the completed questionnaires and then she referred me to local services

[quote Handholdtoday]@ViceLikeBlip I'm
The same as you. Not diagnosed but I've felt all my life that there is something 'wrong' with me. I've researched BPD exhaustively and was close to asking for an official diagnoses but some of the major aspects of that I didn't meet criteria. Then I came across ADHD and honestly it's like a lightbulb went off in my head. Everything down to racing thoughts, procrastination, disorganisation, anxiety over everything I mess up and mistakes over. But especially losing things! I end up in tears almost every day because I feel so useless. Some days are a chain of events that go like this.

▪️Wake up jump out of bed to get ready for work. Forget the lunch I made night before.
▪️ make sons breakfast with 5 mins to go but can't find car keys
▪️Find car keys get bag together
▪️Put on coat can't find car keys again
▪️ Finally get to station can't find bank card to pay for train ticket
▪️miss my train to go get bank card to pay for ticket
▪️whilst on train forget to pay parking on the app come back after work to find £60 parking fine
▪️on way home can't find return train ticket so pay for another one
▪️Additional £75 paid that day because I lost things and was late for work

That sort of thing happens to me regularly in some way, shape or form. I've managed to be successful in my career but it feels so much harder for me than it does other people but I've always assumed everyone just feels like that. It is hell [/quote]
Wow, are you me??

Every. Single. Day.

I'm a senior manager, and I feel like a total fraud. Or at least I did until I realised that I have adhd.

My hyperfocus is my superpower!

A previous poster (or on another thread maybe?) recommended How to ADHD on YouTube. It's been really helpful just in the fortnight since I've dipped in and out. Body doubling, having things at the point of use, pomodoro- new tools! It makes me feel like actually, there is something I can DO to manage me better. It still will not be perfect but it will increase the amount of white space in my life I need in order to cope.

Love this thread, thank you all for sharing experiences and tips

Does anyone have some free app suggestions?

@ViceLikeBlip the difference is a lack of filter, rather than a lack of memory/ effort.
Nt people filter out superfluous details subconsciously, we don't.
So eg the scatty/ bad memory person watches the work presentation, and naturally blocks out that Claire has a glass of water, John is doodling, Kate has her hair in a bun. They might find the work presentation boring, and look around at those things for something to do, or actively daydream, or watch the presentation but quickly forget the contents.
For me, Claire has a glass of water. The glass looks like mils tumblers, mil keeps her tumblers in the cupboard to the left of her sink, her wine glasses are the shelf above. OH we could get her some more flutes for Xmas because she only has 4 left. And so on with every minuscule detail in the room, simultaneously. And because all those tiny details in the room are given equal importance, I have to manually filter them out to a controllable level.
On the plus side I will forever recall whatever parts of the presentation I absorbed, because new protocol 3 is intrinsically linked to Kate's bun and my inner monologue at the time.
Likewise, if you put 17 tv monitors on, all equal size and volume, showing 1 programme the scatty person really enjoyed, and 16 full of dross, they wouldn't be able to watch it. With adhd, 7000 tv's, a brass band and a riot could be going on and you wouldn't even notice because you're focused on that one tv and have a lifetime experience of trying to block out the background. The problem is that life doesn't always allow for hyper focus so you spend your time trying to juggle things that all demand to be of equal importance.

@TrainspottingWelsh that's really helpful, thank you very much

Lots of people I know seem to be able to wash up, and stuff like that, on automatic, as it were. But I have to focus on the washing up, so what is a trivial task to them is non-trivial to me.

If I do go on automatic, I lose things, and have to spend time looking for lost stuff, which I manage to hide from myself.

Also if I have more than two things in my hand, I lose track of what I'm holding, and lose things.

If I go out with more than my handbag, I have trained myself to count my bags to minimise the chances of leaving bags in shops etc.

F

Since I started my purgatorial new job, I have discovered the 'delights' of Microsoft Teams.

Not just for awkward interviews, but also for organisational statements and bulletins, shifts (my own and the rest of the team), where you are in the pecking order (at the bottom) and loads of other goodies.

Shift working is when your boss updates the teams shifts rota on her lunch break at 0300.