Adult ADHD - anyone else fed up of the constant battle.and of constantly losing it?

[WhoHasMovedMyBrain]

EVery evening I think that the next day will.be different. That I'll do my work, work when I have to, that I won't stuff my face, that I won't be late, that I'll tick off at least one tiny little.thing on.my.to. do.list. and every day I fail. I'm winging life because I've got a very organised and hard working husband, a very supportive family who have always carried me and because I can sort of.work when I'm.in dire straits..just before a deadline comes crashing down. I'm.so.fed up of the constant stress,.the constant self loathing, constantly underperforming, constantly fighting a losing battle. I feel.as.if..im.wasting my life away.

My psychiatrist is happy to prescribe meds but before.that I need to.make an appointment with my gp to get some blood tests done and I just can't do it. I can't.make the appointment to.do.the blood tests. I mean how stupid can you get?

And now I'm so late to.pick up DC that I can't have a shower. Though I've been looking forward to.it all day.

I know.im.lucky and. I've got it better than most so.i hate complaining but I hate my brain..I don't care if it's ADHD or.if I'm.just lazy, crazy and stupid but i hate being this way.

Can anyone relate?

Of course you can have adhd and be early. I often overcompensate with time planning.

@ADHD123 I'm also always early despite textbook ADHD, but I find the effort almost all-consuming. If I have to be somewhere on time like a doctor's appointment, I basically can't do anything else except get myself to the appointment, like being stuck in some kind f standby mode, because I'm so terrified I'll get hyper-focused on something and just completely forget to leave.

I saw a psychiatrist last year but he just kept talking about hyperactivity and I identify more with the inattentive type. He agreed to try meds reluctantly but then I felt really stupid about the whole thing so I procrastinated picking them up and then the pharmacy got rid of them. So I’m no further forward! Does any clinic talk about the inattentive side? Or is it more likely I just have a few similar traits and it’s not ADHD?

Thanks to this thread I have made myself a doctor's appointment to discuss it.

I’m so glad I’ve found this thread, I have long suspected I have ADHD and now in peri menopause I’m finding everything a lot harder. Everything on this thread is resonating with me. My DS has autism and ADHD and I’m sure my DD does too so I shouldn’t be surprised. Just finding getting though even the simplest things difficult right now, my procrastination is off the scale, I am constantly distracted by things. I’m always late, just feel so disorganised constantly.

This is me and it's a big reason why I get burnout quickly in jobs. It takes so much time and mental energy just to do the basic things (organisation, getting in on time) that there's no energy left for anything else.

If I have an appointment or event, the preparation and planning and time management takes all day. It's exhausting.

I also have anxiety due to being shamed for this as a child and teenager. I remember forgetting my key when I was 15 and to 'teach me a lesson' my parents screamed at me and called me a disgrace and didn't open the door for two hours.

earthfindwire

Hyperactivity isn’t just moving your body it is how many thought you have going on in your mind at the same time. I am definitely inattentive but I think part of that is because my brain is full of thoughts shouting at me to the point I just feel like I have a hum in my head as 1000’s of thoughts are all mingling around trying to be heard. Like a huge get together in a room where everyone is talking. You hear the hum of voices but you have difficulty trying to distinguish what one person is saying and occasionally with meds, and other supplements and energy drinks my mind quietens enough to actually pay attention and one thought is heard at a time and the task completed.

I never thought I had the hyperactive bit. I spent most of my days in a fog and was permanently knackered and used to spend hours having naps during the day. I was the very opposite of hyperactive but I scored 9/9 for both the attention and the hyperactive bit on my assessment.
That is when the psychiatrist explained what is meant by hyperactive.

I too was scared of taking my meds the first time I had them (30mg Elvanse) but I sat there waiting to feel different but to me it did nothing. I didn’t feel any different (I was looking forward to my mind clearing and being able to get stuff done that I always put off) I felt exactly the same but then I noticed when I dot to the evening I didn’t feel tired and I didn’t go to eat until the evening

I haven’t had a day time nap since my first pill.

Dont be scared of the meds. Usually you will need different meds as they either don’t work as well and you will need stronger meds or they work too well and maybe need different meds like the non stimulant type.

Anything other lifelong condition or illness you are diagnosed with, if there are pills or potions you can take to relieve the symptoms or make you feel better no one would think twice about taking the medicine
If you have high cholesterol levels there are pills to take to reduce it otherwise high cholesterol can shorten your life.
If you have ADHD and are unmedicated that too can shorten your life by similar amounts

I wish I was diagnosed even 10 or 20 years ago as it would have changed my life.

I don’t think i will ever come to terms with the fact that I was a poster toddler/child, /teen/woman even mother for ADHD and only one person ever said anything and she was ignored by my mother who was angry at me because I had something wrong with me and people were noticing

Yes I do (did) and I have had to cut back and it's really affecting me.

@WatchoRulo I work in housing. But the sharp end. So I deal with people losing it, overdoses, domestic violence, all that stuff. My terrible ADHD risk attraction and being able to think of twenty things at once really helps. The organisation that there is is really deadlined and urgent, not routine.

I also like facilitating. Again, it's scary and scattered attention helps. I'm regularly asked to do conferences and things. My lack of detailed PowerPoint and funny segues are an asset!

Basically anything high risk, low paperwork!

As for the idea that it's depression... It's not.

I think lockdown is responsible for the increase not that people are being obsessive
Lockdowns took away the structure that people could hide behind and mask their symptoms. Suddenly finding yourself on your own and having to set your own hours and having no one around so the mask didn’t have to stay in place whilst you worked, everything slipped.

I cannot understand why if there isn’t a problem with meds people say they don’t want to take them.
With something like Elvanse which is an amphetamine it doesn’t really do much for people with ADHD apart from at best clears their minds so you can concentrate on one thing at a time and get all the boring tasks done and at worse just keeps you awake and stops you eating so much

If someone is taking Elvanse and isn’t ND the chances are they are off their heads partying.

I can really relate to crying at my desk at work. I would sit there with tears streaming down my face everyday. I ended up doing 3 Office based jobs however after 2 years I would find I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. My whole body was paralysed and I ended up having 3 nervous breakdowns.
I think a lot of the time I only survived for 2 years as I had another job behind a bar ad I used to love that job but dh and his parents thought it was quite beneath them and were only happy when I left

I knew I needed help when I got banned from driving; 3 points became 6 as I forgot to send the form to identify the driver. 6 points for being pulled three days out of insurance as I’d forgotten to renew. I somehow hold down a fairly responsible job but every day is chaos in my mind.

Sending you lots of love and willing you to be able to do what you need to do to book that appointment.

As a child I used to mainline coffee. But there again I used to have coffee in my bottle as it helped me sleep.

I could never understand people saying how coffee made you stay awake.
I was never good at sleeping but even worse without a coffee

I also was never allowed coca cola or Pepsi

I only had it once at a party and I felt brilliant but my mother would never buy it for me.
My first time in a bar at 17 I felt terribly naughty for ordering a coke and it made me feel fantastic.

@Kennykenkencat

With something like Elvanse which is an amphetamine it doesn’t really do much for people with ADHD apart from at best clears their minds so you can concentrate on one thing at a time and get all the boring tasks done and at worse just keeps you awake and stops you eating so much

Please could you explain this in more detail? Only I previously have been on Elvanse and found it useless. If anything I thought my symptoms were worse? Definitely was not off my tits though 😂😂

WhoHasMovedMyBrain, I’m sorry you are having such a hard time. My 18 year old daughter was diagnosed at 14 with ADHD. She is medicated. It helps a bit. I just wanted to say I wish you all the best. I can see what a struggle life can be for people with ADHD. I was actually going to start a thread today asking for advice about how to help her because things seem to be getting harder as she gets older and she is pushing me away and says she doesn’t want my help. It sounds like you appreciate what others do to help you but my daughter seems the opposite of that.

You've just described me to a T.
I have no idea how to go about getting assessed though. DS10 also suffers too I think and I have no idea how to start even a private diagnosis.
Unfortunately I don't have a super organised DH to fall back on. I'm the 'organised one' so you can imagine the state of our house 🤦🏻‍♀️

Hi. Yes, that's an option too. When I was medicated first I took methylphenidate aka ritalin for a month but then developed a rash so was put on dexamphetamine. I like it. It controls the symptoms well. It just takes a long time for the side effects to subside.

Thank you. Do start a thread and then we can brain storm ideas together to help with specific problems.

I have never been good at asking or accepting help and I actively resent my parents for pushing help (mostly money now) down my throat when I've asked them not to. I can see and appreciate though that their help and support is what carried me till I got married.

Often my parents and dh try to advise me what to do or how to do something (or just that I have to do something) and i find it really frustrating. A lot of their advice Ultimately boils down to "just do it" and I can't just do it. Most often what they say is fair enough and maybe o find their advice frustrating because I still fail and can't do stuff. It's embarrassing. I'm not sur what I'm trying to say. Just that like your daughter I don't like being told what to do even if the other person has every right and every reason to tell me. Even if they are talking sense. I don't know what the solution is. It must be even harder when you are 14.

I think maybe you need to start with just listening. I'm not saying that you aren't doing that but I remember that I have always and still feel trivialised and dismissed and misunderstood whenever anyone tries to help me or.guide me. I'd have loved someone to just listen to me and work with me in a way that is driven by me.

I wish we had a forum for ADHD..I used.ti frequent one..it was.called addforum and it was brilliant. The website has shut down now. If you do make a post let us know on this thread maybe so that we can look up your post and it doesn't get lost

Start with going to your GP. GPs can't diagnose ADHD but they also can't dismiss it so you can insist on being referred to a psychiatrist. I suspect that the waiting times to see one are very long so it would.be good to get the ball rolling asap. Or see a private psychiatrist. You might still need a GP referral for them. Good luck to you and your son. For your son the best might be to ask his school how to proceed.

@WhoHasMovedMyBrain there is a topic on here called neurodivers mumsnetters for people like us. It is hidden from the active list to prevent trolls

Totally second everything you say. The doses we take aren't enough for us to get us off the rocker. When the meds are working as they should you will not feel any different (except.maybe for calmer) but when you sit down to do a job you will find it easier to focus.

Having said that I did find Nd that the meds somehow made me feel.more.content. I wasn't constantly driven to.look.for.somethinf else or to do stuff just for kicks.

Oh that sounds great but is it active? I find that except for aibu and sometimes chat most other boards gets very less traffic.

So glad to hear that..all.the best..I hope.you get some answers and some support!!

Yes it's active, obviously not to the extent of AIBU but I like to check in and post on there rather than the main boards

I am not diagnosed, but everything I have read describes me to a T.

I have always put off pursuing it though as I was under CMHT for years and they never picked up anything.

My partner has adhd and I’m really struggling with his disorganisation at the moment. We have had a particularly bad few weeks with the kids being late for school on each drop off, his moods and him setting multiple alarms in the morning and not being able to get out of bed (think two hours of being nudged by a very tired lady!)

As much as I’m at the end of my tether, I do want to make sure I understand and do as as much as I can for him when he is struggling. Is there anything you feel would help at times like this from your partners? Usually I’m as supportive as I can be but Im going though a lot myself at the minute on top of his disorganisation and I’ve become intolerant and impatient - that’s not the partner I want to be