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?

For the people who have been told by their gps it will be a really long wait to be diagnosed, you can ask to be referred to psychiatry uk under the right to choose. They have a letter you can print and send to your gp on their website. I was referred to them by my gp at the start of the month and a few weeks ago had an account set up on their portal to fill in their forms. I'm waiting for someone else to fill in a form and then I'll have to wait for an appointment. Earlier in the year they had 6 month waitlists though.

Thank you @AshGirl

Thank you. This is useful information.

This is just ridiculous. Just sat down to work and in the last hour (ie 11pm to midnight) I have done more work than this entire week. Mostly admin and emails because I'm too tired to think much about anything but still, it's something and it was so easy. Why can't I work like this during the day? Even a couple of hours a day would make a difference. I hate hate hate feeling so guilty all the time for getting money for being so flaky. And I'm embarrassed to send emails at this time of the night. Now my colleagues will know that I'm too incompetent to get my work done during the day.

Working from home is not good for me. It's been a disaster really. I love it because it's so easy and flexible and I don't know how I'd manage getting both me and the kids ready but in terms of work it's terrible. I can't work on my own. I just can't. I need someone looking over my shoulder.

Working from home is not good for me. It's been a disaster really.

We had the choice during the pandemic and I was one of the only people in the office. I'd have been fired if I was 'working' from home.

The Dr Russell Barkley book with the expanded checklist in it that I have is Taking Charge of Adult ADHD. (There's a kids one as well). A lot of people think he's too down or pessimistic about ADHD, but he's just realistic I think and does say that it's not the same for everyone.

I have impulse bought numerous ADHD books 😳 after I hear about them in a podcast or recommendation, some of the ones I like the best are the ones that feel kind and understanding.

2 of my favourites are "Order from Chaos: the Everyday Grind of Staying Organised With Adult ADHD" by Jaclyn Paul and "Your brain's not broken" by Dr Tamara Rosier.

Working from home is not good for me. It's been a disaster really.

No joke - working from home is what pushed me to pursue assessment. For context, I suspected that I was autistic for a good 10 years before the pandemic hit but didn't feel a diagnosis would make any difference so didn't bother. I had absolutely no idea I could have ADHD, though; I had a lot of misinformed, outdated ideas about ADHD so it didn't cross my mind.

March 2020 came, I finished up my work contract a couple of months later and took up a funded PhD position that I'd been offered in the January, pre-lockdown. Obviously the newness and excitement kept my focus for a while but by early 2021, my life was an absolute dumpster fire and I was so depressed and anxious yet stuck deep in "ADHD paralysis", I felt guilty all the time, I was sleeping 3am - 10am and I had the familiar feeling of "time to quit and do something else".

By November 2021 I'd been diagnosed with autism, ADHD and dyspraxia. I was on my knees with desperation and phoning the local mental health team almost daily to ask if ANYONE would see me to start titration. When I met the consultant psych, she said she wanted me to get an ECG to check my heart before she prescribed medication and I nearly cried when she said it would be another 6 week wait. I ended up paying £85 to get a private ECG done 36 hours later and I was on meds within the week.

I now realise that I'd been able to keep it together by having colleagues and a manager overseeing what I was doing (and then jumping to a new job 18 months later before anyone realised I was incompetent) but as soon as I was completely responsible for myself, it went to shit. I recently cut my PhD down to part-time and I have started a full-time job where I'm on-site 3 days a week, and I get so much more done when I'm in the office.

We have a choice as well and are encouraged to go to the office once in a while. In reality no one goes ever and sitting in a massive open plan office all on my own makes me just feel isolated and even more alone. It doesn't give me the accountability I need. Not really worth the commute and somehow having to get ready in the morning. And the toilets aren't great.🙄

I like Barkley. The forum that I used to frequent used to swear by him and he makes a lot of sense.

For.someone.more readable and more.optimistic id recommend ed hallowell..

Thanks for your suggestions. I don't think I'm in a state of mind where I can read books at the moment but once I'm.medixafed again I'll check them out..

I don't have adhd
But i feel like something happened to me at about age 30 and my concentration at work vanished.

I struggle constantly with phone addiction
I havr zero willpower with food so have gained 1.5 stone
I seem to struggle to motivate myself to do any exercise/activity

The phone addiction is the worst. I wish they'd never been invented

I first considered ADHD during my PhD as well. Id kind of winged school and my precious degrees by strictly studying only the night before exams but suddenly I couldn't do that anymore. It drove me absolutely crazy because I found my topic highly fascinating and theoretically wanted to know more and I had what I thought flashes of brilliance interspersed with long periods of doing nothing. I redid all my experiments three times because I found little careless mistakes. That must have cost me a good year at least.

Another vote for meds. Changed my life. There is a very clear before and after. Made me a better parent and spouse, and stopped pretty significant anxiety. Sustained a loss of about nine kilos

Aw milky. I was just telling dh earlier that if it hasn't been for smart phones I might have actually been able to do something with my life. I'd be having so much time. I can't imagine functioning without one but they are the work of the devil. To have constant instant gratification entertainment at your fingertips is impossible to resist even for people without ADHD.

ADHD symptoms occur on a spectrum. You might be on the lower end of "normal". I'm probably on the higher end of disordered (I think. According to my psychiatrist I have moderate-severe symptoms and moderate impairment due to the support from family.. however I suspect that my symptoms aren't that severe otherwise I wouldn't be able to cruise along. I'd fail more obviously).

I promise I had a point when I started my reply to you but I've forgotten it now.

Anyway, I can trace back symptoms back to my childhood but I think they weren't as severe then. in my twenties I was severely depressed and I think that exacerbated my symptoms a million times. So maybe your even at 30 made your symptoms bad enough to notice as well.

I don't know what to do with myself. I'm disgusted and angry. The day started so well. Luckily all my meetings got cancelled and my boss told me exactly what I had to do to deliver my work and meet my deadlines. I thought I could actually do it. Boring but doable work. I'd even put DC in after school club to give me a bit more time to finish my work.

Did I do anything? Nope nothing. I spent the entire day eating crap, browsing Mumsnet and the news and just generally being an absolute idiot. I can't believe I wasted this entire week. I could have made my deadline. I don't understand why I didn't. I can't live like this. I know I need to make that appointment but I just don't want to. I don't even want to take Medication. I hate it. I just want my stupid brain to work.

Pity party over. At least for the next two minutes....

Also my phone addiction which was so bad that I locked down all apps other than messenger, calls and music and asked my spouse to never tell me the password. All that is gone. No issue anymore.

Seriously you can keep fighting yourself or make the appointment. If you choose the former then the result is inevitable

I hate my life

YouTube wall of awful

If you have a headache you take a pill

If you have high blood pressure or high cholesterol or diabetes there is medication you can take and you wouldn’t think twice about not taking it

Unless their is a physical condition where you cannot take any type of ADHD medication. Why wouldn’t you want to take meds for ADHD.
I read about people not wanting to take meds and avoiding taking them but cannot ever understand why if there isn’t a physical issue that stops you.
I just think how do you manage without meds. Undiagnosed I gave up f/t work at 23 because I mentally couldn’t do it anymore and after my 3rd nervous breakdown I wasn’t going to go through that again. I worked p/t or ran various businesses but it was on my terms.

Unmedicated ADHD can shorten your life as much as having high blood pressure or high cholesterol can.

My Dd thinks my ADHD is so much worse than other peoples she has met. Personally given I wasn’t diagnosed till last year I am surprised I have lasted this long the amount of near misses I have lived through

Huh?

I used to take them. I took them For years and they really helped with my symptoms. But every time I have started or restarted them it took about six months for me.to get used to them. Six months of really bad anxiety, mood swings, and just generally feeling awful. I'm going to titrate really slowly this time but I still dread starting them.

I'm not principally opposed to.them. On the contrary. I'm a big proponent of ADHD medication. They work and they might be the only thing that works for most people. I just hate how they make me feel.

Anyway, I've made an appointment for the blood tests. Now I need to call my GP's surgery again to make an appointment with the nurse and to pick up the paperwork for the blood test. Not the most ADHD friendly procedure. It's like asking someone with a fractured leg to walk two floors up to get their crutches.
And then if they find anything in any of the tests they'll want to treat that first before they prescribe stimulants.

(((huge hugs)))

It sucks, doesn't it? Feel free to share what's troubling you. If nothing else at least we can vent about our problems, right?

@WhoHasMovedMyBrain - you say you hate how the meds make you feel. Are you saying you basically swap one set of problems for another? Impossible scattiness and inability to act for... anxiety or iirritability or what?

(I'm asking because both my son and I are currently seriously considering medication for ADHD)

The thing with medication is they all affect people differently, so you can't take much from another person's experience. It's worth trying because most have an effect immediately, you can see whether it's helpful and whether the side effects are annoying straight away.

Thank you Bertie. I would love to try them and find out.

This thread is so enlightening. Iv 3 adhd diagnosed kids and always though dh was adhder as he did poorly in school etc.

However I struggle massively woth executive functioning. Everyone thinks I'm so organised but my mum taught me from a young age to put everything on calendar and I use phone reminders for everything as I can remember anything. I leave everything at my elbow - it's on ongoing joke at work.
I struggle to start and complete boring or mundane tasks and will get massively side tracked.
I procrastinate a lot.
I hate making phonecalls.