If you have ADHD and work, what job do you do?

[walkingdisaster23]

I'm really low and struggling. I have a physical disability and diagnosed ADHD and sometimes it all feels too much. Sometimes though I don't believe it's ADHD just me being too stupid and lazy and crazy.

But on the off chance it is actual ADHD with me, and because I know there are tonnes of women with ADHD who do have great careers -

What job do you do if you also have it?

What do you think is key to your success in the workplace?

Has anyone had any sort of ADHD coaching or mentoring or anything extra outside of work that helps?

Has anyone broken out of a toxic rut of feeling utterly convinced you are stupid and genuinely changed their self esteem and now feel like a normal ok person?

I'm an ops coordinator in the NHS. It is an absolutely chaotic job and I'm constantly trouble shooting and working under pressure which suits me well. I do have periods where I have to focus which is a struggle but overall it works better than I could have hoped. My job is also flexible to an extent with start and finish times which helps.

I'm also unmedicated due to cardiac issues

My DS has ADHD and is a barber. It's worked pretty well for him. It's very busy (keeps him focused,) the actual cutting and shaving is technical (keeps him interested,) and there is lots of people interaction (keeps him entertained.) Plus, the standing and moving uses up his excessive energy. When there aren't any customers and his station is clean, he goes for a quick walk outside. He has medication which he's been taking since he was 7 (he's 26 now.) We think he doesn't always take it but we don't know for sure.

I was diagnosed with ADHD at 14, I’m now in my 40’s.

Ive had a successful career(well in my eyes)

I left school with zero qualifications, worked for a fast food company and worked my way up. Left there after 5 years for office work and up until 2 years ago I was working for a banking head office in quite a great job.

I now have my own business.

I told no one through out my working life and no one needed to know. I just got on with things and didn’t let it define me.

I now have an unofficial dx - in that both GP's who see me regularly (and have a special interest in ADHD, and ASD, in both kids and adults) agree they'd be very shocked if I wasn't dx if I went for it officially - however as the outcome would make no difference to either treatment (I can't have any of the relevant drugs) or workplace... theres little point seeking it. I agree with that.

I don't work 'in the workplace' - thats how I deal with it. I am self employed, I do a number of things that to a varied degree I can juggle around how I feel and what I fancy.

I have over the years, developed a good network of people who know me well and want to work with me or give me work, within the parameters of what I can do.

So I am freelance writing, writing (another) reference book, co-writing a fun illustrated book (and illustrating it), illustrating in general, and am sub-contracted to provide expert support via live chat and phone calls to another co. that works within my field of expertise.

The set shifts of the latter give me some frame work but the job itself means I can read fb, mn, play games etc whilst being on shift. I can also write and illustrate as long as I can drop what I am doing to answer a question or answer the phone, thats fine.

It suits me down to the ground, but its not a lifestyle everyone would enjoy - I do have to save hard and ensure there is a safety cushion if I am ever ill or work dries up for a while. I spend a fair bit of time trying to ensure i have some passive income (merch from drop ship, book sales) to guard against total poverty in those times.

I earn enough to keep two adults and some dogs, frogs n fish alive, but we don't live in the lap of luxury by any means, and we are reliant on my disability benefits too.

Lawyer. And medicated. Fortunately I don’t have many inattentive traits. I’m hyper focussed when I enjoy something and I enjoy my job, so I kind of throw myself into it. It has actually weirdly helped in some ways!

The downside is that I can be easily distracted by noise (so I WFH or use headphones in the office) and I can burn out without much warning. When that happens I take a 15 minute break, go for a walk, and come back to it. And find something that doesn’t require a huge amount of brain effort to do until my brain resets itself. I’m also quite useless at finishing a task and will often start (and not finish) ten emails and they just sit in my drafts until I go back later in the day and actually finish them off 😬 I also have to be very careful not to interrupt clients in meetings as if I don’t watch myself I have a tendency to talk before people are finished.

Only a couple of people know about my diagnosis though, I mask it quite well. I’ve worked in firms where nobody knew and I managed just fine.

One of my colleagues also has ADHD and he deals with it by wearing ear defenders at his desk or booking a meeting room if the environment is too distracting.

Having said all of the above - if I haven’t slept well it does all go slightly to shit and my focus can go totally. On those days I tend to make hourly cups of coffee/tea for the whole department and just tackle the easy stuff.

Director of HR.

Not medicated.

Extremely high pressure and I THRIVE in chaos. Travel a lot so always on high alert with lots of conflicting priorities. I struggle to be motivated if I’m working from home and a 5 minute break can turn into three hours on the sofa doing nothing, but between travelling a lot, the massive accountability and the genuine ability to work flexibly (I like to get up and start at 5am and take a long break after lunch and then start back and work into the evening as I get sleepy) I have made it work.

I find it easier working at strategic level where I am the creator and the partial executor of plans… with teams to delegate to and do the ‘completer / finisher’ tasks to which is where I struggle as I get bored.

Theres a lot of firefighting and emergencies and I am cool as a cucumber and razor focussed when shit hits the fan.

I can sometimes struggle with empathy, but I find that a massive positive as it enables me to take the emotion out of situations and think very pragmatically (still considering what’s best for people though!)

I don’t have advise on jobs but have you used Access to Work? They can support you in various ways. www.gov.uk/access-to-work

I think they may also be able to liaise with your employer about what would help?

There is more info here about the specifics of what it can offer. adhduk.co.uk/access-to-work/

Currently doing nothing after spending 6 years doing college/UG/Masters. STEM. Single parent. PhD starts later this year.

ADHD has been well medicated for 5+ years but I’ve recently been Dx with Lupus/RA and frankly it’s been kicking my ass for the last 18 months as it took me 9 months to get a F2F app (having previously had approx 4 GP apps my entire adult life), by which point I was being battered by physical symptoms and was there pretty much every other week with something new/the latest thing was worse and couldn’t face going straight into a PhD when I was so unwell.

Frustrated and annoyed doesn’t cover it; my ADHD has been so much worse too. Throw in the humiliation from the UC staff and I’m also back in therapy.

Basically, learning/researching complex subjects works well for me. Fast paced, changes, always something new to discover, plenty of rabbit holes, ability to WFH if needed. Youngest DD will be in Y7 when I start post docs so that’ll be interesting….

Accountant. Really hard since working from home. Basically I need a deadline that will literally end in death or I don't do it. Then I stay up all night for a couple of nights and get it done.

The rest of the time I doodle around the edges getting eff all done.

@Curiosity101 Thats exactly what I did when I turned 30. Decided to stop pissing around using my friends academic log in to read up on stuff and actually go and study it

I can relate a lot to this (see my previous post!). I also deal really well with pressure and chaos. I also think very pragmatically and don’t view situations empathetically. It works quite well when you’re an employment lawyer sacking people all day long…

But anyway OP, I don’t think any career is out of reach if you approach it in the right way and have coping strategies!

@Vieve1325 that 5 min break that was really 3 hours of doom scrolling when Uni was all online was an absolute killer Cannot do it.

What job do you do if you also have it?
I work in a do-a-bit-of-everything role. My days vary from doing HR and people management to writing content to hosting events.

What do you think is key to your success in the workplace?
The variation in the role - it's a start-up type firm so lots of different hats to wear, don't get chance to get bored. I am medicated now but I wasn't for a long time and I found that a mix of: ruthless planning using whatever tools available (Asana and a paper notepad and a wild system of post-it notes for me); accountability via a few people who knew how my brain worked; and flexible working (so I could harness those 'a week's work in one evening' times to make up for the 'whole day staring helplessly at my computer' times).

That's still the foundation for getting through the day, but meds just help me along a bit. Also, B vitamins make a bit of a difference, too.

Has anyone had any sort of ADHD coaching or mentoring or anything extra outside of work that helps? No, although I'd give it a try!

Has anyone broken out of a toxic rut of feeling utterly convinced you are stupid and genuinely changed their self esteem and now feel like a normal ok person?
Diagnosis did this for me: it gave me the relief that I wasn't broken, but I was just incapable of doing things how everyone else does. I think some counselling, or ADHD specific coaching might be very useful for you to help you reframe it.

And it might help you work with your brain: finding out what motivates you helps. I know I'm (unhelpfully) motivated best by fear, so my partners at work know now there's zero point putting a fake deadline in for a task because I'll know it's not due. So they put the real deadline in and trust that I'll get it done in time, even if it's down to the wire, because then the panic sets in. They are also aware that I work best if I can play to my strengths in that I hate long project work and prefer the faster, day-to-day stuff - so we balance roles out in our team according to what suits all of us rather than sticking to narrow job descriptions, which means I'm happier and doing work I find less likely to induce the stuck feeling. It isn't always perfect - there are certain things that I still struggle with - but it's better.

I think the key is honesty with your colleagues, working on your own approach to ADHD (it seems as though at the moment you're just accepting that 'you're broken' and it feels too big a hill to climb - reframing how you see yourself might help), and finding a role that plays to what you genuinely enjoy doing or are motivated by.

The last couple of jobs I’ve had have been for charities working in prisons. I’ve been the only working in the prison working for my charity and they have been part -time with good flexibility.

I have found what works well for me is-

*Be able to manage my own time/work- So I can ensure I have a mix of high stress and low stress jobs and not a week that is too intense or too boring.
*not working in a team. I manage better on my own steam and without having to work around others.
*part-time and some flexibility to working- some days I head off an hour early and some days I work later. I like this freedom as I can work in periods when I am focused and not force it in periods when I am worn out.
*Mix of face to face people work and computer work. So I get variety.
*I have to write to do lists and stop my self from procrastinating over scary/high stress tasks.
*I purposely look for jobs that have good record for treatment of staff and prioritise that over pay. I stay where there is a good supportive manager.

This is really fascinating, reading about everyone's jobs. Thank you all so much for sharing your thoughts on how you make things work.

This made me laugh!

Most of my work is litigation so Court deadlines mean that every day is life or death, and that’s fine, and I work hard to get it done.

But I am USELESS at tasks with no/long deadlines. I can have something sitting in my task list for a month which I absolutely will not do, even if I have free time to do it, until it ticks down to the last few hours and I have to rush to get it finished 😳 I can have a training seminar in the diary for weeks but I’ll only ever bother preparing for it the night before!

I’m a lawyer too, unmedicated. And I have a lot of inattentive traits. I struggle quite a lot at work to be honest. The hyperfocus and being able to work well under pressure are very useful. But I really struggle with the deadlines, attention to detail, managing my inbox, and doing dull, dry tasks.

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The whole creative dept is messy and disorganised and it's still the most valued and respected. We get constant reminders of meetings and deadlines because most of us lean that way. It's really nice to work with people who know what it's like and don't judge because they have ADHD-type brains too.
It's also really good because there are multiple projects going on with short deadlines, so no space for boredom or losing focus, and the style of work is very 'throw shit at the wall until it sticks' - collaborative, messy, lots of ideas.
It's kind of perfect in my experience

My adult D's has ADHD and is a class 1 lorry driver. It suits him because he is never delivering the same thing to the same place 2 days in a row.

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I'm pretty sure I have undiagnosed ADHD. A friend who has it has said for a long time that she thought I could have it too. Her symptoms are different from mine but when I finally did some reading on it so much resonated. I never knew what was wrong with me but although I can't diagnose myself the symptoms fit.

I worked in my DHs business before it closed due to covid (back office). I'd had several bouts of unemployment up until I started working there, I could never hold down a job, only one where I had a sympathetic employer but the work place was privatised so I lost my job along with everyone else.

I'm now a SAHP but I'll go back to work when my daughters are of school age but it would have to be from home, I'm a socialable person in some sense and have a lot of friends but I couldn't work along side people in a face to face roll ever again.

I’m a Company Director in a creative company and a writer. I love it. There’s lots of variety, I get to problem solve and have lots of big ideas and god down rabbit holes of new information. Some of it is less fun and some is super stressful, but all in all, it couldn’t be much better work.

I’m in marketing strategy. Unmedicated.

I work 100% from home for an org outside the UK, so there’s zero threat of office time hanging over my head and for me that makes all the difference. Unfortunately I can only work in total silence which for most offices just isn’t realistic.

Had I not moved roles to one with the opportunity to manage my own environment and time and WFH I dread to think what would’ve happened as the sensory overload and pressures of working to a strict timeline that didn’t align with my productivity was killing me.

I often start early and finish late to facilitate odd gaps during the day where I can feel focus drifting. For me, if my 8 hour work day takes 10/11 hours with errands/meals/walks/self care interspersed, that’s fine by me. Appreciate I’m incredibly lucky to have this arrangement, and thank my lucky stars every Sunday evening when the dread is no longer debilitating.