Women with inattentive ADHD who are living their best lives - how do you do it??

[herewegoroundthebastardbush]

I suspect I have ADHD as it explains a lot about me (so does EUPD but I'm struggling to find much useful about that - but hey anyone with EUPD living their best life, I'd be very interested to hear from you too!)

I am a procrastinating, forgetful, binge-eating, rejection-sensitive, occasionally irrationally angry mess. I feel like my life needs a total 100% overhaul but I'm right in the middle of a lot of things (my kids' childhoods basically). So a lot of things I'd like to change I can't (living situation, job).

I am struggling particularly with the following:

(1) binge eating. I am seeking support for this with the NHS but the waiting list is loooong.

(2) emotional volatility. Very up sometimes but also and more often very down.

(3) my job. I love my colleagues, theoretically I love my work. But I constantly procrastinate, back to work two days this week and I did almost fuck all really. My work isn't clear or important enough for people to really notice so I can. But I'm actually quite moral and I am constantly guilty and anxious for wasting their money by wasting their time.

If you have ADHD and kids and are living a happy life, please tell me what that looks like. What kind of job do you have, how do you keep things going, how do you maintain your equilibrium?

This thread saved me from a breakdown in September, full of really good tips on managing a household with DC https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4905914-why-am-i-such-a-shit-and-scatty-mum?page=1

I manage to keep a planner, I need to for my job and honestly I wouldn't function without it. I do have to be really strict with myself and make sure I do put everything in, from when things need paid like school trips, to work things, volunteering things, when kids are off and if they need packed lunch etc. and I have to check it through everyday for the following few days.

I pay for school dinners and recently paid for a cleaner as the less demands on me the more productive I can be and other things.

I need to be better at finding a balance in life.

My entire house is neurodivergent, it's a challenge, they expect me to do a lot for them and I just can't manage everyone else when I'm drowning myself.

I once asked dh, after getting lost on a normal, routine journey, what he thinks about when he's driving.

He thinks about driving. Just driving. Where he's going and how he's getting there.

Blew my mind. Occasionally I try to give him an insight into how 'on' my head is, from the second I wake up until I read myself to sleep. It's like we speak different languages.

This is affecting me too. I was diagnosed in April last year and after a lot of faffing around waiting for an MRI and approval from Cardiology because I have a heart condition then more unnecessary delays and tests, they eventually said in October that's great we can start you on meds now. Then literally a few days later it was oh no, there's a shortage so you can't have them because we have to prioritise people who already take them (which I would have been if it wasn't for all the delays). I have an appointment this month with the mental health team pharmacist but I already know they're going to say the issue still hasn't been resolved so I can't start meds yet 😐

Since that thread I just posted, I have a diary where everything goes in, one of those moleskin ones where each week you have days one side of the page and note space the other. I survive by writing everything down in list form and crossing it off when done.

Streamline as much as possible with direct debits.

I'm weary of recommending this for binge eating because it can be very unhealthy, but for me binge eating is part of hyperfixation. I get around it by trying to become fixated instead on healthy food or drink or just some other thing that I actually do want. At the minute it's chewing gum, which is working well for me. In the past I've become fixated with not eating at all (very bad), smoking instead of eating (even worse) or just eating the same food all the time, which is fine when it's fruit but not when it's chocolate. All of this is to say is that jsut willing myself not to binge eat doesn't work, it has to be a total replacement of it with some other thing.

It has taken me over 50 years to realise that I probably have ADHD . Probably would have worked it out a lot sooner if I wasn’t so distracted by husband who is definitely on ASD spectrum.His routines and obsessive tendencies have destroyed me .My brain is a major mess and has been for years . I am lucky that I have a lot of spare time ,but spend my time trying to decide what to do / procrastinating!! Today I have achieved absolutely nothing apart from food shop and walking the dog.
I actually wouldn’t know where to start if I visit GP 😞

"I have a job with constant deadlines. This helps. It's also a job where everyday teeters on the edge of chaos."

This is me any my job too. I fly by the seat of my pants, the job "owns" me and there isn't a spare minute to relax. But I'm not bored and I never click watch.
I have had the sack three times from easier, boring jobs.

Im not sure I can help as Im still figuring this all out myself after being recently diagnosed.
But i did want to say please dont let long wait times put you off diagnosis.
I know it can be but it wasnt for me.
i asked the gp to be referred for assessment in September and was diagnosed in December. I didnt have to push at all.
I know I am extremely lucky and a lot of people dont have this experience but I wanted to share as an alternative view on wait times. It is worth just going and seeing you might be surprised.

I feel you. Similar set up here! But seriously a food shop and dog walk is huge too. Like food shopping successfully is a nightmare. I spent £27 on pasta dishes today plus £6 got garlic bread, for one meal! (Was between 8 people but still)!

i have a close friend, known them for 35 years. Demanding job, but struggles to stay on top of it. Was chaotic when we first met in early twenties. After years of struggling was referred to psychiatry. Psychiatry assessed for ADHD and said had traits of ADHD but did not meet threshold for diagnosis. Psychiatrist said you have developed coping strategies for managing and now functioning too well for diagnosis. Friend thinks if she had seen psychiatrist when younger , before working out strategies , may have been diagnosed. Who knows?
Friend said, psychiatrist said, that a significant proportion of general population will have traits of conditions such as ADHD, but not meet threshold for diagnosis.

I can relate to a lot of what you wrote.

It blew my mind to hear from DH sometimes he is literally not thinking and when I ask what hes thinking about, he means there is silence in his head.

I saw something talking about athletes and how discipline is the key to success you cant make yourself do better but you can choose discipline. It really resonated with me. When I want to flip between projects, I choose discipline. When I get distracted mid task, I choose discipline.

Talk to your partner. I always decide at 3pm that I'll do 10,000 tasks and have them finished by teatime. When I lived alone I would suddenly stop and it would be 4am and I'd be convinced I'd be up and ready for work, fresh as a daisy at 7am, because 3 hours sleep is plenty (never deducting the getting ready time because I was always late)

Now when I talk to DH, he tells me i cant achieve it in 4 hours. Break it down. It kills me because I'm mid flow but I have to trust him, not the part of me convinced he is completely wrong.

It ties in a bit with a diet/exercise tip I saw on here once about how the back and forward in your head about knowing you should do something and trying to rationalise not doing it (like a 6am run) is actually worse than doing the thing, so for me it's been massively helpful to default to simple rules because getting started is always the hardest, once I'm flowing its fine.

The noise in my head was always the worst part (before the crashing feeling of failure and stress about not doing the enough, because nothing is ever enough because the to do list never ends).

So now if DH tells me my plans are unachievable in the time I have, I choose to follow his advice, even if my brain is saying hes wrong. I turn my brain off and do the task.

But be gentle, noone has pure willpower. Sometimes you have to fail. You cant lose weight and improve at work and be the nest mum who cooks from scratch and goes to bed late and gets up at 6am for a run. Even though your mind says you can.

Ah thank you. Understand the over buying 😂 I do realise that I spend too much time overthinking and having big plans and then not actually achieving anything !
I can start the day with a plan and then my brain starts thinking of alternatives ie where to walk the dog/ which supermarket/ shall I empty dishwasher before going out / change my clothes before going out ….bloody nightmare! 3pm and I actually do something and then in the car with my dog I then change my mind about where we are going to go 😩

ADHD diagnosed 10 years ago, however none of the three medications I tried had any effect so have just muddled along without.

I has taken me until last year to get to grips with certain things, and the key factor was adult children leaving home and me finally living alone. This allowed me the space to try out various ways of organising (I use the term loosely) myself, and find what worked for me, and then to implement them without other people trampling all over my routines. Some examples:

A table that is just for my reminders - I need to see things to remember them so leaving the car key on the table reminds me I need to get petrol, or clean the car. A bill reminds me it need to be paid, a receipt reminds me an item needs to be returned . If they're not visible/on the table then I'll forget they need done.

Diary for specific dates. It has taken me years to get to the stage of having a diary, knowing where I've put it (on the above table) AND actually looking in it! Now I can't live without it, so it was worth persevering every year.

Money - I find that spreadsheets and multiple bank accounts help me. Again it has taken years, but I keep money for different things separate, so one current account for food spending, one for household bills, D/Ds, etc., one personal account. A savings account for the house, putting so much in a month to cover annual things like insurance, two personal savers for short-term and long-term saving. I try to stick to the budgets for each thing, so if the food account gets low then it's time to dive into the freezer rather than "borrow" money from another account.

This only works for me when I'm alone though. One DC recently returned home, doesn't want to stick my new rules as it's my problem, apparently, so all the progress I had made is slowly being undone, and I could cry. I liked having a degree of clarity and order in my life, it made me feel a bit more "normal" but the full-on chaos of my mind is returning and it makes me so sad. I haven't even got around to buying a 2024 diary yet. 😥

Hope you manage to find the headspace to discover what works for you, OP!

I struggled early on in my proper career. It took me a long time to manage the chaos, although i often think of the sherlock holmes line:"i abhor bordom.". Ironically, I come across as hyper organised- if a little manic, because i need to constantly think ahead in case it all goes to shit. I think in lots of ways, dh saved me and quite possibly my career. Which is handy, cos I out earn him these days.

Thank you .That is really helpful advice.X

Following.
Ds recently diagnosed, just wondering do people find it runs in the family?
I have developed coping strategies as an adult but it doesn't take much to throw me off course. Everything is written on a whiteboard and rubbed out as achieved.
I have to be very rigid about routines/ times or my whole system fails. Also can't handle spontaneity or surprises of any sort. Unexpected visitors put me into absolute panic mode 😔

I always assumed that everyone had constant noise in their heads. The whizzing. The inability to sit and watch a programme without something else to do at the same time. The flitting from thought to thought. The little companion giving you a running commentary- complete with self loathing, which I can happily ignore these days:
"You're a shit friend. " OK
"You're a crap mum. " yep.
"You're rubbish at your job" yeah, but they still pay me.
"You look shocking today. " I'm middle aged. Shit happens.
'You should've done x" yeah, but I didn't.

No experience of adhd or eupd but posting to say that I cured myself of binge eating disorder by reading the book intuitive eating and spending a week on each principle. It didn’t happen over night but I haven’t binged in years now.

My parents thought I was clumsy and careless and thoughtless. "But why????"
"I don't know!!"
I have forgiven them and am much more understanding of ds. Not that he appreciates just how different his experience is to mine.

@Aisforapplecrumble I read a really good article explaining this so well but now I can’t find it! When I do I will post it.

I guess it’s all subjective but examples of impacting my life would be , failed my A Levels, started and dropped out of 2 degree course, many career changes, getting in to real financial difficulty, lots of intense hyper focus at the cost of other things I should be doing, binge eating, depression and suicidal ideation because I feel such a failure and that everyone would be better off without me, unfinished projects like the time my DH went to work and I removed all of the tiles from the walls and floor in the bathroom, we couldn’t afford to replace it all for 2.5 years, knew this would happen but did it anyway.

For others it could be addiction to substances, agoraphobia and much more. So the impact on your life has to be detrimental and daily. One thing I would do is put so much effort in to being normal and capable at work during the day that I was then unable to move off the sofa from 5pm until bedtime which was often around 2am!!

It’s hard to put it in to words really because someone elses examples might not be as drastic but that doesn’t mean they don’t have it. There are also levels, mine is moderate whereas someone else might be severe but that doesn’t mean it impacts me any less. Sorry it’s not a very good explanation and has probably left you more confused. When you are assessed they look at how it has impacted the areas of your life and you have to go in to quite a lot of detail so you do have confidence in the diagnosis.

one thing I would say is that having a diagnosis isn’t any kind of fix. I wanted it to feel like there was a reason for me being the way I am. Once I realised though that without the meds and the habits I’m still the same mess I was before was quite challenging. This has been exacerbated by the shortages.

So from your brief description it’s hard to tell. You will never cure it and it’s not a case of an ADHDer not being able to stick to the routines, it’s that without the constant daily battle you would be the same.

Hope that helps, I’ll look out for the article and post when I find it

I wish I could live my best life haha but too scatty

@AuntiesWoodenLeg that is really sad to read. It’s almost worse having a taste of feeling good and then losing it. I hope you manage to find a way to reclaim your new life.

I like the idea of the table. I’m going more and more minimalist with everything out of sight, the table idea makes so much sense.

following because i could have written this word for word! (BPD dx, ND assessment waiting lists on the NHS are years long).

Does anyone know when the meds shortage will ease? 2 weeks ago I got a text from the pharmacy to say I had a prescription to collect. I asked about the shortage and she said there still was one but because I’m on 60mg they are easier to get than the 20’s and 30’s. Now I’m rationing them because my latest prescription hasn’t been fulfilled yet so assuming I’ll have to wait.

it was probably a mistake restarting them really as I’m nkt sure having long breaks and then going straight back on 60mg is a good idea. I’ve never tried any other meds so not sure what to do

For me the ONLY thing that helps is dedicated, non-judgemental down time. I have 1-2 days a week where I don't work and I am alone in the house. On those days I do whatever I feel needed, sleep, watch TV all day, some chores but if I get nothing done that is AS valuable. If I try and constantly keep going, nothing gets done.