Adult ADHD - ruining my life

[WhyWouldYouNotWatchASquirrel]

Just typed out a long post listing all my issues but then I pressed a wrong button and lost it all. Now I just want to cry because I desperately need help but I don't want to type it all out again.

I feel doomed. I just don't know what to do anymore..I'm so lucky and privileged in so many ways but I'm wasting it all because I can't get myself to do the things I need to do. Really simple things. I have an infection that won't clear but I won't call the specialist even though my GP has asked me to. I haven't seen a dentist in 10 years. I'm chronically dehydrated but won't drink enough water. I'm obese and have high cholesterol but I won't stop binge eating

I am late 40s and have two amazing but very young kids and I feel more and more I can't cope with the organisation I require to get stuff donr for them. I keep forgetting stuff. I know I need to be fit for them but I can't even do it for them

I work full time in a very technical role that ik barely coping with. I spend most days browsing my phone while quietly panicking about yet again missing a deadline. I spend entire nights trying to catch up with work but increasingly I can't do that anymore. I don't have imposter syndrome. I am an imposter.

I'm medicated. I take 50mg of lisdexamphetamine on working days and it allows me to think coherently but doesn't help with procrastination. I don't want to up the dose. I hate the meds and how they make me feel.

If your partner knows you have ADHD, ask him to help. Things we find so hard, NT people find easy. Give him a list of subscriptions that need to be cancelled and ask him to cancel them for you. Do something in return for him that you find easy - cook an amazing meal or take him out for dinner to say thank you.

Tell HR about your ADHD. You may need to take a bit of time off for burnout. And if so, it is time off not time to do 20,000 impossible things each day to prove you deserve to be alive. Just sit quietly, or walk or swim. Decompress.

When you do try to tackle a backlog, pick off the smallest, easiest tasks first. It makes your list shorter more quickly. The ones that are less stressful or take a second or two. Set a timer for 5 mins and try to answer a couple of emails. Or pay a bill. Keep resetting it for 5 minute blocks so you can't wander down an internet rabbit hole or get lost in daydreams.

I read a book ages ago called SuperBetter. It was by a game-designer who had a serious brain injury and gamified her recovery. I used some of the techniques for ADHD (I know we can't recover) One was to literally pat yourself on the back or give yourself a hug or a high five for every small thing you achieve. We have a tendency to dismiss small things and be deeply critical. If you reply to one or two emails in five minutes, do a physical 'winner' action. It feels very artificial, but it helps reprogramme the brain to stop thinking we are achieving nothing, and it's a mini reward, which ADHD brains crave so badly.

I do housework in 2 or 5 or 10 minute increments. It has transformed my home from a grubby muddle to reasonably clean and tidy most of the time.

So you have a nice family, kids, a husband, a good job and no big issues apart from being overweight? Your life sounds hectic but most of us have similar lives - it's the curse of the modern life. And so many of us waste the time iPhone browsing/doom scrolling. I just don't see anything in your post that would be so terrible or different to other people's lives.

It definitely sounds like burn out and I’m not surprised- I barely look after myself and you are doing that and more.

Does your work have an employee assistance program? I use mine when I’m struggling and they always give me something new to try (and my brain loves it for a few weeks at least).

Ring the doctors now and the dentist. 5 minutes and you will feel so much better having done it.

I’m desk based and use the Microsoft to do app. I don’t let myself finish until my list is empty (granted I move most to the next day but it stops me from completely forgetting things)

Late diagnosed ADHD lady here. I’ve just returned to work after a 5 week absence. Woke up one morning with a dodgy eye that turned out to be inflamed and needed treatment then had several viruses. I was absolutely exhausted too and my B12 and Iron were borderline low. It was my body basically saying you need time off.

It is really hard. There are a few things I’ve done to help. I follow ADHD love on socials and that has been good. I also read scattered minds by Gabor Mate which I would recommend. I spoke to work and had an OH referral. I also had a workplace needs assessment and was referred for ADHD coaching.

A lot of my issues have been similar, doom scrolling, task paralysis, it is really horrible. As ridiculous as it sounds I have set alarms for drinking water and taking vitamins (I go for regular B12 jabs and take magnesium to help with sleep) I got a smart watch so I can put my phone in another room rather than scroll. I break down tasks into really small steps. I have a bedtime timer to push me to go to bed earlier and I read a little before I go to sleep. I am also trying to accept that I struggle with basic tasks and so I am being kinder to myself. I have actually been doing crafting but little and often as I used to put it off as I always tried to do things perfect first time which was always a barrier. I also lean on my husband and friends for moral support

It is really hard to stay motivated and get started so the only way I’ve been able to do it is to make the steps ridiculously small and also accept that some days I need to do hardly anything at all and that’s okay

I really think you could do with a visit to the GP and some time off to reset

OP I really feel for you.

late diagnosis here, and had no idea what was wrong with me but felt exactly as you are describing now. For me it was motherhood and an extremely high stress project in an already pressured job which led to me seeking a diagnosis (initially thought it must be ASD as that runs in my family).

Was extremely surprised by my diagnosis and as yet am unmediated. Given you have been on meds for 10 years, sounds like reaching g out to your GP would be a great next step. Per another PP perhaps take a look into WLI, I used them to address weight issues last year and I feel in a much better place with that now (just everything else to deal with now!).

I also recommend this podcast, lots of us feel very alone and lack support systems as a result. I have found this to be extremely affirming, if a little strange having so much of myself which I thought was my personality and life experience actually explained as my neurological wiring.

open.spotify.com/show/371UdLohffgSlWAEuQ55Hi

See this is why ADHD hits different once you have kids. I was SO good at my job when I could make my own schedule. I could piss away a whole day and then at about 4pm my brain would switch on and I could do as much work in three hours as I should have done all day, then get home by 8pm and write 5000 words of novel or poetry and go to bed at 1am. Now I HAVE to leave work, pick up the kids, do lots of mundane day to day tasks related to keeping them alive during my peak brain working well time, and then by the time I get to be on my own I'm so overstimulated I can't do any damn thing except eat or scroll mindlessly. when I'm retired I'm never going to get up before 10am and never go to bed before 2am, I know it - and I'll be so much happier and more productive!!!

But what do you do when you finally realise - having ended up right back at the start again for the thousandth time - that this is it? You'll never, ever get out of this Sisyphean loop?

I lose weight, get fit and exercise loads for a few months - great. But it only works because it's my project, and it's all-consuming. You can't live like that, because there's other stuff that has to be done.

So I focus on the house and garden. Get it looking great, get loads of DIY done. But hyperfocusing on that means I can't find the space for fitness, so I lose all the muscle tone and flexibility I gained, and get flabby and fat again.

Then I need to focus on a work project which, because I'm a creative, again takes up all my time and energy for months. And everything else goes to shit.

Right now, I look and feel like shit, my house and garden look like shit and there are a million maintenance jobs getting worse by the day from the neglect.

And all that work I did on the work project may come to nothing anyway. If I don't make any money from it, I can't afford to sort out the house and garden things, and it all gets worse and worse.

I cannot multitask. I can't spend my weekends tinkering on the house and do my job in the 9-5 hours. Every time I've tried, I get overwhelmed and it falls apart.

I've been here so many times, and this time it feels worse because I really feel like I can't face this forever. But what is the solution? If I had enough money to outsource the cleaning and maintenance, I could cope, and put the required energy into my work and probably also my fitness (albeit in fits and starts, but it's better than the nothing I'm currently doing). I can't bear to keep going through this over and over again. It's not fair on my husband, I'm a dead weight.

OP, I’m currently off work with burnout. I’ve been high achieving all my life, but it’s been at huge cost. perimenopause has basically ended it for me. I just couldn’t carry on. I’m looking into how I scale everything back, change career. Something had to give, and it’s very nearly been my life. I have ADHD and I think likely Autism (therefore medication may well make things worse). I’ve spent my life feeling as though everything and everyone was upside down.

However, I learned to navigate within the upside down rules. Yes it might mean I do things backwards but I get the same answer But now everything in professional life is either governed by AI or aimed at programming AI its task after task which have to be completed in a set way. Might be great for those walking on the ceiling, and yes I can see the patterns walked by those on the ceiling, but no matter how I try I can’t walk on the ceiling, the land of AI doesn’t permit people walking on the floor.

Life has become binary - a series of yes/no gateways - that really just doesn’t suit ADHD, well life is grey, we’re natural contrarians “well what do you mean by…?” “Well it really depends…” This is why innovators, creatives are often neuro diverse. Consumerism hates us, we’re not predictable, religion hates us because we call out the obvious bollocks, science hates us because we point out issues too often, business hates us because we aren’t predictable consumers, employers hate us because we don’t operate within the rules.

But we’ll probably be the ones to save humanity.

Get an ADHD coach/councillor. Slow down. The world is awful from a neuro diverse perspective

Deep breath.
But actually this is normal for you and it's ok. Accept yourself.
(Which means stop the shame cycle)
You are deep into burnout. It's interesting to note that other replies have immediately tried to help by 'fixing' lots of small steps and encouragement. Cos that's what we do. We like a short term plan, we like a high, we like something interesting and immediate and we like to fix things and people and be liked.
But it all makes us ill and not happy!
However you arnt a failure (so say all of us and I bet we have all done the 'why can't I be normal, why the fuck can't I adult? Why does no one like me? Why do I always fuck up friendships? I just say the wrong thing all the time? )
I have found that a long term goal not short term has been transformational. Then when I fuck it up along the way I go - ok. Blip, start again. It's ok. I wouldn't say I'm out but I'm managing it better.
Look at 10 steps to positive living as a starter.

Are you on HRT? Falling estrogen levels play havoc with dopamine activity.

You are already on 50mg LDA and don't want to increase the dose and don't like the way it makes you feel - have you ever tried methylphenidate? Have you tried it recently/since DC? Apparently our response to medication can change over the lifespan especially with hormonal changes etc.

And since you are the right age for perimenopause, that can interact terribly so it's worth looking into treatment for that as well.

OTOH I relate hard. I am also medicated and on medication I'm not a total disaster, but I can barely rise above "not a total disaster". Like you I find it almost impossible to resist scrolling endlessly on the phone/computer. I'm at my most functional the less I can do of this. I have luck with various strategies to reduce this at any time but the major one which helps is literally just to stand up and walk away from it, if I am having trouble doing this then I often just lie to myself and say I'm going to get a drink. I did also leave a few of the most problematic FB groups I couldn't stay away from, some subreddits and I hid the MN AIBU section for about a year. Deleting the FB app was helpful because while I can still access the mobile site, it's an absolutely awful frustrating experience.

IME the issue for me is unstructured time with no external accountability. I do better when I have a job, a course, or something like that, preferably outside of the home. If these things aren't an option then simply filling up as much of my week as possible with things like a regular coffee meeting, exercise class, hobby club, DC commitments etc. Because this does two things - firstly it forces me to actually fit the day-to-day stuff I get behind on around those tasks, and secondly it means that I'm in regular contact with other people who have a normal sense of time and tend to ask questions about things I've previously mentioned to see how I'm getting on with them. I was listening to a podcast the other day with this ADHD coach and he has a whole theory about the value of social motivation in ADHD, which fits totally with my own experience. I don't think I could sustain working from home personally. Even when I was at college I used to have to do my homework there or it wouldn't get done at all.

I don't read many ADHD books but I do stick podcasts on any time I am walking, on public transport, or doing boring cleaning type tasks at home. I sometimes stick one ear in when supervising DC at a park as well but not always.

Need to take DC to bed but will comeback later.

Oh dear!

Did you actually read the OP? She sounds desperate. She has also acknowledged that she is lucky in many respects.

Just as a caveat, I don't have my ADHD diagnosis yet (assessment soon), but I recognise myself in a lot of this and my DD has ADHD. So I use a lot of lists for what the kids need. If I know I'm going to forget something I either do it straight away or write myself a note somewhere really obvious. I didn't cope at all with full time work but I found part time much more manageable and have always had a day to myself for the last 15 years. I don't work at all at the moment because of my DCs' needs but I still have a cleaner and don't cook from scratch that much and DH pitches in with laundry and gardening and tidying up at the end of the day so that we can vaguely stay on top of the house. I just wonder if you're expecting too much of yourself?

So yeah, like I said above, people always come on these threads to tell everyone how they cope with it, and it's always "I throw money at the problem".

Great.

Well it was throw money at the problem, DH helps a lot and be kinder to yourself to be fair! But depending on finances it's not always hugely expensive to cut hours e.g. if they claim UC or if OP pays a lot of tax or if she was able to claim PIP.

I can be as kind to myself as I like, it's not going to get the garden weeded or the DIY done. And the worse it gets through neglect, the harder it is to feel kindly towards myself. If we had enough money for me to be part time and have a cleaner, my life would be amazing. As it is, it's just a relentless, crushing series of small failures. It's the money that makes the difference, as these threads always prove.

OP I feel for you. I read this and so much resonated with me and I don't have ADHD (that I'm aware of). I kept life together okay, just about, until I hit menopause, and then it all went to pieces. My hormones went haywire, I gained four stone and my career hit the skids when the creative industry I work in collapsed. I can't seem to get anything right.

No advice, just sisterhood. I do wonder if we're all just trying to do too much? FFS, the distractions are next level, and if you are working and dealing with kids it's likey that your attention is totally shattered. You are not alone in this - it's not you, it's modern life. Go easy.

So sorry for not replying sooner. I kind of forget about this thread. I was just looking at my watched threads and when I saw this I thought oh..this sounds like something I could have written. 🙄

Thank you for the kindness. It actually means a lot. 💙

Money makes a massive difference. Money and having people in your life who can compensate for your shortcomings. DH is good at everything i suck at. He's like a black belt in executive function. But of course it comes at the cost of our relationship.

When I was first medicated I was prescribed methyl phenidate but it gave me a rash so I was then prescribed dexamphetamine which I took till recently. I was reasonably happy with it (except that I kept forgetting to take the subsequent doses after the first) but there was a shortage a couple of years ago so I had to switch to lisdexamphetamine. I'm not going to change meds. Every time I have changed meds or had to restart them I have gone through 3-4 months of hell. Anxiety, rage, deep depression. That kind of thing. I should probably be on anti depressants as well but every time I start one I get such bad anxiety I quit.

I don't know but I really don't want to tell my work that I have ADHD.

@WhyWouldYouNotWatchASquirrel I could have written this.

Personally, I think the set up of modern life has given me the symptoms of ADHD. I've completely turned my life around in the past few months:

• No social media apps on phone
• Phone outside of bedroom and office at all times
• None screen time every evening
• Removed decision making from my life. Meals are the same each week, small amount of clothes, same routine
• Made myself accountable to someone - biggest one for me
• Exercise twice a week, same time, no excuses
• Journalling

It starts with little steps. You won't do it all at once, implement a small improvement each week. Best book that's ever helped me is "Happy Mind, Happy Life".

First step, calm your brain. Second step, implement improvements in a calm state.