Is everyone ADHD/ Similar now? Does everyone have 'something'

[pontipinemum]

My counsellor/ psychologist says she thinks I definitely have some sort of ND. When I see things about ADHD/ etc it all seems mostly very relatable.

But then I see people say that everyone struggles so it is normal, that I would just be looking for something to 'blame'. BTW I am not looking for anything to blame.

I think I mask exceptionally well - it's not on purpose. I can be look calm on the outside and be absolutely melting inside. But this does make me good in a crisis. I can 100% focus on that. My brain does not stop. I mean it does not stop.
DH gets frustrated with me because of the complete and utter tangents I go off on.

I am extremely vigilant, like too on alert. I see threat and danger everywhere. It doesn't rule my life but I will assess each situation, according to my counsellor I do this to a much greater degree than most people.

My family life growing up was dysfunctional, chaotic, alcohol misuse, I was abused and neglected. But on the surface we looked like a pretty ok family. Again people keep telling me that everyone struggles with their family. But it is only now in my 30s that maybe most people do not go through what I went through.

The more outward signs - I have my nail beds destroyed. I press my finger nails down into the finger bed until it starts to break. I love the feel of it. It hurt but it is nice. I have done this since I can remeber, because I used to get in trouble for it. I used to scrath my tooth and flick my ear too but they annoyed other people - I didn't know I did it until a colleague asked me to stop. I only do it now when I have to, like now since I've thougth about it!!

In my 20s I was hugely chaotic. In my 30s now I am far more organised. BUT that is not something that is coming naturally to me. I am working super hard to help myself and make things less overwhelming. But with 2 young kids things get stressful even if you wouldn't think I am stressed. I am exhausted, I mean waking up so tired. Even though the youngest is sleeping better now, I find I am sleeping worse thinking of all the things I need to do.

Other things I have noticed:

I can easily get distracted and flit from one task before finishing the one I was at

Time blind - I am way way better at being on time for things now, thank you DH, I was always stupid early for things like flights tho. But I still massively over estimate what I can get done in a certain time frame.

Before having DC I used to drink most nights, and too much each night. I thought it helped me to relax. It did slow me down! I haven't had a drink now since around last Christmas and in general I think it is much better for me. Bar the not slowing down part.

I feel in general I have managed to find ways to make things work for me. Which I guess is what everyone does? I do have dyslexia and have found many ways to work with that.

What I am trying to figure out is, does everyone not feel like this?

Just because you've developed some ways to cope with your issues, it doesn't mean your issues don't exist. You self-harm. You're always on alert. You used to self-medicate with alcohol, and so on. Those are not everyone-does-it kinds of behaviours.

Things like ADHD are more prevalent now because they're better understood and talked about. I knew kids in the 70s and 80s who would instantly receive an ADHD diagnosis today but they didn't back then because no-one knew about it. Instead they were just seen as fidgety and chaotic and so just ignored. Now that ADHD and a whole host of other things are better understood and so more easily recognised, they get the diagnosis and the help so that they can develop healthier ways to deal with it.

I would say most people can be reasonably organised without undue effort, and are not time blind. Most people can focus if they need to and don't get hyper fixated on things. Most families do not abuse and neglect their children.

are you seeking a pathway for referral OP?

@TeenToTwenties I def agree, now, that most families don't abuse their children. I knew that some of it was truely wrong. But most of it I just thought was our messed up version of normal. I remember even saying something to my now SIL early days and it was 'oh every family has stories, and what is normal'. What I heard from that is - everyone has things to deal with, what you are going through/ have gone through is no differnt

Do you really think most people find it easier? Everyone complains the whole time too. I probably complain less

@funmamamoo no I'm not, well I might but I'm not sure if there is any reason to. I'm 37 and seem to be doing ok

I think a lot of things are things that many people deal with but if you feel you’d benefit from referral and possible diagnosis then go for it. Nothing to lose

Sounds like complex ptsd and emotional dsyregulation. You’re hypervigilant because of your chaotic upbringing, alway needing to be alert to keep yourself safe. You’ve used maladaptive coping strategies to deal with things when you’re overwhelmed - such as excess alcohol, self harming. The therapy should be about learning skills to mange them feelings in a healthier way.
ADHD symptoms cross over with so many other possible diagnoses

I’m late diagnosed autistic and ADHD. I think it’s important to bear in mind that the diagnostic criteria and provision for diagnosis has exploded over the last 5 years or so in the UK. Suddenly it seems like everyone is getting a diagnosis..but actually it’s just raised awareness and capacity to diagnose. I’d reckon the statistics are far closer to 50/50 than we ever realised.
I would say you do certainly sound like you have enough traits to consider getting assessed. It’s been life-changing for me to understand who I really am and why my brain works like it does. I did chose to go on meds for the ADHD and was amazed at how they help. If you need support with doing tasks and time management, I recommend the dubbii app and community (live body doubling).

There's a programme on channel 4 player called Do you have ADHD? with Claire Moseley and it goes through the main traits and how to get an assessment. They explain that to be diagnosed you have to have traits but also have to be experiencing negative consequences as a result. It's worth watching.

I know what you mean about everyone suddenly seeming to be ND. The prevalence of ADHD is thought to be about 5% of the population, which I guess suggests it could be a variation which causes a pathology in the environment we live on, but maybe wouldn't do if we still lived in the environment we evolved in (nature, hunter gatherers etc)?

No. Not everyone is like that. But you sound very like my ADHD daughter. I'm sorry about all you went through. Trauma can also cause the hypervigilance. An assessment would be good.

@NeurodivergentBurnout ""Suddenly it seems like everyone is getting a diagnosis.."" I think a lot of it is that many many people who should have been diagnosed were not and now can be and can get the help needed.

My counselloer doesn't think labels are necessiary and I do agree to certain extent but I do also feel like if I know I can work on it. It's funny because I can be so so organised But that is down to decades of working on myself. Watching what other families did as a teenager and trying to replicate that. To now using the internet to find out better ways to be.

In my 20s my house was a state I couldn't keep on top of it at all but I could happily spend an hour ironing - which I never do anymore.

@Hello39 I think I might have fallen into a bit of an ADHD/ etc loop where all I see is that stuff so it seems like everyone has it. Ya a huge amount of stuff that I never realised was linked to Trama is from trauma. The worst one is how I view myself but I am changing that.

I put seems in italics because we’ve always been around 😆 it’s just that it’s better recognised these days with new diagnostic criteria. They used to think you grew out of ADHD as an adult! We all had those quirky relatives, friends, neighbours who didn’t fit in, behaved differently, we just didn’t understand why. I posted on my social media about my difficulties and a family member got in touch to say her toddler had been diagnosed. Relative thought she may have Autism too and probably her Dad (I strongly agreed with that!).
The trauma link is tricky, because pretty much all adults who may have undiagnosed neurodivergence in modern society are likely to have experienced some trauma from behaving differently, I know I did. An assessment can usually identify these issues and establish if it’s either or both though.

It sounds like you have a complicated history...

I would be very hesitant to jump to ADHD or any other "diagnosis" which tells you that you were just born this way and that all of your coping strategies are actually "masking" and you should stop them because they're hiding your true self. Many/most of your strategies are useful tools that help you with adult life.

Some of your strategies might be maladaptive but you should look at each one on its own. I find I chew my nails a lot when I'm stressed about something so it's a signal to me to reduce my commitments or ask for help.

I like the way Russell Barkley describes it - he says that basically executive functioning, which is the skillset which is impaired with ADHD, exists on a bell curve in humans, just as most skills and strengths/tendencies do.

Most people have average executive functioning (somewhere in the middle). Some of that "most" group will have better or worse EF than average. But there are extremes and this is where you see the bell flare off at the edges. Some people have exceptionally good EF, and some people have exceptionally poor EF.

We draw a line at a certain point, where the deficiencies in poor EF are causing impairment in daily life, and call that ADHD. Similar to how we draw a line at a certain point of poor vision and say Person A (at the extreme low end) is legally blind, Person B (on the left side of the curve) benefits from glasses, Person C (towards the right of the curve) has normal vision.

This means that it is both a normal variation in humans, but also a small subset of the population, thought to be about 3-5% of adults.

Studies show that ADHD is not being overdiagnosed or inflated - we are simply catching up the diagnoses which were missed when many of us were younger. Awareness has grown massively, and that's why it looks like there is a huge number of people being diagnosed and everyone is talking about it.

When you've grown up with ADHD and it's not been identified it does feel totally normal so it can be strange to have someone saying hey you have this disorder/your EF is so bad that you're in the 5th percentile.

I know it sounds strange but I honestly didn't even realise how complicated my own history was. It is only now I am seeing just how messed up it all was. I feel very numb towards most of it. Which makes me think it doesn't matter. But god when I actually type this, I was abandoned by the people who were supposed to love me both several times over creating very deep wounds.

I'm really sorry to hear that.

One of my issues I have with ADHD and ND over diagnosis is that it frames it as "you have a problem in your brain" (even if it uses celebratory/positive language like "your brain was just wired differently, and that's wonderful!"). In your case it sounds like you have so much to explore about your childhood that seems like a much more likely explanation for any chaos in your earlier life!

The other is the way it denigrates coping strategies as "masking".

It sounds like you've put in so much effort to improve your life and I just loved this

> But that is down to decades of working on myself. Watching what other families did as a teenager and trying to replicate that. To now using the internet to find out better ways to be.

I would just be so so wary of falling down the TikTok ND crowd which is full of people who will try to give you the opposite message. That your brain is fixed and you aren't like "normal" people who can do all these things with no effort. Stop putting in any effort because effort is "masking". NT people find everything easy and if you struggle with anything it's because you're just not built for it.

Some of my struggles have put me into the ND/ASD/ADHD influencer orbit and it has only been a negative drain on my life. Well - I read one book on ADHD housework which was helpful. That's all ;)

Some people have symptoms of ADHD but the symptoms are coming from trauma. Eg PTSD.

A thorough assessment is important.

Alway on alert, difficulty sleeping and self soothing by diverting pain – all classic signs of your subconscious mind grappling with trauma. Whether or not you are ND you will function a lot better when that is resolved.

Hmm, I don't know if I would agree about the neurodiversity movement telling people well you're just inherently different, and you shouldn't try to change. That's really not how I receive the message at all. I find it helpful to acknowledge that I have difficulties which other people mostly don't, and that in general I process things a bit differently. I agree that it's not a discrete category of brain "type" and I do see that get trotted out a lot and find that unhelpful, especially when it's posited as a difference like "NT brains are just perfectly logical and orderly at all times, like robots!" because people don't work like that. The difficulties that cause impairments in ADHD are really just exaggerated, stacked, or poorly-compensated versions of human foibles which basically everyone has.

For example, everyone has moments where they put something down without being aware that they had done that and then have no idea where it is later. This is probably because the unfinished task which caused you to be holding the thing is stored in working memory, and when working memory gets full it just pushes things out the other side and so, if your brain registers another reason you need to use your hands as more important, you put the currently-less-important item down. If you think anything consciously at the point of putting the item down, you might think "I'll get that later" but equally that probably also gets forgotten fairly quickly, because it's a mundane thought so it's unlikely to even make it into working memory in the first place.

There is no sharp dividing line between a NT brain and an ADHD brain with what happens with the put-down item. But in general, the ADHD person has a smaller capacity for working memory, so this happens much more frequently. In general, the ADHD person is more likely to notice another reason they need their hands and discard the first task, whereas someone without ADHD has a more effective "screener" which allows them to dismiss the new task (unless it is genuinely urgent) because they want to finish the first task first. With ADHD it can be more difficult to prioritise in the moment and decide which task is more urgent, and there may also be a learned behaviour of "If I don't do it now, I'll forget later" causing them to overcorrect in the direction of doing the just-noticed task and putting the held item down. The ADHD person's house is probably also messier and more cluttered, making it harder to notice an item out of place, which may remind you later that you put it down to do whatever and then forgot to put it away again.

I find it is helpful to explicitly understand this process, because I can see how the exact same scenario - let's say I came in holding my keys and then before I put them on the hook, my toddler wet themselves and so I put the keys down to help them - could play out for two different people (or the same person on a day they were more or less tired, stressed, hungry etc). In practice, this helps me see where I can make changes (e.g. making sure that all important items have a dedicated home near the place I finish using them) vs the things that are more difficult to change (the size of my working memory). Emotionally, it helps me to see that I'm not a totally defective person just because I lose my keys more frequently than others, or because I need to rely on systems that other people might not need. Several things are playing in and not all of them are choices I'm making. But it is still inconvenient to lose my keys, so it's helpful to set up systems to reduce that happening.

I agree that masking is not always a bad thing. But I do think it's helpful to look at things one by one, as said, and try to assess what's happening there. Some of the best things I've done since my own diagnosis have been where I've given myself permission to stop trying to achieve a NT "norm" which isn't working for me. Not all ADHD type traits are inherently bad. Even the unconventional ones aren't always inherently bad. Some NT norms I do try to meet - like timekeeping for example, but I also have friends whose notion of time is so incredibly fluid it doesn't even work to try to make timed appointments with them. I can go with the flow with them and that's fun too, but I know it doesn't work for most people.

I was diagnosed in my 40s if you asked me 18 months ago if i thought I had ADHD I’d say no peri menopause pretty much caused me to lose all masking I have done for years without realising
i only got a diagnosis as it was causing me major issues in work which have been sorted out due to meds and changing my way of working

Oops double post

OK so how my morning went. I am not sure if these are just normal 'mum' things or something in my brain.

Kids got up, got them ready, sent them to nursery with my husband. That was all OK – husband keeps us all on track. They leave, I have approx 40 mins until I start work. I thought I would get a load of jobs done, like have a shower, laundry and empty the dishwasher, put away things from last night, clear the kids toys and get dinner out of the freezer for tonight.

I saw the two washing baskets on the kitchen table with clothes I folded last night. I said I will put them away but first I will make a coffee.
I put the coffee on. Then I thought husband’s clothes need washing as they are blocking the floor, so I went to put them in the washing machine.

But the washing machine was half full of white clothes that needed washing (which I had put in yesterday), so I went to get all the other laundry baskets from the bedrooms to put on a full load of white. Brought them up to the washing machine and was looking for the whites. Filled the load.

When I was getting the washing powder I spotted the new window cleaning gadget I got. So I went and used that. It’s not that good. Did some of the windows. Brought it back in. Washing machine is not on, so I put in the powder and turned it on. Husband’s dirty work clothes are still blocking the floor. But for some reason I decided the others should go in first.

I then remembered I want to weigh myself to keep track of my diet. Went to the bathroom, took off all clothes, weighed myself a few times to make sure it was correct.

Said I better get dressed. But sat on the bed checking the weighing app, then looking up random crap that somehow relates to it.

Saw the time, thought crap, got dressed.

My coffee was cold and untouched so I microwaved it.
The folded laundry is still in the baskets on the kitchen table.

@OneAmberFinch I have been going to a psychologist since last November she is fantastic. It was supposed to just be 6 sessions but she keeps extending that! Which I am grateful for. I am in Ireland and it is super hard to get into a private clinic right now but I have manged to get it on the HSE, the have a special service for adults who were abused as children.

On the surface I would say I appear a little bit 'kookie' or my friend even described me as a yummy mummy. But underneath I am running at 90 miles an hour trying to be the perfect mum and wife.

I have found another little 'thing' I am usually listening to an audio book to keep my mind focused. But my 3 yr old can't listen to a lot of what I listen to, so I have music on or I just sing. But a lot of the time I don't really sing to anything. I just say 'a do do, do do, do,do do' yesterday he told me 'not the do dos mummy!'

I have approx 40 mins until I start work. I thought I would get a load of jobs done, like have a shower, laundry and empty the dishwasher, put away things from last night, clear the kids toys and get dinner out of the freezer for tonight.

IMO this is very classic time optimism - common in ADHD.

40 minutes isn't really long enough to do all those things and transition into work mode, let alone the 5 other things you added to it spontaneously, and the things you didn't mention but still had in your head as "must do" such as getting dressed and making a coffee. (Although - now I think about it maybe you wouldn't have needed to get dressed if you didn't get undressed to weigh yourself )

Perhaps you could have got the dinner out and done the dishwasher first of all if it was literally just getting one pack of something out of the freezer, then you might have had time to jump in the shower or do a quick tidy up and then sat down for 5/10 mins with your coffee before your meeting. OR you could have put the white wash on, put away the clean washing, and possibly had time for a quick shower if there wasn't too much to put away. (Ideally, then, make the coffee afterwards and stick the husband's dirty stuff into the now-empty washing basket to take it off the floor).

I also think it's a very ADHD way of prioritising to see something, be reminded that you had a goal around that and have it immediately wipe out everything else on your "things I am doing right now" list. IME it happens to me because I don't seem to be able to keep those goals in mind without that sudden associative reminder. This is probably related to executive dysfunction, which looks like difficulty organising/prioritising/ordering and sequencing tasks.

I don't think it is just mum life - mum life is being interrupted, yes, but usually by small people more so than your own thoughts and ideas. It might mean there are lots of half-finished things undone all over the place getting in the way of the things you want to get done, which is why I think mum life/ADHD can look similar. I think you know in yourself, though, whether that's happening more because the DC are interrupting/constantly creating chaos which needs undoing, or whether that is happening AND you're having stuff like the window cleaner and the weight app distracting you from the things you wanted to get done.

Not everyone has something or even ADHD. It is a frequently claimed on here that ADHD and autism are being over diagnosed but it only seems that way because the understanding of both conditions has grown over the years and with that the diagnostic criteria have broadened. Furthermore social media has helped spread awareness and understanding among the general public, although of course there is plenty of nonsense on social media too. In the past, girls and women were very rarely diagnosed, and it was not possible to be diagnosed with both ADHD and autism. It has only been possible to diagnose adults with ADHD since 2008 so just that change alone must have created a surge in demand for assessment.

I'm autistic and have ADHD. I first came to the realisation that I might be autistic because I saw an autism screener (health care professionals use these screeners) on social media many years ago. I filled it out and the results were suggestive of autism. Many of my friends also did the same and all of them scored well within the neurotypical range.

OP, it does sound likely that you may have ADHD. Go and talk it through with your GP,

I would actually highly recommend seeking out diagnosis for ADHD because if you do have it, the medication is likely to improve your life a lot. I also have ME (aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).. My ADHD psychiatrist says she has a surprising number of ME patients in her books and she thinks it is highly likely there is a link. She also told me the stress of masking was probably a contributing factor to the development of my ME. So in other words, getting ND diagnoses can be potentially very important to your health. I'm late 50s and diagnosed with autism 3 years ago and ADHD about 3 months ago. I might be in better health now if I had been diagnosed many years ago.

People with autism and adhd male up only 1-2%of the population not everyone has it and not everyone is a bit.

It's the intensity and inflexibility of the traits and the impact on daily life that shows a disorder.