I have been questioning whether I have ADHD for a while. I left school 3 years ago and when I was there was sent to the special educational needs person as my teachers felt my attention span was poor. She quickly brushed it off because I got “such good grades at GCSE”. In reality I only got those grades because I stayed up all night before each exam learning all the content I hadn’t learned over the last 2 years because I couldn’t pay attention in lessons. I adapted the same method for my A levels and did okay but whatever happened i physically could not pay attention in my classes/ learn anything. I then went to uni and dropped out because I was so far behind. You had to be able to concentrate and learn in lectures or else there was no way of succeeding. Any essays due etc I would bang out at the last minute and do somewhat okay on but when it came to learning all the content for exams there was no chance. I would really like to give uni a go again one day but don’t feel I am able to do it because I just cannot keep up with the work load. Even if I actively tell myself to pay attention I’ll spent 10 minutes thinking about making myself pay attention and then end up day dreaming about something else.
I can get quite anxious, and am also highly self critical. I am horrendous at making decisions and cannot stay tidy to save my life. I get paranoid about forgetting to do things and do so many things not paying attention that I have to go back and check they’re done, even just locking the door to the house. When people are speaking to me I zone out within seconds, even if it is a direct conversation between 2 of us, unless it’s something I find really interesting. I also have this thing where if I’m in a group conversation I cannot listen to anyone else/ move on unless I have said what I wanted to say. My brain won’t let me forget it until I’ve said it… it’s like if you try and keep a sneeze in. The thought won’t go away until it’s “out”.
I appreciate people online can’t diagnose me with adhd and the chances are I probably don’t have it but I have read that many of these things I’m struggling correlate with it and therefore thought it would be worth exploring due to the small chance of it making my life easier. I was wondering if anyone on here has a similar experience and has adhd? Or perhaps does and definitely doesn’t have it? I don’t want to waste a drs time by going to see them about it if I’ve got it completely wrong and these aren’t even ADHD symptoms.
Many thanks in advance and sorry for the essay… I’m fed up with struggling with this stuff and find it so hard to get myself to do something about it.