Adhd? Sound familiar?

[tobee]

I've always found I'm most stimulated in work (at school and work work and as a parent) dealing with crisis (big and small). Things that require no forward thinking and need action. Things that are out of the ordinary.

My (older) dsis likes to speak on the phone about future plans for meeting up, wanging on about all the different things we could do (dependant on currently unknowable things) and endless weighing up. This makes me brain hurt. Especially as I know any tentative plans are likely to be changed. I find the theoretical choices hard to grasp and need straight forward facts. I mention her being older because she's always been like this and I've always been made to feel immature/defective for thinking like this. When I try to explain she's "well this is how I always arrange things".

I just wondered if these are part of an adhd brain. There are other things too but the above are things I've not seen mentioned so much.

I've done online tests but feel like they're easy to manipulate.

"This makes me brain hurt"

This makes my* brain hurt

Theoretical choices hard to grasp = irritating and pointless and frustrating to grasp

I think it differs so much. I am a planner, and I've always had clear goals in my head (for example in work I wanted a particular job by 30, and then when I achieved that I would creative the next goal).

However come to meal planning, day to day planning my day, boring stuff. Totally shit. I have to have so many systems in place like lists, routine etc. to make sure what needs to get done is done. And even then I'll miss something, a letter to book a routine appointment for example can take a really long time. I'll leave the letter somewhere where I can see it, and still ignore it for weeks/months or miss it all together when it eventually gets lost under the next import letter.

Planning days out I'm like your sister. I need to know where and what we are going to be doing, otherwise I'll just waste the day zoning out 😂

Hmm thanks that's interesting.

I like to make a plan and then see what happens. I hate endless discussions about plans though!

Agree about functioning best in a crisis / under pressure - this is where ADHD-ers really shine!

Oh yea the discussion part I hate. And I hate people suggesting we do XYZ when we have already decided stick to the plan!!!

The thing about the plan bit that I find stressful is all being discussion. I don't want someone else's thoughts going around my head and having to comment on them there and then. I want to make a decision from a group of choices (having referred to others involved) and then stick to it. Not the theoretical choices that are likely to be discarded.

Anyway. Not sure what I think

Hello @tobee, your post really resonated with me and I have ADHD without a shadow of a doubt.

I work in quite a stressful finance job that involves investing large sums of money. I find I am crap at everyday admin stuff (e.g., answering emails, writing annual reviews for the people I manage, etc.), but I am excellent when markets are volatile and everyone else is panicking. I go into a calm space and am able to be quite decisive about investment actions because I can ignore the noise, see the opportunities and act on them. I am good in other crises too, for example if someone is injured. Other people take longer to react and sort of flap about, whereas I instinctively know what to do and get on with it.

Like you, I find people talking through lots of hypotheticals really stressful. There's too much to keep track of! It sounds like my DH operates in a similar way to your DSis. When it comes to life decisions, he likes to speculate about the variables involved and talk through (over and over again!) all the different potential outcomes. I hate this. It makes my brain explode. I like to wait until I have the actual data needed to inform our decision making, then go from there. I used to argue with him a lot as a result of our different approaches, but I have learned to bite my tongue and he understands me better too since I got my ADHD diagnosis.

More generally, I find unnecessary complexity extremely frustrating.

For me, these characteristics are a defining feature of my ADHD brain. I agree, they are not spoken about much. I do all the other typical ADHD things - leaving my front door keys in the lock several times a week, forgetting appointments, drinking WAY too much coffee, finishing people's sentences, walking quickly, listening to podcasts at 1.5x speed... however, for me, if I had to pinpoint the things that most characterise my ADHD, they are an intolerance of unncessary complexity/hypotheticals and an ability to act instinctively and decisively, especially in a crisis.

I hope that helps. If you haven't had a formal diagnosis, you should look into it.

Thank you for your response @Bookclub99 . That's very interesting. I should add I get a buzz from crisis or unusual things; a sort of sense of purpose maybe. I also have spells of anxiety though.