ADHD and work

[JoanIsAwful]

Hi, I wondered if anyone else here has had similar issues and can share thoughts on this.

Im really struggling at work and need to work out best adhd adjustments, but it's hard to identify what will help.

I think possibly a key thing for me is that I need to work out how to do things myself, to a degree. What I mean by that is that if I'm constantly bombarded with another person's way of doing things, without having the head space to work things out in my own head, I feel really confused. I get bogged down in detail and lose the bigger picture. And then I feel quite overwhelmed.

I'm in a newish job, but I've never experienced this quite so badly before. I have a very micromanaging boss and maybe that's part if it. I feel I never get a handle on the overall 'shape' of systems. Does this make any sense at all to anyone??

I empathise!!! Diagnosed 3 years ago and was mostly managing to plod along in my job, but we've recently undergone a restructure/process review at work and the new systems are not at all compatible with my brain, everything is now very much "one size fits all" with no opportunity to personalise/use the tools that I previously found helpful, it's been a nightmare and has been what's tipped me over into finally pursuing medication and exploring more formalised reasonable adjustments at work.

Not sure I have any answers for you just wanted to acknowledge the struggle! Definitely relate to struggling to identify what might help. I've recently applied for an access to work grant for ADHD specific work coaching, they do an assessment with you and can help you work out what might be useful. Could be worth looking into?

Small things I have worked out are things like I cannot process/retain verbal information AT ALL, a lot of our training is delivered in online meetings and I feel like I might as well not have been there for all the use it is. I've let my line manager know this and we are working on building a written training pack which helps a lot. I also find MS Teams (which we use a lot) really overwhelming and hard to navigate, so am working out ways around this with my manager. I'm lucky that my manager also has ADHD so is very understanding! I've had micro managers before and really struggled, it's massively exacerbated my anxiety so I empathise there too.

I cannot process/retain verbal information AT ALL

This is me too. Literally in one ear and straight out the other no matter how hard I try to concentrate on what is being said. I need visuals rather than being talked at.

I also can't stand being micro-managed. I need to be left alone (even if it's just for 20 mins) to process things. If someone is on my back all the time or interrupting me constantly, things are so much harder.

Thanks @FlossTea and @HundredMilesAnHour
I'm about to set off on a long journey but will reply later. Such a relief to hear others experience similar issues - not that I'm glad you're struggling but you know what I mean!!

Yes!! I'm very intelligent (not being a dick about it) but really struggle to get a handle on the overall purpose of why I'm there and what I'm trying to achieve and work out a strategy for my work (not necessarily the organisation or programme strategy).

If I'm not given space to work that out then I'm screwed and have burnt out before. That was broadly a programme manager type role where a million plates were spinning and a lot of quite high profile projects in different countries, teams and topics needed to be kept moving but I just could not figure out why I was there, what was needed from me or how to put this into some kind of framework.

Boss was a lovely man but worked in a very different way.

He would answer these queries with yet more jargon and detail which I could not piece together without that framework.

I realised too late I was there as a fixer, bringing different stakeholders together and and overall eye on progress and risk and drawing these into policy. Simple enough, right? If that had been clear then fine but it was an organisation where it was important to sound as fancy as possible and I simply could not get a handle on that very simple and basic overarching truth.

I actually enjoyed a lot of the work but the sinking, scrabbling, blind, baseless feeling of being the only one who didn't get it was awful.