The Book And How You Can Help!

What does your world look like with your ADHD? For me, everything feels slow. I've forced myself to learn patience because of this. I also cannot stop analyzing things once I've started. I work in computer programming and when I learned about classes and objects, I started making everything in my world into classes and objects. When I learned about metalwork, I started examining every utensil in my house to see how it was made. When I learned about user experience, I stared at my stove and wondered why certain parts of it were designed in certain ways and what the benefits were. What was it like growing up with it? Being an adult with it? Growing up with ADHD was weird. I did not talk to people because I was afraid of being rejected. I played on my computer and was able to talk to people on that because if I was rejected, I logged off and internalized it. I actually met some of my best friends through internet relay chat. As an adult, I make most of my friends through work as I am forced into proximity with them and have a collective goal. I use Grammarly on my computer because I think too fast to spell correctly and it takes care of that issue for me. I play music or wear headphones when working because it doubles as a signal to others that I am focused and I can use music I know to block out distractions. How did you get diagnosed? When? What was the experience like? I was diagnosed in the 80s by my primary physician. My mother gave him a list of symptoms and I talked with him and he wrote a ritalin prescription. I started refusing to take the medication in middle school because I felt like it took a part of me and I decided to learn other ways to deal with my ADHD symptoms... and drank a lot of coffee.

Joseph C Whitaker

What does your world look like with your ADHD? - Well, I've always thought of myself as NT. But a close relative is working towards a diagnosis, so I have been learning about it so I can be supportive. I'm a "heart", I guess you'd say. Thank you for your work, it's so helpful! Even for me, (supposedly) not being ADHD, I'm finding so much of your advice useful for me personally. Funny thing, the more I learn the more I see that most of my family and most of the people I like best are ADHD or ND. So now I'm having another look at myself .... I'm a massive list maker, if I don't know what prep to do for what's coming up I get really anxious. I work in a creative and intuitive branch of science, and I really enjoy that. I need social connection but I don't know how to find a group I can truly belong to. The gaming community appeals to me! but I'm over 60 so sometimes I feel a bit out of place (tho most gamers I know are very welcoming). What was it like growing up with it? Being an adult with it? - I was a rubbish school student, never did my homework, so boring, but when I had a "good exam" in a subject I liked I'd get into the zone and it would be like a huge fun adreniline-paced problem solving exercise. Very spotty marks, some fails, some fabulous. I dropped high-school Latin b/c hated the homework but at the same time I learned all this high-end linguistics from Tolkein LotR appendices, could write easily in both elvish script and dwraven runes. I'm very highly qualified but underemployed! How did you get diagnosed? When? What was the experience like? - well, I'm not, and neither is my family member who is seeking diagnosis. Since Covid the resources are overwhelmed.

G. Lee King

It wasn’t a thing when I was growing up. My mother really kept me on track (poor mom!) when I needed to be but allowed me to be creative. No one tried to figure out why I was the way I was. They all just kept picking up after me…and I’m not talking about socks on the floor. I knew I was smart, but I had a hard time articulating. Because I was bored easily, I knew how to entertain myself and drew others in by being the instigator of fun. I’m very creative and not afraid to fail. I’m a very slow reader so I’m thankful for audiobooks. I pick up on details that others miss (visual) yet I lose my keys and other things (keeping up with stuff is boring but did you notice Cindy’s nail polish matches her shoes? It’s stunning!) I function well in a crisis and can hyper focus to filter the chaos out and do what’s important. I was diagnosed in my early 50’s. I owned my own business (the exciting startup phase was over) and I was having a hard time managing things and getting things done. I got tested and was so relieved to find out I have ADHD. Because knowing means a path forward. Got coaching. Got meds. Got a routine (I try, but it’s hard!) I am aware of what gets me behind or distracted. I’m working with a business coach who teaches me to keep a positive mindset, play to my strengths, and hire people to do the things I hate doing. That and meds have changed my life for the better. Having a community like this is also valuable. No one else knows what it’s like to have a carnival in your brain while you’re trying to adult.

Holly Smith

I really thought I responded to this already but I'll say it again because idk why not im procrastinating on sleep ilo do anything to avoid sleep, feel free to quote me however you want or know how to refer to me as just don't include my age if you know it, it looks very messy but honestly it helps me so much with figuring out ideas for how I hope to change the world without it I probably wouldn't have near as many ideas on how to change the world as I do, its very stressful and chaotic though at the moment due to it being severe and untreated, I never got to be an adult with it without knowing but it was really hard growing up with it since I was "gifted" but not in those classes due to not having the mental energy or time to work that hard to get perfect scores, and do br honest, not the brain for it either. But I just felt like such a failure because I knew what I was capable of but I was always falling short of it and I had no idea why, once I figured it out it helped a lot to know why I was like this but it was still hard and took me a while to get to the point where I can just laugh off adhd stuff most of the time instead of hatint myself for it (I sometimes still get mad at myself for it but thats usually when I'm already upset) *enter* well when I was 12 i figured out i had it but it took until i was about 15 to get diagnosed with it because I told my school counselor (which at the time was the only way I could get diagnosed due to no insurance) and she said "I read too well to have adhd" and so I lost confidence in knowing I had adhd so I stopped pursuing it for a year and then I wanted to get mt autism diagnosed so I got that diagnosed and then once I got insurance I got adhd diagnosed and it was really garbage to get tested for because I had to when I heard a sound click a button and thats it basically and it was so boring and I just had to do that and one other boring task for 15-30 minutes (i can't remember), idk if it was worse because i was tested by the head of the adhd department who also tried to be my therapist but failed so they might have made it worse for me because I didn't want her as my therapist idk or was just meaner about it idk

A Arctic fox

Had a previous comment on this, did not realize it was meant for future publication. I would prefer not to be quoted.

When a good support system is in place, it is more like a superpower. We cope before we know why, because we don't know any different way. Hence the high late-diagnosis rate. It is when the support system fails or breaks down - or it becomes a problem for someone else - it becomes your problem. That's how it one GP explained it. Stress and convention do not go well together.

Account Name

My world with ADHD seems normal to me...now haha. I had always silently just dealt with being fidgety, or easily distracted, or falling so into a hyperfocus that I forget to eat the whole day (which turns out ain't normal to everyone else). Growing up, I and my parents knew I had it...and all teachers (sorry teachers). My parents decided that it was a behavioral disorder and chose not to medicate, but also didn't seek out a counselor or coach for me to deal with it either - much the same reason as others, I was a smart kid. Nowadays it's a much bigger issue, due to current workplace and marriage and now a father! I've survived off self-medicating myself with caffeine for two decades (I'm talking 1000mg MINIMUM a DAY)! Thankfully, I decided to seek professional help and am now on Concerta (still a rather high dose due to long term "self-stimming" haha). I had no idea I was diagnosed until I was nearly graduated from high school. My parents knew since 3rd grade... I don't resent them for their decision, they did what they thought was right.

i’m so late to the party with this response oops but i got diagnosed with ADHD last year at the age of 21! before this, the world always looked like everyone was on top of everything & succeeding & i was just stupid or lazy or “not putting in any effort.” for the longest time i truly thought i was dumb but after getting diagnosed it felt like a switch flipped or something ? & i was just like wait so i’m not just lazy ? i felt such a mix of emotions. i was so happy to finally know & start moving forward & acknowledge that i am ADHD & take that into account when going through everyday life. i was also quite sad bc i wished i would’ve gotten on top of this sooner & i felt like i was missing out but i am now at peace with that & i know that it’s never too late to get diagnosed. ever since the diagnosis i have learned so much more about ADHD & have started to finally look at it as like a superpower rather than a “disorder.” i am doing better in school & at work too. i work at a psychiatric children’s housing facility in my area & so many of the children i work with are ADHD & we often will talk about it & just relate to eachother about how it can truly be a struggle at times with ADHD. it can be a very emotionally & mentally taxing job but they’re all so brilliant & it hurts to hear everything they have been through but seeing them all succeed & grow & even smaller things like get an A on a test they worked so hard to study for makes it all feel so worth it & i truly think that my (& my coworkers) ADHD helps tremendously in that job environment

1.) My world with ADHD looks like Chaos and Beauty. I can view the things around me with anxiety but can recognize silver linings as well. It's bizarre, because I feel like I can enter an environment like a restaurant and become extremely overwhelmed when I'm there on a date or with family/friends but when I'm alone it's soothing and I can observe a couple talking about their future plans or watch as parents try to keep their three kids from running all over the place. 2.) Growing up was like being an adult, you try very hard to communicate and you can't understand why the person you're talking too is looking at you funny or is uninterested in speaking to you. You feel like you've followed every rule on how to talk to people, but then it falls on my ass and I wonder why I even attempt talking in the first place. It's different now because as an adult I can recognize it and I don't take it out on myself anymore. As a kid I thought there was something wrong with me, as an adult I know it's because the person I'm talking too is just a d*ck. 3.) I was diagnosed at 8 years old, I only know how I was diagnosed from talking to my parents and that I was given a test just to see, the doctors not expecting me to have it, but sure enough I did. My experience felt forced, all I remember was just that my parents would tell me that I would be taking this pill now every morning and that it would help me with school. I also remember every 6 months or so seeing a specific doctor and he would ask me a bunch of questions then ask me to leave the room so he could talk to my parents. I still remember whenever I would be asked to leave the room how anxious it made me feel, because I knew they were talking about me and I thought it was because I was being bad. My childhood experience with it was very much out of my control, which was very frustrating to me. It was like, I can do it on my own, everyone else can, why shouldn't I.

Jennifer Noce

What does your world look like with your ADHD? It's full of fun, optimism and imagination. I feel like my mind is constantly coming up with new ways to enjoy the world, the outdoors, and with new stories. But it's also a world of anxiety and fear anytime I receive a negative criticism or feel rejected in any way. But I wouldn't trade my imaginative, fun-loving self for anything! How did you get diagnosed? When? What was the experience like? Honestly your channel is the reason I went ahead and got diagnosed. I watched your video: 'What it's Like to be Diagnosed with ADHD as an Adult' and it helped me see how helpful it could be to get diagnosed, even at age 30. And omg has it been one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. Thankfully the psychiatrist I saw was very understanding and was able to prescribe me with meds pretty quickly.

What was it like growing up with it? I got diagnosed at age 43. My mother was bipolar and in and out of hospitals every two to three years. My parents got separated when I was three and I was in foster care for a year until my mom remarried. I was constantly trying to fix my mom, so I really didn´t have much time dealing with my own shortcomings and I had nobody even noticing them. I always had troubles making friends, but we also moved around a lot. I was smart enough to just do the bare minimum in school, but still get through it ok. There is enough to unpack that would probably give anyone a hard time growing up to be "normal", but the three things that persisted through all of it were what in the end lead me to seek out a diagnosis: 1. I was always stressed. Its a mix of restlessness, my brain never shutting down (which I attributed to just being smarter than average) and, what I also only recently realized, lots of anxiety. 2. I was always super easily bored. Bored with people, bored with tasks, bored with myself, bored with life. Which I also attributed to being too smart...And yet failing miserably at doing anything consistently or seeing things through to the end. Boredom then often lead to feeling depressed and then becoming depressed. 3. Constant moodswings. I attributed this to growing up with a bipolar parent. But my moodswings never lasted long. When I´m depressed, I´m super depressed, but it usually never lasted longer than a few days. Which was a blessing and a curse...I felt like the proverbial roly-poly toy. Unable to fail long enough to make things better long term.... Kind of getting by in life, but constantly feeling like something was missing. Always going SOMEWHERE, but never actually reaching my goals. As an adult, I had mostly settled into kind of a pessimistic world view, where things are just what they are and I had to grow up someday and leave my childish dreams behind and just FUNCTION like an adult, even if I didn´t feel like one. I also projected most of my problems into my relationship and mostly tried to fix that (to no result of course). I was always aware of how my childhood had impacted me, but I never felt like I fit any sort of diagnosis, so I didn´t know what to get help with. I mean...sure, i was depressed, but never long enough. Sure, I had mood swings, but I wasn´t bipolar. Yeah, I had relationship issues, but don´t we all? And how do you even fix self-esteem, by talking about how mommy never had time for you as a kid...? During the pandemic, my situation worsened, constantly working from home left me much more understimulated than usual with a lot more distractions to deal with while trying to work a job I was getting bored with after 8 years... I started to get anger management issues and since I couldn´t even control them in front of the kids, I started to think there might be something worth fixing with me after all. Somehow I stumbled over a facebook post about anxiety and from there found myself doing an online ADHD test. A ton of the symptoms I would have never seen as adhd, but totally clicked with me. It took me three months to get an appointment and during that time I obsessively researched every bit of information I got. A lot of things started making sense much more and I was able to reframe some of my issues. The biggest relief was starting to see how me failing at getting better all my life, was due to ADHD and not just a lack of willpower or self sabotage.... I still had a lot of anxiety about NOT having adhd, until I finally was diagnosed with it and through all my research, I realized there is a ton of overlap between adhd, asd, anxiety, CPTSD and a bunch more labels, but I´m adressing the adhd first, because thats the one preventing me from following through on ANYTHING.... Feel free to quote anything with full name. Being an adult with it? How did you get diagnosed? When? What was the experience like?

About getting diagnosis, ever since I started college I got obsessed with self diagnosis because it all started to get so hard that I was convinced I had some kind of psychological issue since nobody struggled the way I did. In my mind, if I had something, I could treat it and get help, if I didn’t have it, it would always be this hard and I could do nothing about it. After researching, adhd seems a lot obvious, I went to a psychiatrist that said I couldn’t have ADHD after interviewing my mother and getting to a conclusion I couldn’t have it because I had no symptoms as a child. I know now that this is not true. After about five years I went to another psychiatrist (pandemic made my ADHD worse) and she diagnosed me. It felt amazing to know I didn’t make it all up. You can quote me.