i will talk to my doctor about this of course but just wanted to collect my thoughts and seek out some other experiences before my next appointment. Sorry for such a long post, I guess the TLDR is I’m not sure if I lack the ability to focus enough to have ADHD.
Since I got the results i have been reading and listening to a lot of stuff about adhd. One thing I am pretty sure of is, if I do have ADHD it is the “inattentive” type, not the “hyperactive” type. Even so I am still quite conflicted about whether or not I actually have it at all. I’ll read one article and think “that’s TOTALLY me, I definitely have ADHD”. For example, I have really struggled with these things since middle school at least (i am 40 so trying to think back before high school is a bit fuzzy):
- Severe motivation deficit/procrastination, particularly for tedious tasks and long-term projects
- poor long term planning/project management (even gives me some anxiety just thinking about)
- poor long term time perception (like I’ll intend to think about and purchase Christmas gifts, but then it’s too late)
- Not great attention to detail, and I feel like I can sometimes jump to conclusions
- Some trouble finishing “last 5%”
- poor sleep hygiene. i actually fall asleep and stay asleep fine but it’s hard for me to put myself to bed at a good time and wake up in the morning. mornings have been hell my entire life.
But then I go read something else and think “hm that does not sound like me at all”. For example I am reading the book How to ADHD, and in it she says:
According to Hallowell, if you, an attention-challenged person, abandon all the distractions of modernity, go live on a farm, and finally find peace, you don’t have ADHD. If, instead, you show up to the farm and get so bored you decide to build a carnival—congratulations, you are one of us.
Like… I would absolutely not have the energy or motivation to build anything like a carnival. I would of course occupy myself with other things, I guess reading or playing guitar or listening to music, but isn’t that basically normal? I’m just not sure how to interpret this. Is this more applicable to “hyperactive” people, maybe not so much for “inattentive” people?
I’m just not sure what to make of all this yet. My whole life i have felt extremely lazy and low energy, but once i get over that initial (major) motivation problem i feel like i can focus fine and get stuff done. Is that what “hyper focus” is? Or does that more likely mean I don’t actually have ADHD?
Thanks for reading and any feedback is welcome.
The spectrum part is the key idea here. You can be fat while not being as fat as others. The existence of the people on 600lb life doesn’t make you skinny or athletic. The existence of older people than me doesn’t make me not old. Wether or not there exists someone older than me doesn’t change how much I want you to stay the fuck off my lawn.
yeah that is true, but some ADHD symptoms can also overlap with other disorders, so I wonder if the symptoms I struggle with are more of a result of depression or autism or something else.
Hey. ADHD diagnosed person here. Only diagnosed this year after a lifetime of feeling like a lazy former gifted kid. This looks a lot like my over-analysis spiral from a few years ago. My psychiatrist broke it down like this:
ADHD, like most things, is a spectrum. If your brain and body have trouble regulating norepinephrine then you’re probably on that spectrum. There’s no stolen valor here… Only treatment options based on diagnostics (educated guesswork). You meet the diagnostic criteria and I am confident that treatment is your best path forward to mitigate and control the reasons you scheduled time here in the first place.
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Some days my symptoms do not get in the way and I could easily pass for neurotypical. On “bad brain” days I feel like I’m losing my mind. Neuro-divergence is complex and life is weird. A diagnosis isn’t about having direct answers: it’s about narrowing down which mitigations, meditations, and medications we want to trial to increase our control over and quality of our lives.
If you accept that ADHD diagnosis, start treating it, and the treatment improves your life, that’s a huge win. If it doesn’t? Also a win. You’ve eliminated an option via experimentation and you know more about yourself. Time to try the next option. The important bit is being receptive to the attempt at making your life better.
Theres a list of things that they ask to figure out if you have ADHD. If you have like 8 out of thirteen things you have ADHD. Pay attention to the qualifiers though. To the extent that your life is negatively impacted, and in comparison to your peers. Everyone loses their car keys and wallet sometimes, people with ADHD lose everything all the time, and it’s a hindrance to their everyday life. People who know you comment on your propensity to lose things. Everyone hates the tedious parts of their jobs, people with ADHD lose their job because they can’t do tedious things.
It may also be helpful to think about the things we can do. People with ADHD can access the expensive creative part of their brain and the detail oriented task focused part at the same time. This gives us the ability to think creatively while doing a task. There’s also hyper-focus, the ability to focus on just one thing for extended periods. When the two abilities combine, you can slip into a flow state that can be very productive.
Theres a list of things that they ask to figure out if you have ADHD. If you have like 8 out of thirteen things you have ADHD.
yeah I’ve done that, I’m just wary of self-reporting assessments. I’m not confident that I’m assessing myself objectively.
There’s also hyper-focus, the ability to focus on just one thing for extended periods.
yeah I’m just having trouble figuring out if my well-focused periods are just “normal people” focus or actual hyperfocus.
If there’s someone you trust, have them fill out the questions about you.
Everything in your bulleted list sounds like ADHD to me. The fact that you wrote out a post of your thoughts which included a bulleted list sounds like ADHD to me.
I’m not a professional of course. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child, so I’ve lived with this for a long time. The quote in your post could have applied to me as a hyperactive child on some days but does not apply to me now; not just from maturing and aging, but also a lifetime of developing coping skills and self-restraint.
But regardless, everyone is different. I wouldn’t put too much in stock with one quote.
But also, I have no idea what a creyos ADHD assessment is either. If it’s just some free online test I wouldn’t necessarily put too much in stock with its results either…
But yeah, it sounds like ADHD to me
But regardless, everyone is different. I wouldn’t put too much in stock with one quote.
it was just one example I could remember offhand, but yeah that makes sense.
But also, I have no idea what a creyos ADHD assessment is either. If it’s just some free online test I wouldn’t necessarily put too much in stock with its results either…
it’s a paid service my psychiatrist uses. long series of cognitive tasks, no idea how accurate it is though.
If it’s a paid service your psychiatrist uses and your doctor trusts the results, then I would too.
Why do you doubt the results if you’re trying to get help? Isn’t that the point of reaching out to a doctor in the first place?
If it’s a paid service your psychiatrist uses and your doctor trusts the results, then I would too.
“trust but verify”. i have no reason to specifically distrust my doctor, but i also know there are bad doctors out there, and psychiatry seems to be a particularly fuzzy science.
Why do you doubt the results if you’re trying to get help? Isn’t that the point of reaching out to a doctor in the first place?
well yes i want help, but i want the right help. No assessment is going to be 100% accurate. mental healthcare is not cheap and takes a long time to troubleshoot. medication has side effects. If i don’t actually have ADHD, every monthly session and hundreds of dollars spent on it is less i’m spending on whatever the actual issue is.
edit:
coincidentally found this video tonight. Russell Barkley says there are no ADHD diagnostic tests. Assessments can be helpful with research and studies of large groups, but they are not helpful in a clinical setting for individuals.
Well if you do try medication, it’s either going to work and improve your life, or not and you can stop taking it.
I’ve got diagnosed at age 26, now 16 years ago. This was after a whole set of tests, spread over days with observation included. You need a professional because there is so much involved.
Everybody’s different so even though articles and YouTube videos on the subject may seem recognisable, sometimes they also describe stuff that I don’t experience.
There is no hyperactivity on the surface but that doesn’t mean there is no hyperactivity at all. I for an instance became very well at hiding and suppressing the ‘H’ in ADHD. So much that even to me it seems like there’s nothing there.
So, get tested by a professional. When’ you get diagnosed, see how that can work for you. I for an instance had poor results in high school but graduated magna cum laude in law school four years ago.
Being diagnosed made me look for alternative ways of organising my life and made me more successful. At least it made me understand myself.
yeah I have been seeing a psychiatrist for a few months, that’s who set me up with the creyos assessment. I just haven’t spoken to them about it in an actual session yet.
Hey friend,
Honestly I don’t understand what the difference would be for you.
There’s no badge or membership. Personally I had three benefits of my diagnosis (which is two decades back by now and was as an adult):
I had an easier time understanding my own brain and… Well world perception.
I was able to easier look for help and talk about it.
I was able to test medication (didn’t work our for me back then she took side effects but that’s a different story).
To get a strangers “judgment”: If you just want an excuse for your low energy and failing here and there you don’t have it. If you want guidance and new approaches to improve your life for yourself and then here’s your diagnosis: one of us!
Either way I wish you the best :)
I’m not just looking to apply a label to myself or look for excuses, I’m trying to identify a root cause and “understand my brain” as you put it. I do want guidance and new approaches to life, but that does not mean I have ADHD. If I don’t, I’ll be wasting time and money testing ADHD-oriented meds, therapy, etc. instead of whatever the actual issue is.
Got it. Then the bad news is that when with a diagnosis you’ll have a more of trial and error in front of you. The good news is that man’s of the structural behavioral tools die ADHD will help non ADHD people as well as at their core they work against overburdening the brain.
I think you over worry then die a simple reason: There meds will be clear in few days, a therapist will find ways to help you and you will find things that work for you!
Actually the medication is one of the cleanest diagnostics tools in my opinion: if they give you energy and push you up then your brain did its job already. If they call you down and provide focus then they (literally) filled the gaps in the brain.
You sound like me. You ever nod off when you really don’t want to just because you’re bored?
I would go from full of energy to 0 in minutes during a boring lecture, reading bedtime stories or driving. (Yeah. Scary)
Nobody ever complains about the inattentive type. We just get labeled lazy, but we aren’t disruptive, so we don’t get the attention that leads to diagnosis.
Yeah, the only reason I got diagnosed with ADHD and autism was because my sibling, who is way more noticeable in their behaviour got diagnosed before me and then my mother noticed similarities with me.
sometimes I do get sleepy during the day but It’s hard for me to say if it’s just due to boredom because I am often running on less sleep than I need (pretty sure I have delayed sleep phase syndrome as well).
Sleep issues can cause ADHD-like symptoms. But ADHD also often causes sleep issues, too. Have a read of this article.
For what it’s worth, I have diagnosed and medicated inattentive ADHD. I also have a small farm. I have never once been bored with it; in fact, if anything, I feel like I struggle so hard to make sure that everything gets done to my level of satisfaction. I get our chickens fed each day, my partner cares for the bees, and the dog gets two chunks of time outside to play fetch a day. But the garden is only ever half-weeded. If I feel anything, it’s panic over how much time it takes me to do things and a constant feeling of drowning splitting my time between the farm, my kids, my day job, community, and social responsibility.
I also have learned that I CANNOT go sit on the couch after I get my eldest child to sleep. If I do, the multifaceted tentacles of YouTube will grab me and I will wind up trying to operate on 4 hours of sleep too.
All this to say – ADHD experiences vary wildly, but they often rhyme. A lot of the folks in here are saying ‘yep, your symptoms sure do rhyme.’ Take that as you will :)
I totally feel this. I have not tested for it and im good with my sleep schedule by and large. Granted it annoys me. I would love to live much more naturally and sleep when I feel its time to sleep and wake when I wake. Im in my 50’s and I don’t see much of a point to looking into it to much myself as I don’t think anything in my life is bad outside of the way society is run in the us. to much plutocracy/corptocracy and not enough social democracy. As a kid I was definitely seen as introverted which was a fine word to use back then.
