ADHD thread

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how many here have as a comorbid or primary condition, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? how do you cope with it? mine seems to be getting worse as I age. it is like I have trouble paying enough attention to everything in my environment, like a juggler with too many balls who drops some. often, I can only do one thing at a time, very slowly.

I was diagnosed in 2004 with inattentive ADHD. I started taking dexamphetamine (35mg per day) and noticed a difference immediately at work (I drove forklifts and operated machinery). Even my boss noticed an improvement. Later, when I went to university, I realised that I couldn't study without my medication. I wished very much that I'd had this advantage in primary and high school.

I still have ADHD moments though. Like putting things where they don't belong in a haze and forgetting where I put them. Like walking through the house absent-mindedly without a clue of what I'm meant to be doing. Like driving aimlessly past the correct exit to home on the freeway and having to turn around at the next bridge.

Multi-tasking isn't my strength either. If I try to, I usually get nothing done. Everything ends up half done and I have nothing to show for it.

I feel like my ADHD is pretty unexplored in my adulthood. I only know of it effecting me in one key area, and that's concentration. It took me forever to even catch it. But for the longest time my mind would drift while doing anything, including watching shows or movies. For so long I would feel clueless about what's going on in the plot and felt like I just wasn't smart enough to get it. =( But then somewhere around a decade ago I finally realized that it's not my intelligence, it's that my mind would go astray while watching things and miss portions of the show/movie, so of course I didn't understand everything!

I'm not sure exactly how I discovered I was doing it, but I eventually did. The key to me improving was recognizing exactly what tends to make my mind stray. I noticed that music was one of these things, if a background music elicited some kind of emotion in me, I could get lost on that and think of things that it made me feel and relate my experiences with that emotion, additionally if say I was rewatching a series from a long time ago and I had nostalgia for that music it would make my mind stray to happenings from my life when I first watched it. lol. Also plot points that I can relate to something in my life makes my mind stray, as does even a character looking like someone else. Stuff like that.

I don't have a perfect method of controlling it, and it still very much happens, but I catch it a lot more than I used to because I understand how and why it happens.

I'm dx with both types - 69% inattentive and 55% hyper.

Do the math lol. I'm off the charts.






Yeah, it's so bad I can barely function and it doesn't get easier with time or meds.
Imagine adding a couple of strokes to the mix, and that's where I'm at.

^^^can you share some coping strategies from the time before you retired and were a professional executive type person?

I didn't know I had ADHD or even ASD then.
I had absolutely NO IDEA when I was working.
I just thought I was the world's biggest loser and I was always ashamed of myself.

I honestly had no coping strategies.
I barely survived.
I hid in closets to eat lunch.
I was so disorganized I didn't even take lunches.
I walked around to colleagues to see if people had spare fruit.
Then I hid, with the door locked and the lights out.

I was late nearly every day.
I exceeded my number of allowable sick days every year.

If I wasn't in a union I would have been thrown out the door on year one.


* Reminder I was also single-parenting babies, going to court, having trauma, and having multiple major surgeries at the time when I was working. Work was the last thing on my mind but I needed to keep going to pay the bills.

^^^you were able to retire on time so in my book that makes you a BIG WINNER!

Thanks blabbs.
I'm proud of the fact I got my pension, that's for sure.

They actually made me retire early because my LTD maxed out.
I could have had a much bigger pension if I waited ten more years.

Still, I'm not complaining.
I'm really lucky to have got anything.

^^^if you don't mind, what is an "LTD"?

Long-Term Disability.

It's an insurance that I paid into through my employer when I was working.
It was deducted automatically from each pay for all employees.
After I exhausted all my sick leave, I left work permanently on disability.
I got paid 66% of my salary for over a decade without working.
Now on pension I get only 60% so I actually lost money to retire.


* My disability was my first stroke, and PTSD.
It wasn't because of ASD or ADHD.

I considered the thought that I might had ADHD.

That it's somehow getting worse with age and getting nowhere.
Despite all the practice and experiences, either I'm doing it wrong or I'm like this forever and I don't want that.

That it's common within autistics, that I can't seem to relate to autistic only conditions...
Whatever my sentiments might've been, it won't help me.



But I'd rather fight that I don't.

I refute the thought with evidences that whatever ADHD-like symptoms I had isn't organically developmental.

That whatever executive dysfunction I had was something preventable and solvable; a psych and body problem than a wiring problem.



Turns out I was right -- I don't have ADHD.
It is a psych and body problem.

It's just an emotional hung up that misbehaves brain, draining my mental resources, swaying my attention regulation, affecting my emotional regulation and thought patterns.

On top of hormones and not keeping up with it.



I don't know.
I can be easily misdiagnosed.

In another life, I might've been misdiagnosed with some sort of mood disorder along with ADHD, and taking money draining meds instead of solving it all myself.

And unable to cope with any of that.
Regardless -- I myself cannot cope with ADHD-like symptoms or even traits, just like I cannot cope with BPD-like symptoms.

If I actually have it, it will likely control me than the other way around.

I don't know how to prevent it other than keep taking my birth control pills so I no longer had to deal with fluctuations that I cannot adjust to, and while not getting sick or inflamed in any way which I've yet to figure how.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
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Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

I always love your insights Edna.
You seem to know yourself more than anyone I've ever met.

I'm also on Federal disability, meaning I get disability cash from the feds.
Nor do I pay income tax.
That sounds good but it means I don't get tax refunds either.
I used to count on those.

Getting CPPD was a much more complicated application than LTD.
My workplace disability person did that paperwork when I left work.

When I'm 65 it will switch over to a government pension.
That will be in addition to my work pension that I have now.
I'll lose money again though.

sounds like you're still doing pretty well at least compared to me. but i understand how expensive things are up north.

I've heard that SSI and SSDI have been pretty much decimated. ^