I want to know how people deal with them.
Poorly.
More seriously, I didn’t know I had ADHD, but I’d kind of naturally contorted my world to support it as best as I could. I worked flexible, four months contracts. I only worked in low-stakes positions where leaving after a few months was expected. When I was a young kid, I was really good at convincing teachers that they didn’t need to see my homework or that I needed an extra day, because even though the work was trivial, I wouldn’t do it until the day after a deadline.
I’ve minimized obligations where I can, like autopay for every bill, I don’t drive to avoid having to take it to the shop and do maintenance, I rent so that I’m not on the hook for maintenance, and I chronically overthink purchases to avoid impulse spending most of the time, at the sacrifice of not getting things I probably need.
I’m still working on it, but I think reducing the places where you can really mess things up on a bad brain day and doing what you can to nurture an environment where you can follow your rhythms is important. Way easier said than done, of course.
I’ve largely done those things too until I got diagnosed, at 27. Since then I did adderall on and off, it works decently for me, however, the effects on my mood as it drains out of my system are not great. Mostly, I become extremely irritable. Lately I’ve been reading and watching more about ADHD, and Russell Barkley really changed the way I see the issue. I, now more than ever, see ADHD as a chemical shortcoming of my brain and I’m really pursuing the right drug or combination of drugs to deal with issues I’ve been failing to overcome for decades.
Poorly, in retrospect. The best period of my life was four ish years pre COVID when I got into the bad habit of drinking a lot of caffeine, without realizing that it was helping me. It was also inadvertently ripped away from me when I went remote and was cut off from my bottomless source of coffee and pop and energy drinks.
One of my takeaways when I started proper medication is that I in fact did know all the organization tricks in the book - the missing piece was the medication, not knowledge.
I was diagnosed with it back when it was called “ADD”. I’ve spent the past couple of decades just making sure that stuff I need every day is in the same place (or I will lose it forever) and making sure I know what I need to get done today, and it sort-of made me into a person who can cosplay as a responsible adult for 8 hours at a time.
Various medications have been tried and discarded as useless, including Ritalin and wellbutrin. The only thing that has helped is marijuana, which was a wild thing to accidentally figure out in my 40s. Imagine if a lovely woman gave you a little piece of gummy candy and it made it where you could think straight and focus for the first time in your life.
I spent 20 years on cannabis. It has its own negatives. It will slowly steal your ability to cope emotionally with stress. I’m back to zero meds. I also trialed Ritalin and Wellbutrin. Wellbutrin made me feel like I wasn’t myself and Ritalin took away my appetite to the point I would have low energy and headaches from not eating.
Cannabis is my drug of choice but I like it too much
Ritalin did basically nothing, from what I remember. Wellbutrin turned me into a teenage rage monster. I hated it and finally used that anger to convince my parents I shouldn’t be taking it.
I haven’t had marijuana slowly steal my ability to deal with stress, but I’ve noticed that it’s not something I have to do every day, or to excess, to get the positive effects on my ability to focus.
I deal with it pretty well, all and all, but I think I’m pretty mild compared to most. I was diagnosed back in 2004 when doctors were handing Adderall out like candy so I do have a diagnosis, most people say they can see that I have it, so I’m inclined to believe that I do. I don’t need medication anymore and I feel much better because of that. I hated Adderall, it just gave me terrible headaches and made me thirsty. Withdrawals sucked too because I would have massive mood swings.
However, growing up I was very fortunate to have parents that understood and did what they could to teach me replacement behaviors for when I was over the top jittery. They kept me active in sports and had things around the house for me to get energy out and still be mentally alert. We had a trampoline, a basketball goal, a swing set, stuff like that. Nowadays I work out regularly, I have a job that allows me to be flexible day to day while still providing routine (I work for a school district). I play video games, my wife and I watch TV shows, I’m involved with church, I love to go play sports with friends, and I cook so I generally stay distracted from being obnoxious with my need to always be moving. I’ve also turned more into an introvert the older I’ve gotten so I get and like alone time.
Some things are annoying like forgetting everything. I can’t leave my house with our missing one or two things. It can be very important things that if I already left and I’m like 2 minutes from where I need to be, I’ll have to turn around, be incredibly late, and waste the extra time to go back and grab it. I regularly forget where I put things, why I walked into a room, and it makes reading an unbearable chore because I get distracted every sentence if I’m not interested in the material. It makes training for work hard. My wife can get frustrated because I forget things she tells me left and right or I’ll drift in thought mid conversation and miss something important. I’m very lucky to be married to the woman I am (for many reasons beyond this, she’s just simply amazing) because she understands mental disorders like ADHD (she’s a sped teacher who deals with it on the reg). She knows it’s not my goal to forget and she’s very patient and forgiving. I have a fidget cube that I regularly use in coversstion to keep my brain happy with endorphins too. It can be frustrating having intrusive thoughts left and right during important discussions. Patterns of addiction can be very hard to overcome. I specifically haven’t done hard drugs or drank alcohol because of this. Growing up I was super addicted to video games and sugary food and I don’t know that I’ve ever really kicked either habit despite putting an honest effort to do so. Sometimes I feel like I can’t be myself around people I’ve known for years because I can be a little overbearing and meeting new people who aren’t used to high energy or impulsive talk can be hard; however I am fortunate to have a large friend group who love me for me.
All in all I’m a happy person and I have stuff that bothers me like everybody else, but finding things I enjoy, keeping myself busy, physically and mentally, helps a lot. Milage varies from person to person, but I hope this helps somebody who may need help with ADHD get some tips on managing energy or to let people know what ADHD can look like.
Edit: I also love photography and nature so I go on hikes and take pictures as a way to relax. I think that’s something anybody can do is enjoy walking outside and getting energy out that way.
I haven’t been diagnosed. When I finally got an appointment to see the psychiatrist and said, “My cousin has ADHD; here are her symptoms; I have all the same symptoms; do I have ADHD?” she told me that those symptoms are also indicative of an anxiety disorder, which I definitely have, so she couldn’t give a diagnosis until my anxiety is under control.
So that’s where I am. I try to address my anxiety and the rest of it is in the wind.
I find this so frustrating. Because the ADHD can cause anxiety to be worse so by just addressing the anxiety you aren’t addressing the whole picture. At least offer some testing/ off label non stimulant options.
Well, I wanted to avoid medication if possible anyway; I’m more interested in behavioral modification. But I wanted to know.
Dr Russell Barkley, a respected researcher in the field of ADHD, basically states that there is a chemical deficiency in your brain that makes it physically impossible for it to simply ‘be’ better, and that things like behavior modification have been shown to be helpful… almost exclusively when the subject is also on medication. And even when environmental changes can make a difference, it tends to fall on those close to the ADHDer to help set up those accommodations, at least with children. However, with adults there exist the same struggles, just to a /slightly/ lesser extent.
Fair enough but you should be able to undergo testing/evaluation without monetary or personal hurdles.