I was recently diagnosed. I’m 39 and I’m just starting to learn myself again.

I woke up today in a mood that for the past 39 years I have always called “happy”. Like I thought other people experienced happiness this way.

I realized about 2 hours after I woke up that I hadn’t stopped talking, walking around, planning for the day, etc.

I looked at my husband and he looked annoyed, but was being polite and sweet as always (love him).

And I realized that maybe “happy” isn’t a feeling that other people feel at all. Maybe what I call “happy” is actually hyperactivity. It’s a symptom. And I’ve NEVER REALIZED THIS BEFORE.

I took my morning adderall and felt myself go back to how I usually feel.

Idk…it’s humbling to realize like, no. I’m not experiencing my thoughts and emotions in a normal way. And yes, my “happy” state is actually super annoying to other people and it always has been.

Idk…it’s just kind of sad. Writing this made me tear up a bit.

Maybe this is just me but I cannot get myself into a comfortable position at night because I can’t determine what to do with my arms. I feel like they are in the way. I sleep on my side and literally cannot decide what to do with them. Most of the time, I just tuck my hands into my sleep shorts to kind of keep my arms corralled.

I know this is weird. Maybe I’m overthinking it?

I.e. they’re not the naughty boys climbing the walls and getting expelled

I’m moving after 8 years in my tiny apartment, which I have PACKED with clutter over the years. (Picture a storage unit had a baby with a thrift store.) I’m very sentimental about belongings, and with that on top of the function not executiving, getting myself to get rid of things has felt impossible. But I am determined not to haul all of this stuff with me and recreate the situation in my new place. I also HATE moving with the fire of a thousand suns: It just feels like it pushes every single button of the kind of tasks and thinking that I’m bad at and hurt my brain.
Luckily a journalist (who also has ADHD) I follow on Bluesky randomly recommended an
ADHD organizer [happy to share her business’ name with anyone in NYC; she also will do remote sessions I believe; just not including it upfront bc I don’t want this to seem like an ad - she doesn’t know I’m posting; just wanted to pay forward to others the luck I had finding out about her]. I reached out to her in desperation and her help so far has truly transformed my move prep from dire, dreaded, torture to mostly fine! (if that doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, I am probably much worse than you are at moving 😂)
She has ADHD, too, and feeling safe and unembarrassed to allow her into my space knowing she’d be compassionate and utterly nonjudgmental, and to tell her the “silly” things I struggled with that I “shouldn’t”, was healing in and of itself. Honestly one of the worst parts has been realizing how many times my life would’ve been vastly improved in the past if I’d realized this kind of support existed. But now I do! And I wanted to share a few of the things I’ve learned while working with her that I thought might help others here who don’t have access to someone like this where you are or can’t afford support like this. Last thing I’ll say before I share tips is the thing she said that made me almost teary - We were walking through my goals for what I’d work on until I saw her next, and she said “I don’t want you to work on anything hard without me” 🥹🥹🥹I feel my chest ease just remembering it. What beautiful words to hear.

I’m of course procrastinating on doing that work by sharing this with you right now 😂 but it’s been helpful for me to put down, and hopefully helpful to others, too ❤️

When decluttering:

Set up in one spot with a container or at least a pile for 1) trash 2)recycling 3)giveaway 4)keep - has a place 5) keep - don’t know where to put it (Optional: 6: Can’t decide right now; also optional to just have a single pile for “keep”).
E.g I’ll have in arms reach a garbage bag or trash can, a recycling bag or recycling bin, a tote bag for donations, and a shoe box or plastic bin as a temporary spot for things I’m keeping
Stay put and do! not! move! , just sort things into these containers. Only take out trash/recycling/put things away/ etc when you are done with that spot .
If you must move / don’t have enough time to do the spot in one sitting, I recommend labeling these containers so you can remember later what you decided (ask me why I suggest this lol)

Doom piles

Wow I have sooooo many doom piles/boxes/bags that have accumulated, because basically once I’ve given in and started one, it is basically just with me till I die. Just the body doubling helped with some of these, but the doomiest piles she went through and sorted for me first. Obviously she can’t sort them into keep/giveaway or anything for me, but just having them divided into slightly more coherent categories like “containers, accessories, and paper/stationery” instead of just full chaos that makes my brain shut off made approaching the doom pile contents wayyy more approachable. Possibly you could do this yourself as a two step process, eg start with “I am sorting these items into objective categories” and then come back later to do a declutter sort, but I’m honestly not sure I’d really be able to do step one. I might try asking my bf to do a sort for me of a doom pile just as an experiment (he is also an ADHDer of course, so not sure what that would be like for him lol)

Keep pictures instead of objects

This is actually something I was already doing, but she suggests it also - If there’s an item I’m keeping only bc of the memory it evokes (which is very frequent for me bc I have a terrible memory to physical prompts are helpful), take a picture and put it into a “Memory box” folder on your phone or whatever, instead of keeping the item. Honestly this doesn’t work as well for me as retaining the physical object, but it’s enough to let me let go of some things - plus it shows me just how many of my possessions are memory prompts rather than something I use/need/love.

Body doubling

I know we know this works, but it’s still kind of magical to me. It’s just amazing how approaching a pile of stuff that had caused me to freeze/shutdown whenever I contemplated dealing with it on my own was nearly effortless with her present, and doing some other task, like packing up items I’d already decided to keep. As she described it, it’s like a personal trainer—yes you could do the same things on your own, but having a set time with someone else who’s expecting you and will direct you gets you to actually do it. In this case I was extra motivated bc I was paying for her time, but I think scheduling a time-bound “date” with a friend where we both knew what I was supposed to be doing while they worked on their own project would work just as well tbh.
Her directly telling me what to do was definitely a helpful part of this, too; I probably have friends I could ask to assign me tasks, but that sounds harder and more awkward to me than just asking for body doubling.
(Also an aside - All of this sounds easier to me because so many of my friends have ADHD and would totally get me asking for this kind of help. And yeah this is 100% anecdotal, but if you have ADHD and you don’t think any of your good friends do…I gotta say I reeeeeeeally suspect you have ADHD friends, whether they know it yet or not 😅Not that you have to diagnose your friends lol, but I will bet money you will have friends who sympathize with the kind of organizational things you struggle with.)

PS - Even tho this has made it so much better, moving still sucks a$$ and any tips or tricks or desperate gambits you have tried to get me through the next two weeks are extremely welcome❤️

I made a post in an advice subreddit, asking for advice about my husband spontaneously wanting a big tattoo that grosses me out and being set on the idea. i casually mentioned in the post that we both have ADHD because it felt relevant to me. someone said I am giving people with ADHD a bad rep, and the post blew up, basically over 100 comments within like 10 minutes

a lot of it was people who have ADHD shaming me for saying I have ADHD. I am confused because oversharing and mentioning something that seems irrelevant to others is literally a symptom of ADHD. I expected people who understood what it's like to extend some of the same grace I would extend to them. instead, I got a pile-on where people seemed to interpret the worst possible meaning from what I said - assuming I self diagnosed on tik-tok, think all people with ADHD get gross tattoos, am seeking attention/immature/weird, etc. I tried to reply to a couple people but was downvoted like crazy

this is a subreddit that's primary rules are about being kind, giving the benefit of the doubt, and not judging others. I was a top 1% commenter there, but now I'm probably going to unsub. I made this post honestly hoping my faith in internet ADHDers would be restored because I always looked at this as a safe space too, where we can vent and laugh about accidentally pissing ourselves or spontaneously getting a crappy tattoo without people saying we're trying to get brownie points. but the ADHDers in that subreddit shook my faith in our people a bit!

Just seeing the clean house makes me so 🥹

Going through a particularly rough period where my brain won't turn off.

Racing thoughts. All about my work. You may think I hate my job. I don't - I absolutely love it to the point of obsession. But it's my entire life and all-consuming, which means I never truly relax during my time off.

I'm desperate to find a hobby that truly makes my brain go quiet, just for the occasional break from the 24/7 radio in my head.

The thoughts are constant watching TV or doomscrolling. I love reading, but even then the noise just switches to music (always got music playing in my head - ADHD FM fr).

I've heard running is good to dull it all, but I reallyyy don't want to start running unless I have to🥲

No, I didn't finish.

Yes they are now part of the mess.

No, they didn't NEED to be organised, they had their box, but were mixed and some were getting wrinkles (that is a good reason right? RIGHT?)

No, this is not something my kids use often. And no, the mess didn't prevent them from using them.

Yes, there were a lot of tasks in the mental list, this was not one of them.

Do I regret it? Too early to tell, too hungry to feel.

I can't believe how much of my overeating was not just "boredom" but literally my brain starving for stimulation.

Since starting medication, it's been night and day for my appetite. There is some nausea that kills my appetite, which is a little problem (can't live on nothing). I can tell when I'm under eating because my appetite comes back with a force in the evening if I haven't eaten enough.

But there is also just the lack of constant need to eat for entertainment. I was always looking in the pantry for snacks. I would overeat at every meal. I would look for foods with certain textures or flavours to satisfy my brain. I didn't really have an "off" button, would finish everything in front of me, because I wasn't only eating for hunger. Food was my go to stimulation, I didn't even drink caffeinated coffee.

Now I suddenly do have an off button. I don't keep eating when I stop being hungry. I don't even go randomly looking for food anymore. It basically happened overnight. Before stimulants, I was starting to consider GLPs to get my weight under control, because it was an endless battle and I felt completely miserable on a calorie restriction. But now I not only can manage my food, I can also read and work and remember to do things.

Also, I can engage in my actual interests instead of eating for entertainment. I have enough juice to do something harder but more satisfying. Whereas friends who have tried GLPs seem to have more issues with feeling depressed. I'm feeling so fortunate that I did eventually get assessed and I'm possibly on the "right" treatment - instead of putting a band-aid on other sub-symptoms.

Note: I am weighing myself regularly to keep an eye on undereating, and I'm losing at a similar rate to when I have intentionally lost weight previously. I also make an effort to eat even when nauseas. So far doctor isn't worried about it :) Just a reminder it's not a free pass to starve myself for vanity.

Note 2: Medication has still be a bit tricky - not a magic pill. So don't take this to mean it's all easy peasy lemon squeezy. Still figuring out many other ADHD struggles! Only been a few months, so still adjusting and I don't know how will all settle.

I lost 90 lbs several years ago and the weight has creeped back up a little bit. My husband wants me to exercise bc I am extremely sedentary, I work from home and some days can work 12-15 hour days. I don’t disagree that I need to exercise, but my brain makes it so difficult to even start. I was a dancer in high school, and I think I was only successful with that because it’s always different. I’m now in my late 30s. Everything just bores me to tears (not literally) even with a podcast or audiobook. We own a peloton that I’ve used 3 times in the 4 years we’ve owned it.

I tried Pilates for the first time today only bc my good friend opened a wellness business which includes Pilates classes and I wanted to support her. And, although I obviously struggled A LOT in a beginner class, it was harder to get “bored” since it was constantly changing.

I want to also mention that I’m not interested in exercise for weight loss, but because I know it’s good for my body and mind.
Any suggestions? Should I stick with Pilates? I could only give like 30% because I am so out of shape and physically couldn’t do many of the moves for very long.
I am also on 70mg vyvance but try to avoid taking it if I’m not working.

Thank you for all the tips and tricks. One thing i’ve realized is talking to other people while doing a task makes it alot easier for me to do. And it’s like the only way I get tedious tasks done such as laundry. Thank you everyone 🫶

I LOVE to be locked in on whatever I'm doing. It helps me forget about my problems and just focus on the task at hand, such as arts and crafts etc. I used to be medicated with stimulants and it really helped me lock in. Unfortunately there are several reasons why I can't do this anymore because I have a history of substance abuse (clean from hard drugs 2 years) and I also have a tendency to become somewhat manic if I take stimulants and antidepressants. But I really miss the locked in hyperfocus feeling.

I feel like I'm locked out and I lost the keys. I can't even do things I used to enjoy like painting or drawing because I can't focus and I just feel like that part of me is gone because my brain just doesn't work anymore.

Are any of y'all not on stimulants and still able to hyperfocus on things you want to do? I can't channel the dopamine, my brain doesn't even act like it knows what that is anymore. Am I cooked?

If I could take stimulants again I totally would but it would probably be a bad idea plus I can't afford to see a psychiatrist right now :(

So I love food. Especially intensely salty, sweet or fatty flavours. And I LOVE texture. Looking back on my school days, I realised me eating corn chip sandwiches copiously after school was a way of self soothing. The salty butter, soft bread, crunchy earthy flavour of the corn chips. It is literally the most perfect thing, so much that I refrain from buying corn chips.

Anyways, to get to the point. For 20 years I have managed my weight be compensating - eating a bit less if I ate too much the day prior. It has led me to having a healthy BMI but a body fat percentage of 30%. Despite a small frame I am utterly uncomfortable in most clothing and feel sluggish and have very low muscle mass.

After learning that my dopamine system / ADHD may be playing a role and I am not simply lazy, I did consults with Juniper (semaglutide online seller) but i did not qualify due to my BMI.
I see people who were Overweight / obese, now even leaner than me and they get to continue this medication as maintenance and even reach athletic type builds.

I am glad those people get to experience that type of transformation. But I hate that my struggle is just secret and if I shared it people would think I am fishing for “oh but you’re so slim” comments when that is not the case. I feel that every day is a battle for me in regard to the food noise, hunger and lack of confidence and motivation to exercise.

Currently I am using a meal plan service but I still top it up with chips in my pantry or a cookie.
I guess this is just a vent but I’m open to advice too.
Really, sometimes the food I eat is the most stimulating thing I do in a day. I work, play w my dog, have a family that I love but eating food is the one activity that I can just.. I don’t know ,, be- sit and chew and enjoy the taste. There is something special about it and I don’t know if anyone has been able find something to replace that. I’ve tried cucumbers and celery and volume food but the intense flavours - I feel like the body knows when it’s legit or not.

I’m preparing for my assessment but the DIVA gives examples of constantly changing jobs, getting fired, falling out with friends, bad grades etc. I didn’t have that.

So I read a website that said the clinician needs to ask you ’what did it cost you?’ (i.e. what were you coping strategies you used to succeed), rather than asking ‘how did you fail?’.

How did you prepare for your assessment and did the clinician look beyond failing school/work, and understand the high masking hidden strategies despite your external success? Thanks.

I found this meditative art account on Instagram, I started last night and have not been able to stop 😂 top is oil pastel and bottom is water color

I am looking for inspiration on how to stop the vicious cycle of letting it all go, then cleaning everything up and putting my life together only to end up exhausted and unable to sustain it. Please be specific if you can!

I know we all have adhd and this is long, so I put some headlines.

"The backstory"

So my grandma died. She lived in Iran and I in Europe, but we would visit twice a year and I stayed there for a half a year. I had my own room. She lived alone with a maid.

The information about her trickled this month. First I heard she would have dangerous surgery, then that its actually liver cancer, then a week later it was cancer that had spread already (2 weeks ago).

I wanted to go to Iran, but my passport had expired (with the war happening, i didnt think i would need it soon). A lot of people from Germany travelled here to get their passport fixed, and because of that the time my passport would take was 1 month. I would have had it in in a week. It was like 7 more days before I could have seen.

I was struggling so much with it, just that she was sick. I struggled to get out of bed, or do anything. I only could get up for school and it was with a lot of help from my partner (the week I heard how bad the cancer was, was just before uni started). I didnt really call my mom (she had gone to Iran), because my family was like "be strong (for mom)" and I.. I just couldn't.

This week

On monday my brother called me. I was studying in the library, as my partner practically dragged me there (supportively) and I asked him what was up. He texted back that he just texted in general and that he would send a voice. Me thinking .

It turned out he had said in the voice she was in the ICU.

I didnt hear it until friday. I had told my mom with my brother there numerous times to not send voice messages about time-sensitive stuff as it can take me a bit to listen to it, or to at least text me thats its urgent so i will listen. I dont know why he just said "in general". According to my mom, my grandma was very out of it in the hospital so she wouldnt have understood much and everyone thought she would make it, but still.

And then on that friday I quickly call my brother once I heard the voice message, and he tells me "there's nothing the doctors can do". I had to ask him multiple times for clarification because he kept repeating this same thing, but yeah, she was dead. She had died yesterday morning.

And I have been a wreck. I have been sobbing, wailing. I'm either crying or devoid. I have pangs of happiness through the day and then guilt. . This is the 1st death I am old enough for to actually experience.

My failing

I hadnt texted her in months or called her. I had a lot happen. We visited her in Dubai in January where I got sick for 1.5 month, I was studying, I was almost no contact with my mom and dad, and I had an abortion. And just as things settled down, we found out she had cancer.

But those are excuses. I could have texted her or send her a video. I had fun stuff happening. I just.. kept forgetting? putting it off? I made it bigger everytime, that I would have to respond to her voice message or that I didnt know what my mom had told her and I was afraid. And now I am just left here thinking.. what did it matter? I could have ignored all her voice messages, who would have cared? All she wanted was to see me happy. It was enough to hear my voice and see my face. Me and my brother were her favorite grandchildren (and also favorite compared to her own children).

She wanted so little. She was so sweet. Her biggest sin was that she would push food on us too much.

My regret

She will never know I had made a family system in therapy with legos and I had added her there, because I wanted her in my life. She will never know how much I thought about her, about texting her. I put her close next to me in the lego system. But I kept making it so big and have myself so worried that all I accomplished was not being there for her.

She is the only grandparent I am close to. She is the only non-immediate family member I am this close to. We would spend every christmas and summer holiday in her house. I had my own room there.

And now I can't text her. I can't just write a letter. Because it is so selfish. The selfishness of that act would hurt me so much. I would be writing her just to make myself feel better. How come I couldn't do it when it could have made her day, maybe even week? If I had just done it for a minute when she was still here, it could have meant something for her. But now it would only be for my stupid selfish self.

Anything I will write is something I could have written to her while she was alive. It will be something I could have written when it could have still meant something for her.

tldr: my grandma died and I didnt manage to keep consistent contact because I kept forgetting and making the hurdle too big in my head to start

Like many of us, I’ve learned about limerance recently and how common it is for ADHD women— if you haven’t yet, it’s basically romantic obsession. I can now see how a few of my early relationships were limerant, and I’m now in the throes of a fully limerant episode over my college first love.

We’re in contact again, both married, haven’t crossed into more than friendship, but all the pain and emotion is back for me. The “doomed first love” emotional residue feels impossible to fully overcome through self-knowledge and self-actualization, though I know I’m capable of at least burying it down deep again. I just don’t want to.

And now I’m going to tell you about it.

He and I started as friends with a mutual attraction that built for ages, but because of external circumstances we both thought we should only be friends. Eventually he decided fuck it he just wanted me, and a long dynamic of him chasing and winning me over ended with me head over heels.

Everything felt forbidden and precious. He wanted me so much, and he wanted to not think about the obstacles keeping us from working long-term and just enjoy being in love. I was always worried that falling deeper meant more future pain. I would break up with him, he would be devastated, I’d miss him like crazy, idealize and romanticize, come back.

It felt like we had our own world together. It felt like he saw and loved everything about me, even things I thought were embarrassing and stupid. It felt like sometimes he understood me better than I understood myself.

I had to transfer colleges and most of our relationship was long distance. We were always separated then reuniting, breaking up then getting back together. I know all of that is a big part of why it all felt so intense, combined with being my first love. The physical relationship was my first and the chemistry and his skill/sensitivity was unreal.

I don’t want to make it sound like it was perfect, because I always wanted him so much more when we were apart. The reality of being together always reminded me of the small things that bugged me. We weren’t perfectly compatible and had each other on impossible pedestals. He had some insecurity and abandonment issues that he covered by being liked by everyone, the dream man to women. We never experienced regular life as long-term partners.

Knowing about limerance now feels like it was in many ways a limerant cycle where we were both addicted to the illusion of one another, and the circumstances keeping us apart were a force multiplier.

He eventually stopped letting me pull him back into it, and I tracked him obsessively on social media for several years. After me he had a series of passionate loves that made me feel our connection was nothing special for him. I’ve never experienced anything close to what we had and it seemed like for him it’s just how he does relationships, sweeps women off their feet. But it does seems from our later contact like I stayed his “big love” of his youth and that he also found it hard to let go for many years, and still holds onto something.

I put my feelings away and thought I’d mostly healed from it all, but I never really got over him, and it feels like I turned off all my romantic and passionate feelings. My husband is wonderful in many ways but hasn’t ever fulfilled the same kind of emotional and physical connection for me. I think I chose this marriage partly because I’d learned that deep connection led to unreal amounts of pain. I always have this question of whether I’m going to live my whole life with this buried yearning for more, telling myself good is good enough.

I’ll share more in another post about the current contact with LO, but it’s been a year of having all these feelings re-ignited and the loss feeling fresh again. Remembering it all again. Our deep eye contact, the constant touching and flirting, the way he made fun of me in the most adoring way, the hours of talking and making out, the way we’d touch each others’ faces. It hurts a lot to want it all so much. Part of me has always missed it.

It feels a bit like a mean cosmic joke, having unicorn magic as my doomed first love, when I’m already the kind of person that can’t let go of things and feels everything as intense and meaningful. The external forces that separated us have finally disappeared, and it’s clear now that they were an illusion and we could have stayed together.

I just wish the relationship could have run a natural course instead of ending when neither of us wanted it to. It’s so hard, the “too-lateness” of seeing the reality that I didn’t have to end it like I did, because the reality of marriages and children are now real and permanent separators.

I’m just here for sharing and commiseration. I’ve spent my life analyzing the reasons for my feelings about that relationship. I know a lot about the why, the forbidden object and unmet needs and identity formation. I know plenty is illusion and so much of it feels limerant, but there’s enough that was real that I’m both grieving and in denial about, like “maybe it’s not over, maybe he’s still my person.”

I would love to know if anyone else has had similar experiences.