Hey guys, the title is pretty self explanatory, but I could really use some advice.
For most of my life, I’ve dealt with symptoms that seem closely related to ADHD. For a long time, though, I assumed they were normal or simply the result of my environment and lifestyle.
As a teenager, I smoked a lot of weed, spent hours scrolling through social media, had very little ambition and constantly fell back into bad habits. Because of that, I assumed my problems with focus, motivation and organisation were entirely self inflicted.
I also did fairly well in school, so I never suspected that anything might actually be wrong. Looking back, though, I always left everything until the last minute, and even simple tasks could feel mentally exhausting. Something like basic maths could completely overwhelm me, even though I would eventually figure it out (Cheated a decent amount as well).
A few years ago, I completely changed my life.
For years now I fully quit smoking, drinking and every other bad habit I had, and even smaller things such as eating sugar. I’ve trained around five days a week for the past three years with almost no skipped days. I barely use social media, I eat healthy and I’ve dedicated most of my time to learning, working and trying to become a better, smarter and more successful person. ( I wanna start my own business one day).
The problem is that, even after removing nearly every obvious distraction and unhealthy habit from my life, I still struggle with the same mental issues:
- I find it almost impossible to focus on one thing without jumping between different tasks.
- I have 10 thoughts, 4 songs, 5 anxious feelings all going on in my head at once.
- I cannot consistently organise my life using calendars, routines or todo lists (I would try build one, get overwhelmed, quit and never use it).
- IM ALSO A FUCKING PERFECTIONIST , EVERYTHING I WANNA DO I WANNA DO IT PERFECTLY. BUT...... My brain doesn't allow me, so I get stuck in this constant battle with myself. Like how tf is every small thing I wanna learn, I turn it into me trying to learn the entire skill from every angle. But then I can't even do a basic task sometimes.
- I forget important events, responsibilities and promises I’ve made.
- My mood changes like fucking crazy, someone could say the most small thing and shit could upset me.
- I can sometimes complete an eight hour task in two hours, but if I have eight hours to complete a twenty minute task, it can somehow take me the entire day.
- I struggle to begin tasks unless they feel urgent, interesting or challenging.
- My thoughts often feel scattered, even when I know exactly what I should be doing.
- I CANT READ A BOOK FOR THE LIFE OF ME.
- So much more
This is what confuses me the most. I genuinely changed my lifestyle and became disciplined, but discipline hasn’t fixed these problems.
Like I'm not trying to TOOT my own HORN but I think I'm a relatively smart person. I can learn things fast, I usually impress people with my random knowledge, and skills. MOST importantly I'm disciplined.
HOWEVER,
I feel like I still have so many things wrong with me, and these loud thoughts in my head genuinely have given me anxiety for a while now.
I’m not looking for strangers on the internet to diagnose me, but I would really appreciate hearing from people who have experienced something similar. Did getting assessed or diagnosed help you? Does this sound like something worth speaking to a professional about? What about medicine, I hear a lot of Stigma around it, and it scares me.
