first time here

[Adddadd0dittle]

similar to many other ADHD stories. Expert in day dreaming, creative for no cause, able to hide impulsivity and hyperactivity, master of avoidance and procrastination, career in psychiatry with 3 board certifications, 2 masters, scared to be a dad, and hard time with emotional dysregulation. Lateral thinking than detailed in depth thinking. Reading a paragraph can take me a day or a year. I read from any page thats opened than from the beginning , hyperstimulation needed to grab my attention. Cognitive inflexibility, getting overwhelmed easily, gets distracted even by the shadow of a car on the street through the window, radio in the car makes me completely distracted, can not shut my mind off in the beginning or middle of the night, people pleasing blah blah.

[Lilwonder]

Welcome is not sufficient, I realize. And yet, welcome. I hope you find the acceptance that brings you hope and maybe even peace here.

[Mamamichl]

welcome! I totally feel you. I have a masters in education, and losing so many jobs because I can’t focus. There’s just so much to remember. The emotional distegulation is horrible when I’m being reprimanded.

[PinkPanda23]

Welcome to a safe space to validate your struggles and your superpowers! I "only" have two associate and one bachelor degree, but undiagnosed until age 54, earning them magna cum laude gave me something to cling to - intelligence! I was documented as smart, which gave me hope while I displayed all of the symptoms and characteristics you describe. Getting the diagnosis only took some of the guilt and shame away, but any relief was and remains welcome.

I commented to my (non-ADHD) husband recently about something I heard in a webinar from Additude. His response was that I needed to do more than identify with these people and learn how to work on my problem. Because the world around us, although more understanding than 50 years ago, still sees ADHD as a problem that needs to be fixed. So most of the time when I come here, it's to feel accepted as the imperfect person that I am. If that's all you find here, that's still huge! Here, you can relax and be yourself without shame. 🌻

[Adddadd0dittle in reply to PinkPanda23]

My wife is a physician and thinks its all in my head. She thinks l don’t want to focus on the issues and try to avoid educating the kids. She thinks i messed up my head by drinking in late teenage years even though she was never near me during my medical school training. Funny. There are many physicians that think you can control ADHD.

[FocusAndFlow]

Yup... I hear you.

Start by learning to Stop. It took me about a year, but I reached a slower speed that I could then start regulating. Yes, it was very hard. Yes, you have to keep 'doing maintenance'. The good news is that I was where you are and I can tell a BIG difference to where I was the more months back I go to compare my current state.

You have to do all the things and not let yourself get discouraged (stop 'listening to yourself' and just do). Better/consistent sleep is paramount, watch the Rx, get exercise, work on your diet (nutritional biochemistry, really), supplements/vitamins, and watch what you read and watch on TV. Kill the doomscrolling.

You'll find the combination of things that work for you, and to what extent. The good news is that you can in fact find these levers and start pulling them to improve your life through better 'mechanics' in life.

By thy way, I was diagnosed two weeks before my 50th birthday and I'm now 51.5 years old. Severe adult ADHD diagnosis with lots of stumbles along the way, so I know what I'm talking about. That includes the atypical dyslexia -> I HIGHLY recommend you pick up a copy of Amishi Jha's 'Peak Mind' and read it if you have not. That took my back to Jack Kornfield's 'Meditation for Beginners'. Yes, I skipped all the hippie-dippie stuff, however, the act of sitting and quieting the mind to meditate definitely works and it is harder than people think. THAT RIGHT THERE is what allowed me to start applying the breaks so I could start learning to 'stop'. Yes, then I had to learn how to 'start up again', etc., but let's work on one thing at a time. Yes, I know what a loaded statement that is.

If I can do it and stick with it, you can too. It may take weeks, months, or as in my case 1+ yrs, but you will get better and feel calmer. It's totally worth it.

Learn self-compassion by coaching yourself into leaning into the effort without caring so much or at all about the results. Paradoxically, you'll start getting better results, and more consistently over time as well.

Godspeed.

[Adddadd0dittle in reply to FocusAndFlow]

I am filled with mindfulness and gratitude. I practice self-compassion before sleep. It gives you closure. ADHD taught me how grateful l am for being alive in this day and age. Plants and rain calm me down more than anything in this world.

[FocusAndFlow in reply to Adddadd0dittle]

Excellent - That's a great start.

After a few months of working on this, I started actively taking a few seconds to just breathe and calm down throughout the day. My problem is that get very wound up as the day wears on and if I don't specifically and intentionally take a few breaths here and there and remind myself to literally 'not care about anything' in those moments, I keep scaling this emotional wall of awful that starts taking over.

The more I learn to 'waste' 30 seconds about a half a dozen times a day, the more I get 1-4 hours back in my day. Literally hours gained back in productivity vs. trying to manage the excitability and poor impulse control.

Self-compassion is the key to learning to be completely responsible for my life; no more, no less.

Godspeed.