Sorry for the negative post but this disorder is genuinely terrible. I was diagnosed a few months ago and from the report I received it seems like I have an extremely bad case of it.
I lost 8 percent of my final grade in an operating system class because I submitted the wrong file.
Fine, I have syncthing setup between my desktop and laptop so I’ll just check if the assignment is on my shared folder in my desktop. It’s not.
Ok, I’ll turn on my laptop and grab the file itself. Oh, I have a boot error and now I need to open up the recovery environment to see if the hard drive is even being recognized.
It’s not. Now I have to open up the laptop and reconnect it.
At this point it’s been 30 minutes of me scrambling to get my laptop up and working again and I found the damn assignment there. I emailed my professor and I’m praying that he reevaluates the assignment because the earlier submission had nothing on it. It was just the default assignment.
None of this shit would have happened had I taken just one second to check over what I submitted a month earlier.
I hate reading articles pertaining to ADHD as if it’s some quirky condition that just takes a little bit of time and medication to work through. Its not. I have to constantly remind myself that I’m even conscious in order to function at all, and now I have to sustain extra mental effort to do a relatively hard task.
The only thing that keeps me going is my boss saying “nice work” when I diagnose an issue successfully. It feels infantilizing, as if he knows there’s something going on with me that’s making it hard to cope with the demands of life but “atleast he’s trying his best, atleast he shows up to work, this customer said he had a friendly attitude”.
“Nice work” this is your adhd trick, that dopamine release when you solve a problem. I’m 25 plus years working now, different career’s but that trick, that solve issue get dopamine, I’ve realized I can quite literally fix anything now, could change jobs in the morning and be working on my own with no support in under a month.
Anything except chemisty and this phone’s autocorrect.
You can take that trick and apply it on anything else, just frame what you need to do as problem.
I see this a lot and dismiss it constantly. I also wrongly dismissed to-do lists before my old therapist (who himself had and specialized in ADHD) told me how to write them: not, “do the dishes,” but “gather up the pots, soap them, gather the silverware, put them in a pot, fill with hot water, …etc.”
Do you have any insight on how to actually view nebulous assignments as puzzles/problems?
Not who you’re replying to but had to chime in to say: That’s an interesting tip on todo lists. Which I hate normally.
I feel like it would also help me to just write the first step. To get me over the initial hump of starting.
“All you have to do for now is gather pots, that’s all…oh and maybe idk see where the next 5 minutes take you, whatev” would probably result in me focusing on dishes and finishing lol.
I don’t do well with nebulous, large scope, strategic assignments. It’s too overwhelming. I know I can break it down but it is just a massive list of things I will struggle to do. At least that’s how it has been in the past. It does help to work with someone and bounce ideas.
I’m better at fixing things or improving upon things. (Processes, training programs, technical solutions,…). So I try to avoid taking on the aforementioned projects and focus on fixing things or analyzing things which I’m very good at. I’ve been able to finally overcome mid career stumble that led me to get diagnosed and build a good reputation.
I guess the big problem there for me is: I like very concrete tasks and excel at them, as long as they’re physically or mentally demanding. I’m also technically capable of office work, but I don’t do well with much freedom.
I loved being a waitress, but my body ached after years of it. I also earned easily twice as much working in insurance, but I stopped working and covered it up for six months after the shine wore off (I have to imagine the stress was at least as damaging to my heart as waitressing was to my knees).
Ideally, I’d like to figure out how to make my brain happier with paperwork, because I can’t really make my knees or wallet happy with physical work.
The stress is worst.
ADHD trait, able to deal with stress. this is bullshit, I think it’s better described as don’t notice stress, in short term situations, good! around the six month mark? no.
twice now I’ve nearly lost my kidneys. Fixing lawnmowers in filth and ice?np Delivering pizza in crap conditions getting slapped off the bike for a decade? never happier. Office job? less then a year in, auto immune system is like “WhAt’s wrong, Why so Stressed, is it these Feckers?!” boom kidney failure, did it again 9 years later.
Try procurement, it’s paperwork, you get a quartly rush of work with extra deadlines and you can work with plenty of different people, your waitress/people skill would help there.
That sounds ideal, honestly.
The stress really is the worst. I suspect most people who weren’t raised with their diagnosis by especially thoughtful people at some point turns to self imposed additional stress. It works at the beginning, but quickly stops and long term it’s an absolute killer.
I think you’re right that I need to start doing things, it’s just the guilt about not having already started with the work I have that’s holding me back. That’s unproductive at absolute best. Self flagellation is also a common strategy for executive dysfunction, that doesn’t work long term for most ADHDers, but… if it’s the only thing you try, it’s the only thing that works.
Stress from not doing a stressful task is stressing you out, but that stress is what’s stopping you, not the stressful task it’s self. #sorelatable
Just as your therapist and agent_flounder say, always start at the very start, just that small step first and remember to stop, don’t go full hyperfocus and attempt the whole huge project in one go. let say you complete three small parts/decisions, slap yourself on the back and go for walk/coffee/game.
At the kinda base of it, it is about steering yourself into the flow, if you start small and get an early success hit, then tackle a slightly bigger item, you’ll be moving along nicely in no time.
We’re all taking about career stuff right now, but don’t be afraid to throw in non work stuff, I’m WFH now and I may start the day with some CAD design, slap that part into the printer then start mirroring a customers VM to trouble shoot some janky java that’ll only fail on there eviroment. I won’t solve why that crap is flaking out but at the end of the day I’ll have a new part in my hand and a testing enviroment to begin with the next day. Time then for exercise/chill/motorcycle ride until the kids come home and the real work begins lol
PS some days I’ll be delighted to have sent an email, can’t win all the time.