Joke's on you, I'm like that at 47.
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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37 just diagnosed. Knew it all the time.
Lol literally me until a year and a half ago when my boyfriend told me he thinks I have ADHD.
Now I'm more like "tomorrow I will do my best and when it fails, I'll try again". It doesn't really fix anything at all, but at least it has given me a tiny bit more peace of mind to finally accept that I don't actually fail on purpose.
That is exactly how I described it to my therapist when I started really getting my mental shit together a few years ago… past 40.
There has been another recent meme that says something along the lines of “do you know they let you raw dog ADHD your whole life as long as you get good grades?” and that one hits even harder. I’ve described my childhood academic performance to a few of my medical professionals as “I was the kid who was threatened with getting kicked out of the gifted program because I didn’t do my homework.” And honestly I don’t think I remembered the assignments existed. I think that was the year I started using big fat daily planners.
And along those lines, while some of us are venting about difficulty getting treated: In past decades I’ve hauled my ass onto psychologist offices for an ADHD diagnosis and treatment. Well, I’ve always done well on cognitive tests. And you’d better believe that my Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria makes me hyper focus on those tests like a mother fucker. So being told you’re essentially too smart to have ADHD is frustrating as hell when you have failed university classes and gotten fired from grown-ass engineering jobs because of a crippling lack of executive function.
And I want to be clear none of this is supposed to be humble bragging. I’m just assuming that the audience on Lemmy is dense enough with similar computer nerds that others can probably relate when I describe it plainly. My brain is not one to envy — let’s just say it has lots of Simpson-esque “speed holes” thanks to other more significant medical shit, lol.
Edit to add: speaking of RSD, the first time I read about the strong link between ADHD and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, my entire god damned life made sense. Why yes, my life has also been defined by crippling social anxiety!
But the silver lining there is that I am able to make things a lot better for my son (8) who is exactly like me, and I can teach my wife about the brutally powerful emotions in situations that just don’t phase other people.
Bro, are you me?
It doesn't come across as a humblebrag. You've suffered all your life. Many of us have suffered. And only now is our society understanding what is happening in our head and making concessions to help.
I don't see the humble brag. If that's what ADHD has been for you, why shouldn't you be allowed to share it? But I've been in the exact same situation, so I might be biased. 😋
Ive had a similiar experience of nailing school without efford, getting cum laude in uni but after working in a coverted job people on the internet call me a liar for having, I just gradually lose all motivation and ability to be productive.
live your life to its fullest is overrated, cringe and government propaganda.
I don't think it is, as long as you are the one deciding what "fullest" is.
It could even be spending the most amount of time possible with family and friends, or the most amount of time learning LOTR lore.
good point, i think i agree. i was half joking anyway, but on the other hand it's also good to introspect from time to time to understand where my idea of "fullest" came from.
"...you're ~~30~~ 50"
Damn. The ADHD memes need to chill.
Agreed. At least a Trigger warning or even an NSFW flair.
If only psychiatrists didn't do literally everything in their power to make getting an appointment as hard as possible for people who have ADHD. Same goes for social anxiety.
Doesn't really get much better at 50 either
it gets a lot better with treatment
What's the treatment? Adderal?
stimulants are a powerful tool for adhd treatment, more so than other MH disorders, but there are a lot of things that can be done: supplement behavioral change (think cbt) , support the needs of the lifestyle adhd brings (think "life hacks") , address secondary effects such as learned shame (think trauma therapy) , and so on and so forth. oh and cant forget the importance of MBIs to actually improve executive functioning. I'm going to use the acronym for that one since what it stands for has become such a buzzword that it might turn you off, but it really is a remarkably powerful tool for adhd when done with proper guidance
What is MBI? Not everyone knows.
Can Confirm
Will have to take your word for it as I am unable to get treatment at present
yeah I feel that. you can still read books though. I like "Driven to Distraction". there's also a decent YT channel called HowToADHD. Just try to use resources from trained clinicians or that woek closely with trained clinicians
but ADHD meds don't work on me
How many have you tried? Also it never fixes everything, like for me it mostly just helps with maintaining focus on things, but executive function is still fucked.
Are there drugs for executive function? Asking for a friend.
I also have a friend who is wondering the same.
I wonder if we all have the same friend, because mine was just asking about it as well.
I'm in this picture and I don't like it.
If I get diagnosed/medicated will things get better :c
i don’t mean this as discouragement but at least in my own personal experience, no it doesn’t.
that doesn’t mean it can never get better. just means for me getting diagnosed and taking different medications wasn’t the solution, it might not be for you either. so don’t be disappointed if you try it and it doesn’t work.
i don’t like how people hype up their prescription. just bc something works for you doesn’t mean it’ll work for everyone else, and it feels tone deaf when i see people in neurodivergent communities giving blanket “yes” answers to questions like this. it’s irresponsible and setting a large portion of people up for failure before they had a chance.
NGL sometimes I think there's a strong placebo component to it. Not that it's a bad thing.
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Is there any way to manage symptoms without medication? Both of my brothers have ADHD and my therapist suspects that I do, too. However, I have a history of abusing adderall and being addicted to it. I don't want to ever take a prescription stimulant again and no doctor would prescribe me one anyway because of my history.
Meditation can be basically training your mind to focus on a single thing. Focus on the breath. When you realize you're thinking about dinner, congratulate yourself for catching your mind wandering, and go back to focusing on the breath. It's helped me a bit at times. I saw a Sci-Am article that said 12 min every day seemed to be the sweet spot. Still working on consistency myself...
It's a super basic thing that hopefully most people already know about, but "box breathing" really helps me when I need to relax. For people who aren't aware:
Four second long inhale, then hold for four seconds. Four second exhale, then hold for four seconds. Repeat.
After a bit I realize that I'm not counting anymore and it doesn't feel like holding my breath because now I'm just breathing slow on my own.
Cannabis helps me. But I guess that's a form of "medication" (though not with the same mechanisms of addiction as amphetamines, I don't think).
Well, I guess that depends on how you define "help." It usually doesn't do anything for my poor executive functioning, but it does help with the anxiety that usually comes with it.
I am unmedicated with ADHD. Specifically for symptoms my go-to is lions mane mushroom supplements (I use "RealMushrooms", note that quality actually matters, and these have been consistent in my experience) and ginkgo biloba. Usually 500mg lions mane, 120mg ginkgo per dose. Lions mane sometimes a second dose later in the day, but it can be a little overstimulating. Ginkgo is recommended up to 3x a day.
It's been my go-to pairing for years, and it makes a noticeable difference, especially if I take a break from it.
Medication is just one facet of the treatment/management strategy. That said, there are some other medications that wouldn't be as easy to abuse, but only you know your body.
There are non stimulants like straterra (atomoxetine) which is an SNRI (same family as anti depressants)
Personally I find it extremely effective and much more stable in terms of daily functioning.
Im medicated, almost 30, and I don't get it done either
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
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I stopped caring about “getting my life together”. All it means to me is being a nice little cog in the soul crushing machine. I take care of the absolute minimum on a day by day basis and use what’s leftover to have fun and do what I want to. I figure by the time it catches up to me, the world will have really gone to shit. If somehow the state of things actually improve, either it’ll be a world that treats people with adhd better or I’ll go out on my own terms.
Just working on diagnosis at 50. You're lucky if you worked it out by 30.
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It never changes either. I'm past 40 and I'm still like "I'll get my life together next year. Or the one after that, surely!"
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