Joke's on you, I'm like that at 47.

Only 30? I'm still waiting at 42...

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.

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.

live your life to its fullest is overrated, cringe and government propaganda.

"...you're ~~30~~ 50"

I fucking wish I was 30

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

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.

What do you call it when you finally admit to yourself that that obviously isn't going to happen so you don't even bother with the charade any more?

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!"

Just working on diagnosis at 50. You're lucky if you worked it out by 30.

37 just diagnosed. Knew it all the time.

Doesn't really get much better at 50 either

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.

Try 45 and but yes I agree.

I'm in this picture and I don't like it.

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.

I didn't get diagnosed until my 50's. Now starting to get a grip on things.

It is just so tiring sometimes

If I get diagnosed/medicated will things get better :c

Damn. The ADHD memes need to chill.

46*

I'm exactly like that, and I find it so strange. Usually, the brain adepts to a new situation, and that isn't exactly new.

I plan everything as if I did not have ADD, and have done so even before I was diagnosed and had meds.