[pseudonamed]

I'm currently in the process of a late 30's ADHD diagnosis. As is becoming increasingly unsurprising, I'm unsurprised at how relatable the article and all the comments here are.

I'm writing this just to say, it's ok. I'd like to be able to tell myself that and believe it but I can't yet.

It's hard to even express how painful ADHD is. I have had first hand experience of multiple major traumas as a child and none of them come even close to a life of undiagnosed ADHD.

[graypegg]

Similar boat. Late 20s. I’ve missed out on so many opportunities due to my inability to focus and organize, and decades of being told “have you tried trying harder” left me with an anxiety that was stopping me from pursuing a medical solution for years.

There’s been a shift in how people interact with me now. It’s downplayed as something “quirky” by a lot of people. Out of any source of grief in my life, I can honestly point to my anxiety about retaining information and completing things fully has been the biggest source of pain for me. It’s hard to express that to people when they want to talk about how I should “learn about my adhd super powers” or “try this fun journaling method!”.

I kind of fear it’s the same refrain as “he’s just slow, he should try harder with an agenda” but with a new cushy coat of paint. “Have you just tried being happy instead?”

[altdataseller]

Sincere question but what’s the hardest part of having ADHD?

[pseudonamed]

For me, it's knowing what you want to do but being unable to do it.

That's expressed quite poorly, I know, let me try harder. "...knowing what you want to do..." is not at any point in time or in any specific dimension. It is literally what I write and can be as simple as "pick up the leaf off the floor", it doesn't need to be valuable, expected, novel, easy, hard, etc. "...being unable to do it..." is not unable to reify an ideal or perfection. It's being unable to consistently "do", to however you define "do", to whatever you set out to do no matter how small, simple, easy you make it.

What made that hard for me was before the diagnosis I didn't have enough language to make sense of that in a way that wasn't damaging to some aspect of myself. And in me that created an early bias to the shutting down of expression. A retreat into my mind, as the stuff of minds is not as limited by the doing.

The diagnosis is a shortcut, a way to tap into the work others have done. And that work is so easily applicable because what I thought was a problem unique to me is shared so strikingly by other people in the ADHD/autism cohort. It took me a long time to find that out.

And just as a minor counterpoint to some comments, the pressure never came from my parents or teachers or... (well it did come from needing to exist materially in the world) but from myself. So while it may be convenient to think that the problem with ADHD is the 'system', it's not required. It's not required because in the mind, the system and the I are the same thing and cannot be separated.

[ddmf]

I know what I need to do but I can sit there unable to do the thing whilst the guilt about not doing the thing takes up all my bandwidth.

[anonymoushn]

failing at everything you care about all the time, also filing documents or whatever