adhd?? something else?

i've been trying to look into adhd lately and i find myself frustrated and giving up because it's hard to find info that a) isn't focused mainly on children and symptoms to look for in your children or b) isn't super dense and hard for me to focus on (lol).

basically i talked with my girlfriend the other day about how i feel very unable to focus and it's making me irritated lately. the problem is my memory is legit fairly terrible so it's hard for me to really remember how i have acted or processed things in the past to compare them to the future. basically unless it's something major i can't really recall if i've had this much trouble focusing before some vague recent point in time.

i don't know how else to put it but i've been having a nagging sense of having become 'stupider' over time. that might not be the kindest way to phrase it but i mean no offense to anyone. i just feel like there's a big brick wall in the way of absolutely everything i want to do and i have to climb it to get anything done. in some ways, that's depression; i can't even do things i enjoy because anhedonia often keeps me from initiating things.

but sometimes it's legitimately like for example.. i want to watch this informative youtube video. i turn on the video. i watch a few minutes of it. i start looking at something else and realize i haven't heard anything from the video for the past five minutes. i go back to the video and set the timer back to the last thing i remember. i get maybe another minute in of the video before my brain starts thinking about something else. i realize i haven't been listening again. i turn the video back. i listen for maybe a bit longer thing time, a couple of minutes, before i either jump to looking at something else or my brain starts thinking again. rinse repeat throughout the entire video or until i get frustrated and give up.

i have similar trouble reading things, especially long things. i'll be reading, then my brain will go somewhere else, and i'll find myself 4 paragraphs down with absolutely no recollection of what i just read. i'll often have to go back and read the same paragraphs multiple times, over and over again, unless the book is especially absorbing and good.

this can be mitigated.. somewhat. i find myself having an easier time listening to or watching things or reading things if i can multitask in a way that doesn't take brain power. a lot of the time i'll watch things like let's plays while using our indoor exercise bike, or i'll listen to pod casts while taking a walk outside in an area i know very well and can 'autopilot' through. still even this isn't foolproof, sometimes i'll still space out and have to set whatever i was doing back a bit, but much less often.

i get jittery at the thought of -not- multitasking to some degree to be honest. even when my brain doesn't get in the way, i have a hard time just sitting without getting increasingly uncomfortable and anxious. watching movies that i'm not already super interested in seeing is an absolute nightmare for me. i have to be on my laptop or something and only half paying attention. just sitting and watching makes me feel like i'm going to jump out of my skin. if the movie is something i find interesting though i can generally make it through. if i'm at my computer or something though i find myself often pausing movies to do something else for hours at a time. it can take me an entire day to watch an 80 minute film. i've seriously been on and off watching this one old recorded 3 hour livestream over the course of this entire day and i'm still only 2 hours into it. i've paused it to watch and read multiple things. i have it paused right now to type this post which i also have been writing over the course of a few hours.

i can hyperfocus at times though. certain types of activities tend to trigger it more than others. i can generally play video games without getting too distracted, but even those sometimes i do tab out and watch or read or do something else for chunks at a time. but some games really reward my brain for jumping around a lot and those i'll start playing at 1pm and then look at the clock and it'll be like 11pm and i'll have not eaten and really need to pee but keep putting it off.

i have a very hard time resting and relaxing. it feels like when i lay down in bed at night my brain starts rapid fire going all over the place. it often takes me hours after laying in bed to get to sleep unless i'm exhausted. i generally can't fall asleep unless i'm eyes-unwillingly-closing levels of tired. my brain just thinks and thinks. sometimes it's anxiety stuff and catastrophic thinking about 'imagine how much it'll suck when (insert person or animal here) dies, but other time it's just 'imagine this fantasy scenario' or 'imagine this long thing i could write about this topic in it's entirety' sort of deals.

one thing that makes me hesitant to consider adhd is that i was actually fairly okay in school? i'm just under a decade out of high school so my memory isn't perfect here. but i never failed classes. i did the vast majority of my homework on time. i got good grades except in math. but i did tend to do things weirdly. i did everything last minute that i could, whether it be long papers the day before they were due or even just waiting until midnight when i should have been asleep to do my homework for the next day. i did admittedly copy homework for a few classes, especially during years when i was having particularly bad mental health issues that were being ignored by my parents.

i'm also fairly organized and don't tend to misplace things. i also i'm pretty okay about remembering what i'm doing when i'm moving. if i leave the room to take the dogs out i won't suddenly get sidetracked making lunch or something. i do however tend to 'power multitask' to get things done like cleaning because it's one way to keep my focus up. i'll also repeat what i'm doing to myself and make a 'plan' in my head even if it's just an 'okay i'm going to pee and then take out the dogs and before i go out with them i'll put the electric kettle on so when i come in i can make some tea and while my tea brews i'll make some toast' sort of deal.

the bad thing with plans though is i'll often get stuck with a plan. like if i plan 'i will eat this' if whatever 'this' was isn't there for whatever reason i will literally go into a weird internal crisis loop and often end up just not eating because the 'plan' didn't work unless somebody comes along and detangles my brain for me or literally cooks me something or helps me cook myself something. i also tend to even if i try to make a plan, get hung up on the steps required to do a thing. i have very often not eaten because the kitchen is dirty and it's overwhelming, or i'd have to wash a pot in order to make a thing, or i suddenly remember the thing i want to make requires more effort than 'insert into microwave'. i know some of that is spoons drain from depression and stuff but i'm not sure if that could be somewhat related to weird focus issues.

also if it's relevant.. i am on some medications right now, but it's just birth control, high blood pressure medication, and medication for my hypothyroidism. none of these from what i have been reading should really be causing focus issues as a side effect. the only vague possibility would be the thyroid medication, but that would only be if i was on a high enough dose to the point of causing my hypothyroidism to switch to hyperthyroidism, which i get regular blood work done to check my levels to avoid doing anyway. i have only been taking these all of these medications for less than a year also so it wouldn't really explain away any old focus issues, but i feel like my focus issues have gotten worse since i've become an adult. part of that might be though that pre-moving out i was basically a depressed abused shut in and did nothing but hyperfocus on the few things i could get absorbed in as escapism. now that i've been out of that situation for a few years i find myself wanting to grow as a person and have been feeling hindered by my own brain.

idk though. honestly if any of you with adhd or know people with adhd think this sounds like adhd i'd really like to know. or if it just sounds like something else or multiple somethings else. i'm really not sure what to think about it, i just know that i'm frustrated and irritated with feeling like i have to fight myself to do anything.

i know this is something i should bring up with an actual doctor at some point but i'd really rather gather at least some information to 'arm' myself with because i know doctors don't often diagnose things like adhd easily towards adults and especially female adults.

 

Paper diagnosis of ADHD here and I do or experience a lot of this. More detail later maybe when it's not my bedtime.

 

would love to hear the details if/when you feel like sharing :)

 

Yeah, all that sounds familiar to my experiences.

Heh. I missed valedictorian by not very much, and I very definitely have ADHD.

I don't have any resources at hand rn, but try looking up 'adhd inattentive type' and 'adhd in women'. ADHD can present a lot differently in afab people. Also fun: I've read things about how it tends to get worse in afab people as we get older and our estrogen increases. Fuck you too, biology! :')

 

oki I'm awake. (but at what cost!?)

First of all, i'm afab and didn't get diagnosed until I was 26. I also did very well in school, up until halfway through high school. ADHD can give you a nasty feedback loop where difficulty doing things causes stress > being stressed makes it harder to do things > yay anxiety >repeat. Because I was a "gifted" child and good at retaining info I was interested in, I never needed to study in school, but then when the material actually became challenging i couldn't handle it because I had no study skills.

Also like autism, afab people get good at masking symptoms b/c socialization. :/ I get told a lot that I don't "seem like" I have anxiety etc but I'm basically [INTERNAL SCREAMING] a lot of the time.

My focus has gotten worse as I've gotten older, tho it peaks w/ stress. I used to be able to read a lot of text even if it wasn't that interesting, but now I try to sit down with a textbook and my brain just...wanders off. Academic writing is the worst but I have to prepare myself to read lots of dense text, or play instrumental music.

Yep. Since as long as I can remember I can't get thru lectures in school without drawing. I can't, for example, read text and listen to someone talk, but if it uses different parts of my brain I'm ok. Music in the bg helps a lot.

The thing about video games is they're DESIGNED to keep you focused, and I've found that video game music helps the most when doing other tasks.

Yep. Not being able to turn your brain off is a thing. Idk how people meditate.

Also a thing I have. plans changing from unexpected stuff is so difficult. Also depression and ADHD like to tag team you, it sucks. It's sometimes hard to tell where the executive dysfunction is coming from.

This is just my experience, but a few months ago I tried birth control because my periods suck and it made everything worse, probably because I'm side-effect prone. My depression has been mitigated recently and it brought it back. I figured this out w/ help from my partner and the fact that my usual coping mechanisms for ADHD (like playing music to help me work) had stopped working. Now that I've been off the bc for a while, things are getting a little better again. (not that they're great, I'm still trying to get medicated for the ADHD itself, but yeah.)

If you haven't seen a recent change tho (can help to ask people who know you if they've noticed anything) then your meds are probably ok.

 

okay i admit i mostly skimmed your post because LOL ADHD but i was nodding and going "yup" the whole time:

'my workshop is on top of a mountain' tumblr post.

yyyYYYEP

fucking constantly

100000%. i switch tabs constantly when i'm watching netflix, and i'm also on my phone, and i'm also trying to read something, and and and

yes

yes, this is the Inconvenient Hyperfocus Lifestyle

definitely an ADHD thing

!! YEAH

!!!!!!!!! yeah

in summary, this all sounds incredibly ADHD to me. this sounds EXTREMELY similar to my own experiences.

edit: the my workshop is on top of a mountain post

 

Oh yeah. I missed the procrastinating on homework until the last minute bit, but that is me to the extreme.

Something I read once said "ADHD isn't inability to focus so much as inability to choose what to focus on". Which it why it sucks when you hyperfocus and then people are like "why can you do that for this thing but not that other thing??" (not to say that general lack of focus isn't a thing but yeah.)

 

i do not have adhd but i have this problem. try splitting your focus. i shuffle a deck of cards while doing reading for class and have noticed improvement. also: podcasts/atonal music in other languages while drawing or doing anything creative, so you can't REALLY focus on it but you kinda can. it helps. it's basically "how can i most effectively torture myself?" and then doing that.

 

sometimes i do stim while trying to focus. i have a tangle toy on my desk and one i keep in my purse, and i also keep small beanie toys both on my desk and as key chains that i like to squish or bap against my hands. sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. it seems to depend on what else i'm trying to focus on, cuz sometimes i'll just stop stimming and focus on whatever i'd reading or watching and then when my brain wants to go elsewhere it'll forget the stim toy is an option and i'll just end up spacing out, lol.

though it is a good suggestion in some situations. i actually find stimming to be nice for relieving anxiety to some degree (which is why i have toys in my purse for the most part.) i also really like deep pressure, and have a weighted lap pad that sometimes helps me feel more 'grounded' when i'm trying to do something like watch a long movie. also one of my dogs really likes to lean up on people and he is a clever boy who seems to understand that when i'm upset or sitting on the couch i enjoy him just sitting next to me and putting all his weight up against me lol.

 

yeah, i know 'doesn't do good in school' isn't a 100% symptom but i was kind of having a hang up about it, so thank for both you and enzel mentioning being good and 'gifted' in school.. because i was also. and i'll try and look into inattentive type info! also the point you make about estrogen in relation to this..

honestly i don't think my focus was ever good but it has felt -worse- lately. and since i am on birth control that is basically estrogen, it's possible if i already have adhd that i'm making it worse with estrogen. in a way i thought maybe it could be stress too because i have been doing a lot of trauma processing lately on my own and i thought maybe that was giving me brain fog but honestly estrogen increase + already existing adhd is making more sense to me.

i think i'd rather try and get diagnosed + medicated for ADHD before dropping birth control though because unfortunately i'm on the bc for other health problems and not so much an actual contraceptive. my thyroid issues were making my period incredibly irregular (not having it for months at a time followed by having a near-constant period for months at a time) and i'd rather not go back to that. :/ i'll have to think about it though.

yeah, this makes sense. i admittedly get frustrated with myself because i can't focus on some things i really -want- to focus on. i've been wanting to try teaching myself coding or some other sort of skill and my brain just isn't letting me. :/

also i think i'll go into more quotes in another post but i just woke up and have a headache so this is mostly just 'what stuck out to me' responses.

 

hey, so I've just recently been diagnosed with ADHD and I had a lot of the same problems with... well, believing it, I guess, as you do. it actually took me being put on ADHD medicine and it very clearly working for me to start to consider it, because I'm AFAB, and because I do very well in school, and because I'm not hyperactive. so I guess I'll go through your post and mark the "yUP" bits? just to start I do think you're probably ADHD.

from what I gather "legit fairly terrible memory" is in and of itself kinda symptomatic of ADHD. I certainly have one.

so much this. hoo boy. I skim like crazy.

I myself don't feel the N E E D to multitask all that often, but I've heard from other people that it's an ADHD Thing. and it does seem to help me at least somewhat with focusing, unless I get hyperfocused on one of the tasks. :/ but like doodling while listening to a lecture is definitely helpful, for instance.

I definitely hyperfocus! it's basically the only kind of focus I'm capable of, I gather. this is probably an autism thing. (worth noting that autism and ADHD can cancel each other out to some extent, and you talk about stimming in this thread. I know you posted in the "Traits of Asperger's in Females" thread saying you didn't think you were autistic, but you at the very least have some of the traits, and it might be worth considering that having both at once might be accounting for the uncertainty there. idk.)

guess who writes fanfic in his head for hours at a time while trying to fall asleep and has since before he knew what fanfiction was?? it me. so yeah this is probably ADHD. I hadn't thought it was symptomatic before this, though, so that's pretty interesting!

all this is me except currently, down to the "good grades except in math." (well, not bad grades, but.) and doubly so with the procrastination and writing everything the night before! it got way better when I went on meds, though.

I'd like to note that this "NO MUST FOLLOW PLAN" thing is also pretty symptomatic of autism and is definitely something I experience. and what you describe with the getting hung up on steps is classic executive dysfunction, which as you correctly noted can be caused by depression but is also definitely an ADHD symptom. I was having major executive function issues that I thought were depression-related, but when I went on ADHD meds they got way better.

as I said before, smart people with ADHD absolutely can do well in school. and for what it's worth my ADHD is primarily inattentive and yours sounds much the same!

anyway yeah I think you are mostly likely ADHD, and I hope that you can pursue treatment for that and get some help with these things that've been bothering you.

 

@esotericPrognosticator i'm just not super sure about autism. i feel like if i went to talk to somebody about my mental health and they brought it up and suggested i get screened, i would do it, but as it stands.. idk. a lot of my symptoms that would fit autism are things that are sensory which could be a lot of things other than autism. it doesn't help really that there is a lot of symptom overlap between adhd, autism, anxiety, and ocd (which i also possibly have), so it's sort of a toss up what could be what or if i could have more than one and then what symptom is from what disorder. idk.

i am going to talk to my doctor at least about adhd. i have an appointment in a couple of weeks to talk over some of my thyroid blood work and for a physical so i'll bring it up then. i'm not sure what she'll really be able to do other than write me a referral to a psych or talk to me about medication side effects but yeah. at least my girlfriend is on my side in getting somebody to take me seriously so if this doctor just kind of brushes me off we'll go hunting for an actual specialist for me to talk to. i think it's worth pursuing especially since it's really interfering with my life.

 

@Aniseed okay, that's totally your call! just making an observation. and I'm glad you've got a plan for pursuing a diagnosis and medication; I think it could really help you, and I hope it does.

 

Good luck!

 

@esotericPrognosticator I didn't mean it to come out hostile if it did btw. it's just kind of a mess having to navigate what might be what when talking about pervasive developmental disorders since there is so much symptom overlap. and also super hard to find resources that aren't child oriented and/or super long and hard to get information out of. :/

 

don't worry, it didn't at all. :)