Poorly.

More seriously, I didn’t know I had ADHD, but I’d kind of naturally contorted my world to support it as best as I could. I worked flexible, four months contracts. I only worked in low-stakes positions where leaving after a few months was expected. When I was a young kid, I was really good at convincing teachers that they didn’t need to see my homework or that I needed an extra day, because even though the work was trivial, I wouldn’t do it until the day after a deadline.

I’ve minimized obligations where I can, like autopay for every bill, I don’t drive to avoid having to take it to the shop and do maintenance, I rent so that I’m not on the hook for maintenance, and I chronically overthink purchases to avoid impulse spending most of the time, at the sacrifice of not getting things I probably need.

I’m still working on it, but I think reducing the places where you can really mess things up on a bad brain day and doing what you can to nurture an environment where you can follow your rhythms is important. Way easier said than done, of course.

Poorly, in retrospect. The best period of my life was four ish years pre COVID when I got into the bad habit of drinking a lot of caffeine, without realizing that it was helping me. It was also inadvertently ripped away from me when I went remote and was cut off from my bottomless source of coffee and pop and energy drinks.

One of my takeaways when I started proper medication is that I in fact did know all the organization tricks in the book - the missing piece was the medication, not knowledge.

I was diagnosed with it back when it was called “ADD”. I’ve spent the past couple of decades just making sure that stuff I need every day is in the same place (or I will lose it forever) and making sure I know what I need to get done today, and it sort-of made me into a person who can cosplay as a responsible adult for 8 hours at a time.

Various medications have been tried and discarded as useless, including Ritalin and wellbutrin. The only thing that has helped is marijuana, which was a wild thing to accidentally figure out in my 40s. Imagine if a lovely woman gave you a little piece of gummy candy and it made it where you could think straight and focus for the first time in your life.

I deal with it pretty well, all and all, but I think I’m pretty mild compared to most. I was diagnosed back in 2004 when doctors were handing Adderall out like candy so I do have a diagnosis, most people say they can see that I have it, so I’m inclined to believe that I do. I don’t need medication anymore and I feel much better because of that. I hated Adderall, it just gave me terrible headaches and made me thirsty. Withdrawals sucked too because I would have massive mood swings.

However, growing up I was very fortunate to have parents that understood and did what they could to teach me replacement behaviors for when I was over the top jittery. They kept me active in sports and had things around the house for me to get energy out and still be mentally alert. We had a trampoline, a basketball goal, a swing set, stuff like that. Nowadays I work out regularly, I have a job that allows me to be flexible day to day while still providing routine (I work for a school district). I play video games, my wife and I watch TV shows, I’m involved with church, I love to go play sports with friends, and I cook so I generally stay distracted from being obnoxious with my need to always be moving. I’ve also turned more into an introvert the older I’ve gotten so I get and like alone time.

Some things are annoying like forgetting everything. I can’t leave my house with our missing one or two things. It can be very important things that if I already left and I’m like 2 minutes from where I need to be, I’ll have to turn around, be incredibly late, and waste the extra time to go back and grab it. I regularly forget where I put things, why I walked into a room, and it makes reading an unbearable chore because I get distracted every sentence if I’m not interested in the material. It makes training for work hard. My wife can get frustrated because I forget things she tells me left and right or I’ll drift in thought mid conversation and miss something important. I’m very lucky to be married to the woman I am (for many reasons beyond this, she’s just simply amazing) because she understands mental disorders like ADHD (she’s a sped teacher who deals with it on the reg). She knows it’s not my goal to forget and she’s very patient and forgiving. I have a fidget cube that I regularly use in coversstion to keep my brain happy with endorphins too. It can be frustrating having intrusive thoughts left and right during important discussions. Patterns of addiction can be very hard to overcome. I specifically haven’t done hard drugs or drank alcohol because of this. Growing up I was super addicted to video games and sugary food and I don’t know that I’ve ever really kicked either habit despite putting an honest effort to do so. Sometimes I feel like I can’t be myself around people I’ve known for years because I can be a little overbearing and meeting new people who aren’t used to high energy or impulsive talk can be hard; however I am fortunate to have a large friend group who love me for me.

All in all I’m a happy person and I have stuff that bothers me like everybody else, but finding things I enjoy, keeping myself busy, physically and mentally, helps a lot. Milage varies from person to person, but I hope this helps somebody who may need help with ADHD get some tips on managing energy or to let people know what ADHD can look like.

Edit: I also love photography and nature so I go on hikes and take pictures as a way to relax. I think that’s something anybody can do is enjoy walking outside and getting energy out that way.

After getting diagnosed and trying drugs, I felt like my mind is slowed down and not jumping around anymore thinking dozens of different things. At first it was nice to be able to do one thing at a time. But after couple months I started to feel like my brain is just drugged and I’m not having any kind of control over my thinking. It has been slowed down by being partially disabled, at least it felt like it. So I stopped doing drugs, started daily HIIT practice to get out of my mind and back to feeling my body, started to learn to pay attention to things I’m doing at the moment. It’s still a struggle, but the one I have control over, it even feels a bit empowering.

I haven’t been diagnosed. When I finally got an appointment to see the psychiatrist and said, “My cousin has ADHD; here are her symptoms; I have all the same symptoms; do I have ADHD?” she told me that those symptoms are also indicative of an anxiety disorder, which I definitely have, so she couldn’t give a diagnosis until my anxiety is under control.

So that’s where I am. I try to address my anxiety and the rest of it is in the wind.

I take Vyvanse, go to therapy and try to structure my routines to work consistently.

Poorly :(

I was diagnosed at 17 and as an adult restarted my treatment when I was struggling with traditional “adulting”

I get some support from medication, Vyvanse and Zolft, but they only blunt my challenges and the reality is that Nuro-diversity is still a “new” idea for most people. I look like a normal typical person and sound like one too. Because of that the bias is to assume I can think and perform like one too.

I have been doing therapy in conjunction with my medication for 5 or so years now and I have made HUGE strides the problem is that every fuckup turns into a reset, rather than being treated like a momentary loss of control.

This is especially true with my partner, they have more or less given up on the relationship and live in a world where there is 0 trust and 0 expectation. Because of this there is also no intimacy (trust) and a constant state of frustration when I struggle with tasks and responsibilities. They feel like they are the sole functioning member of the family and that they have to provide all the structure and support for our kids, which turns into a feedback loop. They assume I will fail at a task or miss a deadline, so they horde all the tasks which drives resentment, so that when I do make a mistake it reinforces their position that I cant be trusted.

Almost the exact same thing happens with work. Its a little different because I can play to some of my strengths and focus on daily tasks but here my executive function really hurts me more than my ADHD. I can struggle with identifying priorities, I can intemperate communication incorrectly, and I frequently get defensive when I know I am struggling and I am “challenged” for progress reports. Thankfully again my support is helping and when HR suggested a performance program my manager rejected the idea and identified all the self progress I have/had been making. The fundamental problem is I will never NOT have issues. I cannot train myself, or medicate myself out of these disabilities I can only moderate the effects.

I will fail people who count on me again, maybe this week, maybe in two weeks, or 3 months, but it will happen and rather than all my progress being what people see, it will simple reset me back to 0. Its exhausting and a real struggle to stay positive and champion my efforts. I feel like im playing OG NES games but its my life, and every time I “die” I have to start back at 0.

I am grateful for communities like this, because I am learning more than I ever have about my conditions and some of the coping strategies other people are using. I really hope that I can get to a point where im stable enough in life that I dont feel like the reset switch is being thrown every time I fuck up, because I do want to make progress, I do want to be baseline reliable for my partner and co-workers, I know im not dumb and can do the things they need, but I also understand that I cant keep asking them to provide the structure I need to be successful because that just makes my disability their responsibility.

Reasonable accommodations are fine, but its ultimately up to me to make myself not a burden.

I have an equally chaotic lack of schedule during the day, no schedule at night, and i drink an energy drink every single day and smoke delta 8 all the time. I just try to do my daily chores first. Its hard to be productive so i dont take many days off working. It makes it 2x as hard to start a routine again. How do i deal with it? I think thats what the meds would be for. My partner really is the one that deals with it lol.