#i used to track my symptoms on an app but because adhd brain i tend to forget to track things on my phone | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

brytmoon · 4 years

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i feel like i'm being really annoying about it to ppl so i'm gonna vent here about struggles i have that might be undiagnosed adhd symptoms since i don't have a very big following except for two close friends (sorry y'all)

1. hygiene, such as brushing my teeth in the morning and showering, is hard. it's been hard my whole life but even now, i'll stare at myself in the mirror or scroll through my phone as i try to convince myself to brush my teeth. (this may or may not be related, but i hate going to the dentist, too.) with showering, it's hard to find the time. i always make sure to shower as often as possible (which is every other day, usually) or i make sure i don't smell if i haven't because i'm scared of having b.o. with both, i have to motivate myself to do it with fancy toothpastes and mouthwash or nice-smelling shower gels and lotions. I'm guessing this is executive dysfunction???

2. I've been incredibly disorganized my whole life. i once thought i had adhd when i was younger because of how disorganized i was. I've always had a super messy backpack and a super messy room (it's really messy rn) but i always know where everything is. i had a ds for at least ten years but lost it a couple months ago in the middle of playing it. where did it go???? i have no idea bruh. and i lose my phone all. the. time.

3. i'm terrible with procrastinating. turning in projects and essays at 11:59 after bullshitting it either all day or mere hours before the due date??? a constant. having failing homework grades and having ntis in every class, no matter how much i enjoy it??? a constant. i once did a whole project i hadn't started on until the morning of the due date. i worked on it while in other classes and at lunch and turned it in 3 minutes before the dropbox closed. anything that's not what i enjoy or zaps the fun out of what i enjoy, i procrastinate with. I've sat in front of the computer screen and almost cried so many times because i couldn't get myself to type up a scholarship essay, which OBVIOUSLY would greatly benefit me as a broke college student, but it doesn't matter bc my brain thinks it's boring so why not push it off?? because i procrastinate, i tend to overwhelm myself so much that i break down at least once when an assignment's due because I've formed a terrible habit of pushing myself to overexertion to get a project done that's meant to be done gradually.

4. bouncing off that last point, I'm terrible with time management and remembering events/due dates/assignments to complete. I've tried using schedule apps and alarms. I've tried to plan out my days. I've tried forming routines and habits to get things done at appropriate times and it doesn't work. that schedule app i downloaded and spent so much time filling out? completely forgotten in a week or two. i swipe away the notifications and pay no attention to them. since everything's virtual now, there have been important college information zoom calls, but i forget about them and miss them. i can't remember events, due dates, or assignments if i don't write them down. since i meet every other day or sometimes once a week for a specific class in college, i can easily forget something mentioned earlier that week that's due the next week over the weekend. i have to remember to write in my agenda in order to remember to do something important, which can be stressful and convoluted 🙃🙃 so my bad time management results in further procrastination and missed opportunities, which makes me feel awful about myself late at night when all i can think about is what i should've done better or differently.

5. chores and hobbies are... interesting. when i do get the energy or motivation to clean or draw, i will hyperfocus on them. if i finally feel like cleaning, I'll skip breakfast and/or lunch and won't take care of myself until I'm done. same happens with drawing. and as stupid or funny as it sounds, i find getting up to go pee so annoying!!!! I'm in the middle of doing something i FINALLY want to do and then i have to get up to go use the bathroom. i don't want to break my concentration bc it's an inconvenience. then with hobbies (y'know, things i want to do and enjoy) i procrastinate!! I've been trying to watch atla since everyone loves it and i like it too, but i put off watching it and other shows like crazy. i play instruments and love to do so, but don't practice very often and spend a couple hours doing so when i do because i remember how fun it is. when i do laundry, I'll remember to put the clothes in the washing machine and start it. but then I'll forget to either put them in the dryer, take them out of the dryer, or fold them. i often have to rewash loads because I'll forget they're in there or I'll have a pile of clothes sitting on my bed for days because i procrastinate with folding them and putting them up.

6. i am the most motivated and have the most energy at night. over the summer, I'd stay up until 4 or 5 am on a regular basis. I'd be the most productive during that time but my sleeping schedule would be so off because of it.

7. so people with adhd crave things that produce dopamine, right? well i snack on candy all the time. and i mean it when i say it's ALL THE TIME. my favorite one is red hots because they're crunchy and spicy. eating candy helps me focus and is probably a form of me seeking more stimulation, but it's bad because of my teeth hygiene issues and me hating to go to the dentist. i also can't do tasks quietly. i have to be listening to music or watching a video while working on something and there are times when i want to do both while working??? so now when i watch something or listen to music without working, i tend to need something to do so i scroll through Instagram while having the show on even though it makes me miss what's happening sometimes.

8. i don't really fidget much i don't think?? but i do weird stuff while listening to someone talk. in school, i often doodled on my worksheets and got in trouble for it. I'd draw eyes in the margins, characters I'm fixated on, squiggly lines, and would color in my o's. or while listening to a family member vent, i dance around or listen while scrolling through Instagram. i also have a baaad habit of picking at my skin (dermatillomania). I'd focus on picking scabs for a really long time when i was alone and bored and have scars on my face and legs from doing it. I've picked at my face since i was a kid and absent mindedly do it every day.

9. i can get quite distracted and have to ask for directions to be repeated because i won't hear them?? like my brain won't process what someone said until they say it again when i'm actually fully paying attention. my mom will ask me to run an errand for her and she'll need to repeat it to me because i'll get distracted while she's explaining or i'll forget what she said after walking away. i get off track in conversations a lot and can't really listen well when there's a lot of other noise going on, like in cafeterias. i'll be talking to one friend and hear another interesting conversation down the table and pause while speaking bc my attention shifted. i also can lose my train of thought quite easily when waiting to speak and forget what i was saying and not be able to remember it for the life of me. so I'll interrupt sometimes so i don't forget

10. when talking to friends, i feel like i talk about myself a lot. i like to use my personal experiences to connect with what they said and be empathetic to them, but i worry this comes off as being conceited. i heard that it might be an adhd thing i do to keep myself engaged in the conversation.

i think that's all of them??? I'm so sorry to anyone who has to scroll through all this jgjrjrj but i guess it's good to make note of this stuff in some way because i articulate my feelings better when typing instead of speaking. and this'll be helpful to reference when chatting with a future therapist which i will hopefully get soon! and if anyone sits through this and has any advice, I'm all ears!!

#adhd things #undiagnosed adhd #adhd culture #adhd inattentive

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steppedoffaflight · 3 years

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Can I ask what specific mental health stuff you deal with? When I read your blog it’s literally like myself talking and I’m trying to get a better understanding of myself. I think I had ADHD but I’m not sure??

Hiya!! This is so very long, as all of my answers are 😂 But I hope it helps you in some small way! I tried to link some resources for ADHD (which btw is the same as ADD, so don't get confused at different resources referring to it differently!), but honestly the best thing you can do is google it and dig into all the info about it!

Specifically, the mental health diagnoses I deal with are anxiety, depression, and ADHD.

I was diagnosed with ADHD first out of the three, but it's always really hard to explain to others why I talked to my doctor about it because ADHD is a very slippery disorder and it's really hard to put a finger on your symptoms! For starters, my sister had been diagnosed with it waaay younger (like while still in high school), and it has a strong genetic link, leading to my mom eventually getting diagnosed with it. So I had some first-hand experiencing seeing people manage the symptoms. Basically, ADHD is an executive function disorder (you'll see lots of tumblr posts about executive dysfunction- that's this). This website sums up what executive function does for us, and looking at symptoms of the dysfunction helps reveal ADHD symptoms:

Basically, the way I personally realized I had it was that I had to drop one of my classes for a semester and I was only left with one class I was taking. And while taking one single class I was struggling with procrastination, starting assignments sooner than the last minute, lack of motivation to study, and I knew that something was wrong because there was no reason I couldn't ace this ONE CLASS I was taking, that was directly a part of my major which I love a lot. One day when I realized how odd it was for me to be struggling so hard over the lightest credit course load possible I started looking up symptoms of ADHD and realized I was displaying a lot of them! The one thing I usually am not is hyper, but that hyperactivity can also be a more mental symptom like your mind racing. ALSO for some reason I had never thought there was anything strange about having hyperfixations my entire life, but I actually think this is because I experienced both my mom and sister getting obsessed with things so I didn't realize people with ADHD aren't as likely to do that!

I've also read a good bit of Scattered by Gabor Mate and I really liked it although I haven't totally finished it yet! He's a doctor who himself was diagnosed with ADHD as well as his children, and in having to become his own expert in his diagnosis had some really interesting theory and research to share! Particularly, he frames ADHD as a developmental delay in the part of the brain that controls executive functioning. When you think of it as a developmental delay on a spectrum, it makes perfect sense why once you get diagnosed with ADHD you feel like EVERYONE shows symptoms of it! We are most likely all delayed to some degree, but some people need medication to help wake up the attention-regulating part of our brains!

The last thing I'll say about my ADHD diagnoses is that it was the ONLY health thing I've dealt with stigma around. When I tried discussing the fact that I was going to talk to my doctor about it to anybody except my family I was CONSTANTLY met with people trying to deny I have it, that I just needed to study in groups (I heard that a LOT IDK WHY), that I was fine I just needed more motivation, etc. It was VERY FRUSTRATING. And as a final note, because more is being discovered about it everyday, if you really feel like you have it but your doctor says you don't, get a second opinion!! Most doctors aren't familiar with the many ways symptoms can manifest, so sometimes if you're not doing parkour off of the exam room walls they're like "but you're not even hyper :\\"

As for the anxiety and depression, those are a little more straightforward for me! I have always suffered with terrible anxiety, especially during the school year and at work. I've experienced panic attacks, racing thoughts, regular/daily anxiety attacks, and physical symptoms of anxiety such as irregular heartbeat and my muscles aching from constant tension. The thing is, I felt that my experience with anxiety was actually very common? Like I thought it was normal to be struggling with it to this degree? But my doctor phrases my anxiety and depression as "anxiety that creates depression" for me, so at one point I hit a wall where I was in a depressive episode and was ready to admit that maybe all of the yoga, meditation, and self-help books I was reading wasn't enough to manage my mental health and I needed some extra help through medication. I literally could not express how much getting on medication has changed my life, my anxiety is like 80% less I swear!!! Fuck ANYONE who is obsessed with pushing the "I don't want to be dependent on a medication for my entire life" or the "natural is best" narrative. I'll stay on these pills my entire life if it makes my quality of life this drastically better ON GAWD. I still do go through depressive episodes however, but they tend to be pretty mild and last about 3-4 weeks at most. I track my moods everyday with the app Daylio so that helps me visualize the big picture of my mental health a lot!

#sorry this took me so long #a head cold tried to kill me for a solid week #and I have sooo much to say on adhd lmao because even people that have it can be so clueless bc it's not well-known info!!!#asks

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