ADHD memes

Oh well.

Wrong! I was only 27 when I got diagnosed 💪💪

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.

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

Damn. The ADHD memes need to chill.

Yeah, and what's difficult is that real improvement is possible, but you get stuck in this rut where you view attempts to improve yourself as pointless.

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

Nah, before I was diagnosed I was basically a zombie raising from the dead each morning through sheer willpower.

but ADHD meds don't work on me