I've recently considered if I've always had ADHD and have gone back and forth on it in my head. On one hand, symptoms sound common to most people. On the other there's a lot of anecdotes that match my life to a tee.
I was "gifted" in school growing up. I breezed through school ages 5-12 with ease but loathing homework. At 11, a teacher told my parent and I that I'm able to get great grades now by intellect, but when college comes I'll come to a reckoning unless I also learn to study and put in time to do the work.
Ages 13 - 20 were just a continuous slide down in academics. I spent all my time zoned into various MMORPG's, video games, and obsessed about an outdoor sport. Couldn't stay awake in class and never did any homework. But I'd manage to skirt out some A's on math and chemistry tests (learning on the fly), do some crucial projects at the last possible minute, midnight to 5am the night before, and managed to graduate with a 2.5 gpa (C's and B's).
When it came to college, it was the same until I realized I needed to get better grades to transfer to a real University, so I had one amazing year I got A's, got in, and then it was business as usual. Worst person at staying on top of homework in friend groups, constantly more distracted by video games, only completed C's by doing projects at the last absolute moment midnight to 5am.
At work, I'm constantly distracted by HN, and only get through projects by a sudden burst of sheer deadline fear at the end. I was falling behind and finally buckling, until I tried some Adderall secondhand. Suddenly I felt like I had X, Y, Z to do, and I spent my day going from X to Y to Z and couldn't believe how much I was getting done. Eventually I lost this source, used it 1/3 tapered down to little effect, and stopped, conflicted. Due to various reasons, I've burnt out and haven't been able to attempt any real work for 6 months, basically spending half my time on HN.
Guess I'm just hoping someone knowledgeable would be able to confidently tell me what's been going on. I probably need to see a psychologist.
Not taking care of yourself is one of the worse symptoms of ADHD/mental illness. I stopped taking my meds back in December and just started seeing my psychiatrist today.
I was "gifted" in school growing up. I breezed through school ages 5-12 with ease but loathing homework. At 11, a teacher told my parent and I that I'm able to get great grades now by intellect, but when college comes I'll come to a reckoning unless I also learn to study and put in time to do the work.
Ages 13 - 20 were just a continuous slide down in academics. I spent all my time zoned into various MMORPG's, video games, and obsessed about an outdoor sport. Couldn't stay awake in class and never did any homework. But I'd manage to skirt out some A's on math and chemistry tests (learning on the fly), do some crucial projects at the last possible minute, midnight to 5am the night before, and managed to graduate with a 2.5 gpa (C's and B's).
When it came to college, it was the same until I realized I needed to get better grades to transfer to a real University, so I had one amazing year I got A's, got in, and then it was business as usual. Worst person at staying on top of homework in friend groups, constantly more distracted by video games, only completed C's by doing projects at the last absolute moment midnight to 5am.
At work, I'm constantly distracted by HN, and only get through projects by a sudden burst of sheer deadline fear at the end. I was falling behind and finally buckling, until I tried some Adderall secondhand. Suddenly I felt like I had X, Y, Z to do, and I spent my day going from X to Y to Z and couldn't believe how much I was getting done. Eventually I lost this source, used it 1/3 tapered down to little effect, and stopped, conflicted. Due to various reasons, I've burnt out and haven't been able to attempt any real work for 6 months, basically spending half my time on HN.
Guess I'm just hoping someone knowledgeable would be able to confidently tell me what's been going on. I probably need to see a psychologist.