How did you explain your diagnosis to your friends?
I've been really struggling with work the last month and a half or two months. I have bitten off way more than I could chew and I'm just drowning in a sea of chaos.
When I get stuck in such a rut it becomes a positive feedback loop nightmare. The stress, the racing thoughts, and the anxiety is constant from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep, one issue potentiates the next and my I get trapped in the noisy prison of my mind. On top of that, stress will kill my appetite and make it difficult to sleep which amplifies the chaos even more.
I'm usually a very social and extroverted person but when things get tough like this for me I noticed that I tend to withdraw from people. I think this might be because I feel like they just don't understand what I'm going through. I'm sure you all have experiences where you'll talk about something you're struggling with and the person you're talking to will basically suggest we improve by being better at the thing we're struggling with. I'm so tired of hearing things like "be more organized" and "just do it"... If it were THAT simple, wouldn't I have figured it out by now?
I'm so tired. I feel like a ghost just kind of drifting through life instead of truly living it because every day I start down in the dumps and have to give it every bit of motivation and effort to do just the bare minimum (and oftentimes I can't even seem to do that). I'm helping out with the family business by necessity not by choice. I'm finding it impossible to stay motivated, focused, and organized. There's so much I want to do but it feels like I might just be incapable of doing so. This makes me sad because, even before my diagnosis and even at my lowest points, in the very back of my mind I've felt like I should be capable of more. Right now I'm not sure I'm capable of anything. I just want to curl up in a fetal position until my mind stops racing, but even sleep doesn't seem to help these days.
I'm dying to vent but it seems counterproductive because instead of the understanding I'm normally used to receiving, I feel like the issues I have with ADHD arouse judgement.
Posted Jul 12, 2014, 8:28 PM UTC
ADHD definitely is a touchy subject when you're getting diagnosed.
I know what it's like from both sides. My older sister was diagnosed 2 years before me, and this is what I thought:
"What? You can't have adhd O.o you're normal. I've known you my whole life! You're just like me."
I thought that because I didn't understand adhd :P
And then I experienced it from the other side 2 months ago when I was like "Holy shit I have adhd" and when I was talking to people they were just like "Really...?" and even one of my friends started acting different around me as if he thought I had acquired adhd and needed special treatment. Fortunately he has gotten past that and understands that nothing has changed about me. Well the only change he would be seeing is that I'm more eager to hang out because I don't get anxiety in social situations anymore :)
So yeah, it's really confusing for people who don't understand the disorder. And it's so hard to understand adhd, I spent the past 2 months doing extensive research, looking at articles and forum posts.
But recently I've been explaining it as a lack of stimulation. Our dopamine doesn't last as long as it's supposed to, so it's not doing it's job. I think it's the core of adhd that we are understimulated by tasks that are not under-stimulating to the average person, so we avoid these tasks and stick to the tasks that provide sufficient stimulation. How this affects people is what varies significantly. This isn't really the same with other disorders!
Being under stimulated causes in the short term: Anxiety, irritability, trouble focusing, distractable, anger. Long term: Depression, mood disorders
And we seek and crave stimulation more than the average person. This varies so much depending on the person. Some people turn to hyperactivity, some turn to substance abuse. Thrill-seeking. Procrastination is a form of stimulation even! People learn that by waiting until the last second to do something, the pressure of needing to do it becomes sufficiently stimulating!
For me, I turned to video games/internet for stimulation. I was a very quiet and shy person especially starting in middle school, because while I was in school I wasn't getting enough stimulation and it made me anxious/depressed constantly.
This is why stimulants help a lot. I mean come on, they're called "stimulants!"
Stimulants affect the brain the same way in people with adhd and without adhd, and it's wrong to suggest otherwise. But people without adhd don't see as many benefits, especially in the long-term, because they don't have problems with being under-stimulated. Whereas someone with adhd can now do tasks that they struggled with before, because they are not being under-stimulated when trying to do these tasks!
It used to give me bad anxiety to do a lot of things like homework/chores. On adderall I don't get anxiety. It's not like I like homework/chores now, but being able to do them without getting anxiety makes life a lot more tolerable! I even used to get anxiety when I was hanging out with friends, not because I didn't like my friends or they made me uncomfortable, but because sitting and talking with them was under-stimulating. But now I can enjoy it without anxiety!
I really think this is a great way to explain adhd. A lot of people just can't grasp the fact that there can be major differences between individuals with adhd, and how pretty much every "common symptom" of adhd are experienced by people without adhd very frequently!
that was perfect
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Can we get a TLDR? :/
Something to the effect of "I've experienced both sides of the issue. ADHD people are under stimulated."
How about this quote from an article I'm too lazy to linkl?
""We are in a desert without water, desparately seeking stimulation whilst our non-ADD companions have water bottles on their backs and a tube to suck from when thirsty. They can amble along noticing the shadows from the dunes whlist we are on a mission to find an oasis!"