5 Ways My ADHD Makes Adulting Hard

My doctor explained that ADHD - attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - can present in
several different ways, especially in girls and adults. Many girls and women have a subtype
of ADHD called inattentive ADHD, which often manifests as limited attention span, distractibility, forgetfulness, or procrastination. I was eventually diagnosed and as I learned more about the symptoms of inattentive ADHD, the struggles I experienced for most of life finally made so much sense.

If you relate to this story and found it helpful, do consider sharing it.

Research, story, script by: Amanda Portinari
Voice by: @amandasilvera
Animated by: Oliver Villarino

Additional Readings:

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[Psychgo]

Do you want to see more videos similar to this one where we share real stories around various mental health topics to help inspire, educate and entertain?

[SCARLETTE.]

For those who are in a hurry~

Five ways ADHD makes Adulting Hard:
1. 1:17 Disorganisation
2. 2:16 Hyperfocus
3. 3:20 Time Blind
4. 4:10 Managing emotions
5. 5:42 Procrastination

I hope it helps!

[MGYT]

Oh my God, hearing someone talk about symptoms really makes me realize how much I relate to this. I was told by a doctor that I have ADHD but I never really wanted to say that I do because I never took a test for it and I hate blaming stuff that I do wrong on something else. I have been figuring out how to go about life without meds as they aren't necessarily available to me.

[Toni-yxsb]

Diagnosed at 45. It was a relief to finally understand what was happening to me. Thank you for the video. Describes so much of how I’ve felt.

[jacemcfarland]

These are indeed all very real and very difficult things for me to deal with too, I’m hoping by working on it I can get better at it

[jcraa]

As a university student who was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 14, I can safely say that most people have absolutely no idea what ADHD does or how it effects people simply labeling it as the "loud and energetic" learning disability, this can make it really tough for people with ADHD to talk about how it affects us individually. Videos like these help tons of people learn about and discuss how ADHD affects people, Keep up the great work!!

[mr.guydude]

After watching my life crumble before my eyes, I got diagnosed at 28.
Suddenly everything made sense.
Though now, I'm fighting against my former self, who was brutally programmed into constantly beating myself up over every little thing.

[luisamunoz]

I know I have ADHD (I’m diagnosed) BUT YOU ARE TELLING ME THAT PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING I HAVE BEEN STRUGGLING IN MY LIFE IS BECAUSE OF IT??? This video made me feel seen and understood, it’s so hard to explain to my family how my brain works and I thought it was just me!

[Dev.Yadav.]

I honestly get distracted easily especially by my own thoughts. I'm either having conversations with myself or thinking of song lyrics

[Melody-yeul]

1. Disorganized
2. Hyperfocus
3. Time blind
4. Managing emotions
5. Procrastination

[adriku]

A trick that I use for organizing stuff is making an "inner" agenda, organize your time to work and/or cleaning to an hour, use alarms if you need to, and instead of procrastinating, I wake up to do something else and not be bored doing the same thing. BTW, diagnosed with 8 and used meds until 19, and now being 20 years old made me realize some things that as a kid I didn't understand, like "beign lazy" or that "I didn't wanted to pay attention".

[emm]

As a teen with ADHD this is very relatable. I learned about RSD shortly after getting diagnosed in October and ADHD, especially the RSD part of it explains so much of my childhood and current struggles

[belle]

Love the animation in this video! Everyday ADHD life is doing a bunch of side quests instead of doing the main quest.😂

[Numbnuts]

Okay, I used to have the childlike hyperactive form of ADHD when I was younger but it developed into inattentive type ADHD as I grew up. I'm now 23, working a full-time job. Working at a couple of different workplaces has helped me tremendously in figuring out how to reconstruct the normal executive function hierarchy that most people know like the back of their hands. I had to relearn it over the course of a couple of years working in manufacturing and making sure I didn't slip up and I always hit my goals. And there's a reason why I'm now a higher up in our quality department, using the techniques I had to learn on the fly helped me so tremendously in life that I feel I would be a much different person If I hadn't taken a couple of years off from school to work a real job. Of course I got very lucky and got several promotions based on merit and also being the most qualified person to be hired from within the company for that shift. I had a 98% efficiency rate when I was in manufacturing with a 0.02% failure rate. And now my entire job is inspecting other people's work as well as brainstorming ways to simplify the process and eliminate scrap. Although I feel my academic trajectory fell way behind that of my peers, I have to realize and remind myself that I would be in a much worst spot in the long run if I hadn't done this and I decided to keep trucking with school instead of trying something new. I'm finally going back to school for the first time since fall of 2019 and I will take my degree one class at a time till I feel confident enough to do two or three in one semester while working a full-time job. It also really helps that you get into a rhythm and can work with your brain partially shut off and focusing on other things. Some days the time goes by so fast because I'm working that I don't even realize that I'm on autopilot and I look at the clock and it's 5 hours into the shift and I forgot to take my lunch at the right time 😅

[carolinacoreas]

I relate so much with all of these. I recently got diagnosed with ADHD in April this year. It took until I was 20 years old to finally realize that I needed help for more than just my depression and anxiety. A lot of struggles I had in my childhood just clicked as soon as I started hearing two of my sisters' accounts after their recent diagnoses with ADHD. Everything just made sense, and it washed over me with a sense of enlightenment, but it also made me so frustrated that I can't change my past because whatever caused my circumstances is out of my control. I hate losing control, it is something I rarely ever had over my life because of my narcissistic mom. But once I left to college and realized how my life spiralled harder, I couldn't blame my lack of control on my mom anymore. My grades dropped, I suffered a lot from periods of depression because I found it hard to make friends because I was insecure about how much I talked and jumped from subject to subject, I even talked over others without realizing it.

I couldn't find the motivation to do my homework or study because it felt like a monumental task that I kept putting off until the very last night before assignments are due or the hour prior to a test. I procrastinated so hard in my freshman and sophomore year of college that it made me feel like I was just stupid and lazy. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I felt like I wasn't meant to be at college because I'm not good enough.

I still struggle a lot with my condition, I can't even look at a book without pictures because I can't focus beyond a few pages and then I have to go back and re-read them because my brain strayed somewhere else. An assignment that should've taken three hours max to complete, took me a whole day. It's especially hard because I'm majoring in biology and I have to read a lot of research papers which is incredibly difficult for me. Not because of the words used or the concepts, but because I can't focus. I get frustrated and then remember I have to go do my laundry or organize my drawer or clean my restroom that I end up doing a million tasks before I ever even start my homework. I've wasted so much time doing so many tasks that I found it hard to keep up with my schoolwork. I started going late to class or work because I underestimate how long it takes me to get out of bed and get ready for the day.

Sometimes I get hyper focused on my phone, that I can't get out of bed for several hours after I've woken up. I hyper focus on things that interest me the most, I have stayed awake for an entire day finishing an art project I spent a month working on. My longest record of being awake has been almost 2 days working on a project where time passed by so fast, I rarely ever felt hungry or tired. I barely ate anything, surviving only on snacks and water. I rarely ever went to the restroom, only going when my bladder felt ready to explode or my stomach hurt too much. The only thing that I'm not disorganized in is in keeping things clean and tidy. I cannot stand things being dirty or unorganized for too long. I even use the excuse of cleaning to procrastinate on my schoolwork. I rarely ever misplace items because I usually know where they are thanks to my meticulous organization (I'm also meticulous in getting certain tasks done even if unnecessary, I think my attention to detail can hold me back from finishing tasks faster or seeing the bigger picture basically because these details distract me from the main point). The only thing disorganized about me are my thoughts and ideas. As you can tell by my paragraph, I have a lot to share and my ideas are bouncing everywhere which makes reading this hard. That's what I experience every day, especially when I'm talking to others I feel comfortable with or excited to talk to, and especially when I try to go to sleep.

Sleep is a whole other story, I rarely get enough sleep because my brain won't shut up or I get bored laying in bed (I get bored super easily). I can't even keep my eyes shut if I'm not sleepy enough. And even when I'm exhausted, my brain wants to do a million things before I can even get a wink of sleep even if the tasks are completely unimportant or not urgent. This pushes my bed time later and later each night until I start the cycle again (so I try to be in bed by 1 am at the latest, but end up pushing it for the whole month until I go to sleep at 6 am and then eventually I start the cycle over and am back at sleeping at 1). I'm pretty sure all of these factors greatly impact my emotions.

I've become more sensitive over time to the point where I start to overthink things and get chronic anxiety. I get easily depressed because of this and it manifests itself into self destructive behaviors. Sometimes when I'm faced with an overwhelming amount of negative emotions, I resort to self harm to ground me. I hate it, I don't want to do it, nobody should feel the need to do it. But a part of me that wants my control over my emotions to return urges me to do it because it's all that has been able to ground me. It got so bad last year that I would even make the time to do it even if it was late. It makes me feel pathetic for letting it get this far. I'm trying my best to no longer do it, because I feel ashamed, but also because it's embarrassing for people to ask how I got my scars. I know it's okay to feel, and I shouldn't be ashamed, but I can't help it.

Another thing is that I can rarely sit still in my seat, I shift a lot in my seat or I can't keep my legs or arms still. I must always have something in my hands, whether it be my video game console, my sketchpad, or my new favorite fidget toy (specifically a metal slinky). It has impacted my focus because I can't sit through lectures without moving or doodling. Recently, I found my passion in doing things that are hands on or that involve me moving around often. I have been lucky to be in a research group that sometimes requires me to be outdoors, walking through the woods or in the prairie at some reserves. It made me figure out that I would like to have a career in field biology, although I still don't know specifically which job I'd like to go for.

All of these things, except for the excessive and impulsive talking were things I was able to mask pretty well as a child. My mom was so strict, it made me scared to just be myself, ADHD and all, because I feared failure since failure is what made her punish me severely. And although she abused my sisters and I, she also gave my life rigid structure to the point where I had a specific bed time, she reduced the amount of distractions (like technology or toys which made me even more bored), and she kept me very on top of my schoolwork. I have very poor time management skills, but she always provided a fixed schedule for me to follow. And although this was a good aspect in one way, it made me miserable as I got older because she basically had control over my life, which made me easy to manipulate. Another thing she did often that I hated was that she would shut me down whenever I wanted to share my thoughts with her because she would get frustrated listening to me ramble on. She would even ignore me while I talked because she didn't find any value in what I was saying. This severely hurt my self esteem growing up, and it made me insecure about this specific impulse even today. It made me afraid to share my feelings and problems with her because I know she doesn't care or would get irrationally angry with me.

I wrote all of this as it is past 2 am and although I'm sleepy, my brain won't shut up. I'm currently receiving treatment for my condition, finally. I still struggle really hard with my focus and impulsive talking, but I'm slowly learning how to manage it as I learn more about my condition. I'm still not as good academically as most of my peers, but if there is hope, it would be in the fact that I'll be starting my senior year this fall. That's all I want at the moment. I just want to make it through, one day at a time, at my pace. I used to worry about the future all of the time to the point where it made me extremely anxious. But as I ignore the thought, I can mostly live a less stressful life. I know I will never catch up to my peers, and I will never be as good as them, but knowing that I'll make it through, even at my own slower pace, gives me hope. I am mostly distanced from my abusive parents, and I'm trying to make a living for myself to become more independent. I'm slowly transitioning into adulthood, even if I'm struggling a lot more than others.

To anybody who made it this far into my essay and related to any of it, just know you're not alone. There is hope, although we are neurodivergent, we aren't worse than anyone. We work at our own pace and that's fine. We can make our situation easier and for those in the future by spreading awareness and compassion. If more people know, more people will be patient with us and anyone who has a different condition than us.

My friend also has ADHD, but he knows less about his condition than I do. He struggles with a lot of the same things I struggle with, but I offer him my patience and compassion which I hope makes him feel better and that his voice and feelings matter. He's not an idiot or lazy, he's got an amazing personality and is knowledgeable in so many things that I am not. Lately, he has called me out on me talking over him and he got frustrated, but I think me explaining that I can't control it all the time has made him realize that I suffer with the lack of self control over my impulses just like he does. He's been more patient with me after that. This is my example of how spreading awareness of this can make living with this condition significantly better because it can make communication easier.

Thank you for reading.

[Dragonagegearsofhalo]

I was diagnosed as a kid, shook it off and as an adult i unsettlingly check about every ADHD box. its a relief in a way that others at least understand more now than my younger days struggles with both the hyper focus and ultra productive or going off on a dozen tangents

[esteldusk]

Yooo! I've just gotten diagnosed for inattentive adhd last month. It was a relief to make sense of all of my thoughts and actions.

[ananddarnal]

Idk what's happening with me, but I am struggling in life. This video was relatable, thanks for making it

[Keepingup_with_Keilaniii]

Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing your story! Love the mental health awareness ! Your voice is also so beautiful and soothing to listen to!

You weren’t failing, you took yourself to professional help. That’s self awareness, being cognizant of how you act and what things block/prevent you from doing everyday tasks!

Keep pushing luv 🫶🏾🤍🙏🏾✨✨

[seanmcfadden]

I'm on the Autism spectrum and can definitely relate to a lot of this video. There's a lot of similarities between autism and ADHD.