With so many disorder Tiktoks around I can’t help but fail to spot the difference between having actual ADHD vs just having poor focus habits.
I myself have trouble focusing on tasks but I doubt I actually have ADHD given the recent surge of disorder Tiktoks - tho I do have autism - and that my focus is typically normal on tasks I devote to like gaming.
Yep. All of this, so much. ADHD comes with so many obstacles. Violent mood swings and hyperfixations that in my case were misdiagnosed as bipolar, etc. Easy burnout. Rejection sensitivity that makes communication and goal achievement more difficult. Executive dysfunction where it is harder to do things I want to do. Inability to juggle multiple obligations at once.
In my experience, these are things that everyone deals with on an individual basis to some extent. So for a long time I gaslit myself thinking that I didn’t have it. But after finally being affirmed (the isolation from the pandemic shut-down and I think recovering from COVID infection really destroyed my capacity to mask) I look back on my entire life since childhood and recognize just how much of the trauma I suffered had roots in my untreated ADHD.
Unsolicited advice incoming but you rightfully put a lot of emphasis on the emotional dysregulation aspect of ADHD, which gets chronically overlooked.
Personally I have found that clonidine works really well for my experience of emotional dysregulation and rejection sensitivity. It’s a boring medication - typically it’s just used for lowering blood pressure and it’s quite safe and generally well tolerated. (Obviously stimulant medications increase your BP so taking something that reduces your BP as a side effect is actually beneficial in the long term.)
It might be something that is worth looking into for yourself given what you wrote here.
As a sidebar, I also experience PTSD and clonidine helps with managing my trauma response. One perk of the medication is that it’s fast acting and you don’t get major withdrawals from it so if I had a ton of trauma nightmares the night before or if I’m struggling with PTSD symptoms during the day for whatever reason, I can just increase my dose as needed on that particular day and it helps keep things manageable for me.
Ah, I’ll definitely look into that. Just got through a night of ptsd nightmares myself. Thank you
Oh, shit. Well I’m glad that I mentioned that last part then because I almost didn’t do it. I hope it turns out to be useful advice for you!