#like genuinely the only explanation for my behavior the last week or so is BPD

[landofgay]

me at 15: I think I have ADHD and autism and ocd and bpd and and and

me at 17: nah I was being silly I don't really have most of those things. maybe ADHD.

me now at 22: yeah no I have ADHD and autism and ocd and bpd and

[lesbeet]

long post ahead

ive been thinking nonstop about the possibility of me having adhd since my sister and her boyfriend brought it up to me last week (i’m FINALLY seeing my therapist today so we can talk about it) and i’ve been doing a lot of research and i found the howtoadhd channel on youtube

and literally the number of times in the past 2 hours alone that i’ve teared up or started legitimately crying because of how much i relate to things that these videos are saying is ridiculous, like some of them are word-for-word things i’ve said that i had NO inkling of an idea could be related to adhd

like this one video of this guy who was diagnosed at 43 and said that prior to his diagnosis he had just accepted that he would feel dissatisfied for his whole life, that he would never feel content, i’ve been saying that for YEARS and just was resigned to it and chalked it up solely to my depression

and just like. having been able to do well in school as a kid but constantly being told that i’m “not living up to [my] potential” and now that i’m in my early 20s and my intelligence can’t compensate for like....not being able to regulate my emotions and not being able to organize my life and not being able to motivate myself to do things, which is supposedly why a number of people get diagnosed around this time, because metrics for success are different in adulthood (you can’t just take a test and rely on being smart to compensate for all the other problems), and i was always just. thinking that i fucked up and wasted my life through laziness or whatever the case may be

i’ve always considered myself to be “crafty” and “resourceful” in the sense that i may not go about doing things in the typical way but i can almost always find a way to accomplish what i need accomplished, even if it’s unconventional -- apparently that’s common with adhd too! like i’ll say “oh i couldn’t figure out how to do [x] so i did [y and z]” and someone will be like “why didn’t you just do [thing everyone else does]” and usually i either couldn’t figure out how, or it didn’t occur to me, and my way was weird and unconventional, but it worked for me!

and then of course i’m just recognizing all these signs that have always been there that i either didn’t notice or attributed to other things -- i’ve been trying to observe the way my attention functions this week and literally i space out and miss things SO much more often than i ever realized, like i miss so much information because i’ve drifted off. or i get really stuck on things in conversations and even after everyone else has moved on i have this urge to bring it back so i can say that last thing i’ve been rehearsing over and over for the past 5 minutes so i didn’t forget it, and now it’s in my head and everyone is talking about something else and it’s SO inconsequential but i have to forcibly drag myself away from whatever the thing is (yesterday my sister and her friend and i were talking about early 2000′s fashion and i wanted to make a comment about wearing ugly scarves as belts and they saw a dog and moved on to talking about cute things our dogs have done and i just couldn’t stop thinking about the scarves as belts thing for like 10 minutes until i just had to sigh and be like...well i can’t bring that up again now)

when i was younger i would rush through tests so i could go back to whatever book i was reading and i just thought it was a silly quirk like “oh i just like to read lol” but i realized i still do similar things -- if i’m reading a book or watching a show or working on something, THAT is what i’m doing. anything else, whether it’s work or sleep or eating or hanging out with a friend or fulfilling any sort of responsibility? that’s a break from the thing i’m doing. if i’m reading a book, even if it’s the 3rd time i’m rereading harry potter for the year, for example, then in my head, i’m reading harry potter. i have to go to work all day but then i can read harry potter. all i’m doing is thinking about reading harry potter. i rush through my responsibilities so i can go BACK to reading harry potter, because that’s what i’m doing and anything else is just taking a break from reading harry potter. (you see how this can negatively affect the accomplishment/fulfillment of important tasks and responsibilities)

and my sister has pointed out things that i didn’t really notice, like she said it’s really difficult to hold a conversation with me when i’m excited about something because i can’t calm down enough to let the other person talk. and i’ve always known that i tend to finish peoples’ sentences for them during conversations, which i always thought was a way of showing that i’m listening! but ive realized it’s actually that, if i already know what you’re going to say, and you’re saying it too slowly, i get impatient and i need to blurt out the rest for you so we can move on and i can say my next thing before i forget it

and like obviously all people experience some symptoms some of the time, daydreaming isn’t exclusive to adhd, neither is walking into a room and forgetting what you’re doing there. but this week as i’ve been paying attention, i notice i do it CONSTANTLY. the other night i opened up my phone before bed because i remembered i hadn’t set my alarm, so i picked it up from where i place it for the night (i was about to go to sleep). 15 minutes later i put my phone back down and decided to turn in for the night again, and then realized i still had never turned the alarm on because i got distracted and did other stuff. and things like that happen with almost comical regularity, now that i know to look for it.

i’ve known i have executive dysfunction issues for a long time so i won’t go into those, but like we’ve known i have problems with directions and organization and spatial processing and knowing how to complete tasks for a long time

the rejection-sensitive dysphoria is something i didn’t really realize was part of adhd, but it makes SO much sense. i think it’s part of why i thought i had bpd for a while, because a lot of the symptoms were similar and i knew i was dealing with something more than just depression and anxiety but didn’t know what, and a lot of the symptoms i experienced also seemed to fit the bpd diagnosis even if my actual behavior and personality didn’t seem to

there are so many more things i’ve noticed this week and thought about differently but i literally can’t remember what they are lmao i think i’m gonna try to write stuff down so i don’t forget to tell my therapist today but like. 

so many of these things i didn’t realize had anything to do with adhd, like emotional dysregulation, i’ve always known i have horrible mood swings and trouble regulating my emotions, i’ve always noticed a lot of these different symptoms but it never occurred to me that they could all be part of the same thing??

like i haven’t been tested or diagnosed yet and i’m worried i’m getting carried away but the only time i’ve ever felt this sort of relief was a few months ago when realizing my dad is a narcissist. like the feeling of “oh my god, i knew this was something i experienced but i didn’t think i could attribute it to anything” and “oh my god, this is word for word something i say all the time, i didn’t realize it was part of a pattern”

and it genuinely made me cry! hearing people talk about things that describe me that i never would have guessed might have to do with adhd, finding something that seems to encompass a very broad range of symptoms that i previously thought were unrelated or results of a myriad of things (and obviously they all play off of one another but that’s a whole separate issue)

but it would explain so much of my behavior and challenges -- why i struggle with finishing up a task or project once the big, complicated part is done; why i get super obsessed with something and then once it wears off i never mention or think about it again; why i’ve always needed my mom’s help to clean my closet or pack for a trip, even though i felt like i was way too old to need help with that; why people constantly are like “i know you heard me say this because you said ‘ok’” about things i genuinely have no recollection of

but i just can’t stop thinking about that guy talking about how he was just resigned to thinking he would never been satisfied or content with his life because that is something i have been feeling and saying FOREVER, for years ive just been like “everything is so hard, the idea of spending the rest of my life struggling to get up in the morning and going to work every day, dealing with all my responsibilities, i feel like i’m exhausted and underwater just thinking about it, i’m never going to feel fulfilled or satisfied, it’s always just going to be slogging through my responsibilities and it’s never going to end” and apparently that���s....a normal thing, and i just thought it was depression and maybe part of it is, but maybe the reason i struggle so much with those every day things is because my brain is wired differently?

and maybe i’ve fucked up because at this point i think i’ll be really disappointed if i don’t get the diagnosis because i’m not really sure what else could explain these issues, it certainly makes sense and i feel like it fits and i feel relieved just thinking about having that answer, and it certainly negatively impacts almost every aspect (if not every aspect) of my life. so like if i don’t get diagnosed idk what i’m gonna do and i probably fucked up by spending the last week obsessing over it lol

but like....the relief i feel every time i read or hear or see someone with adhd say “i experience [x]” and i’m like holy shit??? me too???? and it just. feels like maybe there’s an explanation for all this horrible dissatisfaction and unhappiness i thought i was going to be stuck with for the rest of my life, and there are other people who experience these things and there are things that can be done, medication and therapy and strategies and...my whole life doesn’t NEED to feel like a challenge, maybe it’s not an indisputable fact that i’m just going to have to live with forever.

if you read this far and you have adhd (especially if you were diagnosed after childhood) i would love to hear your thoughts on this, obviously i didn’t list every single symptom and experience and i know there are more but these are all i could think of at the moment, if i seem like i’m way off base obviously please let me know