What I've learned in the 6 Months I've Been Officially diagnosed with ADHD-C

Living as a child with undiagnosed ADHD is difficult enough. You don't know what's wrong with you, but once you hit a certain age, your very aware that SOMETHING is not working. You can't do the things you should be able to and NEED to do! Nevermind all the stupid hormones, and maturity, learning about how neurotypicals live, function and interact. You try to mimic them, and to an extent you can succeed but it doesn't last forever for most of us. Trying to force our brains to work like neurotypicals do is exHAUSTING. Eventually, it wears us out , and wears us down.

Now let's take that undiagnosed neurodiverse mind of yours and bring it to adulthood. You've graduated high school and moved out. For a lot of the people I know with ADHD, we've been through a few jobs. Some, because the environment or the work just wasn't stimulating enough so paying attention to what we we're doing was hard and we made small error that we wouldn't catch even when double checking it afterwards. For others, the daily buzz of office life quickly becomes overwhelming. There are so many different stories though, of ADHDers, seeming unsuccessful because we're wired to work differently in a world that tells us that neurotypical functioning is the "proper" way to be. I'm here to say it's not, and there are a growing number of neurodiverse people who will agree with me.

Here are 10 things I've learned since being officially diagnosed with ADHD-C at 23:

ADHD effects soooo many parts of my life, and I'm STILL not even close to seeing the overall picture of all the areas is effects

When it comes to functioning in neurotypical society, we're on a totally different wavelength than neurotypicals.

Hyper focus in NOT always a good thing. Sometimes it means your ignoring some other important tasks or people in your life.

Depression and Anxiety aren't always as they seem. Sometimes they're ADHD in disguise.

Music is a trigger I can use to get me motivated to transition my way into tasks.

As much as I hate it, having someone I care about (works better for me personally if they're not family. That's just my situation though, definitely does not mean it's yours.

The easiest time for me to get things done is in the morning around, 9-10am. That's about when I naturally feel ready to get up and moving. So scheduling things around 11-11:30 is great.

IF I DON'T SEE IT I WILL NOT REMEMBER.

I have a problem with stimulation, most easily explained, in my game hopping. I constantly switch between games because at some point, the stimulation wears off. And all of a sudden the game and time seems to move slower. Not that I'm not enjoying the game, it just isn't hitting right anymore.

It's possible it be overstimulated in different ways! Just like you can be understimulated in multiple ways. I VERY easily become overstimulated by talking from others, though most other sounds are fine, music is NEVER overstimulating, for me at least.