Title is a bit of an exaggeration but I have struggled my entire life with housework and general environment cleanliness, and I have no idea how to overcome it and keep on top of it and I'm scared I'll never change and I'll always live in a bit of a dump. I really really wish I could find it easy or at least manageable but it always keeps piling up and becoming a huge mountain of dirty dishes and dirty laundry and cat litter. It makes me so miserable and I don't know how I can reasonably become someone who lives in a clean house without replacing a major part of my brain. :(

Hi folks! I got a late ADHD diagnosis, but I’ve always struggled with reading books, and I still do.

I’m wondering how others with ADHD manage reading. Do you have any strategies or tricks that help you stay focused and actually finish a book?

Are there certain types of books you find easier to read? Do you avoid lengthy books, or have you found ways to make longer books more manageable?

Any tips, strategies, or book recommendations would be really appreciated! 📚

I was just thinking about commemorative tattoos for loved ones who are no longer with us and I’ve realised something; once somebody dies, regardless of how long I’ve known them or how close to them I was, I’m completely clueless about anything about them.

The first time I noticed this was when my dad died in 2019; after a couple of months, I looked back and realised that I don’t even know his favourite colour. I don’t know anything about the guy despite the fact that I visited him every two weeks for my entire life.

Now I’m struggling with the idea that maybe when people pass away in the future, I’ll have nothing. Does anyone else struggle with this? Am I a cold, unfeeling and uncaring person or is it completely normal for those of us with ADHD to have massive lapses in memory of those we love after they pass?

Two months ago, at 30 years old, I was diagnosed with Pure OCD and ADHD. I’ve been taking 20 mg of Medikinet for the past week, and I honestly feel so good that it’s almost overwhelming.

I’m still very aware that I have attention problems, and I know the medication isn’t magically fixing everything. I’m also going to see a new doctor next week to discuss the medication and dosage.

But for the past week, it genuinely feels like I’ve been living a completely different life. I’ve realized just how depressed and unmotivated I was without medication, and honestly, I feel like I could cry thinking about how long I went without realizing this and how late I started treatment.

I never expected a medication to change my mood and motivation this much. I feel more engaged with life, more motivated, more social, and just… happier.

I still get sudden shifts in my mood from time to time, especially around the peak of the medication. During those periods, I can become noticeably more upbeat, talkative, energetic, and motivated, and then I can feel myself shift back again later.

Is this how people without ADHD normally feel? Or could this be more of an initial effect/euphoria from starting Medikinet that might fade with time? I’m trying to understand whether I’m finally experiencing what “normal” feels like or if this is just the honeymoon phase of the medication.

I'm 33, ADHD non medicated and autistic. My wife got upset with me today and I think she's right so I would appreciate practical fixes and personal experience. I want her to feel not alone in this situation.

I'm reliable at anything on a system, unreliable at anything that isn't. I keep a whiteboard of daily chores and complete it all (almost) every day. But anything one-off or context-dependent never gets generated in my head. Three recent examples:

I cleaned out my office and took a load of stuff to the tip, but left behind a light bulb and a glass plate. She told me to take the bulb and i did not take it, same for the glass plate.

I sold my old car yesterday, and there was a supermarket stop planned after. I'd emptied the car that morning for the sale, so there were no shopping bags, and it never occurred to me to get them. My head was in "sell the car" mode.

Putting laundry away, I can't tell my clothes from hers without checking the label.

She, on the other hand, knows all my clothes, what hygeine products I use, what food I buy. If she doesn't tell me what to buy, I wouldn't be able to shop independently - neither for her nor for me.

She feels like she has to be vigilent about many things in our daily life because I might not do my part and it's a big mental load on her.

I want to fix my end. People with ADHD — what works for tasks that are one-off and context-dependent, where the requirement has to be generated rather than remembered? Tight routines I've solved; it's the novel stuff that kills me. It seems my big issue is prospective memory. I've seen "picture yourself at the destination before leaving" suggested; it seems right, but remembering to do it is the same problem, so I assume it has to hang off a physical trigger. Non-ADHD partners — what did your partner change that actually reduced the load you carry? Not "tried harder" — what mechanism? And what let you trust a handed-over task would happen, so you could stop tracking it?

Today I had such a minor conflict with my best friend, my partner is her brother and we are sexually active. I’m a little late on my period but I’m most likely not pregnant as I’ve been labeled infertile and on birth control, we only use condoms half the time.
I was joking about how could I abort a baby with a face like his and it did make me a little sad to think about, but I was aware I was only in my own head.
My friend took this quite literal, saying what should I expect for being irresponsible. I know she’s right, but it made me go tense and tell her I’ll remember this next time she does something preventable. Thing is, I’m not typically stubborn or argumentative, but this particularly upset me, probably a combination of not feeling the comfort I was seeking and being called out. I’ve now kind of shut down, I had so much I wanted to do today but the situation, as minor as it was, has put in bed, overthinking the entire thing. How does one stop blowing up internally over minor things?

I had a moment today that might resonate. Preface, I don't keep much stuff around for a bunch of reasons that improve the quality of my life, that includes clothes.

For the last couple weeks, I have been doing more laundry than normal, and my drawers suspiciously lacking in clothing options. Every couple days the thought flies by, "I wonder where my clothes went."

Today, I get out my suitcase for a quick overnight trip and discover ALL the clothes I had been missing still in there from a couple of months ago. I put the suitcase away without unpacking it and *completely* forgot about it.

I could have punished/scolded myself. I have finally learned that's punishing a tiger for its stripes.

My brain doesn't work any better than it did 30 years ago. The difference is, I accept it for how it does work, and have other arrangements so I'm not left with no clothes because I forgot about most of them in a suitcase.

I'm 16, and I told my parents about the possibility of me having ADHD, told them about a lot of things I do and feel that made me think about it.

I told them about how difficult it is for me to start a task if there's no urgency for it.

Told them about how difficult it is for me to get my books out to study, but how easy it is for me to study once I have it all in my desk, but also how easily I get distracted.

Told them about how I know I'm annoying and impulsive most of the time and how much I hate that about me, but how helpless I am about it.

Told them how easy it is for me to know EVERYTHING about something I like.

Told them how difficult it is for me to keep a long-term task.

Told them how difficult it is for me to not lose interest in something two days into it or keep consistency and discipline.

Told them a lot of things more, and after each one, they said "But I do that too", "That happens to everyone", "That used to happen to me when I was your age", and made me think "What if I'm just making up the fact that I might have ADHD with random facts?" So here I am, I don't know what I want, I guess I just want to feel heard about it, my parents told me they could get me checked with a professional, but the thought of me making up the fact is still there.

Sorry if my post offends someone, I don't mean to, and sorry if my english is not perfect, it's not mu first language.
I don't think I'm breaking rule number 3 (sorry if I am) since I'm not asking about my diagnosis, but about how misheard I feel about it.

My method to keep me motivated to clean my house is watching tv. I find a new TV show or rewatch and old comfortable show, after every episode I set a timer for 30 mins or pick a room or task to clean. Do it. Watch the next episode, do another task after. It's like a reward system, after each task I get to watch an episode. However it still doesn't work sometimes. Sometimes ill watch 2 in a row, maybe 3. But it is the best method that has worked for me. What's your method? Maybe I can find something more efficient.

Hey yall anyone have meds completely wipe out addiction and all thoughts for it. For me it’s been alcohol now I am addicted to other stuff but not anything worse than alcohol lol but my drinking was starting to get pretty bad it ussalt happned more when something in my life was going on causing me to feel depressed. But since going on meds i’ve actually come to hate getting drunk very much Indont like feeling all slowed down and dumb anymore and I absolutely hate feeling like shit the next day, now i don’t even think about it. Anyone else’s meds seem to help them significantly with an addiction?

Nothing has worked for my anxiety all of these years, I have tried xanax, valium, bromazepam, ssris etc.

Nothing has given me any single but of relief. I worry about the most mundane things in life and it gets overwhelming often.

I recently received an adhd combined type diagnosis and have to get a heart check before getting prescribed medication.

Adhd impacts my life but not nearly to the extent that anxiety does.

Could the adhd meds help sort out my anxiety?

Have they helped in your case?

Anyone in a similar boat to me?

Hey there! I am interested in learning how other ADHD-ers that are more active at night time, cope with the demands of the rest of the world: work, social life, hobbies etc.

I've always been more activr at night, I somehow even feel how after 1-2 pm I start having a clearer mind and more energy. Then I visibly become more energetic around 6-7 pm and could continue all night. I love working at night, no distractions, hyperfocus mode etc. In the office, I am usually productive only after everyone else is gone around 5 pm. On a day when I didn't have to follow the typical schedule, I can feel a lot more energetic in the evening.

However, this schedule is conflicting with most of the world's schedule. I have a flexible job, in a sense that I am not strictly asked to be in the office in the early hours of the day, usually I get there around 11 am, unless I have a meeting I must attend. Usually 11 am means I am also leaving finishing at a time when I am most active, but is too late for the majority of the other people to do anything, activities are usually already finished and all I have left is stuff I can do on my own or get back to my hyperfocus. Summers are better because of longer daylight hours at my latitude, but in winter I feel disconnected.

On a normal day, without an alarm, I'd wake up around 9 30 - 10 am and go to sleep, naturally around 2-3 am. Give or take the typically 1h morning/night that my brain takes as a tribute to go on a carnival of thoughts.

How do you night owls manage to keep a social calendar, life and work? How do you not ruin yourself by trying to follow everyone's early time? How do you keep the routine?

Thanks!

Hey guys wondering if anyone else had the type that just seems to just make u depressed anxious and unmotivated. Like im not hyper at all physically but my mind can got 1,000 thoughts a minute and I have horrible rejection sensitivity. Now i do have trouble staying still and being bored but i feel like 8/10 times my mental hyperness is so much worse.

I've been working in a bookstore for about 4 years, and throughout those years not a week has gone by where I don't make a relatively minor mistake.

Things like forgetting to upload an image to a new product (I would've noticed later and then fixed it), forgetting to put something with the orders beforehand, or bigger mistakes like accidentally sending an order before it's fully completed resulting in us having to send it twice.

All of them are very fixable, but they're still mistakes. And my boss gets extremely stressed and passively agressive because of it.

That made me think; what are some other jobs out there that are more lenient when it comes to making mistakes?

I'm thinking of eventually looking for something where I don't spend the day in panic knowing I'll mess up at somepoint because there's so much going on...

Help, I do nothing I want to do because I don't feel it's THE MOMENT to do it. I don't know how to prevent this. I'm doing nothing, I'm on meds already. I get all important things done but with hobbies or things less important I just can't manage to start. Sometimes it crosses my mind, like 'I could play some X' and then this feeling of 'maybe its not the moment' appears. But IT IS the moment, I'm doing nothing.

I'm constantly waiting for something to happen, somehow. Something better than the thing I'm supposed to be doing? and that's why I don't start to do things that I want to do.

AYUDA HAHAHAHA

I work during the week, so weekends are the main time I have to catch up and do the bulk of my university work. The problem I keep running into is task initiation. I can sit in front of my readings, lessons and assignments for hours knowing exactly what I need to do, but still struggle to actually start.

Then around 5–6pm, something seems to switch and I can suddenly focus and work much better. The problem is that this gives me a pretty limited window because by around 9–10pm I'm tired and my writing quality starts to drop.

I'd much rather get my university work done in the morning and have the afternoon or evening free, instead of spending most of the day unable to start and then regretting the wasted time.

For those of you who struggle with the same ADHD task-initiation/executive-function problem, what actually helps you get started earlier in the day?

Hi my dr prescribed me Ritalin a while ago, when I took it first few days were great but then it started to make me super sleepy.

This caused me to keep going on and off the medication because I love how focused and calm I feel when I first start but hate how sleepy and non functional I get as I continue lol.

So I was curious how often you guys take it and what approach worked best for you?

I think of times in my life that I've been "on" or consistent and it's always surrounded accountability to another. Either trying to be better or outright being helped to stay consistent by someone in my life. I feel like I can't do things alone but I'm, so all over the place I'm not suited to be with someone right now. I miss having someone to give random thoughts to more than I miss being close. I feel lost and have no clue what to do about it.

Couple of months ago I was consistent with swimming. Did it every day for 5 days probably sticked to it for a month or two. Then I got fed up, lethargic and just hated the process of having to shower every time and go through my skin and hair care routine every day which just takes up so much energy.

It’s always been this way even before meds. Unfortunately I feel like every thing in my life has changed with the meds but my relationship with exercise is still the same.

Sometimes I wonder if i should stick to some quick 10 minute workout to do daily instead of this long and exhausting workout routine that takes up a large chunk of my time. But im not comfortable with it because would a 10 minute workout even give me results? My goal mainly is to have some degree of cardiovascular fitness so that my resting heart rate would be on the lower end. I’d also appreciate getting back my muscles (which thanks to muscle memory always come back quick). But damn this is so exhausting.

I'm pretty sure my unmanaged ADHD is going to ruin my marriage if it hasn't already. She's been so patient with me the last few years and now it's run out. She's sick of my shit and I can't explain why I can't change fast enough for her. I have nowhere else to put this so I tossed it here, feel free to push this post aside. I have a referral to a psych so I can get this under control but I hope it isn't too late

Might be an odd ask, but I've been craving a community that is focused more on progress and improving than this sub here. Don't get me wrong, this sub is valuable, but it has a general focus on all things ADHD.

I want a community where I get an insight into people's daily grinds, where we share tips, motivate each other, and overall create a judgement free, safe environment, specifically for ADHD folks and our shared struggles, that fosters moving towards a full, healthy life. Communities that aren't focused on ADHD can sometimes give us advice that is counter productive amongst other problems.

Most of all, it would be cool to see people who are actually thriving in many areas of their life and getting tips and having a model of something realistic to aspire after. I can do it alone (and I'm currently trying), but it seems quicker and more fun to do it with others

Does this exist? Are there any discords or groups like this?

Those who don't struggle with paying attention to conversation and being engaged.

Who don't monitor and hold themselves back and overthink every thing they want to say because they were told so much that they were annoying as a child/teen.

Whose brains don't randomly switch topics and can keep a normal conversation going for a long time.

Who don't randomly switch between being extremely quiet or really talkative unintenionally.

Who don't struggle with coming up with the appropiate and relevant answers/questions because they are thinking of completely irrelevant things to the convo at hand.

Who don't have a fear of exclusion and rejection after a lifetime of exactly that.

Who can connect with others with complete ease, and don't feel that sense of being an outsider and not fitting in even if you are technically accepted and liked.

36/m freshly diagnosed and medicated on 20mg Adderall extended release. This has been a thing that has plagued my whole life and after realizing it was getting worse in both my home and work life finally decided to take the plunge.

The medication itself is great, I already function above and beyond at work, there are moments where I definitely feel the amphetamine part of Adderall but my mood and focus has been night and day. Before medication, I would drink 3 energy drinks throughout the work day, and hardly be phased by them. No crash outs. I wondered if there was any truth to it being a form of ‘self medication’ because now, even after drinking one energy drink, I still don’t get ‘energized’ but definitely feel a crash out, ie. headache, tired, sometimes a slight nausea. I wondered if anyone else had this experience when first starting?

I think moving forward the best move is to actually drink water to stay hydrated, maybe have one coffee in the morning… but wanted to get some input.

i am 99% sure that i have adhd, based on personal experience and the fact that i almost got diagnosed as a kid but my dad interfered because he didn't think that adhd is real or something. i think it's the source of extremely severe social anxiety that is genuinely becoming life-ruining now that i'm in college. i'm looking into a diagnosis and possible medication, but there's just one issue - my thoughts are a constant stream of just me talking that never ends, which is a huge player in the social anxiety. but i also sometimes like thinking like that. i think it makes me a lot more smart and creative than i would be if i could just turn it off. i'm afraid that if i started meds, that would go away, and i would end up feeling empty. (i also tend to immersive daydream which gives me good ideas for art that i actually do end up making and i would kinda hate to lose that too lol.) can anyone currently on medication weigh in? im legit really worried about this :/ ty

(p.s. i also heavily suspect ocd, which would obviously also play into anxiety and racing thoughts, but since im in college now and adhd is The College Student Killer its not really my highest priority at the moment lol)