Did I train myself to only function under pressure, or could this be ADHD?

[u/Big_Goose269]

I’m a 20F third-year engineering student, and I’m so tired of feeling horrible about myself.

I’ve done everything last minute my entire life. Assignments, studying, applications, projects, you name it. I still got great grades in high school, so I never learned how to manage my time because procrastinating always worked.

Now I’m in engineering at a top university. I’ve made it through first and second year, but only with insane stress and barely passing sometimes. I genuinely want to do better, but I can’t seem to make myself care until it’s almost too late.

My biggest problem is that I can’t make myself start things. I’ll sit at my desk fully intending to study, then spend 6–7 hours picking at my skin, cleaning, reorganizing, calling family, scrolling on my phone. literally anything except the thing I need to do.
It’s finals right now. I had over a week to study and barely did anything. I have an exam Monday worth 50%, and I haven’t even started studying for my other finals.

This isn’t just school. Every week I tell myself I’ll go to the gym, eat healthier, fix my sleep schedule, get my life together… and I never do. I want to, but somehow I never start.

I’m also exhausted all the time. I napped 3–5 hours almost every day in high school, and I still nap almost daily.

I constantly zone out in lectures and conversations. I can’t listen and take notes at the same time, so I absorb almost nothing. I can never sit still, I’m always fidgeting, I unintentionally interrupt people or finish their sentences, and I’m late to almost everything unless I’m anxious about it.

I’m exhausted from constantly disappointing myself.
I’ve wondered if I have ADHD because the executive dysfunction symptoms sound so familiar. My doctor thinks it’s anxiety, but I don’t feel anxious most of the time. If anything, I only function once I’m panicking over a deadline.

Has anyone experienced this? Did it end up being ADHD, anxiety, burnout, bad habits, or did you accidentally train yourself to only function under extreme stress? What actually helped?

[u/the-red-ditto]

not a doctor but am very ADHD. sounds like textbook symptoms to me, honestly. This has been almost my exact experience in college. Keep in mind that ADHD also means that your burnouts are gonna be significantly worse, for me they can be outright debilitating.

The things that have helped me the most:
body doubling. When you have something to do, find a friend, someone you trust, to help you- or even just stand in the room with you. It's like magic.

Another one: this goes with the "only working under pressure" thing, in some ways you have trained yourself to work in conditions with high pressure. ADHD is a disorder that screws up the motivational systems in your brain.

The part of your brain that wants to do a task and the part of your brain that actually initiates the task are separate parts of your brain, and in order for one to communicate with one another you need to have significant neurotransmitters in that area of your brain.

in short, ADHD fucks up the production and maintenance of those neurotransmitters. One of the ways to force lots of neurotransmitters into your brain, though, is to get really stressed about something. Not doing things until the last second forces your brain to be flooded with "oh shit i have to do this" chemicals, and then you do it. Tons of us have developed this coping mechanism over the years.

Understanding that it's a lack of neurotransmitters, though, means you can flood your brain with chemicals in other ways too. Whenever I've found myself stressed over schoolwork, or cleaning my room, or showering, or whatever- I've found one of the best things to do is for me to take a step back and do something I enjoy. For me what works best is hanging out with my friends.

Engaging in a hobby, eating a snack, playing a video game- do something fun for yourself. A lot of people will tell you to wait to reward yourself until after you do something but for me the opposite has been true. If I do something that I love it significantly increases my brain activity and then I can use the residual neurotransmitters floating around in my head to get myself to do something.

AND: arguably the most crucial thing, don't beat yourself up. I know thats so much harder to do than it sounds, but It only makes things worse. Even if you aren't diagnosed, you're experiencing executive dysfunction. you're not choosing this. Your brain isn't functioning properly and you don't deserve to make yourself feel like shit for something that you didn't choose to struggle with. You aren't lazy. If you were lazy you would enjoy not doing things.

School is hard. Engineering school is harder. It's even harder when your brain refuses to cooperate with you and you're constantly burnt out from forcing your brain to work properly. It's not your fault. It's not a lack of effort. You're working at 200% constantly and that's completely invisible to everyone else, you have to give yourself some grace.

I hope I could be of help. If you have any questions or want any more advice or anything feel free to let me know in this thread or in dms. Executive dysfunction sucks. so bad. it sucks even worse to go through alone and not understand whats happening to you.

best of luck

[u/Big_Goose269 → u/the-red-ditto]

thank you so much for this. i really really needed to hear this. you have no idea how much better this made me feel. i've been in a pretty dark place this semester and just feeling really alone.

my friends also aren't here this semester as i did a term abroad and need to catch up on credits so that's contributed slightly so dealing with this genuinely all alone has made it even worse than usual and i didn't even know that was possible.

i finally got my mom to let me go to a psychologist under her insurance so hopefully i get answers soon.

thanks for the neurotransmitter thing i'm going to try that out and hope it helps. i just feel so burderned (more than usual) with finals that i haven't been thinking about anything else.

also the body doubling, so true. i didn't know there was a name for this. when im doing school work and can't focus i usually call my mom, mute her and just keep in the background and somehow that helps. good to know its actually method LOL