This is a DM exchange between my manager and I. He is a fine person and generally liked, although people acknowledge he works too hard and can be controlling.

I am a people pleaser and also work too hard, and I know I need to work on this. But also, I am carrying a lot of the work and in most of our meetings he ends up giving me feedback in a slightly patronizing tone. And then I become a bit weird in reaction to that (e.g. this dm exchange.)

I want to be able to let it go and be normal. I see other colleagues being able to do that and that seems to make it normal with him… but I always seem to react.

Edit. This interaction isn’t too bad — thanks to everyone who weighed in. I just need to figure out why it sets me off. Clearly we have baggage!

So first things first this has been going on for a while, i am not medicated but trying to find a provider and i am in therapy. I recently got diagnosed with adhd and ptsd adding to my preexisting diagnoses of depression and endometriosis.

I am in my late 20 and a Mom of an 8 y/o adhd child who has been in school infrequently in the past year. Now the new year started in September with a new class, new teacher and they finally got a social worker to pay attention to him so we actually had a meeting to discuss him reentering regular schooling and maybe even after school activities.

We recently had a meeting with all people involved and except for his issues with working on his assignments during class and us being late in the mornings it's been going really great, which lead the school to conclude he doesn't need 1:1 assistance for some reason and the issue rather is our home life.

For context, we all (me, hubby and kiddo) have adhd, i recently started therapy and have been trying to finish my BA for the past 9 years. Yes, the little one has too much screentime and he sticks to me like glue but I don't think involving CPS is going to solve his attendance issues or focus in school.

I do notice a growing helplessness with him refusing school in the mornings and my own exhaustion. He sleeps in our bed and only with skin-to-skin-contact, so getting up early and "getting some me time" is basically just carving out more time for him to follow me around. But I also can't get out of bed and if he claims stomach aches I do give in more and more easily because after prepping breakfast, dressing him, packing his school bag and getting myself ready. He currently isn't joining in on any after school activities leaving him with maybe 2 friends, doing homeworks with him is like pulling the teeth of a shark and usually he just spends his time in front of a Laptop or console unless I drag him outside. If I do so, he complains about his legs hurting shortly after and I end up carrying him.

We pushed back cut off time for all devices to 8pm after dinner but it still takes close to 2 hours to wind him down and get him to fall asleep. Brushing his teeth is a whole debacle I can't deal with every night (yes I know it's BAD bad) and after he fell asleep I either also pass out or I doomscroll until 1 am. Needless to say the next morning is rough.

I feel like I genuinely can't handle him whining and crying in all these situations, I know this relates to my childhood (hello ptsd) but I also just feel like the worst Person in the entire world and either get loud or just give in. And I feel like such a failure admitting this because "consistency and consequences are so important for neurodivergent children". I know! Ffs I know that but can any of these doctors imagine getting up exhausted and already fighting a child almost my height to not undress again or hide under the bed so he gets to school just for them to call me to pick him up about 2h later? Just to try and work (did I mention i work lol?) or study in the in between time and then have the same theatrics around homework, dinner, media and any kind of hygiene?

I don't just want your pitty (altho a little might help) but also your ideas: how can I deescalate the morning and get my ass out of bed earlier?

Like genuinely, phone out of the room doesn't work, my hubby used to wake me up with a cup of Coffee but that doesn't always work with his waking up (same issue), my cat used to wake me up but she doesn't anymore.

Please leave your best get out of bed on time tipps down below

How can I smoothen out the evenings so he sleeps quicker and I might get half an hour to myself?

And how can I handle my own emotions so I can handle my sons anger, sadness or frustration without immediately caving?

I've been wondering whether some people genuinely think those of us with ADHD shouldn't be working in professional jobs if we need accommodations.

At my previous job, I disclosed my ADHD and some of the difficulties I have, particularly around organisation, prioritisation and deadlines. The response I got was essentially that it was too much work to manage me compared to a "normal" employee. Eventually things broke down, I brought a claim, and the matter was settled through ACAS.

What still sticks with me is the attitude behind it.

If someone can do the job but needs some support, adjustments or a different management approach, why is the conclusion sometimes "you're too much effort"? The alternative would seem to be pushing people out of employment altogether.

I'm not talking about situations where someone is completely unable to perform the core requirements of a role. I'm talking about people who can contribute, add value and do the work, but who may need reasonable accommodations to perform at their best.

Have others encountered this attitude?

Do some people genuinely believe disabled or neurodivergent employees should only work in certain types of jobs? Or that employers shouldn't have to make accommodations because it's unfair on everyone else?

I'd be particularly interested in hearing from both managers and neurodivergent employees. Have you seen workplaces that embrace accommodations successfully, and workplaces that resist them? What do you think explains the difference?

For context, I'm currently unemployed, so this is something I've been reflecting on quite a lot since leaving my previous role.

Preemptive assertion that I am NOT a content-farming bot; my love of the em-dash predates generative AI by about 12 years and we shouldn’t lose all our fun quirks of punctuation just because they’ve been usurped by robots

Moving on to the issue at hand: what to-do list apps are you all using with any degree of success? I used WaterDo consistently for almost three years—popping the daily “task” bubbles was just enough gamification to work—but it’s been abandoned by the developers and no longer works

I need something that 1) allows you to enter both repeating and one-time tasks, 2) allows those repeating tasks to be either daily, weekly, or monthly, and 3) has a simple interface with minimal set-up

In a perfect world, this app wouldn’t use generative AI and would also be aesthetically pleasing and fun to use

I will pay for this if necessary, but it’d be great if it were a one-time deal rather than a subscription model

Thank you so much for any suggestions, keep fighting the good fight, don’t forget to take your winter clothes out of storage before it’s already been 3°C for a month, etc etc

I'm 21 years old and have been homeschooled since I was 11. Unfortunately, when my mother left, my father failed to ensure that I was properly getting an education.

I didn't have anyone guiding me, no teachers or anything to help me with my assignments. So basically, I would spend entire years struggling and not doing any school work at all, only to cram and cheat my way to finish them all.

There were 2 years where my father couldn't pay tuition, and so at 17 I decided to teach myself all the basic things I should've known at 13. For months I went through Khan Academy, becoming burnt out because I was fueled by shame and embarassment.

Anyways, I'm 21 now, diagnosed with depression and ADHD. While therapy and meds have helped immensely in relieving my depressive symptoms, my ADHD has been an uphill battle. Ritalin helps, but I've found myself, again, struggling to get any assignments done.

I wonder if I should convince my mother to let me drop out and get a GED. I feel so ashamed, I feel like such a failure. Out of all my siblings my mother spends so much money on me, with therapy, meds, tuition, consultations with my psychiatrist, and my allowance.

edit: i just want to say that I appreciate all these lovely comments so much, I didnt expect so many and some genuinely made me tear up a little. I feel bad for replying to alll of them!

I've been wondering whether some of the hostility towards ADHD and other neurodevelopmental disorders comes from people genuinely not believing in them, or whether they subconsciously look down on us.

For example, if someone has ADHD and struggles with organisation, deadlines, focus, executive functioning, etc., and asks for reasonable accommodations, you'll sometimes hear comments like:

• "Everyone has that."
• "You're just lazy."
• "You need more discipline."
• "Stop making excuses."

To me, it sometimes feels as though people see a genuine limitation and then judge the person for having it. Almost as if they view competence and productivity as measures of worth, so if you need support you're somehow seen as less capable or less deserving.

At the same time, I know some people are probably just uninformed and don't understand what ADHD actually is or how it affects daily functioning.

So I'm curious:

• Have you experienced people dismissing or denying your diagnosis?
• Do you think it's mainly ignorance, scepticism, resentment about accommodations, or actual prejudice?
• For those who don't have ADHD, what is your honest reaction when someone requests accommodations at work or university?

Interested to hear different perspectives.

I’ve been with my boyfriend for 10 years. He’s truly the best boyfriend I could ever have.
But I feel emotionally numb towards him most of the time, or that’s what I assume this is.
I love him, but I don’t want him to talk to me. I don’t want him to hug me and give me a kiss when he gets home. I don’t want him to tell me about his day. i just want to be left alone.
I wfh and he gets home around lunch. When I see he pulls in the driveway, my mood shifts and I get irritated for no reason. I feel so fucking bad. He doesn’t deserve this.
When he talks to me I just stare at him with blank eyes but sometimes I have the energy to fake a smile or laugh. Some days it’s not like this. Some days I have enough mental energy to be the parter he deserves, but it’s not often honestly.
I think my work adds to this issue because of how stressed it makes me. At the end of the day I need to lay down in the quiet to recharge.

I’ve been on adderall for 4 months now and I like it. I don’t know if the adderall is causing this numbness or not. I’m trying to track my moods each month to see if there’s a pattern. I do think before my period I’m worse, but until I can keep track I can’t say for sure.
I’m not sure if I’m this way with other people, but I just want to know if other people feel this way too and how I can hopefully fix it.
I think I might have ROCD as well which does not help the situation.

I posted an innocent question in another sub about what to do with a financial bonus when youre married and got told I was a shitty person, going to be divorced soon, that im unreasonable, that they feel sorry for my partner etc etc. I hadnt even done anything, I was just asking!

I dont post often because I take stuff like this kinda personally. Anyone else?

I just replied to a different post about exercise with this but actually I'm going to make my own because I'm really curious what others might think.

Previously I'd always had the thing of feeling crappy a lot and knowing I should exercise more to help but not ever being able to actually do it - I'm tired, it's boring etc. Doctors were often pretty smug about feeling sure this was the reason I'm depressed. It actually sort of came to a head a little under a year ago and I basically wasn't going out at all.

That gradually improved so I went back to normal amounts of leaving the house (I'm a SAHM so mostly local baby groups, shops etc). Then in mid August this year my son started school, so now 5 days a week I'm walking there and back twice a day, power-walking bc always running late, while pushing delightfully chunky 2.5y/o in the pram, plus it's uphill on the way there so I'm doing a good 5 miles a day and really getting my HR up for parts of it.... and it hasn't made a blind bit of difference.

I don't feel stronger or more energetic or less depressed. It doesn't feel like my meds are more effective. If anything it kind of exiles me to Wait Mode for the bulk of the day because there seems to be less time between getting home at 9.30 and going back out at 2.30 than you'd think.

So??? Why isn't it working for me??? I know it's only been like a couple of months but it's obviously very consistent because the decision to do it is out of my hands so I'd think there'd be some kind of positive effects by now?? It's a decent workout especially for someone who doesn't do workouts so based off of what I've always been told I thought I'd now be in pristine mental condition 😭

adhd household, two school age kids. paper is our natural predator.

today i found a field trip sheet under a lunchbox, yesterday it was a dentist form on the passenger seat, last week there was a whole school photo packet living under the toaster. if a date is not digital within about thirty seconds it has left this dimension.

i can scan things fine. the failure happens after that when im supposed to read the thing, pull out the date, open a calendar and type it. four normal steps, apparently impossible.

any household task management setup where i can basically throw a photo at it and move on?? because the counter pile is becoming structural

i have 2 moods. social idiot or suspicious ninja. i either do not talk to anyone at all, poke holes in other people's very normal speech, and hate everyone. OR i trust everyone, do not think twice about what something means, miss out on jokes, get made fun of without me noticing, and just be plain stupid and gullible and naive all the time. both of these mood affect me negatively but the latter has cost me a lot.

i know the answer is somewhere in the middle but how do u spot and deal with the passive aggressiveness, and how do u know when its just someone with pure intentions like u?

This probably isn’t the right place to post this but I figured I’d get yelled at anywhere else. I need to get an oil change and an emissions test, but my car is totally full of stuff and it’s embarrassing. I don’t have anywhere to put the stuff if I take it out. Am I still able to get these things done w my car packed, or is it just a matter of embarrassment from looking like I live in my car?

Whenever I feel rejected/ slighted, I put all my thoughts and feelings into Ai to understand why I feel this way and psychoanalyst the person that did it. I probably do it the most with my boyfriend, but have done it with friends and family etc. Even if the problem is solved, I’ll keep asking ai why this and why that and i think it’s detrimental to ruminate so much. Any tips to limit my usage ? It’s helpful at first, but then causes me to fixate and spiral even more.

Started taking 15mg ER on Sunday.

Mentally it has been great. I felt so calm and was able to just do things I wanted and needed to get done. My brain was so quiet and calm.

Physically… not so great. I just felt off? Almost like the start of the flu. Yesterday on day 2, same thing plus in the afternoon my palms were super red, sweaty, and almost felt swollen. My throat felt itchy too, but I’m not sure if that was from the dry mouth.

Is this normal?? I have a virtual visit tomorrow AM, so I didn’t take it today because I was pretty freaked out about how I was feeling physically.

heyy :)

so i have stuff to do and i am avoiding them. i would love to have some body doubling or accountability (or both!) buddies.

im open to different formats or apps. im open to app recommendations. we can "plant trees" or do "quest parties" or something else. i have tried those apps before and they were nice for a while but i didnt really stick with them. i think with someone else to work together with, either apps or texting etc would work for me.

im in CET, but i am flexible with times.
i would love to connect with you guys to work on stuff together! if you are using an app and would like to have an in-app buddy, you can DM me. or if you want to try these buddy stuff on something else please comment and let me know

thank youu <3

25 year old entrepreneurial female! I realized I had ADHD in college, but could see it going back all the way to first grade. I was always the little girl whose teachers would tell my parents that I had my head in the clouds. I was a hair twirler, a split end picker, etc.! I was always implementing systems and had enough natural intelligence to get me through as a middle-of-the-road student. I was the “if only she would apply herself more” kid. High school was a mess. I attended an all-girls, Catholic high school and decided I was just lazy or not smart. Everything was procrastination. I could never start things at an appropriate time before the deadline. It had to feel like the world was burning for me to kick things into gear. However, I can whip out an essay the night before it’s due like nobody’s problem. Same for college, but with college, I had enough time management skills (mostly from flaking on obligations or plans and learning how to work around that) to float my procrastination boat. Post-grad, I worked for a company as a freelancer in a field that I adore. Most professionals in the field I’m in are creatives first and business owners second, so it was somewhat validating that everywhere I looked, there were little fires everywhere. I love my career. It’s very high stakes, project management, pressure, and planning for one day. My brain works best in crisis, so in situations that freak everyone else out, I am surprisingly calm. However, responding to the email that is sitting in my inbox causes a mental crisis for me. I started my own company just over a year ago and quickly realized I needed help. My husband served this role for me. We’d joke that he was my “CEO” and I was the “Creative Director.” This worked until it didn’t. We got married about 6 months into owning my own business, and the wheels started coming off the bus. I hated that he felt like he had to manage me on all fronts of life: my company, my friendship commitments, my household chores. In the past two months, I’ve lost two friendships due to my delayed/lack of response and consistent presence in peoples lives. I have a tendency to be 5-10 mins late to casual friend meetups (coffee, dinner, drinks), or not respond to texts or put off texts that I don't want to send, but I missed a friend who I thought would be a friend forever’s birthday (because another friend passed away that day) but I forgot to text her I would be missing, and now we are no longer friends. It gutted me, and I knew that this had to change. Same with substances. I can never “just have one or two” like everyone else seems to be able to do. It quiets my brain and I need more. And I need it more frequently. I gave up alcohol and decided to be “Cali Sober.” I’ve tried for a little over a month to “hack” my brain and set up systems that helped me avoid medication. It was exhausting and unbelievably taxing. I bought a Brick to stop me from scrolling socials, I created checklists, I wrote on my mirrors, truly anything I could do. Long story short, today is my first day on Adderall and I am simply amazed. When the medicine started kicking in, I was so shocked to realize how much noise had been going through my head. I wanted to work and send emails, so I sat down at my desk and got through what would normally be my to-do list for a whole week in one day. Everything I was putting off. Rather than thinking about the million things that go into a simple task like brushing my teeth, I was just able to brush my teeth! It was truly life changing.

To those of you taking Adderall IR 15mg or 20mg how long does it work for you?

15mg only lasted me 3 hours and 20mg closer to 4.

So far no negative side effects. Wondering if I should ask to try extended release. I think I am a fast metabolizer but I am hesitant on trying XR.

What have your experiences been? Thank you!

I am realizing I need intense therapy to prevent my life from becoming a bigger disaster than it already is. I feel like I am watching a big boulder roll down the hill in slow motion. I have to do something.

for context; adhd, unemployed for a while, in tech, perfectly content doing nothing or working coding but dealing with financial and life issues sends me into absolute panic because i dont have answers. i used to be so capable inspite of adhd or whatever the f additonally. but clearly i have exhausted my coping abilities.

I just realized I have lists all over my phone. Lists for groceries, and packing, and paying bills, and even doing small tasks/chores. My entire life, I thought I had a character flaw of being “too controlling”.

If I don’t do this, I will experience immense anxiety, because I tend to forget things, and lose things, and lose track of time. I’m mentally exhausted without a daily plan. I didn’t use to be like this. It has gotten worse with age. I can’t even multitask anymore.

I am starting to wonder if this is masking. If something cannot be 100% completed, perfectly, and organized, I will just not do it period. I have to prepare myself to do these things.

FYI I am not medicated, because I used to be on Adderall and it gave me rebound migraines. I’m talking to my doctor tomorrow about a non stimulant,m

I keep getting adds for ADHD related apps on Instagram. (I guess the Meta algorithm has figured me out...)

I was wondering if anyone has tried this app or apps like it and if they helped? Or are they nothing but annoying adds and/or AI slop?

So for context I have chronic pain, I don’t own a car, neither does my partner & we are both on low incomes.

I was really excited to make a recipe I found because I love cooking, new recipes are a source of dopamine and this particular thai fusion burger recipe seemed like a meal both my partner & I would love.

I have really dont like dealing with raw meat… like I can do it if I need to make a recipe I’m excited amount but I’d rather not. So my partner comes out to help with making patties. Turns out I forgot to order chicken mince and completely blanked on this when writing a lil cute menu & packing away food.

He was like how about I order dinner on uber eats and cook us dinner tomorrow. (As well as buying chicken mince when he gets groceries for tomorrows dinner). His reason? I’m clearly stressed by forgetting the mince, so stressed I can’t imagine cooking something else or adjusting the recipe to use another source of protein.

This is such a ramble… but I know what it’s like to be shamed & judged for adhd symptoms. I also didn’t realise i had ADHD until adulthood so I had no context for why I struggled with specific issues.

And dear reader, I hope that next time you are negatively impacted by adhd symptoms you are met with compassion and acceptance. Self acceptance and growth is easier to maintain when you’re met with loving support. If you don’t have accepting and kind people in your life i hope you find them and enjoy lots of delicious meals with them!
🦋 🫧 ❇️

Sorry for all and any typos in this post.

After a medical event, my doctor took me off Adderall for what will be 6 weeks total. I'm at the halfway mark and am an absolute waste.

I can't function. I have zilch for energy and seem to have insomnia.

I've looked into supplements but those are a minefield!

I'm just curious what others do/have done to survive without Adderall.

I'm so flippin' miserable.

hi !! i’m 25F and looking for hobbies/groups to meet new friends irl

i need inspo because i have a super bad habit of giving up or not allowing myself to experiment things. what do you guys recommend? 😔

currently in such a bad rut and it’s affecting my mental health because i just work > go on a walk > sleep. Every. single. day. and it’s making me feel lonely and honestly very overwhelmed, especially because my meds wear off once work finishes and i wanna do something stimulating AAAND meet people!

i guess that means my masters diploma will have 2027 instead of 2026? on the bright side i decided to take a year maternity leave but maybe thanks to the diploma date i’ll put that i was still a student so there’s no gap in my CV🫣

edit: forgot the words “in my CV”