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I know a lot of people on this forum probably don't have ADHD, but if this helps just ONE person who does, then this post is a success in my eyes.
Since my last post in late August I have had a lot going on in my life. Lots of self discovery, moments of clarity, moments of sadness, and hope. I started a Master's program that required me to move to a new city on one end of the US. I made new friends, gained knowledge in several fields (engineering, biology, regulatory), and failed a lot in my program.
My biggest success, however, was discovering the extent my ADHD plays with my mind and prevents me from reaching my goals. I had quit medicating myself for ADHD back in 2019 but only now started to recognize how deep the condition runs amok in my brain since I hadn't needed to develop coping mechanisms while on medication.
I learned about rejection sensitivity dysphoria, emotional dysregulation, anxiety, depression and how my brain's need for stimulation ties all those aspects together to make me fear failure, desire success, never make any progress towards that success, and subsequently beat myself up about it and feel stupid and worthless. This is probably the biggest revelation that explained a lot of my major life events in school and socially.
So what am I doing about it, and if you're someone on this forum with ADHD, how can you beat this condition and weaponize it to become awesome?
1. Know you are not alone: Having goals but a brain that never wants to reach them is a special kind of hell. It's helped me knowing there are people in my life that are willing to help me achieve my goals even when all my brain wants to do is watch YouTube for more dopamine. Find people that you trust and open up to them about your struggles. Find people that will be your support and success network, the ones who will help you regardless of how shitty you feel about yourself or how stuck you seem. This is the first step.
2. Name your demons: ADHD is not a lack of attention. It's hyper-focus on something you find interesting to the point you lose track of time. It's emotional dysregulation to where you feel more than the average person. It's time blindness to where what felt like a 5 minute task actually took you 25 minutes. It's memory dysregulation, to where you can remember interesting facts about an obscure topic but not the name of someone who you met 5 minutes ago. It's all these things and more, and it's unique to each person with ADHD. You aren't struggling because your "broken", you're struggling because ADHD has a lot of demons that wreak havoc on your brain. But you can overcome them, and knowing how your ADHD manifests is the second step to beating it. ADDitude.com has a lot of good resources for the ADHD mind and it's symptoms.
3. Exercise, dammit! Exercise has been proven to reduce ADHD symptoms. I've learned that running for 30 minutes a day is enough for me to stave off my distractible brain for 4-5 hours. Exercise for at least 30 mins, long enough to get endorphins and dopamine flowing into your head to stave off your ADHD symptoms.
4. Routines, Routines, Routines: Automate and systematize everything you do, make habits where possible. This makes it so your brain doesn't get distracted doing basic things and you waste 45 minutes on Reddit in the morning when you should have already been showered, dressed and had breakfast (yes, I'm guilty of this). Read Atomic Habits by James Clear for help on developing better habits.
5. Condition yourself for failure: Life is all about failing, getting back up, and trying again. ADHD makes is so you only stay in your comfortable bubble because we experience failure, rejection, and emotions differently. We need to de-condition our brains to think that failure should be avoided. I like doing this by asking something completely outrageous of someone each day, knowing it's going to fail and knowing I'm gonna look stupid for it. It has helped me become more accustomed to the feelings surrounding failure and has put me on a path to be a better steward of my mind.
6. Baby steps: On this journey to over come the hurdles of ADHD, you will mess up. You'll forget to exercise. You'll break routine. You'll beat yourself up over not getting to your goals and thinking it's pointless to try. That is okay. The beauty of life is that it's not over when you stumble. The trick is that when you stumble, you just need to take smaller steps. ADHD loves to rev your brain up to go fast! Hyperfocus! Go go go! This isn't gonna last forever! The trick is to work away from that speed and go slower. When all that mental energy is put into a slow, methodical plan for progress, that is where the growth begins to show.
This is just a small list of the tenets I am following to reach my goals. It's not going to be easy, but I know I will make it, given enough effort. And for those reading this with ADHD, I know you can to.
Since my last post in late August I have had a lot going on in my life. Lots of self discovery, moments of clarity, moments of sadness, and hope. I started a Master's program that required me to move to a new city on one end of the US. I made new friends, gained knowledge in several fields (engineering, biology, regulatory), and failed a lot in my program.
My biggest success, however, was discovering the extent my ADHD plays with my mind and prevents me from reaching my goals. I had quit medicating myself for ADHD back in 2019 but only now started to recognize how deep the condition runs amok in my brain since I hadn't needed to develop coping mechanisms while on medication.
I learned about rejection sensitivity dysphoria, emotional dysregulation, anxiety, depression and how my brain's need for stimulation ties all those aspects together to make me fear failure, desire success, never make any progress towards that success, and subsequently beat myself up about it and feel stupid and worthless. This is probably the biggest revelation that explained a lot of my major life events in school and socially.
So what am I doing about it, and if you're someone on this forum with ADHD, how can you beat this condition and weaponize it to become awesome?
1. Know you are not alone: Having goals but a brain that never wants to reach them is a special kind of hell. It's helped me knowing there are people in my life that are willing to help me achieve my goals even when all my brain wants to do is watch YouTube for more dopamine. Find people that you trust and open up to them about your struggles. Find people that will be your support and success network, the ones who will help you regardless of how shitty you feel about yourself or how stuck you seem. This is the first step.
2. Name your demons: ADHD is not a lack of attention. It's hyper-focus on something you find interesting to the point you lose track of time. It's emotional dysregulation to where you feel more than the average person. It's time blindness to where what felt like a 5 minute task actually took you 25 minutes. It's memory dysregulation, to where you can remember interesting facts about an obscure topic but not the name of someone who you met 5 minutes ago. It's all these things and more, and it's unique to each person with ADHD. You aren't struggling because your "broken", you're struggling because ADHD has a lot of demons that wreak havoc on your brain. But you can overcome them, and knowing how your ADHD manifests is the second step to beating it. ADDitude.com has a lot of good resources for the ADHD mind and it's symptoms.
3. Exercise, dammit! Exercise has been proven to reduce ADHD symptoms. I've learned that running for 30 minutes a day is enough for me to stave off my distractible brain for 4-5 hours. Exercise for at least 30 mins, long enough to get endorphins and dopamine flowing into your head to stave off your ADHD symptoms.
4. Routines, Routines, Routines: Automate and systematize everything you do, make habits where possible. This makes it so your brain doesn't get distracted doing basic things and you waste 45 minutes on Reddit in the morning when you should have already been showered, dressed and had breakfast (yes, I'm guilty of this). Read Atomic Habits by James Clear for help on developing better habits.
5. Condition yourself for failure: Life is all about failing, getting back up, and trying again. ADHD makes is so you only stay in your comfortable bubble because we experience failure, rejection, and emotions differently. We need to de-condition our brains to think that failure should be avoided. I like doing this by asking something completely outrageous of someone each day, knowing it's going to fail and knowing I'm gonna look stupid for it. It has helped me become more accustomed to the feelings surrounding failure and has put me on a path to be a better steward of my mind.
6. Baby steps: On this journey to over come the hurdles of ADHD, you will mess up. You'll forget to exercise. You'll break routine. You'll beat yourself up over not getting to your goals and thinking it's pointless to try. That is okay. The beauty of life is that it's not over when you stumble. The trick is that when you stumble, you just need to take smaller steps. ADHD loves to rev your brain up to go fast! Hyperfocus! Go go go! This isn't gonna last forever! The trick is to work away from that speed and go slower. When all that mental energy is put into a slow, methodical plan for progress, that is where the growth begins to show.
This is just a small list of the tenets I am following to reach my goals. It's not going to be easy, but I know I will make it, given enough effort. And for those reading this with ADHD, I know you can to.
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