Lived Experience Forum

[Awkward_Turtle1]

Hi all. I am new and have never posted in a forum before. I am a young adult with ADHD inattentive type and significant anxiety and depression. I have had regular psychology and psychiatrist input for a few years now and feel I have a good medication plan, yet adulthood continues to be gruelling. 

Throughout my life I have always felt behind my peers and slow to learn or that I always need to put in excessive effort to keep afloat. I am an allied health professional but continue to struggle to keep up with work expectations and fear the stigma within the industry. I also have a lot of challenges managing basic life skills to maintain the home with my partner (e.g. cooking, cleaning, laundry). I have friends but still seem to have trouble maintaining deep connections and feel like I don’t truely belong. 

After years of masking and overcompensating to try to meet societal expectations, strong burnout has occurred. I am planning to explore a cognitive/adaptive behaviour assessment to help figure out new approaches I can try for recover; however, feel very lost and defeated at the moment.

I wanted to reach out to see if anyone else has had relatable experiences and could offer things that have helped them to remain hopeful in navigating adulthood. 

[Peregrinefalcon]

Hey @Awkward_Turtle1 (love the name) 

Welcome! Thank you for sharing your story. I do not have ADHD myself but some of the best people I know do. From what I have learned from them, it is all too common to feel burnt out by trying to keep up with societal expectations - the 'masking' that you mention. 

It is great that you are keen to explore what else is out there. While not trying to put them on the spot, @Jynx has some wonderful insights to the ADHD life. 

I am conscious not to overstep on a topic I do not have personal experience in, so I hope others with that lived-experience perspective can speak up here too 😊

You have taken and are continuing to take some super important steps. I hope we can support you along the way 💛

[Awkward_Turtle1]

Thank you @Peregrinefalcon 💛☺️ It helps to know I am not alone and I look forward to learning more from this community. 

[NatureLover]

Hi @Awkward_Turtle1 , I like your username! I wanted to write and welcome you, it's good to have you here.

Gosh you write well! It was a pleasure to read, despite the content. 

I can relate to the significant anxiety, depression and burnout. Burnout really sucks. I can also relate to struggling with basic life skills like cooking and cleaning. I'm 51 so I don't know that I have any life skills that will help, I'm afraid. I do know that having a helpful, non-judgmental friend to help me with cleaning up the house and my hoard (I have Hoarding Disorder) really helps me. 

I hope you will find that the connections you find here on the forums help you with feeling like you belong. People here understand. 

An important forum tip is if you type @ and then click on a name in the drop-down box, that person will get a notification and won't miss your reply.
 
I hope you find the forums supportive...

[Awkward_Turtle1]

@NatureLover Thank you for the kind words and helping me navigate the forums! It is great to hear you have a supportive friend and I am relieved I have found this network ♥️

[Jynx]

Thanks for the tag @Peregrinefalcon 😊

Hey @Awkward_Turtle1 nice to meet ya. Honestly I can relate all too well to what you're experiencing - always having to put in 10x the effort to just keep head above water. 

I think one thing that has helped me a lot once I got diagnosed, is to use the new understanding of how my brain works to find different ways of meeting my needs. So like at work for instance if I have a meeting and find out I have actions to do as a result, I'll make sure I get that in writing because I don't process auditory information all that well and will 100% forget it otherwise. I have to make sure I take frequent little breaks to stretch and move around because of how restless I feel all the time. 

Sounds like at your workplace you don't feel safe to be open about your ADHD, and that is really rough. Such a terrible thing that there's still so much stigma even in the health industry. Do you think it would help if you were to ask for some of your needs to be better met, even without disclosing the reasons why? Maybe have a think about any small changes that could potentially take some of the pressure off, cos the things that wear away at us can be  cumulative in how they impact our overall ability to cope. 

Regarding relationships, I've found that for myself, it is always way easier to connect and feel a sense of belonging when I'm with other neurodivergent folks. That sense of alienation is so real, especially when we also have to manage feelings of RSD along the way. Finding other ND folks means we get to unmask and can be our more authentic selves. I'm not entirely sure how to go about finding those connections, other than maybe finding some online groups on facebook/reddit/etc., but also sometimes engaging in hobbies/activities you enjoy can be a good place to start. 

I hope you find some community and acceptance here, and I'm always happy to chat/answer questions/talk about my own experiences, just tag me 😊

[Awkward_Turtle1]

Hey @Jynx 👋🏼 Thank you for the awesome ideas ! I am sorry for a delayed response, life has been chaotic at the moment. 

I have never looked into auditory processing or RSD but think it will be useful after having a skim read on stuff about them. 

I am starting at a new workplace soon and have been very open from the beginning but I think focusing on the small changes will be better rather than becoming overwhelmed by the whole picture.

I don’t have many ND friends but hope once I get the confidence to try more hobbies this could happen. 

I hope you are going well at the moment 🙂