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I think I am going to discuss ADHD with my GP in the New Year. 2-3 months ago I was frustrated with losing interest in something and googled "why can't I stick to a hobby?" and the first result was about ADHD, then reading on from there things really began to strike a chord with me. My biggest concern right now is around work. I honestly feel like I waste half my time at work and eventually it'll catch up to me. I have a good job but day-to-day there is very little accountability to anyone which is a real problem area for me. My main reportable deadlines are every couple of months and the work for those can be done in a couple of days, so it's done the couple of days before it's due and I probably work at a level I feel like I should be doing all the time. The rest of the time I will open a file and in the time it's taken to load I've switched to the browser I have open and fired up a new tab and go round the various forums I read, or I've picked up my phone and gone on Twitter/Facebook etc. I honestly feel like I could be (and should be) offering work so much more but I can't seem to do anything. I have loads of big projects I am trying to implement but they seem insurmountable most of the time, or they have a lot of tedious work to do initially and it takes such a long time for me to do. The issues at work are a reflection of how I've been going back as far as I can remember - where I have accountability only to myself I never put in the work needed. I was always fairly bright so through primary school and the first few years of secondary school I was near the top of class just on general ability. As the work needed outside of class increased my grades deteriorated. At GCSE I got 3 A's, 5 B's, a C & a D. My parents response to that was basically "you could have done better", which probably sounds harsh given they're a reasonable set of results seen in a vacuum, but they were right, I could have done better. A-Levels followed a similar pattern, I got D's in my main subjects. Somehow still got into my uni course with these results (It was before things got as competitive as they are now). University was even worse. I passed a resit exam in my first year when the exam was cancelled half an hour into a two hour exam due to a bomb scare - I'd literally answered everything I knew how to do by that point but the examiners decided if I'd had the full time I'd have answered enough to pass (I wouldn't). I ended up switching course from Astrophysics to History because it required less rote learning and essentially it was much more rewriting existing information. Most of my dissertation was done in the 36 hours before the deadline. I ended up passing with a 2:2 but I just looked at how much time my now wife put in to her studies and think about what I could have achieved with that level of work. I had 2 week spells where I didn't go to a single lecture. Somehow from there I got a job as a trainee accountant in a small accountancy firm. This type of work seems to suit me quite well, there are budgeted amounts of hours to stick to, you are regularly getting work reviewed and have accountability around that, along with regular deadlines. I have always been good with numbers too which helps. I didn't do particularly well with my exams again, failed a couple. A big firm would have got rid after failing one so I was lucky there (as I was with pretty much everything up to that point). The less said about my desk at work or my organisation at home the better. I desperately want to be organised but it just never happens. I will eventually get so fed up with the state of something that I will spend hours sorting a thing out, but probably only get 90% done then it just descends back how it was and the cycle repeats. Having a wife who doesn't seem that bothered about clutter and two young children really doesn't help - it gets increasingly frustrating to me as things get more messy but I can't ever stop it getting that way even if I do sort it out. I often find myself looking at my phone whilst in conversation with people, sometimes even in meetings at work, which I know is bad but again I can't seem to help myself. I guess I just wanted to vent a bit with my post. I feel like I'm just going to get told I'm just lazy or something and to be more organised, but I can't say how many different organising/self help systems I've tried and forgot to do after about a week. Even stupid stuff like remembering to do stretches as I have some issues with muscle tightness is a challenge. I just about remember if I am in pain but when I'm pain free it is literally out of my mind until I'm somewhere I can't do them (usually driving or in the shower). It's so frustrating.
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Dec 26, 2019 22:39
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Chazani posted:Your experiences sound very similar to mine when it comes to work and studies ( also hobbies, but I do not want to talk about the money I have wasted on those, I am not yet ready for that.) It is definitely worth talking about it with your GP. Thank you. I also have the same issue with money spent on hobbies and gadgets (The other day I picked up my iPad that is only a year old but generally gathers dust, it said my screen time was up 8,117% for an average of 4 minutes per day!). I think things have gotten worse in the last year especially. We moved house 12 months ago and with it being a new build there were various snags that needed sorting, I'll go 2-3 months at a time before I get round to chasing them up. Our youngest daughter started school but is in a different one to our eldest, so we are now having to juggle collections with a couple of other parents, plus after school activities for both of them and I am just in perpetual worry that it'll be me that should be fetching them from somewhere and they'll be left uncollected. Work is my bigger concern. Although I technically have a boss to be accountable to we really operate as a team and I am left to my own stuff. The two-monthly reporting reminds me I have some things I need to chase up but I am busy doing the reports and then it falls off the radar again. I now just worry constantly that it's going to catch up to me eventually. We have also talked a bit about me doing some more qualifications, possibly an MBA, but I don't want the company to spend that money if I know I'm not going to put the work in. The feeling of underachieving definitely strikes a chord with me. I saw a counsellor through work this year and described these feelings and they pointed out I was doing well, which from the outside I am, and I am lucky to be where I am, but I know I can offer more, and I just want to be more productive at home and at work.
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Dec 27, 2019 13:06
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knox_harrington posted:Hi, Posh Phil. Your experience is really similar to my own and I just want to offer some support. Firstly your "should have done better" attitude to your grades is really unfair to yourself and I went through the same thing; if you weren't swimming against the tide you would probably have got better grades, but your brain literally wouldn't let you get started. People told me for several decades that I was lazy but in reality that wasn't true. Thank you for the support. I am booked in at the Doctor's Tuesday morning so hopefully that's the start of something! From a work perspective I have a staff member I manage who for me is amazing - they just get things done, and have to be honest taken over some things that I probably should be doing. I'd be struggling worse without them. I have a lot of things that aren't critical, I don't really need to report on, but in longer timescales are important to sort. But I never have the deadline pressure that I need. In my last job I ended up going so far as to edit the HOSTS file in windows to block various websites I didn't need to go on. Now I have a pomodoro timer that blocks access, but I never quite remember to start them...
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Jan 5, 2020 15:26
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Had my doctor's appointment today, ran through what was affecting me (felt like I was just a constant stream of words for a few minutes!). He is referring me over to the assesment team in our area so that's good. He said the waitlist is quite long (he thought it was around 8 months last time he checked). I will wait for the letter and see from there. I could probably get a private assessment if it was going to be a while (but I've gone 35 years so far so what's a few months more!) No difficult questions, no scepticism. Was pleased with the outcome as I'd read of some people having difficulty getting referred.
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Jan 7, 2020 11:59
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A further follow up. Had an initial call with the assessment service at the hospital. They are referring me for assessment, so that's good. I asked how long the waiting list was. She said from now until the final outcome is currently about 3 years. She was going to write to me so I will see what that says and then decide whether to explore the private route. I could get an assessment by the end of the month going privately, but it's the costs of follow up stuff that I'm not too sure about at the moment.
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Feb 7, 2020 14:52
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