My Struggles With ADHD as an Adult

February 6, 2021

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I made a blog post about my struggle with autism. I want to talk about my struggles with ADHD. I will cover the ways ADHD complicates my everyday life. This has made my life at school hard and adult life is even harder. You can say I have both autism and ADHD. You can have both ADHD and Autism in most cases. Sometimes I will confuse traits associated with ADHD and put it in the autism category.

A Little Backstory

I found out that I had ADHD when I was little. It was hard because the schools I attended did not have the proper training to deal with a special needs person. I went to a Catholic school and the staff did not have training. My mom and I had to move because she knows the schools in the burbs were better for me.

The Url on the image is my old one when I used Blogger.

Remembering Things Is A Struggle

This is a huge struggle of mine. I give up explaining it to my grandma because she is going to say I am making excuses or blame me using my phone or computer. I think my grandma just says this due to a lack of understanding or thinking I am ‘too young’ to forget so quickly. You can tell me something and I will forget moments later. Think of it as a door, a person without ADHD, when they get information, the door will close so they can process the information that was given. However, a person with ADHD, the door will not close and the info will keep flowing and the person cannot process it. This will be a problem on a job if the boss gives me a task and I forget about it after a while.

Losing Things

I have lost count on how many earrings, gloves, socks that I have lost. My mom even said she is tired of buying me things that I wind up losing. I also struggle with remembering where I put the item. I can have a shirt, and put that shirt somewhere, and I will forget where I put it days later. Then my mom will ask for the shirt and I have to search my room until I find it. I just struggle to keep up with my stuff.

Sleeping

An ADHD/ADD brain is always racing, this can cause some insomnia in a person with ADD/ADHD. Like when I was in school, the night before I had school, I had trouble falling asleep. Most of the time, I have to take something to help me sleep if I need to go somewhere the night before. I had this problem in school because I stayed up later on the weekends and when I had Mondays off from school.

I basically have the same issues that I have with autism

ADHD and autism have very alike traits. They’re like next-door neighbors. This is why so many people go undiagnosed with autism. I have a ton of issues with my brain moving fast. When I am washing dishes, my grandma finds spots that I missed all the time.
In the 4th grade, my mom’s boyfriend at the time contemplated punishing me for missing spots washing dishes. ADHD minds are fast. It has nothing to do with ‘being in a hurry to watch TV’ because that was a common conclusion my mom drew.
Sometimes I’m restless. My mom’s ex-boyfriend made note of this. Sometimes he made me go to bed early to keep me from walking back and forth. Gotta love being punished for something you can’t control.

If my mom’s bf had learned more about ADHD, he would not have to punish me for something I cannot control. Sometimes I cannot control it, but my mom expected me to just because she can. Please, stop expecting people to control their stuff just because you have the same thing. It’s sad we normalized shaming people; coming down on them for not being born with the same capabilities.

It’s a real struggle. Another common thing in ADHD/autism brains is that it takes them longer to process/understand what they are being told. My mom takes it as ‘not listening’ and you have to ‘listen to understand.’ Caption obvious, do you not understand the difference between ADHD brains and NT brains? ADHD/autism brains take longer to process speech than a NT brain. If they missed something or need clarity on what you told them, they may ask again. At least I feel my mom applies NT standards to me when I am not Neurotypical. My mom starts to lose her patience when I keep asking. This is why I cannot work a job. If my mom loses her patience after asking for clarity 2 times, imagine on a job how annoyed they will get. At least doing YT or blogging, I can look up detailed blog posts or videos for whatever I need help with. I can get the help I need. I just need to learn how I can, not how I am expected to learn.

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