a tumblr classic!
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- you place an overdue library book on the floor in front of the front door. the library book merges seamlessly with the environment. six weeks later, you trip over it on your way out the house to go to the library.
You got the last part wrong. I tripped over it on the way home from the library…
Wait, were you going to the library? I’m sure there was somewhere else you need to go to run errands. Was it the grocery store? Better check the pantry and fridge to see what you need. End up on the couch eating and watching TV for the rest of the day.
you haven’t watched the movie.
I know this is a common experience with ADHD, but somehow I’m the opposite. Visual media makes me hyper focus. As a kid, I was usually the only one still awake at the end of a late night movie. If there’s a tv on and someone is trying to talk to me, it takes a lot of effort to focus on what’s being said to me. I can’t put things on in the background unless it’s just music. Does anyone else experience this?
I don’t to my knowledge have ADHD but if there’s a movie on it’s hard for me to completely ignore it. I memorably had to switch seats at a restaurant once with my partner at the time because I could see some shitty movie playing behind them and it was too distracting
Thats a fairly common aspect of ADHD, hyperfocus on some specific domain. Its like we min/max what we think about.
you check the clock. It’s been five minutes. You check the clock it’s been two days
Omg stop 💀
You check the clock. You check again, because you didn’t actually read the time because you were too absorbed in the process of checking the clock that you forgot to check the clock.
You check the clock again. You have a new email. You consider checking the clock again, but give up and accept your fate because checking the clock a (second? Third? Tenth? First?) time is just too much right now, you’re already running late anyways so it was kind of all procrastinating in the first place. You don’t even know what you were supposed to be checking it for. Just wait and see, it’s probably not that important. Maybe you’ll check the clock and see if it sparks your memory.
You check the clock. You finally see the time. The bus drives past you.
You check again. It has been two years since you didn’t throw out that box beside the door you put there to take to the garbage.
I got diagnosed with ADHD at 40 but up till now I’d just assumed I was a bad lazy person who’s badness at life was the reason for all of my various problems. Stuff like this has me wondering if … perhaps I was not just awful and lazy all the time?
I think you’ll find that awful or lazy was never true, and the potential was always there buried deep. You just didn’t have the right tools.
A lot of these are fairly common experiences, though, right? Or do I have undiagnosed ADHD?
The Fun part of ADHD is there’s nothing unique to ADHD. Being overwhelmed with anxiety doesn’t mean you have anxiety disorder. It’s when you have frequent overwhelming anxiety and it’s interfering with your life.
Having a tendency to put things down and lose them doesn’t mean you have ADHD. Constantly having to find that screwdriver that was just in your hand and realizing that desk has been half complete for six months because you keep spending thirty seconds looking for it before getting distracted by other tasks? That’s ADHD. Unless it’s focus issues rooted in something else. Like anxiety or depression, which can cause ADHD like symptoms. But also ADHD can cause anxiety and depression, or be comorbid.
That said, you are here voluntarily on an ADHD community finding common ground with an ADHD meme. If you’ve wondered specifically about ADHD or more broadly felt there’s something different about you’ve just never been able to put your finger on - this is your sign. My advice is to find a psychiatrist who really understand it, dig as deep as you can for hard evidence that you have or don’t have it, and keep an open mind to alternative explanations. A diagnosis of “no you don’t have ADHD” is also important information.
