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ADHD or just bad habits?
(lemm.ee)
Hi everyone,
I’ve been told by others with ADHD that they think I have it. But I sometimes wonder if it’s not just bad habits / low willpower / low discipline / the internet and it’s short and fast instant gratification.
I have been to a psychiatrist and he said it sounds like I might have ADD/ADHD/something. (I don’t know the exact differences, as I’m new to it.)
Here are some issues (symptoms?) that I struggle with:
- Easily distracted.
- Easily overwhelmed / overstimulated by smells, noise / textures.
- Items in no. 2 make it hard to focus / work
- Mind is almost always running at 100km/hr.
- Been told I’m very random and my thoughts are very much so.
- Feels like a machine of thoughts are going off all the time in my head.
- Hard to relax / shut down.
- Can’t listen to music with any lyrics, gets stuck on repeat in my head for days and wake up at night with the song playing like a recording.
- Always extreme one way or the other, struggle with balance.
- Often jittery, tapping my feet, drumming with my hands on my lap.
- Jaw gets sore from clenching it all the time, even at night.
- Can’t listen to music for longer than 3 songs, and can only be instrumental / ambient.
- White noise is best, but makes me sleepy.
- Can’t listen to the radio or podcasts when walking or driving. Always want silence.
- Get worked up quickly, always an underlying tension in my mind and body.
- Can only spend time in small groups with very close people. Otherwise I want to crawl into a dark hole.
- Our town is too big, not even a city, want to live in the country. All the details and sound and litter and people and visuals drive me up the wall.
- I notice EVERYTHING.
- I can’t sit still for very long.
- I can get lost for hours researching a tooic IF I’m interested in it.
- Procrastination level is “over 9000.”
- Takes a LOT to get me to even START doing something I’m not interested in.
- Crap, I think this list is just going to keep going, so I’m just going to submit it now…
The "bad habits" are caused by ADHD which gives low motivation
Also some of the stuff here looks like ASD (such as not liking going with too many people, overstimulation, wanting to live in the country)
Based on your description the ADHD part is basically without a doubt, you can look up autism resources on YouTube, there are quite a few interesting channels
I don't disagree, those kinda things (stimulation, people) can be issues for ASD, but I think they can also be ADHD issues. I love people and am very sociable, but because i struggle to talk about things "normally" and get bored easily I really prefer small groups of close friends.
I'd happily hang out with my close friends pretty much all the time, especially if it was just two or three of us. But if its a big group, I get easily bored and end up interrupting / dominating the conversation, or I just switch off and play on my phone, or just leave.
Even if when I'm having fun in a big group, I will involuntarily start eavesdropping on another conversation that's happening in the group and stop being able to focus on what the person I'm talking to is saying. If its a fun drunken party, it can be okay to shout across the room to join another conversation, but it's often very rude, especially to the person right in front of me that is telling me something and I've just started to blank... So small groups are easier.
Similarly, I love the busyness and novelty of the city, but since moving to the countryside with my partner, I realise how much background noises and stuff happening was really distracting me and making it harder to be focused and relaxed. So now, I do prefer the country.
Tldr: if you have problems with attention, that can impact social interactions, and how you react to stimulation. This leads to similar behaviour as someone with ASD, but for different reasons.
The whole reason I'm subscribed here is because so many of my ASD things are also ADHD related even though I don't have that particular disorder. I would never get a diagnosis of ADHD because I don't have enough of the required symptoms. There are only 2 criteria I don't meet out of the ASD list.
Thanks so much, will have a look. Just so careful nowadays with so many self-diagnosed people labelling themselves as ADHD / autistic / AuDHD (new??) and wearing it like a badge or personality upgrade. I don’t want the labels or anything, just find the source of my problems. :-(
Yeah I get your point of view, I'm diagnosed for ADHD and my psychiatrist told me I might be asperger, and after looking into it both those things basically explain everything I do, and I'm understanding more of my behavior almost everyday since.
I also think it's not necessarily bad to wear it as a badge, as it can be a big part of who you are (just like many other minorities which are very vocal about it) and it normalizes the fact of talking about it and shows what autistic people might look like, which can be far from the stereotype.
I hope you can find the answers you're looking for, whether it's in those topics or something completely different, it just feels great when you finally understand why you're a bit weird and discover that the way others think is just so far from how you think, it's a good tool and very validating :)
EDIT: just to add on AuDHD, over the years we are discovering that there is a huge overlap between Autism and ADHD, but the symptoms of those conditions can mask each other which leads to a late or no diagnosis. On my end I can really see how ADHD makes me comfortable to start talking to a stranger while they don't see that I'm doing a lot of the interaction in "manual" mode, very self consciously. On the other hand, autism makes me enjoy being calm and chilling which hides the hyperactivity... It's... interesting. There are much less resources on that but the few ones I found really really match my experience.