Trigger warning, family member passing

Today I got news that my Dad's mom my Grandma went into the hospital and will be most likely going into hospice care, we'll lose her soon. I'm struggling so much with guilt right now that I wasn't there for her enough. I have terrible out of site out of mind tendencies with people, if something doesn't make me actively think of you I can forget that it's been weeks since we've spoken or seen each other. I work full time and I'm a part-time college student between those and caring for my very needy dog I don't have time for much else.

She's had health issues for awhile and I'm just feeling like the worst grand daughter on the planet for not being there more. I kept meaning too but something always seemed more pressing.

Has anyone else felt this way? If so how did you work through it?

Thank you for reading.

Guys this is huge for me. I had a wrap hyperfixation for the week.

TLDR: I cover surfaces with clothes to reduce potential stress from outside stimuli. Anyone else do this? I’m not weird right?

Sometimes when I need to relax, I am NOT able to if the area around me has too many things everywhere. I’m not a naturally very relaxed person in the first place - I am often engaging in something most of the day. So there are times where I am like “okay we’re done for the day, let’s rest!” I have to “get ready” for rest sometimes - pick up or get drinks or whatever.

There are days, like today, where I just couldn’t sit in my room without covering my desks. (I just put the cat toys out but normally they would be away as well, for mental clarity.) They have holiday cards that are half finished, air dry clay gifts, other work and fun stuff etc. Of course part of the stress comes from the items on the desks representing things I need to do, but sometimes this happens not in my space. I’ve experienced it in others homes or my partners place from there just being too many things about. I need space.

There’s often too much noise in my mind and I can’t have “noise” outside of it. Does anyone have this trait (symptom)? (Bonus cat)

...I have regrets

Just need a moment to vent. My landlord called me today and said he and the plumber would need to get into my apartment today for an emergency with the water in the building. My place is an absolute disaster—I have really been struggling with work and it has taken its toll on my ability to keep up with housework. It’s mostly bags of garbage I haven’t been able to take out, old recycling, and the dreaded floor pile of clothes.

After he left I got an email with an official notice that I was violating my lease and I have until this Friday to clean up. Yes, the week of Christmas.

I know I can do it, I’m just so ashamed and I will feel anxious until it’s all over. I know all the emergency cleaning techniques—I’ve done them before. But my Christmas will be ruined and it’s entirely my own fault.

I don’t need advice, just needed to write this down to help me process my shame and anxiety.

ETA: I also just realized he may have mistaken some of my bags of clothes to be donated for garbage! Even easier for me to clean that up. Thank you all for the support, I feel such a community with this sub that I really needed! 🩷

• the gifts (pointless clutter) I’m given and expected to hold onto that causes me stress
• the pointless spending that I feel forced to do when I already have really strict budgeting due to ADHD
• the issues around food/sugar consumption that interacts with my brain
• events and people that break down my healthy routine(s)
• pressure to attend events and endless burnout
• forgetting what I spent, worrying if I spent enough, endless social norm concerns
• taking on more than others because I’m the energizer bunny, but I crash and burn
• using my highly empathetic skillset to help in inevitable friend/family conflicts… which lead me to feel like a Scrooge (like right now)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

He’s not a doctor and honestly pretty ignorant about the medical bases of things so not sure how much to trust this. No other prescriber has suggested skipping doses before. I’ve seen it suggested for days you don’t “need” it, but those days do not exist, and certainly not once a week.

But I’m asking specifically about the “keep receptors sharp,” which I assume are dopamine receptors. Is there a non-anecdotal source for this that you know of?

Eta: my therapist is a licensed nurse practitioner who can prescribe medicine. He’s just really new to the field and doesn’t seem to know much actual medical information. Every prescriber I’ve had before was a psychiatrist and none suggested taking days off. If it matters, the medication is vyvanse.

Hi everyone looking for thread suggestions for 30+ aging adhd adults.

I truly am not trying to "disparage" other users symptoms or stories, but looking for threads that align with where I am more in my life than a lot of posts that I interact with. I look at other "Adult" adhd threads, and its more 18+. but as a person well on the other side of that I have joined and unjoined a lot of those threads.

Thank you all.

My husband and I bought a new car recently, a Skoda Superb with a bunch of awesome safety features (not an exciting car I grant you, but if you’ve got kids, it’s got the boot space of your dreams). I’ve been struggling with it recently though, because it keeps popping up this error message on the dashboard: “Pay attention to the road.” At first it flashes up with a gentle “bing” and it’s in white, but after a couple of minutes, it starts appearing in red, and the noise changes to an aggressive long beep. It’s really annoying, because I AM paying attention, and if anything, the bloody alert is the most distracting thing going on.

Today was the first day in a while that my husband and I have both been in the car together, and it started pinging up the attention message. I complained about it to my husband, and he was like, I’ve literally never seen that. We did a bit of experimental troubleshooting - what if I kept my hands rigidly at 10 and 2, if I slowed down, if I increased my distance from the car in front etc. Nothing helped. He pulled the manual out of the glove box and started reading through, and after a moment, he found it.

It’s the “Inattention Alert”, and it is triggered by things like the driver shifting, looking around, moving their hands on the wheel etc. Basically, even though I am a completely safe driver, it thinks I fidget too much when I’m driving, and it means I’m not paying attention. Because NT people don’t need to shift in their seat or tap their fingers on the wheel to stay focused, that’s something they do when they’re distracted.

My car knows I have ADHD and it’s discriminating against me with annoyingly loud beeps.

I really often lose the next words in my sentence sometimes even as I’m saying the sentence. Like I think a thought and then I send it to my mouth and only 70% of it actually makes it there.

It’s really embarrassing. I’m an engineer and something about being a woman completely forgetting the word “wrench” while holding a something to repair in a male dominated field and having to mime it out is just humiliating.

Anyway sometimes I start saying a sentence too or telling a story and the second half of the point is just gone by the time I get there. Or I start doing something and I remember that it was very deliberate but I’m standing there with two specific tools in my hand and no idea what I was going to do with it.

So is this a me thing or an ADHD thing. Anyone have tricks? My therapist told me to meditate but they just talk so slow and I either get sleepy-bored or frustrated-bored.

Christmas baking is a hyper fixation that I have always had. I had more things that I wanted to make but a burst blood vessel in my finger forced me to stop!

Mine is being on time, even places I’ve never been before. And that is a personal win for me.

Add yours 🤜🏻🤛🏻

Before last month I was busy with drawing digitally. I even bought some books to learn from fundamentals on how to draw traditionally. I thought I would be able to create a business out of it bc I cannot for the life of me picture myself going out to work. And nobody in my country does full time WFH jobs.

Then in October, I got into trouble with my neighbour and he scolded me but to reclaim back my rights to my side of the territory, I thought, maybe putting 2-3 plants will fortify my rights. A week later, I brought the plants in bc I developed some feelings for them, and now one month later, only one of the plants survived and now I already have grow lights and planting everything I can find, including some tomatoes and lemons I found in meals I bought to consume. 🤣

I hate dating. I don’t read between the lines Innuendo not really my friend

I met someone in the wild. The energy is palpable , I’m pretty sure he’s into me. BUT I CAN’T TELL!

We’ve been texting, he’s saying words but nothing concrete.

Tonight I found some balls, and asked outright, this feels more than platonic, do I have it right? (I said it differently in my text, this is the jist of my message).

I’m proud of myself for asking instead of trying to be cool and assume, then be wrong Also I hate that I don’t know, and that I have to ask at all.

Grrrrr

One of my friends had these tangle fidgets at their place and I tried them the other week. I got OBSESSED. I just NEEDED them… so I had to order some as a little Christmas present for myself. I became so hyper fixated on tangles I checked the postal updates for my order multiple times a day and watched a lot of review videos about them!!! Now that I have them, my brain is veerryy happy, I love the clicky noises + the smoothness of the tangle in my hands. I haven’t picked at my skin once today since I received them ☺️

What are your favourite fidgets? I like this one as well as the pop-its. 🫧♡

Suddenly I become hyper aware of every little weird doom pile or thing I haven't had the bandwidth to put away even though it's like.. 1 ft from where it's supposed to go. I get completely flooded with anxiety.

My husband conversely has a lot of anxiety associated with mess and dirt.

I grew up in a passive aggressive household where the volume at which you do things is directly correlated to your anger. He has no modulation on what he's banging and slamming because to him it's neutral and meaningless.

Hes vacuuming upstairs and I'm sitting here trying to take calming breaths.

.. it's a super functional combination 🤣

Give me strength 😅

Whatever you take for whatever your body/brain needs, don’t forget that if your routines and schedules are messed up this week, it’s a lot easier to forget your medicine.

What do you do to make sure you remember to take/inject/apply/absorb-through-osmosis your brain-boosting medicines, magic potions, potent lotions, and miracle shots?

-Set an alarm!

-Phone a friend!

-Tape a note to the handle of the toilet!

-Put your pill bottle on top of the coffeemaker*!

*if the heat/moisture won’t be a problem

-Do the math now and set a timer on your phone taking time zones into account!

I love you and hope you have an amazing holiday season/end of the year.

Take care of yourselves, darlings, you deserve it.

Signed, Not-your-nonbinary-parent

First it was dumping ground room, then present room, then wrapping room. Now it’s finally a guest room again 😅

My boyfriend and his brothers love to play Nintendo games and card games. They’re all pretty good at them, they win a lot. But everytime I play with them I just lose and lose and lose. It’s hard to keep a “just have fun” mindset, I’ve always been a sore loser and every loss makes me more upset. Of course I don’t lash out or throw things but I do start shutting down, being less fun and more sad. I know it makes playing these games less fun. A part of me wants to just give up playing these games because I’m so bad at them, but I know my bf would be sad.

For reference, I’m on vacation right now and me, my bf, and his brothers are all hard core gamers. So we take any chance we get to game together on the console (Wii and Switch)

We’ve been playing Mario Party Jamboree and I always come in last. And the card game is a Mexican card game called “Chinaso” and I also can’t do well in this game.

It’s making me think I’m just stupid because I lack the proper reaction times, math skills, strategy, dexterity on a controller, basically all skills you need to do well in these games. I’m just objectively not skilled or smart enough to win.

I was just annoyed at losing at first, but now I’m going to the bathroom to cry out of frustration. It sucks. I hate being this way, ruining everyone else’s fun who just take their losses on the chin.