I Don't Have ADHD, I'm Just Lazy (…or so I thought)

This is my experience too, I’m not diagnosed but I’m beginning the process through my GP who has given me a referral to The Owl Centre. It wasn’t until our counsellor mentioned it and ran me through some of the ‘symptoms’ of Autism and ADHD (AuDHD) and then me reading articles and peoples’ real-life experiences that I’ve realised that it is most certainly something I have, even if I don’t get a formal diagnosis.

The struggles mentioned in this post and the ones people responded with sound exactly like something I could have written. The forgetting, the not finishing, the constant mental exhaustion (and yes, I’ve had all the blood tests which have come back negative). You mention you’re tired to people and get back the ’everyone is tired’ - but I don’t feel much better after a night’s sleep and this is something many people with this find too. Our brain is always on, processing, over-processing and it’s exhausting.

I hate that I never finish anything and it’s not that I don’t want to, I do, there’s just some kind of mental block preventing me from doing it.

I often have trouble beginning tasks, not because I don’t want to start but because things need to be right and ligned up before I can begin, or I need to be in the right head-space, sometimes it’s something I really want to do so I want to savour it and do a good job which is now why I realise that I leave writing Bible Notes until the last minute. I love writing them and get a lot out of them but I want to be my best when I write them and I also don’t want to get the over and done with too soon - I want to give people something of value from them but there will also often be other things going on in my brain that I want to get out before I can fully concentraite on the notes, even if that thing is silly and trivial - it’s still a mountain in my way before my brain is clear to produce something of value because I know the nonsense will be there gnawing at my attention whilst I’m trying to focus.

I can also see that’s something that affected my job too, I’d purposely put things off until I was ready, but through a combination of things, I was never ready so things didn’t get done when and how they should - I wanted them to be perfect but I never reached the perfection I needed “never let perfection be the enemy of good” (Voltaire). I often let perfection get in the way of even starting a task, let alone finishing it and that’s if something doesn’t distract me from completing the task. It certainly feels like the odds are stacked against me.

I think that’s why a career shift at this point is perfect, I’m realising my shortcomings and the things I’m not actually good at because my brain isn’t actually physically built that way. A desk job isn’t for me - sitting doing for 9 - 5 day-in day-out isn’t where I’m going to thrive. The AuDHD brain craves a certain amount of routine, but also thrives in chaos and change. I’m hoping that the jobs I’m applying for are going to be compatible with that, we’ll see.

I didn’t think AuDHD would actually be the answer, I didn’t want to feel like I was jumping on the bandwaggon of the hip thing to have but it genuinely fits my symptoms, the stories match my own and I feel like I’ve ‘found my people’. Every meme, every post has something of me in and it’s a sigh of releaf to know that I’m not alone, that there is an answer and a reason for it.

I’ll keep you posted on how things go and I’ll certainly keep posting these memes and discussions because it’s helping me to process and I hope it helps whoever is reading this too.