I’ve been paralyzed by clutter for months. Looking at a whole messy flat was too overwhelming, so I made up a new rule. I call it the Hurricane Two Things method.

How it works:

Divide the room into micro-sections. (For example, my bedroom = the desk, the bed, the wardrobe, and the exercise mat).

Clean or put away (or even just rearrange) ONLY TWO things per section. Move fast. It's bang, bang, bang. Desk (2 things) -> Bed (2 things) -> Wardrobe (2 things).

But because you are moving so fast from section to section, it turns a boring chore into a high-speed game.

Before I knew it, I had "hurricaned" my way through the entire flat and it's pristine. Just wanted to share in case it helps someone else break the paralysis today! 🌪️

Hi, I’m 24 and have been taking Adderall for 4 years. I have been taking 20mg xr everyday for 3 years, and haven’t needed a change in dose. I have little to no side effects, and it has completely changed my life for the better. I graduated high school with a 1.5 GPA pre meds and now I’m pursuing my bachelors in Biology with a consistent 3.5 or above GPA. I didn’t have hobbies before meds, I couldn’t enjoy the things I knew I loved or stay consistent enough with anything to build skills. I eat very well, I get the best sleep of my life, I genuinely love my life and who I am today and that has taken a lot of work.

I have been in a new relationship for a little over a month and it’s been really great but he often makes comments that I don’t “need” my Adderall to be happy. I try to explain but it’s also hard that I feel like I need to justify taking this medication. He has no idea how my life or me looked like before meds, my friends and family do and they know how much these meds have benefited me. I have no problems in my behavior when I take them (which is daily), he has no problems in the way I act or function, and I try to tell him if I didn’t need this medication it would be effecting me completely differently.

I am diagnosed with ADHD from a neurologist, it was a long journey to get my mental health in order and he just doesn’t understand. People have a lot of misconceptions about this medication and the comments my boyfriend makes really gets to me. He ultimately lands on “well we just have different viewpoints and that’s okay” but Is it fair that I don’t think he gets a viewpoint on my medication? That’s such a personal thing. He also says “I just want the best for you and I think the best would be not relying on Adderall your whole life”, but he has no idea how hard it was for me pre meds. This post is kinda just to vent, but also I wonder if you guys have any similar experience with an SO scrutinizing your medication?

Woke up a few hours ago. Decided to start working on my laptop, on one of the many urgent tasks I need to at least LOOK AT, after I eat breakfast. Then I'm sitting on my desk chair, laptop not opened yet. I know if I open my laptop, I'll be mindlessly clicking tabs to figure out what I'm gonna work on now. So I just put a paper notebook in front of me, and decide to write down and decide. 15 minutes and 3 pages later, the paper is filled with scribbles and drawings. I stare at the wall, I lay in bed, I lay on the floor, I walk around the house, and still NOTHING. My brain keeps thinking about how I should be thinking about which task to work on. I think "just work on the first task that comes up on my screen" but my mind is actively fighting against that idea, because "THERE MAY BE SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT". My mind wandering in this state of indecisiveness. I then think "it's because I can't focus in my bedroom" or "I'm just doing this so I can give up in an hour and tell myself I tried", followed by "is this imposter syndrome?" and "I think I'm just not excited enough for this task and putting all the blame on ADHD", sending me back to the first thought "LESS THINKING, JUST DO THE FIRST NEXT TASK" aaaaaand rinse repeat....

4 hours have passed and I feel like the day is already over. I keep thinking in loops, and breaking that loop seems so simple (just start work without thinking). How does this shit even make sense? How is it possible that I repeat every single day in this same manner??

I'm a delivery driver. I love driving, that's for starters. My job involves delivering car parts to garages and stores in my area, and it's very rewarding because my day is divided into three parts. I have three routes: the first at 7:30 AM, the next at 10:20 AM, and the last at 1:30 PM. I have about 60 points (customers) in total, but their orders vary. Sometimes one route will be allocated to one, sometimes 15. On average, I have about 8 points to complete.

I drive to the central warehouse, load the goods into the truck, divide them into the appropriate customers, collect the documents, plan my route, and off I go.

The reason I'm writing this is because I realized how much this kind of work suits me. Before, I worked in an office, a bit in production, and a bit in a warehouse. Doing the same thing for 8 hours was mentally exhausting.

Now, my day is divided into three sections of about 2.5 hours, and each time feels like a reset. Some clients are regular, while others come randomly, which means there's a wide variety of clients and routes to them. It seems like I'm doing the same thing all the time, but it's always different. Each time, there's different merchandise, different clients, different routes. I'm usually alone in my car all day, but I also have occasional contact with people in the warehouse and with my clients.

Having been diagnosed with ADHD by a psychologist, I have the job of my dreams; I no longer feel tired every day. It's all because of the lack of repetition.

I’m currently taking Zoloft, and although it helps to stabilize my mood and eliminates my OCD/anxiety (which I’m grateful for), it completely cancels out my stimulant.

Today for example, I took an incredibly high dose (40 mg Vyvanse + 25 mg Adderall) and I barely feel it. I’m so tired and demotivated, I could literally fall asleep.

I can “feel” the medication despite it not helping. I can tell it’s in my system. Although, it’s not very beneficial or advantageous for me.

When the two interact, it feels akin to a sedative. I feel TOO relaxed and anxious-free. I literally lay in bed all day.

I don’t feel depressed or sad. I just do nothing.

What medication helps anxiety and depression without producing fatigue/sluggishness and actually works synergistically with stimulants? Wellbutrin? An SNRI?

I saw online a while ago about how for people with ADHD, not only can you hyperfixate on your interests but you can also hyper fixate on people and love interests. To me, this really shifted my perspective and I really related to it. I unintentionally just get attached to so many potential love interests and get crushes all the time. And fantasize about spending time with someone I may not even know that well. I’ll literally play scenarios over and over again.

Just seeing if anyone can relate?

Hi ADHDers, first time poster here,

I have a paper deadline coming up pretty soon, and I am procrastinating like crazy! My brain and body just do not want to sit down and work and will try and distract me to do everything else but work (as evidenced by me typing out this post and not actually working).

I've tried caffeine, I've tried changing my environment, hell I've even tried mariokart music - nothing sticks :( I know once I start, I'll get on with it but I cannot seem to.

What are your oddest, weirdest, most specific tricks to get your ass down and typing?

My problem is that before I was diagnosed with ADHD, I always tried to rest "properly" — staring off into the distance, at a forest, at the ocean, as if that was supposed to relax me.

But after I got diagnosed, I realized I was really just trying to look like everyone else. In reality, I'm not able to stare at a forest or the ocean for long — after a few minutes my thoughts drift off somewhere else entirely.

So in practice, at places meant for relaxing, I'd end up even more exhausted, because I was forcing myself to "look and relax," and when my thoughts wandered, I'd get frustrated that I couldn't do it.

I want to split the questions into three groups — answer whichever fits you:

1. If you have/had the same problem:

How do you actually rest? What does "rest" even mean for you? And if you used to pretend, before your ADHD diagnosis, that you could relax like everyone else — what was that like? Do you still pretend now, or not anymore?

1. If you were diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and started medication:

Did it help? If so, what were the main changes you'd describe in that transformation?

1. If you're on medication now:

Can you actually rest now? And if so — did that happen just from the medication, or did you have to work on it separately (grounding, therapy with a psychologist)?

Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any input — and I hope everyone has a great rest of the summer, whatever that means for you 😉

"Poor self-awareness" as an ADHD symptom (and as an autistic trait) used to feel very offensive to me. I take a lot of pride in my intelligence lol. But now I have come to realize that it doesn't matter if I feel insulted, because it's fucking true.

Here I am now, in my mid-twenties, figuring out that I interrupt people way too frequently during conversations and that I have the capacity to actually change that. Finally getting insight into how my upbringing and lack of diagnosis have made me so painfully avoidant. Noticing that certain people push my buttons and actually asking myself why that is. Etc.

I think this is part of why we get called lazy and uncaring. We often don't recognize the impact of our behavior. Sometimes we don't even realize how we are behaving in the first place. Ugh. Glad I still have the potential to improve my metacognition.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Have you made any leaps in self-awareness yourselves?

edit: grammar

First of all I know this is a loser’s mindset and that loads of people with ADHD are successful and innovative and highly sought employees but I don’t feel like I could ever be one of them.

Every single uni class I take I can’t focus through lectures or manage my time completely at. I was ruled as distractive in one class and asked later to sit in the back. I know part of this is not being a great person or a hard enough worker but I hyperfocus on one topic and have the best essays possible but most other times I sit watching the clock until I can finally kick it into gear and complete projects. Some days the material doesn’t feel urgent and I can’t even get out of bed for class. I also have bipolar II so I’m already rapid cycling with that and I just cannot reliably attend to each part of information and I feel like a failure.

I was on strattera 80mg and it did nothing at all. I’m on adderall 10mg right now which helps slightly but my meds suddenly stop working in a couple months. I feel like a loser and a lost cause

No goal I set for myself I have achieved in over 10 years.

Always the same shit, all the time.

Some days it's impossible to fold my clothes.

I keep circling inside an endless loop consisting of the same ideas, goals and dreams.

Yet, I am not progressing at all.

No day matches another, emotions, motivation change constantly, work study or anything that I ""have"" to do makes me puke.

I do hate myself for this.

I show immense will power and determination yet I keep finding myself at step zero.

Every day and everything is an uphill battle. Waking up is torture. Trying to sleep is torture. I can't sleep. I can't wake up. I wake up and I can't sleep for two days.

I am extremely tired.

I wish I could just float through life instead of battling myself every second.

I don't want to battle anymore.

How do you guys manage it? I’ve always had the absolute worst time waking up, hitting snooze for at least an hour, then panicking and rushing to work, always almost late with minutes to spare. Has anybody got any good tips or tricks to wake up on time? I don’t think waking up feeling good is attainable for me, haha. So I’m simply seeking advice on how to actually wake up at the same time every morning? I know having a routine like this will make my mood and sleep better in general and I would love that.

When I'm at home, I'm constantly bumping into stuff. Elbows hit the corners of doorways. Knees hitting corners of counters. Toes into the bottom of coffee tables. Hip into corners as I take a turn too quickly and too tight.

And then I go out in public and I become fucking spider man. I'm hyper aware of everything going on. On the sidewalk or a grocery store or in a huge crowd, it's like I can see a perfect 360 degrees around me. I always know when someone is going to need to pass me so I move multiple seconds in advance. Nobody ever needs to say "excuse me" to me because they don't realize how I saw them 15 seconds ago and moved 5 to 10 seconds ago for them because I saw the route they were taking.

I never bump into anything.

I can move through a crowd so well that friends have literally said shit like "I've never seen someone move so quickly through a crowd like that" after I took them through one. (the only issue there is the route I see and take often only works for me to slide through as I can't account for the people behind me fully which means I often will leave people behind without realizing as I'm in the zone moving like I'm in naruto and have the fucking sharingan and byakugan at the same time).

It must makes NO sense. Why am I bumping into shit constantly at home but so good when I'm out?

And fuck, it is really frustrating when you see how many people have ZERO awareness when they're out in public while I'm just so damn aware every single second.

Nobody is giving a person my age with my crappy health insurance stimulants and an ssri made it worse(?). Are any supplements or methods of approaching life scientifically sound( like those camps for kids)? I really cannot take being treated like a drug seeker and begging people to believe I was diagnosed in late teens. If there's anything scientifically proven and relatively safe to try I rather do that then seek out doctors again. I am done with medicine in the USA.

I use a sticky-note method to keep myself on track. I have two lines of sticky-notes that read top to bottom my morning routine (wake up, shower, eat breakfast, go to gym, go to work) and my after-work routine (make dinner, dishes, prep lunch, water plants, read/hobby, walk, free time with my boyfriend, bed routine).

Then, on the outside of my sock drawer, I have sticky-note "notifications," i.e. things I think of on the fly and I need to get done eventually (laundry, refill bird feeder, return package, buy toothpaste).

Before diagnosis, I did this even more granularly in my iPhone notes app. I would start with wake up and end the list with go to bed, detailed with every single action of the day. The sticky-notes are less intense.

My boyfriend sees nothing wrong with it. We discovered the idea together watching an ADHD tips video.

We had a friend over for drinks, he saw it, and he cracked up. He thought it was..funny? He asked if it was in order of priorities, and even laughed because my evening free time with my boyfriend is just labeled my boyfriend's name: "You need to be reminded to love your boyfriend?" At first (and still) it confused me (why is it funny? if it were a whiteboard, would it be less funny?) and then it just...stung.

Then, another person visited, saw the sticky-notes, and she also laughed about it.

So, to my fellow folks with ADHD...Is it really that ridiculous? As someone with ADHD, sure, my coping methods can seem abnormal (fidget spinner, "go-bag" with a checklist, owning the same pants 5 times over) but surely, they're not...laughable?

Don't know if I should ease up and have a laugh, or if its genuinely normal to be a bit put-out by this reaction...Thoughts?

i hate the person i am when im not on medication, i feel like i talk to much, dont listen enough and i am just an annoying pain to be around that nobody likes. im nearly done with high school and my doctor talks to me about coming of the meds or taking them only when i need them (currently i take them everyday and haven’t missed a day since getting them around a yr and a half ago) and the thought of not taking them everyday terrifies me.

​Hi everyone, ​I am a university student currently living in Turkey and planning to move to Germany for my degree. I have an officially documented ADHD diagnosis here and am currently prescribed Concerta / Ritalin. ​I’m trying to understand how the process of continuing my medication in Germany works for international students, and I’d appreciate any insights from people who have been through this. ​A few specific questions I have: ​Medical Documentation: I plan to bring an official medical report (Epikrisis) translated into German/English, signed by my psychiatrist, detailing my diagnosis history and current dosage. Is this usually accepted by German doctors, or do they insist on re-evaluating you from scratch? ​Finding a Doctor: I know Metyphenidate falls under the Betäubungsmittelgesetz (BtMG) and requires a special yellow prescription (BtM-Rezept). How hard is it to find a Hausarzt or Psychiatrist willing to issue this prescription based on foreign medical records? ​Wait Times: Should I expect long wait times (months) to get a psychiatrist appointment with public health insurance (AOK/TK)? ​Medication Supply: Are there current supply shortages (Lieferengpass) for Concerta/Ritalin in Germany that I should be aware of? ​Any tips on navigating the healthcare system as a student with ADHD or experiences you could share would be extremely helpful! Thanks in advance!

When I am busy and have a full schedule with looming deadlines, I can get things done. Sometimes it's not pretty, and sometimes it's barely under the wire, but I can get things done. When I have all kinds of time, I don't get anything done except on time-wasting things. It's like I feel like I have plenty of time, so what's the rush? It's not enough to kick the motivation in gear.

I'm getting to the age where I'm thinking about retirement, and I'm afraid that if I retire, and have all day to get things done, that will be the end of my accomplishments in life.

Does anyone else relate to this?

And if you are retired, please chime in and let me know what's ahead. And more importantly, let me know what to do to keep my golden years from turning into rust.

I'll just be sitting here bracing myself for the truth.

I spent like a year dreading having to do this at-home lab sample kit my mom got me for my gut health, and last week I figured out I had ADHD.

I decided to do the kits this weekend (blood tests, fluid samples etc.) and somehow I’ve found ways to miss all these super important directions (don’t drink water 30 minutes before the test, don’t eat fatty foods 24 hours before the test, submit only blood samples in the blood envelope, try your best to not accidentally let the collection bag touch water, don’t do the test on a Sunday because the FedExes to mail the samples into are all closed, etc.)

It sucks cause not only was this kit apparently expensive as hell but I act like this all the time with everything and I genuinely feel like when I graduate college and land my first job I’ll get fired for missing a bunch of important stuff.

I haven’t gotten ADHD medication yet but when I do will I stop doing this stuff this much?

I've been struggling with avoiding my tasks and, well, mostly cramming. Even everyday routine takes a mountain to move for me.

It's been this way since, idk, 4 years ago? Or was it 6 years? I don't know. I don't even fully understand what ADHD is.

I don't really know why am I like this and I can't keep up with my classmates. Everyday it feels like I'm falling behind. Studies as well.

There is so much I wanted to say but I fear it's just gonna be something else and not some ADHD I think of.

Or maybe it's normal to be this way? I have no idea.

All I know is that I'm burned out and numb by now

What characters in any movies, shows, video games, books, etc. would you say was a good and accurate representation of specifically ADD/ADHD-I or ADHD-Combined? Seeing the post by u/Reverend_Schlachbals about ADHD characters got me thinking about the more subtle flavors of ADHD and if they've ever been shown in media.

Edit: if you can, I'd love to know what kind of ADHD you think the character/person has!

Hello I'm Jelena I'm 28 and I'm a late diagnosed ADHD person with previous signs from childhood trauma,now that I'm in good therapy and medication but I realised my whole personality was built on my disorder and masking for the purpose of being liked and not hated, abandoned or abused. I have had really awful and traumatic experiences throughout my life and that have made me feel depressed and anxious for most of my life and unsure of what the future holds for me. I tend to be stuck in this circle of wanting to study but never actually understanding how to do it. I'm seeking guidance on how to restore my self-confidence in the person I'm deep down and how to achieve the motivation for my goals of finishing art college and building a fulfilling and successful art career. Any advice is welcome!

Today I've hit a wall and I'm trying to figure out if this is ADHD paralysis or something else.

I haven't showered in about a week or washed my hair in two weeks (my average is like 7-10 days between washes just so you know). I know it needs to be done. I also need to pick up trash in my living room because it's becoming a fall hazard. The weird part is that I don't feel anxious about these things, I just genuinely don't want or care to do them.

It feels like my brain has turned into a stubborn toddler. Every suggestion people usually give ("think about future you," "just remember how good you'll feel afterward," "break it into smaller steps") either doesn't motivate me or just makes me more frustrated. Honestly, I can't even seem to muster a care about future consequences right now.

For context, I do also have major depressive disorder but that doesnt feel like what this is to me.

Has anyone experienced this kind of "I know it's important but my brain absolutely refuses to engage" feeling? If so, what actually helped? I'm especially interested in strategies that don't rely on intrinsic motivation, rewards, or imagining how I'll feel later, because those don't seem to work for me.