My Experiences with ADHD

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

I've always been a daydreamer; multiple trains of thought running in my head at the same time - 1-3 songs playing (my brain has made some interesting mash-ups over the years), character designs or fan art just itching to be drawn, stories longing to be written, cosplays begging to be sewn... And as I got older, less-than-fun things got added into the mix as well: worrying about the safety of my friends and loved ones, dreading the horrible outcomes from scary headlines, ruminating on past arguments and thinking of all manner of things I should have said in those stressful moments, and more.

Basically, it's rarely quiet in my mind.¹

When I was in elementary school, I was an A+/all-100s student. Highest marks in everything. Schoolwork and tests came easily to me, and I never had to study. But towards the end of my first year of middle school, I finally started having issues understanding something: geometry. I didn't know what to do! My Math grade tanked, and I was distraught.

Around that same time, I started having problems staying focused. Back then, I chalked it up to the fact that middle school started an hour earlier than elementary school, and I'd been having sleep issues all year. I didn't find out till I was an adult that I had ADHD.²

While in school, I found something that helped my daydreaming-prone mind stay at least somewhat on the ground: drawing. It seemed like as long as I could keep my hands busy, I could retain what I learned. (Granted, at the time, I didn't think of it that way.) As mentioned above, I liked making character designs³ and fan art of whatever franchise I was obsessed with at the time.⁴ And when I say "drawing," I'm not talking about doodling in my notebook margins; I'm talking about having a dedicated sketchbook sitting on my desk next to my school books, colored pencils and gel pens arranged in rainbow order, etc.

But about 2/3 of the way through my Junior year of high school, my teachers all of a sudden told me that I wasn't allowed to draw in class anymore; I think one of them mentioned that it was distracting to other students. 🙄 My grades went from As and Bs to Ds or Fs in a matter of 2 weeks. (And of course, this happened right before report cards came out in addition to my birthday, so I ended up grounded and had no party that year. 😭) During that no-drawing-allowed time, I still tried my best to focus. I remember trying to stim by molding my kneaded erasure into all sorts of different shapes, but it didn't help too much. Thankfully, my teachers saw that I was trying, and after that bad report card, let me draw in class again (too little, too late for my birthday party, though...). Honestly, I'd been afraid that they would think I was throwing some sort of temper tantrum to try to get my way again; I'm so glad I was wrong about that!

As I've gotten older, my ADHD symptoms - especially executive dysfunction - have gotten worse. One way it manifests that really annoys me is that I have a hard time finishing book series, even ones I adore. I can't count how many times I've restarted the House of Night or Percy Jackson series, only to lose steam part-way through; I've never finished House of Night (despite owning all the books), and while I've finished a few sub-series within the Percy Jackson universe,⁵ I've not read all the books I own from it.

I've spent a lot of time trying different methods of getting myself to do things, whether it's chores, 1-off tasks, or things I love. Often, I'll find something that works for a while, then it ends up fading into the background of the cacophony in my mind. For example, I've been using a reminder app called Tasks.Org (not sponsored!) for I think 2 years now, and my daily reminders don't stick out to me like they used to. Recently (like, within-the-last-2-weeks recently), I started keeping a running checklist in ColorNote (again, not sponsored!) of my everyday tasks, and tack on 1-off things at the end of it. So far, it's really helped! But it feels like just a matter of time before it becomes part of the background as well...

Another thing I do to try to remember things is say them out loud to a friend or partner. I'll actually start it with, "OK, I'm saying this out loud so that hopefully one of us remembers!" It really does help me to remember! But I'm not always around other people, so I can't use this method all the time. And with how many random things I think of each day, it's better to keep notes that I can eventually revisit.⁶

Speaking of revisiting, I'll often do that with emails. In general, my inboxes are very clean and tidy, but sometimes I get a message that I want to make sure I give the proper attention to, so I'll mark it as Unread. I have a compulsion to make notifications go away (hence why I got a reminder app! Darn you brain for becoming largely immune to it!), so seeing that unread email staring at me, beckoning me to take care of it helps me to not forget about it.

Of course, none of these things are fool-proof, but I hope that if you have similar experiences to mine (ADHD-induced or not), that reading about what I've tried helps, or gives you some ideas to try out for yourself! If you've got something you wanna share - your own experiences, an app you love, etc - feel free to reach out on Mastodon!

#life #mentalhealth