ADHD Women

Mine at this minute is Sia's Unstoppable.

I've been going back amd forth on if I should share my diagnosis with my manager and hr. (hr really just to cover my ass not for accommodations)

My last performance reviews was that I was doing great overall but the areas that needed improvement were all traits that are difficult for me with adhd. I also feel frustrated on days where it's hard for me to communicate clearly. I'll try speaking more slowly to not ramble or I end up leaving out too much detail and backtracking to repeat my thought when I see the person is confused.

At the same time, I also feel like it's too big of a risk to disclose. That it'll either be looked at as an excuse (rather than an explanation) or just bais my manager that I'm not reliable for high priority projects even though I've been handling them.

Does anyone have experiences to share about if you disclosed at work and the outcome?

This is your friendly reminder to update your paperwork with HR/your job. Make sure your address is correct, martial status, tax withdrawal, emergency contacts, ect.

If you have no updates do you know how to do it if you should have updates in the future?

What prompted this? I eloped last year. No name change no address change just got married. Updated my insurance info so spouse could be on my insurance with hr via phone. Neglected to see if there were other things to update, such as paycheck/HR info status and noticed when there was an issue with my paycheck.

I work for a large university turns out the HR lady I spoke to last year only deals with benefits. I thought updating benefits would update everything else or at least push a prompt for me to check other things. I was wrong. Whoops! Here's to hoping it doesn't totally fuck my taxes this upcoming year.

I would like to hear from everyone, not just those going through what I'm currently dealing with, which is perimenopause.

My ADHD is combined with depression. Yay me. As I started perimenopause I dipped into one of the worst cases of depression I ever had. Like "planning stages" bad.

In addition, my ADHD went into overdrive. The scary part was that I began to lose focus while driving. Fortunately there were no accidents, but I had some close calls--running lights unintentionally, having to slam on brakes to stop from rear ending people.

My other ADHD symptoms were amped up to where my house was crazy. My relationships were suffering. All of the "quirks" my husband was used to were dialed up to 11.

When my mother was entering perimenospause we all thought she had gone crazy too, for like years. Four or five. No one knew she had ADHD because the information wasn't out there like it is today (it was the '80s). Her hormone shifting made her a different person. My dad told me later that he considered divorce. Things got better eventually.

I did get medical help and it has taken about four years to finally clear up. I tried different ADHD meds, but what helped more than anything was hormone replacement therapy. Once my hormones were levelled out, my normal treatment was so effective that it was like I was back to my old self and I had been forgetting what that looked like. My husband even jokingly puts his hand on my forehead to see if I'm okay when he sees how sane I'm behaving.

If you have ADHD, be aware that shifts in hormone levels do have an effect on you and your treatment needs to take this into account.

So what is your experience?

Ok, so it is sort of a known part of ADHD that we tend to talk a lot or our typed responses seem to be longer and involve a lot of breaks and punctuation (or whatever these are called). We do this to be clearer in communication. We do this to elaborate. And often for neurotypicals it becomes a point of frustration.

As women we also often have a different communication style or methods. It is often softer. There has been all these articles on it. How women apologize too much (what prompted this thought), minimize themselves linguistically and why/how we shouldn't. And while I understand what they mean, I am frustrated with it.

For me "I'm sorry" is not an apology. It is only an apology when it is accompanied by qualifiers (I will not do x again, I will do better in the future, how can I make it right?) Sometimes it is social lubricant. Used in place of excuse me or to express empathy. When I say "I'm sorry your day has been terrible" I am not apologizing for your day. I didn't make it terrible I am recognizing that it was bad and that sucks. I am leaving it open to you to elaborate on or move on from (whichever you prefer and this is where non verbal cues come in). If I didn't want you to expand or wanted to find my way out of the conversation I would use "bummer" or simply "oh".

And that brings me to the impetus for this long ass post. I was told once again by someone I apologize too much and should not. And it really ate at me. I am sick of constantly adjusting my language to make others more comfortable. Im constantly adjusting phrasing, tactics, ect to get my point across, be clear and be empathetic. No one else I know adjusts like this or to this degree. I put a ton of energy into my communication.

And if I should stop "apologizing" so much so that I am not as soft or so that I am seen with more self esteem, why can't I say "Im sorry" as a non apology because that is what feels natural and best expresses my intention. I am sorry that the nuisances are lost on others.

Image of a pretty, brown haired woman with red lipstick in thinking pose of hand-on-chin. The caption reads, "Not to brag, but I can forget what I'm doing while I'm doing it." copyright mark Ephemera-Inc

not mine, but I love it

I was out helping a friend look for a lost dog all day on saturday, and so I bought a stick of beef jerky from the corner store in case I needed it to lure the dog, and stuck it in my pocket. I don't normally keep much in pockets, usually just my phone. I did not check my pockets before doing laundry.

But what really gets me is — now I can't find the beef jerky! It's not in there! I checked the pockets of every single pair of skirtpants I had in the wash. I have no idea what could possibly have happened to it because I have zero memory of taking it out and putting it somewhere. So now the question is: WTF happened to the jerky?? Is it hiding somewhere in my house?? Maybe I'll find out in like 6 months.

(btw, we found the dog!! I wasn't the one to find her but some strangers managed to get her into a fenced in basketball court and put it on the local facebook forum thing, and another friend was scouring the internet resources. Doggo is safely back at home, only gone for a few hours. We're all very relieved. Plus I got to bike around in the rain all day in unfamiliar parts of the neighborhood which was genuinely really great)

I need to get into my password manager as I am transitioning browser programs. And I can't remember my password to a site nor the password to my password manager.

Le sigh. I trapped myself in this hell but I still hate it.

...but at the same time want to hold on to useless stuff or hobby stuff you don't have the energy to do. I feel like if I didn't have so much stuff I wouldn't have all the clutter to make me feel anxious, like there's just so much stuff. I have a very small wardrobe (well, boxes of clothes since I haven't had the energy to go an buy a wardrobe) with mainly work related clothes, but that's the only thing that I've managed to keep minimal and tidy.

I know the clutter is mainly stuff I could try and keep in trays/open boxes to help maintain it but also going shopping for the right kind of trays seems overwhelming.

My question is just what the title says. I am new to being diagnosed and new to taking medication. The first one I tried made me extremely fatigued to the point I would sleep all night. Get up and do a little and want to go back to sleep again. Obviously this wasn't the right med for me because it was hard for me to function because of exhaustion for no reason.

I am currently trying a new medication(beginning my third day) and am trying to figure out if it helps or not.

What things help you know a medication is somewhat successful for you in helping manage your ADHD?

What helps you know it is not working other than intolerable side effects?

Thanks. I am not looking for specific medication suggestions.Just looking for examples of how you can tell if medication is working or not for you and your ADHD.

This is all new to me, the diagnosis and medication part, not so much the ADHD that I have been living with for a lifetime.

You can find more of her comics here.

Recently diagnosed and in my 30s. I've always felt like everybody else have received a user manual that I've never gotten. A user manual on how to be human and how to interact with other humans. It's especially interacting with people that trigger my anxiety. I explained this to my psychologist. Her initial response was that I didn't seem like I had any issues interacting with her, so either that wasn't true or I'm just really good at pretending. Now I'm sitting here, going over what she said, second guessing myself, and I just don't know. This was relatively early on in my session, so I think she understood my anxiety later on. She definitely opened my eyes regarding being more aware of my own needs.

I don't know. Now I just have this nagging feeling of maybe I'm faking my anxiety in regards to socializing.

Personally the things hat have helped me out the most include:

Notetaking - I have grudgingly come to the conclusion that my memory isn't....good, so I just started taking notes on everything and anything that I learn.

Active learning applied to life has helped me a lot, and being able to have one software for everything I need to remember helps too.

I switched through a few, but I'm settling on ObsidianMD for now on account of markdown apparently being the most accessible for transferring to different software if the need ever comes.

Developing an interest in mental health topics -

I find that by researching more about mental health and things I've been diagnosed with, I'm more understanding and less stressed out about the things I've done in my life.

A lot of people look at their ADHD diagnosis and try to ignore it, but for me, I need to have an understanding of how my body and brain works in order to cope with it properly.

With that said, I usually look up things on ADDitudemag and books that I find on sale.

Understanding self-improvement isn't necessarily productivity -

This was one of the bigger things in my life I had to learn to understand, and to this day I'm still struggling.

Basically, just take the productivity rat race and put it in a corner for now, and start looking at yourself as a person and decide what will help you out the most.

For example, cleaning doesn't have to be productive, it just needs to be done so you can walk from point A to B.

How about you? What helps you the most?

Article from my new pysch office about signs you might have adhdm this was the last one and I definitely did only read the headers.

I'm so happy. With all the reddit stuff it's been kinda stressful. I use reddit for dopamine fixes but also a lot to find answers to questions. But I found only in the past year the ADHD women community and felt supported and at home.

I thought I was going to have to say goodbye to that but here at least some of that community is.

I hope a "hurray, we're here!" post is okay. Thank you so much for existing. The subreddit I was most concerned about losing was /r/adhdwomen, and after a difficult evening last night and morning today, I was really missing the community and compassion of my fellow neurodivergent ladies. I'm very grateful to find this, and I thought I might not be the only one.

And hey, if you've got a struggle today you'd like some commiseration for or a victory you want to celebrate, I'd love to hear it!

My struggle today is getting knocked back to step one in the doctor process yet again - made an appointment Friday that got cancelled with no explanation last night, and I can't get a new one with that practice for 8 weeks. My tiny little bit of victory is that I've taken the first step on Plan D and have ideas for Plan E, though I'm really sweating whether I'm going to get anywhere with anything before I run out of meds.

Excitement! Suspense! 😂🤦🤷

I'm trying to keep my humor instead of collapsing into a puddle, which is why I'm so particularly happy to find this community.

Or snack prep. Or if you make/use freezer packs (prepped raw/half cooked ingredients that can just be thrown in a pot) which I haven't tried but it seems interesting.