And then the fire nation attacked

My friend says it got much better as he learned strategies to keep afloat... Then as he got older, into his 40's, work and life got more complicated with harsher consequences for forgotten paperwork or failure to notice time pass... And the number of things demanding attention made sleep and focus harder than ever.
He thinks his strategies just haven't been able to keep up, but thinks things will get better again

It bothers me that no one acknowledged that this can still be logically true. Of course if most people's ADHD goes away in childhood then it doesn't really logically mean anything to ask "most people you know with ADHD" because by definition, you will only be asking the subset of people for whom that isn't true.
You can't really survey the people for whom ADHD went away in childhood by asking all the people you know with ADHD because the people who would confirm the psychologist's claim are not going to be included in that survey.
- True
  But it is also be true that the insight "most people loose ADHD by adulthood" is in itself kind of flawed as people can develop coping methods which can mask the ADHD. If there's a significant people complaining/reporting then, it would be something to look into.
  People are more open about having adhd into adulthood as compared to in the past where it might have been seen as a childish thing and hence undesirable to report. And not a problem enough to report it to someone who could help with that.
  These are assumptions based on personal and shared anecdotes, so I guess you could still argue what you said is right.

I visited my first psychiatrist this year and told him I have concerns that I was adhd.
I shit you not a fucking Dr of psychiatry told me that was very unlikely because they would've caught it when I was a child.
Fucking moron.
- laughs in being born a woman (Obviously, I don't know what your gender is, I'm just speaking generally.)
  
  I understand what you are saying, Drs not believing women is a fucking problem.
- unfortunately a lot of people still use the bar of needing to be unable to live a functional life to entertain any sort of treatment. if you've grown up with a life and job, you'll not be taken seriously a lot of the time.
  it's a double edged sword. ADHD meds have definitely been over prescribed to a certain degree the past decade or so and docs have been gatekeeping ADHD treatment a bit more these days.
  this is what I hear from my wife who is a pediatrician.
  
  It very much felt like he was scared I would get hooked on stimulants
- I was diagnosed last year, age 41. I think back to one of my earliest memories, where someone took me out of 2nd grade class to give me tests in some big closet or boiler room. I am convinced I was diagnosed at that time with at least ADHD, but my mom didn't believe in mental health treatments despite desperately needing them herself. She's dead so I can't ask her what those tests were about.
- I didn't get diagnosed until I was just under 30, medication has done wonders for myself since. I don't think my parents had a clue, I was quite smart, if I had medication in my school days I can only wonder what I may have achieved, but I'm a university dropout. Doing okay but I do wonder sometimes.
  
  A questions if I may,
  Are you on stimulant or non stimulant meds?
- Saw 3 psychologists (one was a student) and they all blew me off because I was an older woman.
  Finally got diagnosed two and a half years ago in my early 60's.
  
  What has your experience been like after being diagnosed?

It definitely got less hyperactive and more fogbrain, as I like to call it.

Which psychologists are those? A lot of the people I know that have only gone to apsychologist as an adult have been told, "wow did you know you've had ADHD you're whole life," and they're like "omg no but that makes so much sense."
Like I think it's more common to be an adult who doesn't know they have ADHD because they don't go to a psychologist, rather than having been a kid who was told they'd grow out of it by a psychologist, yah know?
I guess my point is this meme creates unnecessary stigma around seeing a psychologist, and you should see one if you think you should.

what they mean by that is, "thank god they learned to mask the problem so they stop inconveniencing us"
- As someone who has many ADHD traits, but never formally diagnosed, I always view this perspective as strange. Like you're so incensed by it, you get defensive and almost act like you have zero responsibility on the issue and everyone should just accept you and allow you concessions because you can't keep your shit together.
  I've certainly 'grown' out of a lot of it, but a lot of it is hard work and establishing habits to minimise issues. It lets me live a better life and to treat it like a disability is only selling yourself short.
  
  I am not diagnosed either and I too have managed my life somewhat okayish so far because I have some really good people around me, but at the same time I know A LOT of ADHDers irl and they are all very different both when it comes to severity of their symptoms and what types of symptoms they have.
  What is somewhat manageable to me is impossible to others and what others are able to do, I am unable to myself.
  I know high functioning ADHDers and I know severe cases where their symptoms are so bad, even when on medication, that they will never be able to function in society.
  If I may compare, you and I may be partially blind. It is definitely enough to affect us in our daily lives. At least it is for me. But we are able to manage and somewhat navigate the world and we can still see shapes and colors, just very out of focus.
  What you're essentially doing with your post is asking someone who was born without eyes to see as well as you do. "Just get some glasses. It worked for me."
  But they are blind, bro. They don't have eyes. Both of you are blind, but blindness is on a spectrum, just like ADHD is.
  I never considered that what I was dealing with could be ADHD because the ADHDers I had known up until that point were the severe cases and they never got any better. Some of them didn't try at all while others really did their best and yet they still failed constantly.
  I'm relatively good at hiding my failings so people don't notice unless they are paying attention. But I still fail almost daily despite having tried all types of organizing systems, scolding myself into getting my shit together and establishing this and that routine. I always fail. I keep trying, but I will never be able to get good at having structure in my life no matter how much I want it. I can see shapes and colors, but I cannot read you that sign over there. No matter how much I try, I just can't.
  
  Have you considered the possibility that you don't have ADHD or that your symptoms are on the very mild side? You clearly have no understanding of executive dysfunction.
  Never formally diagnosed lol.
  
  Your experience isn't everyone's experience, and judging people who struggle more helps no one. I was medicated as a teenager, grew out of it, then suddenly got whacked over the head by it coming back in my late twenties. Medication has helped, and I've learned a lot of tricks to manage it, but the fact that I have to work twice as hard or more to do basic things that other people do without thinking means it clearly is a disability. I'm also autistic and I feel far more disabled by my ADHD than my autism.
  
  Don't cut yourself on that edge.
  It's not that we think we have zero responsibility or whatever - it's that, as you described, we put in a lot of effort to find coping mechanisms and management strategies, and then people like this cut-rate psych point to the results of that effort and say 'See, it's gone!' It's not gone, you dingbat, we have to manage it and it takes a lot of work, and maybe it would be nice - just once - to get some recognition for all that work we're doing rather than pretending the problem doesn't exist any more.
  
  Nothing you said is helpful to anyone with this condition, regardless if you have it or not. Please take your organizers and calendars and reminders and bootstraps and kindly post elsewhere.

You just get better at masking the worst effects.
Edit:
The consequences are worse when you’re an adult.
If you miss homework assignments or forget a quiz when you’re a kid and you lose some grade points people give you shit, but if your parents aren’t abusive the consequences aren’t life damaging. People around you keep the guard rails up and try to help you atay pointed in the right direction.
If you’re constantly late for work, don’t get your taxes done, or forget your car registration renewal, these can get you fired or have big financial consequences. There are no guard rails in the adult world, just consequences.

Most people tend to develop coping mechanisms that help them pass as non-ADHD individuals, by lowering their standards for what they can achieve in life and by accepting the abnormally high amounts of stress that hiding their ADHD causes them.
Psychologists call this "growing out of ADHD".
- “Gifted child, if only they’d apply themselves”, turns into “Average adult, not always reliable and my god have you seen their <thing we ignore because we don’t have the bandwidth> but usually gets things done.”
  
  Well, guess they need to be diagnosed for LBD (Low Bandwidth Disorder).
  And then start berating everyone who doesn't care about the small stuff, instead of letting them say that we are "overreacting", just because we realise that, under different conditions, ignoring some of that stuff could cause bigger problems.
- Took me getting fired from one job and almost a second before I finally got my coping mechanisms figured out. It's still a struggle and it's also cost me a significant amount of my ability to enjoy my free time (have to severely limit my investment in anything not work related so I don't accidentally get consumed by it and lapse at work), but I'm 'functional' now.
  
  It's still a struggle and it's also cost me a significant amount of my ability to enjoy my free time (have to severely limit my investment in anything not work related so I don't accidentally get consumed by it and lapse at work)
  This path leads to burnout. I have no practical advice since we are kind of required to put work first in order to survive. But the fact that it's socially acceptable to call this "living" makes me sick to my stomach.
- The problem is that responsibilities seem to grow faster than I can create coping mechanisms...
  
  You've got "management" written all over you. I hope you like meetings!
- To be fair, ADHD is a developmental disorder that sometimes can present as delayed development rather than halted development. I.e being behind in executive functioning development but eventually “catching up” to peers.
  That said, the severity of cases is still often determined through the lens of “how well do they fit in/mask it” and not “how is their emotional/mental wellbeing”, which definitely gives the impression of kids “growing out of it”.
  
  Well, minds are difficult, patterns are easy.
  Not all doctors are going to do it the hard way, same as not all people (encompassing all professions) do it the hard way.
- They don't necessarily lower their standards. Sometimes, they simply "pay" by other means.

Accurate. My wife's got worse. It went in to bloody overdive when perimenopause started.
- Mrs. Warp Core is also going through this very thing. Basically the wild hormone swings hit her hard, right in the executive function. ADHD meds helped, but ultimately weren't enough. HRT has helped tremendously. That said, we're now terrified to roll off of that.
  
  Do you mind telling me what age she was? My wife is suffering severely with mental health but will not see a psychiatrist. I suspect perimenopause. She does see a therapist.

Of course it got worse, I have to work now

I don't think the ADHD necessarily gets worse, it's more often that the consequences get worse.
I.e. the intensity of the disorder relative to a given set of stimuli doesn't increase, but the average significance of the stimuli (and consequently the outcome of one's reaction to them) does increase.
You could argue that's a meaningless distinction, but perhaps it's a helpful change in perspective for someone.
- Realistically, it's utterly dependent on one's life situation.
  When you're in school, your main focus is trying to get through school, get home, and not get hassled about keeping up with yourself and your things.
  Later on, some jobs, are congruent or even complimentary with symptoms, some jobs aren't. Some partners help compensate, some don't.
  It absolutely will get worse for some, better for others. Some may have consequences that are an issue, some may have circumstances that defuse the consequences.
- That's a valid point. Although I'd add that, as you get older, it's not only the significance of the stimuli that increases, but the overall levels of stimuli increases. More responsibilities, more burdens, more stress, and less likely to be given any concessions due to being young.
- No, it gets worse. Adults don't have the amount of mental plasticity that younger people have. While it's possible to make things easier through CBT and learning to cope and deal with certain challenges. The mental load of keeping up with daily life ultimately has its toll. Life is getting harder every year for everyone, and having ADHD makes that mental load just that much harder.

Turns out that people don't "grow out of" physiological differences in how their prefrontal cortex forms. Who would have thought?! /s

"Psychologist" just means they were able to complete a degree program at all, C's get degrees

It can get worse after school because not having a schedule imposed on you means you're left to your own devices and will often focus too much energy towards the wrong endeavors. Building a routine of healthy habits and sticking to it can make a world of difference.
- There's also a tendency to experience a diaspora after, or in the immediate years after, school. Say, your mid-20's or so. That's potentially a big chunk of your support network disappearing from your life.
  Building a routine of healthy habits and sticking to it can make a world of difference.
  Exactly. Those coming to diagnosis and support while young stand a chance to be trained and armed for independence, and an adult life of holding one's self to one's own standards (hopefully). For many of us oldsters, being diagnosed later, or only learning about mindfulness and CBT well past our formative years, it's a huge struggle to cobble together habits and a better mindset.

I don’t have the ADHD. I am the ADHD.
- Made this for ya while procrastinating
  
  We're all reading this while procrastinating
  
  I was picturing that exact thing in my head but didn’t get around to making it. Thank you.

The officially changed it in my country to be an syndrome diagnosable in adults as well the very year I turned 18. I'm not saying it HAS to be because of me, but yeah.
- Doctor leaves appointment with Droggelbecher
  "Get the Chancellor on the phone immediately."

Yeah. I feel like it never bothered me when younger (he's "gifted and mature") but you get screwed later on when you have a 8-5 office job where you sit and stare for 9 hours. I can't focus on boring useless stuff like that. Unfortunately, the alternative is destroy your body doing manual labor to keep moving around. Plus. You make a lot more money sitting and staring at a screen. So just keep it bottled up and pretend you know what you're doing and don't feel like going nuts!
- This is kinda why I ended up as a manufacturing engineer. It's technical, well paid, and doesn't require hard physical labor. But I'm constantly "putting out fires" and going to some forgotten corner of the factory to figure out what broke. "Oops sorry I skipped the meeting - the production line was stopped!" Neurotypicals view this chaos as stressful, but it's the only way I can flow through the day without hating my job.
  Lucked out big time.
  
  I'm still doing physical labor, but I think neurotypical people would go crazy with my schedule. I don't know what days I'm working sometimes until two days before. I don't even know where in the country I'll be next week. I thrive in the chaos and the physical work, but I can't keep it up forever. Freelance contractor for IT work.

You want me to pay bills? On time? Best I can do is rack up late fees.
- Set auto payments for all the things!
- Oh, my workaround for that is easy, just develop lifelong crippling anxiety and still forget about 10% of them anyways!
  
  Anxiety is a heaven sent for the Bill Paying Problem.

Well, there is partial truth to this. Diagnosing especially preteens with mental health conditions almost always needs an asterisk, their brains are still heavily developing.
Remember that we know of no reliable genetic / physiological markers for ADHD, so when doctors diagnose it, they're really just saying that the amount of symptoms seems to be severe enough. Some kids are just naturally more energetic, intelligent, etc. and may appear like they have ADHD, but when they develop into adults that might not actually be the case.
If anything, it's more like 1/3 of kids were misdiagnosed as having ADHD, so they "grew" out of it because they didn't really have it. It's a lot less likely for an adult to be misdiagnosed because their brains aren't changing.
- Great reminders about the lack of physiological markers. The (or one?) elephant in the room, to me - I'd phrase it as - to what degree a kid's just naturally well- or poorly-suited to the public school environment itself.
  A child that finds it difficult to sit in one place and listen to words about abstract material for hours every day...I mean does that sound divergent in any way?
  One of the fundamental markers of childhood in my experience is a certain...animation, just this almost irresistible urge to move around, negotiate whatever activity is occurring and in what way, with whoever is nearby...switching activities and modes of play fluidly. Seems like the most normal shit ever to me lol.
  I do recognize we need a standardized way to educate our kids in a modern society, but as we learn more about young brains, we gotta start developing a more diverse way to accomplish the learning and development of self-discipline. The one-size-fits-all approach just obviously leaves many underserved, and worse, leaves them internalizing a lot of frustration with self, not to mention taking all kinds of drugs to "treat those symptoms".

Hmm I'm sure it's personal for each but me I feel like I didn't outgrow it. More like I overcame it.

Man it got worse in ways i didn't think possible.
So convinced i understood myself and i actually masterminded my soul into stagnation...
..but a hand come out of the mud
- So far, what do you think ADHD is?

Well yeah, if they got better, they wouldn't be someone you know with ADHD. Obviously

…because if it got better, you don’t know about it?
- Does learning how to deal with it, but still struggling more than an average person count as getting better?
  
  I've set up workarounds in my own life. Elsewhere in this thread there's people talking about forgetting to pay bills, versus bill pay. That's what I've done (and in some instances, have reminders on my phone set up to periodically remind me to do the things that can't be automated).
  I've also steered my social relationships and my career to be more accommodating of my brain. I'm with a wife who doesn't mind (and in some ways finds it endearing), and can help me fill in some gaps. I have a career where jumping around from topic to topic helps me seem well rounded, and where occasionally showing how I've done a deep dive into something persuades my colleagues that I've got great attention to detail (I do, but only on some things).
  My ADHD might be the same as it's always been, but my life has been set up so that it's all low consequences. The guardrails and safety nets are in place, and I can just be.
  
  Getting better doesn't mean it's fixed. It's just less bad.
- Exactly. This sounds like selection bias in action. If you're sampling adults who have ADHD and asking if it's better from when they were kids, you've already skewed the results beyond repair. You need to follow kids with ADHD into adulthood and see if it gets better.

... when you are medicated

Why does it seem like ADHD is the new Autism self-diagnosis? I've met a lot of people lately who have self-diagnosed themselves with ADHD.
- Because a lot of people don't have access to mental health resources, or even medical ones, and are struggling with the pressures of navigating a life setup for type A brains with a type B brain. They know "something" is off, and find symptoms match up with ADHD.
  
  I only got diagnosed because I was at the hospital for something else, and the local specialist noticed something was off with my behaviour. (I was there for a little while, to be fair.)
  As an adult, navigating anything administrative is a nightmare.
  
  My adult appointment for testing/evaluation was nearly 2 grand. I met my annual deductible in a month because of it. I'm fortunate enough to be middle class, so I could afford it, but I can't imagine someone making a lower end of middle class income just being able to drop that kind of money like that.
- Because it was wildly under diagnosed in many places until recently, and if you weren’t a white boy you were a lot less likely to be correctly diagnosed.
  
  I thought the consensus was that it was wildly OVER diagnosed in the late 90s to make kids shut up in school
  edit: Oh lmao I just realized was sublemmy I'm in
- Bcz people don't actually understand that ADHD is a debilitating condition that I wouldnt wish on my worst enemy. (I don't have any enemies tho bcz I'm an adult :P)
  
  I think some people are just trying to score Ritalin
- You got that backwards.
- Without looking it up, I believe the DSM says that diagnosis requires three out of five indicators. That would suggest that many people can get one or two indicators. Social media (specifically short form like twitter, instagram, and TikTok) has measurable negative impact on attention spans, while also propagating a narrative of colloquial symptoms.
  “Whee look at me being neurodivergent!” - golly, I do that too! Maybe I’m ADHD.
  For what it’s worth, I have both ADHD and mild autism. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. I’m saying that the diagnosis is devalued by “oh i do that too, I’m also a little bit adhd”.
  
  I self diagnosed before getting my formal diagnosis from a doctor. I was a hard yes to like 30 of the 32 signs of adult ADHD in Driven to Distraction.
  At some point it's kinda a relief to realize that other people are going through the same stuff as you, and start therapy and treatment that are actually catered to your needs since you've already tried a million other things and nothing has worked.
  And yeah everybody struggles with executive function and attention sometimes. But like, we all bleed when we're cut, doesn't mean haemophilia is fake.