Anyone else feel like their ADHD was always there but got progressively worse as an adult?

ADHD is commonly referred to as an executive dysfunction - it also effects non-executive tasks and time management in general but, coming into adulthood, you'll truly understand why it's a recognized disability and stare in shocked horror at ADHD havers of prior generations.

It was really unfortunate in school if you failed to complete an assignment and had to repeat a course or a grade but if you can't manage to pay rent or utility bills (even when you have the money to) you're fucked. It can also be difficult to keep jobs if you struggle to produce consistent output potentially depriving you of the money to pay those bills.

When you were a kid you (hopefully) would always have a roof over your head and food to eat - being an adult means losing that guaranteed safety net. Even if we've had years to practice coping methods the price of failure is extremely steep.

It's also for this reason that I've encouraged everyone I know in the states with ADHD to emigrate - the social safety nets in America effectively don't exist for us as they have qualifications and constant high amounts of effort to maintain enrollment. If you get fucked once in America you're going to be in a bad place.

Adderall isn't an approved medication outside of the United States though, and it's the only drug that works for me. Plus... I'm already having a hard enough time. You need tens of thousands saved up to even afford a move, and then go through the immigration process? All that paperwork? Obviously there are better safety nets outside of the United States but most people privileged enough to afford to leave would also be in less need of a safety net.

Basically, this is terrible advice lmao
- My understanding is Adderall isn't that much different to dexamphetamine?
- I moved out of country for about three thousand dollars in total and most of that was moving fees for shipping my possessions across the country. Canadian immigration costs are actually extremely reasonable and your out of pocket fees to the governor for applications will usually be under a thousand dollars (mine was especially affordable since I immigrated on a fiance visa).
  
  Everyone's situation is different, so don't feel pressured to leave - especially if you have a strong social safety net in the form of family and friends... I unfortunately didn't really have that.
  
  My main point though is that even people of privilege with high paying jobs (I'm a software developer myself) can suddenly get hit with a series of tragedies or other events that unbalance us and put us, in particular, in a place that we'll struggle to dig ourselves out of. There was a time in university when I ran out of meds and got hit by a bout of depression and escaped it purely by the intervention of a friend getting me to call the pharmacy and authorize a third party medication pickup and then going to grab the meds. That experience terrified me because of how helpless I felt trying to organize my life while experiencing a lack of meds and withdrawal.
  
  Shit can be hard - and yea, we're not all the same... so my advice might not work for you.
  
  Edit: I checked - and the visa I got my PR card on is now 1,205 $CAD potentially with additional fees for things like photos and background checks. The business PR path is 2385 $CAD - full information available here: https://ircc.canada.ca/english/information/fees/fees.asp
- Difficult to execute advice doesn't make it terrible.

No.

It’s just that adult life is less forgiving of ADHD symptoms.

As a kid they give you more of a pass because you’re a kid, they just assume kids get distracted, consumed by social life issues, or just “teen issues”. Maybe you fail one assignment but you pull a win off later that keeps your head above water thanks to averaging grades.

Now you move into a highly structured adult life where there’s far less forgiveness for failure to accomplish things by deadlines. Adult life doesn’t average your failure to pay bills or accomplish work your boss told you to do.

So yeah, ADHD is more stressful as an adult because there’s less forgiveness, less wiggle room.

JMO.

If you live in the US, and have medically-diagnosed ADHD, you can write your HR to let them know you have a disability under the ADA and that you would like accommodations. You must have it in writing (ie email), otherwise there’s no proof. Once you do this, you become protected in the vent your ADHD is negatively affecting your work.

Of course YMMV, and employers might still try to oust you if they think you’re not capable. But having a paper trail will certainly help.

I was also diagnosed late in life (mid 40s).

For me it became a significant impact in two places in my life:

as my roles changed and I needed more ability to handle "blank page" type work assignments as I became more senior, rather than "survive this chaos" which I've always excelled at (given my ability to drop something, pick up something else, then revert later.) With previous "chaos surfing" roles, my now diagnosed ADHD was actually a secret super power (seriously, I managed turn ADHD into a career). As my roles became more "take this blank page, and figure out what to do, and make it into a project to make stuff better" I fell off a performance cliff.
as 1 happened, my ramp up of symptom management routines started to impact my family. (I didn't actually realise this until my partner filled in her part of my diagnosis questionnaire. )

My Doc basically told me I had been doing everything they want ADHD patients to do to manage the impacts of their symptoms, but my level of challenge had reached a point where medication could help me live at an effort level below the 99.99% constant I had all the time.

He was right and it did..

Blank page work....that's a good way to put it. In grad school writing a thesis and it's the hardest thing I've ever, ever done with my adhd. And I used to do Stem Cell and Neurobiology! The lack of a deadline which I used to pressure myself in undergrad and no protocols to follow to a T, man....
- I just got through grad school and had a similar experience with my capstone project. I had all semester to work on it, but didn’t get started until a week before it was due. I had to take the last day off of work just to binge write my paper.
  
  So glad that’s over with … 😅
I really need to get on medication. Being able to do that “blank page work” is really the hurdle in front of me to advance my career

I'm 50 and I have my ADHD assessment in a month. I'm in software too similar to OP. for me the impulsiveness has gotten worse where i react with deregulated emotional outbursts that are affecting me and my family. I've got a bunch of processes to handle a lot of the symptoms but impulsiveness was never something I noticed I had until recently. I've always known i don't have much of a filter, blurting out whatever is forefront in my head. I've asked a number of my medicated friends and I'm told the medication does help with the emotional impulsiveness, providing the time to filter. but it does feel weird doing this at 50 🤯

I'm a few years younger, and have also started down the road to be assessed.

Your post resonated strongly with me. Just normal life feels harder than things should be, but the Aussie attitude for blokes is "she'll be right mate, stop being lazy and don't be such a pansy"

I fight really fucking hard to try to keep my shit together and be 'normal' and I'm tired.

At this point I'll take any help I can get.
It depends. When I first started taking the Straterra generic there were a few days that I had a much shorter fuse than normal but that went away. Mostly I noticed that it was much easier to focus and prioritize.
Don’t judge the first week of medication much. It is kinda up and down imo. Usually a nice settling point in week two. My outbursts were getting really bad. And they are now almost completely under control. Alcohol triggers it. Not in a rage fashion just brings back the blurts and unawareness and general lack of masking. Good luck!
Never too late to improve - you've still got lots of time to enjoy the benefits!

Have you considered therapy as well? I don't come down hard one way or another on therapy vs medication, but imo talking to a therapist about these sorts of things can be very helpful - especially when dealing with the more "emotional" side of things. Even just knowing how to identify certain emotional patterns or feelings can make a world of difference.

(Obviously you don't have to answer that - feel free to consider my question rhetorical!)
- yeah I'm also starting counselling really just to talk around the issues and to get a sense of understanding of them. i concur, meds are one part of the solution. self awareness through study and conversation are another significant part. however I'm stuck on how to interrupt impulsiveness when it's the impulsiveness that comes before the interrupt, if you get what I'm saying.. so i think i need to slow the machine down, give it time to interrupt myself 🤪

Yes. I didn’t seek treatment until my late 40s. I think my coping mechanisms started failing me as I got older, for a variety of reasons.

I was diagnosed at 32 in my last semester of my undergrad. I just ended up with more stress than I could handle and ended up in therapy and thats when I found out.
- Similar thing here. Too much stress at work and at home and suddenly things I’d always been able to do were becoming difficult. I couldn’t brute force my way into focusing anymore.
  
  But once I got on medication (and my body adjusted to it) my brain felt like it was 20 years younger again. It was life changing, for the better.

I'm not sure if the ADHD got worse or it was just the consequences that got worse. Either way, I've had to try to find coping mechanisms. I make a lot of lists and use the reminder app on my phone a lot.

My ADHD is so severe that I flunked out of high school even though I was placed in all college prep and AP classes. My parents were both born in the 1930's, so their solution was ground me. For four years. I had no idea what was wrong with me, and by the 10th grade I was convinced I was stupid. Then after high school I found the joys of self-medicating with alcohol and cocaine. I literally wasted 20+ years drifting from manual labor job to manual labor job, and staying trashed on the weekends. I used to be angry about it, now I'm just sad. Things could have been different. Now I'm too old, too tired, and too unemployable to care anymore. Thank Fat Baby Jeebus I never had children.

It doesn't get worse, everyone else changes.

Lol.

Have an upvote for giving me a laugh

Not particularly. I’m simply more aware of how it’s affected certain situations after the fact.

Plus the increased personal responsibilities that come with adult hood means you have less room to fuck up.

a 5yo can fuck up every step down the line and still cheer for victory because mom and dad needed a win and gaslighted the kid into believing they did things on their own.
- I literally had to tell my boss during my annual review that I deal with executive disorder for him to understand. Thankfully, after he looked it up, it seems he’s understood pretty well, but just telling people you have ADHD doesn’t seem to do much anymore.

Covid amplified mine hard-core and was the reason i sought diagnosis. I've heard others have experienced similar but I have no idea if this is a widespread thing, and it will be years before research attempts to check. It makes sense though, given the serotonin changes and the way neurotransmitters interact and regulate one another

Mine was worse in the middle. In the period of time between me leaving the nest for college, and dividing labor by strengths with my wife. It’s certainly always been there looking back on it (got a diagnosis late at 35)

I think it's partly decompensation.

I became more aware of my symptoms. I don’t think they are particularly worse though lol

My memory has gotten worse and worse. I think it's a matter of age, neurological damage/cognitive decline due to bipolar disorder and other stressful events, and worsened memory that was never great because of ADHD. I need to write everything down nowadays. Other than that, no; I think the rest of the symptoms have been similar throughout my life.

I got diagnosed because I started recognizing certain problems I had and how they were negatively impacting my life and wanted to know what was going on.

I did not expect the diagnosis I was given (BPD, ADHD and a referral to see a specialist to test for autism) because I don't recall ever having any of the issues affecting me I now have when I was a kid. I had no anxiety. I had no problems with selective mutism. Didn't have a problem staying on task, etc. I did have some issues regulating my emotions but that more indicates I've always had BPD than ADHD.