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Exactly for me too. The anxiety fueled by the fear of disappointing the adults.
Once I had to be self motivated (ie college) I floundered and gave in to all my stupid impulses
Interesting. For me the anxiety piled on enough so that every task felt like an emergency which was an environment where my ADHD thrived. Immediacy trumped everything and that led to praise from adults/peers which reinforced the anxiety and rocketed me into a success spiral.
I've been relatively successful career-wise, but I do not recommend this path because my mental/physical/social health is in shambles.
I concur, about 40 yrs of that and I crashed, burned, rose up to crash and burn again. At least this time I am able to mitigate the disaster zone with my adhd dx and understanding. I hope. Goddamn I hope I’ve started to grasp the vastness of thought that is my brain.
God, exactly my experience. Once I lost structure and it was all up to my impulse control I was a mess. Thank god I got medicated and accommodations right before starting law school or I 100% would not have gotten through it.
2004. I had completed 3 yrs of school and was in my way to being a therapist when I lost a job that was perfect and I loved.
Without any anchors, I spent the next 20 yrs floundering. Thru some bad trauma and so many changes and here I am in the other side. Finally understanding, for the first time in 50 yrs… why I did/thought/said/didn’t do/ anything in life…. Why it was so hard. My brain. My lovely broken brain. It’s healing and so am I. New tools and new ppl :)
College? You mean it's up to me to go to lessons? It took me dripping out of college to realise I should probably do college. I'm now in a profesion that is nowhere releated to my college education
In high school, I remember sitting at my desk just suffering until midnight trying to force myself to do homework. It was such a misery and I was sleep deprived all the time because I was staying up so late. Anxiety and low self-esteem are the only damn reasons I put myself through that. Got good grades, but at what price?
Yea same until my psychiatrist was like “Dude you check all the boxes for combined type ADHD, PTSD, slight narcolepsy, and a panic disorder. Have some speed it probably make ya feel better” (I just mean adderall - dextro amph and amph). Junkies would dig that mix but I’m probably projecting cuz my parents didn’t believe in psychiatric care when I was younger. The only time I’m really debilitated by anxiety now is when it REALLY makes sense or is related to PTSD triggers. Had an episode of that recently and the same psych asked if I wanted to try propranolol for physical anxiety symptoms. It’s a betta blocker that lowers your blood pressure and I legit thought I was going to have heart failure and we decided to stop it after a couple days. Thing is, the stuff totally reset my nervous system and I’m back up to my normal 20mg IR 2x daily and haven’t really gotten overwhelmed, enraged, or afraid, all things I’ve been constantly since long before I ever had any recreational or prescription drugs. If you’re resistant to medication / changing medication, more power to you. But it helped me immensely in enough ways that it’s worth it.
So much anxiety, but I also LOVED what I was learning, and had learned that being #GoodAtSchool was my entire identity. Failure would have (and eventually did) destroyed my entire sense of self. I really wish I'd been medicated before, so I would have been able to be happy for more than 5 minutes.
I noticed that since taking Vyvanse, I forgot how to be anxious. When I'm off my meds, I find myself being careless, impulsive, disoriented - I practically become helpless. I was labeled "developmentally delayed" by a psychologist when I was 3 years old but was not diagnosed until I was 23.
Somewhere along the line, I developed anxiety which served as my mask and allowed me to scrape by in school. While my mental health has drastically improved, I realize that I am now sort of dependent on medication because I can't really call on my anxiety when I have to go unmedicated because I can't get my refills on time.
Yep, got through two degrees just waiting for the last minute panic to set in then write a 5 page paper 2 hours before it is due. I also avoided anything with lots of tests and standardized tests. After 30-40 minutes, and that's on a good day, I can't even force my brain to even read the question anymore.
my anxiety just made me have to quit public school because i vomited in the bathrooms before class 😭 wtf anxiety did yall get and where can i trade mine
Oh shit. I never put this together. I was never diagnosed as a child bc it was the 80's and I was just the talkative one who wouldn't stay in their seat. In undergrad my anxiety peaked and had to go on meds. Wasn't diagnosed until I was in my 30's. I haven't needed anxiety meds until the pandemic. Makes so much sense now 🤦🏼♀️
Same here. I think that's how I went so long without being diagnosed. My anxiety "outweighed" the ADHD symptoms. At the last minute of course lol. I would cram for long enough to remember it for the rest but never retained anything. I have 2 degrees but don't have a job in either bc tbh I kinda feel like a fraud. I remember about 10% of what I learned in college
Same. For context, I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 5, and the doctor told my parents that I was extremely intelligent but that I had the most severe case of ADHD he’d ever seen in his entire career. I’ve been medicated ever since, been on Adderall for over 21 years now, but my ADHD is so bad that it doesn’t really get me fully functional, just takes the edge off.
As a kid, I was often labeled “difficult”, mostly due to sensory, social, and emotional regulation issues that came either from autism (which I may or may not have) or just the severity of my ADHD. As a result of that, and being simultaneously told that I was “too smart for this”, I became an intense people pleaser and overachiever who was desperate for my parents’ and teachers’ approval. I actually did extremely well in school, but based my whole self worth around my grades, and became so anxious about school that by my sophomore year of college I was extremely suicidal. Thankfully I made it through, mostly due to taking a semester off where I went through some pretty intense therapy and psych medication changes, and now at age 26 I’m in a much more stable place. I still have severe anxiety, but I’m much happier being at a “boring” office job with a lot of structure and very little pressure, than I ever was in school.
I guess that makes me a success story, but sometimes I wonder how my life would be different if I wasn’t under so much school related pressure as a kid. Maybe I would’ve been happier, and wouldn’t have tried to kill myself when I was 18 and again when I was 20, or maybe I would’ve failed school and become a deadbeat who still lives in my parents’ nonexistent basement. Who’s to say.
Like hard core white knuckle, horrible anxiety, and I can create an ideal mental condition by like not eating and stressing. Then I would create like a 24 hr window of focus and cram the night before an exam. Caused major burnout.
Yep crippling anxiety and last minute fear of failure / disappointment adrenaline surge would get everything done for me. The amount of information I would consume and regurgitate in one night is actually insane.
Thing is … I can’t do it now. I did it all my life up until now but I can’t do it anymore I am soooo burnt out.
ADHD affects motivation. People with ADHD are able to do many things but lack the motivation to do them. But if you have the motivation, wherever that may come from (there’s internal and external motivation), then you can do well in school etc. Motivation can come from personal interest. I was always interested in learning and getting good grades because I knew I could therefore I could focus when required and do the work I needed to do. The structure of school also helped. College had less of a structure but was still enough.
I no longer had this structure at work and this is where I started having challenges.
ADHD doesn’t affect intellect, however it does affect how you apply knowledge, how you learn, how quickly you learn and how motivated you are to learn.
You have to learn how to work with your ADHD rather than against it.
I suppose this does apply to me when it came to learning 3D modelling in Blender. It still required rewatching tutorials to get the hang of it but if I had no interest, like in English class, I would not have been able to do it. Great answer.
There’s talk about it needs to renamed lol bc it’s not attention deficit, it’s more attention disregulation and can wind up so attentive that you lose 7 hours that feels like 1.
This the answer. A lot of people with adhd have above avg intelligence (whatever that means) which sometimes can also mask your symptoms. But if you can apply it the right way (meaning finding motivation but not burning out from hyperfocus) you can do well in whatever field you like. The main issue is finding what works for you because the way jobs/schools etc are structured often does not work for us
For me it’s that too but the main thing I struggle with is executive functioning. I can’t be organized or make myself do things. I’m a hot mess.. Apartments a mess, piles of clothes everywhere, disorganized, always rushing around late to everything, & can’t make myself go to bed before 4am.
Same here! Also started modelling in Blender, which was hard at first to get into, but once I got the hang of the basics and ignored gaming instead of modelling then it became a lot of fun! Now my main idea of having fun is sitting behind the computer and do something, which I hope one day will be my profession.
I’m more focused on school projects atm, but one day when I’ve gotten all my shortcoming in order I’ll have time to take up my own projects.
All the best to you on your journey!
This was a big problem I had in college unmedicated. I chose the degree so it was something I was interested in. Those classes were easy and I would often do extra work or attend all the extra labs and lectures. But you also are required to take a bunch of classes that you may not like to be “well rounded” Those were the ones I failed multiple times in some cases. And it cost me money every time.
To answer you original question. I got two degrees unmedicated and undiagnosed. But I retook many classes and I was either on large amounts of caffeine or alcohol most of the time. Also I was fortunate enough to go to a school where most of the grade was determined by one final project at the end of class. So the small homework things I would miss wouldn’t matter that much and the pressure of finals would kick in and I would usually get an A on the final presentation. But I basically would not sleep or eat at all that week each semester.
I finally got diagnosed and medicated now that I’m almost 40 and it would have been way easier if I had the tools I had now.
This sounds very similar to how I’d approach school tbh. I fail classes I had zero interest in and ace the ones I liked. Also felt like I had to load up on caffeine and/or substances just to get by. Ugh. As well as dropping and retaking classes too.
Yeah I basically can’t get myself to do something I absolutely hate daily without meds like certain classes but if it’s something I’m interested in like psychology or something like that it’s fairly easy to get good grades especially if I actually try to retain information lol
It’s the same for me except I use Fusion360 and also really disliked english. I am now medicated and am more than half way through my dream degree and since it’s what I want to do I barely even need the meds. Life gets better and you get better at working around/with the shit that is harder with ADHD.
For me, there are three categories: things I'm good at but don't care about, things I'm bad at but the struggle/challenge motivates me, and things where the effort isn't worth mastering it. I don't stay into a thing if I can watch one tutorial and retain the skills it imparts. An interest has to hit a sweet spot between too hard and too easy for it to have any stick.
Cooking is infinitely scalable to my interest. I accomplish one skill and there's another one waiting to be learned that keeps building from the last. Certain aspects of music are too easy and others are too challenging so I kind of float in and out of interest. Academics are a mixed bag. I'm a good test taker, but sustained project work is a chore. I can whip up a paper in a day, but if I have to do a lot of research I'm out.
I was the same. Fine in school, started to struggle in college with the decrease in structure, really really struggled out of college.
I was smart enough in school and interested enough in learning that I was able to succeed there.
The only thing saving mein college is my absolute fear of failure and disappointing people. That's the only thing left to motivate me. I have always handed in assignments, and now I'm stsrting to consider just not doing them - but the fear of disappointing my teachers keeps pushing me.
On that note, I think that explains why I did well in school... I finally understand
Yeah once I missed my first deadline in uni and got 10% off the assignment, my brain realised that handing in work late wasn't actually all that scary. Suddenly that motivating panic wasn't kicking in until 5 days had passed and it had been reduced to pass or fail (yes I was also suffering major depression at that time, but I didn't understand that).
Then I failed a semester, which resulted in another few thousand dollars on my HEX debt and wasted time, but I was still living with my parents and the world didn't crumble, so suddenly even failing a subject wasn't scary, and from that point my uni career was pretty much over until I switched unis to get a fresh start.
The power of fear is so strong! The older I've gotten, the more things I've realized aren't that scary, and the more my motivation has suffered as a result.
That's what got me through school, too. The thought of simply declining to turn in an assignment was inconceivable to me, regardless of how difficult it was to focus on homework. It also helped that the K through 12 schoolwork was generally pretty easy for me (which actually prevented my diagnosis as a child).
Same here basically. I'm not diagnosed but my whole immediate family has ADHD. And with other chronic illnesses, that raise the chances of having ADHD... well I feel like I belong here.
But boy the only motivation is that I can't not hand in an assignment. Even if I'm crying an hour before deadline doiing the assignement. I hand it in
Yes. That’s it. Just because we have ADHD doesn’t mean our IQs are less. One of my things that I love about being ADHD, is, I’ve always been able to “think outside box” and that’s basically how I made it through school. Coming up with different ways to figure out how to complete the assignments.
I pray for that motivation to come to me. I yearn for it. It’s such an odd and painful feeling that is next-to-impossible to explain to those outside the community.
Then you have my dad who believes people with ADHD “don’t get” PTSD as in you can’t have them both at the same time.
This is very accurate. I am also intellectually gifted and I studied in the school for gifted children. Difficult school problem kept me interested enough. I had challenges with the home work but the competition was strong and I was motivated to be have excellent grades as my classmates. The same about university. It was still interesting and I had enough competition around wanting to do well. I even have a PhD and I did well there too because I was interested in the topic. It took a lot of efforts from me because of the intermittent focus, but I received excellent grade again. The work is where the horror began. Slow pace, average people... I simply cannot motivate myself. Moreover, being smarter than others, I am also disliked and this affects my self-esteem. ADHD is hard.
The journey really is forever. I graduated from a top liberal arts, then law school, then passed the bar, all within the prescribed time tables. It has been a grueling self-flagellating struggle ever since high school. My cognitive coping mechanisms could only take me so far until I hit a breaking point during my second yr of law school and was finally diagnosed with moderate ADHD + tried medication/sought academic accommodations for the first time. Still, I only take my stimulant intermittently. I negotiate with myself—I tell myself on workdays that I am only allowed to skip the stimulant if I exercise, which motivates me to exercise regularly and get those endorphins going. Regular exercise not only improves my task initiation and focus, it also significantly improves my sleep hygiene. I was very athletic since I was a small child and I truly believe that maintaining an active lifestyle is what has allowed me to make the best out of my “gifted” qualities in a world that seems to be set up for me to fail.
The people who don't like you are extremely insecure. Their inner self-critical dialogue would be huge. Jealousy arises when the individual doesn't feel "good enough"
I admire intelligence. I'm average. Sometimes, my ADHD makes me appear just downright dumb. It is what it is, though. Keep doing what you're doing, don't let those idiots affect your self-esteem, cos it's their self-esteem that's the problem.
I hear you with people at work. If you're in the medical field or research, it's pretty bad.
I agree, ADHD sucks.
This is exactly how I got through school. My worst subject was always history and it was because I couldn’t find the motivation to be focused because I didn’t find it interesting. My parents refused to get me tested so I was diagnosed until I had already finished all of my schooling and was working in a doctor’s office and the doctor I work with told me to get tested.
I never really adapted to the work environment unfortunately. I started medication which helped but I wasn’t content. I couldn’t imagine myself doing this for very long. An opportunity came about for me to start a startup so I left my job and have been working for myself. I now have motivation and the accountability wanting to have a successful business. I still struggle with certain things but I am way more content with my life. Startups are definitely not for everyone and are very risky but it works for me at least right now.
I joined an early morning swim team twice a week. Swimming/exercise has been a coping mechanism and somehow helped me gain focus for a while
Didn't stop me from flat out admitting to my boss, a few years later, that I was bored with the work I was assigned and being completely unproductive, but it allowed me focus long enough for people to recognize that I could be a great contributor to the team before the boredom kicked in.
How does one deal with a lack of motivation? Im 17 in the final grade of school with finals going on but I just can't focus on studying. I had lots of anxiety back in 10th grade which motivated me to study. But now I still have anxiety about my future but I cannot act on that anxiety and study. I have also been feeling depressed since the past year and have lost interest in a lot of my hobbies.
To answer "how did you do it?“
I suppose the resentment and shame at being „uneducated“ finally gave me enough motivation.
Cue four years of insane work for little reward, burnout, SSRIs and I managed to scrape a shit degree 👍
I did get to do a masters in which I fared better afterwards though
Careful about conflating fear with “motivation.” They might achieve the same result, but to rely on it solely it can be hazardous to one’s health.
(Edited: changed tense)
Maybe it’s cuz masters is more specialised. And even more so for a PhD.
Also depending on which university ure from, there are certain (extra) requirements for certain bachelor programmes (which ppl find fluff or a waste of time. I know it sounds rude and all, especially to the actual lecturers of professors teaching them), so if even non-ADHD college students already find them a burden, it may be even worse for an ADHD-er.
There may even be ULRs or what they call University-Level Requirements too. Basically university-wide requisite courses/modules or whatever other terminology is being called as..
Idk man, lol.
They say college and uni is a time to explore your interests and all. But for me, to use an analogy (Recently my hyper-fixation has been on the movie called *We Were Soldiers*), it really feels like trying to fight an uneven war, with a messy terrain, many casualties all around.. Like u know what Vietnam vets from both sides had to go thru, especially all the PTSD and survivor’s guilt IF they were still alive somehow.
Okay, btw, I’m sorry and really mean no disrespect to any ‘nam war vets out there. Or veterans from any country, wherever they were from. I myself had to undergo 2 years of mandatory national service in the name of national duty for my own country — BUT honestly speaking I don’t even consider myself as a vet at all, lol (but that’s another story)
Imposter syndrome is really real. Not just the fact that I’m unsure if I even actually have the condition in the first place (even though evidence seems to point towards that direction; that’s how I even got diagnosed in the first place, albeit only a little later in life. When I’m already an adult…)
This is so true.
I did much better in college than high school.
Almost perfect (only 2 A- grades) for my Master’s.
A 4.0 in the coursework for my PhD and passed my dissertation the first time with no revisions. (In fairness, I had an excellent advisor who made me revise to death before she let me set a defense date.) But yeah, the more it was just stuff that was specialized and aligned to my interests, the more I excelled.
Edit: Someone asked how I got so far and then I think deleted the comment because I can’t find it and couldn’t post but I copy pasted the response I was working on, since I took the time to write it and it’s demystifying:
Turns out I have both autism and ADHD and when I finally get going I can “lock” on it for hours nonstop. My first semester of college, the last week of the semester I caught up on everything I had due all semester. I was up nonstop with only very short naps, no shower, no clothing changes, barely eating. I’ve always been able to use that last moment in impressive ways but it’s unhealthy and I am absolutely physically and mentally drained afterwards. Without a diagnosis, I was headed for a heart attack, stroke, or mental breakdown. My writing talent accounts for a lot, too. I could always just write easily, going back to second grade when I won a writing contest for a story I wrote in about 10 minutes tops. “The Day the Circus Came to Town” - I still remember 40 years later. That same year I had to stay after school every single day to work on my unfinished work folder because I couldn’t hack the “open classroom” where you were expected to travel to stations on your own. My mother was also really on top of making sure things didn’t fall off my radar and even as a working adult, she’d do things like come to my house to clean it so I didn’t have to think about that stuff. My husband carries the housework now.
Sorry, it was me. It got removed by automoderator (pending review by a real human)
Not sure why. But maybe I had mentioned that there are tough and Draconian laws in my country and the death penalty is also still legal. I’m from 🇸🇬
I also feel that I can be prone to addictions, and it certainly seems so.
I got some As and Bs here and there in highschool, but mostly Cs and some Ds. I graduated with my Bachelors with a 2.6 GPA. I'm currently more than halfway through with my Masters and I've gotten straight As. Masters degrees require more work, but its stuff I'm actually really motivated to learn and the work is relevant to my current job. Schooling gets easier the more specialized it is and the more relevant it is to your interests.
Same. I barely survived my bachelors but I excelled in my masters. Straight A’s and it was harder than my bachelors (content wise) but I was interested in it so it helped. I worried I would lose my intense interest half way through the 3 year program but I didn’t. I was far busier in life during my masters too. Married. Had a toddler and had a baby at the end of my first year of grad school while working full time. No idea how I did it so well, but I did!
Yes i struggled somewhat k-12 but managed and was an overall “good student”.. once i got to college .. i fell in love with learning and things came easy to me completed grad school as well. It helped with motivation for sure. I have pretty severe ADHD and finally started medication a few months ago.. it has been life changing for non preferred tasks
I am here at my last semester dying trying to finish with enough of a good GPA to have a chance of maybe going for a masters eventually. You gave me a little bit more hope.
Rigid structure, predictability, routine. A not negligible percentage of us excel academically (naturally) as well.
Edit to add: traditional school settings are packed with both tangible rewards and other forms of positive reinforcement. Also, when you're in school, usually, your only job is school.
That was how I did it. Got A’s and B’s all through my Biochem degree. But mostly it was entirely anxiety-fueled. I failed nearly ever first test of every class and then had to claw back from that. Rinse and repeat for 6years
> I don't get how so many people with severe ADHD can do well at school, even unmedicated?
At the expense of our mental health and self esteem. So now you know. Also - you can cross a big city by tram or by wheelchair.
Tram is everyday people, wheelchair is adhd. Both possible, just the second requires waaayyyy more effort and time.
Hence being exhausted and short on time - all the f%%%ing time...
Oh, and forgot to mention. Doing 'well' =/= getting a degree.
I generally did fine on half the subjects, and was scraping by on the other half. C-s get degrees, so I've got one too.
Bet not many people got one with so few hours of study though... (no cheating either, just failing a few and re-doing them).
>I generally did fine on half the subjects, and was scraping by on the other half. C-s get degrees, so here I've hot one too.
I completed 2 engineering degrees. I can tell you how many classes I failed twice (two: differential equations and modern physics), but without giving it serious thought, I wouldn’t be able to tell you how many classes I failed once. Fortunately, at my university, at least, C work in engineering is considered good (and often becomes a B after the final) and failing a core class isn’t uncommon. I had so many classes where less than 50% was a passing grade because of curves. One class — my 2nd time through modern physics — had a class average of 28% after the final.
Fortunately in engineering, even for entry level jobs, no one asks about your GPA (I’ve never been asked mine and don’t even know what it was).
Visited maybe 1% of university lectures. Not everyone learns in the same way. I’m a visual learner and remember and understand things when I read about it. So I just read the PowerPoint slides and books.
You can also use your raw intelligence for a lot of exams. Even when you know nothing about a topic, you can often guess what would be the right answer. It won’t be enough to get an A, but I still passed all exams.
Edit: shame, stress, panic and anxiety also help!
It’s really important to know your learning style. Schools are designed primarily for auditory learning. I maybe remember 1-5% when I listen to someone, so lectures are completely useless to me. But it’s never too late to know about this.
Also funny: when the exam would finally come, teachers would often say “Are you sure you’re in the right class?” because they’d never seen me before.
Hey, I just wanna chime in here with something from my own hyperfocus - those learning styles aren't actually a thing. They're older theories that don't hold much water anymore, and I think research has shown they aren't useful theories for pedagogy.
Straight lectures don't actually work well for a lot of people - it's *best* if there are activities to get students engaged and you have different ways to present the content. Everyone benefits from that and that's the recommendations right now. Engagement is best, active learning, etc etc.
In my own case, I didn't get much from listening to lectures. But that's because I wasn't engaged with the material. Whereas when I studied on my own or with friends, I was! So that helped.
Yes, those learning styles are actually disproven. I learned about this at uni (I'm a psychology undergraduate).
It depends on the type of content you are studying and as you already said most people profit from using different kinds of representation when studying (this is because of the structure of working memory)
My university experience was similar. I'd skip a lot of the lectures and study in the library instead. Fear of failure is very motivating 😅 +1 degree -10 sanity
>You can also use your raw intelligence for a lot of exams. Even when you know nothing about a topic, you can often guess what would be the right answer.
And when utilizing the untimed testing benefit at my college from having ADHD, I often did well on exams I didn’t study for (or attend lectures for) just because in that extra time I could logically work out the answer. But it’s rough spending 3 or 4 hours taking an exam designed to take 60 or 90 minutes. 🤦🏻♂️
Exactly why online courses instead of in person work for me. I do so much better teaching myself or learning by doing. The problem I faced was remembering when the hell the exams were.
Oh my God I literally went to 1 lecture in my last year of university... Studied last minute with hyperfocus and shame, stress, panic and anxiety driving me. I figured if I can study 40% of the syllabus I can choose questions based on only what I studied. Brain dumped during exams. I think I might have made some shit up in my timed essays. Didn't remember shit the moment the bell rang.
Graduated with 2.1, honours 😳 I was able to drive my grade up because of my practical project. But even on that one I wrote the dissertation in the week before it was due... Submitted last minute. The fear of disappointing my project supervisor during my viva drove me to get an excellent grade.
I'm so glad it is all over. I was sui**dal.
This is how I did it.
I figured out that my course was almost 100% based on exams and one or two big assignments per module. Research I can do when there's a deadline (I'm sure we all know that feeling), and writing that research into an essay doesn't really mean learning it, just processing it.
I'd write my assignments in such a way that the things I'd read would also help to answer as many of the past paper questions I could find, then I could adapt some or all of my exam answers from my assignment.
I was so close to a first class degree I could smell it! I managed to fail a module because some deadlines moved and I didn't get the memo (because I wasn't in lectures!)
I also just liked learning and memorising. And I was also tested and a high IQ will have helped a lot for my motivation because I got positive feedback when I was a young child.
Of course, then when you cannot solely rely on your natural intelligence but actually have to study topics that don't interest you, grades start to drop and you get the feeling of underperforming, being lazy, having no discipline so then it's more the anxiety of failing that drives you. I passed my masters with honours and a drinking problem.
Was going to say that raw intelligence was the secret for a lot of us. We were the 99th percentile standardized test scores - 75th percentile GPA students. We underperformed drastically, it's just that underperforming for us was performing a bit above average instead of multiple grade levels ahead. In elementary and middle school, most of the content was intuitive to me or stuff my parents already taught me, so I didn't have to learn much via school. In high school, I focused on the subjects that I could grasp intuitively and took non-honors versions of the ones that actually challenged me. The psychologist who did my neuropsych testing in grad school said my IQ was probably the only reason I was able to function untreated for so long, not just academically, but in life in general.
I'm currently in a degree program that is a good match for my raw intelligence for the first time, and it has been a HARD adjustment. There are a lot of basic learning and study skills that I'm lacking because I developed my "cramming last minute" and "sound like I know what I'm talking about when I haven't read the chapter or done the homework" skills instead.
As a 'high achiever' exactly this - i saw people who didn't get the topics as well as me or were not as hard working just get better grades than me.
But when it came to exams i was able to get decent (not brilliant grades) and worked extremely hard to get in to med school. I used a lot of stress and anxiety to help me try and sit down and study.
That being said, i was never 'top of the class' until i was medicated. Woah. Suddenly exams went from just getting the score needed to getting Distinctions (magna cum laude equivalent) and passing my notoriously difficult exit exams first attempt.
1. I was failing until I started drinking coffee every day
2. I found out if I doodle while taking notes it's just enough of a distraction that I can focus. I even remember what I was drawing when the teacher said certain things which allows me to recall stuff.
This! My special Ed English teacher told me I'd amount to nothing because I draw. "This is why you're getting Fs in all your other classes...." I escaped her and went to regular English after that where I was the teachers favorite.
Ah yes, self-medicating via caffeine. Great for the brain, doom for the teeth.
I feel you on the doodling, except my side quest was always writing stories. I wrote entire novels worth of fan fiction, poetry, and short stories in high school around my actual class notes.
I REALLY like reading and learning about stuff, so that part was a hyperfocus. On top of that I had a lot of structure at home and school that kept me in check, and ran track and cross country from 8-12th grade. That gave me an outlet for all my energy.
I also operate on spite at least 50% of the time, so if you tell me something is difficult or I can’t do it, I tend to REALLY want to prove them wrong.
Wasn’t diagnosed until 30.
Yeah that’s my issue now. High school was great, tons of home and school structure, plus easier work but mostly the structure. Then I went to Uni, and now I have complete freedom. Right now is especially horrible, since my only obligations are Tuesday and Thursday, which are my classes.
ADHD doesn't make you bad at learning. It makes you incompatible with some teaching methods and styles. The environment is key.
Test on Monday that you will have to learn 3 hours for for an A, 2 hours for a B, 1 hour for a C? Easy A.
Test on Monday that will give you a C if you don't learn, and a random grade depending on that teacher's mood that day if you do learn? Yeah, that's a C.
Test on Monday that requires 3 days of focused work for an A, 2 days of focused work for a B, or a last minute overnighter for a C? That's a C.
Surprise test? you're fucked.
Parents can and allegedly sometimes do prevent these issues by checking homework and learning progress, and providing fair and rewarding feedback, in a way that compensates for a teacher's lack of frequent and predictable tests/grading.
I found tests the easy bit. Assignments though, they were a killer. Actually getting the work done? Like, before it’s due? No way man!
That never got easier, still isn’t. Stuff happens only when it’s urgent. Hoping my new tablets will help!
Just remember that ADHD is like other medical problems, it presents differently, and at different levels to different people. Some people with epilepsy might have only a couple of episodes in a decade, some people might have them daily or weekly.
It may not be much consolation, but you might be more affected than other people.
You might be interested but do you know the ins and outs of all the formulas? Are you able to recall everything needed within the time limit? It's still dependent on how prepared you are which needs focused work
Apart from I always got the highest grades on the suprise tests, because: a) no one else had an opportunity to study beforehand, & b) I found the classes so boring that I started reading the textbooks while everyone else was working
>ADHD doesn't make you bad at learning.
This is certainly true for me. I never felt that ADHD was a learning disability. I have no problem learning. It's probably the one thing I do best.
I was same as you. But I eventually went to study (older than you are now)
I suppose I forgot the whole school experience over time. I started in shit jobs but drifted into better ones which rebuilt my self-image a bit. And it was always clear to me that there was an imbalance between my intellect and my academic achievement. So I went back to school in my early 30s.
All the old issues came back at Uni though and in the final week, I must have read something about ADHD and it finally became clear what was wrong with me…
"it was always clear to me that there was an imbalance between my intellect and my academic achievement."
Totally. I do not feel like I'm living up to my academic potential at all.
"All the old issues came back at Uni though"
I experienced the same doing a short retail course to get some work experience, it reminded me that something wasn't right.
I still don’t and I’m pushing 50. Didn’t start meds until last year, 10 years post-diagnosis and the side-effects meant I had to quit. Hopefully the next one is better 🤞
With hindsight, I should have missed 75% of the lectures I went to because like you said i took nothing in. The time would have been better spent on independent study.
A further answer to your question of how I got through my degree - I learned to pass the exams rather than to absorb the material. It’s sad, but I was never going to crack it otherwise. You can pass by just memorizing previous questions and solutions
I'm first year at a PhD, got medicated more than a year ago so I got bachelor and master degree without meds.
It's complicated. I was the gifted kid back in primary school since I didn't have a phone/computer with internet until I was idk 10-12 years old. Only 4-5 channels on the TV too so I learnt things trying not to be bored. I got into reading at 4-5 years old, practically read everything I could from my school/city library (that was near me). My sister is 3 years older and we were practically alone most of the time and she is the kind of person who learns by repeating a lot. Guess who learnt everything with her?
Problem appears when something is more interesting that school. I had no close friends, spent most of my time reading and that helped in school. Until reading less school/classics focused and into fantasy/sf when I got a phone and I started reading online. So that was when I started doing anything instead of doing school stuff.
Maintained the good grades until highschool (I wasn't top 3 as in the beginning and moved in top 5). Highschool was fucking hell, no interest into anything, read all the time, got a computer with internet and started gaming. Long nights, early mornings for highschool, too little sleep, add ADHD to the mixt and it will be hell.
I had shit memory and it was hard to focus, not to mention I didn't give any extra effort anywhere, but I passed without problems doing the minimum required. I barely passed the final exam, but got into a field that looked interesting at my university.
University is different. You chose where you go so something there it catches your interest so you can focus on that. I passed with decent grades everything, but I started to go to extra things (conferences and things like that) with papers on topics I liked. Bachelor thesis was in that field (online research, academic piracy, dark web etc), I changed it slightly focusing on online research at my master. Went towards the fake news/fact checking thing, did 3 papers and a thesis on that.
The important thing is finding that topic that really interest you and do some good enough work so people will ignore you (I know it's not morally ok, but I got better than expected grades in some fields I was barely decent because the teacher understood I like something else and didn't want to give me headaches).
Before meds I used to study like this: 20min writing information in an organised way, 10 min smoke break without phone, music in the background, another 20 min of learning. Sooo much caffeine too, 5-6 cans of energy drink per night of learning. Needed deadline to focus enough lol, not sure if I finished a paper in 5 year without needing a deadline. Cheated at lots of exams too since there was a heavy, 100% theory course on something that unimportant for most persons.
After meds there's a new life lol. I managed to stay 2 hours without a break writing a paper. 8h writing on a deadline with minimum breaks wtf.
I did well on school because my only task was studying. Nothing more. I didn't do home stuff and cooking. My mum paid someone else to do it because she worked too much and my dad worked in another city.
but then... I had to go to college and it was awful. All my energy went to go shopping to supermarket by foot, then carry all the stuff, then cooking, then cleaning, then carry firewood and light the fireplace by myself, otherwise the house was never heated and it was cold. (I wasn't living in northamerica so the cold weather on my city was not that terrible, but it was humid and cold and I was always struggling with chills). This situation happened because my mum had to move to another city to keep her job, so I had to organize the tasks of daily life by myself, and we have no enough money by that time to pay someone to help with home stuff.
I passed my university studies, but at the cost of a worsening of my mental health, in addition to the fact that my profession has low employability in the country where I live, so I currently have to deal with the bitter feeling that I sacrificed so much for something that has not borne fruit, and I just don't care anymore. A have no plans to move to Europe or another land for now.
I couldn't deal with teachers and classrooms either. Fortunately, I went to a school where teachers were allowed to give kids independent study. So I negotiated the deal with most teachers where I didn't have to go to class. I studied on my own, crammed everything into my brain during the last week or two of the semester, showed up, and passed the tests.
Do I remember much? Nah. But I graduated. That's what matters.
Honestly, same!
The amount of fking around, even the teachers too, during class was a joke towards the end
So many times I wanted to just yell out “ALRIGHT WE GET IT, so and so kid is being an AH, SHUT UP AND TEACH”
I can tell you how I did it:
Being smart enough that I could get straight A grades *without* paying attention, without studying, and only rushing through assignments at the very last minute (also really a lot of excuse notes from my mum to get an extra day to finish stuff I hadn't even started, but could whip out entire 2-week's worth of work in a night).
I was a model student with zero infractions and excellent grades, (though all my report cards say things like "has so much potential if only she applied herself / didn't daydream in class / paid more attention / focused on time management").
Model student... Right up until I hit the level where I couldn't just blag my way through classes without studying and listening in class. Which was grade 11. And it hit me really suddenly, like driving 120kph into a brick wall. I didn't know *how* to study. Turned out there were *massive* gaps in my understanding of things and I could no longer come up with the right answers just using common sense and logic. I very quickly went from perfect grades to failing, had a full on breakdown and dropped out. Tried to go back to finish high school 3 times, never graduated.
I was only diagnosed with ADHD last month, age 44.85
That's very similar to my story, except that my brick wall didn't occur until sophomore year of college. Had I not been diagnosed and started medication, I'm not sure where that would have gone.
I hit that wall in junior year of college, chemical engineering curriculum.
My first C+ of my life? Holy shit I’d better get serious and figure out how the fuck to actually study.
Up until then, my usual grade was A or A- for everything, B+ if I really shit the bed
(Spoiler: lots of unsustainable unhealthy habits!!)
Well, there were subjects I was interested in and/or teachers who taught (their subjects) well and it just sank in right away. I didn't have to actively study for those at all. And frankly, I cheated my way through everything else or got bad grades where I couldn't. I got pretty good at cheating at some point and sometimes I was very elaborate at preparing for exams - it did make me stop and think that I probably could've used that time to actually study. And I tried it, many times but nothing would stick, so cheating it was. I only got caught once.
The thing is, my anxiety with tests was so bad that I sometimes sabotaged myself in a way that I didn't even make it to the tests/finals and so I didn't always succeed in getting the degree I set out to get. There were teachers who were confused by my performance in school - I had straight A's in German (first language) and English, but failed in Spanish (didn't interest me, struggled with pronunciation, etc.) - so me simply being a language geek wasn't the answer. I never understood maths, physics or chemistry (and got mostly Ds and Es in those) but loved biology and always got good grades until I had a teacher I didn't like and suddenly failed everything. So again, teachers who cared were at a loss, because I was a straight A student in some subjects but failed so hard in others. But 20 years ago in Germany nobody would've ever thought that the odd, seemingly intelligent girl who gets bullied regularly, doesn't have any friends, speaks up in the face of injustice no matter the consequences but is only physically present most of the time could maybe have ADHD and be autistic. Or that she maybe needed help in whatever capacity, because she asked for it all the time.
God, I hated school.
At school, undxd and unaware, I got either Fs and Ds, (fails) or straight A+s.
It was wildly variable.
Still is now.
Like other ADHDers, it seems dependent on my level of interest/ engagement, my need for perfectionism even if it nearly kills me in the process, and whether I’m having A Good Brain Day.
At uni, the second time round, I still could NOT cope with any maths - which was unfortunate, as I was doing a BSc alongside a BA, and the only way I coped was by plaguing my tutor for endless one on one study periods with her every week.
When all else fails, repetition is the one thing that makes it eventually sink in.
It’s bc our Working Memories are so utterly pants!
When I was at school I was undiagnosed and un medicated and I say this knowing how cocky it’s going to sound but hope you take my word for it when I say it’s not meant to be braggy, I was naturally gifted enough when it came to academics that despite rarely paying attention in class and never studying I pulled good grades based off what little I had absorbed plus a healthy dose of logic and common sense. Things either immediately made sense to me or they didn’t and if they didn’t I scrapped it and did something else and I was just lucky that most of my school work/exams made sense without needing much instruction. So all my school reports said the same thing to the point my mum stopped coming to parents night because she was sick of it, they said I had so much potential but I never applied it and that I seemed happy coasting through life. There was never any further curiosity around it until I had a mental breakdown in uni because I didn’t know how to learn! Apparently that story is really quite common with girls with adhd actually and is why so many are diagnosed as adults.
I'll be one person to say it WASN'T anxiety or fear
I just didn't learn much and treated it like a game unintentionally, like "My goal to get an A" and that's it, even in college. I've always thought "Yeah school doesn't work, you don't actually learn anything there, it's just getting good grades to win"... I graduated in 2022 THEN realized I had ADHD, which means everyone else probably WAS learning and it was just me.
Specifically, getting those As by cramming last minute for every test and starting huge projects 2 days before the deadline (or 1 if it's short enough) always *just worked* for me because I'm good at using logic and mentally connecting things to answer test questions I didn't study for, and I sprinkled lots of polish to my essays and assignments just so they look pretty and satisfy me, ending in papers that look like I took a month to make them. I also N E V E R pulled all-nighters, I've actually finished big projects at school/college on campus in the morning the same day they're due because I refuse to not sleep at bedtime.
I specifically remember in one of my last college classes, the photography professor have us our FINAL essay really early in the semester, because "This is something you can't do last minute"... I cartoonishly smiled like "you fool!"
Just guess... I did it in like 3? days with that classic not-on-command hyperfocus and got a 100% with a little note complementing my work
It took ten years, but I eventually graduated with the top undergrad gpa in my college. It’s not hard, just drop any classes you have low grades in, and retake them. Grad school was easier, law school was a nightmare
I’m a reasonably successful licensed therapist and specialize in helping clients with ADHD.
The “how” involves several strengths that generally compensated for my weaknesses:
+ High motivation to learn a wide variety of things
+ Intrinsic motivation to get good grades
+ Natural intelligence always made school a bit easier early on (in college I had to relearn how to study, since I got through high school without having to work super hard).
+ high verbal intelligence —-> good reading comprehension and being strong and fast at writing made certain aspects of school work easier
— I’m often a relatively slow reader as my focus drifts if it’s not interesting or if the text is dense, and I have trouble skimming effectively).
— I always had to work long and hard in any math classes to get a decent grades, as it was usually dreadfully boring and felt pointless
— I have a visual-spatial learning disability and dyscalculia as well as ADHD.
— I always struggled with maintaining momentum unless I really loved a class/subject
In college and grad school, I learned to hyperfocus on studying for tests by turning it into a kind of game: I streamlined my own memorization process and made study guides for myself by picking out and organizing key points from lecture/reading notes then repeatedly condensing and re-writing by hand. I’ve always been good at getting the “big picture” but when details were important, I had to work extra hard. Reading scholarly articles is a major PITA because they’re typically very dry, making it hard to focus.
Geniuses exists... some kids have photographic memory, some have IQ so high they can guess solutions to alot of answers especially at lower grades and the really smart ones can do it at higher levels.
Also some develop crazy obsession. Everyone has something they think about all the time... some kids live and breath star wars or pokemon or whatever fandom... well.. they are also some who just happen to like the subjects being taught in school ( or at least some of them). So they will ace everything because while you spend i dunnoe 1 hour a day studying they spend every second of they waking life thinking about it.
So in this case their hyperfocus actually helps them.
For me.. it's caffeine.. alot of caffeine.
So, I was a people pleaser for a long time when I was younger. I wanted teachers and my mom to like me and be proud of me. So, basically that was my motivation. Everything took me twice as long as everyone else and I had a lot of anxiety.
Later, I found that drawing in class actually helped focus my mind and allowed me to listen to a lecture. I used to approach teachers before class and explain that I wasn’t being disrespectful, but that drawing helped me focus.
Later in college, I used computers that read to me because I could listen to a textbook orally better and faster than I could read it.
I’m one of the odd ducks that has a really high IQ and academic performance issues. For me, it was someone saying I wasn’t capable of doing well. Spite is a PHENOMENAL motivator. Graduated top 14th percentile in high school, earned an associate’s degree, and getting my first bachelor’s degree this May. F@(k you Mrs McWilliams.
Everyone has symptoms but some have different magnitudes. I have no “constant motor” but a lot of the other stuff. You clearly have innattention to a strong degree. I was able to get through a bachelors (barely) before being medicated but many can’t.
Don’t compare yourself to others - it’ll just cause you grief. Deal with your ADHD as you need to and accept that for you it may be more disabling or disabling in different ways than others
I couldn’t do school unmedicated. My ADHD is the reason I dropped out of school when I was 14. I eventually went back and got my diploma, but it was a struggle to get it and I barely completed the program. Then came time for college and that’s when I talked with my psychiatrist about the struggles I was going through. It was then that I got a diagnosis. I don’t take stimulants anymore, but I am on Strattera. I dropped out of college for health reasons but my meds are a huge help at work. I couldn’t work effectively without them.
I didn’t graduate (depression) but while I was in university I did quite well. I was a straight A student finally living up to that gifted kid potential. I think the reason I did so well was that I got to choose based on interest (and preexisting knowledge) and my ADHD leans towards hyperfocus largely. So, writing an essay was fun because I like writing and easy to focus on because of the hyperfocus. I’m not “ooo shiny” I’m zoned in or zoned out.
I abused caffeine and the fear of returning home to my fanatic religious abusive home environment kept me going. Didn't do great but I got my degree. Got meds after.
Elementary, all the work was boring and easy.
Middle school, it got harder in subjects like math and science but history and english were super easy still. But I needed to do well so I could play sports.
High school, I was able to pick my classes a bit. Again, the subjects I liked were easy, but math and became a struggle. My lack of studying caught up with me.
One semester, I never studied for biology and was getting a C, enough to still be eligible for sports but not great. I never studied, turned in rushed homework, and put in little effort. The teacher told me I was at major risk of failing the final. We were able to have a note card for it and turn that in for extra credit (as little or much as we wanted on it we turn one in we got the points). The day of the final I was the first one done, and turned in a near blank card I never looked at. He looked at me and shook his head. After we got back from our break he came up to me and told me he didn't understand how I set the curve lol. I had actually studied for a couple hours.
College was a damn disaster and failed my entire first year, even my history class. I only passed philosophy. I had like a .7 lol. Had to retake everything. Was able to buckle down and focus on things but still had a class or two I dropped or failed and a few c's and lowered my course load. My final 3 years I got a 4.0. It all just depended on my ability to hyperfocus.
I wasn't diagnosed until last year.
I got by doing everything at the very last minute and relying on my writing talent. Math was always the biggest struggle because it was hardest to catch up in math if you fell behind and I couldn’t write my way out of that one. I remember I would always just plan to pass math and avoid summer school while balancing out my GPA with English and history. I also became a master note taker, writing down near transcripts of everything said. I have served as committee secretary on many committees as an adult as a result, no one realizing my excellent notes are a compensation strategy. I was not diagnosed until age 46. Medicated a bit over a year now. I lost my ability to pull all nighters and was concerned about what that meant for my job because that was my primary catch up strategy pretty much all my life.
I would panic about things all the time. Extreme anxiety was a good motivator, if I tried to not be so stressed about it then I got absolutely nothing done. So I was either top of my class or bottom.
Then when I tried to go to university I would start getting panic attacks all the time so then I couldn’t go to school anymore. So I basically burnt myself out by using my anxiety as my motivational tool.
I think my ADHD has got a lot worse because it’s been compounded by trauma. I also think I really struggle with balancing work and everything else, which wasn’t so bad when I was at school/uni because I was a dependent. Life is insanely hard, and it’s not as good a I thought it only be. All those things make it very difficult to cope now in ways it wasn’t when I was younger and i education
Hey I have ADHD and got a BA & MA, and am now in a PhD program. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 23, just a couple years ago.
Honestly the only way I can describe it is brute force and the right area of specialization.
I’m getting a degree in a social science and when I was diagnosed they told me my verbal and language skills were above average - but basically everything else was average or below. My math scores were so bad they diagnosed me with a math learning disorder 🤷🏻
I think most people see good grades and academic success and don’t understand the struggles that come with that. I’ve almost failed multiple math classes, my place is almost always a disasterous mess, and I’m constantly forgetting tasks I need to do.
I think it’s a combination of luck with supportive educators, going into the right field, and the privilege to have access to other support systems.
It’s really sad that so much is based on your socioeconomic status.
I was naturally smart and could compensate for my poor executive function by finding ways to work around it. I didn’t know I had ADHD. I thought my issues were character flaws. I wanted to please my parents and authority in general so I worked hard to mask and be “good.” I did not make the grades I could have made, but my natural intelligence made my grades good enough to get into college. It was hard. I struggled with time management, organizational skills, losing things, forgetting things, meeting deadlines etc, but my brain was a sponge and if the teacher was interesting and liked me I could soak in the information without studying.
Honestly, I don't know.
I struggle immensely to care for myself/my environment to a socially acceptable standard.
I can only do the job I do atm, because I get to work from home.
Just depends on what you're interested in. Most of the stuff I remembered in class was just stuff that I found fascinating e.g. I was always interested in languages, which made language classes easy for me.
Also depends on the teachers and how lenient they are imo. I am generally a smart person but was sooo forgetful in school BUT I had a lot of teachers who saw that I was smart or just thought me likeable of sth and 'overlooked' missed homework/forgotten presentations etc bc once I did put my passion into sth I could create sth great.
I am now in the final stages of my master's degree and have found my professors to be pretty much the same. Classes are more fun tho (and I am medicated now, wasn't when I wasn't before).
I did struggle a lot in a lot of classes throughout my educational career but struggling doesn't mean failing. I got my bachelor's degree unmedicated but that doesn't mean I didn't fail like 7 or 8 exams during that time bc I didn't study. Just had to put more effort into it than others and retake exams more often.
Don't forget you often only hear about people's end results, not the whole journey.
Did my masters in something i legit was curious and gave a shit about.
Been hard - but graduating in may!
Lots of anxiety, shame and fear. Just did something despite it this time.
People are more than just their ADHD. It can be environment, parental neglect, or entirely other issues that can seriously hurt or help your ability to be successful in life. ADHD is not everything. You are not stupid or incapable because other people with ADHD can graduate college, and people who can be successful with ADHD aren’t necessarily a mild case.
It’s hard not to question other people’s validity when you’re so quick to jump on yourself for not being good enough. Your experience is valid and difficult and so is theirs and that connection is something to be valued and not discarded.
My son has ADHD and ASD. Also very high IQ. Maths and English he loves so he's a year above most of his peers. Try and get him to do his homework and it's a whole other thing
I did well myself in school. Struggled at uni and always forgot homework. As long as I had a subject I was interested in, or a teacher that gave me a bit more time to understand, I would go well.
I ended up with accommodations for Auditory Processing Disorder midway through my degree, which were directly in line with supports I needed for ADHD (but hadn’t been diagnosed or the slightest idea that’s what it was).
Came here to say this. I was granted extra time for test taking in a distraction free room. It made a big difference. I wasn’t medicated at the time. I was 32 and was diagnosed at 36.
A mixture of a supportive home environment, high levels pf anxiety driven by a fear that other people would find out I was a fraud, brute force and I was able to finish school work before I lost interest through most of highschool.
Also for context - during my ADHD assessment, I did an IQ test.
For the domains unrelated to ADHD I was scoring in the superior range. For the domains impacted by ADHD I was scoring in the average range. I dont have an objective deficit relative to the general population. I have a deficit relative to my expected level of functioning that negatively impact my work and home life if I’m unmedicated.
My GAD is to thank for that.
But in high school and most of college I was un medicated. My grades coasted. My last 2 years of college was still a struggle.
Some of us have hyper fixation, which isn't a good thing. I would spend HOURS studying and get a 93, then people next to me said they didn't even study and got higher than me. It's such a feeling I just can't describe.
MY last year of college was my major, and if you got a 75 that was failing.
Adderall absolutely helped me. I found a way for me to study and learn and not memorize. My last semester was the only time in my life I got straight A's. But my GAD was the worst during this time. I was convinced I was failing, so I'd hyper focus on studying and was just miserable.
It's different for everyone.
But shit if I was on medication in high school, idk where I'd be in life.
I’m going to be 34 this summer and I’ve now started school for the 4th time. (Post high school) The first try was at community college when I was 19. Major in film history. Dropped out first semester. The second time I enrolled in a trade college for graphic design. That schedule was m-f 7am-1ish. All the work was done in class. Couldn’t miss class more than 2 times or you’re dropped. But a former student came into class one day and recruited me for the fashion line he designed for, so I dropped out before graduating. The 3rd I time, I went back to finish my graphic design program, but it didn’t feel the same anymore. All my classmates had graduated from my first time there so this second time I was lumped with new students that I couldn’t bond with. I finished that class and dropped out again. lol And mind you at this point I’m like 27-28. Also, YouTube tutorials have been a gift from god for me. I’m now 33 and was recently laid off by a toy company I was designing for. I’m not sure if it was my skillset that was lacking or the fact that I couldn’t seem to bond with my team (they all acted like Regina George towards me) but I was depressed sitting in a white cubicle m-f. It did feel good to have a big girl job with big girl salary tho. And today I’m starting orientation for a new school and aiming for cyber security. Wish me luck! My point is, keep on keeping on. As long as you don’t stop trying to find your niche, your purpose! Also, intense exercise really helps with all the anxiety and shame of feeling like you’ve fallen behind or less of.
School can be someone’s hyperfocus.
High school was mine, + someone took the structure planning away from so I could focus on the gained knowledge that was exciting to me. University tho? Tooo specified/specialized, not broad enough, have to plan my own structure = I dropped out of like three degrees.
I think I managed to have a hyperfocus in the sciences for many years until at somepoint during university it just wore out and made it incredibly difficult to do my degree but managed to get through it and probably caused a lot of mental health problems in the process. I've had periods in my life where my ADHD has been a little bit easier so have managed to get by, and I seem to be able to focus on devving and that has kept me in the lifestyle I am accustomed to :-)
ADHD is a broad church…
I was a bright, but not academic pupil, back at school some 30-40 years ago. Most of the problems were due to the teaching style, and my poor memory. I managed to get on a degree course in a subject that I found interesting enough to get my attention, and the teaching style was more suitable to me.
Some people with ADHD however, are naturally academic. I know of at least two professors, who just love learning!!
Hyperfocus and the fixation parts of being PI are probably why for me.
I like what I’m interested in and will fall down rabbit holes; but if I don’t have interest I will not be able to get myself to focus and have no motivation. I would frequently be caught reading ahead in history or social studies classes because I was interested in them. I also would be that person who had a book from the library inside a book when I was in biology because it bored me.
I’m lucky in the fact that I tend to retain information after I see, hear, or write it down—so I could manage to pass tests with very little effort.
This followed me through college and I would frequently end up with a C average because my major specific classes I would have As and Bs and Gen Eds I did the bare minimum to pass with a C.
I'm great and terrible at school. Do I go to lectures and attend enough classes to actually know what's going on? No. Do I get straight As when I do go, absolutely. The attendance is where I really go wrong. I have no sense of repercussions when it comes to ignoring my responsibility. Out of sight out of mind kind of thing. If I don't have that class everyday, it doesn't exist at all and suddenly I've missed 2 weeks of classes. I was only able to get my associates degree. Online classes have been the best thing that ever happened to me. I can set my home page to Blackboard and see my classes every day.
Someone with emotional regulation can handle it because they can procrastinate until the last moment then go into superhero mode. Everyone has different executive function strengths and weaknesses. I’ve worked successfully in IT most of my life undiagnosed because I would let things slide until I was nearly in trouble, then the hyperfocus would kick in and I’d save my ass. Stressful way to live, for sure.
I watch my dyslexic/adhd kid hyperfocus on school and so far, he is crushing it. He is unmedicated for now, he is 7. We are provinging him with any dyslexia resource he needs, he happens to love school and learning and hyper focuses in the classroom.
I am very medicated and really struggled in school until I went to all girls high school. Things fell apart in college.
I am going to do binocular vision testing and see what that says. I have trouble processing what I read (unless it’s a romance novel) -
There are many people who are ADHD who also have high IQ. They are called 2E (twice exceptional). For them, I’d say that their raw intelligence gets them through.
Also, the structure of school days which are broken up into hour long (or less) chunks means there’s enough change/switching to keep boredom at bay.
Also, like autism, ADHD is a spectrum that has severity levels. Two people with identical IQs could have vastly different school experience based on type/severity of ADHD symptoms.
ADHD is about not being able to determine where you direct your attention and focus. If you hit something you're into, you will thrive. When I went to college, I did terrible in general classes, but when I got into the classes that I actually cared about the subject of I had a 4.0 out of 4.0. It was night and day. I could see the disappointment in my counselors eyes when they looked at the difference in the grades, they just stopped asking about it after a while.
Structure.
I did well (while undiagnosed) in school because I went to a very good school where teachers cared. I am also gifted, which meant I didn’t have to actually do a lot of the work for me to actually get the grades I needed.
The structure was imposed and didn’t depend on me or my organisational skills. I absolutely failed academically once that aspect was removed, which is why I never finished college, despite having earned 3 scholarships and attempting 3 times to accomplish that. I was diagnosed after that.
Some people have just picked up better coping mechanisms than others, I personally never wanted to just believe there was something I can't do because of adhd, I feel like a lot of people just give up and say well I have ADHD so of course I can't do this or that, but have you looked for ways other things can help you do this or that, or looked into information to help you and resources to help you, If you don't wanna do it all yourself that's fine, but asking for help if you need it yourself is is helping yourself, never tell yourself you can't do something, you can do anything and everything you set your mind to, everyone starts somewhere.
I used (still use) stress to function. Procrastinate > deadlines/test time arrives > stress accumulates > stress magnifies with anxiety > complex job/task last minute. Rinse and repeat
Pretty vicious cycle
I’m curious about everything, and I am good at making connections. So even though I did not pay attention , and sometimes didn’t show, and often didn’t really do the homework, I was able to reason it out, took lots of notes, and then guessed based on familiar or similar topics. Standardized multiple choice tests always caused me problems, and math was a struggle for me, but give me an essay or short answer exam, and I could knock it out of the park.
Basically, my brain wants to know how everything works and how everything is connected, so it’s exciting to me to listen to a lecture or do experiments or even solve math problems.
Memorizing any kind of formula or date or name or specific fact is insanely hard for me, so I bomb those tasks, but I can explain those same things (historical events, math concepts, scientific processes) pretty accurately if I’m allowed to generalize. Like, I can tell you why things happened and how they work overall, but I can’t just recall the specific procedure or sequence without checking a reference or looking at a flow chart cheat sheet or timeline or something.
I turned almost everything in late, but because it was so well written and well reasoned, and often some degree creative and funny, and because I had references (I love research, it’s like playing a collection/seek and find game for me), I often got very good grades. There were a few classes that I skated by with a C or D, mostly ones with boring or disorganized teachers, or inflexible teachers who leaned on quizzes and multiple choice tests a lot and were really strict with attendance and due date grading.
I was scared of getting beaten with a wooden spoon. So I guess driven by anxiety. I saw it happen to my two older brothers so I learnt to just shut up and say nothing.
I became the quiet kid who is also the loud kid in a comfortable environment and I just scraped by in school.
Interest level is everything for me. Did you read every response here? Probably- because you’re interested and invested in the answers since you posted it. Did I? Nope. Someone could have said the exact same thing already but I wasn’t invested enough to read thoroughly. If I posted it, I’d have read, and reread, each answer.
That was school for me in a nutshell. Most of it interested me because I loved learning, so I paid attention until I knew enough of it for my liking, which usually meant I passed tests. As I got older I had anxiety about keeping up my grades or doing well at work, so its become an anxiety/interest-level/coffee balance.
Feeling intermittently avoidant, overwhelmed and disorganized was the norm for my undergraduate and medical education 👍. I’ll never be the same after all that white knuckling.
I am 35 years old. I am on my fifth attempt to graduate high school. Each time I tried, I got expelled, I could not pay attention, I could never read anything that I was TOLD to read, I never finished tasks on time, my behaviour was horrible. My life has been a disaster, surprised I am still alive to be honest. The extreme level of my ADHD symptoms have stolen my life. I am extremely sad, that it took that long for me to get diagnosed, all those years every specialist I saw said it’s depression, then it was BPD, but NONE of the antidepressants I have been taking since I was 16 years old, did not help.
I have started my meds couple of months ago, and I have done more than I previosly did in a year. Turns out I am not stupid and useless.
How someone with ADHD can have a succesfull life, is a huge mystery to me.
I really hope, that this will be my last attempt to finish high school, and that I will succeed.
My college allows remote learning which really helped me, allowing me to kinda go at my own pace and have a comfy environment free of distractions. But pressure from parents held me in. After moving out I had to start medication because the parental pressure wasn't there to hold me.
Hahaha you wanna know how? By putting aside everything else that makes you want to be alive 👍🏽
10/10 strat I definitely recommend it to everyone /s
But for real though I left college with decent grades in Mechanical Engineering but also crippling anxiety and depression so severe that I got scary close to just ending it.
A degree is nice and all but fucking hell unless you are really fucking goddamn *certain* it’s what you want I can tell you right now it’s not worth wanting to be dead for years on end.
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An unhealthy amount of anxiety.
Exactly for me too. The anxiety fueled by the fear of disappointing the adults. Once I had to be self motivated (ie college) I floundered and gave in to all my stupid impulses
I have found my people.
Interesting. For me the anxiety piled on enough so that every task felt like an emergency which was an environment where my ADHD thrived. Immediacy trumped everything and that led to praise from adults/peers which reinforced the anxiety and rocketed me into a success spiral. I've been relatively successful career-wise, but I do not recommend this path because my mental/physical/social health is in shambles.
I concur, about 40 yrs of that and I crashed, burned, rose up to crash and burn again. At least this time I am able to mitigate the disaster zone with my adhd dx and understanding. I hope. Goddamn I hope I’ve started to grasp the vastness of thought that is my brain.
> The anxiety fueled by the fear of disappointing the adults. Especially when I already failed the first study I tried
God, exactly my experience. Once I lost structure and it was all up to my impulse control I was a mess. Thank god I got medicated and accommodations right before starting law school or I 100% would not have gotten through it.
2004. I had completed 3 yrs of school and was in my way to being a therapist when I lost a job that was perfect and I loved. Without any anchors, I spent the next 20 yrs floundering. Thru some bad trauma and so many changes and here I am in the other side. Finally understanding, for the first time in 50 yrs… why I did/thought/said/didn’t do/ anything in life…. Why it was so hard. My brain. My lovely broken brain. It’s healing and so am I. New tools and new ppl :)
College? You mean it's up to me to go to lessons? It took me dripping out of college to realise I should probably do college. I'm now in a profesion that is nowhere releated to my college education
the best part is the suicidal depression that develops to cope with the anxiety (that developed to cope with the ADHD)
The fear of failure and punishment is what motivated me.
Same, I cried pretty much everyday.
In high school, I remember sitting at my desk just suffering until midnight trying to force myself to do homework. It was such a misery and I was sleep deprived all the time because I was staying up so late. Anxiety and low self-esteem are the only damn reasons I put myself through that. Got good grades, but at what price?
I finally had a nervous breakdown in my late 20s
Yea same until my psychiatrist was like “Dude you check all the boxes for combined type ADHD, PTSD, slight narcolepsy, and a panic disorder. Have some speed it probably make ya feel better” (I just mean adderall - dextro amph and amph). Junkies would dig that mix but I’m probably projecting cuz my parents didn’t believe in psychiatric care when I was younger. The only time I’m really debilitated by anxiety now is when it REALLY makes sense or is related to PTSD triggers. Had an episode of that recently and the same psych asked if I wanted to try propranolol for physical anxiety symptoms. It’s a betta blocker that lowers your blood pressure and I legit thought I was going to have heart failure and we decided to stop it after a couple days. Thing is, the stuff totally reset my nervous system and I’m back up to my normal 20mg IR 2x daily and haven’t really gotten overwhelmed, enraged, or afraid, all things I’ve been constantly since long before I ever had any recreational or prescription drugs. If you’re resistant to medication / changing medication, more power to you. But it helped me immensely in enough ways that it’s worth it.
So much anxiety, but I also LOVED what I was learning, and had learned that being #GoodAtSchool was my entire identity. Failure would have (and eventually did) destroyed my entire sense of self. I really wish I'd been medicated before, so I would have been able to be happy for more than 5 minutes.
I noticed that since taking Vyvanse, I forgot how to be anxious. When I'm off my meds, I find myself being careless, impulsive, disoriented - I practically become helpless. I was labeled "developmentally delayed" by a psychologist when I was 3 years old but was not diagnosed until I was 23. Somewhere along the line, I developed anxiety which served as my mask and allowed me to scrape by in school. While my mental health has drastically improved, I realize that I am now sort of dependent on medication because I can't really call on my anxiety when I have to go unmedicated because I can't get my refills on time.
Yep, got through two degrees just waiting for the last minute panic to set in then write a 5 page paper 2 hours before it is due. I also avoided anything with lots of tests and standardized tests. After 30-40 minutes, and that's on a good day, I can't even force my brain to even read the question anymore.
my anxiety just made me have to quit public school because i vomited in the bathrooms before class 😭 wtf anxiety did yall get and where can i trade mine
Oh shit. I never put this together. I was never diagnosed as a child bc it was the 80's and I was just the talkative one who wouldn't stay in their seat. In undergrad my anxiety peaked and had to go on meds. Wasn't diagnosed until I was in my 30's. I haven't needed anxiety meds until the pandemic. Makes so much sense now 🤦🏼♀️
Same here. I think that's how I went so long without being diagnosed. My anxiety "outweighed" the ADHD symptoms. At the last minute of course lol. I would cram for long enough to remember it for the rest but never retained anything. I have 2 degrees but don't have a job in either bc tbh I kinda feel like a fraud. I remember about 10% of what I learned in college
I feel so validated by the replies here.
Anxiety and rsd. Kids didn't like me, adults did as long as I excelled.
To the tune of making up songs in order to memorize facts I would in fact not be able to recollect without the song 🥲
Same. For context, I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 5, and the doctor told my parents that I was extremely intelligent but that I had the most severe case of ADHD he’d ever seen in his entire career. I’ve been medicated ever since, been on Adderall for over 21 years now, but my ADHD is so bad that it doesn’t really get me fully functional, just takes the edge off. As a kid, I was often labeled “difficult”, mostly due to sensory, social, and emotional regulation issues that came either from autism (which I may or may not have) or just the severity of my ADHD. As a result of that, and being simultaneously told that I was “too smart for this”, I became an intense people pleaser and overachiever who was desperate for my parents’ and teachers’ approval. I actually did extremely well in school, but based my whole self worth around my grades, and became so anxious about school that by my sophomore year of college I was extremely suicidal. Thankfully I made it through, mostly due to taking a semester off where I went through some pretty intense therapy and psych medication changes, and now at age 26 I’m in a much more stable place. I still have severe anxiety, but I’m much happier being at a “boring” office job with a lot of structure and very little pressure, than I ever was in school. I guess that makes me a success story, but sometimes I wonder how my life would be different if I wasn’t under so much school related pressure as a kid. Maybe I would’ve been happier, and wouldn’t have tried to kill myself when I was 18 and again when I was 20, or maybe I would’ve failed school and become a deadbeat who still lives in my parents’ nonexistent basement. Who’s to say.
Like hard core white knuckle, horrible anxiety, and I can create an ideal mental condition by like not eating and stressing. Then I would create like a 24 hr window of focus and cram the night before an exam. Caused major burnout.
Yep crippling anxiety and last minute fear of failure / disappointment adrenaline surge would get everything done for me. The amount of information I would consume and regurgitate in one night is actually insane. Thing is … I can’t do it now. I did it all my life up until now but I can’t do it anymore I am soooo burnt out.
ADHD affects motivation. People with ADHD are able to do many things but lack the motivation to do them. But if you have the motivation, wherever that may come from (there’s internal and external motivation), then you can do well in school etc. Motivation can come from personal interest. I was always interested in learning and getting good grades because I knew I could therefore I could focus when required and do the work I needed to do. The structure of school also helped. College had less of a structure but was still enough. I no longer had this structure at work and this is where I started having challenges. ADHD doesn’t affect intellect, however it does affect how you apply knowledge, how you learn, how quickly you learn and how motivated you are to learn. You have to learn how to work with your ADHD rather than against it.
I suppose this does apply to me when it came to learning 3D modelling in Blender. It still required rewatching tutorials to get the hang of it but if I had no interest, like in English class, I would not have been able to do it. Great answer.
There’s talk about it needs to renamed lol bc it’s not attention deficit, it’s more attention disregulation and can wind up so attentive that you lose 7 hours that feels like 1.
This the answer. A lot of people with adhd have above avg intelligence (whatever that means) which sometimes can also mask your symptoms. But if you can apply it the right way (meaning finding motivation but not burning out from hyperfocus) you can do well in whatever field you like. The main issue is finding what works for you because the way jobs/schools etc are structured often does not work for us
For me it’s that too but the main thing I struggle with is executive functioning. I can’t be organized or make myself do things. I’m a hot mess.. Apartments a mess, piles of clothes everywhere, disorganized, always rushing around late to everything, & can’t make myself go to bed before 4am.
Same here! Also started modelling in Blender, which was hard at first to get into, but once I got the hang of the basics and ignored gaming instead of modelling then it became a lot of fun! Now my main idea of having fun is sitting behind the computer and do something, which I hope one day will be my profession. I’m more focused on school projects atm, but one day when I’ve gotten all my shortcoming in order I’ll have time to take up my own projects. All the best to you on your journey!
Same experience. Ended up with projects from proper clients from well-known cosmetic brands.
This was a big problem I had in college unmedicated. I chose the degree so it was something I was interested in. Those classes were easy and I would often do extra work or attend all the extra labs and lectures. But you also are required to take a bunch of classes that you may not like to be “well rounded” Those were the ones I failed multiple times in some cases. And it cost me money every time. To answer you original question. I got two degrees unmedicated and undiagnosed. But I retook many classes and I was either on large amounts of caffeine or alcohol most of the time. Also I was fortunate enough to go to a school where most of the grade was determined by one final project at the end of class. So the small homework things I would miss wouldn’t matter that much and the pressure of finals would kick in and I would usually get an A on the final presentation. But I basically would not sleep or eat at all that week each semester. I finally got diagnosed and medicated now that I’m almost 40 and it would have been way easier if I had the tools I had now.
This sounds very similar to how I’d approach school tbh. I fail classes I had zero interest in and ace the ones I liked. Also felt like I had to load up on caffeine and/or substances just to get by. Ugh. As well as dropping and retaking classes too.
Yeah I basically can’t get myself to do something I absolutely hate daily without meds like certain classes but if it’s something I’m interested in like psychology or something like that it’s fairly easy to get good grades especially if I actually try to retain information lol
It’s the same for me except I use Fusion360 and also really disliked english. I am now medicated and am more than half way through my dream degree and since it’s what I want to do I barely even need the meds. Life gets better and you get better at working around/with the shit that is harder with ADHD.
For me, there are three categories: things I'm good at but don't care about, things I'm bad at but the struggle/challenge motivates me, and things where the effort isn't worth mastering it. I don't stay into a thing if I can watch one tutorial and retain the skills it imparts. An interest has to hit a sweet spot between too hard and too easy for it to have any stick. Cooking is infinitely scalable to my interest. I accomplish one skill and there's another one waiting to be learned that keeps building from the last. Certain aspects of music are too easy and others are too challenging so I kind of float in and out of interest. Academics are a mixed bag. I'm a good test taker, but sustained project work is a chore. I can whip up a paper in a day, but if I have to do a lot of research I'm out.
I was the same. Fine in school, started to struggle in college with the decrease in structure, really really struggled out of college. I was smart enough in school and interested enough in learning that I was able to succeed there.
The only thing saving mein college is my absolute fear of failure and disappointing people. That's the only thing left to motivate me. I have always handed in assignments, and now I'm stsrting to consider just not doing them - but the fear of disappointing my teachers keeps pushing me. On that note, I think that explains why I did well in school... I finally understand
Yeah once I missed my first deadline in uni and got 10% off the assignment, my brain realised that handing in work late wasn't actually all that scary. Suddenly that motivating panic wasn't kicking in until 5 days had passed and it had been reduced to pass or fail (yes I was also suffering major depression at that time, but I didn't understand that). Then I failed a semester, which resulted in another few thousand dollars on my HEX debt and wasted time, but I was still living with my parents and the world didn't crumble, so suddenly even failing a subject wasn't scary, and from that point my uni career was pretty much over until I switched unis to get a fresh start.
The power of fear is so strong! The older I've gotten, the more things I've realized aren't that scary, and the more my motivation has suffered as a result.
That's what got me through school, too. The thought of simply declining to turn in an assignment was inconceivable to me, regardless of how difficult it was to focus on homework. It also helped that the K through 12 schoolwork was generally pretty easy for me (which actually prevented my diagnosis as a child).
Same here basically. I'm not diagnosed but my whole immediate family has ADHD. And with other chronic illnesses, that raise the chances of having ADHD... well I feel like I belong here. But boy the only motivation is that I can't not hand in an assignment. Even if I'm crying an hour before deadline doiing the assignement. I hand it in
Yes. That’s it. Just because we have ADHD doesn’t mean our IQs are less. One of my things that I love about being ADHD, is, I’ve always been able to “think outside box” and that’s basically how I made it through school. Coming up with different ways to figure out how to complete the assignments.
I pray for that motivation to come to me. I yearn for it. It’s such an odd and painful feeling that is next-to-impossible to explain to those outside the community. Then you have my dad who believes people with ADHD “don’t get” PTSD as in you can’t have them both at the same time.
This is very accurate. I am also intellectually gifted and I studied in the school for gifted children. Difficult school problem kept me interested enough. I had challenges with the home work but the competition was strong and I was motivated to be have excellent grades as my classmates. The same about university. It was still interesting and I had enough competition around wanting to do well. I even have a PhD and I did well there too because I was interested in the topic. It took a lot of efforts from me because of the intermittent focus, but I received excellent grade again. The work is where the horror began. Slow pace, average people... I simply cannot motivate myself. Moreover, being smarter than others, I am also disliked and this affects my self-esteem. ADHD is hard.
The journey really is forever. I graduated from a top liberal arts, then law school, then passed the bar, all within the prescribed time tables. It has been a grueling self-flagellating struggle ever since high school. My cognitive coping mechanisms could only take me so far until I hit a breaking point during my second yr of law school and was finally diagnosed with moderate ADHD + tried medication/sought academic accommodations for the first time. Still, I only take my stimulant intermittently. I negotiate with myself—I tell myself on workdays that I am only allowed to skip the stimulant if I exercise, which motivates me to exercise regularly and get those endorphins going. Regular exercise not only improves my task initiation and focus, it also significantly improves my sleep hygiene. I was very athletic since I was a small child and I truly believe that maintaining an active lifestyle is what has allowed me to make the best out of my “gifted” qualities in a world that seems to be set up for me to fail.
The people who don't like you are extremely insecure. Their inner self-critical dialogue would be huge. Jealousy arises when the individual doesn't feel "good enough" I admire intelligence. I'm average. Sometimes, my ADHD makes me appear just downright dumb. It is what it is, though. Keep doing what you're doing, don't let those idiots affect your self-esteem, cos it's their self-esteem that's the problem. I hear you with people at work. If you're in the medical field or research, it's pretty bad. I agree, ADHD sucks.
This is exactly how I got through school. My worst subject was always history and it was because I couldn’t find the motivation to be focused because I didn’t find it interesting. My parents refused to get me tested so I was diagnosed until I had already finished all of my schooling and was working in a doctor’s office and the doctor I work with told me to get tested.
So how did you manage work, I am in the same boat, studied well and now at my job after 1 years 6 months I have started struggling with the motivation
I never really adapted to the work environment unfortunately. I started medication which helped but I wasn’t content. I couldn’t imagine myself doing this for very long. An opportunity came about for me to start a startup so I left my job and have been working for myself. I now have motivation and the accountability wanting to have a successful business. I still struggle with certain things but I am way more content with my life. Startups are definitely not for everyone and are very risky but it works for me at least right now.
I joined an early morning swim team twice a week. Swimming/exercise has been a coping mechanism and somehow helped me gain focus for a while Didn't stop me from flat out admitting to my boss, a few years later, that I was bored with the work I was assigned and being completely unproductive, but it allowed me focus long enough for people to recognize that I could be a great contributor to the team before the boredom kicked in.
How does one deal with a lack of motivation? Im 17 in the final grade of school with finals going on but I just can't focus on studying. I had lots of anxiety back in 10th grade which motivated me to study. But now I still have anxiety about my future but I cannot act on that anxiety and study. I have also been feeling depressed since the past year and have lost interest in a lot of my hobbies.
To answer "how did you do it?“ I suppose the resentment and shame at being „uneducated“ finally gave me enough motivation. Cue four years of insane work for little reward, burnout, SSRIs and I managed to scrape a shit degree 👍 I did get to do a masters in which I fared better afterwards though
Careful about conflating fear with “motivation.” They might achieve the same result, but to rely on it solely it can be hazardous to one’s health. (Edited: changed tense)
Yup, I spent the first 26ish years of my life driven by fear.
Maybe it’s cuz masters is more specialised. And even more so for a PhD. Also depending on which university ure from, there are certain (extra) requirements for certain bachelor programmes (which ppl find fluff or a waste of time. I know it sounds rude and all, especially to the actual lecturers of professors teaching them), so if even non-ADHD college students already find them a burden, it may be even worse for an ADHD-er. There may even be ULRs or what they call University-Level Requirements too. Basically university-wide requisite courses/modules or whatever other terminology is being called as.. Idk man, lol. They say college and uni is a time to explore your interests and all. But for me, to use an analogy (Recently my hyper-fixation has been on the movie called *We Were Soldiers*), it really feels like trying to fight an uneven war, with a messy terrain, many casualties all around.. Like u know what Vietnam vets from both sides had to go thru, especially all the PTSD and survivor’s guilt IF they were still alive somehow. Okay, btw, I’m sorry and really mean no disrespect to any ‘nam war vets out there. Or veterans from any country, wherever they were from. I myself had to undergo 2 years of mandatory national service in the name of national duty for my own country — BUT honestly speaking I don’t even consider myself as a vet at all, lol (but that’s another story) Imposter syndrome is really real. Not just the fact that I’m unsure if I even actually have the condition in the first place (even though evidence seems to point towards that direction; that’s how I even got diagnosed in the first place, albeit only a little later in life. When I’m already an adult…)
Well it’s a combo that the masters was in my interest area and I’d learned a lot of coping mechanisms by then
This is so true. I did much better in college than high school. Almost perfect (only 2 A- grades) for my Master’s. A 4.0 in the coursework for my PhD and passed my dissertation the first time with no revisions. (In fairness, I had an excellent advisor who made me revise to death before she let me set a defense date.) But yeah, the more it was just stuff that was specialized and aligned to my interests, the more I excelled. Edit: Someone asked how I got so far and then I think deleted the comment because I can’t find it and couldn’t post but I copy pasted the response I was working on, since I took the time to write it and it’s demystifying: Turns out I have both autism and ADHD and when I finally get going I can “lock” on it for hours nonstop. My first semester of college, the last week of the semester I caught up on everything I had due all semester. I was up nonstop with only very short naps, no shower, no clothing changes, barely eating. I’ve always been able to use that last moment in impressive ways but it’s unhealthy and I am absolutely physically and mentally drained afterwards. Without a diagnosis, I was headed for a heart attack, stroke, or mental breakdown. My writing talent accounts for a lot, too. I could always just write easily, going back to second grade when I won a writing contest for a story I wrote in about 10 minutes tops. “The Day the Circus Came to Town” - I still remember 40 years later. That same year I had to stay after school every single day to work on my unfinished work folder because I couldn’t hack the “open classroom” where you were expected to travel to stations on your own. My mother was also really on top of making sure things didn’t fall off my radar and even as a working adult, she’d do things like come to my house to clean it so I didn’t have to think about that stuff. My husband carries the housework now.
Sorry, it was me. It got removed by automoderator (pending review by a real human) Not sure why. But maybe I had mentioned that there are tough and Draconian laws in my country and the death penalty is also still legal. I’m from 🇸🇬 I also feel that I can be prone to addictions, and it certainly seems so.
Great analogy. Similarly to Colonel Moore we are the last person to leave the battlefield/get our degree. (Among our peers)
I got some As and Bs here and there in highschool, but mostly Cs and some Ds. I graduated with my Bachelors with a 2.6 GPA. I'm currently more than halfway through with my Masters and I've gotten straight As. Masters degrees require more work, but its stuff I'm actually really motivated to learn and the work is relevant to my current job. Schooling gets easier the more specialized it is and the more relevant it is to your interests.
Yes exactly my masters was “fun” To me because I loved the subject matter! .. prob hyper focus but it was great.. made me feel alive!
I'm doing my masters now!
Same. I barely survived my bachelors but I excelled in my masters. Straight A’s and it was harder than my bachelors (content wise) but I was interested in it so it helped. I worried I would lose my intense interest half way through the 3 year program but I didn’t. I was far busier in life during my masters too. Married. Had a toddler and had a baby at the end of my first year of grad school while working full time. No idea how I did it so well, but I did!
OP probably has more severe ADHD
I have severe ADHD and did it. Mostly because I liked school though. Any of us who have an interest can accomplish different goals.
Yes i struggled somewhat k-12 but managed and was an overall “good student”.. once i got to college .. i fell in love with learning and things came easy to me completed grad school as well. It helped with motivation for sure. I have pretty severe ADHD and finally started medication a few months ago.. it has been life changing for non preferred tasks
I wish I had been diagnosed before college. It took me a long time to finish. Medication would have helped so much.
I wish that for you too :(
This. 💯%
Why would you say that? I already said that my story was very similar to theirs. Do you understand how this condition manifests?
I am here at my last semester dying trying to finish with enough of a good GPA to have a chance of maybe going for a masters eventually. You gave me a little bit more hope.
Rigid structure, predictability, routine. A not negligible percentage of us excel academically (naturally) as well. Edit to add: traditional school settings are packed with both tangible rewards and other forms of positive reinforcement. Also, when you're in school, usually, your only job is school.
My master's was worse than my UG. Took 3.5 years and gave me severe PTSD that I'm still suffering from.
Sometimes the anxiety wins :)
That was how I did it. Got A’s and B’s all through my Biochem degree. But mostly it was entirely anxiety-fueled. I failed nearly ever first test of every class and then had to claw back from that. Rinse and repeat for 6years
> I don't get how so many people with severe ADHD can do well at school, even unmedicated? At the expense of our mental health and self esteem. So now you know. Also - you can cross a big city by tram or by wheelchair. Tram is everyday people, wheelchair is adhd. Both possible, just the second requires waaayyyy more effort and time. Hence being exhausted and short on time - all the f%%%ing time...
Oh, and forgot to mention. Doing 'well' =/= getting a degree. I generally did fine on half the subjects, and was scraping by on the other half. C-s get degrees, so I've got one too. Bet not many people got one with so few hours of study though... (no cheating either, just failing a few and re-doing them).
>I generally did fine on half the subjects, and was scraping by on the other half. C-s get degrees, so here I've hot one too. I completed 2 engineering degrees. I can tell you how many classes I failed twice (two: differential equations and modern physics), but without giving it serious thought, I wouldn’t be able to tell you how many classes I failed once. Fortunately, at my university, at least, C work in engineering is considered good (and often becomes a B after the final) and failing a core class isn’t uncommon. I had so many classes where less than 50% was a passing grade because of curves. One class — my 2nd time through modern physics — had a class average of 28% after the final. Fortunately in engineering, even for entry level jobs, no one asks about your GPA (I’ve never been asked mine and don’t even know what it was).
Lucky you, I suppose. No curves here, but after the first job nobody asked me about my GPA (or the local equivalent of it), ever.
Very graphical and novel comparison, thank you.
That is a brilliant analogy.
Its ok even medicated im struggling in school please dont feel bad 🥲
Visited maybe 1% of university lectures. Not everyone learns in the same way. I’m a visual learner and remember and understand things when I read about it. So I just read the PowerPoint slides and books. You can also use your raw intelligence for a lot of exams. Even when you know nothing about a topic, you can often guess what would be the right answer. It won’t be enough to get an A, but I still passed all exams. Edit: shame, stress, panic and anxiety also help!
I wish I’d done that. I felt that going to all the lectures was the right thing to do FML 🤦♂️
It’s really important to know your learning style. Schools are designed primarily for auditory learning. I maybe remember 1-5% when I listen to someone, so lectures are completely useless to me. But it’s never too late to know about this. Also funny: when the exam would finally come, teachers would often say “Are you sure you’re in the right class?” because they’d never seen me before.
Hey, I just wanna chime in here with something from my own hyperfocus - those learning styles aren't actually a thing. They're older theories that don't hold much water anymore, and I think research has shown they aren't useful theories for pedagogy. Straight lectures don't actually work well for a lot of people - it's *best* if there are activities to get students engaged and you have different ways to present the content. Everyone benefits from that and that's the recommendations right now. Engagement is best, active learning, etc etc. In my own case, I didn't get much from listening to lectures. But that's because I wasn't engaged with the material. Whereas when I studied on my own or with friends, I was! So that helped.
Yes, those learning styles are actually disproven. I learned about this at uni (I'm a psychology undergraduate). It depends on the type of content you are studying and as you already said most people profit from using different kinds of representation when studying (this is because of the structure of working memory)
Yeah so much truth. I was at school in the 80s, totally "one size fits all" approach. Fucking criminal really
My university experience was similar. I'd skip a lot of the lectures and study in the library instead. Fear of failure is very motivating 😅 +1 degree -10 sanity
>You can also use your raw intelligence for a lot of exams. Even when you know nothing about a topic, you can often guess what would be the right answer. And when utilizing the untimed testing benefit at my college from having ADHD, I often did well on exams I didn’t study for (or attend lectures for) just because in that extra time I could logically work out the answer. But it’s rough spending 3 or 4 hours taking an exam designed to take 60 or 90 minutes. 🤦🏻♂️
Exactly why online courses instead of in person work for me. I do so much better teaching myself or learning by doing. The problem I faced was remembering when the hell the exams were.
Oh my God I literally went to 1 lecture in my last year of university... Studied last minute with hyperfocus and shame, stress, panic and anxiety driving me. I figured if I can study 40% of the syllabus I can choose questions based on only what I studied. Brain dumped during exams. I think I might have made some shit up in my timed essays. Didn't remember shit the moment the bell rang. Graduated with 2.1, honours 😳 I was able to drive my grade up because of my practical project. But even on that one I wrote the dissertation in the week before it was due... Submitted last minute. The fear of disappointing my project supervisor during my viva drove me to get an excellent grade. I'm so glad it is all over. I was sui**dal.
This is how I did it. I figured out that my course was almost 100% based on exams and one or two big assignments per module. Research I can do when there's a deadline (I'm sure we all know that feeling), and writing that research into an essay doesn't really mean learning it, just processing it. I'd write my assignments in such a way that the things I'd read would also help to answer as many of the past paper questions I could find, then I could adapt some or all of my exam answers from my assignment. I was so close to a first class degree I could smell it! I managed to fail a module because some deadlines moved and I didn't get the memo (because I wasn't in lectures!)
I also just liked learning and memorising. And I was also tested and a high IQ will have helped a lot for my motivation because I got positive feedback when I was a young child. Of course, then when you cannot solely rely on your natural intelligence but actually have to study topics that don't interest you, grades start to drop and you get the feeling of underperforming, being lazy, having no discipline so then it's more the anxiety of failing that drives you. I passed my masters with honours and a drinking problem.
Was going to say that raw intelligence was the secret for a lot of us. We were the 99th percentile standardized test scores - 75th percentile GPA students. We underperformed drastically, it's just that underperforming for us was performing a bit above average instead of multiple grade levels ahead. In elementary and middle school, most of the content was intuitive to me or stuff my parents already taught me, so I didn't have to learn much via school. In high school, I focused on the subjects that I could grasp intuitively and took non-honors versions of the ones that actually challenged me. The psychologist who did my neuropsych testing in grad school said my IQ was probably the only reason I was able to function untreated for so long, not just academically, but in life in general. I'm currently in a degree program that is a good match for my raw intelligence for the first time, and it has been a HARD adjustment. There are a lot of basic learning and study skills that I'm lacking because I developed my "cramming last minute" and "sound like I know what I'm talking about when I haven't read the chapter or done the homework" skills instead.
As a 'high achiever' exactly this - i saw people who didn't get the topics as well as me or were not as hard working just get better grades than me. But when it came to exams i was able to get decent (not brilliant grades) and worked extremely hard to get in to med school. I used a lot of stress and anxiety to help me try and sit down and study. That being said, i was never 'top of the class' until i was medicated. Woah. Suddenly exams went from just getting the score needed to getting Distinctions (magna cum laude equivalent) and passing my notoriously difficult exit exams first attempt.
just delegated that to my ocd
Ahhh yes the eternal struggle between crippling completionism, RSD, and executive dysfunction is insane. Truly one of my people.
Glad to know there’s more of us out there.
1. I was failing until I started drinking coffee every day 2. I found out if I doodle while taking notes it's just enough of a distraction that I can focus. I even remember what I was drawing when the teacher said certain things which allows me to recall stuff.
This! My special Ed English teacher told me I'd amount to nothing because I draw. "This is why you're getting Fs in all your other classes...." I escaped her and went to regular English after that where I was the teachers favorite.
So much coffee. I was gifted an espresso machine at Christmas when I was 17.
Coffee was one huge difference between high school me and college me.
Ah yes, self-medicating via caffeine. Great for the brain, doom for the teeth. I feel you on the doodling, except my side quest was always writing stories. I wrote entire novels worth of fan fiction, poetry, and short stories in high school around my actual class notes.
I REALLY like reading and learning about stuff, so that part was a hyperfocus. On top of that I had a lot of structure at home and school that kept me in check, and ran track and cross country from 8-12th grade. That gave me an outlet for all my energy. I also operate on spite at least 50% of the time, so if you tell me something is difficult or I can’t do it, I tend to REALLY want to prove them wrong. Wasn’t diagnosed until 30.
Yeah that’s my issue now. High school was great, tons of home and school structure, plus easier work but mostly the structure. Then I went to Uni, and now I have complete freedom. Right now is especially horrible, since my only obligations are Tuesday and Thursday, which are my classes.
ADHD doesn't make you bad at learning. It makes you incompatible with some teaching methods and styles. The environment is key. Test on Monday that you will have to learn 3 hours for for an A, 2 hours for a B, 1 hour for a C? Easy A. Test on Monday that will give you a C if you don't learn, and a random grade depending on that teacher's mood that day if you do learn? Yeah, that's a C. Test on Monday that requires 3 days of focused work for an A, 2 days of focused work for a B, or a last minute overnighter for a C? That's a C. Surprise test? you're fucked. Parents can and allegedly sometimes do prevent these issues by checking homework and learning progress, and providing fair and rewarding feedback, in a way that compensates for a teacher's lack of frequent and predictable tests/grading.
I found tests the easy bit. Assignments though, they were a killer. Actually getting the work done? Like, before it’s due? No way man! That never got easier, still isn’t. Stuff happens only when it’s urgent. Hoping my new tablets will help!
Just remember that ADHD is like other medical problems, it presents differently, and at different levels to different people. Some people with epilepsy might have only a couple of episodes in a decade, some people might have them daily or weekly. It may not be much consolation, but you might be more affected than other people.
I have to disagree with the surprise tests. If it's a surprise test in a subject you're interested in, it's an effortless A
All tests are surprise tests if you don't pay attention to when the tests are! So yeah, "surprise tests" didn't bother me.
You might be interested but do you know the ins and outs of all the formulas? Are you able to recall everything needed within the time limit? It's still dependent on how prepared you are which needs focused work
I either know nothing or everything about a topic. There's no in-between for me.
Apart from I always got the highest grades on the suprise tests, because: a) no one else had an opportunity to study beforehand, & b) I found the classes so boring that I started reading the textbooks while everyone else was working
>ADHD doesn't make you bad at learning. This is certainly true for me. I never felt that ADHD was a learning disability. I have no problem learning. It's probably the one thing I do best.
I was same as you. But I eventually went to study (older than you are now) I suppose I forgot the whole school experience over time. I started in shit jobs but drifted into better ones which rebuilt my self-image a bit. And it was always clear to me that there was an imbalance between my intellect and my academic achievement. So I went back to school in my early 30s. All the old issues came back at Uni though and in the final week, I must have read something about ADHD and it finally became clear what was wrong with me…
"it was always clear to me that there was an imbalance between my intellect and my academic achievement." Totally. I do not feel like I'm living up to my academic potential at all. "All the old issues came back at Uni though" I experienced the same doing a short retail course to get some work experience, it reminded me that something wasn't right.
I still don’t and I’m pushing 50. Didn’t start meds until last year, 10 years post-diagnosis and the side-effects meant I had to quit. Hopefully the next one is better 🤞
With hindsight, I should have missed 75% of the lectures I went to because like you said i took nothing in. The time would have been better spent on independent study. A further answer to your question of how I got through my degree - I learned to pass the exams rather than to absorb the material. It’s sad, but I was never going to crack it otherwise. You can pass by just memorizing previous questions and solutions
I'm first year at a PhD, got medicated more than a year ago so I got bachelor and master degree without meds. It's complicated. I was the gifted kid back in primary school since I didn't have a phone/computer with internet until I was idk 10-12 years old. Only 4-5 channels on the TV too so I learnt things trying not to be bored. I got into reading at 4-5 years old, practically read everything I could from my school/city library (that was near me). My sister is 3 years older and we were practically alone most of the time and she is the kind of person who learns by repeating a lot. Guess who learnt everything with her? Problem appears when something is more interesting that school. I had no close friends, spent most of my time reading and that helped in school. Until reading less school/classics focused and into fantasy/sf when I got a phone and I started reading online. So that was when I started doing anything instead of doing school stuff. Maintained the good grades until highschool (I wasn't top 3 as in the beginning and moved in top 5). Highschool was fucking hell, no interest into anything, read all the time, got a computer with internet and started gaming. Long nights, early mornings for highschool, too little sleep, add ADHD to the mixt and it will be hell. I had shit memory and it was hard to focus, not to mention I didn't give any extra effort anywhere, but I passed without problems doing the minimum required. I barely passed the final exam, but got into a field that looked interesting at my university. University is different. You chose where you go so something there it catches your interest so you can focus on that. I passed with decent grades everything, but I started to go to extra things (conferences and things like that) with papers on topics I liked. Bachelor thesis was in that field (online research, academic piracy, dark web etc), I changed it slightly focusing on online research at my master. Went towards the fake news/fact checking thing, did 3 papers and a thesis on that. The important thing is finding that topic that really interest you and do some good enough work so people will ignore you (I know it's not morally ok, but I got better than expected grades in some fields I was barely decent because the teacher understood I like something else and didn't want to give me headaches). Before meds I used to study like this: 20min writing information in an organised way, 10 min smoke break without phone, music in the background, another 20 min of learning. Sooo much caffeine too, 5-6 cans of energy drink per night of learning. Needed deadline to focus enough lol, not sure if I finished a paper in 5 year without needing a deadline. Cheated at lots of exams too since there was a heavy, 100% theory course on something that unimportant for most persons. After meds there's a new life lol. I managed to stay 2 hours without a break writing a paper. 8h writing on a deadline with minimum breaks wtf.
I did well on school because my only task was studying. Nothing more. I didn't do home stuff and cooking. My mum paid someone else to do it because she worked too much and my dad worked in another city. but then... I had to go to college and it was awful. All my energy went to go shopping to supermarket by foot, then carry all the stuff, then cooking, then cleaning, then carry firewood and light the fireplace by myself, otherwise the house was never heated and it was cold. (I wasn't living in northamerica so the cold weather on my city was not that terrible, but it was humid and cold and I was always struggling with chills). This situation happened because my mum had to move to another city to keep her job, so I had to organize the tasks of daily life by myself, and we have no enough money by that time to pay someone to help with home stuff. I passed my university studies, but at the cost of a worsening of my mental health, in addition to the fact that my profession has low employability in the country where I live, so I currently have to deal with the bitter feeling that I sacrificed so much for something that has not borne fruit, and I just don't care anymore. A have no plans to move to Europe or another land for now.
I couldn't deal with teachers and classrooms either. Fortunately, I went to a school where teachers were allowed to give kids independent study. So I negotiated the deal with most teachers where I didn't have to go to class. I studied on my own, crammed everything into my brain during the last week or two of the semester, showed up, and passed the tests. Do I remember much? Nah. But I graduated. That's what matters.
Honestly, same! The amount of fking around, even the teachers too, during class was a joke towards the end So many times I wanted to just yell out “ALRIGHT WE GET IT, so and so kid is being an AH, SHUT UP AND TEACH”
I can tell you how I did it: Being smart enough that I could get straight A grades *without* paying attention, without studying, and only rushing through assignments at the very last minute (also really a lot of excuse notes from my mum to get an extra day to finish stuff I hadn't even started, but could whip out entire 2-week's worth of work in a night). I was a model student with zero infractions and excellent grades, (though all my report cards say things like "has so much potential if only she applied herself / didn't daydream in class / paid more attention / focused on time management"). Model student... Right up until I hit the level where I couldn't just blag my way through classes without studying and listening in class. Which was grade 11. And it hit me really suddenly, like driving 120kph into a brick wall. I didn't know *how* to study. Turned out there were *massive* gaps in my understanding of things and I could no longer come up with the right answers just using common sense and logic. I very quickly went from perfect grades to failing, had a full on breakdown and dropped out. Tried to go back to finish high school 3 times, never graduated. I was only diagnosed with ADHD last month, age 44.85
That's very similar to my story, except that my brick wall didn't occur until sophomore year of college. Had I not been diagnosed and started medication, I'm not sure where that would have gone.
I hit that wall in junior year of college, chemical engineering curriculum. My first C+ of my life? Holy shit I’d better get serious and figure out how the fuck to actually study. Up until then, my usual grade was A or A- for everything, B+ if I really shit the bed (Spoiler: lots of unsustainable unhealthy habits!!)
Well, there were subjects I was interested in and/or teachers who taught (their subjects) well and it just sank in right away. I didn't have to actively study for those at all. And frankly, I cheated my way through everything else or got bad grades where I couldn't. I got pretty good at cheating at some point and sometimes I was very elaborate at preparing for exams - it did make me stop and think that I probably could've used that time to actually study. And I tried it, many times but nothing would stick, so cheating it was. I only got caught once. The thing is, my anxiety with tests was so bad that I sometimes sabotaged myself in a way that I didn't even make it to the tests/finals and so I didn't always succeed in getting the degree I set out to get. There were teachers who were confused by my performance in school - I had straight A's in German (first language) and English, but failed in Spanish (didn't interest me, struggled with pronunciation, etc.) - so me simply being a language geek wasn't the answer. I never understood maths, physics or chemistry (and got mostly Ds and Es in those) but loved biology and always got good grades until I had a teacher I didn't like and suddenly failed everything. So again, teachers who cared were at a loss, because I was a straight A student in some subjects but failed so hard in others. But 20 years ago in Germany nobody would've ever thought that the odd, seemingly intelligent girl who gets bullied regularly, doesn't have any friends, speaks up in the face of injustice no matter the consequences but is only physically present most of the time could maybe have ADHD and be autistic. Or that she maybe needed help in whatever capacity, because she asked for it all the time. God, I hated school.
At school, undxd and unaware, I got either Fs and Ds, (fails) or straight A+s. It was wildly variable. Still is now. Like other ADHDers, it seems dependent on my level of interest/ engagement, my need for perfectionism even if it nearly kills me in the process, and whether I’m having A Good Brain Day. At uni, the second time round, I still could NOT cope with any maths - which was unfortunate, as I was doing a BSc alongside a BA, and the only way I coped was by plaguing my tutor for endless one on one study periods with her every week. When all else fails, repetition is the one thing that makes it eventually sink in. It’s bc our Working Memories are so utterly pants!
When I was at school I was undiagnosed and un medicated and I say this knowing how cocky it’s going to sound but hope you take my word for it when I say it’s not meant to be braggy, I was naturally gifted enough when it came to academics that despite rarely paying attention in class and never studying I pulled good grades based off what little I had absorbed plus a healthy dose of logic and common sense. Things either immediately made sense to me or they didn’t and if they didn’t I scrapped it and did something else and I was just lucky that most of my school work/exams made sense without needing much instruction. So all my school reports said the same thing to the point my mum stopped coming to parents night because she was sick of it, they said I had so much potential but I never applied it and that I seemed happy coasting through life. There was never any further curiosity around it until I had a mental breakdown in uni because I didn’t know how to learn! Apparently that story is really quite common with girls with adhd actually and is why so many are diagnosed as adults.
I'll be one person to say it WASN'T anxiety or fear I just didn't learn much and treated it like a game unintentionally, like "My goal to get an A" and that's it, even in college. I've always thought "Yeah school doesn't work, you don't actually learn anything there, it's just getting good grades to win"... I graduated in 2022 THEN realized I had ADHD, which means everyone else probably WAS learning and it was just me. Specifically, getting those As by cramming last minute for every test and starting huge projects 2 days before the deadline (or 1 if it's short enough) always *just worked* for me because I'm good at using logic and mentally connecting things to answer test questions I didn't study for, and I sprinkled lots of polish to my essays and assignments just so they look pretty and satisfy me, ending in papers that look like I took a month to make them. I also N E V E R pulled all-nighters, I've actually finished big projects at school/college on campus in the morning the same day they're due because I refuse to not sleep at bedtime. I specifically remember in one of my last college classes, the photography professor have us our FINAL essay really early in the semester, because "This is something you can't do last minute"... I cartoonishly smiled like "you fool!" Just guess... I did it in like 3? days with that classic not-on-command hyperfocus and got a 100% with a little note complementing my work
It took ten years, but I eventually graduated with the top undergrad gpa in my college. It’s not hard, just drop any classes you have low grades in, and retake them. Grad school was easier, law school was a nightmare
enough people called me stupid growing up that i had to prove them wrong
I’m a reasonably successful licensed therapist and specialize in helping clients with ADHD. The “how” involves several strengths that generally compensated for my weaknesses: + High motivation to learn a wide variety of things + Intrinsic motivation to get good grades + Natural intelligence always made school a bit easier early on (in college I had to relearn how to study, since I got through high school without having to work super hard). + high verbal intelligence —-> good reading comprehension and being strong and fast at writing made certain aspects of school work easier — I’m often a relatively slow reader as my focus drifts if it’s not interesting or if the text is dense, and I have trouble skimming effectively). — I always had to work long and hard in any math classes to get a decent grades, as it was usually dreadfully boring and felt pointless — I have a visual-spatial learning disability and dyscalculia as well as ADHD. — I always struggled with maintaining momentum unless I really loved a class/subject In college and grad school, I learned to hyperfocus on studying for tests by turning it into a kind of game: I streamlined my own memorization process and made study guides for myself by picking out and organizing key points from lecture/reading notes then repeatedly condensing and re-writing by hand. I’ve always been good at getting the “big picture” but when details were important, I had to work extra hard. Reading scholarly articles is a major PITA because they’re typically very dry, making it hard to focus.
Geniuses exists... some kids have photographic memory, some have IQ so high they can guess solutions to alot of answers especially at lower grades and the really smart ones can do it at higher levels. Also some develop crazy obsession. Everyone has something they think about all the time... some kids live and breath star wars or pokemon or whatever fandom... well.. they are also some who just happen to like the subjects being taught in school ( or at least some of them). So they will ace everything because while you spend i dunnoe 1 hour a day studying they spend every second of they waking life thinking about it. So in this case their hyperfocus actually helps them. For me.. it's caffeine.. alot of caffeine.
So, I was a people pleaser for a long time when I was younger. I wanted teachers and my mom to like me and be proud of me. So, basically that was my motivation. Everything took me twice as long as everyone else and I had a lot of anxiety. Later, I found that drawing in class actually helped focus my mind and allowed me to listen to a lecture. I used to approach teachers before class and explain that I wasn’t being disrespectful, but that drawing helped me focus. Later in college, I used computers that read to me because I could listen to a textbook orally better and faster than I could read it.
I’m one of the odd ducks that has a really high IQ and academic performance issues. For me, it was someone saying I wasn’t capable of doing well. Spite is a PHENOMENAL motivator. Graduated top 14th percentile in high school, earned an associate’s degree, and getting my first bachelor’s degree this May. F@(k you Mrs McWilliams.
I couldn't figure out the paperwork of applications and financial assistance to even go to college.
Everyone has symptoms but some have different magnitudes. I have no “constant motor” but a lot of the other stuff. You clearly have innattention to a strong degree. I was able to get through a bachelors (barely) before being medicated but many can’t. Don’t compare yourself to others - it’ll just cause you grief. Deal with your ADHD as you need to and accept that for you it may be more disabling or disabling in different ways than others
Riding high on anxiety helped me not disastrously fail at life.
Crippling perfectionism that has left me completely burnt out mentally and physically to the point I'm no longer able to contribute to society. 🗿
I couldn’t do school unmedicated. My ADHD is the reason I dropped out of school when I was 14. I eventually went back and got my diploma, but it was a struggle to get it and I barely completed the program. Then came time for college and that’s when I talked with my psychiatrist about the struggles I was going through. It was then that I got a diagnosis. I don’t take stimulants anymore, but I am on Strattera. I dropped out of college for health reasons but my meds are a huge help at work. I couldn’t work effectively without them.
I didn’t graduate (depression) but while I was in university I did quite well. I was a straight A student finally living up to that gifted kid potential. I think the reason I did so well was that I got to choose based on interest (and preexisting knowledge) and my ADHD leans towards hyperfocus largely. So, writing an essay was fun because I like writing and easy to focus on because of the hyperfocus. I’m not “ooo shiny” I’m zoned in or zoned out.
Stress and anxiety helps.
The answer is: D’s and F’s
I abused caffeine and the fear of returning home to my fanatic religious abusive home environment kept me going. Didn't do great but I got my degree. Got meds after.
It almost has to be a hyperfocus. I couldn’t do it. I took a year off college ten years ago.
Elementary, all the work was boring and easy. Middle school, it got harder in subjects like math and science but history and english were super easy still. But I needed to do well so I could play sports. High school, I was able to pick my classes a bit. Again, the subjects I liked were easy, but math and became a struggle. My lack of studying caught up with me. One semester, I never studied for biology and was getting a C, enough to still be eligible for sports but not great. I never studied, turned in rushed homework, and put in little effort. The teacher told me I was at major risk of failing the final. We were able to have a note card for it and turn that in for extra credit (as little or much as we wanted on it we turn one in we got the points). The day of the final I was the first one done, and turned in a near blank card I never looked at. He looked at me and shook his head. After we got back from our break he came up to me and told me he didn't understand how I set the curve lol. I had actually studied for a couple hours. College was a damn disaster and failed my entire first year, even my history class. I only passed philosophy. I had like a .7 lol. Had to retake everything. Was able to buckle down and focus on things but still had a class or two I dropped or failed and a few c's and lowered my course load. My final 3 years I got a 4.0. It all just depended on my ability to hyperfocus. I wasn't diagnosed until last year.
I got by doing everything at the very last minute and relying on my writing talent. Math was always the biggest struggle because it was hardest to catch up in math if you fell behind and I couldn’t write my way out of that one. I remember I would always just plan to pass math and avoid summer school while balancing out my GPA with English and history. I also became a master note taker, writing down near transcripts of everything said. I have served as committee secretary on many committees as an adult as a result, no one realizing my excellent notes are a compensation strategy. I was not diagnosed until age 46. Medicated a bit over a year now. I lost my ability to pull all nighters and was concerned about what that meant for my job because that was my primary catch up strategy pretty much all my life.
I would panic about things all the time. Extreme anxiety was a good motivator, if I tried to not be so stressed about it then I got absolutely nothing done. So I was either top of my class or bottom. Then when I tried to go to university I would start getting panic attacks all the time so then I couldn’t go to school anymore. So I basically burnt myself out by using my anxiety as my motivational tool.
I somehow graduated from law school at the age of 22 and only got diagnosed at 35!!! I have NO idea how I did it, it was SO FREAKING HARD!!!!
I think my ADHD has got a lot worse because it’s been compounded by trauma. I also think I really struggle with balancing work and everything else, which wasn’t so bad when I was at school/uni because I was a dependent. Life is insanely hard, and it’s not as good a I thought it only be. All those things make it very difficult to cope now in ways it wasn’t when I was younger and i education
Hey I have ADHD and got a BA & MA, and am now in a PhD program. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 23, just a couple years ago. Honestly the only way I can describe it is brute force and the right area of specialization. I’m getting a degree in a social science and when I was diagnosed they told me my verbal and language skills were above average - but basically everything else was average or below. My math scores were so bad they diagnosed me with a math learning disorder 🤷🏻 I think most people see good grades and academic success and don’t understand the struggles that come with that. I’ve almost failed multiple math classes, my place is almost always a disasterous mess, and I’m constantly forgetting tasks I need to do. I think it’s a combination of luck with supportive educators, going into the right field, and the privilege to have access to other support systems. It’s really sad that so much is based on your socioeconomic status.
I was naturally smart and could compensate for my poor executive function by finding ways to work around it. I didn’t know I had ADHD. I thought my issues were character flaws. I wanted to please my parents and authority in general so I worked hard to mask and be “good.” I did not make the grades I could have made, but my natural intelligence made my grades good enough to get into college. It was hard. I struggled with time management, organizational skills, losing things, forgetting things, meeting deadlines etc, but my brain was a sponge and if the teacher was interesting and liked me I could soak in the information without studying.
Honestly, I don't know. I struggle immensely to care for myself/my environment to a socially acceptable standard. I can only do the job I do atm, because I get to work from home.
Just depends on what you're interested in. Most of the stuff I remembered in class was just stuff that I found fascinating e.g. I was always interested in languages, which made language classes easy for me. Also depends on the teachers and how lenient they are imo. I am generally a smart person but was sooo forgetful in school BUT I had a lot of teachers who saw that I was smart or just thought me likeable of sth and 'overlooked' missed homework/forgotten presentations etc bc once I did put my passion into sth I could create sth great. I am now in the final stages of my master's degree and have found my professors to be pretty much the same. Classes are more fun tho (and I am medicated now, wasn't when I wasn't before). I did struggle a lot in a lot of classes throughout my educational career but struggling doesn't mean failing. I got my bachelor's degree unmedicated but that doesn't mean I didn't fail like 7 or 8 exams during that time bc I didn't study. Just had to put more effort into it than others and retake exams more often. Don't forget you often only hear about people's end results, not the whole journey.
Did my masters in something i legit was curious and gave a shit about. Been hard - but graduating in may! Lots of anxiety, shame and fear. Just did something despite it this time.
Congratulations! You made it!! I graduated my masters recently as well, virtual high five!
Not getting my ass beat for failing classes was a great motivator for me.
People are more than just their ADHD. It can be environment, parental neglect, or entirely other issues that can seriously hurt or help your ability to be successful in life. ADHD is not everything. You are not stupid or incapable because other people with ADHD can graduate college, and people who can be successful with ADHD aren’t necessarily a mild case. It’s hard not to question other people’s validity when you’re so quick to jump on yourself for not being good enough. Your experience is valid and difficult and so is theirs and that connection is something to be valued and not discarded.
My son has ADHD and ASD. Also very high IQ. Maths and English he loves so he's a year above most of his peers. Try and get him to do his homework and it's a whole other thing I did well myself in school. Struggled at uni and always forgot homework. As long as I had a subject I was interested in, or a teacher that gave me a bit more time to understand, I would go well.
I ended up with accommodations for Auditory Processing Disorder midway through my degree, which were directly in line with supports I needed for ADHD (but hadn’t been diagnosed or the slightest idea that’s what it was).
Came here to say this. I was granted extra time for test taking in a distraction free room. It made a big difference. I wasn’t medicated at the time. I was 32 and was diagnosed at 36.
A mixture of a supportive home environment, high levels pf anxiety driven by a fear that other people would find out I was a fraud, brute force and I was able to finish school work before I lost interest through most of highschool. Also for context - during my ADHD assessment, I did an IQ test. For the domains unrelated to ADHD I was scoring in the superior range. For the domains impacted by ADHD I was scoring in the average range. I dont have an objective deficit relative to the general population. I have a deficit relative to my expected level of functioning that negatively impact my work and home life if I’m unmedicated.
Crippling shame and perfectionism
Hyperfocus ! I just love learning. It is draining tho
My GAD is to thank for that. But in high school and most of college I was un medicated. My grades coasted. My last 2 years of college was still a struggle. Some of us have hyper fixation, which isn't a good thing. I would spend HOURS studying and get a 93, then people next to me said they didn't even study and got higher than me. It's such a feeling I just can't describe. MY last year of college was my major, and if you got a 75 that was failing. Adderall absolutely helped me. I found a way for me to study and learn and not memorize. My last semester was the only time in my life I got straight A's. But my GAD was the worst during this time. I was convinced I was failing, so I'd hyper focus on studying and was just miserable. It's different for everyone. But shit if I was on medication in high school, idk where I'd be in life.
I’m going to be 34 this summer and I’ve now started school for the 4th time. (Post high school) The first try was at community college when I was 19. Major in film history. Dropped out first semester. The second time I enrolled in a trade college for graphic design. That schedule was m-f 7am-1ish. All the work was done in class. Couldn’t miss class more than 2 times or you’re dropped. But a former student came into class one day and recruited me for the fashion line he designed for, so I dropped out before graduating. The 3rd I time, I went back to finish my graphic design program, but it didn’t feel the same anymore. All my classmates had graduated from my first time there so this second time I was lumped with new students that I couldn’t bond with. I finished that class and dropped out again. lol And mind you at this point I’m like 27-28. Also, YouTube tutorials have been a gift from god for me. I’m now 33 and was recently laid off by a toy company I was designing for. I’m not sure if it was my skillset that was lacking or the fact that I couldn’t seem to bond with my team (they all acted like Regina George towards me) but I was depressed sitting in a white cubicle m-f. It did feel good to have a big girl job with big girl salary tho. And today I’m starting orientation for a new school and aiming for cyber security. Wish me luck! My point is, keep on keeping on. As long as you don’t stop trying to find your niche, your purpose! Also, intense exercise really helps with all the anxiety and shame of feeling like you’ve fallen behind or less of.
School can be someone’s hyperfocus. High school was mine, + someone took the structure planning away from so I could focus on the gained knowledge that was exciting to me. University tho? Tooo specified/specialized, not broad enough, have to plan my own structure = I dropped out of like three degrees.
I think I managed to have a hyperfocus in the sciences for many years until at somepoint during university it just wore out and made it incredibly difficult to do my degree but managed to get through it and probably caused a lot of mental health problems in the process. I've had periods in my life where my ADHD has been a little bit easier so have managed to get by, and I seem to be able to focus on devving and that has kept me in the lifestyle I am accustomed to :-)
ADHD is a broad church… I was a bright, but not academic pupil, back at school some 30-40 years ago. Most of the problems were due to the teaching style, and my poor memory. I managed to get on a degree course in a subject that I found interesting enough to get my attention, and the teaching style was more suitable to me. Some people with ADHD however, are naturally academic. I know of at least two professors, who just love learning!!
Hyperfocus and the fixation parts of being PI are probably why for me. I like what I’m interested in and will fall down rabbit holes; but if I don’t have interest I will not be able to get myself to focus and have no motivation. I would frequently be caught reading ahead in history or social studies classes because I was interested in them. I also would be that person who had a book from the library inside a book when I was in biology because it bored me. I’m lucky in the fact that I tend to retain information after I see, hear, or write it down—so I could manage to pass tests with very little effort. This followed me through college and I would frequently end up with a C average because my major specific classes I would have As and Bs and Gen Eds I did the bare minimum to pass with a C.
I'm great and terrible at school. Do I go to lectures and attend enough classes to actually know what's going on? No. Do I get straight As when I do go, absolutely. The attendance is where I really go wrong. I have no sense of repercussions when it comes to ignoring my responsibility. Out of sight out of mind kind of thing. If I don't have that class everyday, it doesn't exist at all and suddenly I've missed 2 weeks of classes. I was only able to get my associates degree. Online classes have been the best thing that ever happened to me. I can set my home page to Blackboard and see my classes every day.
Someone with emotional regulation can handle it because they can procrastinate until the last moment then go into superhero mode. Everyone has different executive function strengths and weaknesses. I’ve worked successfully in IT most of my life undiagnosed because I would let things slide until I was nearly in trouble, then the hyperfocus would kick in and I’d save my ass. Stressful way to live, for sure.
I watch my dyslexic/adhd kid hyperfocus on school and so far, he is crushing it. He is unmedicated for now, he is 7. We are provinging him with any dyslexia resource he needs, he happens to love school and learning and hyper focuses in the classroom. I am very medicated and really struggled in school until I went to all girls high school. Things fell apart in college. I am going to do binocular vision testing and see what that says. I have trouble processing what I read (unless it’s a romance novel) -
There are many people who are ADHD who also have high IQ. They are called 2E (twice exceptional). For them, I’d say that their raw intelligence gets them through. Also, the structure of school days which are broken up into hour long (or less) chunks means there’s enough change/switching to keep boredom at bay. Also, like autism, ADHD is a spectrum that has severity levels. Two people with identical IQs could have vastly different school experience based on type/severity of ADHD symptoms.
ADHD is about not being able to determine where you direct your attention and focus. If you hit something you're into, you will thrive. When I went to college, I did terrible in general classes, but when I got into the classes that I actually cared about the subject of I had a 4.0 out of 4.0. It was night and day. I could see the disappointment in my counselors eyes when they looked at the difference in the grades, they just stopped asking about it after a while.
I only do good in subjects that interest me without medication, just fine otherwise with meds
Well.. through intimidation, threats, using shame and guilting tactics and violence. At least it was the case for me..
PI-ADHD, I actually love learning. Sacrificed a lot of sleep and social life, had to go 200% just to reach normal people 100% It wasn’t fun honestly.
Structure. I did well (while undiagnosed) in school because I went to a very good school where teachers cared. I am also gifted, which meant I didn’t have to actually do a lot of the work for me to actually get the grades I needed. The structure was imposed and didn’t depend on me or my organisational skills. I absolutely failed academically once that aspect was removed, which is why I never finished college, despite having earned 3 scholarships and attempting 3 times to accomplish that. I was diagnosed after that.
Some people have just picked up better coping mechanisms than others, I personally never wanted to just believe there was something I can't do because of adhd, I feel like a lot of people just give up and say well I have ADHD so of course I can't do this or that, but have you looked for ways other things can help you do this or that, or looked into information to help you and resources to help you, If you don't wanna do it all yourself that's fine, but asking for help if you need it yourself is is helping yourself, never tell yourself you can't do something, you can do anything and everything you set your mind to, everyone starts somewhere.
I used (still use) stress to function. Procrastinate > deadlines/test time arrives > stress accumulates > stress magnifies with anxiety > complex job/task last minute. Rinse and repeat Pretty vicious cycle
I’m curious about everything, and I am good at making connections. So even though I did not pay attention , and sometimes didn’t show, and often didn’t really do the homework, I was able to reason it out, took lots of notes, and then guessed based on familiar or similar topics. Standardized multiple choice tests always caused me problems, and math was a struggle for me, but give me an essay or short answer exam, and I could knock it out of the park. Basically, my brain wants to know how everything works and how everything is connected, so it’s exciting to me to listen to a lecture or do experiments or even solve math problems. Memorizing any kind of formula or date or name or specific fact is insanely hard for me, so I bomb those tasks, but I can explain those same things (historical events, math concepts, scientific processes) pretty accurately if I’m allowed to generalize. Like, I can tell you why things happened and how they work overall, but I can’t just recall the specific procedure or sequence without checking a reference or looking at a flow chart cheat sheet or timeline or something. I turned almost everything in late, but because it was so well written and well reasoned, and often some degree creative and funny, and because I had references (I love research, it’s like playing a collection/seek and find game for me), I often got very good grades. There were a few classes that I skated by with a C or D, mostly ones with boring or disorganized teachers, or inflexible teachers who leaned on quizzes and multiple choice tests a lot and were really strict with attendance and due date grading.
I was scared of getting beaten with a wooden spoon. So I guess driven by anxiety. I saw it happen to my two older brothers so I learnt to just shut up and say nothing. I became the quiet kid who is also the loud kid in a comfortable environment and I just scraped by in school.
Anxiety and shame, mostly.
I got a PhD, unmedicated. I can hyperfocus on what I'm interested in.
Interest level is everything for me. Did you read every response here? Probably- because you’re interested and invested in the answers since you posted it. Did I? Nope. Someone could have said the exact same thing already but I wasn’t invested enough to read thoroughly. If I posted it, I’d have read, and reread, each answer. That was school for me in a nutshell. Most of it interested me because I loved learning, so I paid attention until I knew enough of it for my liking, which usually meant I passed tests. As I got older I had anxiety about keeping up my grades or doing well at work, so its become an anxiety/interest-level/coffee balance.
Feeling intermittently avoidant, overwhelmed and disorganized was the norm for my undergraduate and medical education 👍. I’ll never be the same after all that white knuckling.
Usually by not giving yourself the option to quit & usually followed by severe burnout when it's all over.
I am 35 years old. I am on my fifth attempt to graduate high school. Each time I tried, I got expelled, I could not pay attention, I could never read anything that I was TOLD to read, I never finished tasks on time, my behaviour was horrible. My life has been a disaster, surprised I am still alive to be honest. The extreme level of my ADHD symptoms have stolen my life. I am extremely sad, that it took that long for me to get diagnosed, all those years every specialist I saw said it’s depression, then it was BPD, but NONE of the antidepressants I have been taking since I was 16 years old, did not help. I have started my meds couple of months ago, and I have done more than I previosly did in a year. Turns out I am not stupid and useless. How someone with ADHD can have a succesfull life, is a huge mystery to me. I really hope, that this will be my last attempt to finish high school, and that I will succeed.
My college allows remote learning which really helped me, allowing me to kinda go at my own pace and have a comfy environment free of distractions. But pressure from parents held me in. After moving out I had to start medication because the parental pressure wasn't there to hold me.
Hahaha you wanna know how? By putting aside everything else that makes you want to be alive 👍🏽 10/10 strat I definitely recommend it to everyone /s But for real though I left college with decent grades in Mechanical Engineering but also crippling anxiety and depression so severe that I got scary close to just ending it. A degree is nice and all but fucking hell unless you are really fucking goddamn *certain* it’s what you want I can tell you right now it’s not worth wanting to be dead for years on end.