Same story. Founder, early 30s, a couple kids, just got diagnosed last year. Life-changing. Loved the Suster blog posts you linked. The book I liked was "A New Understanding of ADHD in Children and Adults".
As someone who highly suspects they may have ADHD, how was the diagnosis life changing? Was it through medication, or simply through understanding yourself better?
Both; but honestly, the latter was more important. Simply having a name for the reasons why, no matter how hard I tried and no matter how much I really, genuinely, truly wanted to, there were certain things I just couldn't do... that alone was extremely relieving. And infuriating. And vindicating. But mostly, genuinely relieving.
I was able to accept that I wasn't an incompetent fool, incapable of being useful - I had ADHD.[1] That was OK. That meant I could accept what I was bad at, focus on the things I was good at, and use techniques to adjust for the things I've now accepted I'm bad at, instead of incessantly trying to do the same thing over and over that works for other people but ... just doesn't work for me.
Medication has also helped, and I use it on an as-needed basis, but it is not, alone, a cure for anything - it is a tool, often an incredibly helpful one, but still just that. The education and understanding about what ADHD is has been far more helpful, though I'm glad I have the medication as a tool, too.
[1] Incidentally, not understanding your own effect on other people, and devaluing your own contributions and successes? Also a symptom of ADHD. Think about it: most people choose, simply, to try to do the things they are likely to be successful at; they choose carefully. ADHD people do not choose; they can't. They do all of the things they might be excited about, meaning they fail, frankly, at most of them. But in those that they succeed, they are often wildly successful; to everyone else, this is objectively obvious. To the ADHD person, they know they've failed 98 times for every 2 successes, and often fall into a depression (though not as deep as someone who has clinical depression or BPD, unless that's a separate symptom) after nearly every success.
> often fall into a depression (though not as deep as someone who has clinical depression or BPD, unless that's a separate symptom) after nearly every success.
Echoing this point. I struggled with depression for much of my life. Being diagnosed with ADHD at 25 and taking medication for it on a regular basis (5-6d/week) has done more for my depression than any depression medication I've tried.
This also goes to rejection sensitivity which is also common in ADHD. Because we’re overly aware of our failures, we’re also likely to have outsized reactions to reasonable criticism… restarting the same vicious cycle.
Very well put. I was diagnosed as an adult. While I was waiting for my results, at one point my wife said, "wait, do you want to have ADHD?". And yes, I wasn't really able to articulate why I was hoping for a positive result, but that's just it: putting a name to it as a way of forgiving myself for not "living up to my potential".
Wow. I've been reading this whole thread, thinking if I might or might not have ADHD, but your point about perception of success and failure hit it right home. Never seen it described exactly like this, thanks a lot!
There's a bunch of reasons. None by itself is life-changing, but together they make a big difference.
- Awareness. Sometimes, I notice, "oh, I'm feeling distracted right now." Or, "I'm feeling bored right now." Once I notice, I can avoid doing the unhelpful next thing I was going to do.
- Medication. It does help with focus and context-switching, especially on days I have to do a number of medium-size boring tasks. I probably take it every other day.
- Being present. More present with kids when I'm on medication. My wife says I'm less impatient.
- Self-acceptance. That's why I love Mark Suster's posts. He's open that his ADHD makes him a talented entrepreneur and a terrible employee. I have a different temperament than Mark but feel similarly. I used to feel ashamed of a couple of character traits. I don't anymore. This is who I am.
- My tribe. When I look around at close friends and acquaintances, other founders I know including some you've probably heard of -- a ton of them have ADHD too. An employee at our startup has expressed that he's going to start his own startup fairly soon. I was talking to his manager about it and said, effectively: "of course he is. He's brilliant and a bit ADHD. He's got founder genes."
Yeah seriously, what's the secret? I'm 32 and I was diagnosed when I was 20 but the drugs make me anorexic and mute my personality and knowing I have ADHD has not proven particularly useful, especially given that I already knew my tendencies and behaviors and had long since developing coping strategies
The only way my life changed when I was diagnosed was that I got paid for the study I had signed up for, which required I have a diagnosis
Therapy/coaching, and don't give up on trying to adjust the medication. Finding the right dosage, and specific med that works for you, is tricky (I haven't found it yet, but am closer), but can be life-changing. There are a ton of new types of medications for ADHD now; far more than there used to be, when we basically knew stimulants helped but didn't know why.
Still, for about 20% of people, medication simply doesn't help. For them, coaching and therapy (and education about ADHD) is far more useful.
Try changing medication, although they're nearly all slightly different forms of amph, the differences are significant. For me, ritalin is just headaches, modafinil is less effective but wonderfully free of most side-effects, and dex is the most useful thing I can legally get.
Unfortunately modafinil is almost 10x the price of dex in Australia if you don't have narcolepsy, and the drug that I suspect would benefit me the most (adderall, a mix of dex and meth) is simply illegal.
How often do you discuss how meds are working for you? If you feel muted you might be undermedicated. Your doctor should know that you’re reacting this way and if they don’t take it seriously they’re probably not a good fit.
When I was undermedicated I was literally falling asleep at random, and had basically no emotional response to almost anything. Getting closer to where I should be over the last few months has made a world of difference.
Not to put aside the medication… it’s made me feel more like a normal functioning human capable of existing in a world. I don’t want to overemphasize this though because, while it saved my life, the other part made my life feel worth saving.
I’ve learned in the last couple years that almost all of the things I struggle with trace back to ADHD. My inability to take care of myself and my surroundings without fooling myself with rewards; my cognitive impairments around sensory issues; my endless stream of damaged friendships because I can’t respond to texts or emails or whatever; my whole upbringing of incompatible disappointments because my whole family probably has the same brain. So many things have an explanation even if it’s too late to correct a lot of it. And having an explanation has been immeasurably valuable.
