Adult ADHD and the workshop.

[RaisedByWolves]

They certainly won't understand if a fear of causing a conflict leads you to not communicate.

Honestly, I reckon we're all big, old and ugly* enough to bear the fact that people on this forum will have different views on this stuff.

So I really would love to hear your opinions. My gut feel is that I'm likely to agree with them, but hey, my gut feelings are wrong often enough for me not to be particularly trusting of them and if I don't, then I'm sure I can find a way to communicate my comprehensive disdain for your opinions, your lifestyle, your choices and your taste in coffee in a way that will make being publicly offended by my remarks feel unreasonable, even if punching me in the face would be the action of any right thinking person.



Seriously though, speak your piece. Unless I've completely misjudged you, you're a person of deep good-will, so only a fool would take offence.

*Well okay, personally I'm not ugly, I'm pretty damn fine actually, but I'm big and old enough.

You had to bring up the coffee thing......


I can remember trying to do (or not do) math problems in 3-4th grades and how I would literally choke even though I knew how to do the damn math.

I would try to concentrate on the problem, and my mind would wander everywhere but to the numbers on the page.

I would even be held in for recess until the math was done and I would just write down whatever gibberish numbers to make it look like I tried and hand that in. I was a D-F student until I got into tech school (Auto mechanics) and had an actual reason to do math, then it all seemed worthwhile to actually do, and I got straight As both at tech school and homeschool.

I also scored a a 89 and 94 in two different ASVAB tests years apart. Got the 89 in high school without even doing the higher math portion and the Mil recruiters would not leave me alone.

 

[jwmay]

Maybe ADHD is the natural way humans think, but because of the unnatural way we have built our societies, we created an unnatural “standard” by which we measure the way people accomplish things.

After all, if we were still Hunter/gatherers or subsistence farmers, instead of workers who have to trade our time for resources, there wouldn’t be a strong need for humans to be able to focus for interminable amounts of time on things they literally couldn’t care less about.

And if people didn’t have to measure our “value” by whether or not we got bored, or found something more interesting to think about, then ADHD would cease to even be a “condition”. It would just be a part of the way a person operates.

Idk. I’m totally unqualified to say so, but I think we have created too complex of a world for the human mind to operate comfortably in. And there’s nothing wrong with any of us for struggling inside of it.

If the only thing you had to worry about today was finding or killing some food, tending your garden, and being useful to your community, I doubt there’d be a need for much “external” ordering of priorities.

Instead you have a list that’s ten miles long and only ever growing. Good luck!

 

[pontiac428]

What John said is a big part of it. I knew I had a harder go at life than most before going to war, but I coped well enough. Coming home from my infantry tour in Iraq (2004-2005) is when things got weird. My problems became magnified. I was a solid, high performing soldier, and could always hold a decent paying job. But other than blowing through the university with stellar grades (it's easier than getting shot at), I was sucking at life. ADHD and PTSD are not too tough to work through on their own, which means there's a whole other level to it for me. That's not what I'm too keen to talk about, but they do make pills for it and as long as I take those (too) I'm fine with balancing a marriage and a career. Most of the time. Yay mental health. I'm glad I've got a shop to disappear into on the weekends and projects to occupy my thoughts adrift the rest of the time.

At least I've never been bored.

 

[SouthernChap]

What John said is a big part of it. I knew I had a harder go at life than most before going to war, but I coped well enough. Coming home from my infantry tour in Iraq (2004-2005) is when things got weird. My problems became magnified. I was a solid, high performing soldier, and could always hold a decent paying job. But other than blowing through the university with stellar grades (it's easier than getting shot at), I was sucking at life. ADHD and PTSD are not too tough to work through on their own, which means there's a whole other level to it for me. That's not what I'm too keen to talk about, but they do make pills for it and as long as I take those (too) I'm fine with balancing a marriage and a career. Most of the time. Yay mental health. I'm glad I've got a shop to disappear into on the weekends and projects to occupy my thoughts adrift the rest of the time.

At least I've never been bored.

Having seen a couple of mates come back from Afghan and struggle (both with a lot of smarts) has made me more aware of this stuff.

I don't understand what they went through obviously and probably (hopefully) never will, but we're close and both of them seemed to feel able to share, to some degree, with me. They're both doing okay now but they were definitely changed by what they saw and did, both for the bad and good. Both Pete and Stu are two of my go-to people when I want some life advice.

Funnily enough, my other mate Dunc (not stupid, but I guess you might say somewhat lacking in imagination), came back and didn't seem to struggle at all. He came back the same genial, unintentionally hilarious bloke he always was. Last I heard (a year or so back), he was running his own small building, plumbing and electrical business and doing very well and just got married to his missus (she was a patient one, they'd been together since just after we left secondary school ).

In any case, thank you for talking about what you wanted to.

(jury's still out on your taste in coffee, mind. )

 

[SouthernChap]

Maybe ADHD is the natural way humans think, but because of the unnatural way we have built our societies, we created an unnatural “standard” by which we measure the way people accomplish things.

After all, if we were still Hunter/gatherers or subsistence farmers, instead of workers who have to trade our time for resources, there wouldn’t be a strong need for humans to be able to focus for interminable amounts of time on things they literally couldn’t care less about.

And if people didn’t have to measure our “value” by whether or not we got bored, or found something more interesting to think about, then ADHD would cease to even be a “condition”. It would just be a part of the way a person operates.

Idk. I’m totally unqualified to say so, but I think we have created too complex of a world for the human mind to operate comfortably in. And there’s nothing wrong with any of us for struggling inside of it.

If the only thing you had to worry about today was finding or killing some food, tending your garden, and being useful to your community, I doubt there’d be a need for much “external” ordering of priorities.

Instead you have a list that’s ten miles long and only ever growing. Good luck!

That's a really insightful bit of thinking there.

We all still have brains more suited to living in small groups on the African plains, than how we live now; 300,000 years being nothing in evolutionary terms.

Nice work, evolutionary-analysis-fella.

 

[SouthernChap]

You had to bring up the coffee thing......


I can remember trying to do (or not do) math problems in 3-4th grades and how I would literally choke even though I knew how to do the damn math.

I would try to concentrate on the problem, and my mind would wander everywhere but to the numbers on the page.

I would even be held in for recess until the math was done and I would just write down whatever gibberish numbers to make it look like I tried and hand that in. I was a D-F student until I got into tech school (Auto mechanics) and had an actual reason to do math, then it all seemed worthwhile to actually do, and I got straight As both at tech school and homeschool.

I also scored a a 89 and 94 in two different ASVAB tests years apart. Got the 89 in high school without even doing the higher math portion and the Mil recruiters would not leave me alone.

Well if I don't, who's gonna?

Yep, maths is a lot easier for me when I have a specific practical use for it. It's also got easier the older I've got and now I'm medicated, I'm definitely more capable of marshaling my thoughts.

I'm toying with the idea of reattempting, after 35 years, a maths 'A' level course at a local college. Maths with Mechanics rather than Maths with Stats (although the subject of statistics does interest me).

 

[WobblyHand]

Interesting discussion. Raises hand, part of the club. Diagnosed late in life. Take a relatively low dose and it clears up the mental cobwebs and allows me to function at a higher level. It was only after meds that I could concentrate enough on stuff that had escaped me for decades. Thinking that I could have had a more enriching career had it been recognized earlier. But afterwards was able to finally master 3D CAD, which has been very helpful for machining. Due to more order in my mind, I was also able to learn mechanical FEA.

I can tolerate a bit of clutter in the shop, but I find it's so much easier to do a clean up and start, rather than plow ahead with the last project's detritus intact. Think it's the same thing as someone mentioned of clearing and organizing both the space and the mind. If the project concludes "easily", I try to get everything ordered again. If it's been frustrating and slow, I have to walk away and come back later.

ADHD can be a blessing in some senses, at least for me, as I can get in the zone and just get a lot done. But it can be a curse due to distractions. I try to manage those contrasting things. Have to admit it can be a challenge at times. You have to cultivate your executive reasoning and occasionally jump into that mode to do a check on yourself - am I doing the right thing at the moment. This is the hard part about managing ADHD.

I try to start my day with some quiet time and write down things I need to do and secondarily what I want to do. It serves as a reminder. It doesn't matter if it all gets done, what matters is you took the time to organize and prioritize your thoughts. I find it helps as long as you don't get hung up on individual items. The next day I start over again, reprioritizing as necessary. Higher priority items get more attention and I work on them first. Anyways, that's what I tell myself

 

[rwdenney]

I was diagnosed with ADHD at a young age and they tried Rittlen (SP Forgive) and my father said it sped me up, Coffee/C affine actually helps calm my mind which the Doctors said happens with some, weird I know, it's kinda like the little squirrel in the movie "Over the Hedge".

ADHD doesn't mean you have issues concentrating, it means you have problems concentrating on individual things one at a time which is why we are horrible day dreamers and terrible at completing single task in a timely manner, we bounce from thing to thing a lot, the new term for it is Squirrel!, I get that a lot, "oh, you squirreled".... So for me written todo list, mental discipline and self control are deadly important, I have worked my entire life getting this down and I am still working on it. I my professional life I am a problem solver/designer and there is nothing better than a project with a lot of moving parts because that is the level my brain works at, High stress with lots going on (retirement is going to be a challenge). In my personal world I always have 4 or 5 things going an I take a bit more time than most but I work it all out, I'll usually stop and think things through on one thing while working on another....

Other issues I have is I am nocturnal and I live on 4 to 5 hours of sleep a day...

Sorry, TMI, didn't mean to ramble, "Squirrel".....

I would like to associate myself with the above post. I could have written it about myself with no edits.

I have discovered, though, that we tend to think of ourselves as getting in our own way with our distractibility, but to outsiders we still appear to be high-performing achievers. The danger is in setting standards for ourselves that no person can attain, no matter what we think of our own deficiencies.

Note that I'm talking about distractibility, not sin.

Rick "whose ability to concentrate deeply seems to have declined with age" Denney

 

[RaisedByWolves]

I would like to associate myself with the above post. I could have written it about myself with no edits.

I have discovered, though, that we tend to think of ourselves as getting in our own way with our distractibility, but to outsiders we still appear to be high-performing achievers. The danger is in setting standards for ourselves that no person can attain, no matter what we think of our own deficiencies.

Note that I'm talking about distractibility, not sin.

Rick "whose ability to concentrate deeply seems to have declined with age" Denney

As to the part in bold, this was crippling for me during much of my career as a toolmaker. I was however helped along by having several exacting cow irkers who seemed perfect in everything they did.

Only to find out years later they were just simply good at hiding their mistakes and keeping quiet about it.

As to the “outsiders”, yeah, I’ve been called a liar on several occasions by people who can’t comprehend a “person” can make highly complicated parts, and have friends who think my mistakes are produced by some divine hand.

All while I feel a little like a failure in life at times…

 

[verbotenwhisky]

As to the part in bold, this was crippling for me during much of my career as a toolmaker. I was however helped along by having several exacting cow irkers who seemed perfect in everything they did.

Only to find out years later they were just simply good at hiding their mistakes and keeping quiet about it.

As to the “outsiders”, yeah, I’ve been called a liar on several occasions by people who can’t comprehend a “person” can make highly complicated parts, and have friends who think my mistakes are produced by some divine hand.

All while I feel a little like a failure in life at times…

I am my worst critic, the toughest thing I have learned is not to doubt myself after I complete a project. worrying about what could go wrong consumes me even as I start something else; as the old sign in the drafting room use to say, "Pobodies Nerfect". The thought of missing something drives me nuts....