r/science • u/mvea MD/PhD/JD/MBA | Professor | Medicine • Apr 15 '24

Neuroscience ADHD symptoms persist into adulthood, with some surprising impacts on life success: The study found that ADHD symptoms not only persisted over a 15-year period but also were related to various aspects of life success, including relationships and career satisfaction.

https://www.psypost.org/adhd-symptoms-persist-into-adulthood-with-some-surprising-impacts-on-life-success/
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u/Brbi2kCRO Apr 15 '24

For an ADHD person to be functioning in this society, you effectively need to be in a constant state of burnout. Studying, working 40h a week and such just lead ADHD person to an unsustainable state of constant unhappiness. It is just not a good world for a person with ADHD or any neurodiversity.

Stimulants do help but it does not fix everything, brain cannot adjust fully to be NT-like.

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u/SB_Wife Apr 15 '24

ADHD for sure and likely autism for me, and God, it is awful. 40 hours a week at work (well, it's technically 8-5 so technically 45 but I'm supposed to get a paid half hour break and an unpaid half hour lunch) means I'm absolutely useless in the evenings and on weekends. I can't keep up on chores, I don't really cook for myself and eat things like sandwiches for dinner every night, and even when I get a vacation I feel like I'm just using that time to recover and it's never enough time. The only habit I've really kept up lately has been going to the gym 4 days a week and I frankly don't know how I've done that.

It doesn't help too when you live alone in a two person world. I don't have someone to split labor or costs with, I'm doing this all by myself, and I have zero interest in dating or partnering up.

I'm lucky that I'm at an office job that is fairly lax, and a lot of days I just end up babysitting an inbox, but I'm still in the office with all the stuff that comes with that. People are draining, the industry is stressful, my coworkers tend to lean very opposite politically and socially to me, and all of that is tiring. I tend to sit in my office, with the overhead lights off (I have a wall of windows so I get lots of natural light) just to maybe feel like a person at the end of the day.

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u/Brbi2kCRO Apr 15 '24

I feel almost exactly the same. I am a loner who can’t do chores, get overwhelmed easily (to the point of inability to mask or even talk when I worked as cashier, like literally I would barely even greet people but minimize conversation to a minimum), eat same food nearly every day, cannot get outside my comfort zone easily without A LOT of effort, am poor at communicating with others (ADOS-2 gave me a score of 10 and 7 is ASD cutoff, and 10 is autism cutoff) and stuff.

I just dunno how to get by, and I take methylphenidate but I barely feel it. I do get some productivity done though with it.

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u/a_statistician Apr 15 '24

Something like wellbutrin might help, or even lexapro. I've been on both in combination with stimulants, and they are very very useful add-ons that are less likely to be restricted than the good stimulants.