What You Need to Know if You Suffer From Untreated Adult ADHD

When I moved to another city and lived on my own, I felt like my life was a mess, but I couldn’t do anything about it.

I lived in a constantly messy house, and only when friends visited, I rushed to tidy up the clutter. While I wanted to attend my university classes and be a good student, I couldn’t. Every day, I would say, “Tomorrow, I’ll wake up early, make breakfast and coffee, go to class, and come home to study,” but I never did any of those things.

When planning to go out with friends, I would cancel it last minute. There were weeks when I left the house only for essentials.

Although I loved cooking, cleaning the kitchen afterward was incredibly challenging, so I ate out constantly.

I constantly picked up new hobbies, only to lose interest shortly after. I joined my university’s women’s soccer team, but after a few months, I simply stopped going. I started knitting, bought all the necessary supplies, knitted for a few days, and then abandoned it. Every few months, I found something new, only to lose interest shortly after.

I felt very bad about myself, thinking it was a matter of laziness that I didn’t tidy up my home or that I was thoughtless for starting hobbies only to abandon them.

However, a few months ago, I learned that all these, and many more, fall under the category of adult ADHD.

Adult ADHD

How ADHD appears in children and adults differs significantly. In adults, ADHD typically appears as procrastination, difficulty achieving goals, challenges in organization and time management, as well as easy forgetfulness or an inability to concentrate.

Living with this is challenging, especially when you don’t know you have it.

Even now, impulsivity has often put me in difficult situations. A few months ago, I decided to learn Spanish. I enjoyed it at first, but for no apparent reason, I stopped. If I cease doing something more than twice, I feel so awful about myself that I completely give it up.

The problem is that all the things I choose to do come at a cost — I’ve paid for these hobbies. If we add up the money I’ve lost on gym memberships, language courses, and everything else in the hobby category, the amount would be four digits.

Relationships and Adult ADHD

Another aspect profoundly influenced by adult ADHD is interpersonal relationships, friendly or romantic.

I often find myself particularly sensitive when my suggestions or desires face rejection. On several occasions, I’ve desired to spend quality time with my partner, and they, being tired, wanted to go to sleep. Now, as I write this, I acknowledge the rationale behind someone who feels exhausted and wanting to go to sleep, however, in those moments, it registers as a form of rejection.

Within me exist two contrasting personas — one grappling with a complete lack of focus and another excessively fixated on a singular task, disregarding all the others. This imbalance results in the neglect not only of tasks that demand attention but also of the individuals themselves. It’s called hyperfocus.

Nevertheless, the most pressing concern lies in my propensity to forget crucial details. One minute, I might be thinking, “I should do this,” and the next minute, I have already forgotten the thing I was supposed to do. As you can understand, all these aspects not only affect me but also the people around me, often leading to arguments.

Luck of Dopamine

Individuals with ADHD typically have lower levels of dopamine compared to the general population. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that plays a crucial role in various brain functions, including motivation, reward, attention, and impulse control. Therefore, what I need to do is trick my mind into thinking it has more dopamine than it already has so that I can motivate myself to start doing what I need to do and, at the same time, maintain that motivation throughout to complete the task.

So far, the only area I’ve managed to regulate is that of maintaining my house clean, where I’ve applied a rule I saw on TikTok: “Don’t put it down, put it away.” Concurrently, I’ve focused on finding ways to provide my brain with the dopamine it needs to complete a task. For example, when I wash dishes, I listen to an audiobook. There are many ways to trick your mind into doing something essential; you just need to figure out which one works best for you.

What you need to know if, while reading what I wrote, you feel a sense of identification is that you are not alone, and it’s not a matter of laziness. If you want your life to become easier and for you to understand yourself better, seek help from a specialist.