Where are these high functioning ADHD people? The adhd person I know I’m my life can’t really get things done in a reliable way.
ADHD
A casual community for people with ADHD
Values:
Acceptance, Openness, Understanding, Equality, Reciprocity.
Rules:
- No abusive, derogatory, or offensive post/comments.
- No porn, gore, spam, or advertisements allowed.
- Do not request for donations.
- Do not link to other social media or paywalled content.
- Do not gatekeep or diagnose.
- Mark NSFW content accordingly.
- No racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, or ageism.
- Respectful venting, including dealing with oppressive neurotypical culture, is okay.
- Discussing other neurological problems like autism, anxiety, ptsd, and brain injury are allowed.
- Discussions regarding medication are allowed as long as you are describing your own situation and not telling others what to do (only qualified medical practitioners can prescribe medication).
Encouraged:
- Funny memes.
- Welcoming and accepting attitudes.
- Questions on confusing situations.
- Seeking and sharing support.
- Engagement in our values.
Relevant Lemmy communities:
lemmy.world/c/adhd will happily promote other ND communities as long as said communities demonstrate that they share our values.
50% done work kills team productivity. Having to micro manage sucks for everyone involved.
These are challenges that must be addressed in most roles.
Those traits gave me two things in my IT contracting career, the ability to roll into a new position at the same contractor so I didn't have to job hunt, and the contractor wanting nothing to do with bringing me in as a full time employee. I saw it as a win/win
But you don't understand, Mr... Sandbag Tiara, was it? Can I call you Sandbag?
Sandbag, what we're really looking for in this position is someone who's really a people person, you know? Somebody who's a team player, ready to go the extra mile, fit in with our company culture because we're a """""family""""" here. Really shine in our three pointless but mandatory department-wide meetings per day, smile on demand, have a very firm handshake, and really help us close those KPI numbers.
The job in question is a backend software dev position, where the employee will theoretically never have to interact with anyone except their immediate boss, and has no reason whatsoever to emerge from their dungeon. But never mind that.
The ~~children~~ IT professionals yearn for the ~~mines~~ basement... the cool, dark basement with soft lighting...
Software development is very collaborative and often involves daily and/or weekly meetings and frequent calls with coworkers.
makes me want to break out the old suspenders and palm pilot.
I cannot read this sentence. I have tried 3 times but nothing is reaching my brain.
It's definitely too long of a sentence just to say 'ADHD is a superpower and society is bad.'
Me nodding in somber agreement. And yet, at the same time, also reaching for the trap-door lever. you tried and that's what matters.
Maybe it's time to put on some tunes and take a brain break.
It's kinda both
Are there things we can do to take advantage of this? Even on my meds I struggle to write my documentation, but the initial period of trying to find a solution and making a working POC is so great
Spend weeks automating your documentation
You will surely not regret spending that much time on something that probably wont be used
Assign it as a research collection task to a junior dev and forget to follow up.
(Fr tho, auto doc frameworks and related instrumentation are easily worth weeks. I will fight your manager.)
ADHD, great for exploring, hunting and making it back home. Not so great for cubicle work…
I've made it work surprisingly well in software development - I work in the architecture field and as long as I'm truly diligent about note taking (or am lucky enough to have a trusted coworker to lean on) I'm able to make it work.
Also, micromanagers are your fucking bane if you have ADHD - sometimes I'm not working, I accept that and do house shit when I can't focus... I still produce more output than most of my coworkers but I absolutely do need full brain breaks.
But what can you actually DO?
I was gonna ask this too. I've heard that some employers in the UK (perhaps in the Netherlands too) are actually explicitly asking for ND people in their job listings.
That's a great way to put a positive spin on it, but be realistic. ADHD is not a super power, it's not all sunshine and roses, it is a disorder. You can sometimes harness parts of it for positive outcomes but it has a lot of negative results too.
Another thing to remember: your ADHD is not everybody's ADHD. Some people have less severe cases, others have more severe cases.
All totally true! It’s definitely not great, but I try to find the silver linings rather than beat myself up about the hard parts. Good point about my ADHD being different than others’
For every time you can hyperfocus on work, imagine every time you've hyperfocused on ants walking by, or a speck of dust, or literally anything other than what you actually need to do.
That's called practice.
Imagine how many things that you have to do that only exist because of ridiculous social expectations on what someone else thinks is important.
Being different in a way that would work if conformity was less important shouldn't be a disability.
exist because of ridiculous social expectations
This is called "taking other people's opinions into account". That's what a society is. If you want your opinions listened to and acted on by others, you have to reciprocate.
Do you think "neurotypical" people love dealing with random people's opinions and needs? No, but they see the value in cooperating with others to get what they want. You are "expected" to wear clothes in public because I don't know how often you bathe yourself. You are "expected" to not yell in public because if every rando yelled whenever they wanted, life would be more stressful.
It puts on the colorful noose and heavy black coat in summer, or else it gets the hose again.
"How we've always done it" is stupid without reviewing why on occasion.
Please re-read:
Do you think "neurotypical" people love dealing with random people's opinions and needs?
Disliking a suit and tie isn't some revelation to "normies". You are not a radical for thinking that. In fact, all the little things that annoy you probably annoy other people too.
This is a clue to easy small talk. Just say that something annoys you. "Oh man, this suit is murder in this heat." It's easy.
Either the answer will be "Yeah man, heh" or "nah, I like it". You have now successfully engaged in small talk.
Hyperfocus is an amazing tool, unfortunately we have no fucking control over it.
Yeah, like I dunno, I think a lot of things I do by accident with my ADHD are super cool. But it definitely hurts more than it helps, and I don't think that's just because "we live in a society". This post feels like huffing a suffocating dose of copium.
- "Oh, sorry, I heard literally every word of what you just said, but my brain encoded nothing."
- "My sleep schedule is casually off by like five hours because I lost track of time hyperfocusing on learning about competitive Jenga until 4 AM."
- "I know I could have been doing things, but I had this thing I needed to be at in 8 hours, so I just couldn't focus on them."
- "I either lose everything or create an intricate, tedious framework for where I keep everything at all times."
- "I struggle immensely to cope with stress in a healthy way and have issues with my temper."
- "If I can focus at all, it will be on exactly one thing, either for unhealthily long periods of time to the detriment of everything else or for so briefly that I accomplish nothing before moving on to the next dopamine rush."
- "I have a much higher risk of substance abuse because my body is starving for dopamine."
- "I have trouble keeping promises I've made to other people because they vanish out of my mind."
- "I constantly miss small details and need to quintuple check everything I do."
- "My priorities are constantly fucked, and I consistently put off everything until the last minute."
- "It often feels physically painful for me to focus when it's not on the first thing my brain decides it wants to do."
Like watching into mirror
Crap, now I need to know about competitive Jenga ...
An awful lot of those bullets hit me
I think I can relate to literally all of them. Not competitive Jenga, but some other niche topic that I will be hyper interested for a consecutive 4 hours after midnight. I spent a whole night one time learning about roller derby and watching replays of the women's final for the past few years. I had never watched it before in my life and went all in. The men's version is not as good. They are too fast and strong, so it's more boring and less nuanced.