The level of similarity between your experiences and mine is kind of crazy, actually. I have a lot of interests and things I want to do, but it's so hard to get into gear, and it's scary to think I'll always be stuck. I always thought it could've been a CPTSD thing; I'm not sure. I have sooo many friends with CPTSD and two got diagnosed with ADHD.
😭 I know what you mean about feeling stuck. It feels like there’s so much I could do and so much I want to do. For me, a thought that helps to keep me grounded is that having ambition and wants is something some people struggle to have. We all have individual struggles and for people with ADHD, it’s to find focus. It also helps to equate actions to progress. People with ADHD tend to have lofty goals that could cause us to make irrational decisions. If I have something I want to pursue, I ask myself a lot of questions to ground myself in reality - is this something I can do now on top of everything that’s on my plate? What actions are needed to reach this goal? What’s the timeline? What are actions I can take on a daily basis to progress toward this goal? Hopefully this helps? 🥺 And in terms of the overlap between ADHD and CPTSD - there are solutions to the symptoms that overlap. Rather than identifying whether it’s CPTSD OR ADHD, you could try addressing the problem head on and analyze what works/what doesn’t later. That might help to identify the underlying problem in hindsight. Not everyone with ADHD opts for the medicated route! And the medicine won’t fix the underlying problems anyway.
Ok, so for the intelligence thing. I want to throw the whole "who's smarter" thing into the trash. The point behind diversity is it helps humans have a broader range of perspectives which helps us as a population overcome more diverse obstacles which hypothetically helps our survival. You have a neurodivergent brain that does well in school environments. Doesn't make you more or less smart, just better at schooling and testing. Doesn't make you stupid either. Also, I'm pretty much there with you. I wasn't so bad about not doing homework, but I got through college by going to class challenging myself to pay attention by trying to take notes as fast as the teacher spoke. So I aced the tests. Assignments could be hit or miss and my pass fail class in college was abysmally bad because I couldn't take it seriously enough to do the work. I got used to waiting for the deadline to get close enough to make me panic and that's how I got through school. And i was good enough at critical thinking, creative analysis that I got good grades. Eta: I'm also 40 so homework for me in school was probably different.
The level of similarity between your experiences and mine is kind of crazy, actually. I have a lot of interests and things I want to do, but it's so hard to get into gear, and it's scary to think I'll always be stuck. I always thought it could've been a CPTSD thing; I'm not sure. I have sooo many friends with CPTSD and two got diagnosed with ADHD.
😭 I know what you mean about feeling stuck. It feels like there’s so much I could do and so much I want to do. For me, a thought that helps to keep me grounded is that having ambition and wants is something some people struggle to have. We all have individual struggles and for people with ADHD, it’s to find focus. It also helps to equate actions to progress. People with ADHD tend to have lofty goals that could cause us to make irrational decisions. If I have something I want to pursue, I ask myself a lot of questions to ground myself in reality - is this something I can do now on top of everything that’s on my plate? What actions are needed to reach this goal? What’s the timeline? What are actions I can take on a daily basis to progress toward this goal? Hopefully this helps? 🥺 And in terms of the overlap between ADHD and CPTSD - there are solutions to the symptoms that overlap. Rather than identifying whether it’s CPTSD OR ADHD, you could try addressing the problem head on and analyze what works/what doesn’t later. That might help to identify the underlying problem in hindsight. Not everyone with ADHD opts for the medicated route! And the medicine won’t fix the underlying problems anyway.
Ok, so for the intelligence thing. I want to throw the whole "who's smarter" thing into the trash.
The point behind diversity is it helps humans have a broader range of perspectives which helps us as a population overcome more diverse obstacles which hypothetically helps our survival.
You have a neurodivergent brain that does well in school environments. Doesn't make you more or less smart, just better at schooling and testing. Doesn't make you stupid either.
Also, I'm pretty much there with you. I wasn't so bad about not doing homework, but I got through college by going to class challenging myself to pay attention by trying to take notes as fast as the teacher spoke. So I aced the tests.
Assignments could be hit or miss and my pass fail class in college was abysmally bad because I couldn't take it seriously enough to do the work.
I got used to waiting for the deadline to get close enough to make me panic and that's how I got through school. And i was good enough at critical thinking, creative analysis that I got good grades.
Eta: I'm also 40 so homework for me in school was probably different.