I mean some of us have become experts at not letting it disrup life as we had no choice. But my therapist says I'm all kinds of adhd she is baffled I never went to a shrink before. Nothing has to affect your life not even hallucinations and lack of short term memory. You pretend to be like every one else and smart phones do the rest.

I've had some time to think about this, and honestly at times it does disrupt my life. There are many examples in my life, which some of these memes hit really close to.

When I say I don't meet the classical medical criteria, I meant that I don't meet all of the multiple criteria necessary for a diagnosis. But some of that could just be from my upbringing. For example, I don't have the complete lack of impulse control that seems to be almost a requirement for diagnosis. I also was constantly browbeat and ridiculed for my lack of patience as a child, and had to develop ways to avoid the constant criticism. I learned patience as a coping mechanism.

I am affected by my lack of planning ability. I'll get the job done, but it'll always take longer because I didn't account for many different things. People constantly comment on that, because to them it was obvious how it should have been done and they can't understand why I just didn't do that. I try to control my budget with diligently developed spreadsheets, but it often goes off the rails because sometimes I just need to buy myself something to satisfy the itch when I'm stressed. I had serious boredom problems when I was in IT and stuck in front of a computer 8 hours a day, which might partially explain the 2-3 year layoff cycles. I loved developing code, but I hated working on the same program for more than 6 months. I also hated doing tech support with a passion, which I got stuck doing for over a decade.

I've just tried to pivot and work around things the best that I can. People have talked about it like it's living life on hard mode. But it's the only way I know how to live. It's barely holding together with Duct Tape, bubblegum, and a whole lot of hope, but I've gotten this far in life like that. My fear is that disrupting that to try to find a new path might completely tear everything apart.