ADHD

It's awful for anyone with any neurodivergence.

"You HAVE to fit in or be ostracized" - So we try, some of us end up hating this mask we're forced to put up in order to appease the normies and the cultural norms, I certainly hated mine and hate places where I have to put it up. Seeing through the bullshit of many norms makes fitting in even more challenging.

Schools and culture as a whole aren't teaching kids to understand and respect different behaviors (within reason, obviously, disruptive behaviors shouldn't be ignored), only to enforce existing social norms, ridiculing and excluding those that fall out of it until they comply or go away.

I suppose another thing that makes it worse for girls is that they don't have as much leeway in expected behavior as boys do. Girl groups can be much more cruel with their peers than boys

Something that might be helpful for people with ADHD or other neurodivergences, is habits through repetition. You have to create good habits, especially of the things you know are good for you - drinking water, exercise, cleaning your home, study. The bad news is that creating habits is hard and can take 6 months or more, depending on the activity. The struggle is real and I keep failing in creating some good habits for myself :/

I’ve always been a failed perfectionist, as a guy. I never had good grades growing up and was frequently late turning in assignments, since I was still a perfectionist in my approach for my about average-grade-level quality of work. So I was wrong quite a lot and got points off for always being late and turning things in late as well.

I still masked to try to not look too far behind among my friends that always outshined me. I had some friends that struggled as much as me and we went through retaking a few classes together back in high school.

After taking time away from school and working for a year I was able to feel fresh when I went to university. I did much better than I ever did growing up and even got honors.

Daily affirmations helped me a little to let go of some of the baggage for each day and it still helps me.

Creating rituals I can follow and look forward to following has helped as well, such as my morning routine of drinking coffee before I talk to anyone or do anything.

Spending time to find things to be thankful for helped me a lot so I can find joy in some of the smaller things again.

In college, I succeeded a lot by always sitting in the very front and just absorbing 100% of every lecture while taking notes the whole time on paper. I barely could ever takeaway anything memorable from the textbooks, but by pouring my full learning into the lectures I was even able to do well in the classes I struggled the most in like calculus. A good in-class instructor was very important for my success because of my learning style as well. Rewriting the lectures in my own words was my trick to make it stick for me, and the technique worked fairly well for non-textbook related readings for me as well.

On a side note, showing myself and others tenderness has been my current goal. I’m avoiding harping on myself too much when I don’t feel in the mood to do something, but then when I’m in the mood to be productive I’m doing more to make up some of the difference.

I’ve also been reconnecting with the person I was a bit growing up, at least in the more positive ways. It’s helped me to find a bit more wonder in the day-to-day.

TL;DR: Give yourself a pat on the back for getting up and trying each day, since the effort does matter.

This was basically me growing up, only difference is I'm male. Only solution I ended up with was a whole ecosystem of coping mechanisms.

I tend to find that people end up figuring out what works for them just via trial by fire, which is unfortunate but effective I suppose. For example, I know my memory is extremely bad, so I don't bother remembering anything. I just assume my memory will fail me and set alarms and calendar reminders and leave my meds where I can see them and food on the main shelf and apps all on the home screen in folders etc. If it's not immediately visible, it simply doesn't exist. I completely stop conversations to take notes and such, even if it annoys people.

"Hold on, before you continue, let me write down a reminder for what you just told me to do." (Pulls out phone, unlock, find calendar app, carefully add date and time and description). "Ok done, what were you saying?"

That's just for my memory. I have other techniques for all the other problems I have.

Capitalism requires conformity in both action and affect.

This makes me wonder. I always had to study with a tv or at least radio on unless I was in a group. I need like some sort of background thing to concnetrate. I was on a rising thing through second part of high school and then in college it was like a slow decline and I went 5 years. so I started A+ first semester, then A, then A- and needless to say by that second semester year 5 I had a D and like barely graduated while my overall gpa was still a B. I don't know if I have ADHD but I realize more and more there are many things I do to sorta coping mechanisms. One thing that is tough is over time society seems to less and less define what they want. dress like X do y. which was doable and going toward. dress any way you want (but it better fit within X mold), act any way you want (but not really), you have unlimited pt (don't take any). its become this doublespeak that I can't handle. also seems like you sometimes can do the things if you relate to people in just the right way.

Was socialized/seen as a girl growing up but got Dx’d like three different times in childhood and got prescribed meds exactly zero times because ??? They seemed to think it was just something I could “get over.” I was still expected to be the A+ overachieving student even though I openly resisted.

I think part of it may be socialization but it doesn’t always fall across gendered lines. Some folks who are quieter/more anxious/more prone to people pleasing will fall into that masking category. It also probably comes down to people who have parents with unfairly high expectations of their children.

Outside of getting meds my methods of coping are mostly paring down what my commitments are and forcing myself to give myself grace when I’m not perfect.

“Reasonable accommodations” apply to both workplace/school AND at home. What works for you also will probably change, a lot. That’s part of having ADHD unfortunately.

Can anyone relate to this broadly?

Yes

Have you found anything to help you understand it

"still be true to myself" - I have noticed that I don't do that. I can make plans but they are not my plans so I am not very motivated to work on them so that I am easily distracted.

or overcome it?

Not yet.

trying to relearn how to be productive and still be true to myself

What's your approach?