u/Creative-Device7331

I genuinely can’t tell if I have severe executive dysfunction/ADHD or if I’m just broken.

I’m in my late 20s and my entire life has been a pattern of starting and collapsing:

- dropped multiple college courses,

- over 10 jobs attempted,

- most lasted only days,

- impulsive loan debt that became a huge problem,

- inability to maintain routines or basic consistency.

At the same time, when something is interesting, I can hyperfocus for 5–10 hours and learn difficult technical things extremely fast.

But basic things feel impossible sometimes:

- delaying eating even when starving,

- holding urine until it hurts because I can’t disengage from my phone/work,

- forgetting instructions instantly,

- feeling mentally “stuck” even when I want to act.

I also get overwhelmed by noise very easily and feel intense irritation when interrupted.

What confuses me most is the contrast:

How can someone capable of learning complex things still fail at basic daily functioning?

I’m on antidepressants and sleep medication, but the core problems haven’t improved much.

Does this sound familiar to anyone diagnosed with ADHD or executive dysfunction? Did treatment actually help with the “wall” between intention and action?

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I'm in my early 20s, working in my family's small mill in India. I can't quit because it's family. The machine noise feels like it's physically scrambling my brain all day. I forget customers' faces and orders within seconds. When I have a gap, I doomscroll. When a customer walks in, I feel pure rage, like "Why are they here? Don't they have anything else to do?"

I've been this way as long as I can remember.

As a kid, I couldn't read Tamil or English or do basic math until 5th grade. Then something changed. By 12th grade, I scored 157/200 in advanced math, barely attending class. Then college was a graveyard: dropped diploma in 5 days, dropped engineering twice, barely finished a BCA degree while trying to drop out multiple times.

I've had over 10 jobs. Longest lasted 15 days. Some I ghosted after lunch on the first day and just went home. I've forgotten some entirely.

I racked up massive debt from predatory instant loan apps. I took a loan for a gaming laptop and it ballooned to over 7 lakhs. My mother gave me over a lakh to help. I've paid most now, but 9 accounts are still in default, growing every month, and I just... can't make myself pay them. It's like there's a wall between wanting to do something and actually doing it.

And yet. In 4 days, I taught myself Python fundamentals on my phone. I trained a 269M-parameter language model on Termux. I built a full AWS video analysis pipeline with AI in one night. I created a local dual-model chat app with Nginx reverse proxy on Android. When my brain locks onto something challenging and new, I can go for 5-10 hours without eating, without peeing.

Yes, literally. I've held in urine to the point of pain for years because I couldn't stop scrolling or coding. I've been so hungry my stomach hurts and still couldn't stand up to get food. I had meltdowns where I hit my head against walls because the pressure of not being able to pee would build up until I exploded. (This has gotten better recently, thank God.)

I've seen a doctor. I'm on D-Veniz 50 and Zolcalm 10mg. They've done nothing for my focus, my task initiation, my memory, my sensory issues. The meltdowns have reduced, and the pee situation is more manageable now, but my core problems are untouched.

I keep asking myself: Am I really having executive dysfunction or am I just faking everything? If I can build an AI system in one night, why can't I remember a customer's face? Why can't I get up and pee?

I'm posting this because I need to know: does this sound like ADHD to you? Has anyone else lived this extreme contrast between brilliance and total paralysis? What finally helped you? I'm not diagnosed yet and I'm scared my doctor doesn't see the full picture.

Thank you for reading this far. Any thoughts would mean the world to me.

Something was always wrong with the way I functioned, but nobody knew what.”

Looking back, my school and college life makes a lot more sense now.

From 1st to 8th grade, I genuinely could not absorb anything. Reading, writing, basic subjects — nothing stayed in my head no matter how hard I tried. I wasn’t lazy or skipping class. My brain just refused to connect.

In 3rd grade, I escaped my hostel alone and walked home.

In 4th grade, I planned another escape with my brother and two friends. We ended up in a completely different town, stayed overnight with strangers, and got handed over to police the next morning.

Even as a kid, certain environments felt so unbearable that running away felt easier than staying.

Then suddenly in 9th grade, everything changed.

Almost overnight, I could finally understand lessons, read properly, retain information, and score good marks. No gradual improvement. Just a complete switch flipping inside my head.

College became chaos again.

Joined one course and dropped out in 5 days. Joined engineering, left in the first semester. Rejoined later, attended one week, disappeared again. Eventually got pushed into a third degree by family pressure and somehow finished it.

The strange part is I never declined gradually.

I was either fully switched on and functioning intensely… or completely checked out. No middle ground. Zero to hundred or hundred to zero.

Only recently started wondering if this pattern actually has a name.

Anyone else look back at their life and realize the signs were always there?

Always the kid who couldn’t function — until suddenly I could. Anyone else relate?

Looking back, something was clearly off during school and college, even though I was never formally diagnosed with anything.

In school, I struggled for years to read, write, or understand basic subjects. It felt like nothing stayed in my head no matter how hard I tried. Then around 9th–10th grade, something suddenly switched. No gradual improvement. I just… started understanding everything. Marks jumped dramatically almost overnight.

Then college became chaos.

Joined one course, dropped out. Joined another, left in the first semester. Rejoined once after paying full fees, attended for a week, disappeared again. Eventually got pushed into a third course by family pressure and somehow finished it.

The weird part is I never declined gradually.

I was either completely locked in and functioning at full speed… or mentally gone. No middle ground. If the environment felt wrong, my brain would immediately reject it and I couldn’t force myself to stay no matter how much I wanted to “be normal.”

Only recently started wondering whether this pattern actually has a name.