u/hoppbacke4

I find myself thinking about this all the time, since my experience have seemed to differ so much from what other people in my life seem to experience. Just wanna be clear though, this isnt about being ”special” or weird, I am genuinely curious about how people’s brains seem to organize perception differently hence experiencing reality through their own unique system coloring the way we experience and percieve reality.

I will give you some examples of what im talking about! Im ADHD and gifted, and my memory seem to have no narrative and no timeline. I cant recall when memories took place, what I did yesterday and early childhood memories I have feels exactly the same in terms of time. They feel equally close to this moment for me even though they are 2 decades apart. And when I remember things I just remember visual information. There is no ”narrative story” attached to the memories. Its basically just visual information.

I also struggle to access my memories, I can forget the name of my friend I talked to yesterday randomly, even though I know that I know their name, my brain just wont let me access it sometimes.

I am very much stuck ”in the moment” in terms of how I experience life. I rarely find myself thinking about something from the past or try to predict the future, most often I am present in what im currently doing. And when I am present in what im doing the world around me disappears from my immediate consciousness. IF I find myself thinking about something from the past, its through a random association that took me there. I tend to forget my friends exists and even family if they arent actively a part of my everyday life. Its like all my working memory are assigned to what im currently doing, and yet it still deletes its cache by itself if I get distracted. For example I lost my phone literally 3 seconds after I grabbed it yesterday, I couldnt find it and I couldnt recall what I did with it. I just remember it layed on the living room table and that I grabbed it. Thats it. What happend during the next 3-5 seconds I simply couldnt recall. Still cant. Found it behind the TV hours later, how or why I put it there I do not know. But I most certainly did put it there.

I have come to insight that my mind is extremely logical, its like the way my brain are organized are purely for solving problems. And this influence EVERY aspect of my life, in both good and bad ways of course. And what I just described above have been my baseline since day one basically, I cant recall that it have been any other way during my lifetime.

Have anyone here had similiar thoughts about this topic and their own experience? Or maybe have other thoughts connecting to this matter? Feel free to comment, would be really cool to hear other peoples perspectives and experiences connecting to what I just shared! Im open to discuss basically anything here😁

As the title tells im looking for your stories. Especially if your ADHD and giftedness were noticed first and you figured out the ASD part later!

I am 27M currently diagnosed ADHD and scored in the gifted range on WAIS IV, never really got tested for ASD. I have always struggled with romantic relationships and these last two years I have really tried to make an effort with dating. Which have led me to understand that I dont naturally understand social cues, especially in situations of more romantic nature. Which have led to many frustrating misunderstandings over the years. I recently came to the conclusion that I have always understood social communication through hyper-analysis and pattern recognition, its not intuitive its a cognitive process of modelling behaviour. I tend to interpret things very literally and always have done. Its been like this for as long as I can remember.

For the longest time I thought my struggles with intimacy and relationships came from my traumas. But I can clearly recall being like this even before any major traumatic events. As a kid I had a lot of sensory meltdowns at home after school where I became very violent etc, and my parents didnt know how to handle it and thats where most of my traumas stem from. In school I masked hard and held my act together. The classic smart kid with great potential that just didnt apply himself enough to keep up the consistency with the good grades. I never really cared, I just wanted to be done with it so I could deep dive into subjects I actually found interesting in my freetime. My energy levels always decided if I got straight A’s or just barely passed.

Anyway, I feel like ASD is the final piece that describes why I am the way I am. Not sure if I will pursue a diagnosis yet, but I would really like to hear your experience’s of finding out you were on the spectrum!

So as the title reveals, im curious about people’s experience with long term use of stimulant medication! I am 27M and have pretty severe ADHD, have been on stimulant medication for 4 years and I just cant see how I one day could live a healthy functional life without the meds. Stimulant medication have been life changing for me, truly, and even though I cant know for sure im pretty confident in saying that I will need the meds for the rest of my life. No shame in that though, I was just hoping some of my fellow ADHD space cowboys here could share their experience with long term use of said medication since I have been reflecting a lot on the topic lately!🤠

So im gonna try to keep this short.
Im ADHD + gifted (hence why im here) and are currently recovering from one of the worst burnouts I’ve had in my life. I’ve made progress compared to where I was in January when I completely crashed energy-wise and could barely function, but im definitely not “back” yet.
I worked my way from 100% sick leave to 50%, and recently up to 75%, but honestly the stress started creeping back in on me almost immediately after increasing my workload to 75%. I’ll probably talk to my doctor in the coming days about going back down to 50% again because I really dont want to push myself into another full collapse.
The weird part is that im functional enough to work and engage a little in my interests again thanks to ADHD meds, but my executive functioning is still nowhere near normal. Basic stuff like cooking, dishes, routines and taking care of myself consistently still feels overwhelming a lot of the time.
I used to be very physically active before this burnout slowly built up over the last years, I still am but have lost all my routines connected to being physically active. Its been sporadic at best for the last two years. Im thinking getting back into running or some kind of regular exercise routine might help regulate my nervous system again. Right now though, I honestly just feel kind of lost and unsure how to rebuild my life in a sustainable way without making things worse.
If anyone here has recovered from severe burnout while also dealing with ADHD/2E intensity, I’d genuinely appreciate hearing what actually helped.