r/ADHD_Programmers

I don’t know why I’m writing this. I think I’ve just had such a crazy week that getting this all down in writing will be cathartic. And maybe people have similar experiences. If not, consider this an ADHD programmer diary entry lol.

I’ve been at my company for over 5 years now. It was my first “career job” post-college so I had a lot to learn. It’s been a bumpy ride for me. Between learning new skills, maturing as a person, and taking care of medical issues, I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my career here. At the beginning of the year I got a new manager who has really helped me develop my professional skills. Around the same time as he got hired, I started getting proper help for the medical issues that were untreated for a long time. In the past year I’ve gone from feeling useless to finally being able to contribute in the ways I’ve wanted to. This is not super relevant to this week, but it’s important context. I’ve fucked up a lot in the past, and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to prove that I’m capable

On Friday, my SM messaged me asking me to help Team B with a user story. Basically act as a consultant while they completed their work. She said that this was very important and took precedent over all my current work, very strict deadline with lots of eyes on it. Cool. I reviewed the story and the implementation seemed simple enough. I messaged the developer I was consulting (Dev 1) and he set up a meeting for Monday. Wonderful.

Monday rolls around. I realize that Team B has not actually written any code yet. Dev 1 is expecting me to walk him through the process of making his code updates. Annoying, but okay. It needs done. We work together for the rest of the day. Make good progress and hit a small snag. Decide to reconvene tomorrow. Throughout the day, I realize their code is a little funky. Weirdly formatted, a bit old. Smells bad. Whatever, that’s their business. I can work with funky code. We’ll figure it all out tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes, Tuesday. We try some things. I realize we are totally fucked. Team B using module versions that we haven’t supported for years. Their prod and non-prod environments or horrifically out of sync with each other. This is a critical piece of infrastructure that is central to our entire organization. And Dev 1 who I’m “consulting” has no idea how any of this works. I’m thinking we need to do a complete overhaul to their code to get this working (the deadline is now end of week). I message another developer on my team who is intimately familiar with this code and is also the smartest woman I know (Dev 2). She agrees that we are fucked. It’s late so we log off for the night.

Wednesday morning. I hit the ground running. I’m coming up with a plan and doing tests. In standup, I start sounding alarm bells that shit is not okay. That I need help to at least come up with a plan given our timeline. Dev 2 is officially assigned to help. She and I come up with a plan. We decide to just take Team B’s code and write it ourselves, both exploring different approaches to meet the deadline. Team B is slowing us down and they aren’t doing any work outside of pair programming sessions anyways.

That night my SM asks me wtf is going on. I spend an hour telling her what I’ve been dealing with this week. She says that execs are messaging her asking why our team (Team A) is holding everything up. I explain that Team A hasn’t made any changes to our code. We are exclusively helping Team B write their code. SM is pissed, but not at me. The next morning, SM FIGHTS FOR MY LIFE in their standup call. My manager messages me not to stress too much about this (too late lol). By Thursday morning EVERYONE understands that Dev 2 and I are busting our asses to make this thing happen.

Thursday, my SAVIOR Dev 2 shows up with a beautiful beautiful (hideous) hack job that gets where we need to be. I have the permanent fix ready, but we table it until our MVP is done. We spend all day deploying non-prod together and ironing out the kinks, but the momentum is there now. I post an update to our big important chat that we’ve got a successful deployment, and it’s met with UPROARIOUS JOY. Most positive impression I think I’ve ever made in my 5 years. Maybe in any job I’ve ever had. I watch the standup recording where SM stood up for me. Just to decompress a little🍿 then we worked into Thursday evening prepping prod.

Now it’s Friday. Today. We spend the morning handing the code off to Team B. We still need to be there tomorrow night because these fuckers can’t be trusted alone, but I can finally breathe. Leadership is now praising me and Dev 2 up and down. We chum it up over how tired we are.

That’s my story. It doesn’t really have a message other than it was a thing I needed to get off my chest. My brain is mush at this point, but I feel like I’m getting actual recognition for the first time in my career. At the same time, I’m still struggling to accept it. If it weren’t for Dev 2 this would have been doomed. But it seems like she feels mutual about it.

Anyone else been in this situation? This is so new for me. I just wanted to get it off my chest. Thanks for reading

I enjoy programming, but staying focused on one task can sometimes be harder than solving the actual problem. I might start debugging something, get curious about a different approach, open a new tab to research it, and suddenly forget what I was working on in the first place.

I'm curious how other programmers with ADHD handle this. Do you use timers, break tasks into smaller steps, write notes while coding, or have another method that works well for you?

I am a software developer with 12 years of experience and am still working in the IT industry. I want to discuss my problem and mental pattern.

Since I started my career as an IT professional, I have had this problem of fear of failure. Every time a new task is assigned to me, my mind starts making stories about whether I am capable of understanding the problem and whether I will be able to solve it. I am also a very big overthinker and continuously think about my career, my performance, and my future. I keep thinking about changing projects or even changing organizations, although I know that changing projects or organizations is not the solution to this problem.

This pattern continues repeatedly and has disturbed me mentally. My sleep pattern is also disturbed; I never sleep for more than 5 hours, and my libido is also very weak.

Even though I know that this problem is imaginary and there is no connection with reality, this pattern has now become so strong that it breaks me every day. When I look at my teammates, they complete their tasks very bravely, even when they start late. I always start very early so that if I face any problem, I have enough time to try another approach.

Now the problem is getting worse day by day. I am refraining from taking new work in my office and telling them that I am not well. I have continuously been on sick leave, and my mind always thinks about whether the problem with a new task will be clear to me, whether I will be able to fix it, and whether I will be able to complete it on time. I have been on sick leave for the last 60 days and think about this a lot.

One of the main problems is that I am experiencing tremors in different parts of my body. I also experience shortness of breath, tiredness on the left side of my chest, and pain that feels like someone is pressing a needle.

I have also tried meditation, but I get frustrated when fear and other thoughts come into my mind during meditation.

Now I am thinking about what the alternatives are. I have two babies and a wife who always supports me, but still, I am not able to break this mental pattern. Sometimes I am scared that I will develop some heart-related issues because of this.

🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 Please help me understand how I can get rid of this.

Any suggestions will help.

It's funny because when things are going good or when things are going bad I'll feel this compulsion. If I'm stuck/confused/frustrated by what I'm working on, I'll want to distract myself from the discomfort of not knowing what to do next so I'll go check reddit, youtube, etc. However, sometimes when things are going *good* and I just made progress, or I have a good plan for what to do next, I'll also sometimes go take a break because "hey I'm at a good point so I can pick this back up in 5-10 minutes".

It's a constant urge I feel in my body to go get that dopamine.

Has anyone made good progress on this sort of struggle? (I phrase the question as "has anyone made good progress" because idk if adhd programmers will necessarily fully rid themselves of this urge)

I’m a programmer born in 2001. I dropped out of college once and recently went back to school. I have ADHD, so I tend to fall into bad habits really easily. One of the biggest ones is playing League of Legends—I’ve basically spent half my life playing it, and even though I’ve tried to quit so many times, I still find it incredibly hard to stop.

On top of that, I’ve been unemployed for two months. But every single day, I struggle just to start doing something. I can’t even properly update my CV. I spend the whole day doing random, pointless things, and by the end of the day, I don’t even understand what I’ve actually done. Then I end up beating myself up over it.

A lot of the time, I feel like I’ve completely screwed up my life, like I’m worthless. There are so many things I know I could do if I just started, and that’s what frustrates me the most. I know I’m capable of doing them, but I just can’t understand why I can’t bring myself to actually do them.

I feel so negative about myself and about everything right now.

Exercise + Lower dose Methylphenidate is a game changer (even if I miss proper sleep sometimes)

The way I was able to get into the routine of exercising was by making it a ritual. Basically I track my weight everyday, and I click a picture of my body everyday. This gives me something to look forward to and compare progress. So many habits that wear off soon do so because we start wondering "Am I even making any progress?". Any visual feedback that you can integrate into your life for habits will work.

Even if I don't always get good sleep, consistent exercise, a healthier diet with less snacks, and finally getting my meds back but now with a lower dose (10 mg to 5 mg), I am doing really well at my life and at my job.

It's tough for us adhd programmers sometimes we just need to think outside the box (and execute the thinking)

How effective is using a pomodoro timer in building better habits and staying focused on tasks longer when you have adhd? Is it effective?

For example I’ve been working with these third party APIs to integrate into our apps. However the docs provided are incredibly shitty.

Luckily for me I tend to hyperfocus on stuff like this and I have figured out how to use quite a few of these APIs.

Today I got the idea that I should probably put these on our wiki so that everyone can benefit from it. However I thought I should ask this probably dumb question because I will probably spend hours doing this

Not a programmer. Not a data engineer. I want to build my own database for a soccer/football youth and grassroots management. I’m 35 with twins living in Japan. My wife is from the birthplace of Tokugawa. She is the one with the technical knowledge but much with data.

I bring up Japan only because of the adhd medication availability here is limited to Strattera currently since Concerta, the other option available for adults, isn’t being given to new patients temporarily.

I’m fascinated by data architecture, had no idea, but in this instance I need to make progress rather than learn systematically.

Is there anyone here that has time to chat or give tips or temporarily mentor me so that I can gain momentum.

The medicine I take is the first time since my teen years to medicate. It doesn’t seem to be having much effect. Organizing my thoughts well in such a new, vast arena is not easy as you all know.

I appreciate your time in advance. Have a good one!

Cheers