Similar to ADHD but idk what it is :/
please help i asked a question a year ago and asked many people and doctors. I can't focus on or finish any task if it's not urgent or exciting. I don't know how people could make movies, games, etc. over the course of years. I can only do something in one day if it has severe consequences by an authority figure or if it's easy and excites me and i rarely get excited because i need specific conditions. I can't be consistent. I could never focus on math or any boring/technical subject no matter how hard I tried, I passed the entirety of middle-high school studying on the last day before deadlines. I tried many study techniques but I can't push through the brain fog, Im NOT looking for study advice. People told me I'm bipolar, ADHD, or have anxiety, many doctors have told me/diagnosed me with ADHD. IM TIRED of this so ****ing tired. I do not have ADHD i do not have any of those and Im absolutely not a procrastinator. ADHD is very unrelatable because everyone with it is forgetful and loses/misplaces things and cant focus if people are talking to them. I'm cursed because It's so hard to focus/persist on things that interest me. I need intensity to do anything. amusement parks are the only place i feel 'normal'. I need the possible science or the reasons behind this please help.
I'm sorry for everything you've been going through, I'm sure it's been very frustrating. When I was in middle school and high school I was the same way. I could ONLY do things at the very last second. I knew it wasn't a smart thing to do, I really really wanted to do my homework BEFORE the deadlines like everyone else did! I wanted to finish my homework and then just relax like I saw all my peers do! But instead I just did the fun, instantly gratifying activities right away and then all my work right before they were due. I could never fully relax because the whole time I was having "fun" I was stressed and angry, knowing I should be working on homework!
I was so frustrated with myself, I thought I was going crazy. So when I got to high school and the school counselor asked if I'd ever been screened for ADHD, I was not happy. I thought "I can't have ADHD! I'm not hyper and fidgety and bouncing off the walls! In fact ai'm tired all the time! I don't have trouble sitting still and I can focus when people talk to me!"
It was only later that I found out that ADHD isn't the same for everybody. ADHD does not necessarily mean you are forgetful, lose/misplace things, or have trouble focusing when people talk to them. I misplace things and forget people's names easily, but I certainly don't have trouble focusing when I talk to people! I love talking to friends! Some people with ADHD are more Hyperactive, some are more Attention-Deficit. Some are both. I am the Attention-Deficit variety; I can't focus on tasks that don't interest me and don't have immediate consequences. I don't know if you have ADHD, since you said it doesn't sound right, but a lot of the symptoms you're having definitely sound similar to it. They sound a lot like my experience!
Regardless of what your diagnosis may be, I can tell you that you're not crazy and you're not alone going through these things. The science and reasoning come down to Impulse control. People may have suggested that you were "bipolar" in the past because people diagnosed with Bipolar, like people with ADHD, also tend to struggle with impulse control!
Being impulsive for me (and maybe for you as well?) comes in the form on wanting to do the instantly-gratifying things RIGHT AWAY instead of the long-term success things or the boring uninteresting things. The only time I could focus on the things I don't care about is when Panic sets in. Panicking because a deadline is tonight or tomorrow is one of the only things that can force me to work on something boring, and boy do I work quickly when I have to!
On a science level, being Impulsive may come down to problems with Dopamine production. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps motivate us to do things. When you're low on Dopamine, if your brain isn't producing enough of it, you may feel unable to concentrate and unmotivated to do things UNLESS they provide you with Dopamine quickly. Boring work you don't care about does not involve a gain of Dopamine, so your brain will not allow you to do them.
People with ADHD may have low levels of Dopamine or dysregulated Dopamine. Dopamine-low brains are hungry, even starving for satisfaction, starving for Dopamine. They wanna get as much it as possible, asap. If an activity excites you, if you enjoy it and it gives you dopamine, your brain will prioritize it because it wants anything that can give it that specific neurotransmitter. You may find yourself drawn to activities that give LOTS of Dopamine in a very short amount of time; scrolling social media or short videos, video games, etc.
This means that even things that WILL give us Dopamine and gratification in the long-term, like a big project we wanna do with no deadlines, will be shoved to the wayside for instantly gratifying things that will make us happy today right now.
Dopamine-deprived brains will always take the Path of Least Resistance to get a hit of happy chemicals. That is, they will take the quickest route to Satisfaction that involves the least amount of effort. I actually avoid certain activities like video games because once I start them, I can't stop. I have a timer on my phone too that kicks me off of apps like YouTube and *** because once I start scrolling I won't stop, even if I know I don't wanna do those stupid mind-numbing activities and I'm angry at myself for wasting time. Those activities are dangerously addicting for me because they give me so much satisfaction in such little time with barely any effort.
If you're not looking for study advice but just wanna understand yourself better, talking to a therapist would be my first recommendation. Not everybody can do that though, so my second recommend would be to do some more research on how Dopamine works and what a Dopamine-deprived brain looks like.
You're not alone, there are millions of people going through the same thing. It's a difficult thing to deal with, but there are lots of work-arounds that can help you focus on the things you truly want to do. I promise it'll get better.
Oh wow that’s a lot. Thanks! idk man. You saying you misplace things and forget people’s names easily proves my point, i have never met an ADHD person who rarely forgets things, I do forget things like obligations and rules once in a while but i don’t forget other things, i dont describe myself as forgetful. I’m hyper and bouncing off the walls (not a child) the hyperactive stereotype fits me but the scatterbrain one doesn’t, even tho that’s the one most adhd adults have, the attention problems but no hyperactivity. I have severe attention problems and hyperactivity, i just lack forgetfulness, and i had to, because school demanded me to, It’s hard to see the underlying problems that are hidden from years of masking. But yeah, you saying you’re forgetful is the reason i deny my diagnosed twice adhd and i regret getting tested for it because when i researched this disorder before people told me about it, i just genuinely never felt at home with it and i hate hearing about it now, i wish i never got diagnosed with it. forgetfulness and losing things are symptoms that are too too far from my experience even tho i resonate with the focus problems. I have talked to an adhd specialized therapist and idk man, i hate therapists, they just ramble about stupid things and not actually help you get to the bottom of things. also I don’t even know what dopamine is, I thought you only get it from food and games, but when i heard normal people get it from homework, i was shocked. normal people are so weird. honestly i dont know dopamine at all, but i know adrenaline and without adrenaline i wouldn’t have passed high school or anything in life. only adrenaline activates my focus (urgency, excitement) but some people say it activates their dopamine? i dont get it tbh. i have looked into the science of this a bit and it’s both a dopamine and noradrenaline dysregulation(noradrenaline is neurotransmitter form of adrenaline) and the only way you could fix the imbalance is to generate them from cues like games, risky activities, etc. but yea what you described about dopamine aligns with my experience, my brain seeks it out because i rarely have it. what you said about not being able to stop playing a game once you played, hits close to home, i have chronic sleep issues, i almost always sleep late because i can’t stop myself from addictive activities at night. the research resonates but i just hate how there is no other attention disorder, like there’s no label that feels right to me. I wish i could convince doctors to find a better label for me, because adhd is painfully too far from my experience. and some have told me i have too many misconceptions, i had so many very adhd symptoms. i had 15 out of 17, and because i dont relate to the last 2 symptoms of forgetfulness and losing things, i dont feel like i have it, they told me im being obsessive and one doesn’t need to be forgetful to have it. But really? I have never heard of anyone with it who isn’t at least somewhat forgetful. im just genuinely tired of searching for people like me for a long time, because i have to accept they dont exist. and it makes me angry. i can find community with adhd folx when it comes to not being able to focus until it’s crunch time, but not when it comes to losing keys, zoning out in a conversation, forgetting your wallet. The uncertainty is painful and soul crushing, so i just thought, maybe i have a disorder that’s not discovered yet.
