This is executive dysfunction. It seems like either initiation or inertia, or both. I struggle with this as well. It’s just really hard to get started on something, and really hard to change activities once I do get started!
It’s SO hard, because it definitely looks to other people like we’re just being lazy or unmotivated, when we really aren’t. And OMG I would expect “experts” to understand this aspect of ADHD and executive dysfunction, but I have been told that it’s a fear of failure and stuff like that by people who should know better!
Sometimes I can trigger myself to get started by getting up to get some water or go to the bathroom. Then when I come back I can sometimes (not always) start on the new thing.
I feel like I should write an open letter to everyone everywhere about this whole school performance thing in regards to ADHD. In fact, I’m going to do that. Next week on one of my personal blogs. I’ll link it here for you guys to spread around. I am absolutely fed up with this attitude, especially among the professionals who should fucking know better.
Anyone who has a story about this that I can quote (either anonymously or with links to your tumblr or whatever), please send me your story! It can be about doing well in school or not doing well in school, and please include when you were diagnosed (like, how old you were) and what kind of difficulty you had regarding getting diagnosed. I’ll do some research (like, with studies) but if you already know of some papers, please let me know about those as well.
Sorry for the swearing, you guys know I try not to do that, but this is really pissing me off.
-J
I was diagnosed in college. I had As and maybe an occasional B all the way until my junior year of high school. I was in every gifted and accelerated program there was. But then I failed Algebra 2 because I had never been given support to keep up with math (not my best subject, while history and English were both special interests). After I got diagnosed in college I was able to learn studying techniques and graduated with a 3.9 and honors. I still struggle with executive function for mundane tasks I haven’t planned for and anything that I don’t know how to do automatically. And I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression related to RSD.
I was diagnosed at age 26. After entering college at 17 with almost a full year of college credits from advanced classes in high school. After graduating with a 3.9/4.0 GPA from undergrad with a dual major in Economics and Public Relations and a minor in Business. After attending a top 20 law school and graduating with honors.
For someone like me (and I know there are a lot of ADHDers in this camp) who are above-average in terms of academic ability, sometimes school isn’t the weak point. School has deadlines, it has reminder emails, it has friendly professors who will let you turn in an assignment late when you forget because they know you’re a good student. I don’t mean to say I didn’t struggle with school. I definitely left things off til much too late, I needed reminder after reminder to get stuff done, I lost stuff constantly, etc. but I could compensate for that with being able to do it really fast and really well.
That doesn’t change the fact that I was struggling every day with symptoms. I was losing keys and unable to finish projects and completely unable to remember a list that was longer than three things. And I was feeling those symptoms in my schoolwork, too (and, now, my professional work), but I was able to adequately cover up the struggle in the final product, so it didn’t show in my grades and evaluations.
are you ready for the latest in research-based [ingroup] demographic stereotypy? this one’s a doozy.
In our clinical practice, adults with IQ scores in and above the superior range have sought evaluation and treatment for chronic difficulties with organizing their work, excessive procrastination, inconsistent effort, excessive forgetfulness, and lack of adequate focus for school and/or employment. They question whether they might have an attention deficit disorder, but often they have been told by educators and clinicians that their superior intelligence precludes their having ADHD.
Typically, these very bright individuals report that they are able to work very effectively on certain tasks in which they have strong personal interest or intense fear of immediate negative consequences if they do not complete the task at once. Yet they are chronically unable to make themselves do many tasks of daily life they recognize as important but do not see as personally interesting at that moment. When provided treatment appropriate for ADHD, these very bright individuals often report significant improvement in their ability to work effectively while their medication is active.
yes. so. how would you like a summary of my educational career?
Clinical interviews with patients in this study indicated that individuals with high IQ who have ADHD may be at increased risk of having recognition and treatment of their ADHD symptoms delayed until relatively late in their educational careers because teachers and parents tend to blame the student’s disappointing academic performance on boredom or laziness, especially as they notice the situational variability of their ADHD symptoms.
Like most others with ADHD, these individuals have a few specific domains in which they have always been able to focus very well, for example, sports, computer games, artistic or musical pursuits, reading self-elected materials. Parents and teachers tend to assume that these very bright persons could focus on any other tasks equally well, if only they chose to do so. These observers do not understand that although ADHD appears to be a problem of insufficient willpower, it is not (Brown, 2005).
Many also reported that they often demonstrated considerable prowess in performing specific tasks in which they had little positive personal interest but did experience considerable fear of immediate negative consequences if they did not complete that particular task by some external deadline. Often subjects described this as a character trait, “I’m just a severe procrastinator” or “I always work best under pressure.”
that’s not all.
In an unpublished study of 103 treatment-seeking adults with IQ 120 or more diagnosed with ADHD, Brown and Quinlan (1999) found that 42% had dropped out of postsecondary schooling at least once, although some did eventually return to complete a degree. Those data together with this present study suggest that individuals with high IQ and ADHD, despite their strong cognitive abilities, may be at significant risk of educational disruption or failure due to ADHD-related impairments of EF.
and now?
Biederman et al. (2006) […] found that adults with ADHD who self-reported elevated levels of EF impairments on the CBS tended to be significantly more impaired on measures of global functioning, had more comorbidities, and held lower current socioeconomic status than did those with or without ADHD who scored below the median on that scale. […]
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Most of the time I’m like “well maybe I don’t REALLY have ADHD, I should just be more motivated/organized/etc and it’d be fine”
And then I read something like this and it’s like someone is talking about me, specifically, and I go oh.
This describes me exactly.
The link up there didn’t work so I went searching and found a journal article (ResearchGate link, otherwise it’s paywalled) with some pretty amusing figures:
I’m not even mad about the lack of error bars, those differences are so huge.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 