[wolftrap]

I have bipolar, ADHD, and anxiety disorder. My AHDH feels like there is an invisible wall between me and the thing I want to get done. I understand that there is a hypomanic element to ADHD, but for me that gets confused with my BP. Anyway, does anyone else have that feeling of an invisible wall? When I take Adderall, I can do the thing I want to do no problem. Does the wall feeling resonate with anyone? Prior to diagnosis, I'd have to go to the very last minute until the surge of energy would allow me to complete whatever it was I had to do. BTW, I was addicted to Ritalin for many years before the advent of Adderall. Ritalin addiction sucked. It just made me hyper.

[Raindropvampire]

I just have ADD I don't get hyper but I have the attention span of a gnat. Mine doesn't feel like a wall to me......It's more like being a dog. At first I'm all focused thinking throw the ball throw the ball then boom squirrel then did I hear another dog bark?? oooh is that a bird WOW nother squirrel....oh wait wasn't I waiting on a ball to be thrown

At work I get all my work done but it's because I don't mind going in circles. I will start one thing then I see something else and go to it and so on and so forth until I get back to where I originally started. After enough circles everything is done lol

I'm on 72mgs of Concerta. It helps a little but not a lot.

[wolftrap]

@Raindropvampire I love your description of going in circles while working. I do that too. It seems to work out OK. I take 5mg of Adderall when I need to concentrate. Any more can trigger mania. Before diagnosed with bipolar I was addicted to Ritalin. That sucked.

[Lonesome Soul]

I think your description of a wall is a good one, @wolftrap. I can definitely relate to that. So often in life I've felt like the things I've wanted or needed were just out of my reach. Almost more like a window than a wall: I can see the thing I want, I just can't figure out how to get it. Other times, I guess it feels more like being lost in a fog; I can see spots of light and hear voices calling to me, but I just can't find my way to them.

More than anything though, it just feels like life and the world is going on without me. I see old friends from college who have gone on to good careers with a home and a family of their own, and I wish I could be there with them. Colleagues of mine that I've worked with in the past who have found success and are moving on, and I'm still stuck in the same dead-end space. It feels like I'm a ghost of the past, haunting the present, rattling my chains and breaking dishes against walls, trying desperately to break free and be heard - all to no avail.

I wasn't diagnosed with ADD until about two years ago, when I was well into my 40s, but I've always known something was amiss. I struggled so much in school, always the last one to finish my tests and barely getting through my assignments. Socially I've always struggled too, misreading people and not understanding how to connect with them in the right way. I was hoping so much that getting the diagnosis would help me find a "magic bullet" pill that would just transform me - but the meds I took didn't help me at all, they just messed with my sleep patterns. So I am doing therapy and trying my best to learn how to cope, and maybe one day I will find a doctor who knows the right medical solution for what I need.

In the meantime, thank God for this site!!!

[wolftrap]

@Lonesome Soul I am so sorry to hear about your experience. It does mirror mine. There is no magic bullet. I often wish there was. Can I ask, what medical solutions have you sought?

[imchet]

It feels like a persistent feeling that at some point things were better, while being completely unable to identify when. It's like a persistent feeling of homesickness, feeling like wherever I am and whatever I'm doing, I really should be doing something somewhere else instead but I can't figure out what. While at the same time feeling that that place and activity are somehow completely lost to me. It feels like time has pauses and skips, as when I'm doing something, get distracted and when I come back to the task at hand, I feel a little disoriented.

It's experiencing being highly focussed on some task or problem, only to realize later that you already did that.

It's getting to the end of a movie and it's just bits and pieces and doesn't make sense, and all those bits and pieces are forgotten the next day.

It's not being able to remember your age because in your head it's just a jumble of past impressions and brief experiences.

It's looking in the mirror and being surprised you're almost fifty, because you are so often not present in the current moment.

It's telling a joke back to the person who told it to you just a couple days ago because you can't seem to make those sorts of connections in your mind, but you do remember the joke.

It's when you feel like you are really attentive but can't seem to grasp the point of what's just happened because you just can't figure out which details are important and which are best ingnored. Which reminds me of a joke:

Q: Remember when we went to Paris?
Yes! I say, that's where we saw the big dog!

That's the story of my life right there. It's going to Disneyland and the only thing you remember is a corndog , and an image in your head of what the bathroom by the front gate looks like.
It's feeling the days hours weeks an years as one big jumble without a clear narrative.

Finally it's the realization and acceptance that in many ways things have gotten worse over time and knowing that that's okay.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[SearchingforMe]

For me, I have been diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. I think I also have ptsd from my ex-husband who was verbally and sexually abusive. I also haven't fully accepted the bipolar diagnosis, except maybe Type 2 because I definitely have had depression since I was a teenager.
ADHD feels like a nightmare where I will suddenly remember something important I lost, or something very important that I have forgotten to do, and I am always afraid I am going to really screw this up. And I forget so many things.
I struggle with my self esteem. I know I am intelligent, but it always feels like my ADHD is going to knock me off of any ladder I try to go up. I also get stuck in circles and that feels like I am in a maze that diverts me from where I want to go only by the time I am done I don't remember where it was, in the first place.
When I was a teenager I would lose my purse, or my flute. As an adult, I have forgotten worse. Medication helps sometimes, but other times the stress overcomes the medication.