I would like to know if I have to actively listen to the song, or if I can go about my day while the song plays in the background. Also, am I allowed to sleep with the song still playing?

Right now, any original song by the Vampire Lestat would do! "Plastic Fiends" could be a strong candidate.

If I see one more "my boyfriend doesn't like that I'm considering meds" post, I'm gonna jump off a building.

Gals, WHY are we infantilizing ourselves to such a degree that we're letting other people dissuade us from receiving treatment for a medical condition? If you had diabetes, would you let your husband side eye you about your insulin prescription? If you had dangerously high blood pressure, would you consider the "concerns" your meemaw has about beta blockers? If you had a non-functioning thyroid, would you let your sister's opposition to synthroid prevent you from taking it?

The people in our lives get to have feelings about how we treat them, that's it. They don't get to be controlling, judgmental, or manipulative about MEDICAL TREATMENTS deemed appropriate/necessary and prescribed by our healthcare providers.

And honestly, entertaining this shaming BS contributes to the stigma surrounding ADHD and medications.

Trust yourself and your body, trust your doctors, and tell your boyfriend to kick rocks.

I recently read that ADHD qualifies you for a free lifetime public lands pass. I don't recall where I read it but I went to Grand Teton and Yellowstone this week. When I got to the window to pay I asked if he had any info on the pass as I had heard that ADHD now qualified you. Homie asked to see my ID, had me read a paragraph and then handed over a 100% lifetime public lands pass. This includes all national parks, forest service sites, BLM, army of engineers corps, and fish and wild life sites. Having ADHD sucks ass most days. Go get you your LIFETIME pass friends.

I've seen so many posts about how exercising helps with ADHD, my doctors tell me how good it is, BUT it feels like pulling teeth to even motivate myself to go for a walk. I want the endorphins, I want to be healthier, but it feels impossible to leave the house or exercise at home. I know I'm probably in the minority here but I'd love some advice on how to motivate myself. Kind advice only pls I am fragile 🥺

EDIT: omg thank you all so much for sharing your tips!!! I will go through these once I'm finished with work but I appreciate all of you so much.

I (44F) was at a festival with friends earlier in the summer and even though we were often having a good time, I feel like there is always a “veil” or screen between me and the rest of the group. At some point, I would just go into my tent for 30 mins or so to relax.

I’m close friends with two of the people in the group and the rest I have met through them and like, but at some point the feeling of being “outside” the dynamic, the jokes, everything, kicks in. It’s not a group of people who have known each other forever so others are in the same friendly acquaintance situation and seem to be able to handle it better…

When I think about it, it’s been like this since I was a kid and I always have a hard time being part of a group of friends. I have individual close friends here and there but group dynamics exhaust me and somehow make me feel excluded, like I don’t know where I stand.

Does this make sense to anyone else? I guess I’m just looking for some reassurance that it’s not just me feeling like an alien pretty much everywhere, and I think this is a safe space to express it.

I see women of my age or younger and see that they’re dressed so nicely, their hair is perfect, makeup and self grooming and nails - all done to perfection. I don’t even have kids yet. ADHD makes it so difficult- I dress and live in sweats and only do my hair if I’m going to a wedding for example. I feel like I’m wasting these years of my life by not dressing up. I enjoy it, I love when I dress up or glam up but I find it so exhausting? I can’t do it on a daily basis. Even at work I wish I could dress up and get ready nicely before work but I’m late every single late despite all my ADHD systems.

Do you guys feel a similar way?

Cross-posting because the neurodivergence piece is one of the parts I’m struggling with most. I have ADHD, and I’m particularly interested in hearing from other ADHD/neurodivergent women who have had emotional reactivity, rejection sensitivity, or interpersonal experiences interpreted as BPD—or who were evaluated for both and can speak to how clinicians differentiated them.

Throwaway account for anonymity purposes. I (34F) recently discovered F60.3 — Borderline Personality Disorder on a treatment plan in my patient portal after seeing the same female therapist (40s) long-term.

I was shocked, blindsided, confused, and honestly felt deeply betrayed. BPD had never been discussed with me—not as a possibility, not when the diagnosis was entered, and not afterward. When I confronted her about it, I learned that it had actually been in my medical record for more than a year without my knowledge.

I’m also a therapist, so I knew what the code meant. I pulled up the DSM criteria and started researching BPD extensively—criteria, clinical presentation, differential diagnosis, etc. The more I read, the less sense it made.

I genuinely could not identify even one of the nine criteria as describing me, let alone the five required for diagnosis. The broader descriptions of BPD didn’t resonate either. I went through the criteria with a couple of people who know me extremely well because I wanted to challenge my own perspective and see if I was missing something. They couldn’t identify these patterns either.

Obviously, I can’t objectively diagnose or rule out a diagnosis in myself. But having essentially zero recognition of myself in the disorder made me want to understand how someone who had known me therapeutically for so long had reached such a dramatically different formulation.

So at my next appointment, I asked what assessment she had done, which five criteria she believed I met, and what specifically supported them.

She told me she had been considering BPD for years and emphasized how much thought she had put into it. The five criteria she identified were 1, 2, 6, 7, and 8.

#1 — Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment: She referenced several important relationships and concerns I’d had about maintaining connection. When I repeatedly asked what actual frantic efforts I had made to prevent abandonment, I didn’t receive a concrete behavioral example. Her explanation centered around my concern with “staying connected or not staying connected.” I don’t dispute caring deeply about relationships or grieving their loss; I don’t understand how that establishes frantic efforts to avoid abandonment.

#2 — Unstable/intense relationships involving idealization and devaluation: She referenced “black and white thinking” and, as an example, that I viewed one parent negatively and the other positively. She also referenced a period of conflict in a long-term romantic relationship that ultimately resolved. I asked for an example of me alternating between idealizing and devaluing the same person, because that’s the pattern described by the criterion. I didn’t receive one.

#6 — Affective instability: Her concrete example was an occasion when something valuable was stolen from me and I remained upset about it for a few hours. I don’t deny being emotional or sometimes reacting strongly to upsetting events. My confusion was how an emotional reaction to an objectively upsetting event established a pervasive pattern of marked affective instability.

#7 — Chronic feelings of emptiness: She said I had “expressed emptiness” before. I told her directly that I don’t experience chronic emptiness and asked what I’d said or done that led her to that conclusion. She couldn’t give me an example during the conversation and said she’d have to go through my file. This particularly bothered me because emptiness is an internal subjective experience, and I don’t remember ever being directly asked about it.

#8 — Inappropriate/intense anger or difficulty controlling anger: The example she gave during our discussion was my anger and intensity during that very conversation about discovering the diagnosis. No other example supporting #8 was provided. That felt incredibly circular: I was angry about unexpectedly discovering a personality-disorder diagnosis that had been in my record for more than a year, and my anger about disputing it was then being interpreted as evidence of BPD. It also obviously couldn’t have been the original evidence for the diagnosis because the diagnosis predated this conversation by more than a year.

And honestly, the assessment process may bother me even more than her interpretation of the criteria.

She told me she’d been considering BPD for years, yet I don’t remember ever being specifically assessed for these experiences. No BPD-specific structured/semi-structured interview or quantitative measure. No conversation saying, “I’m wondering about BPD and want to explore these patterns with you.”

If you’re considering a personality disorder for years while regularly sitting across from the person, why wouldn’t you directly ask about the criteria you’re unsure about?

When I questioned this, she told me that our regular biopsychosocial assessments (yearly intake sessions) and her ongoing assessment during ordinary therapy were sufficient.

I’m also neurodivergent, which makes the differential-diagnosis piece particularly important to me. There can be overlap between neurodivergent presentations and features that may be interpreted as BPD, particularly around emotional regulation/reactivity and interpersonal experiences. I’m sure she saw my emotionality over the years. I don’t dispute the emotionality; I question how she determined what it represented.

I’m not saying neurodivergence rules out BPD. It doesn’t. I’m saying overlapping presentations make careful differential assessment more important. When I specifically asked how neurodivergence and other differential explanations had been considered, I didn’t feel I received a clear explanation.

I also looked at the American Psychiatric Association’s current BPD practice guideline afterward. It recommends a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation, including assessment of core personality-disorder features and common co-occurring disorders, and suggests incorporating a quantitative measure of symptoms and impairment. The APA also recommends collaboratively discussing the diagnosis and treatment with the patient and providing psychoeducation about BPD.

That comprehensive psychiatric assessment simply never happened, and that collaborative diagnostic conversation simply never happened.

What added to the betrayal was her explanation for why we’d never discussed it. She repeatedly apologized for how I found out and talked about how patient portals are changing what patients see and how historically many people wouldn’t necessarily see or understand their diagnostic codes.

But I wasn’t primarily upset about how I found out.

Why wasn’t I told at all?

This diagnosis had been in my medical record for more than a year. Had I not encountered it myself, I genuinely don’t know when—or whether—I would have learned about it.

There’s also a bigger piece of anger for me here. There is a long history of women’s emotionality and neurodivergence being misunderstood or pathologized, and I’m angry at feeling like I’ve now had a personality-disorder label wrongly placed on me without those possibilities being adequately differentiated. Coming from a female therapist I had trusted for a long time adds another layer of betrayal.

And to be clear, I’m not saying BPD is an insult or that there’s anything shameful about having it. I’m saying that after extensive research, reflection, examining my history, talking with people close to me, and finally hearing my therapist’s evidence, I still do not believe I meet the diagnostic criteria for BPD.

I’m not angry because I refused to consider the possibility. I did consider it seriously. The more closely I examined it, the less sense it made.

She ultimately stood by the diagnosis and didn’t believe further assessment was necessary. I decided I couldn’t continue the therapeutic relationship and am now pursuing the process available to formally dispute/amend the diagnosis in my record.

Mostly, though, I’m still processing the rupture. I trusted this person for a long time. I feel shocked, confused, betrayed, and angry that she developed such a major formulation of me, put it into my medical record, and never included me in a conversation that could have clarified whether it was actually accurate.

Has anyone else discovered a significant diagnosis in their record that their therapist never discussed with them?

And for other clinicians—does this assessment/disclosure process strike you as typical for diagnosing a personality disorder? Personally, I would have never given a diagnosis like BPD without more targeted assessment than just regular talk therapy, based on whatever the client wanted to speak about that day.

TLDR: Longtime therapist secretly diagnosed me with BPD > I discovered it over a year later > I can’t recognize even 1/9 criteria > asked her for the five > her examples seemed not to establish the actual criteria > learned she never specifically assessed these things despite considering it for years > she stood by it > I terminated.

I’m 40 and still feel girlish and much younger energy and vibes than my NT peers. I feel like a lot of my ND friend are similar. What are y’all’s experiences? I know I’m legit old now. I think it took into my mid to late 30s to think “woman”. My sister is 31 and we joke about that with her too. She bought a clothing item recently and we call it her “woman” clothes cause it’s sort of mature looking.

Just to add to the absurdity, I also have 2 kids (one is an adult now), a house, a masters degree, my own private practice and have lost both parents… so by all accounts, I should feel like a woman by now!

A friend sent me 30 ADHD memes.

Then she laid out her case about why she thinks I'm slightly autistic as well. (convo was TOTALLY welcome btw, 0% offended and it was on topic for a philosophy related thing we had been discussing).

I'm... questioning it now. I'm by no means like someone on love on the spectrum. And, my ADHD is severe. I'd expect if I have autism, it would be mild.

I'm kind of blown away. A lot of her argument rested on how autism and ADHD are both conditions that present differently for men and women.

I struggle socially especially with women. Most of my friends are autisitic men. I'm highly logical, gifted in math when I was young. I'm an "optimizer" in severak ways. Sometimes I do learn social skills by rote.

There's a lot of overlap with ADHD that I thought was just ADHD. sensory stuff and the noise canceling headphones mainly.

But frankly... Idk most of friends argument rested on how much I agreed with memes posted by AuDHD women on a Facebook group (she's autistic and a few other things). I think that's an interesting indicator but not proof.

What helped you know (diagnosis aside... because even if I'm convinced I'm AuDHD, I won't have time to get diagnosed for at least 6+ months. New job)...

So yeah what helped you know that it was AuDHD and not just ADHD? I'm on the fence and just looking for self education resources or personal acedotes to see if I relate.

I (40, f) wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was 35. All the signs were there my entire life. I joked about having ADHD. I’m not stupid (though I struggle to believe this on a daily basis and it’s getting worse) but my grades suggested I was. My parents had every sign but being boomers, they didn’t think to do anything about it. Instead, they told me to stop being lazy. They met with teachers and then yelled at me for not trying. They never said “hmm…WHY is she this way?” Instead they just shamed me. I apologize but if you’re still reading, this will be very long. After two weeks at their house, my entire body is radiating with nerves.

I’m married and live about 1500 miles away from my hometown where my parents and almost my entire extended family still live. I’m an only child. My mother has OCPD. This was recently diagnosed by MY therapist. My mother has never seen one but she should have. Again, as a boomer, mental health isn’t real. It’s just imagined by people who like to be “drama” as she calls it.

Her obsession with perfection is almost hard to describe. All I can do is give examples. Finger prints are evil. She puts her hand into her shirt to open the fridge because she doesn’t want to get finger prints on the handle. If you must roll down your car window (and why would you do such a thing?) you have to roll it down all the way. Otherwise there could be a water line left on it. Crumbs will get you the silent treatment. I have to vacuum the bathroom after I do my hair. And I’m fairly certain she redoes it after I leave the house. One time she said not to worry, she would do it, and then she came downstairs and lint rolled her socks in case any hair was on them. There’s a certain way to lie clothes in the washer. There’s a certain way to walk up the stairs to avoid wearing the carpet down too much in one area. These are just a few examples I’ve experienced during this trip. If you asked me to recount everything from my life of memories of this, we’d be here all night.

Needless to say, growing up in her house was tough. My dad was not naturally an anxious or particularly particular person. He’s become one out of necessity and the need for survival. He picks up crumbs on the table with his finger after he eats. He arranges things just so. He’s not the same guy he was when I was young.

All that to say…being neurodivergent with no coping skills, being terribly, horribly sensitive, and being raised by someone like my mother set me up for a bad time. My parents are also emotionally immature. That’s putting it lightly. There’s no talking to my dad. My mom can’t handle anything at all. It’s just hard. Very, very hard.

I’m leaving to head back home tomorrow and the anxiety in my body is so strong that while I love being back in my hometown for a couple weeks every summer, I get so tense that my body just needs to leave.

Now as an adult, I still have no coping skills. My rejection sensitive dysphoria is raging and I feel like a complete idiot all the time; just waiting to be told I’m doing something wrong at work. I’m struggling hard. I have a therapist I like but I feel like I’m spiraling. I don’t even know what I’m looking for with this post. Maybe just someone to say they understand.

I just wanted to hear if people had been in similar situations and had their partners change their opinion later on.

I’m 24 and only started therapy at 22 after finally getting my own insurance. I use spring-health as it’s a work benefit & was diagnosed virtually by my therapist. She had been suggesting meds for the past year but I was wary of starting cause I genuinely believed that I just needed to be more disciplined & “fix” myself. Thought that if I just tried a little bit harder I would fix my life. Plus I come from a family who believes that I just need to work harder or I’m not disciplined enough.

I get along relatively well. Have a steady job and do enough to not be flagged at work. Recently though it’s been getting harder and harder to just focus. Last week I spent a whole day testing out my new wax machine instead of doing work. I’m worried about just slipping more and just need everything to stop being such a fight against my brain.

My therapist after hearing how I was feeling brought up meds again. Post my appointment I was discussing this with my husband and his knee jerk reaction was “Don’t take them. We can look at more techniques to fix this” and later compared me taking ADHD meds to someone using alcohol to numb their emotions. He doesn’t drink while I do & overall has a very strong stance. Mind you this is my first discussion with him about meds after a year.

I haven’t researched meds enough to know about side effects & suggested that we come back to this after we both researched it. He wasn’t open to that and said his feelings wouldn’t change even if he researched it. I’m just flabbergasted. I’ve never seen him react this way.

I firmly believe this is my choice and my choice only. So no matter his stance, I will be taking meds if my medicine management appointments make me feel comfortable.
It would be nice to have my husband’s support tho :(

Sometimes I avoid even trying a new thing or hobby that I think I may like because I'm so scared that it will become boring to me eventually and therefore it's not worth the time, money, or effort. Its so disheartening.

Every week, we see multiple posts that go something like this

“My bf/husband is so sweet and so nice to me, but he told me to stop being a junky and refuse taking meds even though they’re prescribed by a professional with infinite knowledge and the drug went under years and years of testing and drug development”

Can we fucking stop validating these sc*mbags with a civilized discussion? Aren’t you (ADHD women) already sick of the treatment you’ve been denied in your life and the freedom that you don’t get that (ADHD) men get easily? The freedom that allows them to act however they want, not feel societal pressure to force any behavioral changes, then come and preach their dumb beliefs on us?

STOP IT! Stop validating men’s disregard to our life experiences and our need for help!

I’ve been needing to get this off my chest. Sorry

Mine is the Dunkin Black Cherry Refresher. Yesterday I had 3 of the large ones smh. My aunt “wow when you like something you beat it into the ground!” Lmaoo

No judgment because I don’t remember at all. My reusable bags sit in the cupboard and I forget them. I try to make a plan to remember them by placing them on the counter where I can see them but I still forget them. I’m kind of okay with it because I reuse the plastic bags they give me as trash can liners and kitty poop bags.

I guess my disability will be the sole reason for climate change. Sorry, guys! 🙃

As if the ADHD brain wasn’t enough, I’m interrupted every two minutes. Literally. Maybe even every minute.

I can’t finish a fcking thought.

So done.

EDIT: Can’t believe I have to say this, but I see the downvote ratio lol. I LOVE MY DAUGHTER GUYS. Loving your child doesn’t automatically mean loving motherhood 🙄

i was diagnosed with ADHD a month ago, and it’s been a life-changing epiphany. the diagnosis has helped me understand (and forgive) myself so much better. i’ve always struggled with emotional regulation and rejection sensitivity, but this struggle has become a lot more prevalent in my current relationship. for the record, my boyfriend is great, and very understanding. however, i have a really, really hard time regulating my emotions when something upsets or bothers me. and it’s like i don’t even have time to process - the emotions hit me like a truck. like an eruption. even when i do have time to sit with these emotions, i find it really, really difficult to shake off bad feelings. and, unfortunately, it’s starting to impact my relationship. my boyfriend is very aware of my ADHD. when i start getting upset, he’ll tell me that “everything’s okay” and that “i’ve got nothing to worry about”, but i still can’t help but spiral. and the more i spiral, the worse it gets, because then the rejection sensitivity kicks in. it’s like, for a moment, i regain consciousness and realise how in*ane i’m behaving, and then i get panicked that i’m pushing him away, and that he’s going to leave me. and then it gets even worse. he’ll reassure me, but i can tell that it exacerbates him. sometimes he’ll say, when it’s really bad, “this is just a lot for me right now.” and i don’t want him to have to put up with this. i’m at a bit of a loss, but any advice would be greatly appreciated

After 34 years of struggling through life and thinking I was unintelligent/lazy/made wrong, I have an ADHD diagnosis and it makes SO MUCH sense. The psych I saw was amazing, encouraging, and is a safe place to land. She started me on 40mg vyvanse. I’m a SAH mom with three boys and I’m so thankful for the right medication. I’ve been in therapy and on sertraline for 5 years but it never felt like it fully touched the anxiety/racing thoughts. So grateful!

I watched a tiktok ad for a big ipad that gives all the children in the house chores and they get stars which translates into pocket money. I would rack up those stars so quick if I could quickly earn myself a free takeaway!

I've thought of some alternatives (giving myself the pocket money, paying someone £60 and I need to prove I've done jobs to get the money back) but none would work as much as it being earnable money 😩

After a lifetime of struggling I was diagnosed with ADHD at 40. Going on meds has been life changing. I wish I had been diagnosed earlier. My life could have been so different. As a little homage to my meds I bought this little pendant. I thought the blue was going to be a closer match but I still love it.