It sounds like you’ve developed depression and it’s making your ADHD symptoms worse.

See a therapist if you can afford it, or at least a regular doctor and get some antidepressants

I understand completely. I’m over 40, and my normal day is: go to work, come home, smoke weed and hang out with my wife. She needs the TV running at all times, and it’s near impossible for me to look away from it when it’s on.

Sometimes I think about all the things we could be doing and I feel disappointed in myself, but aside from chores that get put off a little longer than they should, there’s not really anything else I want to be doing. I’m depressingly content in my mediocrity. (Does that count as a paradox?)

As someone else said, they feel guilty diving into an obsession, and I agree completely. I think I’d love to jump into Balder’s Gate, but my wife has no interest in watching me do that, so I’d feel guilty about not spending that time with her. And yes, I realize that we are allowed to have our own interests, but a game like that could absorb me for a whole night and it would only feel like a moment to me.

This really resonates with me. It certainly feels like it gets harder to manage every year, but I don’t know that that’s actually the case. I think the reality is just that I’ve become much more aware of my deficiencies over time.

As a child I wouldn’t bat an eye at playing video games for 10 hours straight without eating or drinking anything, but as an adult I’m aware that I could be doing so much more productive things with my time. Now, if I ever feel the familiar urge of a new fixation setting in I also feel melancholic because I have to actively temper myself to the point I feel guilty if I indulge it.

Career-wise, yes, in my experience.

When you start out in junior positions, you don’t tend to have a lot of autonomy in your work life. Other people are setting priorities, deadlines etc, and you’re just along for the ride.

As your career advances, you tend to take on more leadership duties. You’re more responsible for managing your own work, and then eventually other peoples’ as well. This is where executive functioning deficits tend to start to really hit home.

It’s not for nothing that a lot of people get diagnosed in middle age.

This is the first time I’ve seen someone else describe exactly how I have been feeling every single day for the last few years. Like, to a T.

Yes. But part of that for me is greater expectations on adults and lots of stress. Burnout will suck all the enjoyment out of everything. Depression will, too. Medication may help. Might be worth looking into.

I don’t think it gets harder with time - but, as an executive dysfunction, I think having more decisions to make is more difficult. When you were a kid you’d have parents directing a lot of your life but now you need to make all those decisions yourself. Additionally, I’m sure that stress doesn’t help… having additional stress as an adult will just make everything harder.

I very much go through this. It can be hard looking at all the niche things around my house which I spent so much energy pursuing - specialized photography rigs, magic cards, jewelry making tools+storage, exercise gear, crazy keyboard setups for multiboxing, etc. With all of those came the community aspect. I feel so guilty just disappearing after gaining so much attention and recognition in various areas. I can confidently say I’m paralyzed with some type of fear to get into new things- I know they’ll consume me, but then one day I’ll wake up and just see it as a source of stress and drop it. If I had infinite money and loved socializing, I’d not be too stuck, but I just can’t afford to keep cycling through interests right now. The things which tend to interest me always demand a financial sink.

You like board games? My wife and I are usually on Boardgamearena.com playing games with each other.

It probably won’t add much purpose to your life, but might keep you occupied. My username is the same there if you could use a game buddy!

Yes. If there was no time, ADHD cannot bother you.

I feel that. Maybe get into a local or remote community with people about something, and share your stuff?

Nature and Linux communities are always pretty edgy and cool.

I wonder how much of this is influenced by society’s trends toward information consumerism. Things like short-form content and constant context-switching in media etc.

Not to say this is the whole picture, but for people predisposed to latch on to that sort of stuff I feel like there’s an exacerbation factor there.

It’s still a journey, but in my case, these are the things that have helped:

• Volunteering - by far the thing that has helped the most. I volunteer as a teaching assistant helping refugees learn English, and it not only gets me out of the house, but I’ve met a lot of great people, and I feel like I’m really making a positive impact in the world. It’s also really easy, as far as volunteering goes - as a native speaker, I know English pretty well after all.

• Medication seems to be helping in my case, though this one is the most “your mileage may vary”. I haven’t been taking it long, but it’s made a huge difference in my energy level and my bouts of executive dysfunction.

• This one is going to sound weird, but (atheistic) spiritualism - in particular, Tarot. I’ve always been against spiritualism because it isn’t “science”, but lately I’ve been coming around to the idea that the way we think and feel about the world has just as much effect on our lives as anything else. I liked Tarot in particular because all it really is is a form of self-guided meditation. I don’t believe in any “supernatural” stuff personally, but the ritual of shuffling and laying out the cards is very calming, and the randomness of the cards forces you to see your issues from a perspective you may not have considered before. Of course, any form of meditation would likely do the exact same thing.

I should also mention that I’m generally in a very privileged situation (especially now - I wasn’t always quite so lucky), so I can’t deny that plays a large factor as well.

It is a constant struggle. I’m stuck spending money on hobbies I used to love trying to find the same enjoyment again but not finding it.

If you’re working at it, then it should become more automatic - it should take less conscious effort to keep from doing things that are problematic.

It’s a practice thing, just like learning other stuff. ADHD responds very well to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - where you essentially re-write the scripts we all operate by. But it takes time and practice - the repitition of substituting a new internal dialog for any given thought process/script.

To that end, 2 books may be helpful:

Adults and ADHD - this is good for seeing how it functions in adults VS kids.

Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer. Early “self help” book, but he’s actually teaching Cognitive Behavioural Therapy without calling it that. Just showing how we use our internal dialog without thinking about it.

Yes, ADHD symptoms are only problematic when combined with time. If you are able to separate ADHD symptoms from time, they won’t even occur.