How do you live a busy life with ADHD?
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I've never been so busy, I made the life altering decision to go back to college at 30 to get an engineering degree. I generally like math and I love building things and messing with electronics, it should be the perfect fit. But after starting at calc 2 and now doing 5 or 6 classes full time, working, and planning a wedding. I feel like I'm stretched thin.
I'll get off of school and my brain feels like molasses. I'm medicated but I still feel like everyone is learning at twice the speed as me while I reread the question to make sure I actually understand the wording.
There's some of you out there who are engineers, scientists, doctors with ADHD, who go out and do community stuff, go to the gym, live life and even socialize.
How? How do you do it? How do you keep up with such a constant schedule and try to understand new concepts every day on top of that? How do you not just curl into a ball and closing up into yourself to stop being overwhelmed?
I feel like I'm doing life on hard mode and it sucks
Ok, as someone who did well in engineering school, I cannot imagine juggling all of that. I didn’t get diagnosed until 30 so I was unmedicated in college, but I lived at home and quit my pizza job when classes became more demanding. It was still a shitload of coursework and I spent most of my time at school, including all day on the weekends.
How I managed it back then was that I would do all my homework at school with my classmates, so basically body doubling. Otherwise I’d get home and screw off.
Even without ADHD, your current lifestyle would be a tough row to hoe. You are living on hard mode.
Working full time, trying to run a household solo, and have hobbies is a mess even though I’ve been out of school for almost 10 years. Most meds have caused issues for me, but I’m back on the merry-go-round to find the right combo because I am very much not managing my life, lol.
So I guess my advice is the following: be gentle with yourself, try to work in groups when possible, and perhaps consider switching meds if you feel it’s a limiting factor. The last one could be dicey though since instability could make things harder for you.
One last point: the students who are failing and struggling aren’t exactly going to announce it. Don’t sell yourself short and assume everyone is doing better than you!
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I've never been so busy, I made the life altering decision to go back to college at 30 to get an engineering degree. I generally like math and I love building things and messing with electronics, it should be the perfect fit. But after starting at calc 2 and now doing 5 or 6 classes full time, working, and planning a wedding. I feel like I'm stretched thin.
I'll get off of school and my brain feels like molasses. I'm medicated but I still feel like everyone is learning at twice the speed as me while I reread the question to make sure I actually understand the wording.
There's some of you out there who are engineers, scientists, doctors with ADHD, who go out and do community stuff, go to the gym, live life and even socialize.
How? How do you do it? How do you keep up with such a constant schedule and try to understand new concepts every day on top of that? How do you not just curl into a ball and closing up into yourself to stop being overwhelmed?
I feel like I'm doing life on hard mode and it sucks
To know you can get medication for that
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I've never been so busy, I made the life altering decision to go back to college at 30 to get an engineering degree. I generally like math and I love building things and messing with electronics, it should be the perfect fit. But after starting at calc 2 and now doing 5 or 6 classes full time, working, and planning a wedding. I feel like I'm stretched thin.
I'll get off of school and my brain feels like molasses. I'm medicated but I still feel like everyone is learning at twice the speed as me while I reread the question to make sure I actually understand the wording.
There's some of you out there who are engineers, scientists, doctors with ADHD, who go out and do community stuff, go to the gym, live life and even socialize.
How? How do you do it? How do you keep up with such a constant schedule and try to understand new concepts every day on top of that? How do you not just curl into a ball and closing up into yourself to stop being overwhelmed?
I feel like I'm doing life on hard mode and it sucks
For every few days I manage to do all the things there's a day I have to take off work and cry in bed all day.
It isn't reasonable for society to expect people to work fulltime jobs and have any energy left to do anything.
This IS the normal way to feel.
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For every few days I manage to do all the things there's a day I have to take off work and cry in bed all day.
It isn't reasonable for society to expect people to work fulltime jobs and have any energy left to do anything.
This IS the normal way to feel.
I'm very sorry you have to do this, life is proper fucked
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I've never been so busy, I made the life altering decision to go back to college at 30 to get an engineering degree. I generally like math and I love building things and messing with electronics, it should be the perfect fit. But after starting at calc 2 and now doing 5 or 6 classes full time, working, and planning a wedding. I feel like I'm stretched thin.
I'll get off of school and my brain feels like molasses. I'm medicated but I still feel like everyone is learning at twice the speed as me while I reread the question to make sure I actually understand the wording.
There's some of you out there who are engineers, scientists, doctors with ADHD, who go out and do community stuff, go to the gym, live life and even socialize.
How? How do you do it? How do you keep up with such a constant schedule and try to understand new concepts every day on top of that? How do you not just curl into a ball and closing up into yourself to stop being overwhelmed?
I feel like I'm doing life on hard mode and it sucks
You're doing about three times of what I am capable of. You're not feeling overwhelmed, you are overwhelmed.
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I hope you don't mean my job, because I kinda need that to eat and pay rent
You're playing in hard mode, then. Maybe cutting back on work hours temporarily and/or adding on a few more semesters is an option.
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I've never been so busy, I made the life altering decision to go back to college at 30 to get an engineering degree. I generally like math and I love building things and messing with electronics, it should be the perfect fit. But after starting at calc 2 and now doing 5 or 6 classes full time, working, and planning a wedding. I feel like I'm stretched thin.
I'll get off of school and my brain feels like molasses. I'm medicated but I still feel like everyone is learning at twice the speed as me while I reread the question to make sure I actually understand the wording.
There's some of you out there who are engineers, scientists, doctors with ADHD, who go out and do community stuff, go to the gym, live life and even socialize.
How? How do you do it? How do you keep up with such a constant schedule and try to understand new concepts every day on top of that? How do you not just curl into a ball and closing up into yourself to stop being overwhelmed?
I feel like I'm doing life on hard mode and it sucks
I hate being too busy so I force time to plug into a charger aka literally do nothing ALL day and I dont even feel shame. A nonsense boring lazy day is just as productive to my mental health as a productive day. The end. Idc about social norms. If I am on a charge day I ain't doin shit.
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I've never been so busy, I made the life altering decision to go back to college at 30 to get an engineering degree. I generally like math and I love building things and messing with electronics, it should be the perfect fit. But after starting at calc 2 and now doing 5 or 6 classes full time, working, and planning a wedding. I feel like I'm stretched thin.
I'll get off of school and my brain feels like molasses. I'm medicated but I still feel like everyone is learning at twice the speed as me while I reread the question to make sure I actually understand the wording.
There's some of you out there who are engineers, scientists, doctors with ADHD, who go out and do community stuff, go to the gym, live life and even socialize.
How? How do you do it? How do you keep up with such a constant schedule and try to understand new concepts every day on top of that? How do you not just curl into a ball and closing up into yourself to stop being overwhelmed?
I feel like I'm doing life on hard mode and it sucks
How do people do it? Simple, they don't. It's only because of your ADHD that you're staying afloat as much as you are. You are literally trying to accomplish the same amount as 3 people, so ya, you are going to learn slower.
Of course, none of that helps you right this moment...
I would start by confessing to the people around you including your fiance that you have fucked up and are in the process of finding out. Give them a date this semester ends and beg them to help where they can until then.
Someone else mentioned study groups, I have found that actively studying with others and discussing what you're working on is a massive boon. Are any of your classes online or do you have a way to communicate with your fellow students? Post on there that you have ADHD and are looking for study buddies. I 100%guarantee that there are other people who have ADHD or are struggling.
Do you commute or have other times where you have forced "down time"? I find that chagpt's phone app with the voice chat feature is amazing for helping me learn new stuff. As I am driving, I can ask it to explain stuff and if I don't quite get it. I can ask it to explain it again in simpler terms. I can focus in on things that I am interested in or don't understand. Then once I have a better grasp on the little pieces I'm not embarrassed to ask it to explain it all again. I can also get it to review course information with me. You can ask it to let you tell it what you know and have it correct things you are getting wrong. -
Do you use flash cards? Anki got me through a lot of uni. Sorry I don't have any stronger suggestions, lessening your overall work load and getting accommodations would have been my first suggestion. I guess the only other recommendation I could make is troubleshoot your sleep habits. My wife and my kid both have unmedicated ADHD and they really burn out fast on bad sleep.
Yeah I've noticed if I stay up (sometimes I get too hot to sleep or my cat wakes me up to give her attention) I just cannot learn the next day.
I've been looking at all these posts and I think the answer is definitely, "take a smaller course load next semester"
Summarily, if I start doing at least 20 hours at work a week I qualify for food aid again, which would be nice to have some more grocery money
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To be honest, I still am not too sure what mechatronics implies other than "automated systems"
They just had a really good presentation for their degree program. Might be worth it to look into mechanical or electric more since I think mechatronics is meant to be a mix of all three
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Yeah I've noticed if I stay up (sometimes I get too hot to sleep or my cat wakes me up to give her attention) I just cannot learn the next day.
I've been looking at all these posts and I think the answer is definitely, "take a smaller course load next semester"
Summarily, if I start doing at least 20 hours at work a week I qualify for food aid again, which would be nice to have some more grocery money
I'd love to see you get better sleep and more food security. That's going to be a game changer. Do your best for now and I hope you will reduce that course load.
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To be honest, I still am not too sure what mechatronics implies other than "automated systems"
They just had a really good presentation for their degree program. Might be worth it to look into mechanical or electric more since I think mechatronics is meant to be a mix of all three
I definitely will, I've still got 2 years left so there plenty of time to switch majors if I want to.
