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
Yeah, you’re kind of running things on a high difficulty setting. And it’s worth noting that comparing yourself to others is a waste of energy - they’re unlikely to be learning at twice the rate you are.
This is kind of where you stack rank priorities and if you can’t eliminate any - you accept they won’t get a large percentage of your attention - or you try to hyper focus on it to burn it down and get it completed and off the list. Hopefully things like wedding planning are one of those things that will drop off the list eventually.
I tend to break up my day into different phases.
8-12 - fresh: critical thinking and learning new things with minimal distractions.
12-4 - dull: maintenances tasks, reoccurring meetings, things I can juggle and multitask with.
4-10 - molasses: brain dead tasks like working out, meal prep and hobbies like gaming or preparing for the next day.
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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
Read here you little smart fucker. And read well. I've been in those exact shoes as you not too long ago. The only difference was i did chemical engineering. It sucked ass.
1st most important thing is reduce your course load. Yeah it sucks that you are going to have to delay your graduation by about a year. But I can almost guarantee that you are going to fail classes and have to pay for them again and delay your graduation regardless. Cut one class minimum, 2 if you want to actually kill it in grades and compression of the material beyond what the classes offer. I learned this because well I did it by failing and being forced to reduce the corse load.
2nd don't take the classes in the given order from the school. For example. When I was doing Chem the school I went to set it as semester 1, math, applied Chem, instrumental analysis, organic Chem, lab tech, elective. Semester 2, would be math 2, applied Chem 2, physics, biology, organic Chem 2. Elective.
In semester 2, I would just dump biology,physics, and pick up instrumental analysis 2 , lab tec 2. This way my head isn't running back a related, unrelated subject when I'm trying to focus on something else.
- You have a choice. You can do subpar for everything and see how that goes or suck at something, but be great at others. And it's not just school subjects. You can stretch yourself between school, wedding, work, and friends. But that's just gonna be subpar all along the board. Cut the social life, if your friends are any fucking good they will understand. Delay the wedding. Do you love your spouse? Do they love you? Good enough you don't need to prove it to anyone by having a wedding. If that's not an option. Well then delay it because right now school is the most important and you would probably want to actually be able to invest your self fully into the wedding.
This too shall pass and before you know it you will be back into the swing of things with friends and family.
Work what kind of work is it? Before I comment on that.
Also can you ride your bike to school. I found that to be incredibly helpful for some reason.
Oh, and don't worry about being slow. I was slow as hell, I was always the last to finish my labs, did all my tests with acomidations. Handed in all my work late or 2 minutes before dead line.... that might be a lie I think all my work was late. By like a week or a month sometimes. But if you talk to your professors you would be amazed what kind of leniency they can give you. Hell I don't think I ever even submitted a single Wilye? Wyly? How ever the fuck those con artists are called assigment. It was worth like 10% of my grade. But at the end of the term I could spend hours doing some bullshit online quiz or keep writing my lab report, or reading for my next morning labs.
If a dumb fuck like me can pull it off you can too.
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Have you looked into test taking accommodations? They should give you extra time in a distraction free environment for adhd.
Yeah they help a little, but when you just haven't retained the info enough there's really not much you can do unfortunately
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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'm 36 and doing the same thing as you right now, fulltime job and full time school for mechanical engineering. Its tough but I just try to keep grinding. I don't look too far into the future otherwise it starts to feel overwhelming, I try to plan for getting through the next week before worrying about the next. I also take frequent breaks when studying, if I start to feel molasses brained ( I feel like mine starts overheating like an old car lkl) I find a stopping point and do something mindless for a little bit before diving back in. I did switch to ER adderal and found that helped me have a longer runtime between breaks. Keep at it though, you can do it and when you do, it will be all the sweeter.
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Read here you little smart fucker. And read well. I've been in those exact shoes as you not too long ago. The only difference was i did chemical engineering. It sucked ass.
1st most important thing is reduce your course load. Yeah it sucks that you are going to have to delay your graduation by about a year. But I can almost guarantee that you are going to fail classes and have to pay for them again and delay your graduation regardless. Cut one class minimum, 2 if you want to actually kill it in grades and compression of the material beyond what the classes offer. I learned this because well I did it by failing and being forced to reduce the corse load.
2nd don't take the classes in the given order from the school. For example. When I was doing Chem the school I went to set it as semester 1, math, applied Chem, instrumental analysis, organic Chem, lab tech, elective. Semester 2, would be math 2, applied Chem 2, physics, biology, organic Chem 2. Elective.
In semester 2, I would just dump biology,physics, and pick up instrumental analysis 2 , lab tec 2. This way my head isn't running back a related, unrelated subject when I'm trying to focus on something else.
- You have a choice. You can do subpar for everything and see how that goes or suck at something, but be great at others. And it's not just school subjects. You can stretch yourself between school, wedding, work, and friends. But that's just gonna be subpar all along the board. Cut the social life, if your friends are any fucking good they will understand. Delay the wedding. Do you love your spouse? Do they love you? Good enough you don't need to prove it to anyone by having a wedding. If that's not an option. Well then delay it because right now school is the most important and you would probably want to actually be able to invest your self fully into the wedding.
This too shall pass and before you know it you will be back into the swing of things with friends and family.
Work what kind of work is it? Before I comment on that.
Also can you ride your bike to school. I found that to be incredibly helpful for some reason.
Oh, and don't worry about being slow. I was slow as hell, I was always the last to finish my labs, did all my tests with acomidations. Handed in all my work late or 2 minutes before dead line.... that might be a lie I think all my work was late. By like a week or a month sometimes. But if you talk to your professors you would be amazed what kind of leniency they can give you. Hell I don't think I ever even submitted a single Wilye? Wyly? How ever the fuck those con artists are called assigment. It was worth like 10% of my grade. But at the end of the term I could spend hours doing some bullshit online quiz or keep writing my lab report, or reading for my next morning labs.
If a dumb fuck like me can pull it off you can too.
Lmao thanks I can see this is written by a kindred spirit, yeah it might be smart to adjust my course load. I actually had differential equations this semester but I cut it immediately since my professor was a crotchety old fart who wanted everything submitted in handwritten paper, plus I should have failed the prerequisite, I was planning to so I could redo the course and get it right but I think my teacher liked me so she passed me with a C. But dropping that let me not worry about calculus and focus on the science I was doing with phys and chemistry.
As for the bike thing, it might just be related to exercise, which would be nice for me but I have no room in my apartment for my bike and it's Illinois so half the year it's useless. I actually do get a huge workout with my job though ( think roadie but only in a specific venue) so I sweat all day.
My entire reason of getting into school again I think was so I didn't have to sweat all day, and hopefully make some money
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Have you also had trouble keeping up with homework due dates? I had the idea of getting an actual planner and it's always with me and only put homework dates in there, it's been a bit of a help
I'm mechatronics engineering, but I'm thinking of switching to electrical, as it's just more interesting to me
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Yeah they help a little, but when you just haven't retained the info enough there's really not much you can do unfortunately
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.
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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
This is a period of time in your life where you just don't have any more time to pour into hobbies and community etc. That is okay. You are only human. I just had two years where I was stressed out of my fucking mind and couldn't do anything when I got home everyday. I didn't have energy for hobbies, interests, friendships, nothing. It's slowly come back to me this year, especially over the summer and I'm gradually filling up my life with past time activities now.
You are not weird or wrong or less than for not having the energy to be active all the time. School is intense. It just is. When you're also working and planning a wedding on top of that, no shit you're exhausted, my friend. I do hope you allow yourself to have moments in the evening where you're just relaxing and doing nothing. That stuff kinda helped me when I was stressed. It was frustrating when you're someone who wants to do things all the time, but for me it was necessary to avoid imploding. I think it would be good for you too to allow your head a break when you're done with the day and not harass yourself with all the things you could be doing but aren't. You're allowed to do nothing after a long day where you have given it your all.
Remember that all of this is temporary. The wedding will pass, you'll graduate eventually as well and maybe then you will slowly experience that you have a bit more energy for all the fun things in life.
Hugs! I wish you all the best!
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Have you also had trouble keeping up with homework due dates? I had the idea of getting an actual planner and it's always with me and only put homework dates in there, it's been a bit of a help
I'm mechatronics engineering, but I'm thinking of switching to electrical, as it's just more interesting to me
Yea, keeping track of dues dates has been a big struggle. I try to use the calendar app on my phone to set a reminder for pretty much everything. My classes are all MWF so it designate Tues, Thurs, and Sat as dedicated homework days before I leave for work. I was torn between mechanical and electrical, I did mechanical because its where my strengths lie, but I'm still tempted to switch just because I want to learn more about electrical.
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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 should absolutely positively not work and be doing anything time-intensive on the side while you are studying.
Unless you want to burn out and fail, of course. -
This is a period of time in your life where you just don't have any more time to pour into hobbies and community etc. That is okay. You are only human. I just had two years where I was stressed out of my fucking mind and couldn't do anything when I got home everyday. I didn't have energy for hobbies, interests, friendships, nothing. It's slowly come back to me this year, especially over the summer and I'm gradually filling up my life with past time activities now.
You are not weird or wrong or less than for not having the energy to be active all the time. School is intense. It just is. When you're also working and planning a wedding on top of that, no shit you're exhausted, my friend. I do hope you allow yourself to have moments in the evening where you're just relaxing and doing nothing. That stuff kinda helped me when I was stressed. It was frustrating when you're someone who wants to do things all the time, but for me it was necessary to avoid imploding. I think it would be good for you too to allow your head a break when you're done with the day and not harass yourself with all the things you could be doing but aren't. You're allowed to do nothing after a long day where you have given it your all.
Remember that all of this is temporary. The wedding will pass, you'll graduate eventually as well and maybe then you will slowly experience that you have a bit more energy for all the fun things in life.
Hugs! I wish you all the best!
Thanks, and yeah I'm allocating some time for myself, silksong has been all I've been doing in the afternoons
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Thanks, and yeah I'm allocating some time for myself, silksong has been all I've been doing in the afternoons
Good! I spent at least a year with my evenings going to brain dead mobile games. That was all I could do for awhile ad looking back, I'm not sad about it. I hope you give yourself all the grace in the world if for the next months or years (how ever long the whole period lasts) and just accept that you need to play Silksong or whatever other game tickles your fancy when your tired after a long day. It's okay to not be super duper productive all the time! It's a lesson I'm learning slowly too.
Hugs! -
You should absolutely positively not work and be doing anything time-intensive on the side while you are studying.
Unless you want to burn out and fail, of course.Yes - I had to work during Uni and it was hellish. By the end, I came very close to burnout (but not failure, although I did have to cut corners at times to keep my head above water).
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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 don't. It's a mess my brother.
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You should absolutely positively not work and be doing anything time-intensive on the side while you are studying.
Unless you want to burn out and fail, of course.I hope you don't mean my job, because I kinda need that to eat and pay rent
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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.
