this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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I feel like the ADHD community is embracing a whole raft of symptoms that I thought were more bipolar ii related because this sure sounds a lot like me during one of my hypomanic phases. i'm not sure where the nuanced distinctions are... maybe it comes down to whether you also spend thousands of dollars on gear to support said project and/or just decide sleep is optional while you're tackling it? or crash into a depressive phase triggered by frustration when you inevitably fail and abandon it? IDK
Hey I'm someone who can answer this.
ADHD, by itself, does not have manic episodes. There's a lot of supporting documentation to that effect.
Mania is often caused by having too much dopamine. ADHDers don't have enough dopamine ever, unless with medication, or with hyperfocus.
So the similarity you're seeing is only in that people with ADHD will negotiate, move things around, eat only ramen for a month in order to buy things related to the new hyperfocus. Pursuing the hyperfocus gives us dopamine, so we will do lots to justify getting that, since we don't have any. People with bipolar can have manic episodes which can be caused by an abundance of dopamine, which leads them to doing things they shouldn't, because they can't control themselves.
I can't speak for others, but all of the blockhead decisions I've ever made while hyperfocusing and buying too many supplies, I've absolutely known I shouldn't, and why I shouldn't, but I'm trying to get my fix so I'm going to buy that lockpicking kit, thankyouverymuch, and if I have to eat ramen for a week to do it, I will!
(Pro tip I got from someone else online. If the hyperfocus gets you bad, spend lots and lots of extra time shopping for, researching, and making damn sure the thing you want to buy is the perfect one for your hyperfocus. I've been able to buy myself a couple of weeks this way, which allowed me to save up. I treat hyperfocus like unexpected car maintenance problems nowadays.)
What about if I have like 6 projects running all the time that I actually improve on? Even finishing them sometimes.
I'm trying to figure myself out, and your post hit kinda hard 😅
Well the hyperfocus does as it wills... but sometimes you can get a hyperfocus in something you can improve on! Most of us do that, actually. In all my life, and I'm almost 40, I've only had one hyperfocus that I absolutely can't do. I still try every so often.
And having a lot of projects going at once is about the only way we can focus. I only ever did well in school in classes where my teachers let me either read a book or play with aying cards while they taught. Many of us can only multitask.
Wow thank you. I always thought ADHD was about people having problems focusing by not being able to do so, and other problems like sitting still, that I don't really feel I have.
Now, I can focus, incredibly well, I guess it's called hyperfocus :-) Now it has a name, thanks!
Also being called out because I doodle during meetings (among other things) and the idea that some people just can't not do several things at the same time, well that hit home 100%.
I think I need to think about this a bit, it feels like I finally found out what's up with me, any advice greatly appreciated.
If it helps, when I was a kid, the conventional wisdom was "girls don't get ADHD." Which is why I didn't get diagnosed until I was about 36.
Nowadays, we know better. And we can use that knowledge to do better! Which is why I'm finally in college.
That's so shitty, I hope the world can one day be a better place. It feels like the bar is really low.
In my family nothing was tolerated if it didn't make mom feel better like right now. So I didn't have any time to even think about things before I was 18. It's been a while but people like you have done a huge difference in my life, I'm trying to be helpful person too when I can, one thing here one thing there and together we move forward.
Good going for taking up college! It should be a breeze, but good luck and I hope it all goes well!
Thank you, this comment helped me understand something, because during hypomania I legitimately do not notice except in hindsight that my priorities may have been off; everything makes total sense in a way that it doesn't when I'm not in that state. Similarly, until I bought a smart watch that could track sleep and started wearing it to bed, I actually didn't notice how little sleep I would get during these phases--sometimes less than four hours a night for a straight week, and I would barely feel any difference. It sounds like there is more of a kind of self-awareness during ADHD hyperfocus, and sometimes I have that as well--I'm learning to discern which is which, just like I learned to use indicators like sleep to recognize when I am at risk of a hypomanic episode.
Delayed sleep phase is often comorbid with ADHD. I have to take sleeping medication because my body wants to be up until about 4am and sleep until about 1pm. Which isn't sustainable with our modern way of life.
If you can, I 100% recommend seeing a professional. It took until I was 36 to figure out what all my deal is, but it was so worth it.
Good luck on your path either way! There are answers. Sometimes it's a huge, horrible slog to get them, but they're there.
There are many parallels between various mental illnesses.
And also normal state of human being.
Nah this is pretty average for ADHD too. Maybe not sinking a fuckload of money (I guess it depends on the person) but hyperfixations are a thing. Get really focused on one thing because it gives you dopamine so you sink more and more time into it until no more dopamine. Suddenly it becomes a chore to do like everything else, you feel betrayed, and end up in a feeling of malaise trying to find your next hit of dopamine.
my hyperfixation is spending money wisely: generally really useful but it does mean that if i have to spend money on bullshit i basically just start crying
Why you have to call me out? Also being so focused on being financially responsible means I don't spend the couple hundred bucks to get into a new hobby for way too long, especially given how I tend to circle back to my hobbies and interests rather than abandon them forever
i like the principle of buying a cheap thing first, and if that proves insufficient i invest in the more expensive high quality version. Combined with the principle of "if you've been thinking about it for a week/month, it's something you actually want and should get"
I suspected I had ADHD and nothing else when I went to get diagnosed. One of the things I thought was a problem caused by ADHD was how I feel about other people as well as not having any sort of neutral emotions. Turns out I have Borderline Personality Disorder (and what was formerly known as Asperger's still when I got diagnosed), which I hadn't even heard of until I was diagnosed with it.
If in doubt, get checked out. A lot of mental illnesses have overlapping symptoms and it takes a professional to sort them out, and I do see a lot of people simply self-disgnosing based on how they feel when seeing memes.
I've never pursued any formal diagnosis and just have the observations of my own mind to go on, but I have a lot of common ADHD symptoms and I do sometimes have the kinds of manic phases you're describing but not to a debilitating severity. It's just this state of high energy, usually for me involves creative output, and yeah other previously important goals wind up feeling secondary.
Happy to sacrifice sleep, etc., but I don't usually make damaging decisions, I'm able to keep my broader priorities in mind at least. Better today than I used to be at that but it never really caused me big problems.
But it feels a lot like a mild version of the comic - my last one was a big, kind of involved Halloween build. Wooden construction that included lights, a fog machine, and a 3'x3' sheet of plexiglass with a big printed decal. I've never designed/built a Halloween decoration in my life, or much that's very similar. Other times it's a software project, or something musical. Kinda thing that pulls me outta bed in the middle of the night for no real reason, just (almost annoyingly) stoked. Until it passes.
No idea what that says about ADHD and the broader "symptom creep" you're describing (imo, accurately).