I brought up here on HN in a similar ADHD thread just a couple of months ago that I was going through an investigation with my therapist for ADHD.
Yesterday we finalised it and I got the diagnosis, I have ADHD. When reading through resources like this: https://invisibleup.com/articles/27/ I could relate to an extreme extent to a lot written there. Both in the blog post as in some of the further resources linked in the end.
I've gone downhill since the pandemic started, it was bad before but I've definitely tumbled down (and hence why I also started searching why I was like that). Initially I thought it was just some bad behaviour: being lazy, being tired and/or that my anxiety was getting worse due to the pandemic. I never had major issues with anxiety before but it runs in my family and I started feeling it physically.
Yesterday I finally understood myself better. I've felt guilt and shame through my whole life for simply not being able to perform with the same work ethic as my peers. Guilt and shame for feeling overwhelmed when I have tons of messages from friends and family to answer. Guilt and shame for procrastinating seemingly mundane tasks, being a time optimist when planning my day, not being able to organise myself with to-do lists and long-term planning, etc.
I did very well in school but could never do homework, or any kind of school project I wasn't interested in the subject. Just sheer pressure from stress could move me to do the minimum to get a decent grade. On the other hand, the projects I had an interest about the topic were always a breeze, I'd go above-and-beyond the assignment because I had so much fun with it.
I collected many hobbies and always thought that was fun and exciting, lately I've been more overwhelmed by the feeling of never actually finishing a project or getting as good as I would like to in some skill/hobby.
At work I've always been productive in the end. I've always delivered the projects I've worked on but I learned strategies to do it. If it's boring work I'd fiddle around, with bouts between procrastination and discovery work, to find exactly why something was requested, how that ties to a larger vision. Then I'd develop a personal vision for the project matching the "why"s of requests/plans with my overarching story and view of a codebase or product, just so I could have a thread that made sense to me and kept me interested. When I found those I enter a hyperfocus state and just work until the vision I created in my head is achieved, I've been very good in finding ways to match my visions to the overall business needs, and also being able to pushback on things that I believe don't make sense when considering all the constraints and needs. This ability to pushback has been praised multiple times in my career.
I think the near future holds for me a slow discovery of many facets of myself, facets that I always treated and viewed with shame and guilt for feeling inadequate and not living up to expectations, not being able to just do work on boring tasks that others seemingly do with a breeze without caring too much.
Just sharing my experience as it's extremely fresh in my mind and life, I'm still going through the acceptance that I might just have a brain that works in a different way. It's a little bit refreshing and relaxing while at the same time still making me think that I'm just faking it. That I'm actually just lazy, disorganised, etc. It's a strange feeling, like I'm gaslighting myself.
Only doing this investigation I discovered that my parents and siblings always saw these behaviours in me, my therapist interviewed them and the way they talk about me as a child ticked so many boxes. I might not be the cliche rowdy boy that never keeps quiet or stays put but I've always seek stimuli, I've never had a moment in my life where my mind was actually quiet.