Realising I May Have High-Functioning ADHD — Examples

This is a description of myself and the things I do that have given me clues that I may have what’s termed high-functioning ADHD (read about it there in WebMD).

I’m putting these notes down here because the clues didn’t seem important by themselves. But over time, they have built up a picture that’s hard to argue with.

I’m sharing them here, along with some examples and references, in case you relate to them and it helps you along your journey of understanding your brain and learning how to better appreciate yourself and play to your strengths.

General caveat: The below is my anecdotal personal experience. It’s not a self-diagnosis. Nobody should self-diagnose! But if they resonate with you, then they may help you build up a picture of needing a professional opinion.

My Symptoms of High-Functioning ADHD — In a Nutshell

Here’s a frank description of myself: I’m a pretty smart person with a wide range of interests. I quickly get bored in traditional environments (jobs, education). My mind always races. I tend to forget things unless I have many lists and reminders. I can get hyperfocused on things I’m interested in, and I enjoy very intense activities because they “drown out the noise”.

For most of my life, I’ve just thought I was an unusual person. I didn’t fit in in a traditional work environment (here’s an example of how that manifested), but concluded that I should therefore be an entrepreneur.

ADHD is the umbrella term for what used to be separated into ADD and ADHD. The “H” is for “Hyperactivity”, but people who are high-functioning (like me, and maybe you) tend to display some restraint — it’s socialised out of us.

I’m a self-confident, proactive person. I deal with my issues and mask others. I know that it’s rude to be late, so I’m punctual. I know it’s expensive to put off paying bills, so I pay them on time. I am forgetful, so I have lots of lists. I have checks and balances in place to deal with everything.

In other words, I don’t display the hyperactive tendencies, or I mask them well. I wait patiently for people to finish speaking, even though I really want to cut them off. So it’s not obvious that I, as an adult, have ADHD traits.

Still, I have thoughts and practices that I’ve realised recently are unusual. You might do and think things I’ve thought, like “I’m disorganised, so I have lists and systems for everything,” or “I enjoy crises when they’re not my own.” And I’m realising many of these are traits of ADD / ADHD.

Many of the below are interrelated. But they crop up in different parts of my life, so I’m mentioning them as it’s only when I put them all together that I realised something was going on.

“I’m Entrepreneurial Because I Hate Working for Other People”

I really struggled as an employee in my early years of working for big corporate (including Accenture and Bain & Co — more about my experiences at Bain here.)

Sure, I had jobs. Some of them were very good jobs. Top-tier management consulting is coveted, as is the opportunity to work in Silicon Valley tech firms.

I actually pursued management consulting because the idea of flitting between projects was appealing. No more than three months on average for a client or engagement? Sign me up!

But despite this, I found all my jobs so boring… I thought it was ridiculous that people could sit through meetings, write up presentations, and pretend that things were important. (Maybe some of this was justified.)

The majority of people could do it, though. I thrived in crises — I could solve other people’s problems. This is a classic ADHD trait — seeking out stress because it blocks out the “noise”.

I concluded some time ago that I’m better off working for myself — setting my own priorities, schedule, and plan. I thought this made me an entrepreneur — it does, I suppose, by default! Many entrepreneurs do have ADHD. But it could just as easily make me unemployed — as is the case for many with ADHD.

“Meetings are Boring”

This remark is uncontroversial. Many work meetings are objectively boring. Some superficial evidence of this is that kids don’t do them for fun, and adults tend to avoid them.

On its own, finding meetings (whether for work or study or whatever) boring is not an ADHD trait. It’s likely that the meetings are, objectively, boring. People with ADHD struggle to sit through situations where they’re not stimulated — but so do most people.

But then there are some that do sit through them without losing focus, needing to fidget or get up, or take a break. There are people who don’t dread meetings. There are people who call meetings, for example.

When I used to run meetings, I ran them like talk shows. If I remotely sensed someone getting bored, I’d consider it a failure. I ran a division called Retail while working at “Lyft”, and my meeting was the “Retail Hour of Power”.

It started out as a general blast-out update, but then I added in guests, jokes, crazy structures, colourful slides with funny pictures and diagrams, surprise twists, and anything else I could think of to keep it alive.

I’d cut it short the moment I ran out of material and I never let anything drag on.

In many ways, I ran what I thought was the only effective meeting in a giant company. I did it my way. But nobody else did it this way, and this is why I think of it as a “trait”.

“I Thrive in Crises”

The only kind of work I’ve ever been good at is what I think of as “other people’s problems”. I come alive in crises.

Aside from work, I enjoy other people’s crises in general — though they’re generally minor in nature (e.g. having to move house but having no time to get anything organised).

The wonderful thing about crises is that everything else diminishes in importance. I no longer have to work on that boring report or my expenses.

I remember when the COVID-19 Pandemic started. “Finally, something interesting is happening,” I thought. With respect to people who became ill or lost loved ones, at the beginning, I found it exciting to have things like curfews, border closures, and lockdowns. (The feeling quickly faded, of course.)

In some ways, ADHD can be helpful in a crisis. This article in Additude (which some people find problematic) suggests how people with ADHD are used to blocking out noise to try to do one thing. So when a situation requires them to, they’re adept at it.

Similarly, people with ADHD tend to be able to “hyperfocus” on things they’re interested in.

I realised the degree to which I had this ADHD trait when I saw this article and thought “That’s me.”

The story was more about anxiety than ADHD. But many of the comments in the Reddit thread about it were from people who had similar reactions and who have ADHD.

“I’m forgetful and naturally disorganised, so I have lists and systems for everything.”

I used to forget things, lose things, and so on. I still have recurring dreams (though less frequently) about an exam I’ve forgotten.

Having systems for everything is a typical ADHD trait. I got punished for being disorganised — I paid fines, failed exams, or had to do extra apologising. I got tired of it, so I started over-managing my life to compensate.

I have lists for so many things it’s crazy. I have lists for

• Going to the gym. I go to the gym nearly every day. But if I don’t consult my list, I’ll almost definitely forget something crucial like my mouthguard.

• Packing. I packed regularly for trips (I used to travel every 2 weeks roughly for work).
• Going on motorcycle rides. There are lots of tiny details, like earplugs, a battery charger, and even a snack. I have, again, a long checklist to make sure that it all goes smoothly.

It actually blows my mind that people can do these things without lists or a “getting things done” system. But apparently, most people do.

“I Set Reminders for Reminders”

Similar to the above, when I have a meeting, I’m so paranoid about missing it that I set reminders above and around it. I’ll block out hours beforehand saying “YOU HAVE A MEETING!!” to make sure that I’m not just present at the meeting, but that hours beforehand, I don’t decide to spontaneously do something else.

Other people with ADHD set multiple alarms or reminders/alarms in different areas to make sure they don’t miss one.

“I hate watching talk shows, concerts, and sports”

I have this weird feeling whenever I see talk shows and sports: I don’t want to watch a bunch of people joking around. I want to be up there on stage making silly jokes with Jon Stewart or having banter with Jerry Seinfeld (I’m of that generation).

And similarly, if I watch sports, I just feel restless… I want to play the sports, not watch others do it! I want to jam with people in a concert, not watch others play and have all the fun.

I can explain these things to myself and they make sense. But I look at packed stadiums and the popularity of talk shows and I realise that I’m perhaps in a minority.

“I watch movies in parts, taking breaks of a day or more between viewings.”

Left to my own devices, I do something that infuriates my partner and baffles my friends — I never (or rarely) watch a movie in one sitting.

I love to get up, think about it, google things about it, and come back and enjoy it more another day. I find absolutely no problems with that. The first time I noticed I really liked doing this was watching Lord of the Rings, which I found too boring to watch all in one shot. But it’s not the only one.

Similarly, I never binge-watch shows. I would rather dose it out over time. I also just find it far too much sitting in one spot doing “nothing”.

“I like intense sports because I can tune the world out.”

This last one was the straw that broke the camel’s back and urged me to get a diagnosis.

I’ve previously written that I like jiu jitsu and related combat sports like boxing and Muay Thai.

I have similar attractions to things like motorcycles and surfing. These are hard sports that need a lot of attention or things can go drastically wrong.

It clicked for me that attraction to intense sports could be an ADHD trait one day when I saw a comment on Reddit about riding motorcycles.

This is how I feel. When riding, I think of everything as something trying to hurt me or damage my motorcycle. I’m hyper-focused. Sometimes I put on music to go into a flow state (something I try to encourage in my everyday life), otherwise I risk losing focus and doing something silly.

When at the gym and doing something intense in a group — including combat sports, but also CrossFit or group classes where I can’t use a phone — I get a “break” from my brain. When someone’s sitting on me with all their weight and trying to kill me or break a limb, there’s no time to think about anything other than how to get out of this predicament. This is why jiu jitsu is one of my happy places.

The struggle with classes is focusing on the instructional part. When there’s a long sequence of moves, I have to employ tricks to make sure I follow along, like mimicking the movements.

Conclusion

The above things are hints that I may have ADHD. They’re by no means a diagnosis. They’re just suggestions that I need to get a referral and then a diagnosis by a professional.

There are other factors, of course, that are indicators that I may not have ADHD, but just may be easily distracted for a variety of other reasons. For example, I quit social media and my productivity skyrocketed, as did my emotional well-being.

Still, if the above resonate with you, and especially if you have other hints that there may be ADHD in your life (e.g. diagnoses in your immediate family members), then it may be worth investigating further.