I appreciate that - exactly this is something I’ve been working on, and a lot of the time it’s fairly successful. But this is the ADHD curse - it’s all too easy to feel rejected and lonely because on this occasion I have no plans with anyone. The negative thoughts manage to persist much longer than the positive.

The Now always takes precedence, always dominates.

Happy belated birthday! That sucks - I know. I’ve been struggling this weekend with that perpetual loneliness. I have friends in this city, live with several in fact, but all too often when the weekend comes around everyone has made plans without me and I’m sitting at home on a Saturday night watching shows. It’s easy to interpret it as a judgement on myself, that I’m somehow not sufficient ( which I did for years before my diagnosis). It’s still not easy, and if I had an answer for you on how to deal with it I’d be a much happier person.

I try to let it just wash past me, accept that we have different patterns which often leaves these large gaps. With a couple of major exceptions, I’ve learned the only people I can rely on socially are other ND folk - and we’re infamously flaky to start with!

I can’t really offer advice, but know that you’re not alone, it’s not just you.

When it hit me, it hit me like a truck. I was diagnosed around 35, and after bouncing through the relief, euphoria, and anger (pretty much as OP described them) I was hit with a crushing sense of loss - I literally felt as though someone close to me had died - but who? I was fortunately in therapy as part of my diagnosis, and it took the doctor to say “Who died? You did.” for me to understand. The person I lived my entire life as had ceased to exist - that was a very unhappy person, constantly struggling, constantly suffering for reasons they couldn’t see. But it was me, and now they were gone. It was a brutal experience, but it gave me the freedom to start redefining my life.

This all rings incredibly familiar to me. I was diagnosed a couple of years ago, mid 30s. Like you, I didn’t want to be labelled, I was skeptical of medication, of being judged or ostracised.

But the liberation of learning that I wasn’t broken, wasn’t useless and lazy, that there was a reason for all of the things tearing me apart every day, was indescribable. Just getting the diagnosis did so much for my outlook and approach to life.

And the meds. I took the first baby dose and it was like the sun came out for the first time in 30 years. They didn’t make me ‘normal’, didn’t take away any part of my ‘self’, it was more like opening valves in my mind which had never been more than a quarter open before. Ever drive a car with a couple of cylinders not firing? Get those sparkplugs replaced and see what it does. Full throttle is amazing.

I don’t tell people I have a diagnosis unless I think it’s relevant. But I can be more honest and open about my peculiarities than I could before - and noone cares! Diagnosis, medication, these are between you and your doctor. But if it gives you the freedom to live the way you want, it’s all worth it.

Oh and as mentioned below, rock climbing/bouldering is fucking great. Go hang out at a gamified problem solving gym and you will exercise til you wish you could make yourself stop.

My method for hacking my brain is wakeup exercise. Finding a short exercise which I can do faster than I can talk myself out of it. I started with 5 pushups. That’s all. A tiny number, 10 sec exercise which I do as I get out of bed in the morning.

The important part is not to “push the envelope” or whatever. The amount of exercise should be small enough that it doesn’t bother you. And only do the exercise today. Don’t think about yesterday, don’t think about tomorrow. You only have to exercise once. Today. Easy. 10sec, 30sec, whatever. Then move onto whatever weird and cool shit you wanna do with the rest of your day knowing that you have exercised.

I feel like I’m cheating, cos it’s so simple yet so effective. I now do a lot more than 5 pushups, but the concept hasn’t changed.

Plus one to this - I bought one of these early this year and it's a gamechanger. I take my keys everywhere, and I can fit a day's worth comfortably.

Absolutely. I casually drop symptoms and behaviours into conversation all the time with no indication it is anything other than "just the way I am". Noone ever blinks an eye.

Telling them I eat a bucket of pseudo-amph every day just so I remember to eat my lunch would be something else.

This is a very subjective and personal choice - I have only shared with select friends and family members - those I trust to be respectful. I have not told my work/colleagues, because I don't think it's relevant to them. If that changes, I may change my mind. Most importantly, share it when and where you are comfortable. It's your truth, don't feel pressured to share for the reasons or interests of others.

The latest versions of Aurora store have a setting to automatically search in the browser which evades the playstore-side rate limiting. It’s a little annoying, but that’s on playstore, not aurora.