Excessive daydreaming/wandering thoughts

What makes you think you don’t have ADHD? Have you been assessed against the diagnostic criteria by a skilled practitioner?

What you describe sounds exactly like cognitive hyperactivity, impulsiveness and salience-based focus to me - all of which are clinical pillars of ADHD. In fact, your description sounds like ‘common-all-garden’ ADHD. Straight up. ADHD is rarely dramatic, which is part of its insidious nature - it’s a chameleon.

You mention ‘repetitive thoughts’, which sounds like ‘repeated, intrusive thoughts regarding tangible things (real or forecast/predicted’ - in which case, yeah, impulsive, hyper-active mental activity. Very little hyperactivity is visible, and in fact the most disabling hyperactivity occurs between our ears. Never underestimate how much activity our brain conducts compared to our physical activity. It runs marathons everyday, so it’s the best organ for exerting dysfunctional levels of effort to drum up the dopamine concentration that is profoundly diminished in ADHD synaptic clefts.

You also state ‘once that structure is not in place, I have a very hard time being productive’, which sounds exactly like an ‘interest-based neurology’ to me - things of interest are prioritised upwards, in this case ‘daydreams’ (ie intrusive thoughts of things of interest, which takes us back to cognitive hyperactivity) and things of less interest (ie. work) are prioritised downwards. This is classic ADHD behaviour, absolutely endemic amongst our cohort. This is why we are the champions of the ‘last minute effort’ and are most motivated under pressure, or even duress - all of which absolutely is unified with the notion of ‘interest-based neurology’, ie as deadlines approach, mitigating the risk of receiving the impact arising from not completing the task bubbles up and eclipses our interest in other things. Our interest in not getting our arses kicked eclipses everything else and our focus on that interest motivates the effort to get it done. It’s interest, just not a healthy form of interest or most optimal for achieving quality outcomes.

I would recommend that you reassess yourself against DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. There is an extraordinarily effective self-report questionnaire that operationalises those criteria exquisitely - the Adult ADHD Self-Report Score ASRS-V1.1

That will nail it for you - do it and then get someone that you have lived with to review it with you. Be brutally honest whilst filling in answers. Take your time.

If you do come out of that with an indication that you do have ADHD, please don’t hesitate to submit for assessment, and if you do have ADHD do not hesitate to accept medical treatment for it. ADHD is a seriously impairing, literally dis-abling medical condition, and proper, fulsome medical treatment of it (ie with medication!) is utterly and wonderfully transformative - and that regulation of dopamine neurotransmitter circuitry can only be achieved reproducibly, day after day with the correct ADHD medication for the individual. ADHD medications are safe, they do work and no, ADHD is not a superpower. You only realise how much it sucks when you emerge from it, one of two positives to be found in it - it’s a gloriously dignifying experience to come out of it… and the gift that keeps on giving. When the individual is fulsomely dosed to match clinical need and dosing is complied with every day, the wonderful impact is not just realised in the short term - it develops in leaps and surges over many months. It’s literally the gift that keeps on giving.

Us Autists possess extraordinary abilities and talents, and ADHD smothers our ability to leave a superb trail of evidence of that. I hold it entirely separate from being Autistic - I love being Autistic, I am proudly Autistic… but you can take the ADHD, put it in a bin, burn it and keep repeating that cycle on its ashes.

What makes you think you don’t have ADHD? Have you been assessed against the diagnostic criteria by a skilled practitioner?

What you describe sounds exactly like cognitive hyperactivity, impulsiveness and salience-based focus to me - all of which are clinical pillars of ADHD. In fact, your description sounds like ‘common-all-garden’ ADHD. Straight up. ADHD is rarely dramatic, which is part of its insidious nature - it’s a chameleon.

You mention ‘repetitive thoughts’, which sounds like ‘repeated, intrusive thoughts regarding tangible things (real or forecast/predicted’ - in which case, yeah, impulsive, hyper-active mental activity. Very little hyperactivity is visible, and in fact the most disabling hyperactivity occurs between our ears. Never underestimate how much activity our brain conducts compared to our physical activity. It runs marathons everyday, so it’s the best organ for exerting dysfunctional levels of effort to drum up the dopamine concentration that is profoundly diminished in ADHD synaptic clefts.

You also state ‘once that structure is not in place, I have a very hard time being productive’, which sounds exactly like an ‘interest-based neurology’ to me - things of interest are prioritised upwards, in this case ‘daydreams’ (ie intrusive thoughts of things of interest, which takes us back to cognitive hyperactivity) and things of less interest (ie. work) are prioritised downwards. This is classic ADHD behaviour, absolutely endemic amongst our cohort. This is why we are the champions of the ‘last minute effort’ and are most motivated under pressure, or even duress - all of which absolutely is unified with the notion of ‘interest-based neurology’, ie as deadlines approach, mitigating the risk of receiving the impact arising from not completing the task bubbles up and eclipses our interest in other things. Our interest in not getting our arses kicked eclipses everything else and our focus on that interest motivates the effort to get it done. It’s interest, just not a healthy form of interest or most optimal for achieving quality outcomes.

I would recommend that you reassess yourself against DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. There is an extraordinarily effective self-report questionnaire that operationalises those criteria exquisitely - the Adult ADHD Self-Report Score ASRS-V1.1

That will nail it for you - do it and then get someone that you have lived with to review it with you. Be brutally honest whilst filling in answers. Take your time.

If you do come out of that with an indication that you do have ADHD, please don’t hesitate to submit for assessment, and if you do have ADHD do not hesitate to accept medical treatment for it. ADHD is a seriously impairing, literally dis-abling medical condition, and proper, fulsome medical treatment of it (ie with medication!) is utterly and wonderfully transformative - and that regulation of dopamine neurotransmitter circuitry can only be achieved reproducibly, day after day with the correct ADHD medication for the individual. ADHD medications are safe, they do work and no, ADHD is not a superpower. You only realise how much it sucks when you emerge from it, one of two positives to be found in it - it’s a gloriously dignifying experience to come out of it… and the gift that keeps on giving. When the individual is fulsomely dosed to match clinical need and dosing is complied with every day, the wonderful impact is not just realised in the short term - it develops in leaps and surges over many months. It’s literally the gift that keeps on giving.

Us Autists possess extraordinary abilities and talents, and ADHD smothers our ability to leave a superb trail of evidence of that. I hold it entirely separate from being Autistic - I love being Autistic, I am proudly Autistic… but you can take the ADHD, put it in a bin, burn it and keep repeating that cycle on its ashes.

Please can you post some links to any useful resources or information regarding the points you addressed? Just because I would like more information thanks