In our recent survey on how you live with your ADHD, we asked the community: In which part of your life do you feel ADHD affects you most?
Let's just keep in mind: When reading the results, we might immediately think about all the difficult situations where ADHD can play a role, but the answers could possibly also reflect the positive sides of ADHD like hyperfocus and creativity at work.
The Top 5 answers are headed by 29% for "Keeping up with the household" – an overwhelming result in any sense of the word! We can probably see it all in front of us: The daily hustle of keeping the house clean and tidy, doing the laundry, running errands, and preparing dinner. Day after day. It can be hard and boring, even more with ADHD. We totally understand (and have therefore built an app to get stuff done)!
"ADHD in the workplace" goes 2nd with almost 18% of the answers. Combined with "ADHD in school" (7%) that's again an impressive number of 25% of the community being affected most by ADHD symptoms during the longest part of their day. Relatively high university drop-out and unemployment rates among ADHDers are most probably correlated to these personal experiences. Therefore, finding the right workplace that allows for individual accommodations is so important.
"Self esteem" with 13% and "Self care" with 10% are probably closely connected to the before-mentioned answers. Having difficulties to reach your own goals and getting stuff done eventually lowers self-esteem. Not to mention all those comments on not keeping up with our productivity-driven society. Taking good care of yourself in such a situation can feel like another burden to carry.
Social aspects don't seem to be the biggest pain points for the community according to their answers. "Family", "Friendships" and "Romantic relationships" have been the least popular answers, ranging between 1% and 3%. That's really good to hear assuming that most of the community manages to surround themselves with people who don't judge but take us just the way we are.
In our survey, the community shared their statements too.
We were asking: What do you wish the people around you would understand and respect about your ADHD?
One participant responded: "That just because I seemed successful doesn’t mean I didn’t have it - I was working twice as hard as others did and it burned me out."
By sharing these community statements, we hope we can encourage you to find your own way with ADHD as well. So that one day it will be less of a challenge and more of a superpower.
What do think about these results, do you agree with the way the community responded? What are some take-aways for you? Let us know on Instagram!