Hi guys, I visit r/ADHD a lot because it’s my main diagnosis but I wanted to get some insight on how you guys deals with chronic overwhelm (TL;DR at bottom because this is a longer post). I’m diagnosed with ADHD-inattentive type and was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder in my teenage years. My psych evals from elementary school diagnosed me with “ADHD with obsessive-compulsive tendencies and preoccupation with worry”. I am take medication for my ADHD (Vyvanse 40mg daily) but have never been medicated for anxiety. I have been in long-term therapy for the last year and a half. Due to some of my past struggles with job/school performance, my anxiety mostly occurs when it’s related to “what I need to do/should be doing”. 

I use a bullet journal to keep a list of the things I need to do on a daily/monthly/someday-in-the-future basis. It helps me stay organized but it also puts me in a chronic state of overwhelm. I constantly reflect on how much I want to do in life and I feel like I’m always behind. My ADHD makes it difficult to start even short-term tasks so my long-term tasks usually end up getting put on the back burner. When I am able to start a task, my perfectionist tendencies make it difficult to finish them in any reasonable amount of time. So a month will go by and I’ll look back on my monthly “future goal” list and I just get completely overwhelmed because 75-85% of my monthly goals didn’t get done. 

I know there are a lot of factors here, some of it is probably me being too ambitious with my goals and not being realistic about the free time I have. On the other hand, I know I get easily distracted and I can throw away 4 hours no problem. Whether it’s with obvious time-wasters like video games, or “seemingly productive” tasks like writing the perfect email to a client. Either way, the results are the same in that I spend almost 100% of my day worrying and ruminating about what “should be doing”. These thoughts are conscious and I’m cognizant of them even while I’m engaging in a time-wasting activity watching (playing around on phone, Netflix, etc.). And because I take longer than the average person to complete basic tasks, my day usually ends with me berating myself for not doing what I set out to do. For example, I wanted to cook dinner tonight. I told myself all day I would cook. I played video games and played around on my phone while telling myself I needed to cook dinner for hours and never ended up making it. That is a typical day for me. Ruminating about doing a task while (seemingly) compulsively engaging in a time-waster, which ultimately leads to unhappiness and stress while doing the time-waster, leading to even more overwhelm, as well as regret and guilt/shame. Not very productive! 

I’m working on a lot of this in therapy which helps. Most of what we work on is behavioral and incorporating good habits i.e. good sleep, daily exercise, wait healthy, etc. which have all gotten better. I just can’t shake the constant feeling of chronic overwhelm and feeling like I’m always behind in my day-to-day and with my future goals. As I said before, I visit r/ADHD a lot but haven’t visited this subreddit very often and I’m just hoping to get some insight. Do you guys experience anxiety in this way as well? What have you guys found that helps with coping with these feelings? I’ve never been on anxiety meds but sometimes (more often than not) the overwhelm is so strong that it’s paralyzing. Any feedback or insight is appreciated 😌

TL;DR- ADHDer in therapy and chronically overwhelmed, mostly by seeing my “to-do” lists, to the point where it becomes paralyzing and I will waste time while simultaneously ruminating about the tasks that I should be doing instead. Looking for advice on how to cope with these feelings and not be as hard on myself for not having all of my “to-do’s” done. Interested in how medication has or hasn’t helped you guys with chronic overwhelm and if so which medications you found helpful (and not helpful).