Sleep issues can cause ADHD-like symptoms. But ADHD also often causes sleep issues, too. Have a read of this article.

For what it’s worth, I have diagnosed and medicated inattentive ADHD. I also have a small farm. I have never once been bored with it; in fact, if anything, I feel like I struggle so hard to make sure that everything gets done to my level of satisfaction. I get our chickens fed each day, my partner cares for the bees, and the dog gets two chunks of time outside to play fetch a day. But the garden is only ever half-weeded. If I feel anything, it’s panic over how much time it takes me to do things and a constant feeling of drowning splitting my time between the farm, my kids, my day job, community, and social responsibility.

I also have learned that I CANNOT go sit on the couch after I get my eldest child to sleep. If I do, the multifaceted tentacles of YouTube will grab me and I will wind up trying to operate on 4 hours of sleep too.

All this to say – ADHD experiences vary wildly, but they often rhyme. A lot of the folks in here are saying ‘yep, your symptoms sure do rhyme.’ Take that as you will :)

As another eng, let me suggest two things:

1. Macrodroid can be configured to announce the hour every hour:

I find that helps me a ton.

2. Consider looking at getting a “Time Timer”. They are a little pricey for what they are but they a) move the alarm from digital – which is a mental space for me – to physical, and that seems to matter for my noticing it; and b) seems to be the only commonly available timer that ticks in a way that matches an analog clock, which allows you to align it with the current clock and see the hour burn down in front of you.

If you find something that helps you avoid “well… What’s 15 minutes more? This would feel good to be done…”, let me know. I’m now very aware of how much time I’m spending on shits and giggles.

Eleftrons.

I understand the temptation for snark, but if you’re going to snark, I suggest that “here is how I googled it for you” is a better response, wherein you explain the terms you chose and how you selected the most pertinent result.

Definitely more work, but even if the OP is infuriating, there are people who will find the answer in the future, and who would benefit from the explanation of something that might be obvious to us but not them.

To add one thought that others haven’t mentioned, inattentiveness to the early warning signs of volatility in the moods of others can often leave us suddenly surprised when others express emotions such as anger or frustration or irritation.

For me at least – and I have friends who say the same – this often leads to codependent people-pleasing behaviour because these emotions and situations catch us off guard and can make us fearful of finding ourselves in such a position. As a result, we might develop a maladaptive pattern of pre-emptive management of the feelings of the people around us, where instead we might just learn to accept being uncomfortable, or develop boundaries around the culpability we accept for the circumstances leading to others’ moods. In friends who have had abusive or unsafe childhoods, the maladaptive pattern seems especially pronounced because it’s an important part of survival.

What this looked like for me before a butt-ton of therapy is that I felt stressed when anyone around me started to express any negative emotion, but even before then, I was orienting my behaviour to give attention to the more volatile people in my life as a top priority. My task selection wasn’t really focused on achieving my goals most times, but on doing things that others wanted–or things I perceived others wanted or needed–in order to make sure their days went well and any potential bad emotion dissipated before it got very strong.

For instance, if my (perfectly loving and kind, but ‘normal range of human emotions’-having) wife had a bad day at work, I might come home, make them their favourite meal, make up their bed, and then watch a show with them until they fell asleep.

And on the surface, sounds nice! Sounds like caring! But it’s done primarily out of fear, not out of caring. There is caring in there, no doubt in my mind, but it’s not the first motivator.

And I’ve seen this pattern play out in me in different contexts and in different ways… with my wife, with my kids, my parents, and in the community; in hovering, fawning, in leaping to ‘be useful’…

I think over time, this sort of behaviour leads to an external focus that does make you feel like your job is to help everyone. Throw in a soupçon of impulsivity and then you’re telling strangers in the grocery store that the bouillon cubes they’re looking at are on sale at the store across the street.

Therapy’s helped. It’s such an ingrained pattern for me that I fall back to it and it’ll be my life’s work to remember that I’d rather act out of true love and kindness rather than fear of discomfort.