Any Women out there, over 50 with ADHD and Fibro or ME/CFS?

[PallasKat]

I'm 57 years old. I have had moderate ME/CFS and Fibro for 10 years. It is severe enough that I can't work, mostly because my unpredictable brain-fog causes me to make careless mistakes and to be incredibly forgetful. I'm also unable to sustain my attention on most things for more than an hour without becoming absolutely exhausted.

However, I do become hyper-focused when I paint or create any kind of artwork. Doing artwork feels so much more gentle on my brain. (The only problem with the hyper-focus is the resulting neck pain, headaches and back pain from sitting too long).

Recently a psycho-therapist of mine suggested that I may also have undiagnosed ADHD.

I've done some study, mostly via the ADDitude website (https://www.additudemag.com/). I now suspect that I may have had ADHD all my life. I am now looking to be formally diagnosed by a specialist in or near NYC.

Are there any other women (or AFAB), here on the forum who have ADHD along with ME/CFS or fibromyalgia?

If so, I would love to hear from you: how you cope? Are you are able to work? Do you treat your ADHD with medication? Do you treat your ADHD with other therapies?

Thank you so much in advance
P-Kat

 

[bradipa]

Hello P-Kat,
I am 49, have had me/cfs for 15 years, progressing, since I never fully recover from any major crash. I haven't been able to work for eleven years now because of the me/cfs symptoms. But until this year I still managed to take care of my daughter, who is now age 10.

I am not diagnosed with ADD (I never felt up to that), but I do have aunts, uncles, cousins who are diagnosed ADD or ADHD, and I guess it would be easy for me to get the formal diagose. Or at least it would have been before it all got more complicated with me/cfs.

I have always had trouble keeping focus, remembering things and organizing tasks, but before I got ill I have been able to compensate enough to keep functioning in my job (at a high level) and around the house (not that well). Hyperfocus actually did a great thing for me, because it often allowed me to show results others considered unconventional or outstanding, which earned me the respect of my colleagues and chefs and made them accept or tolerate other things.

I find coping got harder with my me/cfs progressing, mainly because
- Hyperfocus makes it awfully hard to stop certain activities in time and by this makes pacing realllly hard
- I need an eternity to get something organised or done, yet I usually have to go lie down after 10 to 20 minutes of activity. That may be just about the time I need to get my ideas clear about how exactly to approach a certain task and get me started. So there are lots of little and bigger projects lying around here unfinished, including important ones like things that need to be done in order to get financial support.
- My old coping mechanisms don't work anymore, because I don't have enough time and energy to apply tem.

Before, I had always simply thought of it as my way of functioning, and while it sure made some things difficult for me, it helped me in others.