u/Free-Bad-8106

I’m wondering if I could ask them to get paired with someone like an adhd coach, a clinical psychologist or someone who focuses on adhd.

If not, I’ll just pay myself privately but thought on off chance it might be work exploring.

Edit. I want to get therapy to deal with adhd not specifically for work. I’m only mentioning EAP via work as it’s 6 free sessions you can avail of. What you discuss doesn’t need to be work related. I realise my mentioning work in the title might have confused things! It’s therapy I’m looking for but not related to work. I’m wondering if anyone used EAP specifically for adhd.

I’m F36, recently diagnosed with ADHD, and I’m finally looking back at my past with a clear (but frustrated) perspective. I have this soul sucking pattern of locking myself away to achieve things, and it feels like a nightmare I can’t escape.

• Final Year of School: I literally locked myself away for a full year. I barely left the house. I stopped living. I gained weight, my social life disappeared, and I was consumed by the "need to study." I did all that sacrifice... and I still got below-average grades. Despite feeling smart.
• Final Year of College/Thesis: The exact same thing happened. Another full year where my entire life fell by the wayside just so I could focus on my thesis. I was consumed by research and prep, trapped in my house, and I still did poorly.
• (This past week) Now at Work: I just spent 7 days staying up until 1 AM, working weekends, and "strapping myself to the chair" for a presentation. I did okay in the end, it was fine, but the panic and shutdown were identical to those years I lost.

It feels like my brain requires me to be a major hermit"to function, but even when I sacrifice everything, my health, happiness, time, I still don’t get the results that others get with 1/10th of the effort. I know that more time doesn't = better results, but i feel trapped to do anything else.

My questions for the community:

1. Is this kind of thing i.e. locking yourself away a known ADHD coping mechanism / a form of extreme Executive Dysfunction?
2. How do you stop the Panic Mode from being the only way you know how to work?
3. How do I stop feeling like I have to imprison myself just to produce average results?

It’s a real nightmare and I’m exhausted! Any advice or similar stories would mean the world.