Okay @creative_writer I wanna be careful not to over-identify with your story cos it's not my place to say whether you do or don't have ADHD - that is your journey.
But also HI YEP THAT SOUNDS LIKE ME 😅
Something my ADHD friends and I have often spoken about is how intense and speedy our thoughts are! It's why we end up on so many conversational tangents, cos everything reminds us of other stuff and then our brains are like ZOOP time to introduce a seemingly random topic! And same goes for working better with structure! If I don't have structure around me I fall to pieces. Like if I'm asked to finish a form or something at work, and I don't have a deadline already, I have to ask for one or I will never get stuff done!
"People tell me I am intelligent, but I always feel like I’m underperforming." Big mood! There's another questionnaire (worth doing, but it's a lot longer and goes into questions about childhood and stuff) called the DIVA 2.0. It asks a lot of questions about performance at school, and in that section I scored really low, cos I did pretty well in high school. But then there was a question that was along the lines of, 'Was your school performance adequate due to high intelligence?' or something like that. Like I barely studied, but I got decent grades - and then that came back to bite me later cos I never developed good study skills/habits and I know that if I had, I would've gotten a way higher ATAR.
For the record, all of our interactions are evidence enough to me of your high intelligence. Just sayin'.
I hadn't done anything nice for myself yet this evening, but I appreciate the prompt, cos now I think I will - gonna have my last hot choccie and settle in with a book after I log off. So I much appreciate your words, and wish the same for you 💜
