[follower]

> I was just inherently lazy and unfocused and needed to just "man up" and figure it out.

> [snip]

> there's an entire half of my being that is just screaming saying "it's not a real problem, other people have real problems, this is just something you need to get past already."

You're gonna laugh if you read one of the early case studies (about someone who thought similarly) in the book "Driven to Distraction" and come to the realization how typical that feeling & response is for people with ADHD (particularly the "Primarily Inattentive" variant). When I read the case study, my thought was: "Dammit, even my (stereotypical) objections suggest it's an accurate diagnosis!".

I'd really recommend the book--it's not perfect but it covers a lot of helpful ground.

My current explanation-by-way-of-analogy:

Having ADHD-PI is like running a marathon while wearing a pantomime horse suit, yes, running a marathon like that is hard for everyone but what you don't realize is that other people aren't running it while also having a broken leg. (And neither you nor they can tell there's a difference between the two of you because of the pantomime suit--hey, I didn't say this was a good analogy. :D )