Struggling as EM - Undiagnosed ADHD?

Being an EM is the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted. I thought I just needed to push through it and learn new skills, but it’s been a few years, and most days I’m still overwhelmed, completely stressed out, and feel like I’m trying to keep my head above water—despite having learned an awful lot.

Some friends recently asked me if I’ve ever been diagnosed with ADHD, and I’ve been shocked to realize the symptoms describe me very well. I didn’t realize hyper-focus and terrible time management were common symptoms. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m only on Blind to procrastinate on my taxes for another hour or two until I have no choice but to buckle down and get them finished.

I was a developer for over a decade, and while I faced the occasion stressful project timeline, overall I felt very competent. Managers and clients were happy with my performance, and I don’t recall stress being a regular part of my day. I thrived on focusing on 1-2 large projects at a time (and some lower priority bugs and tech debt for variety).

As a manager, I have 4-5 meetings a day, and it utterly drains me. I feel chronically behind. The context switching is overwhelming, and I feel like a bottleneck for my team, despite delegating wherever possible. I don’t feel like I have control, and my poor ability to estimate project timelines is a frequent point of frustration for the business. But I think I’m actually good at mentoring and developing the people I manage. I think I add a lot of value reviewing and signing off on our system design and making sure we didn’t miss anything — when I’m not too stressed out to do those things well.

I’ve tried to explain to my boss that I need to be able to work on fewer things at a time to be able to do well at them, and the feedback I’ve received is multi-tasking comes with the territory.

I don’t take ADHD medication. I have some good friends who do, and I don’t like the impact it’s had on them. They don’t see the negatives, but I see how it’s changed their personalities, and I don’t want to go down that road.

My question is whether others with ADHD have found a way to be effective in this type of role that requires the ability to estimate timelines and deal with frequent interruptions or if I’d be better suited at switching back to a staff role. My ability to hyper-focus used to be my secret weapon. I’ve pulled off 14-hour days and 60-80 hour weeks as a developer with ease and been credited with saving critical projects. By contrast, I can barely get through a 4-5 hour day today. I suspect the problem is I no longer have the time to hyper focus. Music was also a regular part of my day and helped me hyper focus right up until starting this role. Without music and the ability to focus, I feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle.

I thought I just needed to suck it up and try harder. After learning about ADHD, now I wonder if I’m just in the wrong role.

Thoughts?

15 yoe, $250k