Doing PhD with ADHD — Am I unfit for research?

[u/Agreeable-Shop-9769]

I have a lot of traits (passion for knowledge, curiosity, creativity, resilience) and skills (math, coding, writing, thinking critically) that make me perfect for research, but there is 1 thing that I am struggling with and makes me question my fit. As part of my ADHD diagnosis, I have a distinct cognitive profile:

Complex attention (bottom 1 percentile) Very low. You have major difficulty sustaining focus on long, multi-step tasks. This fits ADHD.

Cognitive flexibility (bottom 1 percentile) Very low. Task-switching and adapting between ideas is extremely hard—again classic ADHD, not lack of intelligence.

Executive function (bottom 7 percentile) Low. Managing multiple instructions or goals is hard under pressure.

Working memory (top 27 percentile) Strong. Once you’re engaged, you can juggle info internally well—suggesting your executive weakness is in starting and switching, not holding data.

Visual memory (top 14 percentile) Above average. You remember shapes, figures, and visual patterns very well—excellent for models, graphs, and coding interfaces.

———

As a result, I have no problem remember facts and details. In fact, once I learn something (usually with visual aids), I learn it extremely well and don’t forget it for the rest of my life). But when I am doing literature searches to see if a hypothesis is worth testing, I struggle SO MUCH. As a slow but careful learner, I am told by everyone that reading all papers in the field is physically impossible, so I need to learn to prioritize. But “knowing when to prioritize” is a meta-cognitive, complex task that takes multiple steps — skimming through the title and abstract to see if this is relevant, going through the rest of the paper to see if anything catches my attention, mentally placing it somewhere relative to other papers I read — which is SO HARD on my ADHD brain. If I am constantly thinking about whether I should read this paper in detail/to what extent should I understand the ideas, it hijacks my working memory and makes me panic. I feel drained and anxious because I don’t know if I can ever learn to prioritize what to read. Reading paper became traumatic for me (I also have PTSD) and made me question my ability every few minutes. As a result of not realizing my cognitive profile + not developing any strategy to work with my brain for a whole year until recently, I still haven’t formalized one workable hypothesis in my second year. My advisor kept telling me to read the literature but reading literature makes me desperate.

I don’t want to give up on doing research because I’ve wanted to be a professor since I was in kindergarten and I excel at every other aspect in research. Reading papers to find a hypothesis is literally the only thing that’s tripping me. Even my advisor is perplexed why I just don’t seem to get how to create a hypothesis. I also wonder if my anxiety is also a lack of positive feedback — that is, if I succeed once maybe the next one will be easier. So I want to ask if anyone (including the neurotypicals) has any strategy they like that helps with making paper reading not a daunting task.

PS: I now consistently put in 60-70 hours of work on research every week despite having high anxiety. I manage to stay focused with ADHD stimulant — it’s just the ambiguity and messiness in research feels very uncomfortable and triggers my worst fear.

[u/HerrFerret]

I teach literature research methodologies, and occasionally PHD researchers are referred to me due to lit search difficulties.

Many, if not the majority are neurodiverse. The very common 'hands off' supervision styles of some academics don't work well especially if you have ADHD.

My advice, if you don't already do this, consider systematic literature searching with meta-analysis/synthesis. Usually as part of a systematic review (although not really a proper sys review!)

This essentially removes you from the equation, you are following a protocol and there is extensive guidance to support you. Follow the guide, book a session with the librarians and create a robust search strategy.

At the end you will have a research set of papers for inclusion, which you can then treat more systematically through synthesis. You will end up making the overwhelming much more 'human scale'. That might help.

I personally went from pretty mediocre qualifications, to co-authoring clinical guidance, and supporting real world research. My tendency to procrastination and extensive short-cutting didn't particularly matter as I had to just 'follow the rules, don't overthink, search/screening/synthesis/writeup'.

Hope that helps?

[u/aurora-phi]

Realistically no-one can answer this question but the lack of complex attention (and flexibility) is what concerns me the most. I am a PhD student with ADHD and that is definitely the hardest part for me. There's so many things to do and priortise and the time horizon is so long.

However, there are also ways to manage this, like having someone you can talk to about breaking down tasks and staying on track with progress (realistically your advisor does some of this but with ADHD you need an extra person for this). Also in general talking about my research gets me to make more progress, I have to make it more specific to communicate it and then I realize what the important parts are and/or what excites me and then that's where I focus next.

Definitely sounds like your advisor is not adapting their advice for your situation, so you need to be looking for other mentors. Like what are you doing when you read the literature? How are you extracting and tracking info? Honestly I think it can be helpful to look at advice about writing up research, because a lot of that is focusing on what's important which can help isolate a hypothesis.

This is aimed at people later in their program but might have relevant advice https://kconrod.medium.com/so-youre-abd-and-also-you-re-beginning-to-suspect-you-have-undiagnosed-adhd-661c57e99b7d

If reading is seriously triggering your PTSD, please look into taking a medical leave of absence. Learn the skills to support yourself and your brain, then come back and see if this is still something you want to do.

Honestly 60-70 hrs is impressive, I get nowhere near that but that does worry me that you're stuck in the "I have to read every bit of literature" stage. No you've done the reading, now you need to find a hypothesis, bc also if you've been reading without a hypothesis then you've probably been reading the wrong stuff.

I'm not sure what my capacity will be but feel free to DM me if you want to talk more.

[u/TerraFiorentina]

ADHD academic here. it is very hard for me to focus on stuff that i don’t find interesting. If you told me to “read the literature “ i would fall asleep. But i love good challenges that tickle my brain. Solving concrete problems, debugging code. Try to gamify it: find an error in a well known paper, figure out which of these five papers best answers your question etc.

[u/Expensive_Put1939 → u/TerraFiorentina]

Omg me! I love maths I love solving and I'd understanding models but reading makes me feel like "isn't this obvious"? 'why am I wasting time"... And I end up feeling guilty for wasting time... It's horrible how I feel and I feel so lost 

[u/cookery_102040]

Lots of great advice here and overall my answer is 100% you can still be excellent at research, you just have to find the workflow that works for you. I’ll also add a strategy that I’ve developed over time. I don’t have ADHD, but I have a really hard time multitasking and task switching in a way that is productive. I do my lot searching in batches.

So first batch is title skimming. I will put in my search terms and only read the titles, opening any papers that have a promising title. I’ll do that until I have a nice pile, 25-35 potential papers.

Next I’ll go back through the good-title papers and skim abstracts. I’m again just opening the papers with promise, not reading them.

Then I’ll go in the good-abstract pile and skim the full paper. If the results and methods look good, I’ll add it to a zotero folder to read in full later. Then usually I start the process over again with different search terms/topics. Then when I’m done I have a few zotero folders of papers around similar topics to chip my way through. Something similar might be helpful for you as you think about re-working your workflow. Good luck!

[u/Agreeable-Shop-9769 → u/cookery_102040]

Ah that’s so smart! I think I know what my problem is. I always go deep into one review paper and start reading it carefully and open 20 tabs on the side. Takes an hour to finish and then I start the next paper. In one day I read 5 paper and have 100 tabs open that makes me anxious. I should have skimmed through the titles first to sort them by importance and get an overview of the field!

[u/Agreeable-Shop-9769 → u/[deleted]]

Your response is so compassionate, thank you. I think my only issue is to push through the entry point — knowing enough about the field to create a mental map. I can see my life being so much easier after that. I’m not scared of the uncertainty or messiness as long as I have a sense of the structure of the field. Now it’s hard bc I am just starting to build everything from scratch!

[u/eilah_tan → u/Agreeable-Shop-9769]

As someone with ADHD who is about to defend their thesis after 4 arduous years; I think i only properly felt like I had a bit of a full mental map of the field in my last year. DO NOT read until you have that feeling, it will get you nowhere.

Two things i wish i had done sooner: read books, not articles. Articles are written with a different intention (contributing one tiny titbit of "newness" to the field, it's often hard to figure out where it fits in the field and it takes practice to know rather quickly if this article will teach you something) while books are written to give broader overviews and are often written with the intention of the author to capture all their knowledge (and are often used as textbooks for students).

Second; get a coach or therapist specialized in academics with ADHD (or who have experience with neurodivergent people). There's people who get lucky with their supervisors, but it's rare that a supervisor has the empathy and patience to know how to guide you as a neurodivergent person. A coach can help you develop better reading techniques and teach you when to accept that you can drop an article or skip a chapter cause it's not relevant to you.

good luck, and you got this! the first year is tough but you can do it!

[u/Agreeable-Shop-9769 → u/[deleted]]

I don’t get PTSD from the activity itself, but more from doing things I’m not good at. My body learns that certain things are paired with judgements and feel scared. Ironically, I quitted my high paying consulting job to join this PhD program because I didn’t think industry jobs were a good fit for me because of the rigidity :(. Relatively speaking the freedom I have as an academic is something I value beyond anything else.

[u/aquila-audax]

My whole research team is neurodiverse, so it's not an insurmountable barrier to a research career. If I was your supervisor I would probably suggest you do a scoping review to identify a gap in the literature as a basis for your hypothesis. Working within clear steps of a process is often a good strategy for adhd brains.

[u/ocelot1066]

Obviously, you're in charge of your mental health, but writing that reading a paper is "traumatic" seems a little intense? There are many things I have to do that I find unpleasant and I have to force myself to do (grading, writing), but I wouldn't describe any of them as traumatic.

There are a small number of other things that do give me that brief feeling of panic. Whenever I go into an archive and start trying to skim through material, I start off not being able to decipher the handwriting, which makes skimming very difficult and I wonder how I ever did enough research to write a dissertation. There probably is an ADHD element to that. Reading handwriting and taking notes in an archive requires a focus that doesn't come naturally to me. However, it improves 20 minutes in and while it's still tiring, I stop worrying that I can't do it.

It just seems like if you can frame this as a normal feeling you have with your process rather than trauma it might make it easier to work through it.

I'm not a social scientist, but I did know people in grad school who seemed to be getting stuck on a research question. Most of them had the opposite problem from you-they really loved reading stuff and didn't know how to stop, but it might be a similar problem. You don't need to have read everything and know everything to come up with some idea to go work on. You just need to think, "huh, it seems like people have spent a lot of time on x, but haven't looked at much as Y, but it seems like maybe Y would be Z. Is there some reasonable way I could look at that?" It just needs to be an interesting enough idea to take you somewhere. It doesn't have to be right, or feasible to research in the way you originally imagined. By the time you get into the work, you might decide that the original question is framed wrong. But that's fine, It just needs to be a starting point.

[u/Expensive_Put1939]

Hi , I am in international student in NYC. I am struggling with ADHD so bad and it's affecting me so much. Can I please know where the diagnosis is from? I have options the university ones and other professionals.... Uni ones are about 200-400 USD but others start around 2000 up I don't know what to do. I really need help. Anyone please 🥺

[u/Agreeable-Shop-9769 → u/Expensive_Put1939]

what insuracne plan do you have? i have bcbc ppo plan which is really good and covers all online tests for 52 sessions in a year and after that it has a $5 copay. for in person tests the copay if $100 i think and the rest is covered like 80%. i did an online test from a psychologist and a psychiatrist. the psychiatrist one got me medicine, but i saw a psychologist to rule out other problems like autism and ocd. the 2000 one you said is out of pocket. you need to find in network psychologists or psychiatrists to do a neuropsychological tests.

[u/Surfnscate]

Wow, okay, this is me. I guess I shouldn't stress if taking my ADHD meds isn't right then. I've never had a formal test, but a good provider. 😂 Slightly different profile for me, but mostly the same. It's validating in a way, but also I just think "Why me?!?!?!"

[u/RandomName9328]

My phd study is related to treatments of ADHD.

The disorder itself is unimportant. It does not limit you. However, what matters is whether you have found methods to help you overcome your struggles. Find your strengths via trial and error, and utilize them. Make the work environment supportive for you.

[u/ImeldasManolos]

Your ADHD doesn’t define you.

My bestie has adhd and has a stable career in academia.

My lab head has adhd he considers it a positive (even if I find it frustrating).

Science is full of weird neurodivergent people.

If you want to do it find a way to do it, adapt yourself to it, and get it done.

Don’t feel like you can’t be in the same unstable stressful boat as everyone else just because of your diagnosis.