ADHD

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24080795

good news; they've actually got my referral!

But info that might be relevant for people here; they're currently processing referrals made in July 2024, which from my last call seems to mean they're working them down at a little less than one month, per month.

Otherwise they're supposedly one of the faster RTC providers so still consider them if you're in England!

Regular reminder that being an asshole is not a symptom of any form of neurodivergence. (You can replace “neurodivergent” with depressed, anxious, bipolar, etc. and the diagram works equally well)

ETA: social faux pas, awkwardness, and genuine symptoms of neurodivergence don’t make you an asshole. I shouldn’t have to say this? An “asshole” is someone who enacts a pattern of abusive, controlling, harassing, and/or harmful behavior with no remorse or concern for how other people are affected.

Sorry for the long post

I was diagnosed when I was 2nd or 3rd grade, I don’t really remember. I never struggled too much when I was in school, I struggled a lot with getting things turned in on time but I was lucky enough to have pretty understanding teachers so I always had decent enough grades. I’ve always been good at accomplishing and finishing things when other people were involved and wanting me to complete those tasks, like in a school or work environment where there’s people above me that expect something from me.

But now I’m 20 years old, I’m out of school, and have been out of a job for months. I’ve been trying to work on my own projects, mostly a YouTube channel and a website, some things like that, and along side some general house work tasks (laundry, emptying my cats litter box, etc) that’s pretty much all my responsibility at the moment while I’m looking for a job. Sometimes I have moments where I really “lock in” and get a lot done, and even outside of that I tend to get by well enough, but it usually comes with really strong and prevalent moments of feeling like “I’m not doing enough” or “this task I’m doing isn’t productive enough”, and I just hate myself for having any moment where I’m not 100% busy or dedicated to something.

I’ve tried a lot of different methods, making task lists so that I can see everything and make sure it gets done, I’ve spent a lot of time journaling and organizing my thoughts in obsidian which I think has helped me visualize some things better and see my priorities, and even asking other people to check in on me so I can have some kind of person relying on me to complete these tasks like I did in work and school situations, but it all usually comes down to me not holding myself accountable and being too lenient with myself, which is a hard thing to correct. I’ll eventually ignore my task list or not even add anything to it and things like that. I’ve also found my friends or whoever I ask to check on me to be unreliable and inconsistent so that doesn’t work.

I feel like I just live a constant cycle of starting things and abandoning them because I struggle so much with getting things done and staying dedicated. I guess I was just wondering if anyone else could relate to this struggle, and this way I’m feeling, and if anyone has any good suggestions or methods that have helped them.

First of all, I am not certain I have ADHD. I do recognize myself in a lot of attitudes, hardships and little things, and it's impacted my life for too long now.

I can't afford to go on like this anymore. Who should I go to? How long does it take for me to recieve a diagnosis and how expensive will it be? If I'll have to take meds, for how long and how expensive are they in your experience?

Thank you all in advance

This is something that's been frustrating me to no end recently as I've had a ton of time over the holidays to do whatever I want. I have a dozen half beaten games and half watched tv shows that I really should just finish but idk why I just can't stick to one thing until it's done and then move on to the next like a normal person.

Hi friends, I'm 36 and recently just discovered what ADHD actually is, and am waiting for a consultation/diagnosis from a psychologist (a few more weeks on the wait list I think).

Apologies for the long post, but I'm working through some shit and feel the need to share here.

Anyways, as Ive been processing what having ADHD might mean for my life, Ive been having some incredible "aha!" moments about areas of my life where I feel significant amounts of shame for coming up short.

The one that I'm having now, which I'm very curious to know if anyone has also experienced, is an extreme amount of frustration and stress when my spouse starts "task stacking" with me. She'll ask me to do something around the house, or with our kiddo, and then while I'm in the middle of doing that thing, she'll ask me to do another second thing, and then a third, and so on until either all of the tasks are finished or I politely ask her to stop piling work onto my plate.

Relatedly, when we were dating we would spend a lot of time hiking together and its where we got to know each other a lot. However once we got married I began to really dread the days when we went hiking together. My thoughts on this now are that, we would have to wake up super early (which sucks but isnt a deal breaker in itself), but my wife would spend the entire morning in a whirlwind of task stacking, talking to fast to understand, and then have an unbreakable rigid "get out the door" time. Once we were in the cat to go hiking, I was a complete wreck of feeling exhausted and beaten down. I never had any of these frustrations or dread of hiking before we lived together.

This ended up in me coming to the conclusion that maybe I really don't like hiking at all (which I'm starting to suspect is not actually true), and then fighting back on planning days to go hiking (planning is another massively shameful kryptonite of mine, but that's another story). She's also silently blamed me quite a lot for taking away something that she really loved doing together, and I've felt this existentially deep shame about "false advertising" for myself while dating as an adventurous spirit, only to turn into a massive homebody once we got married.

Essentially, I'm starting to realize that many of the things that have caused me deep shame and cost me insane amounts of relational capital in my marriage might actually just be symptoms of ADHD.

Can anyone else here validate whether or not these sound like ADHD symptoms you've experienced and, if so, whether or not those symptoms have been helped by medication?

Fuck. Was I always supposed to be able to get to sleep inside of ten minutes? What do you mean my attention is supposed to be like a searchlight that follows my eyes, and I'm not supposed to look through things? Why are all these objects in a pile distinct entities? I thought I had to use the 'search' function to return random loot from the pile? Why aren't these random background noises filling me with a steady, seething rage?

Heya guys.

So I read that we may be vitamin B deficient and that supplementing may help our neurology, and help avoid dementia in later life.

I’ve tried a few times, but every time I take a supplement I wake up in the night with my brain feeling like I have drunk too much alcohol.

So I assume that’s actually harmful.

Anyone got a similar experience?

Here's the Youtube playlist I'm asking for suggestions for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oYs_hSlfy0&list=PL7An5prMHt-DqZdOv8jmIl0p-wS3eNgZ2

So what videos would you recommend?

i will talk to my doctor about this of course but just wanted to collect my thoughts and seek out some other experiences before my next appointment. Sorry for such a long post, I guess the TLDR is I'm not sure if I lack the ability to focus enough to have ADHD.

Since I got the results i have been reading and listening to a lot of stuff about adhd. One thing I am pretty sure of is, if I do have ADHD it is the "inattentive" type, not the "hyperactive" type. Even so I am still quite conflicted about whether or not I actually have it at all. I’ll read one article and think “that’s TOTALLY me, I definitely have ADHD”. For example, I have really struggled with these things since middle school at least (i am 40 so trying to think back before high school is a bit fuzzy):

• Severe motivation deficit/procrastination, particularly for tedious tasks and long-term projects
• poor long term planning/project management (even gives me some anxiety just thinking about)
• poor long term time perception (like I’ll intend to think about and purchase Christmas gifts, but then it’s too late)
• Not great attention to detail, and I feel like I can sometimes jump to conclusions
• Some trouble finishing “last 5%”
• poor sleep hygiene. i actually fall asleep and stay asleep fine but it’s hard for me to put myself to bed at a good time and wake up in the morning. mornings have been hell my entire life.

But then I go read something else and think “hm that does not sound like me at all”. For example I am reading the book How to ADHD, and in it she says:

According to Hallowell, if you, an attention-challenged person, abandon all the distractions of modernity, go live on a farm, and finally find peace, you don’t have ADHD. If, instead, you show up to the farm and get so bored you decide to build a carnival—congratulations, you are one of us.

Like... I would absolutely not have the energy or motivation to build anything like a carnival. I would of course occupy myself with other things, I guess reading or playing guitar or listening to music, but isn’t that basically normal? I’m just not sure how to interpret this. Is this more applicable to "hyperactive" people, maybe not so much for "inattentive" people?

I’m just not sure what to make of all this yet. My whole life i have felt extremely lazy and low energy, but once i get over that initial (major) motivation problem i feel like i can focus fine and get stuff done. Is that what “hyper focus” is? Or does that more likely mean I don’t actually have ADHD?

Thanks for reading and any feedback is welcome.

Image description: A crude drawing of a stick man sitting in a chair in an unusual position. Right leg is bent at the knee with the sole of the foot flat on the seat and the knee up towards the chin. The left leg is bent at the knee where the lower leg is flat against the seat and the foot is on the seat under the buttocks.

Hi! Unfortunately I got sick for Christmas and had to stay home; but as I was trying to rest, it almost felt like I physically could not keep up with my mind. It felt uncomfortable to think idly, and of course there wasn't much I could do to help that. Not sure if I tried meditating, and if I did, I didn't say "I'm gonna meditate now," if you know what I mean.

I've tried looking it up and the results mostly talk about "brain fog," and while that may have been a small part of it, I wouldn't describe this experience as such.

Has anyone else had this experience? Like normal ADHD brain is exhausting and hurts while sick?

I've been trying it out recently to some degree of success, finding the right intervals was the hard part, 25-5 feels like absolute torture to me.

Is anyone else giving it ago?

I was diagnosed about three months ago, in my mid 30s, then started on atomoxetine a month ago after getting a psych appointment. I paid out of pocket with GoodRx since it was cheaper than the expected insurance coverage. So I put in my refill for atomoxetine on Friday, pharmacy called Saturday morning and let me know that my insurance requires a prior authorization for and ADHD meds if your over 18 (because clearly an arbitrary age would just make ADHD not a problem anymore…). Checked GoodRx and it’s like 4x the price of insurance. Told them to start the PA. Got confirmation from my psych office they put it in on Saturday. With the holiday though it’s take a while to get anything from my insurance company. I only have one dose left for tomorrow and it looks like it may be a few more days at least before I can get my refill filled.

That is all to ask, what are the side effects of missing doses? I expect I’ll have the same side effects when I start up again (which were tolerable but not fun), but anything I need to watch out for as it wears down?

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/16522898

There are hobby projects that I would like to do deep research into in my free time and perhaps try to put to use somehow. At the same time, since the fields of my interests change every couple of years, I don’t want to start a whole university programme for each of these deep dives. Nonetheless, I would still benefit from academic support/guidance, and I would like to be able to have some kind of final piece of work to show for all my effort.

(currently I’m deep diving into techniques of recycling plastic and trying to invent realistic ways to promote their use in society)

I’m currently doing my bachelors in which the system constrains me to one narrow field. What would be the best way to formalize my curiosity-driven deep dives (ie. Special Interests) so that they aren’t just private word documents and thoughts in my head? Does the academic system have any provisions for people like me?

Hi everyone,

short backstory needed for my question: I have diagnosed ADHD as well as severe depression and anxiety. Even before I got diagnosed and put on medical treatment, I noticed Cannabis had a generally positive effect on me. I never went down that rabbit hole too much and only rarely consume pretty small amounts to this day.

I expect Cannabis to help with my depression and maybe anxiety. As for the ADHD, I never get tired from using Cannabis like people I hung out with. It just seems to work differently to some degree with my brain chemistry. I noticed it clearly impairs my executive function and memory pretty severely for about a day if I smoke. But on the flipside it does a similar thing as my Vyanese does and helps to lower how much energy it takes to start tasks.

I am super curious if anyone has anyone made similar experiences or if anyone is successfully using cannabis as treatment?

I am aware ADHD is a spectrum disorder, so experiences will vary. I know at least one person with diagnosed ADHD that also smokes occasionally. In their case the weed takes a bit longer to set in, but it seems to work on them as it assumably does on a neurotypical people. I also heard a lot of people also use/used Cannabis to treat their ADHD and I am glad it works for them. Personally I just used it once for a prolonged period in my life, but the negative effects quickly outweighed any positives. I could get shit done, but it felt like a dice throw each time what parts of my ADHD got much worse in exchange.

Just as the title says.

I'm very anemic, and I've been struggling to address this. In the last week, I started taking iron supplements to address my fatigue, and things feel a bit.. strange.

I'm still tired, but I sometimes feel/am acutely aware of my heart beating?

Idk. Shouldn't take only a week to see/feel results, right?

Any insight?

(No easy access a doctor / medical professional at this time: American. Thank you.)

I really need som tips on how to avoid getting trapped by my own hyperfokusing.

I very often i get completely consumed by either youtube shorts or something similar and i loose complete sense of time and spends literally 5 hours on just doom scrolling and wasting time. The worst part is that I'm hyperly aware that I'm doing it the whole time and I really want to stop but I just won't shake myself off of it. I feel so bad because i should go walk the dog or go do my hobies instead. It happens the most often when I'm supposed to work from home and it makes the guilt feel even worse. If only I could do something for myself at least while not actually working. The only way I've found working so far is blocking the websites from me using blockers but I know that I'll just either circumvent them or find something else that's equally bad for me to hyperfokus on. And I do have legitimate reasons to use YouTube sometimes for work for tutorials etc so blocking it doesn't really work so well for me.

How do I get out when I find myself in that trapped state? Let me know how you are dealing with it.

I wanna add that I'm medicated with methylphenidate but it doesn't really work on getting out of the trap if I've first gotten in.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/23209181

Scrolling
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Sleep
⬇️
Go back to sleep because can't think of what to do
⬇️
Wake up
⬇️
Still can't think of anything to do ^(cba to wait for inspiration)
⬇️
Scrolling

This is what my weekends look like when I fail to find an event to go to in time.

The problem is that most tasks require

1. Inspiration, which it usually takes several minutes of staring into the void (fun!) and waiting for an idea to get.
2. Structure. I think this is broken in my brain because whenever I need to structure a task it's super tiring, and that's why I always revert to scrolling, which is unstructured. In scrolling the need to plan is replaced by an impulsive response to whatever happens to appear on your feed.

What does the diagram even look like for normal people? When do they get inspiration? How do they decide that now is the time to do thing no. xyz? What do I do about it hurting to structure free time activities (I've found strategies to navigate cooking etc)? Is there an alternative structureless passtime* to scrolling?

*(I'm actually able to structure when I do things with other people, but there are days when nobody's around which leaves me helpless)

I feel so isolated, so depressed and anxious whenever I think of things such as getting my GED or finally heading out to go to a dentist and get my teeth fixed. Or hanging out with my worthless, POS problematic family. I have no idea why. I know I'm not smart enough for the GED and I fear things going wrong. I just wanna get it done in just one or a few days. I just want to rest and live without a diploma since I believe I sorta have average intelligence as I was told before. I don't really have college plans cause I have no interest in anything, and I know there's some colleges out there that don't require a diploma or similar.

I just really wish I could pay someone to take it for me or do it in a way that doesn't take a long time or just bypass it. I don't even feel like living.

I was always very anxious person and this anxiety really helped me to motivate myself to do anything. I would procrastinate, wait for anxiety to kick in and panicking do the thing in 1/10 of time. However after this cbd thing the anxiety no longer kicks in lmao. It is gone for real, I can’t even evoke it if I wanted. And so my career/education took a huge hit.

At first I thought this effect was because of slight amounts of THC “making me lazy”. I imagined that I got a bit addicted to it over the year of everyday full spectrum cbd usage and I got stereotypical “bum” mentality from “weed” 😅

My next step as soon as I noticed that I no longer have drive and motivation and ambition? was to just come clean off it and I did it single day, was a bit irritable and angry for a week but generally not a big deal.

So now I am months after that and I realize that there is more to this. That this anxiety that cbd killed was actually part of my coping with adhd. I mean how else explain that months after quitting I still haven’t regained my “motivation” to finish something before deadline? The anxiety just doesn’t kick in, it is gone.

Idk honestly I must find some other way because I am almost 30 and that also is some sort of deadline hopefully the anxiety kicks at birthday.

I don’t know honestly if I should celebrate my calmness and relaxation or should I curse myself for losing the coping method. I need to find another.. somehow.

I guess I don’t miss panic attacks but it is hard to balance it all. Some anxiety is kind of a force that for me was propelling me forward. Now I just want to relax and chill all the timee. Sit there on the patio comfortably with beverage and just take the nature in. That doesn’t work good for me in the long run I feel.