ADHD

By that I mean what are some powerful and simple basic applied techniques or behaviors that are really useful you've developed or discovered in your life that makes things work or improve.

Lets keep them simple and powerful 🧙‍♂️

Let people on the phone know that you don't mind if something is taking a bit longer and that you're cool and with them whatever happens. Say something like, its okay I'm not in a rush ☺️

They'll appreciate taking some of the pressure off and showing you are a receptive audience (you're rooting for them) and I've found it to get superior outcomes since I started doing it, even tho I was always generally polite previously

My memory is not improving as I go unfortunately. I’ve realized that half assing it on this is not working.

If it doesn't feel right then it's hard (impossible) to give a shit. I hear that a lot here.

Money, grades, the advice of revered authority. None of it works. I just blow it off. And suffer of course. But I'm still poking along.

But a couple of things have felt right. And those things go very well. I can draw, I can write software. I can successfully give my attention to a project like that.

One such thing is meditation. Whatever's going on with ADHD, meditation messes with it. I found the button in the center of my head that makes ADHD happen. It feel 100% right. It's like I found a magic thing.

So if you are an ADHD guy then maybe it would feel right for you too.

I recently had to stop taking my vyvanse due to some bad side effects and holy shit I forgot how bad this was. I can't do anything. I have so much shit I need to do but I sit down to do it and it genuinely fills me with dread. I am just staring at my computer. Even getting to the webpage I needed took hours of convincing. This is horrible, even caffeine isn't helping. What do y'all do? How do you manage?

Hey, first day with Elvanse!

Was pretty crazy, and tbh 30mg are also too much for me. I find it crazy that this is the standard dose people get.

I had 110+ BPM (If my Mi Band 8 is reliable), slight nausea, 0% appetite etc.

I used Modafinil before to cope with my (then unknown) ADHD and there I took ¼ pill, so also really little.

I prefer to be in control, and this was a lot!

The pills are not delayed (retarded??) and a possible consumption way is powdering over a Joghurt etc.

So I will firstly just try 10mg, maybe 15 or 20. I have a pretty good body awareness, that should be enough.

But still, that stuff lasts 14h+ ! That is intense, longer than a lot of other drugs, even LSD.

This also means that my evening today was kinda gone, because I was so exhausted, like in my brain, a pretty strange feeling.

The alternative, Medikinet, lasts 2-3h which is kind of a joke.

Is there something that lasts 8h? A whole work day would be way better.

Why are 3 comments deleted?

I didnt find anything in the modlog, while my other post was removed as it links to Mastodon.

I find this pretty bad, because deduplicating writing effort is not sustainable

Update: now at least 4 comments are deleted.

I started uni 2014 and I've still yet to finish it because of life BS. Dealing with depression / ADHD has made finishing my degree seem impossible for me to do and I feel like an absolute failure everyday because of it. I wasted many semesters attempting clases and then dropping out when my grades weren't good.

My parents both graduated by their early 20s and had me at 23; I'll be 29 soon and I still live with them working at a Walmart to make ends meet and even with that I'm about to be fired for poor performance. I feel depressed being there because I was given everything in life to be successful and yet I wasted my 20s away being depressed / suicidal. All of my friends all have graduated long ago and have better jobs and I get envious seeing them being successful. All I think about is splattering my brains all over the wall.

I don't have a plan to follow, every day I'm just hating myself for wasting my best years over stupid shit instead of focusing.

Due to the recent thread here that I unfortunately had to delete (the OP was not playing nice), and the evidence and similar stories mounting over the last few years, I am making this post to acknowledge the problem our USA brethren are dealing with.

I am not saying there are any good solutions to this, or that you should take things into your own hands, thats for each person to decide for themselves. But this is rather an acknowledgement and also a reason to treat this situation with empathy.

Stay safe out there everyone!

Greetings!

I was diagnosed a few months back and I’ve gotten on Vyvance 20mg to great effect. I’m not perfect, but much better.

However I do find that my focus wanes in the evening when I want to kick back and practice a hobby like drawing or music, I can’t sit down and just do it.

If anyone has advice or experience that might help, I’d be very grateful.

Hi everyone! I was diagnosed a few years ago in my early 30s, and started taking Adderall along with some different drugs for anxiety as well.

With Adderall and then Wellbutrin, even in small dosages, I notice that my HRV Stress (recorded on a Garmin 945 Forerunner) is significantly elevated for the entire day. When I used to take a midday and evening dose of (instant release) Adderall, it severely impacted my sleep. I also tried extended release taken in the morning, and that caused sleeping issues as well. So did an extended release of Wellbutrin.

Basically, any benefits those medications provide (and it didn't really feel like it was helping) were offset by the bodily impact.

Has anyone had a similar experience with either of these medications? Any notable co-morbidities or changed metabolism or something that you identified as causing these symptoms? Did Ritalin or Strattera work for you when Adderall did not? I've been cycling through other non-stim medications with my provider, but haven't found anything that provides benefits for ADHD (I'm currently on guanfacine and zoloft, which mitigates my anxiety at least).

Maybe this doesn't need to be said but this is a different question to which video game genres do you enjoy. For example, I enjoy playing Dota 2. Every few months or so, I'll play it for a couple of weeks and put it back down. I'll never play more than two or three matches and I feel 'present' for the duration.

Paradox grand strategy games (especially EUIV), however, I can start playing at 7am and in a blink of an eye it can be 11pm and I won't have eaten or used the toilet or anything. I can do this for multiple days in a row. Furthermore, I don't often feel like I'm 'enjoying' it. I'm just consumed by it.

I'm intrigued to hear whether or not anyone recognises this difference in themselves. If you have any insight as to why you're consumed by some games and not others, I'd be very interested.

First off: I am still undiagnosed. I've followed the ADHD topic for more than a year now since I seem to match a whole lot of symptoms and behavior patterns. An official diagnosis will most probably still take another year. I live in Germany.

One thing that got me wondering was caffeine. As I've heard, drinking coffee will make ADHD folks not feel any more awake, maybe even a little tired.

While it doesn't make me feel awake as well, I very vividly remember my first coffee a long time ago that caused a massive outburst of productivity when all of the time I was known for being 'lazy' and distracted. However the effect quickly diminished with each subsequent coffee over the next year.

Isn't this a contradiction though? If I actually had ADHD, why did coffee have this awakening effect on me back then?

I was diagnosed in 2019; late in life, mid 30s. One of the biggest issues I've been struggling with lately are these huge cyclical mood swings that can last weeks. I'll be up and active, optimistic, and productive for a week or so, and feel like there's nothing I can't do. I'm excited about everything and often make a lot of overly-aggressive plans. Then the wave of depression comes, and I'll spend a week in bed, crying, and then a week or two basically just disassociating and actively avoiding any responsibilities. The down is always longer than the up, and I feel like I'm slowly losing ground to the depression. I'm not sure if I've always had these issues or if they've just gotten worse lately. My ability to look into the past, especially in regards to my own emotional state, is limited.

My doc says that "cyclothymia" or mood cycles are not uncommon with ADHD, though they are not technically related I guess. That said, I don't see too many people talking about it. Anyone else dealing with this sort of thing?

If you haven't heard this cliche while discussing your neurodivergency with someone, then I envy your luck. Yesterday I fucked up, I feel shitty, but also I am pissed.

Our brains are impulsive af and tend to forget the most important information. We mess up, our RSD (and empathy) kicks in, we feel terrible, we vow to be more careful, but guess what? Thats fucking exhausting.

As a result, we start overthinking our every waking moment, stressing over every little thing. Because, we are trying to be aware of the things we cannot perceive.

At some point, hopefully we realize that we cannot live like that, and we start to arbitrarily ignore our compulsion to overthink. Most often that works out great because most often the threat is not real, but sometimes we make the wrong call.

The times we overthink are still more than the times we do not, and we still mess up. Let us have our fucking peace.

cross-posted from: https://lemy.lol/post/30077456

Stolen from Mastodon.

When I take Ritalin, I need to take an initial dose of 15-20mg for it to be effective (and then taper it down every 50 minutes otherwise I get jittery). But when I was on Concerta, 18mg was not enough, even though it is roughly the same dosage. Is the Concerta dosage not comparable to that of the Ritalin as it is spread out over a longer period? I know 30mg of Ritalin would be way too much for me – but does that necessarily mean that 36mg of Concerta would too?

As the title says. I always really struggle to be on time (last year I missed around 30% of school😅). I did try some of the popular advice and sometimes it worked, but never for longer than 2 days. Since then I've also found out that it's very likely that I have adhd. Well school is starting soon and I really need to get this under control.

Probably not a problem for everyone but it was a problem I was running into where my meds weren't being as effective towards the bottom of the bottle and then would work great after a refill.

My meds are supposed to be stored between 67F and 77F and my apartment has been routinely getting to around 85F for days (and weeks) at a time and by the time I was getting close to the bottom of the bottle it wasn't really working that well for me.

So I took one of those can fridges and added some temperature control to it to automatically keep it in the temperature range I need and also added a large bag of dessicant in there to keep the humidity low as those little can fridges suck up moisture something fierce.

So basically make sure your meds are stored properly or you'll probably have some additional issues that you really don't need.

Hey everyone,

I still was rather recently diagnosed late in life. Some very helpful people already helped me on another topic, so I wanted to come to you all again:

I have had sleep issues for ages. I didn't get why, I tried pretty much all the neurotypical advice I was given my whole life or learned about. Sadly I am among the many that still have loads of sleep troubles. Not gonna lie, they broke my spirit more often than I could recount.

I have the full party going:

• Trouble falling asleep due to a few factors (among others: Negative thought spirals, sponanious ideas and impulse control to keep them in check, but mostly that - with hunger, thirst or pain - I just don't notice my own needs.
• Trouble sleeping longer than (3-4 h) and not being able to fall back asleep
• As consequences of the above I am usually not rested at all. Sometimes I just pass out after work, which makes things harder later at bed time.

As I learned, our bodies should usually sleep at night and our brain chemistry is built for that (duh). But sometimes with ADHD our whole bodily clock is just being off by a lot. That's apparently why some of us sleep from late at night till late in the morning. Per se fair enough, but not super healthy. And I personally couldn't find a job that starts at 12 a.m..

Also neurotypical people are apparently not supposed to be bored out of their mind, trying to fall asleep. Supposedly they can lie down, relax their thoughts and can be asleep between 10-20 minutes. My brain for once won't stop being flooded with thoughts, sensory inputs and such. Those 10-20 are more like 1-2 for me and only with a 25% chance I sleep more than 4 hours.

The only successes I had so far falling asleep when I wanted to, was with prescription meds (with serious health risk attached). The othet thing that works sometimes is, if I can focus, to go on mental adventures, which ideally keep me occupied till I doze off. And the worst thing that works is just having to sleep due to sheer exhaustion.

When we wakes up, apparently many of us can also struggle to fall back asleep. At least I know, wrong bad thought and that was it for the night.

I didn't know I had ADHD and didn't really know how it affects every part of me. Therefore i coulnd't treat my issues properly either. I am still learning lot, but quality adult ADHD resources suck, to be frank. Kinda sad how we are aware ADHD is rough in the mildest cases and you still have to filter all the pseudoscience and bullshit out, just for breadcrumbs of advice.

I must have tried basically all things of the neurotypical advice, I thought could help me. I think especially sleep hygenie is something all people can work on regularly, also us with our ADHD. Improving sleep hygiene might take many forms with ADHD., though. How does yours look?

I'd kindly ask everyone with some knowledge or personal advice to chip in. That's if and how you found ways to make it easier to sleep for youself. Would you share your stories, so we might all learn more?

Not all tools are for everyone, as we know. But I will give everything here a fair shake and your experiences can be very valuable to me and others too.

I don't mind starting with basics, mine are probably shoddy. If someone more knowledge or experienced could share their wisdom and get me pointed in the right direction. A bit of advice on where to start and maybe some resources would be appreciated greatly. I feel I fucked up so much treating the comorbid problems of my ADHD, I might have to start from scratch here with "how to human". I probably learned and adapted many things, which might make my sleep troubles even worse and gotta unlearn some.

Any and all comments are much appreciated, thank you.

Title really. I don't think I will ever have a traditional career (or path) because there are just too many things I want to do. Anyone with ADHD knows i'm sure, that when you even have so much as a few household chores to do, it can take you ages to even start. My problem kind of extends beyond the scope of little things, I seem to want so much out of life that it leaves me not wanting to do anything at all because it feels overbearing. I never finished college or chose a career because of this too, sometimes I get a goal in my head so it becomes my focus for some months then i get burnt out and move on to something else and it repeats in a circle.