AddLemmus

First test: 5 mg (~ 15% of 30 mg) at 8:30 am.

It kicked in really hard, like a thick line of quality speed. It didn't feel like something that a doctor would prescribe. Got a lot done, then hard crash at 12:30, lying down and dozing off for 20 minutes. The mental effect was at least as good as it was with Modafinil: I tackled the most urgent todo without mental effort and little chores just "happened". But with a high like from recreational drugs.

Maybe what contributed was that I did a quick, but intense workout.

So it was perfect - a very safe dose, yet also the productivity boost I needed for the day. 10 mg might also have been fine, but taking the entire 30 mg (or even 20) would have been a mistake. Certainly no risk to not feel anything.

I wonder if I should take another 2.5 mg for the afternoon, or just use tea and coffee as usual.

This strange effect regarding intensity and duration was no surprise - I observed that with other medication and drugs before, the doctor understood it and took it into account, thus the individualised instructions.

I don't know why he does what he does, but he said that I should find the ideal dose, which often is between two capsule sizes. He encouraged me to take any dose lower than 30 mg for the first month, and after he sees me again to fine tune it by dissolving in water.

I dissolved it in some water in a protein shaker with marks, so I can take exact 3 mg doses (10 % steps).

Only thing I don't like about this is that children are in the house, and there should not be deadly poison water standing around anywhere. The capsules are in a lockbox.

When that happens, I do manage to finish the sentence by appending grammatically correct tokens, like an LLM, though

Thanks! I'll play it safe and would rather start with 5 than 10 mg.

Not sure if related, but I have absolutely no problem getting things in the household done when I'm voicechatting with a friend. Odd as it is, videos that don't require watching while listening (e. g. youtubers that just talk into the camera) also work, but podcasts don't (must be mental).

When I can't get my "fix", no friends with time online and no interesting video of that type, I end up searching for it so long that I get too little sleep, rather than just do the 15 minutes work without.

I think it should work exactly like the fire department. Entirely tax funded, no hassle. A hospital is, in my eyes, more similar to a fire department or a police station than it is to a super market, and that's how it should work.

But it only works well all-in. A strange system of compromises forged between parties with entirely opposing views over 50 years is terrible.

Most recent example: Started freelancing in July again, got to pay nearly 1k per month. First money received is EUR 4400 end of September.

I tried the alternative route last time, and it's no fun: Write in certified mail that I make less and need a lower rate, they'll ignore it, say they didn't get anything, I'm not insured any more. Go to a lawyer with the proof of certified mail, win, get the lower rate and they have to pay back medical bills, EUR 500 lawyer costs though. Have to pay back 1k per month anyway if it turns out I make enough in the last few months of the year, so it was all for nothing.

I will never understand how the land of fast food and unnecessarily pre-packed products fills pill bottles by hand in the pharmacy. Like, milk I would understand; I lived near a farm, and we would go over with huge milk cans and have them filled there by the farmer. But that same concept seems strange to me for a pharmacy. Like, even our weed and coke dealers have pre-packed little plastic bags, you don't like bring your joint papers and have them individually filled.

Also, this seems like a really complicated process that causes lots of problems. Isn't it pretty much likely that even in your best state of mind, you'd fill about 1 out of 200 wrong, and about 10 % of those mean near certain death for the patient? So weird.

It's nice that US still ALLOWS to not be insured. In Germany, it's mandatory, it's nearly EUR 1,000 if you don't provide proof that you can't afford that (and they accept the proof), and if you dodge them and they catch you later, you have to backpay for the uninsured time.

So in contrast, we go a little broke always, but we don't go more broke when we get sick.

The method-method: Keep reading about, applying and stacking methods, finding out which ones work for you.

Be meticulous about them, e. g.:

• Can't interrupt a pomodoro session, not even to pee. If it does get interrupted, e. g. a look on the phone screen when it makes a sound, the session is aborted and marked a fail.
• Work strictly by todo list. When something is done but wasn't on the list to check off, it doesn't count as done. Instead of guilt mode immediately, do ONE item from the list and then procrastinate. When there is no list, start the list and then do your procrastination.
• Guilt-free procrastination: Set a time when you stop. E. g.: I keep doomscrolling until 1:10, and then do the thing. Nice thing is that this is now "legal doomscrolling", shorter, but guilt-free.
• Get started. Instead of 0 pushups, do 1 pushup. Instead of no meditation, get into the position and take three deep breaths, done.

Tbh, with all that, I still do only a fraction of what I should. But at least something gets done. Becoming just 70 % ineffective, like you, is my current goal :-) But maybe it helps you progress from where you are anyway.

Thanks, noted! Currently helping myself with Modafinil with pretty good results, but too many side effects. Doc seems to be very fixated on Methylphenidate, so we'll see if they are even open to trying something else. In standardised tests, I maxed out the ADD scale, but missed criteria for hyperactivity by a little, if I understood correctly. Same with childhood ADD; they said they can't tell for sure when it started after so much time has passed.

Problem is that the approach "MUST do NOW, until it is DONE!" doesn't work for many of us. I developed methods for myself, which I try to apply to my own child now, like: "When you get home from school, lay out everything you need to work, then relax. At time X, do 15 minutes on a timer, as far as you get."

He still moans and groans about it, and it's hard for me to tell if my "soft push" feels to him like the "hard push" I got. It's all relative, and nobody else can tell.