ADHD

This post is an explanation of how my personal motivation works, and I am curious how others here relate to it, and if it is a common thing with ADHD.

For starters, I have inattentive-type ADHD, have been diagnosed and on various medications for ~5 years, and am roughly college age for context. I am very highly motivated by other people, basically anything where people are depending on my for something, or will directly help/harm someone depending on my actions. Of course I still have executive dysfunction struggles regardless, but that external motivation helps immensely.

In school this manifested as struggling a lot with homework (often not doing it), but doing very well in-class and with group projects. In my limited work and internship experiences, somewhat predicably, I have done very well as directly working hands-on with coworkers highly motivates me. Unfortunately, personal life progression things like actually getting a job and finding and applying for further education is the exact opposite, and is a struggle. There are of course plenty more examples, but I think that gives the gist of my experience.

[Cross posted from !adhd@lemmy.dbzer0.com cuz I forgor that was mainly a memes community]

...except that Sam & Frodo get all the way to Mount Doom and Frodo realizes he forgot the ring back at home in the Shire

Normal people can just DO this without medication? I can sit here and listen to music without feeling the need to be hyper-tensed and aware of everything around me? Why does my heartbeat feel calm? Why am I not on edge?

I was recently reading a book on sanitation conditions in Stalinist Russia, and it made me think about how many 'normal' things I take for granted in my day-to-day life that simply were not the norm for the majority of human history. I guess this is the reverse - something which other people take for granted, but I've only just received, and it's like the Holy Grail in my hands.

So I got into organic farming. I bought an expensive earth cutter and actually got to rent a farming plot - about 100 m2. All that was last year. I still have that farming plot but to keep it, I have to keep paying for it as well as actually be there and care for crops. I still want to do it but I just can't bring myself to do it? And WTF do I do with the earth cutter? I live in a flat in the city ROFL

I also recently got into game development. I actually dove right into the basics and actually began writing code and functions that work for game prototypes. As in not only did I first follow tutorials, but I made my own shit by just looking up documentation. I still want to do it, but... IDK, I just need a hook to go back but I just won't? And it saddens me, I really want to continue on some ideas I have but its too much.

GAAAH.

And I have a carpenter's work bench coming soon and all these projects I want to do. But WTF will I do.

I have been in the same job (with a promotion so very slightly different) for almost 5 years now. This has definitely been my longest job, by at least 2.5 years 😅 but I have found that the nature of the role is really one of those things where days don’t tend to be the same and all that jazz, but recently I have found myself getting that itchy feet feeling.

At the same time, the job is getting busier and deadlines have been coming faster with more last minute change than there had been previously.

I am definitely on the edge of burnout or maybe I’m in “functional burnout” or whatever that is… anyone else find that boredom or feeling like you need to move onto the next thing contributes to burnout?

Also I started meds back in November so not sure if that is contributing. I have been insanely productive since starting meds but I feel like every day is a hyperfocus day now and I am not sure if that is making things worse.

And if anyone is curious I am a finance business partner working with a sales leadership team, it’s quite interesting really but I am definitely in need of moving onto something else.

People keep telling me I am driven but I don’t think it is that so much as a constant need for stimulation/novelty that drives me forward. Somehow I have made myself important in my organisation and now I have regrets 🤣🤣

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/38445203

I just launched a website for us all. The reason I created it is because good quality and relevant websites FOR us are hard to find. I mean, there are organization-owned websites that push political agendas, but ugh. I felt like there is a need for this.

I’m also looking for contributors! I want this website to have voices from all over the world. This is not my blog, I want it to be a valuable resource.

Please feel free to check it out, and give feedback on how it can be improved.

The link: https://www.thedigitalaspie.com/

The “aspie” part of the website name was chosen because it sounds less clinical or rather more casual/friendly. Please know that no offense is meant.

Basically the title.

Brief background information

After having tried all sorts of Elvanse (lisdexamfetamine) dosages (30, 50 and 70 mg) and noticing nothing at all, I've got prescribed with Medikinet 20 mg (Methylphenidate).

The thing

I don't think I can properly articulate the experience in English, but I'm going to try anyway.

I noticed that, shortly after taking them, I start to feel as if I was on the verge of having a panic attack (maybe that's a bit dramatic, IDK if I experienced one of those ever anyway). I become incredibly stressed, but for not apparent reason. Not only that, but I could not rationalize the source of my stress/discomfort.

It is an excruciating feeling. Thankfully, it does not last more than a couple of hours. Also, while going through it, I feel tired, exhausted even.

It is weird, very weird.

Trying to relax is futile, the same goes for breathing exercises, distractions etc…

Does anything here make any sense to you?

P.D: Thanks for reading this incomprehensible wall of text, I am currently in this shity state.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar. I'm a 30yo M and I didn't really speak English properly until I was about 14 years old. By that time, teachers just assumed I'm an asshole or being intentionally difficult. When I was younger, teachers told my parents I was likely ADHD and that they should take me to a healthcare processional, but being Hispanic in the early 2000s, to my parents, that was akin to calling me mentally disabled, so they just told me there was nothing wrong with me and that I just needed to apply myself.

I've went to primary care doctors over the last few years and described my symptoms, high peaks and long valleys when it comes to my mood and energy and my inability to focus. Unfortunately, I think I've been masking for so long that everyone I talk to about this assumes I'm depressed. Even took some depression meds for a while, gave it an honest try and couldn't stand the side effects.

Not sure if I should just resign myself to this reality. I've failed upwards enough through enough very painful trial and error to land myself a solid career, but my energy and motivation is getting really hard to manage, despite the fact that I'm doing everything I can to live a healthy lifestyle(exercise daily, good sleep, etc)

File this under "small wins". I had been banging my head against a technical problem for most of the day yesterday. As I slipped into bed around midnight, I suddenly knew the solution. Despite the call of the pillows, I dragged myself out of bed, down to the laptop and took a full 30 seconds to write it down -- and thank goodness, because by this morning I had forgotten about it again!

Firstly just a quick thank you as the only reason I went through ADHD diagnosis was because people here were convinced I was trolling, or had undiagnosed ADHD when I was quite being dismissive of ADHD behaviour and arguing certain traits were just normal for everyone and people saying they had ADHD were just attention grabbing. Well I had to eat shit on that one as I actually did have ADHD and didn't know it.

So, the actual question I have is do you have lots of 'end it all' thoughts? Not in an emotional way, but like digesting news from around the world and seeing logically we are fucked so may as well just quit? Also I'm on 100mg sertraline but have ADHD treatment consultation tomorrow so has anyone been ok mixing antidepressants with ADHD stims?

I've been experimenting with modafinil and armodafinil for my adhd, and this morning I took the largest dose of armodafinil yet (250mg). I took it at 10am, and went back to sleep with an alarm set for 11am, and just woke up at 2:30pm.

ADHD is fun

I've been taking dexmethyl extended release for a bit with no problems. Works great. We decided to tray a higher dose. To do so, we needed pills with smaller doses rather than one huge one. That caused me to change pharmacies due to availability. Same medication, different pharmacy.

1st day

• Same dose as before, just in several smaller dosed pills.
• A bit tired in the afternoon. I stay in my room. I get take out.

2nd day

• 10 mg more than regular
• I drive out to town. On the way back, I feel like I couldn't care about anything. I had to repeat to myself in my head what I wanted to say for like a min before saying it. I stop at Costco and everyone felt like floating entities in a universe-sea that I was swim-walking through. It was like I was playing a very realistic 1st-person Grand Theft Auto, except I'm not a psychopathic car thief and serial killer; instead, I ate a slice of pizza and got some Ensures. Coming back home, I stop to get a coffee to help with the drive home. I was alert and aware, just distracted. I stay in my room the rest of the day. Don't feel like cooking, so I get take out.

3rd day

• 10 mg more than regular
• I don't do anything productive. I tried to watch TV around noon, but couldn't pay attention. I remember thinking, "That guy is saying something. I wonder if it's important." I am freezing all day. I take 2-3 hot showers just to warm up. I came to ask a question on Lemmy and completely forgot what it was. I ended up playing Age of Empires 2 for like 6 hours and lost all but one match. The one I didn't lose was cause my team won it. I literally only contributed 2 trebuchets.

4th day (today)

• 20 mg more than regular
• 45 mins after taking, I am straight up hallucinating. The walls start becoming even more 3d (lol); there are layers now. The patterns I just saw somewhere else in the room are transposed on top of what I am currently looking at. The colors fluctuate in intensity from colorful to black & white. Everything feels far away. My senses don't feel connected. Visuals and audio were two separate worlds independent of each other. I could hear silence. Silence has a sound, y'all! Doing something like showering seemed like a mission, so I didn't do it. I am freezing cold, wearing an undershirt, a long-sleeve shirt, two hoodies, long johns, sweat pants, and socks...all indoors and it's like 65°F in here.
• Luckily, I was scheduled to meet with the doctor. He took notes, and asked if the bottle lists the manufacturer. I looked at the bottle twice as best as I could and respond that it doesn't. He asks me to show him the bottle and he spots it in a second. He said it's likely the generic manufacturer. He told me to keep track of generics that I have adverse events with and to notify the pharmacy so they don't give it to me again. I'm going back to the previous dose, pharmacy, and manufacturer.

Edit: I'm gonna have to make edits as I notice typos

Relevant video: https://youtu.be/VDqsHl3lBlA

So I made my own alpha smart with a Raspberry Pi 400. For focused writing when my ADHD is going wild, also when I need to remove any distractions to get things done. features:

• Word Processor
• Dictionary search tool
• basic Network Connectivity for file transferring
• Web based file browser for transferring documents

I want to get some feed back and suggestions on improvements. also anyone think this could be a good product. maybe with a E-Ink screen and a mechanical keyboard.

Links: https://blog.ascosilinux.com/the-pi-writer-400 https://git.ascosilinux.com/batvin321/CLI-typewriter-app/releases/tag/0.1

Hey everyone. Lately, I've been trying to learn more about ADHD (I was diagnosed with the inattentive type as an adult), and there are a few aspects that confuse me, so I'd like to know if there are others out there in a similar situation who might be able to guide me a bit. Unlike what I've read about people with ADHD, my train of thought isn't chaotic, with one thought overlapping another or constantly jumping between ideas. In fact, I often find myself not thinking anything at all, with total calm in my head. This happens both in relaxed situations (which isn't a bad thing) and in moments when I need to focus, like during work meetings, where I'll suddenly realize I've been zoned out for the last few minutes (not thinking at all) and completely lost track. On top of this, combined with the "if it's not now, it doesn't exist" mindset, my emotional world feels... "stable." Stable because neither the future nor the past is "now," so those emotions just fade away. All of this has left me feeling like my life is somehow out of my control. I feel like a little twig floating down a river, content to end up wherever the current takes me, unable to steer toward where / actually want to go. It's pretty disheartening, honestly. I'd love to know if there are others out there who feel this way -people living in a sort of emotional and mental void that only kicks into gear when alarms start blaring

Hey all.

I just waited nearly 3 weeks for my (generic) Vyvanse refill.

How much longer is this "supply chain" problem going to go on for? It's been like a year already, hasn't it? Wasn't the whole thing about manufacturers claiming they'd "exceeded their quota"?

Or is it going to get worse with RFK just wanting to send half of us to ~~concentration camps~~ organic lettuce farms in Kansas?

From Psych2Go

Have you used any of these tactics before? If so, were they helpful?

My 28-hours circadian cycle jacks me up. I am dragging ass in the morning. I will get up at 5:30 with the Sun and not do anything beside doom scroll for hours. I might get up to brush my teeth around 9:00, maybe start living the day around 11:00. This is with meds. I'm trying to start a morning routine that gets me going. The basic tasks are:

1. Have something planned to look forward to
2. Wake up same time everyday with curtains open for light
3. Make the bed
4. Brush teeth
5. Morning check in with a friend
6. Positive/enjoyable morning activities

It is at #6 where I could use some help because everything besides laying down in quiet with headphones on and looking at pointless superficial stuff on the internet seems like it is too much effort. Food is repulsive in the morning, so no breakfast. I also need to be near a restroom for the first few hours in the mornings. Any recommendations?

I noticed a few months ago that while I don’t like taking my meds when I don’t have anything to do, I feel the desire to take my meds before going to do things with my family members. It feels like I’m less anxious and frustrated with them when I’m medicated.

I looked into it and it looks like Adderall might weakly act like an SSRI, so it might be kind of like microdosing anxiety meds.

Well, yesterday, for an unrelated reason, I decided to take an extra dose of my meds.

WARNING: DONT DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS UNLESS YOUVE TALKED TO A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL.

Don’t worry I did let my psychiatrist know before hand. This experiment was meant to just make the focus effects last the whole day by starting earlier with my other doeses and then taking two extra half doses spread out in the early evening.

Fun fact, 40mg is the max recommended dose and I ended up taking 45mg. I don’t intend to take that much ever again. It wasn’t horrible but it did feel like I passed the point of it helping me focus.

After taking the first extra half I felt my heart rate go up and I got a slight tension headache, but I felt okay enough to take the other half. I expected it to make me more tense or more jittery, but at what I assume was the peak, I felt the opposite. For the entire peak and rest of the evening, I felt just incredibly calm.

My heart rate was even lower than it typically is on meds (though still high). But the weirdest part was that I just felt calm. My muscles didn’t even feel that tense. I was not able to focus all that well, (which means 45mg is too much Adderall lol) but I was fine with that.

I didn’t feel any high or happiness, honestly I felt bored but I was just like fine with that. I didn’t feel the urge to listen to music or watch something but I also could listen to music or watch something without feeling annoyed like I do when I want some stimulation but nothing is the right stimulation.

I even scrolled on lemmy for a bit but saw it was all more trump and Elon bullshit and instead of doomscrolling compulsively I just put my phone down. I mean it was literally like Nirvana. I had no desires or happiness but honestly I was just fine with that.

Anyway, my best guess is that I took enough adderall that it started acting like anxiety meds. I do have generalized anxiety which I haven’t gotten medicated for because I still have some irrational desire to not take meds, but that’s not the topic of this post. What I want to know is do any of you feel similar calming effects from your meds?

It really seems counterintuitive for stimulants to make you less anxious. And hey Methylphenidate made me wayy more anxious than adderall. Oh, also I don’t feel any high from adderall, (especially at that dose I took last night since I got a slightly annoying stress headache). I don’t feel withdrawal either even when I take a break after a long period of constantly being on my meds. Hell I still have to force myself to take my meds every day, so I guess it’s just not giving any sort of reward to trigger habit formation. Anyway, I say all this because I’m wondering if not getting adrenaline or pleasure from the adderall is correlated with being able to notice a calming effect from it. Anyone feel like their experience supports/weakens that hypothesis?

Turning the tap on that nice bed-like environment is a real dopamine hurdle. And I keep getting lost in my thoughts. Bathrooms are practically stimulation-less spaces.

I started taking stimulants a month ago for ADHD, and wow. I mean, some of the effects were expected - the increased alertness, the focus, the slight uptick in motivation (I haven't experienced the full 'GO GO TAKE CARE OF NORMAL THINGS' burst that some friends and online folk have had, but I've had a little motivation boost, and I'm grateful for every little bit).

But the counterintuitive effects? That I sleep easier and better now than I have in years? That my temper is much reduced because it doesn't bang at my head like a jackhammer? That I can sit down and relax, because my focus isn't darting to every little distraction? That I can listen to people talk without wanting to bash my head in because listening is idleness and idleness drove me crazy? The exact opposite of things that I would have expected from taking a stimulant, before I learned that I had ADHD and got put on them?

The human mind is whack

Medicine is fucking witchcraft

Like autistic people get to be autistic. That's a word, and it has meaning. Someone can be autistic because it's a type of person (spectrumy type). In my opinion, ADHD sucks as an identifying term. It's 3 letters, one repeated. It means nothing as it is spelled and can't be owned as an identity because they're letters, not a word. "I'm adhudd." The initials include "disorder" in it. That sucks. Autistic people don't go around saying, "Hi, I'm austically disordered," cause that's not accepting. Is there a term that is smooth and not judgmental for ADHD? Maybe we can take Aspergers since it got dropped, but add the 'd' to get "Adspergers". Nah, that's stupid af. What about multibrained? I feel multibrained because I act like I've got multiple brains running in my head doing their own thing all at the same time, and I bounce around them based on who knows what.

What? Oh, yes...I'll have the spaghetti bolog-knees. Do you guys have red pepper...crushed red pepper? Yeah, thanks. Cool. I like your name tag. Is that really your name? Samsquatch?...oh! It's Samuel, but you changed it to Samsquatch! I love Trailer Park Boys. Fuck off, Leahy! Yeah. Sorry. I got excited.

Okay. So...um, is there a descriptive word for ADHD that isn't ADHD?

Its attatched to the toilet paper dispenser. Ive literally looked at it multiple times a day for like 10 months and my brain never noticed

Anyone else feel like theyre one step from being blind? I always lose so much shit in plain site. Sometimes I leave a wallet on my desk, which I use daily, and I can't find it for days. I'll even MOVE IT and not realize its my wallet.