cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15467370 > me_irl

I just wonder if it actually did get worse or it just seems like that because as an adult you have a lot more on your plate than you did when you were a kid/teen

Hi everyone. I don't have ADHD, but someone who joined my family some time ago does (we'll call him T), and is currently going through some trouble which I find quite perplexing. Some background: T has two daughters (8yo and 6yo) under shared custody with his ex-wife (they spend roughly the same time with each of them during the week). T has had some serious difficulties through his life, some of which are structural and will likely stay with him forever, such as difficulty to hold onto a job or keeping his house tidy (even less so when his kids are home), and others of which are temporary by nature, such as the recent death of his mother. His daughters had been having some issues for quite some time, including school performance and *very* frequent misbehaving. I don't particularly dislike kids, but holy shit, the very moment they got used to me, they became imps, almost constant screaming, fighting each other, not attending to reason, and so on. And I've barely seen them a handful of times. Anyhow, T decided to seek the root of these issues, discussed with his ex-wife the possibility of getting them evaluated for ADHD, and the ex-wife refused. T went forwards anyway, and the girls are now diagnosed with ADHD, and assigned to a psychologist who should theoretically have a session with them each month, but in practice, they're given less than 5 appointments a year. In general, T's complaints that he wanted more guidance on what to do with them have fallen on deaf ears. A few weeks ago, social services knock into T's home, and naturally, they find that the house is a mess, because it always is. They take note of it all, and recently summoned him for a meeting. T's current partner recently told me how the meeting went: social services claimed that the kids are sometimes late to class and they sometimes don't go at all, attributed all the responsibility to him, and he refuted that, while he's sometimes late when it's his turn to take them to school, they only completely miss class when they're staying with their mother. Social services disregarded this (shouldn't they have the means to corroborate it?), and proceeded to explain that, as a person with ADHD who cannot keep his life in order, he doesn't seem to have the competencies to raise the kids, so they want to impose a change in custody where they would stay with him less than 33% of the time. What I'm getting from this is that the only thing the administration will take into account when determining whether you should be raising your kids or not is your medical conditions and how disorganized is your house. The kids have some issues, sure (I'm not arguing that they being late to class or missing at all is ok), but if there are two separated parents, and one has an ADHD diagnosis and the other doesn't, is it ok to attribute all issues on the diagnosed parent rather than checking where the problems are coming from? Shouldn't the fact that the kids have ADHD a reason to want to make sure and the parent who does also have it to be more involved in their upbringing, since the one who doesn't will have less experience with it and its difficulties?

I had to buy a plane ticket which costed 80 $, and since I needed to do two super quick checks before buying it I obviously waited a month. Plane ticket is now 280 $. Cheers

For me showering means standing in a windowless room staring at a blank wall for 20 minutes (I get lost in my thoughts). Also there are several steps and I have to think about each of them. This means that I only end up showering when my fear of coming across as dirty becomes bigger than the dread of being bored. What do you do?

So when I went through school you'd have two types of struggling kids: Kid A would struggle to pass tests, but work hard and get every assignment done so they can keep their average in check. Teachers like this kid. Not that there's anything wrong with this kid, but teachers project virtue on them sometimes just to shame kid B when kid B asks for consideration. Kid B is who I assume many people here were and who I was. Kid B struggled to get from start to finish of all of the assignments that kept popping up and per haps couldn't do the same task for very long. Kid B, however, could get high grades on most tests. If Kid B asks for some consideration to pass the class as they've gotten the information but weren't able to finish all of the assignments and are told no, because Kid A exists and "I can stand someone who struggles with the tests but does the work, but I'll never tolerate someone who is lazy". I have cptsd from years spent as kid B, but I'm pretty sure that's a generic thing that happened to others as well. I had that quote shoved down my throat by a double digit number of adults. And the too-radical thought is this: I believe the teaching approach that holds kid A as a paragon of virtue and kid B as a lazy snot is quite discriminatory and maybe those are just two differently struggling kids. And maybe some consideration should be given to both. And maybe PTSD causing trauma should be withheld from both groups

How do you stayed focused on a task when the task involves some type of waiting? For example, I have a really hard time staying focused at work. The problem for me is, our software can be really really really slow. While I’m waiting for Outlook to load an email, or our internal tooling to populate data, I find my mind is wandering. Often, I’ll start on another task or pick up my phone and just completely forget about the first thing I started. At the end of the day, I have to figure out why I have 8 half written emails open in the background of my PC. How do you stay on track when your tasks require patience?

Hi ! Just to go straight to the point, my doctor is thinking of trying Strattera in me, since it was recently made available as a generic and I tend to have prevailing side effects with stimulant medication (ritalin, Rubifen, elvanse). I have some questions that would like to hear from people that are/were on this medication to share: 1. I understand this is non-stimulating and seems to work akin to an antidepressant. Therefore, **do I have to take it every day**? Even on days I do not need ? With stimulant medication I only take it when doing theoretical work, and skip it when on the laboratory or other minor tasks and **would never** take it in days I'm not working, because I can't just interact with people and gives me a baseline anxiety the whole day. 2. What **benefits** did it gave you ? 3. Any **prevailing** side effects? 4. How does it compare with stimulant medication (after taking it for some weeks)? **For a bit of context:** I've been diagnosed for about 6 years now, and started with *Ritalin* **XR**. However, I could only keep using it for some months since it gave seriously side effects that persisted 3-5 months after stopping it. I later switched to *Ritalin* **IR**, which worked for some time and gave me less side effects. But it started to be ineffective after some months. Then my doctor tried Elvanse (*Vyvanse*), it worked on keeping me focused, but the anxiety and the huge time frame of action of the drug led to me only taking it once or twice a week. I'm now back on *Ritalin* **IR**, but always feel the anxiety and aversion to interact with people that I always feel with these 3 stimulants.

 And second grade...  And third grade...  And fourth grade...  Sometimes I wonder what the next 40 years would have been like if I'd gotten some help instead of just getting yelled at for being lazy.

So I've noticed a pattern in my life that I was hoping someone could empathize with. I've been training for over a year for a physical test that I really want to pass. The other day I tried to do the exercises that I'll have to do in the test and I completed all of them successfully and now I feel that I've lost some of my motivation to get better. It's as if I was trying to prove that I could do it and I feel that I have, although I really haven't since I haven't taken the test. I've noticed this before. A couple years ago I tried really hard to get into a prestigious degree in a reputable university through my own merit. I managed to get in and soon after I lost interest and quit. Has anyone experienced something like this before? Thank you for your time :) Ps.: I'm not sure this is related to ADHD, I just figured it might be and the people here might be able to advise me.

I am going to an appt. across town, in part to get my meds refilled. I wasn't paying attention and missed my stop, but I also overestimated the travel time required, and am on my way in the other direction with plenty of time to spare. 😸

And guess what is on back order at every nearby pharmacy? I'll give you a hint: it's not the $300 per month name brand. So I guess I switch to Adderall xr tomorrow?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14974194 > Me irule

I do

Holy fucking shit. I love these guys. It's not the first mental health video they've done, but now there will be at least one about adult ADHD. I'm actually excited to see this. *I feel seen.*

I've found that breaking a daunting task down into concrete steps and eating away at it in baby steps helps me get it done. When I take Concerta, it helps me focus on the boring nitty-gritty bits, and it enables me to focus on activities like reading where you don't have to do any planning. But the actual process planning/task breakup stays just as cognitively straining as before and becomes the new bottleneck to my productivity. Can this also be fixed with a pill, or does everyone have it this hard and is it a skill that you get better at over time?

Not my vid. Just YouTube algorithm recommendations combining my technology interests with my ADHD.

Just what the title says. I'm taking atomoxetine since 13 months, and this week will be my first psychological session. I've severe ED issues, to the point I can't do almost anything productive (including meditation itself), no matter how much I want to.

Cooking my dinner, best set a timer because I'm bound to forget it's in the over. Get bored and start reading book. Timer's done - I'll turn off the alarm and just finish the page. *Ten minutes later* ...Wait, what's that burning smell?

I just started interning and it's my first office job (Yay!) but most of the clothes I feel comfortable wearing are not really office attire. Especially shoes. I have no "appropriate" shoes because shoes have always been a particular source of sensory issues so I wear the same black pair of mesh trainers. I have to commute in a big city so I end up walking a decent amount, and shoes that are tight and/or heavy really mess with my focus. Do you guys have any advice on how to find comfortable shoes that are at least a bit more office appropriate? Maybe solid clean white sneakers? For reference I'm female.

Hi, I’m 46 years old and have had a diagnosis since childhood ( was call add then). And without getting to much into it have had many challenges throughout my life. I’m in a good place now where my own Strahles coupled with therapy and medication help me manage things. Up until very recently i felt like this was something to overcome with willpower but now I’m more like this is a storm I just need to ride along with an do my best. I work in software development and in my current job I’m ramping up to take on a lot more responsibilities and leadership. I’ll be dealing with people alot more as a result and I basically am looking for advice on what to do in those moments when I recognize I’m being too “much” without just having to explain that I’m neurodivergent or that I have ADHD. i know I can meet the expectations set in front of me i’m just looking to see how to smooth over the rough patches.

Hi everyone, I’ve been told by others with ADHD that they think I have it. But I sometimes wonder if it’s not just bad habits / low willpower / low discipline / the internet and it’s short and fast instant gratification. I have been to a psychiatrist and he said it sounds like I might have ADD/ADHD/something. (I don’t know the exact differences, as I’m new to it.) Here are some issues (symptoms?) that I struggle with: 1. Easily distracted. 2. Easily overwhelmed / overstimulated by smells, noise / textures. 3. Items in no. 2 make it hard to focus / work 4. Mind is almost always running at 100km/hr. 5. Been told I’m very random and my thoughts are very much so. 6. Feels like a machine of thoughts are going off all the time in my head. 7. Hard to relax / shut down. 8. Can’t listen to music with any lyrics, gets stuck on repeat in my head for days and wake up at night with the song playing like a recording. 9. Always extreme one way or the other, struggle with balance. 10. Often jittery, tapping my feet, drumming with my hands on my lap. 11. Jaw gets sore from clenching it all the time, even at night. 12. Can’t listen to music for longer than 3 songs, and can only be instrumental / ambient. 13. White noise is best, but makes me sleepy. 14. Can’t listen to the radio or podcasts when walking or driving. Always want silence. 15. Get worked up quickly, always an underlying tension in my mind and body. 16. Can only spend time in small groups with very close people. Otherwise I want to crawl into a dark hole. 17. Our town is too big, not even a city, want to live in the country. All the details and sound and litter and people and visuals drive me up the wall. 18. I notice EVERYTHING. 19. I can’t sit still for very long. 20. I can get lost for hours researching a tooic IF I’m interested in it. 21. Procrastination level is “over 9000.” 22. Takes a LOT to get me to even START doing something I’m not interested in. 23. Crap, I think this list is just going to keep going, so I’m just going to submit it now…

Hi everyone, Years ago I was on a Ritalin generic, and it ended up just being like strapping a jet engine to a bicycle: couldn't focus at all. And now I'm trying it again, but I'm on Concerta. Was on a starter dose, didn't feel anything, now I'm on double that dose from today, waiting to see if I can feel anything. How do you know if it's working?

Hi, as the title says I'm a new developer and some days ago I was diagnosed. My diagnose journey started because I'm unable to be consistent (That's not something new) and it is making me really depressed. I just spend all day doing nothing and some day I just write most of what I have should written. Some days I force myself to code just to see all letters as blurry meaningless symbols and then I come back to square one where I procrastinate. Now I'm working from home, but when I go to office this gets 10 times worse. I will be making an appointment to get medications soon, but does anyone have some additional ways to fight this? EDIT: Thanks everyone that responded the call for help! To people that resonate with this post, please read these comments, all of them are really useful. Update: All this post started because of a deadline i was having serious problems to reach. If you are in the same spot as a new dev: What happened to me was that I was facing a really complex issue in which we lacked a lot of information and when I started to ask some key questions everything started to flow again, my main blocker was communication. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I should have focused on understanding rather than trying to solve.

Okay, so this is weird. I seriously don't do loud environments. My speech discrimination goes to shit with a bunch of background noise, and if I get into overly-spiky crowd noise (eg. loud bars / parties, with everyone yelling over each other and echoing off the walls), I rapidly overload and need to GTFO before I break down. So why in the purple fuck is frantic glitchy breakcore the most soothing thing in the universe? I've been listening to stuff like [femtanyl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wQnO-Katws) recently, and the more IYTGKIUFUYGLICGXJYUGJTYUFLIHFUYGKJKHJGHYTFTJGHFDYGFDJHCHTRF it gets, the more it feels like my brain is sinking into a warm bath. It's like brown noise, but moreso. Tha heck is going on? Anyone relate?

The last couple days I've finally been able to work on some of the big projects I care about and have wanted to do for months. But wanting to do all the things I want to do and having lots of ideas is painful, like before I got anxiety, ADHD treatment (which my doctor interpreted as being more of an anxiety thing) but also stopped doing the big things. It's so tempting to ignore the things I really want and go burry myself in a video game or something.

Hello. I was diagnosed with ADHD one year ago already (I was 35 back then), but since then I'm only with medical treatment, in other words, with medication. This medication can keep my ADHD symptoms under control, at a degree. But it does absolutely nothing against my executive dysfunction and my focus issues, and I don't have proper tools to handle my ADHD. On a Discord server someone told me to look for therapists that do online sessions from third world countries for ADHD people, but I don't know where to look for them, and I don't know whether they're actual therapists or random scammers either. I live in Spain (pointing that out in case you try to push your US narrative), and a psychologists charges between 40 € and 60 € per session, being one session per week. And I can't afford spending 160 €/240 € per month when I don't even have a job. Does anyone can give me some advice or recommendations, or webpages where I can look for someone?

Does anyone else feel a degree of imposter syndrome with work, like it's only matter of time until you can't work around your ADHD enough to avoid problems and everything falls apart? I'm currently provisionally diagnosed with ADHD, pending further testing. I managed to get a degree and was working for a few years when someone recommended I get tested where I proceeded to finally pass this one test with flying colors... My experience with work is that in the beginning, my attitude and enthusiasm to learn tends to give my bosses the impression that I have _so much potential._ Then, cue the slow car crash that is me failing to meet that potential, then the cracks starting to show due to disorganisstion or task paralysis in my work, eventually putting me in a position where my competency is questioned and I'm falling behind on work because I'm struggling to meet (imo) great expectations that might seem realistic to neurotypical people, but is a struggle for me. Then I jump ship to a new job, and the cycle restarts. I thought I had a handle on my latest job. Stayed for just over a year. I thought this was it, I wasn't an imposter, I was finally fitting in. Then cracks, and everything fell apart and I'm now at risk of losing my job again. I tried my best, and I just feel disappointed in myself, like even I can't trust myself to do things right even at max effort. This sucks.

I've long had problems with random, unfounded bouts of anxiety. I've been taking Strattera and it has partially helped with this: when it works (which is 80% of the time), I can feel it keeping me in a mellow headspace at moments when I would have previously had racing thoughts and mental tunnel vision. Specifically, the source of the anxiety is still there, because I can feel it spark into action and put adrenaline into my blood, but the Strattera seems to be blocking it from affecting my mind in any way. While this is a significant improvement, it's still not perfect because the adrenaline in my blood still tires my body out quite quickly. Recently I went a whole day on 2 hours of sleep, and I realized the sleep deprivation stopped my anxiety more optimally than the Strattera. My brain was too sleep deprived for the unfounded anxiety/fight or flight to even be initiated, which meant there was no adrenaline to block from affecting my mind in the first place. What's more, my mind was just generally more chilled out and slowed down (no hyperactivity or hyperfocus or anything), kinda a bit like if I was stoned, and I felt far less inhibition to spontaneously blurt out thoughts that appeared in my head without thinking about them, which I actually quite enjoyed because it meant I was being my peak authentic self. Whilst the Strattera helped stop the immediate effects of my anxiety, the sleep deprivation got me into the actual overall target state that I want to be in. Now I obviously can't go about being sleep deprived every day from now on. **Does somebody understand the chemistry of what Strattera does vs. what the sleep deprivation does? Is there any medication that could create the same desirable effects as the sleep deprivation?**

Hi. I have been wondering how to get an assessment for neurodivergence as I seem to struggle with some day-to-day things. I seem to relate to a lot of memes from the adhd and autism communities. I also seem to have a good amount of traits that overlap with autism and adhd. How did you get your diagnosis? Do you have any advice regarding obtaining an assessment?

Hi there. Things have spiraled out of control lately, I don't have a stable job at the moment and when I do, I mostly work from home. I urgently need to establish some kind of routine and find a way to follow it. Productivity isn't even the priority as I do have a good amount of free time. Problem is that I don't use this boredom effectively at all. I wanted to know if there are books/guides that could help ADHD people establish routines and how to keep them up. I'm autistic too, which means I greatly benefit from routine. Thanks for any kind of advice!

I'm going to assume you've heard the stereo-panning version of the [record player song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTua7_AYUps) that did the rounds. However, searching for more like this, I can only seems to find shitty low-effort remixes of songs with someone swiping the entire audio track back and forth, without timing it to the actual notes of the song or putting distinct elements in their own space or any of the actually cool counterpointy stuff you could do with this. Has anyone found any that don't suck?

The impulsivity is bad, wasted so much money and time. The hyperfocus, when on the wrong task, has cost me hours in that day. The poor planning / time management has landed me in a world of hurt more times than I care to admit. The low tolerance for distractions / hot temper has caused me to hurt those whom I love most in this world. The inability to properly direct my focus on a task has caused me to lose sight of, and therefore miss, deadlines. That's all bad. But the worst part for me? The part that doctors don't seem to even attempt to address (except for direct symptom management, which barely work)? Emotional mirroring. If you're depressed and I'm with you, guess what happens to me? Today sucked. Depression is an unrelenting bitch, and I hate her with every fiber of my being.

I know I should be asking my doctor, but even though getting an appointment with a neurologist is free, it takes months where I live. My problem is that I sometimes have severe pain in the stomach and abdomen. I have had acute Pancreatitis in the past and I fear it might become chronic (pancreas digesting itself). Is this just a coincidence or does Methylphenidate damage my pancreas further? Additional info: - I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 6 - This is the first time I am taking medication - Daily Dose is 30mg total (extended release 15mg and 15mg) - I am not on any other medication

Context: For the last month I’ve been on an absolute tech *binge* on reading up and tinkering with hacking ps vitas and other general computer faffing about. This has lead me to not only purchasing not one, but two ps vitas in the last month, and spending basically every waking hour reading documentation, looking up new homebrews and plugins, and actually working on getting these things implemented. Additionally, carrying around a tiny baby console has reignited but also a impulse purchasing a new handheld gaming pc. Now I already have a fairly decent one, an aya neo 2021, so 16gb ram, a 4800u processor, 1tb storage, etc. This baby’s literally been able to handle everything I’ve thrown at it, with the exception of Baldur’s Gate. But now I’m really getting bothered by how heavy and big it is. So what do I do? I buy a GPD Win 4 on an impulse because it’s only a little bit larger than the vita, but has many many many pluses compared to my current pc (32gb ram, a 34% faster processor, 2tb storage, an on unit keyboard, a mini mouse trackpad, rear buttons (honestly one of the main things I miss about the xbox pro controller), etc). I’m still going to use the aya, I’ll set it up as a pseudo desktop of sorts probably, or use it when I do want that bigger screen. But man I feel absolutely worn out from this. It’s been a ninth of just solid obsession and being unable to think about anything else. Not to mention the money I’ve spent that I really ought to be saving. And the worst part is I know there’s very little I can do to break out of it. At least the comp I know im going to be using, the vita I think the fixation will die out once it’s all set up and configured... I think I enjoy the tinkering more than I will actually using it. Does anyone else feel the same after a hyperfixation binge? It’s gotta be similar to stims making us tired right? Finally found something that releases the dopamine, and now it’s a tidal wave. Not to mention just the go go go go obsessive thinking 24/7. And it certainly doesn’t help that being so focused on this instead of literally everything else means I’ve missed my meds more times in the last few weeks than I have actually remembering them. Gotta love a self fulfilling prophesy eh? Anyway, anyone else have a similar hyperfixation story they feel like sharing? And I fully accept this is far too much to read lmao