I Was Gonna Make A Thread Last Week (ADHD thread)

Anecdata: I also am fine w cabinet doors, I have a pretty good long-term memory for where things are "supposed" to be. It's my short term "just put my keys down for a second and now they've disappeared" that's the problem...

However, putting things away is very executive function dependant, so if I use something frequently it needs to be easy to access, or either I won't put it away or I won't use it.

 

Yeah I don't have an issue with remembering where things are as long as they have a place and they are put back into their place. I'm more likely to forget plans than psychical objects tho

 

Roommate couldn't find the extra spaghetti required for dinner because they misrembered where it was. I was in the kitchen talking to them, suddenly remembered some snacks i'd bought and opened the cupboard to get them, and found the spaghetti.

it takes two Adhders to find pasta I guess

 

man I just realized. now that I'm on night shift I am rocking a consistent sleep schedule for the first time ever in my adult or teenage life. it may be kind of a scuffed schedule, but I literally go to bed between 3-5 every day including weekends and almost never procrastinate and stay up several hours past my bedtime (which used to happen every couple months due to anxiety or cumulative stress). it's not a chore to make myself go to bed the way it used to be. part of this might just be that I'm 26 and my brain is pretty much done maturing but honestly it feels like I'm finally giving my circadian rhythm what it wants. even working from 3-11 was worse than this although that might have been due to the fact I didn't like my job.

basically if y'all ever have the opportunity to work nights, give it a shot, do recommend

 

does anyone else on adderall feel less irritable on adderall and if so do you have any idea why.

 

got a new mouse (logitech g502 hero, cyber monday sale) and it has a metal scroll wheel with very defined grooves and solid weighty clicks when you roll it and it is so stimmy and good <3

 

So I'm going to try to get an ADHD diagnosis! I have a hard time starting activities, sometimes hyper focus on something I'm reading and stay up till it's like 4 or 5 in the morning, and forget things if I don't write them down. Oh and I get overwhelmed by tasks and time is not real. I'm already diagnosed for Dysthimia/depression and anxiety, so this'll be fun to explore.

The other week (I think three weeks ago) I finally sat down and wrote down a list of potential ADHD symptoms and experiences based on citations of specific websites so I can talk to a doc about it with it all in one place and not forget things. It's five pages long. I keep thinking of things to add to it and then forgetting to do so. I only got around to scheduling an initial consultation at my university's counseling services for tomorrow because I panicked today about how much stuff I haven't done. Hopefully that will help me get on the right track.

 

IT COSTS $425 TO GET AN ADHD ASSESSMENT?!!!

 

Yeah, I recently scheduled an ADHD test for myself and the cheapest option I could find was around $500. I was lucky enough to get enough work bonuses + help from family to afford it, but jesus it's a big bill.

I never thought I had any Brain/Learning Problemz due to doing well in school, but it turns out people don't generally have to listen to specific combinations of sound/read paragraphs backwards/wait until stressful test days to learn any information at all! The more I talk about it with my therapist the more she's like "how in the world did you get this far??" (but in like a gentle kind way). So now I'm getting tested to hopefully get acommodations/medication/things that will reduce the number of times I sit in front of my Zoom classes crying with my camera off because I can't understand what anyone's talking about. And maybe losing less of my physical objects all the time --> falling into unending guilt spirals due to losing stuff. Fun times!
On the other hand, I am absolutely terrified that they'll tell me I don't have it and all these problems will in fact just have been me Being Stupid and Lazy my whole life.

 

If you were lazy, you never would have persisted through this. If you were stupid, it wouldn’t have actually worked so well. If by some chance it’s not ADHD, which it sure sounds like, it certainly is something. I mean I’m no professional, but that’s not a normal level or type of problems for a person to have.

 

Sending good vibes that your assessment will go well and hopefully you also see a cool dog
Having meds and or coping strategies is a big help tbh!

 

Thank you, that's really helpful to hear <3 I had my phone consultation (pre-setting up the actual testing) today and it went well, I read off my laundry list of symptoms and the doctor guy seemed to think they were legit, so here's hoping!

 

Me: *has finals due in two days*
My brain: You need to comb through the Miss Saigon Wiki and analyze every lyrical difference between the original production and the revival and you need to do it NOW

 

OK, so we all know the struggles with delaying gratification, a thus with rewarding ourselves for difficult accomplishments. I want Thing Nao. Thing Later might as well be Not Getting Thing At All. I think I have come up with a good strategy around this, and it's based on the positive reinforcement of Anticipation.

Next time you have a Thing you like, a really nice snack or something similar that's perishable, take a moment to just sit with it. Look over the packaging, open it slowly, take a moment to look at it and smell it and touch it. You're not depriving yourself of the Thing, you're just taking longer to really enjoy it. It's free dopamine!

Once you have developed a taste for the Anticipation, you can then use it to get stuff done. It's not "no cookie until you do the dishes", it's "let's hold off actually eating the cookie until after we do dishes" - all the time you're anticipating the cookie and how delicious it's going to be, which also fills up that all-important Brain Activation meter and makes it easier to get a task started. Sure, you could just eat a cookie and not do dishes, but you'd be missing out on so much delicious anticipation! Not to mention the satisfaction of not having the dishes sitting there being dirty at you anymore!

You can also do this with impulse buying - instead of rushing to pay for New Shiny, take a moment to look at it or hold it and really savour the anticipation of owning it. Maybe take a moment to imagine what it will be like to get it home - and what it might be like to discover it in the back of a drawer in three to nine months. You don't have to deprive yourself of every new thing, but sometimes the anticipation of owning it is really all that it's good for, so maybe you could give it another day and come back tomorrow if you still want the actual Thing then.

Or if you think you might be eating too many sweets - instead of setting limits on how many you're allowed, just take longer to really enjoy each one. Don't place the box where you spend your time, keep it in a cupboard in the kitchen, and make every piece a conscious decision to go over there, open the cupboard, take it out, and eat it. Don't feel bad about it! Savour every step of that decision. Get the maximum amount of dopamine per calorie. (For me it helps to buy the more expensive stuff, so that I have less pieces and have to think carefully about when to eat each one for maximum value, but that may not work for everyone.)

 

oh i do stuff like that all the time! it is really helpful!

for example, if i am really itching to play a certain video game, but I have to do homework first, it does not work if I just go "NO VIDEO GAME UNTIL HOMEWORK". instead, i let myself think about the video game, about the objectives and details of the gameplay that i'm going to enjoy when i play it, about the characters in the video game. i let myself daydream about it a little bit, maybe make a list of stuff i want to do in the game (this works best for objective-based games like stardew valley).

i find myself sort of savoring this 'motivation' feeling, remembering what it feels like to be compelled to do something, and then a lot of times that feeling is sort of able to translate into motivation of getting my work done, knowing that i'll get to do all my video game objectives after. it also tends to put everything on a more real timeline. instead of Unspecified Amount of Time In Boring Work Time when i all i want to do is play video game, it's a logical progression of "do lab report figures -> write lab report analysis -> write lab report citations -> turn on stardew valley -> water my crops and give people presents and all that good stuff". instead of time being nebulous clouds of Bad and Good, i now have a path before me where i know what to expect.

and i agree that taking the guilt out of it and focusing on the 'savoring' aspect is AMAZINGLY helpful.

 

this makes a lot of sense. I have a huge sweet tooth and in an attempt to reduce the amt of ice cream I eat in one sitting, I started using smaller spoons. this has the bonus of it taking longer to eat as well. I never thought of applying a similar principle to other things.

 

Got diagnosed and started on meds. So far I haven't seen a big difference, though I did manage to get past a reading in like, record time, the other day, so maybe it is working a bit and making things easier to focus. The rest of the lack of focus can probably be blamed on the lack of structure to my days now that classes are over

 

Classic Adhd feeling. I meant to post this yesterday, but I finally got a diagnosis! I started on Strattera and the difference this morning is insane

 

has anyone got resources for dealing with adhd-related anger issues, or just any articles or posts that would be illuminating for someone who has them? I don't get them so much, but I'm talking to a friend who does and I want to give them something to help. I'm just having trouble finding stuff myself because I don't know what will resonate.

 

I finally got a doctor to try my on ADHD meds, and while Adderall is magic in terms of being able to just do something once I've decided to, knowing I'm going to take a med that makes me not feel hunger means I have to keep going, "NOT TODAY, SATAN" at my semi-controlled eating disorder.