So, I have pretty severe ADHD, and a lot of the time, trying to get stuff done is... hard. Unless the thing happens to fascinate me. And I can sorta muddle through, but it's hard to find focus. I've been trying to find working medication for this for roughly seven years. In 2008ish, I started on methylphenidate (aka Ritalin or Concerta), and that worked pretty well. In fact, it worked incredibly well; I could easily do 2x-4x as much work as I had previously been able to. Only over time I got acclimated, and they had to increase dosage. Until I went to the hospital with atrial fibrillations. Whoops. So we went through various experiments. All the non-stimulant ADHD meds. Strattera: No effect. Bupropion (wellbutrin): Absolutely magical and very effective for about two days near the end of the first week of titration. Never worked past that, and once it properly kicked in, gave me horrible brain fog that was actually worse than default. Tried various other things. Eventually ended up on vyvanse, which is amphetamines bonded to lysine to make them metabolize more evenly. That works somewhat, but I still had a tendency to low energy/motivation. Well, after a while of writing about depression, I realized that if you ignore the "feel bad" aspect, and I note that nothing seems to distress me like that, I actually have most of the symptoms of, as they say, "dysthemia". So, tried wellbutrin + vyvanse. Same effect: Briefly very good, then horrible brain fog. Okay, no wellbutrin. So I started lexapro, which seems to help maybe, but I wasn't sure. Then a while back, there was chatter on tumblr about brain meds finally kicking in properly and producing these very marked differences, and I thought "hmm, that's definitely not what I've had". So I called the doc and asked to increase the lexapro dose. That was about a week ago. Today, I was doing some desk cleaning (a task I normally can't do). I got as far as deciding that I wanted to label an SD card and put it down in the usual bin with a thing saying what's on it so I don't have to ask again. Went downstairs, planned to pick up a post-it note. Actually succeeded. So I wrote the label, etcetera, and then... Holding the SD card, I asked Jesse about food. Jesse suggested chicken, and told me that he thought there was rice in the fridge. I went back to my office to pick up the screwdrivers I wanted to take down to the basement workshop to put them away. Went to the kitchen, checked the fridge, found rice, turned on the oven, went to the workshop, dropped off screwdrivers, put the SD card in the drawer with the other SD cards, got two frozen chicken and a can of pop, put the chicken in the oven, and remembered when I put it in the oven so I can go get it out at a suitable time, and came upstairs with the can of pop. ... That's entirely outside what I can do when medication is not working. Like, unrecognizably so. And now... I have to wait and find out whether it goes away. Again. Maybe I'll get lucky and this will actually work and I can sorta stabilize for a while. (For extra credit: That was ~15 minutes ago, and I have actually gotten a couple of other things done since then.)
I'm in about the same place right now with antidepressants. I'm on Zoloft/Sertraline right now, and it's doing something and doesn't have any major side effects, but I dunno if it's quite doing enough. :T
oh lord yes. I started citalopram in ... December... ? and it's my first brain med ever. I know it's doing something. my general level is not so low, I don't hate myself 24/7, and when i dip down i still dip pretty far but it's waaaaay shorter. but I'm stuck wondering if raising my dose would make a few of the other symptoms go away - for instance, lack of motivation/general anhedonia. i dunno. maybe?
I remember the first couple times I had psych meds really working. It was in the first few months of taking Effexor for my depression. Usually in those first couple months on antidepressants, sometimes the pills will be working and sometimes they won't be, and I could tell within a few minutes if the meds were doing something. Honestly, it was terrifying, because me-on-meds could do so many more things than me-without-meds, and had different opinions and reactions than me-without-meds... I felt like the medication was making me a different person. I had a lot of existential crises that spring. (Eventually I settled that matter by deciding that my brain is made of wires suspended in a vat of chemicals whether I'm taking meds or not, the levels of those chemicals get swapped around not just because of medication but also because of things like "I have not eaten in seven hours" or "look I know caffeine can screw me up sometimes but I really really wanted a cheerwine" and so those aren't what decides whether I'm me or not-me, and that I might not have free will but if I don't then no one else does either and it's kind of a moot point. YMMV.) The difference wasn't as drastic when I started taking ADHD medication, in that I didn't notice things were happening within minutes. But my spouse noticed because I started cleaning up stuff that was obstructing my view of the computer monitor. And I cleaned it up properly: I didn't just sort of drop a glass off in some arbitrary location in the kitchen, I put it in the dishwasher or on the counter with other dirty dishes. I threw the trash into the trash can instead of making a little pile of it on my desk. And I didn't have to try. It all happened so effortlessly that I didn't notice until he pointed it out to me. (I still often forget that I was doing something, much less what it was, if I get up from my chair and then come back, but we can't have every nice thing.)
