Edit
After reading all the responses below and receiving much helpful advice, I reflected on my hesitance of getting medical help. I realized I didn’t want to feel like I “gave up”. I come from a poor family of immigrants and my parents sacrificed a lot for me to have an opportunity, so when I’m discussing these mental problems I face with loved ones, there’s always a suggestive undertone of being unappreciative(remember your parents slaved away doing manual labor jobs so you could complain about your comfy, well paid office job)
I now realize my own happiness/fulfillment is my responsibility, public opinion be damned. Thank you all. I will seek help ASAP
Double edit
I’m on strattera(atomoxetine) now. It’s helped me focus my thoughts a lot more.
Original:
Not sure if this is typical or not but it perplexes me to no end. I’ve always struggled with remembering things, decision paralysis, bad sleeping patterns, interpersonal relationships(appearing distant), mood swings of joy and apathy(high peaks and low valleys), addictive personality traits(coffee/nicotine/alcohol). But on a good day I can do the work of a whole team. I’ve often spearheaded entire projects solo from concept to design to implementation. Despite a very rough start in my early adult life and after getting tired from most jobs for petty things like disagreements or tardiness, I’ve been solid for about 7 years. I’ve learned to communicate effectively without getting emotional, how to manage relationships, how to work around the difficulties of my ADHD, I’ve turned my skills into a well paying career and can politic with the best of them. My son was diagnosed and I never was because Hispanics don’t believe in ADHD(“everyone has those problems, you just need to manage xyz better”)
I’ve tried to explain my patterns to loved ones in hopes of feeling understood but even those closest to me say it’s all mental. I feel like no one understands. I’ve been called brilliant/highly intelligent many times but have been told I need to apply myself. I feel like it’s both a strength and a weakness.
Anyways, I have health coverage now and am scared of prescription medicines. Not sure if I should just keep braving on towards my future without getting some sense of closure. I believe my father is also on the spectrum because he has always embodied all the symptoms (irregular sleep, obsession with pet projects, irregular moods, difficulty managing relationships/being empathetic/sympathetic, etc).
I hate being told that I’m not trying hard enough when it feels like I need to keep double the pace of everyone else just to be on par. Should I start allowing myself to be disagreeable? Maybe call bs what it is and not dance around it so much? Should I seek treatment? Should I keep quiet and bite down on the rag?
Sorry for the rant. No one seems to understand.
Not sure if you can use this to explain it to them, but I’ve always liked this:
A true ELI5 on how this actually affects people is ‘ICNU’: Interest, Challenge, Novelty, and Urgency. If something doesn’t meet one of those four categories, someone with ADHD just isn’t going to be able to do it. Let’s use doing the dishes as an example–is it interesting? Not even slightly. Challenging? Not really. Novel? Nah. Urgent? Not yet–but once that person with ADHD actually needs clean dishes, then it gets done, because it now meets one of those four criteria. In that sense, putting things off until the very last second is essentially a coping mechanism for ADHD, rather than a symptom of it itself.
Source (I know): https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o5bojv/eli5_how_adhd_affects_adults/
I also like this one:
Have you ever walked into a room and suddenly forgotten what exactly it was that you went in there for? It seems to be a phenomenon that most people can empathize with. Now imagine that same thing happening but with practically everything you do. If I put the oven on and don’t keep my focus consciously on the cooking - say I go into the other room to grab something - chances are high I’ll just totally forget I ever put the oven on until I smell something burning. If something catches my attention as I’m getting out of my car in a parking lot I might end up leaving the keys in the unlocked vehicle and not realizing until I get back out of the store (that’s happened more than once). If my boss gives me a task and I don’t immediately write it down on the list I keep beside me, I will forget in an instant not only what it was I was asked to do, but that I was even ever asked to do something in the first place. In a way it’s like having a faulty short term memory.
If you’ve ever seen the Matt Smith episodes of Doctor Who - the villains called “The Silence” are an incredibly accurate analogy for what ADD is like for me. They are terrifying creatures but if you look away from them even for an instant, you forget they were ever there.
I realize this just makes me sound flighty or spacey to a fault, which I guess in a way is what ADD is. I think everyone exists on a spectrum of attention. For most people the odd flighty moment is the norm - the walking into a room and forgetting what you were going in there for, or the driving home from work and realizing you can’t recall the drive at all - but ADD sufferers are at the much more extreme end of this spectrum
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eh7ca/eli5_what_exactly_is_adhd/
My wife is very much like you. She lived a hard, misunderstood life, noone in her family believing there’s anything wrong. She had troubles in school too, but she was able to get two master degrees. In Eastern Europe, there is no ADHD, you just didn’t get enough beating as a child. In the last few years, she also had issues at work, being called unfocused, that she talked too loud and too much, didn’t try hard enough, but, like yourself, managed huge projects for corporations with tremendous success.
We got our kids diagnosed a few years ago, and all have ADHD (also dyslexia, tics, ASD). When we learned our kids have ADHD, my wife also got diagnosed, and it’s textbook perfect for her. Very high “score” for ADHD. She got on medication (Ritalin), and, in her words, it changed her life.
She did have to adjust the medication through trial and error, going up and down in dosage until she found the perfect spot (I believe 25mg x2 a day) and even learned that when it’s that time of the month she needs 5mg more than usual.
She can now sit for a movie or dinner with family, can remember stuff without a calendar, and even started going to interviews to go back to work after a long break. She is now part of a couple online ADHD communities talking with others like her and finding people that are not yet convinced they need to get diagnosed and /or medicated on Slowly.
She still obsesses about random stuff for days or weeks and then just switches focus to a new obsession, but hey :)
Thanks … I totally understand the “didn’t get enough beatings” part. I had a hard time until I got into things I liked such as computers, playing instruments, etc. Once I started to work on things that interested me it was magical.
You sound like a very sweet, caring husband. I can tell you love your family dearly. Thanks for your kind words/support
Sounds familiar… I have been using a pill cutter to make my 10mg pills into quarters, so I’m taking roughly 2.5mg each time which really helps. I will get more pills later in the month so I can experiment to see how much of a difference there is between 2.5 and 5 (or more), but even 2.5 has such a marked difference on my alertness, concentration and behaviour.
It’s very annoying that ADHD is badly portrayed in media constantly. So unless you’re the hyperactive type, then people won’t believe you. Try to explain to them that hyperactivity is just one symptom of ADHD and not everyone has that symptom. The main symptom is a disorder of the executive functions of the brain. I heard an ADHD researcher once say that ADHD is misnamed, it’s not a lack of “attention” it’s a lack of “intention”. We “intend” to do things, but we can’t correctly follow throw with the executive decisions necessary to make it happen, or make it happen on time.
Unfortunately even hyperactivity is misrepresented. My mom was far to the hyperactive side, but when an adult woman can’t make herself shut up and just needs to get out of the house at least once a day or she loses her dang mind, people don’t see adhd, they see a hot mess who’s just too impulsive.
Yeah it’s a fact that women are severely under diagnosed. If they’re hyperactive, like you said, they get written off as flighty and impulsive, and if they aren’t the hyperactive type they get written off at spacey and ditsy. My partner works for a company whose stated goal is to bring medical care to underserved or ignored communities and one of the 3 services they offer is “ADHD management for adult women” because its so pervasive that they go undiagnosed.
if you can afford a therapist, get one, especially one that specializes in ADHD
Are you formally diagnosed? If you had a formal diagnosis from a doctor then that’s something you could point at to your family members.
I haven’t yet no, but I highly suspect it. And a lot of my teachers in school told my parents I had ADHD/some form of autism but they brushed that off because they thought it meant there was something wrong with me or that they were suggesting I was incapable. Not sure where to start really. Do I go to a primary care doctor who refers me to a specialist? I haven’t had health insurance for most of my life, so I’m not sure how this works.
As someone who grew up in similar enough circumstances (though prior to the symptoms being collectively named, much less medications being created for it), please hear me out: this is entirely about your own health and as an intimately personal matter, you don’t owe anyone an explanation; who you share your struggles with is completely up to you — and should include a professional counselor whom you feel comfortable with, IMHO. If my experience has taught me anything, it’s that those I’d be better off sharing my victories with are also those that would be there when I stumble, if that makes sense.
To answer your question directly, I would begin with your primary care physician and ask for a referral for general mental health (to help ensure it’s covered by your insurance), but you don’t have to tell the referring PCP anything more than you think you might benefit from someone with an expert ear. The counselor you meet with would be better suited to help guide you to the right specialist and might even get you set up with a prelim exam to clarify what it is you’re challenged with (documenting it and, best case, helping the next one to better understand — without you having to go over everything again and again).
Thanks. I have some time off I need to take this month, so I’ll try to get that sorted. Haven’t found a PCP yet in my area, so I need to start there and hope that they refer me to someone who can see me in a timely manner. I feel like I need to start understanding how my brain works under the hood so I can move towards goals instead of going against the current.
What does it feel like to be on prescription medication? I’ve heard rhetoric that it’s basically meth (not that I know, but that the effects on the brain are similar) without any of the chemicals that give you euphoria. I’m afraid that it will render me a zombie or that I’ll lose a sense of identity or the tenacity/creative spark which fuels me. Are those fears irrational? Are those things I should discuss with a counselor?
In the US you can at a primary care or a psychologist/psychiatrist. You can do it online as well, so don’t limit yourself to just what’s nearby. Schedule and appointment, ask about getting diagnosed, mention what teachers/others have said when they ask “why do you want to be diagnosed”.
Make a checklist of really small actions because the whole process can be a real slog with a lot of steps and paper work. Explore multiple options at the same time because sometimes you get a councilor that just isn’t helpful.
Even if your symptoms are obvious your primary care doc may be luke warm about it; don’t let that slow you down. Find someone that’ll take the concern seriously. Sometimes you have to be a bit of a bully; if you have uncertainty, even if you don’t have a well, -formed question, don’t let them walk out or end the call.
Other tips:
- don’t start with stimulants
- meds are a wheelchair not a silver bullet
- friends and family will take time (years/decades) to respect the diagnosis, and some will just never appreciate it
