I commonly read youtube comments that state a drug like Strattera completely changed their adhd for the better.
Whilst I havnt tried this(yet) I wondered what other options exist?
Ignore this if you’re only looking for medication advice.
I simply stopped going against my ADHD. I stopped trying to achieve things that ADHD was preventing me from achieving. “Achievement/success” is completely overrated.
There’s some merit in that. But I wouldn’t really recommend always allowing it. Modern life requires doing some things that ADHD tries to prevent (like finishing that super important project or whatever), but if we give in to it, we can feel some repercussion (like losing our jobs).
Yeah but that’s exactly what I’m saying. If you live in a country with a good social safety net and are fine with living with little money, then losing your job because you didn’t finish that big project is not a problem.
Maybe for some, sure. But I don’t want to assume OP is one of those, and suggest this tactic. It might be a great way to deal with ADHD, I’m not arguing one way or the other, since it seems to work for you and that’s absolutely amazing. However, it could land some people in a lot of hurt.
How did you achieve this? Did you change jobs or positions at your job? What do you do for a living?
I live in a country with social safety net. If I lose my job, I just live on that until I find a new one. I have a roof and warmth and food, that is enough for me.
Currently I work in a job with 20 hours a week, work from home, and flexible so I can work almost whenever I want. When I feel too bad about not having worked a while I start working, as is ADHD custom. I don’t do a lot, I’m not recognized as a hard worker, I don’t stand out, I just do enough.
That’s exactly my aim now. I overworked myself in past. Employers out here are living in the past, demanding 40h weeks. This really broke me several times with burnout depression. Now, in the job interviews, I tell them all that I will not work more than 35h, better: 32.
In order:
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DIAGNOSIS. Just understanding why my brain did what it did helped at least curb some of the worse negative feelings and thoughts, and got those around me to better understand and help
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Mushrooms. Mixed with therapy and diagnosis these are a really good way to completely re-attune yourself after years of not understanding or having control. Do them responsibly with someone you can trust if it’s your first time
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Meds. Adderall was the first I tried and it really works well for me. Basically restores my ability to control my thoughts to some degree. The rest of fixing me is on me, these just enable it at all
Not just blindly doing them, like I said they open you up and help get over hurdles that otherwise make the journey almost impossible (at least for me)
Read up and have a guide ready for yourself, ideally someone else to help you out with it, someone you can trust and be unbelievably vulnerable in front of
Micro dosing can also just help if you’re not on meds. Not a perfect replacement imo but it DID help
A good smack upside the head, just because I like you.
Nothing. Nothing has worked. I am fucking exhausted trying to figure out how to work with it or strategize against it and nothing fucking works. Fuck meds, fuck therapy, fuck psychiatry, fuck all the “just meditate and find a claiming center and ‘enter inane unhelpful bullshit here’”. Fuck it all. Nothing. Fucking. Works. I fucking hate it.
Good luck OP. I hope you have better luck than me.
I’ve been feeling this way a lot myself lately. I sympathize, it’s putting me in a bad way too
I’ve struggled a lot too. Nothing quite helps enough, which leaves me like progression blue-balled on tasks. What HAS helped the most is allowing myself to do multiple tasks at once. I write them down and just do what I feel like as they come around. I also made sure to find work that allows me to do this. So basically I built parts of my life around my adhd so that the walls I bounce off of are at least walls I need to hit.
This is without treating my sleep apnea, no therapy, and no medication. However, it has also meant having a very solid understanding of what I cope with and how I cope with it. Because I have depression separate from adhd, and anxiety which is fueled by both and some trauma, the single most effective thing I’ve ever done is take the time to truly understand each aspect.
Now I can mentally set aside my anxiety and am able to will myself to not listen to that cruel little voice. For my depression I’ve learned to accept it and work with it rather than fighting. With ADHD I adapted my circumstances rather than try to force the adhd to work with everything else. So far the only thing I haven’t found a way to do is force myself to do tasks I don’t want to do. There MUST be some reason, otherwise I’ll procrastinate.
I don’t expect any of this to help. I do hope some of it does, though. We all deserve to be able to look forward to the next day, if only a little.
That is awful. I hope you can find relief somewhere.
I’ve been lucky and the drugs are a godsend for me, despite having the gene that makes me hyper metabolize stimulants (which basically means they don’t last long enough in my system).
It is seriously under-appreciated how awful this disorder is in the modern world - especially if you are not of the wealthier classes.
Yo, that’s totally cool. Fuck meditation then, fuck all the rest of the shit. You might need to run your ass like a dog. NGL. OR! Just be an agent of chaos and own it and be fucking open with the people you’re around “Hello, my name is _ and I am an agent of chaos” and then laugh maniacally and just fucking own that you make crazy shit happen. My girlfriend and I are both AuDHD and she does the craziest shit in this world. Shit that I wouldn’t believe if I hadn’t been around her. I fucking shit you not, I SHIT YOU NOT! I mean 10xs over I shit you not - she has just been minding her own business when shit just flies out of the sky around her. And I would never in a million years believe that shit, but I have seen it happen. And I saw it happen recently. And it’s fucking insane, and it makes me realize there might be more to this world than we know. But for sure, you just be you. Cause I think my girlfriend said it best. It’s better to be unmedicated and here, than medicated and one foot out the door. So please, just be aware that your way is totally valid too =)
Tbh. While Ritalin is high on this list, the single most life improving thing was to get my shit together and finally go talk to my doctor about it and get help from a psychiatrist. I begged my doctor to not just send me home and leave it up to myself to call the psychiatrist and I begged for her to force me to call back and verify I booked a time. My ADHD gives me anxiety if I break a promise so that finally did it for me by promesing to my doctor that I’ll call back when I got the help. I safeguarded the hell out of the situation also with my girlfriend because I was so desperate for help and just could not get myself to do it alone. As I got started it got easier to keep going realy quickly because I got motivated, but oh boy was the beginning it all the hardest part of everything.
Yes! It feels like nobody ever considers ANY of this!
“Sure, we can help, just call these people, fill out these forms, fax your insurance card to these 4 numbers, and…” nevermind, I’m going to bed.
I sent my referral to the psychiatrist office and mostly forgot. Then I was talking to someone about looking at getting a diagnosis and went, “actually I sent a referral a couple months ago. I wonder what happened with that. I should probably follow that up”,narrator: He didn’t.
They called me though a couple weeks after that. But my thought on the subject was, maybe that’s the first part of the diagnosis process. If you can remember you have started organising it, you’re off to a bad start.
