The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves)
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Dumb question....
What exactly do ADHD meds do? I mean for you, when you take them. I'm kind of anti-meds unless I'm going to die, but I'm curious if maybe I should be more open to it. Does it help? How does it help?
Also.. I really hate when I'm trying to make a point (please look at ANY forum post here by me) and I get lost in my own brain/thought process white space and I'm pretty sure I stopped making the point; but I'm still rambling about the point and then I'm like I should delete that. But then I think if I delete people are going to think it REALLY bad, so I leave it. However, then I obsess over it. Then I worry I offended someone. Then I worry I overshared. Then I....
Anyone else?
Just me? -
@RightMeow Every time i post anything remotely serious.
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I'm not a psychiatrist and will be unintentionally giving you incorrect info in this post. You should go to a psychiatrist who will explain this to you correctly.
So you know dopamine? It's one of the reward drugs in the brain. It makes doing things feel good. If you have an executive function disorder like ADHD, you've got dopamine issues. Most of the time, with ADHD, your little dopamine brain factories aren't producing enough dopamine. So what you do doesn't feel rewarding like it does for other people.
When you're a kid, this manifests itself in the stereotypical ADHD ways. You aren't actually more energetic than other kids. It's just that sitting and reading quietly or figuring out a math problem is giving everyone else hits of dopamine, and you aren't getting any. So you do what does give you that hit. You fidget. You act out. You tend to do physical stuff. It gets you the dopamine reward other people get more easily.
For adults it's more complicated. No dopamine means no willingness to get out of bed in the morning. Maybe you procrastinate constantly. You need the anxiety of an impending deadline to kickstart your executive function (ADHD is an executive function disorder. So is OCD), because you don't have proper dopamine regulation.
And then, sometimes, you get explosions of dopamine. The factories go haywire. Burstfire reward hormones. The thing you're doing is so rewarding. It's the best thing ever. All that dopamine you haven't been getting is crashing into you like a tidal wave. Why would you ever want to stop doing this thing?
...ever heard of hyperfocus? Yeah. Burst fire mode.
So, ADHD drugs. What they do is to get the dopamine factories running smoothly. You get the same hits as everyone else. No more shortages. No more explosions. Just a steady flow like it's supposed to be.
How they do that is completely outside of my ability to explain, but generally it involves overclocking the factories a bit (this is why benzodiazepines are really bad for ADHD; they slow down the already malfunctioning dopamine creators). There are non-stimulant medicines on the market, but they're newer and less numerous.
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@Rinel said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
You need the anxiety of an impending deadline to kickstart your executive function
aka lay in bed all morning until it's 15 minutes until you have to be at the place that's 10 minutes away and you can totally make it except it takes 20 minutes to even get out the door and why am I always late to things except the things I want to do
oh right
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@Auspice Wait, you mean you're somehow not late to the things you do want to do?
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@Ninjakitten I'm egregiously early to things I want to do. That has its own 'over eager' drawbacks.
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@Wretched My thing tends to be that I carefully plan everything out to be sure to be early or at least on time, then either fail because of sleep issues (a separate problem) or I get started on schedule and then suddenly somehow an hour disappeared somewhere and I'm late anyway. There's a difference in motivation... but rarely in actual outcome.
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@RightMeow I have a mild form. So enough to drive me bananas and others. My Dr tried me on Welbutrin, which is also for depression. It was awful for ME. It was like I was in a fog and not inside my body, if that makes sense. I was distant and my reaction time was slow. My Dr's nurse stopped one day and asked me if I was ok. No. No I was not. I wasn't ME. So we weaned me off. And it was just a mild dose. I've learned to just live with it, to curb it myself. I drink my 20 oz coffee a day(yep, it's measured), and just do the things. My cleaning can take a day because I'll start collecting piles and then go start another pile, and start something else. Or forget something. My friends and family are used to it, but I understand not everyone knows me and realizes...I have overly bad days too, where Im all over. I don't know how those with severe cases manage. >_>
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@Ninjakitten said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
@Auspice Wait, you mean you're somehow not late to the things you do want to do?
It's like 50/50.
If it's something I wanna do and I'm driving myself: yes. I am there early! Sometimes too early! You invite me over to, say, a party and I'm excited? I AM THE FIRST PERSON THERE. I do not understand the meaning of 'it's okay to show up 15 minutes late to a casual gathering.' We will awkwardly stand around for the first hour until everyone shows up.If it's something I wanna do and someone else is driving: I am ready an hour early. Then I sit around bored. Then I get distracted and find something to do. Then my ride shows up and I'm in the middle of what I did to distract myself 'why aren't you ready' WELL I WAS READY.......an hour ago.
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ADD: it's like being a time lord without a Tardis, and you can't remember where the fuck you left that goddamned screwdriver.
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@Wretched said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
She is brilliant and so, so good at explaining, holy crap.
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@Sunny said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
She is brilliant and so, so good at explaining, holy crap.
We love her channel. SO well-presented and relatable.
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@Sunny She so is! Her videos are some of my favorites. Watching that one was just a flashback of a lot of 'panic attack/boredom breakups' and the cheating that didn't 'FEEEL' like cheating because it happened in the moment and it was at a party and i was drunk and whatever oops. Because the need for DOPAMINE NOW vs neurotypical whatever. Which isnt an absolvement of the shit i did when i was young, but learning new pieces of the puzzle is... enlightening.
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So, story time.
This is one I've kept 'under the hat' for a long time because it... it's a hard one? But watching that relationships video reminded me of it. Especially the part about partners getting upset when your attention 'drifts.' My ex-husband was constantly -- constantly -- convinced I was cheating or preparing to leave or- or- or- because I was focused on other things. I might be working on writing or knitting or just playing a game and he wanted me focused on him because yesterday I was focused on him and why am I not focused on him today do I hate him now???? and it was so stressful to try to convince someone yes I do love you how do I convince you of this other than forcing myself to sit here and watch you play a video game while doing nothing else as my brain claws at itself-
I mean eventually I did hate him for that and a multitude of other reasons.
But it reminded me of... part of why I was convinced I didn't have ADHD for so long actually goes back to when he and I were dating. In my early 20s there was not only a lot of drinking and weed, but also casual drug use. And one very very early example was at a party with him and some other people, someone had... ritalin. And was like ha ha let's take it for fun.
I got super into a conversation. Like, hyperactively insanely into talking about... I don't remember what the topic was. But I was SO into it. Whereas he and the other person were just chill and whatever but the topic they got me onto, I was SO INTO I was talking a mile a minute and it was all I cared about.
And later that night he was like 'Well, we know YOU don't have ADD. You got way too hyper.' And that thread continued our entire marriage. Any time I ever felt like I had ADHD, or got stressed out, or someone said they felt like I did- he'd be there (because he was so good at detaching me from everyone around me, at gaslighting, at controlling my life) insisting no, no you don't, remember that time that-
But now that I've done more research, learned more, I've found that my reaction to a random ritalin (esp. one I don't know the dose of) is actually more indicative that I do have ADHD than don't by a long shot. Getting hyper-focused into a topic I'm passionate about?
I really, really need a job again. And insurance again. And the spare money to afford the testing my state requires for adult diagnosis before you can get treatment.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@Auspice I get pinterest crazy. I will go through picture after picture of things that hold my interest. For hours. I should show you. Im not even embarrassed. Books...When I told my boss about my ADHD diagnosis, she wasn't surprised. What I learned about myself during this pandemic is that I very much need routine. It lacked and I wasn't in a very good place mentally. I'm also very social. I had a great deal ripped away and I didn't handle anything well, so..I think when you learn more about YOU, the more you can work out an outlet that makes you happy.
We are all more than our worst moments.
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@SuperiorHuron I am pretty sure Pinterest is the ADD trap of doom. Someone is sucking our hours away through the website in a cunning plan of some sort.
My mother asks me all the time, "Did you get that thing I sent on pinterest?" and I have to tell her, "Uhm, I don't have 6 hours to get lost today, so not yet, I dare not look," and she knows I'm neither kidding nor exaggerating in the smallest way.
Talk about looking into the abyss and it looking back into you.
Though if I can ever build a lottery dream house, I am officially stealing the 'I blame this all on pinterest' image macro for a little bronze plaque in the garden somewhere. -
@SuperiorHuron said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
@Auspice I get pinterest crazy. I will go through picture after picture of things that hold my interest. For hours. I should show you. Im not even embarrassed. Books...When I told my boss about my ADHD diagnoses, she wasn't surprised. What I learned about myself during this pandemic is that I very much need routine. It lacked and I wasn't in a very good place mentally. I'm also very social. I had a great deal ripped away and I didn't handle anything well, so..I think when you learn more about YOU, the more you can work out an outlet that makes you happy.
Yeah, I need routines.
I had, at first, hoped that I would get stuff done. Write? Finish some projects?
Instead as time has gone on, I've slipped further into depression and just.... lack of doing anything. It's gotten really bad the past week.
I don't do Pinterest much. Mostly because I can't find an organizational method I'm happy with. I use it to FIND stuff, but I don't do my own boards much.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@Auspice https://pin.it/1kquN9i
https://pin.it/S7cXuF4
https://pin.it/7qEt8nqMy nightmare...But I love them
