ADHD

Learn to ride the waves. We have a different rhythm of existence. You can't fight the cycle, but you can learn to work with it.

Some people are marathon runners, but we are sprinters. The trick is to break down marathons into many sprints, and take breaks by switching your marathons.

Just pick half a dozen things your meta-self wants to work on and stick with it. Instead of a bit of everything, we do a lot of everything, but one thing at a time.

Hey all,

not sure if this is an ADHD thing, but it feels like it is. So, I'm a mid/senior level engineer who's been coding professionally for a while now. Before LLMs dropped, I used to get a legit dopamine kick from fixing even the tiniest bugs and getting things to compile. Tedious debugging and diving into docs? Bring it on! It was all part of the fun.

But ever since LLMs came along, that spark has kinda vanished. I feel like my skills are fading by the day. It's like I can't bring myself to code manually or look things up anymore. I know exactly what to ask LLMs and how to fix issues, but the thought of doing it all manually? No thanks.

Now, the only time I get that dopamine hit is when I can implement entire features that should take days in just a few prompts. Anything less feels like a waste of time. I hate feeling so dependent on it, especially since I know the code it spits out isn't always top-notch. I know how to fix it, but I just can't bring myself to do it. Especially tools like Cursor with its agentic coding make it even harder for me to leave prompts behind.

Coding used to be my passion, and now it feels like LLMs has messed with that while boosting my output. Anyone else feeling this way? Any thoughts or advice?

A good friend of mine is falling down the Xitter to Red Hat pipeline and it has me thinking about how to get better at remembering sources of information or, hell, just remember certain topics long enough to research them thoroughly enough to be able to speak at least somewhat eloquently about the topic.

Fairly confident the friend is going to follow the path he's going to follow, so I'm not looking for advice on that.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/19161653

Rule

I'm 35, with diagnosed ADHD and brain scarring. My memory feels so fried and it's almost Impossible to finish a task. Where I live it's almost Impossible to get actual medication for something. Doc always gives herbal treatments and it helps nothing.

Is there a way to help myself without meds?

Literally have no idea what I think about them other than that it seems like a hopeless exercise. Its kinda worrying, like the meds can make you hyperfocus on things and make you paranoid but who knows, they could be right?

Altho it is a great bandwagon for the name brand dominating med companies to jump on, very easy to turn people away from generic meds that must have some baseline of quality assurance and clinical efficacy?

Uggh, just don't know. Wish everyone could take the brand name cheaply like its easily possible to in many places outside the US. Dex cost me like 1.50 a pill before insurance and like less than 30 after total. Its almost 1500 in the states. Insane

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27480773

Found a rule while deleting my reddit comments

quote the image:

"I've gathered my materials

"and planned every last detail.

"I have set time aside. So now all I need is...

"to start an entirely different project!"

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/40823048

Hello everyone! I posted about a month or so ago about a new website for us. I decided to add an old school BB forum since Reddit has become unusable due to censorship. We have Lemmy, and it’s awesome! We simply need an exclusive area for us that are ND.

It’s ready for use while I tweak things. I’m also still working on the main website thedigitalaspie.com

I’m also still looking for writers/contributors and now moderators for the forum.

There is a dedicated board on the forum for suggestions and requests also.

Undiagnosed here, seeking some inspiration and will to not lose hope.

Had anyone successfully gotten in tune with your ever changing hyper fixations?

• If so, how long do your fixation periods last?
• Do you have a structure or benchmark after which you can effectively "close that chapter"?
• What strategies do you have to nudge yourself towards topics which will be meaningful in the long run?

I tend to go from rabbit hole to rabbit hole but it never feels like I'm in control. These fixations never produce any meaningful outcomes and always have a cost which I pay for by neglecting other aspects of my life.

It is a superpower and a weakness as you all probably know. It's great for expanding your interests and appreciating life through different perspectives. I don't want to lose it and want to get into some harmony with it. Anyone had any success?

Thank you :)

Hi, my son (7 years) is diagnosed ADHD without hyperactivity. From my point of view the symptoms are mild (maybe because for me its "normal"). My wife and I now have to decide wether we want to treat his symptoms with methylphenidat. My question: Can someone with medium strength adhd who gets medicated in his/her childhood write their experience in retrospective?

Thanks for reading, sorry for my English.

I've struggled a lot with trying to take drug holidays. When I do them, I end up lying in bed all day and become depressed and/or extremely tired.

What are things that you do to make it easier?

For those that don't know: A 'drug holiday' is essentially a day that you don't take your ADHD medication so that your body has time to decrease tolerance and make the medication more effective.

Example: My messy apartment. Every time I did a thorough cleaning, usually due to pressure and last-minute high on adrenaline, such as a landlord inspection, I was SO sure: Fantastic, it's done now, and it will always be nice; I just have to change and do 20 minutes every day.

Well, you all know how that went. But I kept repeating it over and over, 20 years, 25 years.

What works is to admit that you are like that, but don't know entirely why.

What works is to make a small improvement. I can do one thing every day and check it off, as long as it is on a list.

What works is to get to the root of the problem, ADHD in this case, depression for others, and treat it. This is the big gun, it can be life-changing.

What works is even to hire a maid, to get a dishwasher, to a degree.

What does not work is to "decide" that things will be different now.

It's easier to see when it happens to others. I remember the post of somebody who considered himself lazy, but had all these ambitions. He wanted to get up tomorrow and become this "super-productive self". We all told him, one way or another: That is great, but instead of doing that tomorrow, check today if you can study uninterruptedly for 25 minutes. If that works out, do that for a week, and we'll talk again.

Does the other thing also exist, the epiphany where people change their life? One of my favourite quotes from Babylon-5: "You have the opportunity here and now to choose, to become something greater and nobler and more difficult than you have been before. The universe does not offer such chances often, G'Kar." Is it a lie?

Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9v1jJ_ATec

I have been working in the IT industry for the last 13 years and I was diagnosed with ADHD around two years back.

As part of my job, I have to look at a lot of code. It used to be that I used to write a lot of it, but recently since getting promoted, my work now revolves mostly around reviewing the code others wrote or sometimes enhancing someone else's code.

The problem comes when I come across some extremely convoluted legacy code. For example, like a function hierarchy with 10+ levels of function calls across several hundreds of lines. This causes me some problems understanding what's going on because it's nearly impossible for me to follow every branch to understand which part of the code needs fixing. After a while traversing the function calls I often forget how I got there and have to retrace my steps (I use debug breakpoints but it doesn't help much). I also tend to get distracted with ideas of how to re-implement the whole thing with best practices rather than focus and work on delivering the fix that I am expected to do. This severely hampers my turnaround time and I'm sure my supervisors are frustrated.

What baffles me, however, is that my other colleagues look like they have no problems working on this codebase. So I cannot really blame the badly written code before my supervisors.

So I just wanted to ask anyone here who has ADHD, works in IT/Software Engineering how do you cope with a situation like this? Also, does medication help here?

I used to be on Atomoxetine, but after experiencing a nasty anxiety attack, I stopped about a month ago. Not that I observed any major improvements while I was on it.

PS: Apologies if the context does not make sense to any of you non-IT folks. I can clarify if you ask.

5 months ago, I got diagnosed and on Elvanse.

At first, it was a life-changing magic pill. I made completely out-of-character impulse decisions like: Let's list & process all issues that can be fixed with a phonecall or email right now! After less than 60 minutes, 70 % of the weight from unfinished tasks was off my shoulders.

But more and more it became clear that I need my old crutches (lists, timers, methods, ...) and the meds. It's still pretty great, because when I make the decision to do one item from the list, I can do it without feeling like cutting into my own flesh. I just make the decision.

Lately, especially on meds, I'm pretty hard into doomscrolling. Reading on Reddit frontpage (still there) and commenting my stupid opinion / "insight" to a wild mix of posts.

Currently recovering from the flu, which didn't help, and a lot of urgent todos got stacked up, deadlines missed.

Of course I know what needs to be done, and I'm starting. Got a browser plugin to limit certain websites etc. It's slow.

I think I should try a therapist who is specialised in ADHD. Not so much to process trauma from a life living undiagnosed, but rather to help me get all that done, get to a sustainable level of productivity.

Dr. K. said something interesting in a recent video. People can't just make a conscious decision like "hey, I should stop being a slob and instead improve myself 2 hours straight per day!" or "I want to be someone who gets up early, eats a healthy breakfast, works out, has a completely different life!". It's a different part of the brain that executes this, and you can't just order it around.

Anyway, life changed for the better, a lot, but I want to pick up the pace.

I was diagnosed with adhd as a young child, and still very often forget stuff. My short term memory can be terrible and I often immediately lose a thought or forget an idea after just a couple of seconds.

However, I'm often able to recall an idea by going back to what I was doing, which is something I never hear other people with adhd talk about. Sometimes all it takes is going back to the visual that triggered the thought or reading back a couple of sentences. This usually doesn't take longer than ~10 seconds. Other times I have to retrace my thought process, which can occasionally take up to a minute... If it takes any longer, then the thought is likely to be lost forever and I always feel terrible when it happens. At times I randomly remember something days later, even though it had felt like the thought was truly lost forever.

Is this common among folks with adhd? I only ever hear people talking about forgetting, and never about remembering.

It took finding six different psychologists over the span of six years, and countless sessions where I tried to explain how sudden my decision can be, how I always get distracted, how eccentric that makes me and how flappy my whole life is and has been, and all the underlying issues, until I finally met one who understood me and had expertise in the field.

Tomorrow, I will starting with a dose 18 mg of Concerta.

It really sucks it has to be this way. This really is true.

I now feel like I can put down my heavy armor, my sword and my shield.

Disclaimer: I'm referring the the US medical system, but I imagine people in other countries may encounter similar things.

I cannot be the only one who has had this experience, but all my dealings with the medical industry feel like they were refined by a group of psychologists to exploit the weaknesses of those with ADHD.

The volume of calls, appointments, and paperwork I had to full out to get a diagnosis and prescription for treatment is completely unreasonable to expect someone with poor working memory and attention issues to navigate.

Then, to stay on medication, you need to schedule and make appointments with a psychiatrist every month, for the rest of your life, and if you miss a single one, you will run out of meds (and likely charged a fine), which will make it even harder to remember to make the next one. If you miss too many, that psychiatrist will refuse to see you again and you have to go back to your PCP to get a new referral.

Look, I understand that their time is valuable, but this system couldn't be designed any other way to be more accommodating to people who clinically forget things?!

It's like designing a wheelchair ramp that's actually just stairs that are 3x as steep as the regular stairs. Also, if you fall to the bottom, someone takes your wheelchair until you can climb back up.

So yesterday my friend told me she suspect she may have ADHD, quite out of nowhere. I've known her for almost 20 years at this point (me, man, she, woman, both 34 yo), and I was very surprised by this. She's been struggling for the past 4 years with irregular jobs and general lack of activity, and she's been under psychiatric and psychological treatment for at least 2 years now. None of the professionals that have seen her have suggested she may have this condition before, although she does claim they were not "good" professionals.

So apparently she started seeing lots of shorts on TikTok that highlight common symptoms and she felt strongly identified with them. For the past two months she's been trying to get a diagnostic, but while her psychiatrist made her take some tests, they never replied back with an assesment, nor did they find her a more specialized colleague. (I understand not all mental health professionals conduct these kind of diagnostics).

I... Think I was ableist towards her. I suggested the shorts were extremely vague and that if she is being completely honest with her doctor and they didnt brought the possibility themselves, then she shouldn't worry. She didn't like this, and the conversation ended somewhat abruptly.

So of course she is still trying to see a specialized professional, and hopefuly that will solve her doubts. But still I wanted to ask the community, how could I be supportive towards her? I wouldn't like her to get mad at me and lose the trust we have, by which she confided this in me in the first place. Also, what is your opinion on the depictions of ADHD on the internet? Was I too disregardful by suggesting TikTok shorts shouldn't guide her?

I realized too late that I hurt her, and I want to be better in the future. I have no background whatsoever in health science.

I just recently started taking generic vyvanse. I noted an immediate change at 20mg. I was happier, more productive, less distracted, no depression, etc. Of course, after about 2 weeks or so my symptoms started to return, so I got an increase to 30. After a month I experienced the same and got bumped to 40. Two months into the 40mg and I am starting to feel like it isnt working.
One of my go-to avoidance routines is doom scrolling or internet surfing for light porn. I have noted that during the past week I am almost compelled to jump on the computer and start searching or scrolling through Lemmy.
I am just wondering if this is a normal progression. At what point does the increasing of dosage stop?
Gotta throw in that I started gabapentin for my anxiety this weekend too, and not sure that is helping or hurting.
Overall, I am just really feeling confused. I am not sure I trust my own assessment of the effect of the meds. This is a lonely place because I dont have anyone around me with experience regarding ADHD medications, so any input is greatly appreciated.

I'm completely inept at organizing changes in my life, which means I waste a many weeks being 'stuck' when I could be out living/working somewhere interesting/etc. I was watching Top Gear the other day and I realized that what I really need is to have 'producers' like they do on the show who take care of the logistics of things so that the protagonist can just sail through. I realize that this doesn't come for free so I would be willing to join a group where one such plan is made for the whole group, or switch to a job where having someone plan your life (at least the working part) is a requirement of the job. In other words, I am willing to trade some of my sovereignty/independence for this. Any recommendations? (Just for context, I am not in the US and I'm not old.)

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/57496849

I have experienced that if skip even one day after 8 hour of physical labor streak my energy levels suddenly go to the bottom and I start to feel super bad. It’s quite strange because I do not think I could not be depressed if I had a sedentary job. Sedentary things just destroy me. Also I like and wanted job in programming/cs so yeah. Gotta career switch or something apparently because cardio in the evening isn’t enough, I am like golden retriever. Only truly satisfied when all my muscles ache at the end of the day. And also I need immediate results out of my work