ADHD

Hi everyone!

I think this needs a bit of backstory before I get into the actual problem. There will be a TL;DR at the end.

I am in my 30s and for some time now, after an encounter with an acquaintance from abroad who had been diagnosed with ADHD, I have been suspecting I might have it too. All the struggles and hardships he faced in his life overlap quite a bit with my own experiences. At first I didn't think much of it, but found it rather strange as I always envisioned ADHD just as the physically hyperactive part and never really looked into it. But on multiple occasions, especially after joining Lemmy, there were popping up posts from the ADHDmemes community which were scary relatable. There were also some youtube videos, where creators I follow started to talk about their experiences and the process of getting diagnosed and how everything after that went for them. Considering all of that, I am fairly certain that I fall into this category as it would explain quite a bit about myself and why I do things the way I do.

In my current relationship we hit a brick wall. I am very sensitive to stress and when in a stressful situation I tend to have outbursts of anger. Nothing violent, just verbally condescending. Exhibit A: "So, what do you plan to do about it?" "Do I look like I have a fucking clue what to do?!" or Exhibit B: "So, what now?" "I can't talk about it now or the next few days." (might be bad examples, but I can't come up with anything better)

This, of course, has led to one too many fights and problems not just with my partner, but with parents and family (including all the other things associated with ADHD as I found here https://lemmy.world/post/24554298).

Getting a diagnosis in my country (non-EU) would be hard. There seems to be just one doctor who does it in another city (I don't think any of it would be even covered with healthcare) and from googling around it seems that medications is rather scarce. After doing one online questionnaire, which someone in a video suggested, I got a pretty low score meaning I don't have it.

Would going thru the effort and trying to get medication solve my stress related issues? Or would it just make it bearable? The ultimatum was clear - either solve it or gtfo. Talking to her about my suspicions about the causes didn't seem to yield any results as it is just a suspicion.

Before anyone suggests it, I went to therapy for a few years and it has helped greatly, but with (likely) faulty hardware there is only so much software trickery you can pull off.

TL;DR: I am undiagnosed and therefore unmedicated. Partner set an ultimatum to get my sensitivity to stress under control or we are splitting for good. Has medication helped anyone with this specific issue?

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/31589022

Wiznitzer says the new findings underscore the importance of treating ADHD in adults as well as children – not just with medications but also with behavioral therapy that teaches strategies to manage executive function problems that are a hallmark of the condition.

The ad has this person sitting in his room talking about how frustrating it is to have a low-to-no productivity day and how he has made this revolutionary discovery that it has to do with his executive function 🙄. He continues to briefly explain his solution but not before INSERTING HIS ENTIRE LAPEL MIC INTO HIS MOUTH and then apologizing and blaming his lack of control over his executive functions.

He doesn't specifically mention ADHD, but especially with the highlighting of Executive Function stuff, I think it's meant to target us. The combination of the "lol so random -- squirrel!!" trope and the claim that it solved all of his problems feels very reductive. Usually, I am not one to get triggered by people misunderstanding ADHD, common-knowledge/media has done us dirty, but this is a planned advertisement and I think it should be held to a higher standard.

Personally, one of my fixations are planners and organizing solutions, so this ad may have actually interested me before they resorted to stereotype. Pretty fucking aggravating.

EDIT: Thank you all for the suggestion that I shouldn't be seeing Ads in the first place if I was living my life right, ha. Trust that I know what Ad-Block is and what DNS-filtering is. The point is that I managed to get this Ad and that it left a poor taste in my mouth.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24466755

me_irl

I mean on the one hand, I could take the two minutes right now. On the other hand, I could lie awake for another half an hour thinking about this thing I could easily take care of immediately, and then later on take time out of my day to actually do it. It's an easy choice which is a better management of time, I'll be back in bed in a minute.

Alright, now that I've had a full minute back and comfy and tucked in again I've thought up another task that's even less time-consuming than the last one.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24419381

2meirl4meirl

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/31225630

I have approximate knowledge of many rules

So, he said that neither are necessary. Much of it comes from the loss of appetite: The body needs at least as much food as if it were not on stims, possibly even more, especially when the stims help work out more or clean in a frenzy or whatever.

So we have to treat the body as if it were not on stims. Can't rely on intuitive eating, so I have to count the calories. A liquid engineered staple food is easiest to gulp down without any appetite, such as "This is Food" or "Jimmy Joy".

Also, when I did a little workout, I need to have like an apple and take it easy for a moment. I would usually feel the need for both, but on stims, chances are I take the extra endorphins from the workout on top of the dopamine and start a cleaning frenzy. Don't do that anymore.

The important point is to not on a food deficit when it starts to wear off. Otherwise, it goes from 0 to 80 real fast, and then the craving is for unhealthy snacks. Better to have something ready, and not be behind on eating in the first place. Again, engineered staple foods as an emergency option should be around for someone with ADHD anyway, without meds even more than with meds.

Thank you everyone who was so kind and supportive in my previous post. The comments really helped me through the crisis. ❤️

I started reading this book by Gabor Maté, a doctor who has ADHD. In just the first chapter, I felt seen in a way that I have never experienced with any therapist or psychiatrist I have consulted in almost 47 years.

She ate something she shouldn't have and it's blocking her intestines. She has to have emergency surgery tomorrow morning and this is all my fault. If my house wasn't such a disaster, she wouldn't be in this mess.

I honestly don't deserve my pets because of this. I can hardly take care of myself. Idk why I thought pets were a good idea.

I am always surprised when I am reminded of people who use amphetamine meds off-label for weight loss, because even though I don't have an appetite while I'm taking them, there's always a few hours before bed after they wear off when I can't stop myself from eating everything in the pantry.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24080795

good news; they've actually got my referral!

But info that might be relevant for people here; they're currently processing referrals made in July 2024, which from my last call seems to mean they're working them down at a little less than one month, per month.

Otherwise they're supposedly one of the faster RTC providers so still consider them if you're in England!

Sorry for the long post

I was diagnosed when I was 2nd or 3rd grade, I don’t really remember. I never struggled too much when I was in school, I struggled a lot with getting things turned in on time but I was lucky enough to have pretty understanding teachers so I always had decent enough grades. I’ve always been good at accomplishing and finishing things when other people were involved and wanting me to complete those tasks, like in a school or work environment where there’s people above me that expect something from me.

But now I’m 20 years old, I’m out of school, and have been out of a job for months. I’ve been trying to work on my own projects, mostly a YouTube channel and a website, some things like that, and along side some general house work tasks (laundry, emptying my cats litter box, etc) that’s pretty much all my responsibility at the moment while I’m looking for a job. Sometimes I have moments where I really “lock in” and get a lot done, and even outside of that I tend to get by well enough, but it usually comes with really strong and prevalent moments of feeling like “I’m not doing enough” or “this task I’m doing isn’t productive enough”, and I just hate myself for having any moment where I’m not 100% busy or dedicated to something.

I’ve tried a lot of different methods, making task lists so that I can see everything and make sure it gets done, I’ve spent a lot of time journaling and organizing my thoughts in obsidian which I think has helped me visualize some things better and see my priorities, and even asking other people to check in on me so I can have some kind of person relying on me to complete these tasks like I did in work and school situations, but it all usually comes down to me not holding myself accountable and being too lenient with myself, which is a hard thing to correct. I’ll eventually ignore my task list or not even add anything to it and things like that. I’ve also found my friends or whoever I ask to check on me to be unreliable and inconsistent so that doesn’t work.

I feel like I just live a constant cycle of starting things and abandoning them because I struggle so much with getting things done and staying dedicated. I guess I was just wondering if anyone else could relate to this struggle, and this way I’m feeling, and if anyone has any good suggestions or methods that have helped them.

First of all, I am not certain I have ADHD. I do recognize myself in a lot of attitudes, hardships and little things, and it's impacted my life for too long now.

I can't afford to go on like this anymore. Who should I go to? How long does it take for me to recieve a diagnosis and how expensive will it be? If I'll have to take meds, for how long and how expensive are they in your experience?

Thank you all in advance

Regular reminder that being an asshole is not a symptom of any form of neurodivergence. (You can replace “neurodivergent” with depressed, anxious, bipolar, etc. and the diagram works equally well)

ETA: social faux pas, awkwardness, and genuine symptoms of neurodivergence don’t make you an asshole. I shouldn’t have to say this? An “asshole” is someone who enacts a pattern of abusive, controlling, harassing, and/or harmful behavior with no remorse or concern for how other people are affected.

This is something that's been frustrating me to no end recently as I've had a ton of time over the holidays to do whatever I want. I have a dozen half beaten games and half watched tv shows that I really should just finish but idk why I just can't stick to one thing until it's done and then move on to the next like a normal person.

Hi friends, I'm 36 and recently just discovered what ADHD actually is, and am waiting for a consultation/diagnosis from a psychologist (a few more weeks on the wait list I think).

Apologies for the long post, but I'm working through some shit and feel the need to share here.

Anyways, as Ive been processing what having ADHD might mean for my life, Ive been having some incredible "aha!" moments about areas of my life where I feel significant amounts of shame for coming up short.

The one that I'm having now, which I'm very curious to know if anyone has also experienced, is an extreme amount of frustration and stress when my spouse starts "task stacking" with me. She'll ask me to do something around the house, or with our kiddo, and then while I'm in the middle of doing that thing, she'll ask me to do another second thing, and then a third, and so on until either all of the tasks are finished or I politely ask her to stop piling work onto my plate.

Relatedly, when we were dating we would spend a lot of time hiking together and its where we got to know each other a lot. However once we got married I began to really dread the days when we went hiking together. My thoughts on this now are that, we would have to wake up super early (which sucks but isnt a deal breaker in itself), but my wife would spend the entire morning in a whirlwind of task stacking, talking to fast to understand, and then have an unbreakable rigid "get out the door" time. Once we were in the cat to go hiking, I was a complete wreck of feeling exhausted and beaten down. I never had any of these frustrations or dread of hiking before we lived together.

This ended up in me coming to the conclusion that maybe I really don't like hiking at all (which I'm starting to suspect is not actually true), and then fighting back on planning days to go hiking (planning is another massively shameful kryptonite of mine, but that's another story). She's also silently blamed me quite a lot for taking away something that she really loved doing together, and I've felt this existentially deep shame about "false advertising" for myself while dating as an adventurous spirit, only to turn into a massive homebody once we got married.

Essentially, I'm starting to realize that many of the things that have caused me deep shame and cost me insane amounts of relational capital in my marriage might actually just be symptoms of ADHD.

Can anyone else here validate whether or not these sound like ADHD symptoms you've experienced and, if so, whether or not those symptoms have been helped by medication?

Fuck. Was I always supposed to be able to get to sleep inside of ten minutes? What do you mean my attention is supposed to be like a searchlight that follows my eyes, and I'm not supposed to look through things? Why are all these objects in a pile distinct entities? I thought I had to use the 'search' function to return random loot from the pile? Why aren't these random background noises filling me with a steady, seething rage?

Heya guys.

So I read that we may be vitamin B deficient and that supplementing may help our neurology, and help avoid dementia in later life.

I’ve tried a few times, but every time I take a supplement I wake up in the night with my brain feeling like I have drunk too much alcohol.

So I assume that’s actually harmful.

Anyone got a similar experience?

Here's the Youtube playlist I'm asking for suggestions for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oYs_hSlfy0&list=PL7An5prMHt-DqZdOv8jmIl0p-wS3eNgZ2&

So what videos would you recommend?

i will talk to my doctor about this of course but just wanted to collect my thoughts and seek out some other experiences before my next appointment. Sorry for such a long post, I guess the TLDR is I'm not sure if I lack the ability to focus enough to have ADHD.

Since I got the results i have been reading and listening to a lot of stuff about adhd. One thing I am pretty sure of is, if I do have ADHD it is the "inattentive" type, not the "hyperactive" type. Even so I am still quite conflicted about whether or not I actually have it at all. I’ll read one article and think “that’s TOTALLY me, I definitely have ADHD”. For example, I have really struggled with these things since middle school at least (i am 40 so trying to think back before high school is a bit fuzzy):

• Severe motivation deficit/procrastination, particularly for tedious tasks and long-term projects
• poor long term planning/project management (even gives me some anxiety just thinking about)
• poor long term time perception (like I’ll intend to think about and purchase Christmas gifts, but then it’s too late)
• Not great attention to detail, and I feel like I can sometimes jump to conclusions
• Some trouble finishing “last 5%”
• poor sleep hygiene. i actually fall asleep and stay asleep fine but it’s hard for me to put myself to bed at a good time and wake up in the morning. mornings have been hell my entire life.

But then I go read something else and think “hm that does not sound like me at all”. For example I am reading the book How to ADHD, and in it she says:

According to Hallowell, if you, an attention-challenged person, abandon all the distractions of modernity, go live on a farm, and finally find peace, you don’t have ADHD. If, instead, you show up to the farm and get so bored you decide to build a carnival—congratulations, you are one of us.

Like... I would absolutely not have the energy or motivation to build anything like a carnival. I would of course occupy myself with other things, I guess reading or playing guitar or listening to music, but isn’t that basically normal? I’m just not sure how to interpret this. Is this more applicable to "hyperactive" people, maybe not so much for "inattentive" people?

I’m just not sure what to make of all this yet. My whole life i have felt extremely lazy and low energy, but once i get over that initial (major) motivation problem i feel like i can focus fine and get stuff done. Is that what “hyper focus” is? Or does that more likely mean I don’t actually have ADHD?

Thanks for reading and any feedback is welcome.