The lighter side of ADHD
Apologies if this veered too much off topic. I've been kicking this around for a week or two, and felt the need to add recent events and post.
It's 5am, I haven't eaten in 12 hours, had anything substantial to drink in about 8, have been sitting on the toilet for over an hour, and instead of doing something about any of those things I'm editing a comment to fix a typo.
yeah.
that's all i've got to say, but i have a strong urge to say it.
My general mental state can be described as that one picture of the horse on the beach that says MAN
Spot on with the "I'd really like to get the depression under control before I let you function at your job."
Because fixing the unfixable is somehow more important than making sure I keep my job so I can like....eat. And live indoors. And afford the healthcare that is paying them.
As someone else said upthread (and I've told a lot of people myself) if you're depressed but know you can focus and accomplish things, the first thing you accomplish might be suicide.
This is one of the few places where I agree with standard practice. Depression first, then ADHD.
Why do that though? It's not like not having the mental bandwidth to do basic things or your job would cause you to have less mental bandwidth to do stuff overall.
Lol, like I have ever had mental bandwidth. Childhood trauma represent!
Also, the Adderall does wonders for my depression in addition to unlocking my superpowers
I can’t remember who said it, but the quote “it is no sign of mental health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick world” was being thrown around when I was a kid in the nineties, and it’s not like things have improved much since then.
I looked that one up a bit ago. The source is Jiddu Krishnamurti, but it doesn't look like the common quote is accurate:
It sure is more concise, though.
I remember that, and I have to say that this attitude contributed to me not thinking there was any point in pursuing help for my MDD.
Don't let the world being shit demoralize you into not trying to improve your lot, ladies, gentlemen and citizens.
iirc there's something called 'depressive realism' where depressed or otherwise overly pessimistic people tend to be more accurate at predicting outcomes. The implication being that to function as human beings we have to be at least slightly deluded at all times.
Getting a dog has helped me in ways I never expected. I just figured "cute, cuddle, good for brain chemicals". But they HAVE to be walked at a certain time. They HAVE to be fed at a certain time. Regardless of any of your internal issues, you love them and you have to provide for their needs.
So when you are in the kitchen filling their bowl, you make yourself some toast or grab a banana. When you are taking them for a walk, maybe you go a little farther because they like it and it's good for you. If you struggle to get up in the morning, they look to you pleading to be taken out to pee and you get yourself up and dressed. They need training and that requires being consistent, so you do it for them. It's so much easier to do it for them than for yourself.
To add: they're extremely good at noticing when you're feeling down and will try to help.
This worked for me, still dealing with a lot of issues but there is atleast a hint of schedule. And one of of my two dogs is extremely finicky about time. She has to be out the door even if there no poop to be shat.
To quote Aesop Rock:
Fifteen years taking prescriptions then a shrink's like "I dunno, maybe get a kitten?"
Good news, during wartime and periods of intense crisis, some people experience a temporary paradoxical increase in mental health. So, I've got that going for me.
Waiting for one of the various global crises to change in such a way as to become individually actionable, so that the famed ADHD crisis mode superpowers can finally kick in:
When people say "touch grass" it usually means that the internet shouldn't influence your mental health. Unless any of the states decisions directly impact you, you can think about what you can do to influence it, but if you find yourself spiraling about it, its time to log off. Maybe start knitting idk
Yeah the 'idk' part is the important one because as a generation we've been so dependent on devices for everything from entertainment to productivity that we have no fucking clue what to do AFK. This has been a bitter struggle for me lately. I feel my life slipping away from me click by click but whenever I try to go offline my dopamine system SCREAMS at me to dig up the tablet I buried in my car's trunk.
Yep, this has absolutely been what I've had to do.
No single one of us is the protagonist in some story where we'll be the ones to tip the scales in what's wrong with the world. Do what you can, where you can, and focus on the world around you. What directly effects you and those you care about.
There is not enough energy in any single person to be able to care about everything, and you'll just burn yourself out for trying. This is true even in neurotypicals. It's why people aren't running around screaming constantly about the shit situations going on. It's why people don't seem to care, they can't possibly care about absolutely everything.
So you, like them, have to at least try to exert some control over what you spend your time and mental energy on. It's sure as fuck not easy and it doesn't help improve shit in the grander world, but spiraling isn't easy on you either and it also doesn't help. It just makes you feel worse about everything.
I know this sounds just like someone telling you to "just focus more", "just don't be sad", "just don't worry". But that's not it. It's not that simple. Never will be.
Even though it will likely be astronomically harder for you, you can exert some will and effort against the roiling storm of your own internal state. Anyone saying that it is literally impossible is letting the bad inside them win. Sometimes it is truly too much amd you have to, but you shouldn't live in that space forever, and you need to remind yourself that it isn't impossible whenever other people who are in a bad place are letting it win.
That internal bad is the bad you most need to try and fight, not the bad effecting the whole world.
The bad inside you may win. It may win most of the time, sometimes you might have to let it win because it's too mich at the moment, but you need to try to fight it as much as you are able to. You don't have to win, you just have to keep trying, as much and as often as you can.
Like if you haven't eaten in 8 hours, and there's food in your house, just eat some of it. Doesn't matter what it is, if it's appealing (is it ever when you feel like this?), if you don't think it will help (do you ever think it will before you eat when you feel like this?), if you don't want to (again, do you ever want to do anything when you're spiraling like this?) Go shove some fucking slop into your goblin mouth. Something's better than nothing. Hold onto whatever tiny bits of progress you can grasp by the edge of your fingertips and try to keep moving forward.
The secret is that you can do this. It sucks. It's not easy. It may take years and external help. But it is possible. And it has been the most worthwhile thing I've ever done in my life to just keep trying.
Just wanted to say thank you for this reply. Trying to un-knot and maybe get something accomplished today so I need the in-depth reply spoons elsewhere. But it's appreciated.
Fwiw severe depression with ADHD is a shitty combo because if they give you Adderall without getting the depression taken care of you might just have enough energy to off yourself now.
In my experience Adderall also gave me depression++ when I would come down at night.
Adderall gave me panic attacks during routine problems at work. I pretty much went through all of the stimulants ~20 years ago before I said "no mas" to the pharma-go-round. I'd been rawdogging reality for 25 years, how bad could it get?
Narrator: Yes.
When I told my last PCP that I was having enormous trouble at work she said, "Maybe you don't have ADD, maybe this just isn't the job for you."
This right here is why so many people with ADHD end up changing jobs so frequently.
Also why I am currently searching for a new PCP
I wish this had been me. Instead I stayed at one cushy but low paying job for a decade, then a progressively more and more toxic and stressful one for another decade before I limped away. AuDHD/anxiety/depression is a bitch of a bear trap.
They do tell their anxiety patients to just not worry about it. And people wonder why marijuana is so popular...
You're seeing the wrong therapist. Look for one that practices cognitive behavioral therapy, it's really helped me personally.
To be fair, there are a lot of garbage-tier therapists out there. And the vast majority of us can barely afford the short list of those that happen to take the insurance our employers chose. It's freaking hard, man.
Can confirm. When I got diagnosed with GAD, SzPD and rediagnosed with ADHD, my therapist asked me why I was so anxious all the time. After giving them the rundown of everything going on around me, they told me to not think about it.
Like, I get it. Would be cool. But, it's around me. Would be easier to avoid the ground beneath my feet. They did end up helping me fine-tune my routine to unfuck myself when spiraling into a panic attack though.
I have adhd and all if these problems that go with it. I also found that my anxiety disorder causes me to get extremely stressed when my work gives me too much to do and expects me to move mountains. That's when I start feeling like this and I start not sleeping.
Turns out sleep is really important. Right now work is in a bit of a lull for me, and I'm sleeping fine again, and I don't feel depressed, or have any of these issues at the moment, except the usual, adhd issues of staying on task, going to bed at a normal time, etc.
I will say, getting enough sleep makes the world issues you've mentioned easier to deal with. Can't say I have any advice for how to get it under control considering everyone is different when it comes to how to help their adhd symptoms. I'm super sensitive to medications for example, so a lot of them haven't helped me much. Hope you start getting on the right track at least.
Edit: I would say definitely try to minimize the doom scrolling tho, cut out some of the news if you can. I find life easier to deal with if I'm not always worried about how bad the world is outside.
That tumblr screenshot on the top hits so close, it's really dejecting
self diagnosed adhd undiagnosed scitzophrenia memes
Disco Elysium but with ADHD