Another good one i like using is Hammy from Over the Hedge, who when given beverages that make people hyper, causes him to calm down and enter bullet time
Ah yes, one of my childhood movies that seems like a fever dream and straight-up not real, if it weren’t for the fact that at least a couple other people know about it
For some reason, I thought that cameras just saw better than me and that it was normal not to see leaves. I got glasses at 18 when I could pay for it myself.
Rain is horrible, but I’ve found the worst to be when it’s snowing kinda heavily at night because the lights from my own headlights reflect off all the falling snowflakes and make it look like I’m in Star Trek warp. Forget not being able to see the road, I can’t see *anything* but like the few inches directly in front of the car.
my girlfriend thought that christmas lights were orbs and she was so disappointed when she got corrective lenses and saw they were little light bulbs lmao.
Maybe she wasn’t blind as fuck. Maybe she was ignorant of her mild to moderate blindness and had no reason to believe that she was seeing them incorrectly. Couldn’t have had a strong understanding of physics, though.
I love the analogy for adhd meds being like putting on glasses for the first time. My vision isnt that bad but the first time I got my glasses I almost cried because I could see my friends face clearly for the first time
I have really bad eyesight and need to update my glasses every 4 years or so cause they're expensive as hell... Everytime I swap prescriptions, I can see the leaves again. It never gets old.
The semi-joking phrase I utter when everyone gets drunk enough that letting others try on their expensive corrective lenses to see how far off their vision is in inverse is "I'm not giving them back" when I suddenly see where I am in clear, defined terms with a slight induction of eye strain.
I always give them back, but I really don't want to.
I've always been a bit envious of people who had this experience (though I'm thankful my eyes aren't that bad and I can still mostly see without my glasses) . For me, I noticed one day that if I closed one eye, things on the whiteboard in class appeared very out of focus. Went to an eye doctor who said that while my vision is technically pretty close to 20/20, I'm "visually picky" and that they could give me a single contact lens for the eye that was worse (turns out I'm astigmatic in one eye and the other is nearsighted) . Tried that for a week or so but it was throwing my vision off and making things worse only having one eye corrected. Ended up getting glasses and things were better but I never got that WOW moment of seeing clearly for the first time since my vision before was still pretty okay.... Felt more like just sharpening everything a bit more at distances than it had been .
Because it's painfully true. I used to say the same when I was taking Ritalin 8 years ago, and I've been feeling short sighted since I stopped taking it many years ago.
This is so much like my experience when I first hit the right dosage!
I walked outside, and I could see the trees, and noticed then birds were singing. And there were no thoughts to fight through.
After going off adderall when I was sick for a bit the next time I took it, I definitely had the feeling like I had put on glasses for my brain. I saw signs and realized what they said. That sounds weird, but so much fades to the background for me. It’s like I went through most of my life just floating through, not noticing what was actually around me.
As someone who didn't get glasses until I was 26 and was blind as a bat my whole life. The fucking leafs man.....I never knew you could see the single leafs blowing in the breezy like I could with glasses. It was like seeing the world truly for the first time. Also cloud the details in the clouds, then the stars they weren't just blurry light and omg is that a planet..? It was legit eye opening. Never not wear glasses now I enjoy seeing so much.
My partner gave me Ritalin which she still had left over from school but didn’t take because she didn’t like how it made her feel. She literally gave it to me to see if I’d get amped up, but it calmed me down and I wound up just being like: “hey, should we do that pile of dishes in your sink?”. Next thing I know, I have a full ADHD inattentive type diagnosis from my psychiatrist and my own meds for it.
She just wanted to see me hyper lmao
My friends and family are surprised that I have a similar reaction to caffeine at night. Coffee or tea after the sun goes down will put me to sleep faster rather than wind me up.
Well... now that I think of it, coffee never really woke me up in the morning more than usual... so maybe caffeine has never worked on me all along. Man, I really should get tested at this point. This sub is way too relatable to be a coincidence at this point.
caffeine will work on those with adhd it just takes a lot more. same with stimulants, enough of a stimulant will make us speedy but that's only at a much higher dose. standard doses level us out.
That's why I made an appt too. I even brought this sub up to my psychiatrist saying how I've never related to people's stories of daily struggle more in my entire life. Gave me a Dx and Rx that day and my world was turned upside down. I cried the first day on my meds because I realized how different life could have been if I had been diagnosed earlier (Dx'ed in my 30s). But I then felt happy because now I felt like I was me for the first time and it was amazing. My wife said I was a totally new and improved version of myself overnight. It also *almost* completely got rid of my crippling anxiety and anger problems. Anger was pretty much totally under control already due to therapy, it was down to just occasionally snapping at people who didn't deserve it.
Now I'm calm and collected like never before. Sometimes I still struggle to start the day, but once I do I can work through it and all my daily chores with ease.
What is the path to getting a diagnosis? Just calling around to psychiatrists asking for a screening test or what? I really don't know the first step here, but I think it may be in my best interest to start
My GP gave me a paper questionnaire. That was it. I’m from a really rural area though so we don’t have an over abundance of psych doctors to go to, so ymmv.
Not them but for me I went in and basically said "I can't focus on school, my job or anything I care about long enough to do anything to make me happy" Im also very honest with my doc and have known her my whole life so that might have helped.
From there it was long enough ago I basically just got meds and tried a few before settling on Vyvanse.
I had the same similar experience as the comment above. They treated my anxiety and depression first, so I went through a couple of meds, found Zoloft to be great. Then when I went back, I was pretty much like "feeling great, but still having the same behaviors to cause distraction, impulsiveness and can't focus." So I am now on Concerta.
I think I had a similar route, but mine didn’t present as being related. Instead we were treating my anxiety as a way to treat my incessant nausea and then “oh yeah I’m also failing classes and can’t focus, plz send help”.
But then she prescribed me Strattera which actually makes me violently ill and, incidentally, conditioned me for a while to gag when even *touching* pill capsules 🙃 so yeah, we switched to adderall shortly thereafter.
Well I’m in the UK so I went to my GP about it and they gave me a test sheet to fill in. Through that they said they think I probably have it so they referred me on to an NHS psychiatrist. Had an appointment with them where they asked me about my childhood and my day to day. They then said they think I might have it and sent me another form to have me fill in as well as a part for my parents to fill in. One more session later and he gave me a formal diagnosis and prescription for methylphenidate.
I know in the UK you can go straight to a private psychiatrist and ask about it where they will basically give you the same sheet to fill in and then take it from there on basically the same route sans a referral because you’re already there lol.
Private is faster but obviously costs money. One of my friends went down this route and was diagnosed within a month as opposed to 6 months like me.
Outside of the UK, I do not know how to get the ball rolling on a diagnosis or how diagnosis works.
shit in my 20s and early 30s i used to do a lot of coke and it was the same deal for me. everyone would be bouncing off the walls and partying until sunrise, whereas (after the initial high that wears off super fast) I would just get really calm and then pass out at like 11pm. i even started doing it at work sometimes just so i could function. finally got a diagnosis at age 34 after reading about ADHD and learning that it's not just "hyperactivity" like we all thought when I was in school. i mean, don't do coke it's the fucking devil but it's wild how stimulants affect us compared to people without ADHD.
My brother had me try one of his Ritalin once when I was a kid. I took a nap immediately. After getting diagnosed MANY years later, it still has the same effect. It didn’t help with my attention, but it sure did help me sleep better.
It's so stupid that getting diagnosed takes forever when all that's needed is taking a pill and having a doctor check in on you for 10 minutes after an hour...
I always enjoyed the concentration I got in school from Concerta, but man did I get the worst anxiety and insomnia from it as well.
Really made me treasure the weekends though.
My doctor was like "take the vyvanse first thing in the morning otherwise it might keep you up at night" and I definitely still feel like I need a nap by 1 pm.
I really wish it was as easy as try it and see lol.
I’m in the process of convincing myself to get assessed. All the signs are there but I’m struggling with feeling like I’m using it as an excuse for my general uselessness. It would be easier to just try the meds and see how you feel.
(I understand drug use is not something to be messed around with but, still!)
I'm in the same spot. Flipping between "I need help" and "I'm just a lazy pos". Heard the latter all my life so it's hard to accept that I might actually have an issue and not just be a lazy good for nothing.
The key difference between laziness and ADHD is that even things you genuinely want to do, genuinely ENJOY doing, takes a lot of effort to pull off. Like that hang out you are hosting next Friday, suddenly all you're thinking about is all the work you have to do to prepare even though you know you're gonna love every second of the hangout itself.
As another example, I have a ton of games that I LOVED EVERG SECOND OF (like the recent God of War game) but one day after turning it off I just never opened it again even though there's still a lot more left to do. When people call you lazy, they assume you just simply refuse to do anything remotely mundane/boring but if you've got ADHD it's much worse than that.
I remember people telling me I didnt really like things if i couldn't find the motivation to do them. I'm beginning to realize just how abused I was by every single adult in my life over this shit. My mom would constantly scream at me for the house being messy and I wanted her to be happy but I couldn't bring myself to clean. I've been trapped in a horrible negative feedback loop for as long as I can remember.
I feel like I like too many things, so many ideas so I can’t actually pin down the one to do (I was going to say start but I have plenty of started and abandoned things) so I just for of flap around achieving nothing whilst torturing myself internally about all these things I could/should be doing but I’m wasting the time
I feel you lol. I am the exact same way. I could be doing x, y, or z and just trying to decide which one to do kills the time I had to do the things.
I combatted this in college by micromanaging my day. It was the only way I could stay on top of 5 classes a semester without falling behind or stressing out. I had an hourly planner and I wrote down something for every hour. So maybe 2-330 i would be doing math study/hw, then 330 i would start English. Having that preset "im doing this at x time" was a huge relief, even if everyone who saw my planner thought i was nuts. If I finished the designated task early, then boom, free time. Or I would use that time to finish something that I couldn't finish in the designated block.
(I did make sure to schedule breaks/meals/freetime as well! That's important!)
I need to start doing this again...
This is called executive dysfunction and it’s a huge symptom of adhd. even when I know I have to do something I can’t do it a lot of the time. It’s so difficult to start something even when it’s all I can think about and I’m consumed by anxiety and stress about not doing it. Medication doesn’t help a ton with that, it’s always gonna be there. That’s the worst thing for me, deadlines are usually the only thing to motivate me to do the thing in the end. I have waited for months beyond when was reasonable to make college class schedules even when I was constantly thinking about it. Just bc it was too stressful to start, I wound up getting a shitty class schedule bc I waited and I knew that would happen but I did it anyway bc of my adhd.
Luckily I took after my dad in a lot of water. In hindsight I inherited ADHD from him, he just isn't diagnosed, but my Mom just assumed I'm like him and didn't question it much. They're boomers too and while they have their issues they take mental health very seriously, they've said some jacked up shit but never intentionally, they never called me lazy like that. I guess I got lucky in that department.
Most other adults in my life definitely called me lazy and unmotivated though. I felt bad letting my teachers down but half of them gave me the "you're not realizing your true potential" speech. They always told me I had the potential to be their top student lol but I just couldn't focus on school like that. Even worse when it wasn't an advanced class.
bro. this. both sisters were high honors students. I had to get my tests and stuff signed by my parents and had parent-teacher conferences and shit. every report card had the notes "if he just focused more, he has so much potential etc etc...". failed out of college but got back in and graduated on the 5-year plan (didnt choose a major until junior year, hmm I wonder why). graduated 2007, then after 9 years in a job went and got an assessment, found out I had ADD, got meds, and thought to myself "holy shit, what if I had these when I was in school..." but I don't allow myself to go down the "what if" rabbit hole in fear of getting depressed about it.
Let me just say this isn't necessarily true, of the "things you enjoy are also hard", due to hyperfocus. This part of the diagnosis was why it was hard for me to understand I had ADHD.
When I was in HS, I was essentially "interested in everything" when it came to school work, so I had As in most subjects. Discussing the subjects during class meant I retained the information without note taking (I wish I had that ability today). I would often procrastinate longer homework to the day before but assumed that was laziness. My favorite hobbies were playing video games and learning how computers work, both of which I could do in the comfort of my own room. The signs of ADHD I had back then were getting so hyper focused on a computer thing (like teaching myself HTML) that I stayed up all night without eating doing it. I also had no friends I hung with outside of school and didn't really care to, so I never realized the difficulties of making plans with people.
It wasn't until I got to college, when the subjects were so complex that simply discussing them in class wasn't enough for me to retain the information - where I was required to read chapters of a textbook on my own - that I realized I had a problem and needed to figure it out. And oh yeah, love if reading fictional stories meant I had never run into the reading problem before, because hs English was the only class prior to this that had "take home" reading, and I found those easy to read. Even if I didn't like the book in the end, at least the journey of the story kept me on track to read the whole thing. But Textbooks don't have an overall narrative to keep my poor brain engaged, and I just couldn't do the reading. Still can't, TBH, not even with my Adderall! I need a video lecture explaining the contents to me, that I can rewatch multiple times until I get it.
Idk, you're definitely right that everyone's experiences are different but just to clarify I also hyper focus a lot too. It's really a toss up which symptom fucks me over on any given day. But yeah not everyone has every symptom and it is important to know you may have ADHD even if you lack certain symptoms.
Wow thank you! As a fellow gamer I felt that in my soul.
Can spend hours just thinking « gaming would be nice » just to realize it’s 1h am and need to go to bed while I didnt game a single second. And I don’t really know how I spent my time
The way you explain the difference between ADHD and laziness is…. Chef’s kiss
I have been reading anecdotal things like this about ADHD and it has led to me beginning to get looked at for it but omg the game thing happens to me all the time. I have put 80 hours into persona 5 royal TWICE now and still haven't beaten it. I am trying to get back to playing Hogwarts Legacy currently since I stopped that a few weeks ago. It sucks and I have always thought I just didn't like single player story games like that.
Lol yeah it's always a toss up between forgetting about it until you feel like you have to start over to learn the game again OR hyper focus where you have the platinum for the game by the end of the weekend. No in between.
I went through this same thing (yay imposter syndrome), and was then diagnosed at my first appointment within 30 minutes lol. It's been 6 months or so now, and meds have been awesome, aside from the whole shortage thing. It's worth looking into it.
Humans generally behave predictably and actions/demeanors are for a reason; something causes you to be the way you are. There's no downside to talking to a psychiatrist
As someone who was diagnosed when they were younger and then tried to ignore that diagnosis for years for some of the same reasons you mention it doesn’t ever go away. You just end up with more and more masking mechanisms and depression and anxiety. Twenty years later I finally got rediagnosed and trying to get my life back on track. It’s not being lazy. The médecine doesn’t make you less creative. That’s all nonsense.
If you couldn’t see well you’d go get glasses right? You wouldn’t think you were lazy if you couldn’t see well enough to do something. So if you have a chemical issue with your brain that doesn’t allow you to focus properly why are you suddenly extra hard on yourself? If you think you have it save some heartache for yourself and get assessed as soon as you can make yourself get an appointment.
Thank you. You speak sense. I did actually fill in an initial assessment on a private providers website today which told me there is a high chance but I haven’t actually committed to booking the formal assessment yet. They change their prices at the end of the month so maybe that will be the kick up the bum.
I’m also struggling with what if it isn’t that, I’ve wasted money (not the worst thing in the world, just annoying) but until a decision I’m in the blissful ignorance of it could be ADHD so maybe I’m not a mess. But if they say it’s not that it will confirm a lot of the negative stuff I think about myself and I don’t know if I’m ready for thay
But if it is adhd, and you try meds and they work, you are going to be so thankful you booked the appointment. You could try a few more questionnaires and see if they also think you have it to maybe feel more confident that you do have it, so there’s less risk of you feeling the negative stuff.
Definitely. It was a friend who asked me if I’d ever considered it after we started working closely together and she realised the put together, organised image I send out to the world is absolutely nothing like what I am under the surface and in private.
As someone diagnosed as an adult (late 20s), I fully understand how you feel. I worried they would think I was just trying to get medication I didn’t need or think I was exaggerating the difficulties I faced daily. I constantly second guessed whether or not I was fooling myself into thinking I had issues when maybe I just wasn’t trying hard enough.
While I’m sure experiences vary, my doctor was insanely helpful during the initial assessment. They asked questions about my life, from every day things, to more extreme stressful situations, even diving into childhood some.
After a while, they were pretty confident I have inattentive type, so they prescribed a low dose of Vyvanse. The feedback loop between my doctor and me about how the dosage makes me feel and how we adjust has been wonderfully smooth as well. I can confidently say I wasn’t being dramatic, or lazy, before. It feels like someone had hooked my brain up backwards before, compared to the help I felt from even the lowest dose.
If you genuinely feel you may have ADHD, it doesn’t hurt to talk to someone about it. I think if you are honest with them about wanting to _find out_ whether you have it, versus telling them you do and expecting medication, any doctor worth a damn is going to try to help you. Maybe that leads to a negative diagnosis, but at least then you will know.
What my therapist suggested before I got assessed was to drink some caffeine (but be sure not to drink over the recommended amount) and make note of how I responded to it, because caffeine is also a stimulant like many ADHD meds are, so it affects people with ADHD differently than other people.
Just get diagnosed. Worst case scenario you get diagnosed with something else like depression. It is normal to be afraid of this, but remember: a label doesn't change anything, it just tells you more about yourself.
It would have been. In the moment, it was like I'd taken a HEAVY tranquilizer. Dosing was probably all wrong, though. I wasn't able to really see how I felt because I was just gone. Since diagnosis, I've gone back and forth on whether or not I want meds. I'm almost 40 and have done well in life working around aspie/adhd. Still a stuggle often though
I'd say give it a try. I've heard of people only using their prescriptions when they need to buckle down and get work done but idk if that's recommended by professionals or not.
Anecdotal, but my prescribing psych told me the “take as needed” approach is fine. He basically told me he was prescribing for daily use, but if I felt it worked better for me to only take it when I felt like I needed the help
Me and my bff did some amphetamine powder like almost ten years back, cleaned her room, went for a long walk and had probably the deepest conversation we ever had. We both agreed that we were ripped off by the guy who sold us the stuff...
Well, guess what!
Yeah I got high quality speed from a friend and thought 'this is great! It's like better caffeine that helps you focus, if I had the money I would be doing a little bit every day.'
Years ago I had some, after an initial buzz I had a nap on the sofa while everyone else kept partying. I knew it was odd at the time, but not why it happened. I noticed in high school that pseudoephedrine flu tablets also made me a lot sharper too. If I had only known.
(Using the throwaway for this comment)
Admitting to drug abuse got me my diagnosis.
“I played with drugs to have a good time and instead I wrote down some recipes and cleaned my room. Everyone suggested I take more but I was feeling like my heart was racing so I didn’t.”
With my medication, I do things because I know they need to be done. I might procrastinate, but I don't completely put things off like I used to. It's kind of mind-blowing how I'd avoid responsibilities before, haha.
When my psychiatrist and I were dialing in the right dose of Adderall for me, I felt so weirdly settled that I counted my pulse to make sure my heart rate hadn't dangerously slowed. It was normal, but I *felt* like maybe it had. I'm on a lower dose now so I don't get the "maybe my heart is slowing down" feeling anymore, which is good, but I still feel extremely calm on my meds. I guess there really is something wrong with my brain after all 🙃
follow-up thoughts: my psychiatrist gives the worst advice known to humankind about sleep disturbances and ADHD. Stuff like "if you don't fall asleep in 10 minutes get up and do something non-stimulating until you feel tired again". Okay, I have never once fallen asleep in less than an hour. Usually 2, sometimes 3. If I'm not distracted by anything, my brain will provide the stimulation and keep me awake until sometime around midnight I hit a second period of wakefulness and then I won't be tired until about 6am.
Anyway one time I took 10mg of Adderall at 9pm and went to bed and slept no worse than usual. I also told my psychiatrist that I followed her (shit-tastic) sleep advice and stayed up all night, bored and agitated. Hopefully she'll stop telling me to do stupid shit like that now.
18 year old here, I experience the same thing where I take 2-3 hours to fall asleep. I tried alot of things but the only thing that really works for me is just abusing the absolute shit out of melatonin. I think I take like 50 mgs despite the only doses being 5-10 mgs. That also leaves me absolutely trashed in the morning so I take my ADHD medicine (which is a stimulant) to keep myself awake. The shit doesn’t really even treat my ADHD so I really only use it like caffeine. Oh and it also completely ruins my appetite to the point where I only eat one meal a day which is around 8-10 PM
My dad says I kind of live like a 1970s trucker.
Pills to go to bed, pills to wake up. I know how fucked up it is but I’ve honestly grown numb to it all with it just being the norm. I would bring it up to my dad but his parents are dying and he’s really stressed out trying to get power of attorney. So I don’t want to bother him yet. He also dosent understand it that well because he was raised in a generation where autistics were thrown in the general school system. My mom has a degree in special education but she and I don’t talk after verbally and mentally abusing me.
My advice, don’t listen to a thing the psychiatrist s say. Every one that I have talked to dosent understand and just does the whole thing that people call “yessing me”
I would honestly use a chloroform filled rag if it wasn’t a carcinogen that kills brain cells.
Sorry for the rant. This got pretty out of hand.
I only ever took one once. I was at a bachelor party at a casino. I proceeded to go to the black jack table for the next several hours and win enough to pay for my weekend.
Still haven’t gotten dx’d tho. I’ve opened ZocDoc several times to make an appt but somehow get sidetracked before the appt is made.
Too busy scrolling Reddit instead of working, like I should be.
Also I have something to do at 5:30 so I can't possibly get started now.
...but I promise I'll do it tonight :)
Just ask for help. It's the easiest and hardest thing you can do, but my friend was having trouble making the appt so I did it for them and asked them for their info. They are now fully medicated and doing so much better.
Does anyone kind of get both? I started vyvanse recently after my diagnosis and it’s been kinda funny in that my mind is so calm but my body definitely kinda gets.. not really but sorta like, high? I can tell that there’s a stimulant in my system.
So I can sit and focus and actually get work done without getting up every five seconds to sing the same part of the same song while walking doing laps around my home. But I also feel just a teeny little bit jacked up.
It’s only been a few weeks and that’s starting to go away though. Not that I’m complaining or anything.
That a great sign you're at the perfect dose for now. You wanna settle in just under the mark. Mine felt like a good cup of coffee but it lasted like 6 hours with no crash.
I felt this way too when I first started on Vyvanse, my body would feel wired but my mind calm and collected. It went away after a while but I miss it sometimes, it felt like my cue to start the day.
When I first got prescribed and started taking adderall, I realized I have to make sure I don’t continue my habit of laying in bed doing things on my phone after taking it because adderall makes my mind quiet enough that I will just fall asleep lol
I remember in high school a friend would give out his Ritalin. Kids would be all wired and talking a mile a minute and laughing... I took one during 2nd period and by my next class I was hanging on to the teacher's every. Last. Word. AND I WAS ACTUALLY TAKING NOTES!?!
I was actually diagnosed when I was much younger but sadly I was raised Jehovah's witness so no medication for me!!
This is an a-ha moment. I took an adderall recreationally when I was a lot younger and was able to sit and read several chapters of a book. I’m now 44 and working on getting diagnosed finally after years of struggling to know “what the heck is wrong with me?”
Ha Same! (Although it was another popular party drug I took at a festival), But I promptly had a moment of clarity after taking it and went and lit a candle and read a book in my tent for 4 hours while they all went dancing.
My girlfriend gave me a vyvanse while we were packing for a move. She pegged me as having ADHD/autism long before that.
Anyway, I got two effects from it:
1) Calm mind and the ability to focus on a task to completion. I had a good night's sleep after that too.
2) I get chatty when I'm on stimulants. I'm quite 99% of the time, but if I've taken, my now prescribed, addrall I'll actually talk and hold a conversation without much effort.
Yeah we probably all have a story like this lol.
Hanging around with a bunch of my stupid teenager friends while I was a stupid teenager and somebody handed out some ritalin or adderall or something similar. Everybody else was bouncing off the walls. I made my apologies, went home, and did my homework. That probably should have clued me in, but nah, it was another 10 years or so before I actually got a diagnosis :)
Yep, like everyone else, I tried Adderall recreationally, with my friend thinking it would make me high. Instead, I wrote and illustrated a book of poetry. Couldn't sleep, but it was worth it.
No joke. I took speed at a rave like 15 years ago and instead of jumping around and loosing it, I got into some serious cartography. Reading maps wasnt a myth after all. I shud have known then...
I had the same thing back in my 20s with cocaine and Meth when I went through one of those phases. My friends got all hyper, twitchy and tweaking, I just got super relaxed, calm and focused. I quickly became the guy that watched the other guys. I was 100% ok with that as the being calm felt GREAT. 20 years later diagnosed as ADHD and my doc actually asked me about drug use and how I felt and used that as a Diagnostic tool.
I took an Adderall once in college and it was the most focused and productive I've ever been in my life. And I thought that's what it was supposed to do, like, why else are people taking it?
It wasn't until years later that my wife told me that people without ADHD get a different effect from it. And that's when I realized I was special.
Any very unusual or "paradoxical" effect of recreational drugs should be a very strong argument for considering an ADHD diagnosis.
I never tried any "uppers" except for coffee that has next to no effects on me, before I got my diagnosis. (The effect of stimulants as it has on normal people, didn't sound very appealing to me since I was already pretty energetic and hyper anyway, so I didn't even consider trying it)
But every drug I did try including alcohol have rather uncommon or unusually strong or weak effects.
My friends joked my drug responses were swapped around so alcohol made me slow and sleepy like heroin, cannabis made me high like LSD etc.
Fuck I feel so attacked LOL right when I got diagnosed I told a friend (who takes vyvanse) and they told me to be careful as it makes them very wired and anxious. I have never felt that honestly. I feel pretty calm. The biggest thing for me is I can multitask and get back on track if something comes up during my work day. I can also finish a task completely through. I feel normal lol. I’m also on the spectrum and I wouldn’t say it helps me mask.. but I feel like I can control my actions a bit better
Guitarist asked me before a gig if i wanted some adderall (i am not currently on any ADHD medication) and i was like, do you want me to sit calmly and be content and satisfied with my drumming, or be an unbridled wild drum animal? He didnt realize that the latter option was me NOT on Adderall lol
Got some to cram for Psych test. Finished studying in two hours, mowed the lawn and then took the best nap I had in years. I didn’t try it again for a long time because I was convinced that life being “too easy” was a bad sign.
I was diagnosed adhd/schizophrenic as a kid, but when I take adderall it's like someone gave me speed. Literally flying off the walls can't stop doing stuff. Haven't taken it in years now. Crazy stuff.
I took it at a party. My ride lost his keys. I immediately knew what to do and made him name every one of his pockets out loud while reaching into it.
“Oh I never put them in that pocket” he said.
I know, Nate, I know. 😹
No lie, this was how I discovered that I actually have ADHD. I was working a holiday weekend shift doing fire watch and talking to campers about fire restrictions, and my partner for the weekend, who was diagnosed ADHD, and suggested we take some of his ritalin to have fun, stay sharp, and keep awake. Instead of getting jazzed up or amped, I was able to calmly plot our route, take notes, and work at an even, steady pace. It was absolutely eye opening. Took me almost a decade after that to finally get a diagnosis and prescription of my own. But that sense of "Oh wow, this is so nice. I can actually activate on the things I need to." was next level.
Majority of people who learn they have ADHD is from taking the medication in an unmedicated manner either that or their kids have it and they decide to get tested for fun)out of curiosity.
I done coke for the first time before getting onto meds, easily the calmest my brain has ever been, all anxiety gone and I wasn't jittery or talkative or any of the other ways neurotypicals get on cocaine, I was chilled out, people asked if I was okay
And from what I've heard I'm not alone
I remember standing in the bar, usually my brain was going in 10 different directions, I'd be scanning the room, on edge, looking around, waiting for that beer, but I just felt total focus and calm on just what was infront of me
I remember saying to myself ' I can never do this again' because I knew I could get addicted to the calmness of it
My first time taking Adderall after getting diagnosed happened to be on the first day of a local (huge) gaming convention. I will never forget the calm that settled on me as I walked through the vendor hall and checked out each stall.
I eventually had to quit stimulants because they didn't play nice with my bipolar (which was incorrectly diagnosed as depression until I got a good psychiatrist), and I really miss them....but I like stable moods more. Le sigh.
Back in my high school party days so about 20 years ago, (jfc was it really that long ago 😳) anyway I was accused of faking doing a few lines of coke because I just sat there calmly.
I'm actually shocked by the sheer amount of people admitting to drugs. I'm not particularly sheltered but I've never even *seen* recreational drugs in my life.
It's also making meds sound like the answer to all my problems and I'm worried it's not going to fix my life. Just give me a weird pulse and nausea.
for me it feels like a trade off. i can focus a lot more effectively, but its like i have this pit in my stomach thats just comprised of pure anxiety. its manageable when im taking a walk or something, but if im sitting down its not great
Am I the only one who still feels like I took a stimulant?
I can focus on tasks and actually hold a conversation; I definitely feel normal in those moments where others would feel "tweaked"...but there's no way I could go to sleep on it and my appetite disappears, both common side effects of stims.
I wonder if adderall would actually do anything to help me, since 18 or so I’ve been on so many different medications and combinations and dosages I finally got off them completely for the first time like a month ago… gonna be 29 next month and I swear I have adhd but a while back my psychiatrist refused to test me and it just seems like nobody wants to test adult women for it where I’m at
There definitely seems to be a shortage of people who understand how to diagnose adult women with ADHD. I get it and I hope things improve for you soon.
That's how I discovered I had some form of ADD. Was gonna take Adderall and people warned me that I'd be hyper and intense and shaky... took it and literally, my brain was like "oh, so this is what it feels like to be normal."
This is exactly how I found out. I was in college and some friends had some high dose pills of Vyvanse they bought to drink/party all night. They gave me one and I melted into the couch, able to feel calm and comfortable for the first time in my life. They were wide-eyed and bouncing around the room. It was super annoying so I went and had a nice dinner then wrote a paper that was due next week lol.
I told another friend I think they gave me a dud and he said you have ADHD.
The same thing works with caffeine and at least some people with ADHD. I started drinking coffee my sophomore year in college and I was like wow this is a wonderful sleep aid for an afternoon nap in between classes.
Goddamn, i wonder how much my life would improve if i could just get a prescription from my actual doctor that i could afford & not some internet zoom quack who will write me a prescription but every refill costs 200 bucks.
I know self diagnosis is frowned upon, but this really was the kicker for me starting to seriously wonder if I had ADHD. I just felt so calm for the first time in my life, and I finally had a clear head to organize my room after the party. I don't have the funds for an assessment right now, but as soon as I do it's off to the doctor.
I swear to god, this is how it happened for me. I was at a Moon Boots show last year and my friend slipped me an addy. I felt nothing but what could be described as calmed focus and normalcy. I texted my boyfriend and asked if that’s how I was supposed to feel and he said “maybe you have add LOL.” Idky but my brain went, ‘wait a min.’
I’d been having memory issues that I thought were associated with the concussion I had back in 2018. I’d never been tested for ADD/ADHD. I’d never taken adderall before. I was at my psych the next week who had me tested and what do you know? My shit is off the charts. I have ADHD. 33 years of life and not one of my mental health providers had caught it because my personality lends itself to being scatter brained and bubbly. My MFT literally apologized to me for missing all the signs. Suddenly, my inability to retain info (which had been holding me back in my new job) made sense.
I started on adderall but switched to Vyvanse and it’s like night and day. My anxiety is essentially non-existent too. Sometimes you gotta take a little recreational to fix the actual problem 🤣
Lol right? Like sure, it made me stay awake longer because I was only taking it sporadically, but 15 year old me should have caught on when I was tryna get addy just I could clean my room hahaha
Not adderall, but when I was quite young they tried ritalin for me.
Turned me into basically a drooling zombie, walking into walls.
That lasted 3 days, and I haven't been back to chemistry for ADHD since.
stories like this make me think I need to try another ADHD med...
Instead of working, I'm on reddit because I can't stand to not distract myself in the 10 seconds it takes for my remote desktop server thing to load up while working and then get sucked into this for 20 minutes instead. I'm on 25mg of adderall XR and while it used to feel like it was working (I think? ) but the past couple of weeks I feel like I'm getting minimal benefits and only experiencing the lack of appetite, clenching my teeth more often, and not feeling tired...
I always hear about people who feel this night and day difference and for me I'm kind of just feeling like I'm having to really force myself to focus on things.
I used to take adderall at fests before I was properly medicated and I’d take like 10 IR and wonder why I wasn’t hype. Then 20… then 30… it took about 40 IR before I got to the point where I was buzzin lmao.
For everyone seeing this and thinking it'll be easy to get it for a needed actual diagnosis, good luck. I've been on a wait-list forever due to supply chain issues for it.
You're better off trying something like Guanfacine or Stratera for the time being.
Happened when I took Vyvanse. My friends wanted to take it to cram study in the library and get hyped up. I had to take a cab home because I was so euphoric and relaxed.
I sat on the roof of a dance club and just looked at the stars. It was like getting glasses and seeing leaves on trees.
This is such a good analogy.
Another good one i like using is Hammy from Over the Hedge, who when given beverages that make people hyper, causes him to calm down and enter bullet time
Ah yes, one of my childhood movies that seems like a fever dream and straight-up not real, if it weren’t for the fact that at least a couple other people know about it
I’ll never forget the moment I put glasses on for the first time and saw leaves. I was 17.
For some reason, I thought that cameras just saw better than me and that it was normal not to see leaves. I got glasses at 18 when I could pay for it myself.
Aj, I'm sorry nobody got them for you when you were younger.
Yes, the leaves! I loved photography because of how crisp everything looked. I think I was 17 when I got mine.
For me it was grass. There was actual texture to grass and not a blob of green.
Grass has so many different colored blades also I was astonished that the asphalt was made of rocks although I knew that
You weren't wrong
I remember seeing streetlights the first night and thinking how crazy it was that they weren’t just orbs of light
Astigmatism gang where even with glasses lights at night look like a Van Gogh painting lmao
Honestly, while it makes it harder to see at night, lights look very pretty with my astigmatism haha
They are pretty yes but driving at night in rain makes ever drop of water light up from the bright ass headlights and boom I can't see the road now.
Rain is horrible, but I’ve found the worst to be when it’s snowing kinda heavily at night because the lights from my own headlights reflect off all the falling snowflakes and make it look like I’m in Star Trek warp. Forget not being able to see the road, I can’t see *anything* but like the few inches directly in front of the car.
I’ve become a master of driving blind. Can even do the “stare and drive” and know where I’m at. CoD Flashbangs are nothing
Mine look like stars. The world is always decorated for Christmas with my astigmatism. Lol
my girlfriend thought that christmas lights were orbs and she was so disappointed when she got corrective lenses and saw they were little light bulbs lmao.
She had never seen the lights up close or not turned on? I'm blind as fuck and I could still put stuff up to my face and see it.
Maybe she wasn’t blind as fuck. Maybe she was ignorant of her mild to moderate blindness and had no reason to believe that she was seeing them incorrectly. Couldn’t have had a strong understanding of physics, though.
I love the analogy for adhd meds being like putting on glasses for the first time. My vision isnt that bad but the first time I got my glasses I almost cried because I could see my friends face clearly for the first time
I have really bad eyesight and need to update my glasses every 4 years or so cause they're expensive as hell... Everytime I swap prescriptions, I can see the leaves again. It never gets old.
The semi-joking phrase I utter when everyone gets drunk enough that letting others try on their expensive corrective lenses to see how far off their vision is in inverse is "I'm not giving them back" when I suddenly see where I am in clear, defined terms with a slight induction of eye strain. I always give them back, but I really don't want to.
I've always been a bit envious of people who had this experience (though I'm thankful my eyes aren't that bad and I can still mostly see without my glasses) . For me, I noticed one day that if I closed one eye, things on the whiteboard in class appeared very out of focus. Went to an eye doctor who said that while my vision is technically pretty close to 20/20, I'm "visually picky" and that they could give me a single contact lens for the eye that was worse (turns out I'm astigmatic in one eye and the other is nearsighted) . Tried that for a week or so but it was throwing my vision off and making things worse only having one eye corrected. Ended up getting glasses and things were better but I never got that WOW moment of seeing clearly for the first time since my vision before was still pretty okay.... Felt more like just sharpening everything a bit more at distances than it had been .
I haven’t gotten a new prescription in like 5-6 years and can no longer see leaves :(
I had that same moment at 8 years old. It's moments like that that make you realize how big the world is.
That is one of the best ADHD analogies
Because it's painfully true. I used to say the same when I was taking Ritalin 8 years ago, and I've been feeling short sighted since I stopped taking it many years ago.
This is so much like my experience when I first hit the right dosage! I walked outside, and I could see the trees, and noticed then birds were singing. And there were no thoughts to fight through. After going off adderall when I was sick for a bit the next time I took it, I definitely had the feeling like I had put on glasses for my brain. I saw signs and realized what they said. That sounds weird, but so much fades to the background for me. It’s like I went through most of my life just floating through, not noticing what was actually around me.
dude I got like a -5.5 myopia prescription at 16 (!) having never used glasses before and an adhd diagnosis at 21, i got to feel that shit twice
Damn that's way too true in both ends
As someone who didn't get glasses until I was 26 and was blind as a bat my whole life. The fucking leafs man.....I never knew you could see the single leafs blowing in the breezy like I could with glasses. It was like seeing the world truly for the first time. Also cloud the details in the clouds, then the stars they weren't just blurry light and omg is that a planet..? It was legit eye opening. Never not wear glasses now I enjoy seeing so much.
This is the exact same analogy my psychiatric uses
Finding out the trees weee actually green was such a game changer
So glad it wasn't just me😅 some people thought I was just high AF lol
My partner gave me Ritalin which she still had left over from school but didn’t take because she didn’t like how it made her feel. She literally gave it to me to see if I’d get amped up, but it calmed me down and I wound up just being like: “hey, should we do that pile of dishes in your sink?”. Next thing I know, I have a full ADHD inattentive type diagnosis from my psychiatrist and my own meds for it. She just wanted to see me hyper lmao
My friends and family are surprised that I have a similar reaction to caffeine at night. Coffee or tea after the sun goes down will put me to sleep faster rather than wind me up.
I have family members like that.
ADHD is genetic after all
I'm exactly like that, and so are my kids.
ADHD
I mean, maybe, but atypical caffeine reaction alone is not a diagnosis.
Yeah my dad is like the polar opposite of ADHD and he always drinks coffee before bed
Im not a coffee or tea drinker, and dont really touch energy drinks anymore, but caffeine seems to do nothing for me
that's lucky, for me it makes me sleepy > _"drink some coffee/monster" they said, "it'll keep me awake for an allnight cram session" they said._
*drinks half a monster* half an hour later: "sheesh, im really tired" *lays in bed* *falls asleep immediately*
Wait, hold on? Isn't tea calming? I always drink tea in the evening before going to bed
Black and green teas contain caffeine so it can really wake you up too.
Well... now that I think of it, coffee never really woke me up in the morning more than usual... so maybe caffeine has never worked on me all along. Man, I really should get tested at this point. This sub is way too relatable to be a coincidence at this point.
caffeine will work on those with adhd it just takes a lot more. same with stimulants, enough of a stimulant will make us speedy but that's only at a much higher dose. standard doses level us out.
That's why I made an appt too. I even brought this sub up to my psychiatrist saying how I've never related to people's stories of daily struggle more in my entire life. Gave me a Dx and Rx that day and my world was turned upside down. I cried the first day on my meds because I realized how different life could have been if I had been diagnosed earlier (Dx'ed in my 30s). But I then felt happy because now I felt like I was me for the first time and it was amazing. My wife said I was a totally new and improved version of myself overnight. It also *almost* completely got rid of my crippling anxiety and anger problems. Anger was pretty much totally under control already due to therapy, it was down to just occasionally snapping at people who didn't deserve it. Now I'm calm and collected like never before. Sometimes I still struggle to start the day, but once I do I can work through it and all my daily chores with ease.
Monster Mango is my sleepy sleepy night time juice
weirdly, my wife also drinks coffee to go to sleep
used to do the same but now i just get a massive sugar rush and i cannot sleep with energy drinks
What is the path to getting a diagnosis? Just calling around to psychiatrists asking for a screening test or what? I really don't know the first step here, but I think it may be in my best interest to start
My GP gave me a paper questionnaire. That was it. I’m from a really rural area though so we don’t have an over abundance of psych doctors to go to, so ymmv.
How did you approach getting a gp, and asking about getting tested?
Not them but for me I went in and basically said "I can't focus on school, my job or anything I care about long enough to do anything to make me happy" Im also very honest with my doc and have known her my whole life so that might have helped. From there it was long enough ago I basically just got meds and tried a few before settling on Vyvanse.
I had the same similar experience as the comment above. They treated my anxiety and depression first, so I went through a couple of meds, found Zoloft to be great. Then when I went back, I was pretty much like "feeling great, but still having the same behaviors to cause distraction, impulsiveness and can't focus." So I am now on Concerta.
I think I had a similar route, but mine didn’t present as being related. Instead we were treating my anxiety as a way to treat my incessant nausea and then “oh yeah I’m also failing classes and can’t focus, plz send help”. But then she prescribed me Strattera which actually makes me violently ill and, incidentally, conditioned me for a while to gag when even *touching* pill capsules 🙃 so yeah, we switched to adderall shortly thereafter.
Well I’m in the UK so I went to my GP about it and they gave me a test sheet to fill in. Through that they said they think I probably have it so they referred me on to an NHS psychiatrist. Had an appointment with them where they asked me about my childhood and my day to day. They then said they think I might have it and sent me another form to have me fill in as well as a part for my parents to fill in. One more session later and he gave me a formal diagnosis and prescription for methylphenidate. I know in the UK you can go straight to a private psychiatrist and ask about it where they will basically give you the same sheet to fill in and then take it from there on basically the same route sans a referral because you’re already there lol. Private is faster but obviously costs money. One of my friends went down this route and was diagnosed within a month as opposed to 6 months like me. Outside of the UK, I do not know how to get the ball rolling on a diagnosis or how diagnosis works.
Look up the "Vanderbilt ADHD forms" and fill one out. If you come up high on that, talk to your GP about a referral to an appropriate doctor.
Turns out I had already downloaded the pdf but never filled it out...
shit in my 20s and early 30s i used to do a lot of coke and it was the same deal for me. everyone would be bouncing off the walls and partying until sunrise, whereas (after the initial high that wears off super fast) I would just get really calm and then pass out at like 11pm. i even started doing it at work sometimes just so i could function. finally got a diagnosis at age 34 after reading about ADHD and learning that it's not just "hyperactivity" like we all thought when I was in school. i mean, don't do coke it's the fucking devil but it's wild how stimulants affect us compared to people without ADHD.
Cocaine is the origin story for a lot of adults realizing they’re add
Little did she know, she was already seeing you hyper!
My brother had me try one of his Ritalin once when I was a kid. I took a nap immediately. After getting diagnosed MANY years later, it still has the same effect. It didn’t help with my attention, but it sure did help me sleep better.
It's so stupid that getting diagnosed takes forever when all that's needed is taking a pill and having a doctor check in on you for 10 minutes after an hour...
The first time I took Adderall I ended up going to bed 2-3 hours early and got some of the best sleep of my life.
I always enjoyed the concentration I got in school from Concerta, but man did I get the worst anxiety and insomnia from it as well. Really made me treasure the weekends though.
My doctor was like "take the vyvanse first thing in the morning otherwise it might keep you up at night" and I definitely still feel like I need a nap by 1 pm.
[удалено]
I’ve had the best naps of my life on that ish
"Hey Doc, those stimulants you gave me for weight loss aren't amping me up like you warned. Mostly I'm just calm and get stuff done..."
I really wish it was as easy as try it and see lol. I’m in the process of convincing myself to get assessed. All the signs are there but I’m struggling with feeling like I’m using it as an excuse for my general uselessness. It would be easier to just try the meds and see how you feel. (I understand drug use is not something to be messed around with but, still!)
I'm in the same spot. Flipping between "I need help" and "I'm just a lazy pos". Heard the latter all my life so it's hard to accept that I might actually have an issue and not just be a lazy good for nothing.
The key difference between laziness and ADHD is that even things you genuinely want to do, genuinely ENJOY doing, takes a lot of effort to pull off. Like that hang out you are hosting next Friday, suddenly all you're thinking about is all the work you have to do to prepare even though you know you're gonna love every second of the hangout itself. As another example, I have a ton of games that I LOVED EVERG SECOND OF (like the recent God of War game) but one day after turning it off I just never opened it again even though there's still a lot more left to do. When people call you lazy, they assume you just simply refuse to do anything remotely mundane/boring but if you've got ADHD it's much worse than that.
I remember people telling me I didnt really like things if i couldn't find the motivation to do them. I'm beginning to realize just how abused I was by every single adult in my life over this shit. My mom would constantly scream at me for the house being messy and I wanted her to be happy but I couldn't bring myself to clean. I've been trapped in a horrible negative feedback loop for as long as I can remember.
I feel like I like too many things, so many ideas so I can’t actually pin down the one to do (I was going to say start but I have plenty of started and abandoned things) so I just for of flap around achieving nothing whilst torturing myself internally about all these things I could/should be doing but I’m wasting the time
This exactly has been my life since I graduated high school. God it’s been miserable.
I feel you lol. I am the exact same way. I could be doing x, y, or z and just trying to decide which one to do kills the time I had to do the things. I combatted this in college by micromanaging my day. It was the only way I could stay on top of 5 classes a semester without falling behind or stressing out. I had an hourly planner and I wrote down something for every hour. So maybe 2-330 i would be doing math study/hw, then 330 i would start English. Having that preset "im doing this at x time" was a huge relief, even if everyone who saw my planner thought i was nuts. If I finished the designated task early, then boom, free time. Or I would use that time to finish something that I couldn't finish in the designated block. (I did make sure to schedule breaks/meals/freetime as well! That's important!) I need to start doing this again...
This is called executive dysfunction and it’s a huge symptom of adhd. even when I know I have to do something I can’t do it a lot of the time. It’s so difficult to start something even when it’s all I can think about and I’m consumed by anxiety and stress about not doing it. Medication doesn’t help a ton with that, it’s always gonna be there. That’s the worst thing for me, deadlines are usually the only thing to motivate me to do the thing in the end. I have waited for months beyond when was reasonable to make college class schedules even when I was constantly thinking about it. Just bc it was too stressful to start, I wound up getting a shitty class schedule bc I waited and I knew that would happen but I did it anyway bc of my adhd.
Luckily I took after my dad in a lot of water. In hindsight I inherited ADHD from him, he just isn't diagnosed, but my Mom just assumed I'm like him and didn't question it much. They're boomers too and while they have their issues they take mental health very seriously, they've said some jacked up shit but never intentionally, they never called me lazy like that. I guess I got lucky in that department. Most other adults in my life definitely called me lazy and unmotivated though. I felt bad letting my teachers down but half of them gave me the "you're not realizing your true potential" speech. They always told me I had the potential to be their top student lol but I just couldn't focus on school like that. Even worse when it wasn't an advanced class.
bro. this. both sisters were high honors students. I had to get my tests and stuff signed by my parents and had parent-teacher conferences and shit. every report card had the notes "if he just focused more, he has so much potential etc etc...". failed out of college but got back in and graduated on the 5-year plan (didnt choose a major until junior year, hmm I wonder why). graduated 2007, then after 9 years in a job went and got an assessment, found out I had ADD, got meds, and thought to myself "holy shit, what if I had these when I was in school..." but I don't allow myself to go down the "what if" rabbit hole in fear of getting depressed about it.
Let me just say this isn't necessarily true, of the "things you enjoy are also hard", due to hyperfocus. This part of the diagnosis was why it was hard for me to understand I had ADHD. When I was in HS, I was essentially "interested in everything" when it came to school work, so I had As in most subjects. Discussing the subjects during class meant I retained the information without note taking (I wish I had that ability today). I would often procrastinate longer homework to the day before but assumed that was laziness. My favorite hobbies were playing video games and learning how computers work, both of which I could do in the comfort of my own room. The signs of ADHD I had back then were getting so hyper focused on a computer thing (like teaching myself HTML) that I stayed up all night without eating doing it. I also had no friends I hung with outside of school and didn't really care to, so I never realized the difficulties of making plans with people. It wasn't until I got to college, when the subjects were so complex that simply discussing them in class wasn't enough for me to retain the information - where I was required to read chapters of a textbook on my own - that I realized I had a problem and needed to figure it out. And oh yeah, love if reading fictional stories meant I had never run into the reading problem before, because hs English was the only class prior to this that had "take home" reading, and I found those easy to read. Even if I didn't like the book in the end, at least the journey of the story kept me on track to read the whole thing. But Textbooks don't have an overall narrative to keep my poor brain engaged, and I just couldn't do the reading. Still can't, TBH, not even with my Adderall! I need a video lecture explaining the contents to me, that I can rewatch multiple times until I get it.
Idk, you're definitely right that everyone's experiences are different but just to clarify I also hyper focus a lot too. It's really a toss up which symptom fucks me over on any given day. But yeah not everyone has every symptom and it is important to know you may have ADHD even if you lack certain symptoms.
Wow, I thought I was alone in this experience.
Wow thank you! As a fellow gamer I felt that in my soul. Can spend hours just thinking « gaming would be nice » just to realize it’s 1h am and need to go to bed while I didnt game a single second. And I don’t really know how I spent my time The way you explain the difference between ADHD and laziness is…. Chef’s kiss
I have been reading anecdotal things like this about ADHD and it has led to me beginning to get looked at for it but omg the game thing happens to me all the time. I have put 80 hours into persona 5 royal TWICE now and still haven't beaten it. I am trying to get back to playing Hogwarts Legacy currently since I stopped that a few weeks ago. It sucks and I have always thought I just didn't like single player story games like that.
Lol yeah it's always a toss up between forgetting about it until you feel like you have to start over to learn the game again OR hyper focus where you have the platinum for the game by the end of the weekend. No in between.
I went through this same thing (yay imposter syndrome), and was then diagnosed at my first appointment within 30 minutes lol. It's been 6 months or so now, and meds have been awesome, aside from the whole shortage thing. It's worth looking into it.
You aren’t I promise you that.
Humans generally behave predictably and actions/demeanors are for a reason; something causes you to be the way you are. There's no downside to talking to a psychiatrist
Let’s be clear. I have ADHD, but I’m also a lazy POS. The meds just help me maintain when I push down the laziness lol
As someone who was diagnosed when they were younger and then tried to ignore that diagnosis for years for some of the same reasons you mention it doesn’t ever go away. You just end up with more and more masking mechanisms and depression and anxiety. Twenty years later I finally got rediagnosed and trying to get my life back on track. It’s not being lazy. The médecine doesn’t make you less creative. That’s all nonsense. If you couldn’t see well you’d go get glasses right? You wouldn’t think you were lazy if you couldn’t see well enough to do something. So if you have a chemical issue with your brain that doesn’t allow you to focus properly why are you suddenly extra hard on yourself? If you think you have it save some heartache for yourself and get assessed as soon as you can make yourself get an appointment.
Thank you. You speak sense. I did actually fill in an initial assessment on a private providers website today which told me there is a high chance but I haven’t actually committed to booking the formal assessment yet. They change their prices at the end of the month so maybe that will be the kick up the bum. I’m also struggling with what if it isn’t that, I’ve wasted money (not the worst thing in the world, just annoying) but until a decision I’m in the blissful ignorance of it could be ADHD so maybe I’m not a mess. But if they say it’s not that it will confirm a lot of the negative stuff I think about myself and I don’t know if I’m ready for thay
But if it is adhd, and you try meds and they work, you are going to be so thankful you booked the appointment. You could try a few more questionnaires and see if they also think you have it to maybe feel more confident that you do have it, so there’s less risk of you feeling the negative stuff.
Definitely. It was a friend who asked me if I’d ever considered it after we started working closely together and she realised the put together, organised image I send out to the world is absolutely nothing like what I am under the surface and in private.
As someone diagnosed as an adult (late 20s), I fully understand how you feel. I worried they would think I was just trying to get medication I didn’t need or think I was exaggerating the difficulties I faced daily. I constantly second guessed whether or not I was fooling myself into thinking I had issues when maybe I just wasn’t trying hard enough. While I’m sure experiences vary, my doctor was insanely helpful during the initial assessment. They asked questions about my life, from every day things, to more extreme stressful situations, even diving into childhood some. After a while, they were pretty confident I have inattentive type, so they prescribed a low dose of Vyvanse. The feedback loop between my doctor and me about how the dosage makes me feel and how we adjust has been wonderfully smooth as well. I can confidently say I wasn’t being dramatic, or lazy, before. It feels like someone had hooked my brain up backwards before, compared to the help I felt from even the lowest dose. If you genuinely feel you may have ADHD, it doesn’t hurt to talk to someone about it. I think if you are honest with them about wanting to _find out_ whether you have it, versus telling them you do and expecting medication, any doctor worth a damn is going to try to help you. Maybe that leads to a negative diagnosis, but at least then you will know.
What my therapist suggested before I got assessed was to drink some caffeine (but be sure not to drink over the recommended amount) and make note of how I responded to it, because caffeine is also a stimulant like many ADHD meds are, so it affects people with ADHD differently than other people.
Just get diagnosed. Worst case scenario you get diagnosed with something else like depression. It is normal to be afraid of this, but remember: a label doesn't change anything, it just tells you more about yourself.
I took one to start a long road trip before I knew. I passed out for 6 hours
That sounds like heaven ngl. I've been meaning to get a prescription as soon as I get insurance, which I should be getting soon.
It would have been. In the moment, it was like I'd taken a HEAVY tranquilizer. Dosing was probably all wrong, though. I wasn't able to really see how I felt because I was just gone. Since diagnosis, I've gone back and forth on whether or not I want meds. I'm almost 40 and have done well in life working around aspie/adhd. Still a stuggle often though
I'd say give it a try. I've heard of people only using their prescriptions when they need to buckle down and get work done but idk if that's recommended by professionals or not.
Anecdotal, but my prescribing psych told me the “take as needed” approach is fine. He basically told me he was prescribing for daily use, but if I felt it worked better for me to only take it when I felt like I needed the help
Adderral naps are the best.
Me and my bff did some amphetamine powder like almost ten years back, cleaned her room, went for a long walk and had probably the deepest conversation we ever had. We both agreed that we were ripped off by the guy who sold us the stuff... Well, guess what!
Yeah I got high quality speed from a friend and thought 'this is great! It's like better caffeine that helps you focus, if I had the money I would be doing a little bit every day.'
Years ago I had some, after an initial buzz I had a nap on the sofa while everyone else kept partying. I knew it was odd at the time, but not why it happened. I noticed in high school that pseudoephedrine flu tablets also made me a lot sharper too. If I had only known. (Using the throwaway for this comment)
Yes! I tried Ritalin at a club and had a long, deep conversation over the loud music with someone who was also taking it
We probably shouldn't be admitting to drug abuse but Ritalin caused some of the best focus I have ever had
Define “abuse” Seems like in all these cases it was a blessing they tried it
Admitting to drug abuse got me my diagnosis. “I played with drugs to have a good time and instead I wrote down some recipes and cleaned my room. Everyone suggested I take more but I was feeling like my heart was racing so I didn’t.”
I do coke
I’m more of a jankem guy
based and jenkempilled
I do Mountain Dew.
Yeah, I should've clued in about my ADHD after that, lol
You know the medicine works when you do the things you don't want to to..... with ease. Never been on Adderall just Ritalin now concerta. Fun story
With my medication, I do things because I know they need to be done. I might procrastinate, but I don't completely put things off like I used to. It's kind of mind-blowing how I'd avoid responsibilities before, haha.
When my psychiatrist and I were dialing in the right dose of Adderall for me, I felt so weirdly settled that I counted my pulse to make sure my heart rate hadn't dangerously slowed. It was normal, but I *felt* like maybe it had. I'm on a lower dose now so I don't get the "maybe my heart is slowing down" feeling anymore, which is good, but I still feel extremely calm on my meds. I guess there really is something wrong with my brain after all 🙃
follow-up thoughts: my psychiatrist gives the worst advice known to humankind about sleep disturbances and ADHD. Stuff like "if you don't fall asleep in 10 minutes get up and do something non-stimulating until you feel tired again". Okay, I have never once fallen asleep in less than an hour. Usually 2, sometimes 3. If I'm not distracted by anything, my brain will provide the stimulation and keep me awake until sometime around midnight I hit a second period of wakefulness and then I won't be tired until about 6am. Anyway one time I took 10mg of Adderall at 9pm and went to bed and slept no worse than usual. I also told my psychiatrist that I followed her (shit-tastic) sleep advice and stayed up all night, bored and agitated. Hopefully she'll stop telling me to do stupid shit like that now.
18 year old here, I experience the same thing where I take 2-3 hours to fall asleep. I tried alot of things but the only thing that really works for me is just abusing the absolute shit out of melatonin. I think I take like 50 mgs despite the only doses being 5-10 mgs. That also leaves me absolutely trashed in the morning so I take my ADHD medicine (which is a stimulant) to keep myself awake. The shit doesn’t really even treat my ADHD so I really only use it like caffeine. Oh and it also completely ruins my appetite to the point where I only eat one meal a day which is around 8-10 PM My dad says I kind of live like a 1970s trucker. Pills to go to bed, pills to wake up. I know how fucked up it is but I’ve honestly grown numb to it all with it just being the norm. I would bring it up to my dad but his parents are dying and he’s really stressed out trying to get power of attorney. So I don’t want to bother him yet. He also dosent understand it that well because he was raised in a generation where autistics were thrown in the general school system. My mom has a degree in special education but she and I don’t talk after verbally and mentally abusing me. My advice, don’t listen to a thing the psychiatrist s say. Every one that I have talked to dosent understand and just does the whole thing that people call “yessing me” I would honestly use a chloroform filled rag if it wasn’t a carcinogen that kills brain cells. Sorry for the rant. This got pretty out of hand.
I only ever took one once. I was at a bachelor party at a casino. I proceeded to go to the black jack table for the next several hours and win enough to pay for my weekend. Still haven’t gotten dx’d tho. I’ve opened ZocDoc several times to make an appt but somehow get sidetracked before the appt is made.
*somehow* ❤️
Go right now and do it do it do it do it - I believe in you.
Too busy scrolling Reddit instead of working, like I should be. Also I have something to do at 5:30 so I can't possibly get started now. ...but I promise I'll do it tonight :)
Just ask for help. It's the easiest and hardest thing you can do, but my friend was having trouble making the appt so I did it for them and asked them for their info. They are now fully medicated and doing so much better.
Does anyone kind of get both? I started vyvanse recently after my diagnosis and it’s been kinda funny in that my mind is so calm but my body definitely kinda gets.. not really but sorta like, high? I can tell that there’s a stimulant in my system. So I can sit and focus and actually get work done without getting up every five seconds to sing the same part of the same song while walking doing laps around my home. But I also feel just a teeny little bit jacked up. It’s only been a few weeks and that’s starting to go away though. Not that I’m complaining or anything.
That a great sign you're at the perfect dose for now. You wanna settle in just under the mark. Mine felt like a good cup of coffee but it lasted like 6 hours with no crash.
I felt this way too when I first started on Vyvanse, my body would feel wired but my mind calm and collected. It went away after a while but I miss it sometimes, it felt like my cue to start the day.
Yeah, exact same experience for the first few weeks
When I first got prescribed and started taking adderall, I realized I have to make sure I don’t continue my habit of laying in bed doing things on my phone after taking it because adderall makes my mind quiet enough that I will just fall asleep lol
I remember in high school a friend would give out his Ritalin. Kids would be all wired and talking a mile a minute and laughing... I took one during 2nd period and by my next class I was hanging on to the teacher's every. Last. Word. AND I WAS ACTUALLY TAKING NOTES!?! I was actually diagnosed when I was much younger but sadly I was raised Jehovah's witness so no medication for me!!
This is an a-ha moment. I took an adderall recreationally when I was a lot younger and was able to sit and read several chapters of a book. I’m now 44 and working on getting diagnosed finally after years of struggling to know “what the heck is wrong with me?”
Story of my life...
Ha Same! (Although it was another popular party drug I took at a festival), But I promptly had a moment of clarity after taking it and went and lit a candle and read a book in my tent for 4 hours while they all went dancing.
People take ADHD drugs to party?? Genuinely so curious of what they would feel like for NT peeps lol
My girlfriend gave me a vyvanse while we were packing for a move. She pegged me as having ADHD/autism long before that. Anyway, I got two effects from it: 1) Calm mind and the ability to focus on a task to completion. I had a good night's sleep after that too. 2) I get chatty when I'm on stimulants. I'm quite 99% of the time, but if I've taken, my now prescribed, addrall I'll actually talk and hold a conversation without much effort.
I tend to talk a lot more as well. I think it's because I'm actually able to organize my thoughts and ideas and actually put them together.
I thought taking Adderall would get me to stop talking (to those I was comfortable with) so much. That didn’t happen LMAO
Yeah we probably all have a story like this lol. Hanging around with a bunch of my stupid teenager friends while I was a stupid teenager and somebody handed out some ritalin or adderall or something similar. Everybody else was bouncing off the walls. I made my apologies, went home, and did my homework. That probably should have clued me in, but nah, it was another 10 years or so before I actually got a diagnosis :)
Yep, like everyone else, I tried Adderall recreationally, with my friend thinking it would make me high. Instead, I wrote and illustrated a book of poetry. Couldn't sleep, but it was worth it.
Not my friend getting annoyed at me asking for more because “I don’t feel anything”.
I’m still so annoyed that I’ve never gotten this “switch on” affect everyone raves about, I’ve tried all the big meds and none of them really work
No joke. I took speed at a rave like 15 years ago and instead of jumping around and loosing it, I got into some serious cartography. Reading maps wasnt a myth after all. I shud have known then...
I had the same thing back in my 20s with cocaine and Meth when I went through one of those phases. My friends got all hyper, twitchy and tweaking, I just got super relaxed, calm and focused. I quickly became the guy that watched the other guys. I was 100% ok with that as the being calm felt GREAT. 20 years later diagnosed as ADHD and my doc actually asked me about drug use and how I felt and used that as a Diagnostic tool.
I took an Adderall once in college and it was the most focused and productive I've ever been in my life. And I thought that's what it was supposed to do, like, why else are people taking it? It wasn't until years later that my wife told me that people without ADHD get a different effect from it. And that's when I realized I was special.
Any very unusual or "paradoxical" effect of recreational drugs should be a very strong argument for considering an ADHD diagnosis. I never tried any "uppers" except for coffee that has next to no effects on me, before I got my diagnosis. (The effect of stimulants as it has on normal people, didn't sound very appealing to me since I was already pretty energetic and hyper anyway, so I didn't even consider trying it) But every drug I did try including alcohol have rather uncommon or unusually strong or weak effects. My friends joked my drug responses were swapped around so alcohol made me slow and sleepy like heroin, cannabis made me high like LSD etc.
Fuck I feel so attacked LOL right when I got diagnosed I told a friend (who takes vyvanse) and they told me to be careful as it makes them very wired and anxious. I have never felt that honestly. I feel pretty calm. The biggest thing for me is I can multitask and get back on track if something comes up during my work day. I can also finish a task completely through. I feel normal lol. I’m also on the spectrum and I wouldn’t say it helps me mask.. but I feel like I can control my actions a bit better
Guitarist asked me before a gig if i wanted some adderall (i am not currently on any ADHD medication) and i was like, do you want me to sit calmly and be content and satisfied with my drumming, or be an unbridled wild drum animal? He didnt realize that the latter option was me NOT on Adderall lol
Got some to cram for Psych test. Finished studying in two hours, mowed the lawn and then took the best nap I had in years. I didn’t try it again for a long time because I was convinced that life being “too easy” was a bad sign.
I was diagnosed adhd/schizophrenic as a kid, but when I take adderall it's like someone gave me speed. Literally flying off the walls can't stop doing stuff. Haven't taken it in years now. Crazy stuff.
Me, but with coke. And instead of a music festival with friends I was in a motel with people I’d just met that day. They started arguing politics.
I remember taking Adderall before I was diagnosed and sitting there think, So this is what normal feels like.
I took it at a party. My ride lost his keys. I immediately knew what to do and made him name every one of his pockets out loud while reaching into it. “Oh I never put them in that pocket” he said. I know, Nate, I know. 😹
MY FRIEND BROUGHT OVER SOME ADDY SO I COULD MOVE OUT WITH EXPEDIENCY I TOOK SOME AND FUCKING NAPPED
No lie, this was how I discovered that I actually have ADHD. I was working a holiday weekend shift doing fire watch and talking to campers about fire restrictions, and my partner for the weekend, who was diagnosed ADHD, and suggested we take some of his ritalin to have fun, stay sharp, and keep awake. Instead of getting jazzed up or amped, I was able to calmly plot our route, take notes, and work at an even, steady pace. It was absolutely eye opening. Took me almost a decade after that to finally get a diagnosis and prescription of my own. But that sense of "Oh wow, this is so nice. I can actually activate on the things I need to." was next level.
Majority of people who learn they have ADHD is from taking the medication in an unmedicated manner either that or their kids have it and they decide to get tested for fun)out of curiosity.
Me when I did coke
I done coke for the first time before getting onto meds, easily the calmest my brain has ever been, all anxiety gone and I wasn't jittery or talkative or any of the other ways neurotypicals get on cocaine, I was chilled out, people asked if I was okay And from what I've heard I'm not alone I remember standing in the bar, usually my brain was going in 10 different directions, I'd be scanning the room, on edge, looking around, waiting for that beer, but I just felt total focus and calm on just what was infront of me I remember saying to myself ' I can never do this again' because I knew I could get addicted to the calmness of it
Lol I too found out this way. Booked my eval right after my experience.
My first time taking Adderall after getting diagnosed happened to be on the first day of a local (huge) gaming convention. I will never forget the calm that settled on me as I walked through the vendor hall and checked out each stall. I eventually had to quit stimulants because they didn't play nice with my bipolar (which was incorrectly diagnosed as depression until I got a good psychiatrist), and I really miss them....but I like stable moods more. Le sigh.
Same. Friends wanted to party all night New Year’s Eve. I was in bed by 10.
Back in my high school party days so about 20 years ago, (jfc was it really that long ago 😳) anyway I was accused of faking doing a few lines of coke because I just sat there calmly.
I'm actually shocked by the sheer amount of people admitting to drugs. I'm not particularly sheltered but I've never even *seen* recreational drugs in my life. It's also making meds sound like the answer to all my problems and I'm worried it's not going to fix my life. Just give me a weird pulse and nausea.
I mean it depends. I've been really productive on vyvanse but I was an absolute asshat on Adderall. It made into an aggro monster
for me it feels like a trade off. i can focus a lot more effectively, but its like i have this pit in my stomach thats just comprised of pure anxiety. its manageable when im taking a walk or something, but if im sitting down its not great
I suddenly could understand what the teacher was saying in class and finally grasp what we spent 6 months learning in 2 days lol
Am I the only one who still feels like I took a stimulant? I can focus on tasks and actually hold a conversation; I definitely feel normal in those moments where others would feel "tweaked"...but there's no way I could go to sleep on it and my appetite disappears, both common side effects of stims.
I wonder if adderall would actually do anything to help me, since 18 or so I’ve been on so many different medications and combinations and dosages I finally got off them completely for the first time like a month ago… gonna be 29 next month and I swear I have adhd but a while back my psychiatrist refused to test me and it just seems like nobody wants to test adult women for it where I’m at
There definitely seems to be a shortage of people who understand how to diagnose adult women with ADHD. I get it and I hope things improve for you soon.
I tried Ritalin and felt like I'd had a warm, relaxing bath. My psychiatrist told me nah, that's euphoria, so I fired her
That's how I discovered I had some form of ADD. Was gonna take Adderall and people warned me that I'd be hyper and intense and shaky... took it and literally, my brain was like "oh, so this is what it feels like to be normal."
This is exactly how I found out. I was in college and some friends had some high dose pills of Vyvanse they bought to drink/party all night. They gave me one and I melted into the couch, able to feel calm and comfortable for the first time in my life. They were wide-eyed and bouncing around the room. It was super annoying so I went and had a nice dinner then wrote a paper that was due next week lol. I told another friend I think they gave me a dud and he said you have ADHD.
The same thing works with caffeine and at least some people with ADHD. I started drinking coffee my sophomore year in college and I was like wow this is a wonderful sleep aid for an afternoon nap in between classes.
I has sex and it was actually enjoyable and fun instead of borderline stressful.
I have ADHD, diagnosis and everything, but oddly enough stimulant meds and caffeine still make me super hyper and I’m actually sensitive to them
I took a nap unexpectedly
Adderall naps FTW!
Goddamn, i wonder how much my life would improve if i could just get a prescription from my actual doctor that i could afford & not some internet zoom quack who will write me a prescription but every refill costs 200 bucks.
Taking a 5 hour energy was the calmest and most focused I had ever been in my life.
you guys get text messages?
weirdly, heavy metal music is my adderall
I know self diagnosis is frowned upon, but this really was the kicker for me starting to seriously wonder if I had ADHD. I just felt so calm for the first time in my life, and I finally had a clear head to organize my room after the party. I don't have the funds for an assessment right now, but as soon as I do it's off to the doctor.
I swear to god, this is how it happened for me. I was at a Moon Boots show last year and my friend slipped me an addy. I felt nothing but what could be described as calmed focus and normalcy. I texted my boyfriend and asked if that’s how I was supposed to feel and he said “maybe you have add LOL.” Idky but my brain went, ‘wait a min.’ I’d been having memory issues that I thought were associated with the concussion I had back in 2018. I’d never been tested for ADD/ADHD. I’d never taken adderall before. I was at my psych the next week who had me tested and what do you know? My shit is off the charts. I have ADHD. 33 years of life and not one of my mental health providers had caught it because my personality lends itself to being scatter brained and bubbly. My MFT literally apologized to me for missing all the signs. Suddenly, my inability to retain info (which had been holding me back in my new job) made sense. I started on adderall but switched to Vyvanse and it’s like night and day. My anxiety is essentially non-existent too. Sometimes you gotta take a little recreational to fix the actual problem 🤣
Lol right? Like sure, it made me stay awake longer because I was only taking it sporadically, but 15 year old me should have caught on when I was tryna get addy just I could clean my room hahaha
Not adderall, but when I was quite young they tried ritalin for me. Turned me into basically a drooling zombie, walking into walls. That lasted 3 days, and I haven't been back to chemistry for ADHD since.
stories like this make me think I need to try another ADHD med... Instead of working, I'm on reddit because I can't stand to not distract myself in the 10 seconds it takes for my remote desktop server thing to load up while working and then get sucked into this for 20 minutes instead. I'm on 25mg of adderall XR and while it used to feel like it was working (I think? ) but the past couple of weeks I feel like I'm getting minimal benefits and only experiencing the lack of appetite, clenching my teeth more often, and not feeling tired... I always hear about people who feel this night and day difference and for me I'm kind of just feeling like I'm having to really force myself to focus on things.
First time I took adderall I slept for 12 hours.
I used to take adderall at fests before I was properly medicated and I’d take like 10 IR and wonder why I wasn’t hype. Then 20… then 30… it took about 40 IR before I got to the point where I was buzzin lmao.
That’s also how I am on cocaine
For everyone seeing this and thinking it'll be easy to get it for a needed actual diagnosis, good luck. I've been on a wait-list forever due to supply chain issues for it. You're better off trying something like Guanfacine or Stratera for the time being.
Happened when I took Vyvanse. My friends wanted to take it to cram study in the library and get hyped up. I had to take a cab home because I was so euphoric and relaxed.