It took a long time and some trial and error, but I have finally found medication that helps (Ritalin - long acting).
I don’t feel like a different person, and I don’t feel like I don’t have ADHD. I just feel a little more in control.
Examples
Instead of working on a side project for 12 hours straight and forgetting to eat or work on the important tasks, I’m working on a side project for 12 hours with food and drink breaks, while being aware that the important tasks aren’t being done.
Instead of getting irrationally angry when interrupted and going straight back to what I’m working on, I get angry for a few seconds, take some breaths to calm down, then listen to the person who interupted me before going back to what I was working on.
Instead of wandering aimlessly around the house unable to focus on anything, I wander for a while, then decide to have a nap because I’m now aware of the exhaustion.
It really isn’t a miracle drug, but my life is so much better now. Most of the time I don’t even notice the effects, but I really notice the lack of effect when I forget to take them for a week.
Yeah. I don’t feel mentally exhausted anymore.
Fighting with myself to do stupid pointless boring stuff that I hated was just so exhausting.
I still have to do stupid pointless boring stuff that I hate… but I don’t ALSO have to fight myself to do it. Turns out that was like 60% of the expenditure.
So now I don’t feel just drained by the end of the day. I come home with way more gas in the tank for the people I actually love.
Dang, that sounds incredible.
Maybe I should talk to my doc about this…
As someone who tried and gave up on medication this makes me so happy you have found what works. As much as I hate medication I acknowledge it works for some people and many need it to survive.
From a stranger, I am proud of you ♥️
Edit - for me I found exercise and a psychologist was what I needed. I feel equally blessed.
I regularly have days where I think “did I take my drugs?” I can often tell by looking back at my day, and realising how much I got done, without running out of mental energy. My partner can also tell quite reliably if I’ve forgotten.
I’m still me, just a bit less scatter brained, a bit more productive, and better able to focus. I lose some creativity, but that’s a fair trade for actually being able to apply my creativity.
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It’s focused on minimising side effects, unlike speed, which is focused on the high.
When it works, it’s amazing. You also don’t develop significant tolerances (aka physical addiction) to it, if you have ADHD. It ends up working with your homeostatic systems, rather than against them.
Apparently it is a running job with many specialists. People with ADHD regularly forget to take the “highly addictive” drug.
Ritalin is amphetamine. Are you saying it’s modified amphetamine?
It’s in the amphetamine family. It was chosen due to the bias it has with where in the brain it acts. Speed has a different bias that create a different effect.
I assumed the names were more specific than that. Thanks for explaining.
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Speed has a fairly broad effect on the brain. It sounds like it was helpful to you.
The danger is the difference between ADHD and autism. In ADHD the brain knows it’s out of kilter. The drugs work with the homeostasis mechanisms to bring it back into balance. With autism, the homeostatic systems think the brain is fine. It’s a social based problem, not a chemical imbalance. Speed then gets into a fight with the homeostatic systems over brain chemistry.
The end result is “chasing the dragon”. You use drugs to “fix” your mind, but your body then corrects for it. An ever larger dose is required to maintain the effect you want, leading to addiction and its problems.
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Maybe, for most things i will try some form of pills solution as well as a part of trying to fix it before accepting it.
For ADHD, i have tried one med, but it had no effect on ADHD. It only raised heart rate in max+ dosages and it was rather expensive.
I tried concerta, long release one. For others i would have had to get special premission every time and obviously the cost as well.
ADHD and paperwork doesn’t really go together well, so i determined that the cost of having ADHD isn’t worth the effort and cost of meds.Maybe in the future I’ll try again when government adds some more ADHD meds into the list of supported meds and therapy gets cheaper or more accessible.
Well, I feel personally attacked…
Hard same
Oh, medication would definitely help. You have $700 you can loan me for a weeks supply of Vyvanse, right?
Jesus over here it’s like 30 bucks a month. I’d ask where you live but I’m almost certain it’s America.
America. Land Of “you need this to function so it costs more than you earn from functioning”
Except THC makes me have quiet paralytic anxiety for hours
I find a little bit of the medicinal herbage, in the proper dose, shuts the noise down. Try adding a little bit of caffeine. It keeps you alert while letting you enjoy the calm and order.
No i don’t think it would cause i’m not sick, i think questioning obvious things and refusing to buy into social norms or standards isn’t a sickness but a choice, also i have no credentials to talk about this so take it as uneducated opinion but i don’t think pills are right way to handle autism or adhd rather lifestyle change, surrounding yourself with right people and right environment
i don’t think pills are right way to handle autism or adhd rather lifestyle change, surrounding yourself with right people and right environment
Yeah yeah whatever I am struggling like crazy in life not getting anywhere because I’m not on meds. Some people need them, Surrounding yourself with the right people is important and I will admit that a social life is needed to stay sane, I don’t have one of those and I don’t have friends anymore and I refuse to go back into having friends because it’s a lot of emotional shit that I don’t have time for plus friends in your 30’s costs money and I’m broke.
Some days I think I’m just lazy but I know there’s something wrong with me.
That only works for so long and making your friends and family your therapists is a real shit thing to do. They can only take so much and eventually you WILL need a professional.
I don’t make my family or friends my therapist i think that’s awful thing to do not only for me but for them too not that they’re qualified to be one to begin with
When is the eventually going to come and why single out autists by it if it’s environment related, i’m working just fine as a closed system and what gets dealt to me from outside world is not my fault because i’m different, i don’t see your point
Feel free ask me questions though i get the feeling you just don’t have good context here o/
I’m sorry you’re right I don’t know the full context and I am sorry. PotatoPie is one of the greatest usernames I’ve ever seen. I swear I didn’t even realize it until now. Made my day.
No, because I’m an Autist and our pain is in context of other people and not us ourselves.
Me right now
fuckin’ feel this
Some days I do some days I don’t but I’m not allowed to be prescribed stimulants because I am a medical cannabis patient, so fart noise
Lucky for me caffeine is the only sustained addiction but I will challenge the self-directed anger. I think universally it can be better described as internalized disappointment.
I shared with my psychologist recently something I heard years ago and can’t find the study but a child with ADHD hears the word “no” a lot more than a neurotypical child. As such we internalize and our default mode is “I did something wrong”. To which I told my psychologist and my best friend it’s like going through your life trying to be good but at the same time a part of you keeps saying “you’re a piece of shit and you don’t deserve good things”
Of all the challenges in life that has been the hardest one for me to tackle. The level of self-sabotage I have committed for the sake of thinking I am wrong even when I may not have been as well as the humility to realize that I intentionally fucked up a good thing multiple times in the past when I didn’t have to.
So yeah, it’s not self-directed anger. It’s self-directed disappointment of this ideal you could never live up to because you and those around you didn’t know you were struggling from ADHD.
This plus some autist traits I think led to my anti authority under pinnings. You get told no a lot for reasons they can’t explain and you start too a majority of norms are just enforced through sociol habit
The issue is that people (such as myself) on the spectrum need justifications and require explanations. If you can’t provide them, all you are doing is being confusing and we HATE being confused. Ambiguity is our “gamma radiation,” if you catch my meaning.
It’s situational but I didn’t have this it was very clear why I was being told no because the majority is neurotypical so I was an outlier. Always told to be quiet. Always told to stop fidgeting. Always told to stop touching things. Always told to slow down. On and on. I never asked why because I knew why. I was not behaving like everyone else.
What I didn’t know and wasn’t explained was I couldn’t do those things as easily as everyone else because my brain literally wouldn’t let me.
you know what else I picked up on here and maybe it’s the pattern recognition but everyone here seems to talk about autism as a collective. as if it’s a generalization or as if it’s something that’s a second entity people live with.
Self-medication is a normal response to mental hassles.
Yes, but not THC. THC and my ADHD are mortal enemies. Uppers though…
Yeah. I wish weed worked for me. I just turn into a ball of anxiety.
try edibles. Then drink a soda. the high is more of a slow burn and the small bit of caffeine cancels out the paranoia (somewhat). The trick is that first YMMV, (of course) and you kind of have to experiment to find the sweet spot.
I have this weird thing after weed where I slow down. Like my perception of the world and time slows down to the point where walking is painful because my steps are too slow. Try walking where each step takes a full 6 seconds, it’s actually hard work. Nobody can understand me either because I’m talking too slowly. The dangerous part is gravity stays normal so I can’t stop myself falling over like a statue if I fuck up 😂. I haven’t found anyone else yet where this weirdness happens to them. No anxiety though, so that’s a plus
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I think if I was a teenager again it would just make me want to see what special effect I would get lol
A well made, high quality, HHC and CBD tincture, 2 drops a day is an actual miracle drug for me.
It doesn’t change who i am or how i function.
It just makes me capable to bridge my functioning to be compatible with how the rest of the worlds functions.
But because you can’t actually get custom cannabinoid medicine in any legal circuit anywhere (I believe) its availability was always going to be temporary… how i miss those days of simply being better.
I tried Concerta and it helped. I would have continued but getting it was a hassle. It was super controlled and I couldn’t live with the restrictions.
It was impossible to refill a bottle before the exact same day it was supposed to be empty. Not one before. And I couldn’t get it at any pharmacy from my pharmacy’s network. I was only supposed to get it at my local pharmacy.
So going anywhere required counting how many pills I had, and plans to get back home before I run out. Going on vacation needed my doctor’s approval to get more pills than usual.
I really didn’t like how they treated me so I stopped taking it and went back to self medication.
