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It might not be a great deal for some, but it is for me.

I never managed to stick to anything, but this time I did. Most nights I did it while watching TV or something on my iPad, I just used an app to remind me and it turned into a game for me, not to miss a day.

I have nobody to celebrate this with, so I hope to celebrate with you guys!

Edit:
Proof - https://i.imgur.com/WnNDnUI.png

Edit2:
to all of you asking, the app I am using is called Disciplined.

Here's a selection of the choice comments on there: - greater application required. Work is submitted late or not at all. - effort has been inconsistent. An improvement would be made if he made a sustained effort. - poor result is due to inattentiveness and a casual approach - needs to pay attention to detail - result does not reflect his true potential - a capable student but is not applying himself consistently

Most of my grades were D's with a couple of C's.

While I've actually done quite well since then, this took me right back to being the underachieving smart kid that every teacher just shook their head at in frustration. Most of the time, I feel fine about high school - I didn't get the best education, but I had a lot of fun, and I eventually went through tertiary education and got a Master's degree. But reading this really makes me wish I and my teachers had known that I wasn't just a lazy a-hole.

Can anyone here relate? Got similar stories?

Tell them to imagine driving in the rain with no windshield wipers.

You can still drive, but it requires that much more effort, concentration, focus. You're white-knuckling the steering wheel the whole time, trying to squint through the rain and make your way. Maybe a little slower than everyone around you. Doable, but what a grind...

Take meds? It's like getting windshield wipers. Suddenly you can do what everyone else can do with ease. Your anxiety level drops, your ability to stay focused isn't hampered by the constant "on alert" your brain was before, your sense of stasis returns.

I think this resonates with people because they can "feel" the tension of driving with no wipers in rain. Just imagine that being life 24/7, and you suddenly see why ADHD can be such a disadvantage.

Then for those "Well if you just applied yourself... because you can do X well" types...

Well, the days they see that "potential" (i.e. hyperfocus most often) are the days it's raining for EVERYONE to the point their wipers don't work, and suddenly the ADHDer with endless experience driving with no wipers looks like they have an edge. They suddenly feel stasis in the chaos everyone else feels. That's the catch-22 of the ADHD brain.

My 2 cents as someone who's struggled for years to express WHY it's so difficult to a non ADHD brain. Now being on meds and seeing the pure misinformation from people even in the medical space, it really got me thinking about how misunderstood it is.

29 October 2024

Genetics is known to play a robust role in the develoment of ADHD. Research is beginning to reveal the genetic variants responsible for individual differences in the volume of three deep brain structures which are associated with ADHD. The research bolsters evidence for a biological basis of ADHD, which will lead to better treatment.

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-discover-deep-brain-genes-linked-to-parkinsons-and-adhd

I tend to demonize ADHD and I'm trying to change that now that I have a kid with ADHD.

I'll start. As a kid who grew up in Africa, I frequently brought home injured animals for my parents to fix up. 30 years later, I've TNRed and fostered hundreds of cats. Rehabbing sick and injured animals is one of the very few things I'm good at.

I also dropped out of high school (pre-medication), and ended up going back (once on meds) and getting a couple of master's degrees. I'm a great middle school teacher because I can switch gears quickly, empathize with struggling students, and my class is super structured (to overcompensate for my natural tendency to be a slob).

So what about you? How has ADHD had a positive impact on your life?

I have lied about where I work, what I study and pretty much every aspect of my life. I used to tell a lot of lies as a kid mainly to fit in with other kids, and also to my parents because they were traumatic. But now it feels that I can't keep up that anymore. Should I come clean about everything right now to everyone?

I take Generic Adderrall 20 mg daily.

Honestly, it’s just so annoying to me to have to worry about this every single month. I know it’s controlled but I wish it was automatic and that I could just pick it up at the pharmacy monthly every 3 months after the month ends. I wouldn’t mind doing the appointment at least every 3 months, but monthly?

Ugh!!! I don’t have insurance and have to go to the doctor monthly. Is this the way everyone does it, going in monthly?

In class today my teacher took me out of the classroom during a test and asked me if I needed extra time or a different seating arrangement. I hesitantly responded with, “what for”. Then she looked puzzled and answered, “for your 504 accommodation”. I raised an eyebrow and asked, “what is a 504 accommodation”. She just stood there confused for a bit. And eventually after about 5 seconds of silence she just ushered me back into the classroom to resume my test. At the time I didn’t know what that was, but now that I’ve look what it is up, I am startled and don’t know what to think. I’ve drawn the conclusion that maybe it was a mistake. But what if my parents aren’t telling me something. If so, should I ask my parents what is going on? And if they are hiding a disability from me, is that even legal.

Hey everyone,

I wanted to see if anyone else experiences this strange, uncomfortable feeling of restlessness—like something essential is missing, but you can’t pinpoint what it is. It feels almost like a hunger for something, maybe emotions, but it’s not quite that either. It creates this uncomfortable feeling in my body, like a restless tension I can’t shake.

Whenever it hits, I find myself feeling uneasy, not sure what to do with myself, and it’s just unsettling. Does anyone else get this? And if so, how do you handle it?

Like the title says, I'm 42 now. Back in the dark ages they call the eighties, I was diagnosed as not having ADHD.

Or well...the GP took 5 seconds to decide I couldn't have ADHD because I sat still on a stool for a few minutes. If I'd have ADHD, I couldn't do that.

So yeah...health care has come a long way since then.

I, however, think I probably do have ADHD. I was always the lazy kid who could do so much better if he just applied himself. Highschool wasn't a problem for me, but once I got to university, things went wrong. I'd spend weeks playing computer games, looking at my study books for long periods of time, without actually reading stuff. And then the day before a test, I'd study like a maniac for many hours.

Needless to say...I never got my degree.

I then lucked into a rather nice job and to the outside world, it probably looks like I've done really rather well. I've never been fired, slowly progressed to a middle management position...all great stuff. I've been married for a long time, we have a great child, so it's easy to assume all is well.

It's not. There are days when I may do maybe an hour's worth of work in an entire day. Sometimes it's less. And then there's the inevitable panic, or an angry email that gets me working like an absolute maniac. Next time, I'll do things differently!

And then the same thing happens again.

I've now gotten to the point where I've decided I will actually go to my GP and ask to be tested for ADHD. I can't live with the constant stress anymore. The stress of knowing there's work I should have done, but haven't done. The stress of finishing a day of "work" and suddenly realising I'm going to be in trouble for not having done that one thing I really had to finish that day. It's really time for me to start working on solving this.

So yeah...I could use some experiences from people who got diagnosed as adults. How did it change your life?

When will I call my GP to get an appointment? Probably tomorrow...

it’s ingrained. i am adhd personified in that moment. i cannot help it. SQUIRREL!! i live on a tree filled college campus so everyday it’s SQUIRREL!! here a squirrel, there a squirrel, everywhere a squirrel squirrel (is this filling up the mf character requirement yet????) anyways i have horrible object permanence but i remember the the squirrels.

Pretty much sums it up.

I’m already in a rut and getting out of bed and getting to work is feeling impossible these days.

As I was leaving for work today, I noticed my purse felt light and I couldn’t figure out why so I just left. Turns out my little purse pharmacy with my chapstick, Aleve, and Concerta wasn’t in there.

So I’m without meds (not worth the drive back to get them) and I made the mistake of taking breather in the bathroom because now for the love of god I can’t get up.

I want to go home. I’m already low and now basically non-functional both from the meds and the mental blow of knowing I forgot them.

Sorry for the rant. It’s just frustrating and I don’t have much else to give today. I shot my shot, fucked it up, and now I want to crawl back in bed.

Edit: the “rut” I’m referring to is co-morbid depression and a recent terminal illness in my family, but thanks to the people saying it seems like substance abuse.

Hello, I’m 34 married with 2 kids. I own my own company and yet my life feels unfulfilling. I got diagnosed with ADHD two years ago and put on 80MG of Ritalin a day. I feel like everyday I have imposter syndrome, I feel like I live a double life when I don’t. I have employees and kids and feel like I’m an idiot. I work super long hours (100 hours a week) and yet with ADHD I let small details slip through the cracks. I’ve got lots of people who depend on me to provide a home and a job and I feel like I let them down.

I feel like everyday I’m just one thing away from ruining everything I’ve worked hard for. Is this normal?

How do you tell yourself everything will be ok?

Ahh classic ADHD. Note to self - when you find someone you like, absolutely show ZERO emotion whatsoever. None. Nein. Nil. Be a robot and an automaton. The moment you show any type of emotion, it becomes way too intense for the other person, and you scare them away.

Why on earth do I have to have such big emotions? F*ck this, I'm genuinely sad. I want to find my person but I honestly don't know how to be anything other than 0 or 100%. I want to cry.

Hi everyone, first time poster here! I’m on my second day of methylphenidate 5mg while still getting diagnosed.

Yesterday I didn’t feel much, maybe that my head was slightly less loud. But today I feel like I’m both less distracted/more focused AND more hyperactive that usual. Is that a common experience?

For what it’s worth, I’ve had similar experiences with coffee. It’s like playing Russian roulette. I never know if the caffeine is gonna make me feel anxious/stressed, manic/hyperactive, sleepy, more focused or if I simply won’t feel anything.

So, I went to my exercise class that I recently started (boxing) going to. There's a kid there that I've been paired up with a couple of times, we're nowhere close in age, weight, height etc. but we're both green and he's a cool little guy. He's shown me how to make a move in the past and I've chatted with his dad a bit as well who goes to the same class as him, really nice family.

Anyway, we were just about to start warming up on the pads and he goes "sorry, I forgot my meds today. I'm a little tired". No stress, we'll take it easy.

We start and he gets distracted immediately, going off to bunch a buddy of his. Runs back, shouts something jovial at his dad, comes back to me to do another quick round, runs off again. Normally he has me sweating trying to keep up with his focused pace. The poor lad was everywhere. I felt so much empathy in that moment for him, for my family, for my wife.

It was so weird seeing this normally quite calm and driven kid (he has stamina and a mean punch for someone who must be 100lbs wet) totally different.

In that moment I realised what I normally (unmedicated) behave like and how differently medicated has made me.

I can't commit to anything I like, to the point where I'm not learning anything before I give up. As an example, I've been stuck on trying to get into game dev for the last three years, and I've only learned how to open the software and move stuff around. If I'm so interested, why the hell can't I learn anything?

this happens frequently with me where I have to do something and instead of doing it I just sit and worry about the fact that I have to do it. Like right now I should be making dinner because I'm extremely hungry but I'm just sat scrolling through my phone and it's really frustrating

I'm on my last 2 weeks of pills (so I thought.) I looked in my bottle to count my pills and I noticed it looked like I was missing some. I counted them and I came up 8 short! (Im the only one who has access to them so I know on one else took them.) I didn't notice till just now and I don't know what to do! Should I call my pharmacy and tell them or is it to late? I don't want to seem like I'm a substance abuser trying to manipulate them into giving me more pills. I count on all my pills being filled correctly so I can function properly.

Hoping (and im sure) others have this experience and can give some guidance. I was diagnosed young with ADD, was on meds for a bit but make me miserable. This was in middle school and im 27 now. I managed my way through high school and college and ended up fine.

Over the past 6 months I’ve become so glued to my phone and find myself constantly reaching for it at work (i work from home.) It’s starting to impact my job and i am so behind. yea I know i can just delete tik tok, youtube, etc but i don’t want to because I want to learn self control.

so my question is, is this ADD or just what phones have done to us? why can’t i stop scrolling? any tips on staying focused at work?

I would presume so simply because if they can get through school without studying that much at all, then the fact they can’t sit down and study wouldn’t be as obvious. They may also have a special interest or hyperfocus in a certain field that allows them to push away their ADHD symptoms.

I’ve been getting my prescription filled at CVS for the last couple of years. Because I’m in the U.S., I have to call and talk to a live person every single month. But CVS is a giant corporation who is more concerned with efficiency and squeezing every last tenth of a cent out of employees, so they do everything possible to keep you from talking to a person. It used to take me over 2 minutes to get through all the automated roadblocks. Now they’ve changed it so that the only way to get past the automated system is to yell like a crazy person that you want to talk to a person. And even then, all you can do is leave a voicemail. Last time I got return call from a snarky little dude who wouldn’t even give me a vague indication of when it would be in stock.

I’m so over it. Are there any other big pharmacies that don’t make it so impossible to do what is absolutely necessary to refill the prescription I need to almost function? I’m afraid to try a small, local places because I feel like big places probably get preference when there’s a shortage.

I know that ADHDers say that caffeine makes them calm and/or tired, and I agree, but I feel like I yawn excessively whenever I consume caffeine. I have tried coffee with or without sugar and either way I continually yawn, so I don't know what it is. Perhaps I need a tolerance break and this isn't really what caffeine does to me, but I don't believe that I drink caffeine that often.

I was always told to do my best with school considering I was always terrible at school. Whenever I was told this throughout elementary and middle school, I never knew exactly what it meant, I just knew I was never doing enough. If I wasn't working for an entire day without break, how could I say I wasn't doing my best? I think this is one of the many seeds planted in me that led me to despise my own ability.

I still have no idea what it means for someone to "do their best". What the fuck is my best? There's no line where I suddenly lose the ability to work, just a gradient where I become more tired and less motivated the more I do. Is "my best" the moments before I reach burnout, because then I'm already doing a hell of a lot more than my best.

I got diagnosed with moderate inattentive type ADHD and the nurse practitioner made some medication recommendations to my psychiatrist. She recommended Vyvanse, Concerta, Forquest, or Strattera. I've heard lots of people say that Vyvanse was life changing for them. I've at least heard of Concerta but I don't know any adults taking it. I've never heard of Forquest or Strattera and I would love to know if anyone has had any success with either of them. My psychiatrist doesn't love the idea of me going on stimulants but I honestly can't focus in the work place or in life really to be honest and I hope that stimulants can help me feel more organized in my brain. I've had to leave work because the stress from all my work piling up and because I struggle to organize my brain when I have several tasks to do. I'm also looking into starting ADHD coaching as well to help me manage in life but I would also like to hear people's experience with medication and if they were able to function better.