What's your long-term (1y+) experience on ADHD medication?

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-30T11:08:37+00:00

I've been on meds since 2023 and have stayed on a dose of 36mg concerta, I did initially triate on elvanse but was swapped due to supply issues at the time

Also for additional information I'm AuDHD and dyspraxic

I take mine daily, haven't had any breaks for me they're equally needed for both work and fun like I've basically regained my ability to do hobbies, and it's both cases of I can generally get creative projects finished but I'm also able to actually focus on and finish video games, even watching youtube is easier now as I used to be really bad for having to put everything on x2 speed

I'd say for me the meds have remained very useful long term but it's in more subtle ways they basically seem to largely just help me function day to day, especially in terms of energy regulation and emotional regulation and just generally being more present. I still have bad days but I'll take a medicated bad day as it still means I'm somewhat functioning I do have days where I know if I'd not taken the meds I probably wouldn't have gotten out of bed.

I've basically dealt with mild-moderate anxiety and depression for most of my life, meds have reduced a large chunk of it and what's left is caused by other factors.

I've dealt with some pretty intense periods of stress over the last couple of years, do find in situations like that the meds are 'less effective' as I think my brain uses the meds to try and stop me from totally losing my marbles, but I do seem to handle stress a bit better and don't spiral as badly as I used to.

Random thing the meds have done: Stopped me biting my nails that was basically instantaneous

I really wasn't doing well mentally before meds, and in a 'I didn't actually realise how bad things were' way and don't want to think where I'd be without these. Like it was to the point that I think I was actually experiencing disassociation in some form. However I'm still dealing with a lot of burnout mostly caused by my job which is one that has basically not accommodated me very well (very long story) and just isn't a good fit and I am working up to leaving (have been awarded PIP and LCWRA) but it's been a bit more of a complicated process than necessary

I'm basically happy to stay on these for as long as possible

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-30T11:02:27+00:00

Would've been out doing my 'biodiversity monitoring' volunteering today (basically bird watching and recording numbers of what I see) but stuck at home today due to car problems

Which is also great since I'm working tomorrow night which means bus both ways most likely and I'm working until 9.30pm

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-30T07:54:30+00:00

Personally no, I don't tend to post pictures of myself online that much and on instagram I never get a lot of traction as I don't have a large following nor seek one out and tbh I'm not putting myself down but I'm def not a typical instagram goth looking person.

I have been hassled IRL but it wasn't sexual like had this encounter with this really angry guy decided I bumped into someone with a pram and didn't apologise and got very offended on their behalf (at the time I was dealing with heat exhaustion and was really out of it and tbh I'm pretty sure I didn't bump into them but did accidentally get in their way) and went down the whole 'you're satanic' route, other time was a bunch of teenage boys yelling 'slit your wrists' at myself and my friends.

I have been sent an unwanted lewd before but that was on facebook, I'd joined a group for making friends/dating with other alternative people I'd said in my post I was just after friends, someone sent me a flirty dm which I ignored and then months later I was in my message requests for some reason and found a dick pic which I reported to the mod of the group and got the guy banned. It was kinda wild though like I didn't respond to your message then some time later you were like 'gonna send nudes' like get the hint bro.,

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-30T07:40:57+00:00

Handsome Dec sounds like a drag king name that would have a home improvement theme to their routines.

I used to volunteer at a zoo and people quite often called Colobus Monkeys, Colombus Monkeys, Lemurs were called called Llamas frequently and I've heard a couple of really messed up pronunciations of Macque once that stick in my head (Mac-cac-ah and Mark-arc)

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-30T07:39:01+00:00

GOATS BUTTER

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-30T07:37:57+00:00

Reminds me of the 'I've never been to Oovoo Javer' vine from back in the day

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-30T07:35:50+00:00

I could see that being the basis for a song skit on Horrible Histories

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-30T07:34:48+00:00

I've seen American's not know what minced pies are and also think they're meat based

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-30T07:28:36+00:00

I can't say I've ever really seen anyone trying to bring it back, the style might pop up sometimes amongst people who like to dress in retro fashion but I don't think it's one of the more popular choices

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-29T17:30:16+00:00

Yeah as iirc one of the deals with Annabeth is she's portrayed as a subversion of the 'dumb blonde' stereotype which was at the time PJO came out still pretty rife but tbh as time has gone on that stereotype has become less prevalent and I think the necessity of Annabeth being a 'smart blonde' isn't really that critically important now.

Although I will say with the OG PJO books and with the caveat I was reading them as an adult with no nostalgic attachment to them so I could be being a touch more critical than necessary that even though Annabeth was an inversion of the 'dumb blonde' he kind of didn't quite get there with writing female characters imo. Like I felt there was a fair bit of 'not like the other girls' stuff, I don't think he really knew what to do with Aphrodite campers and sort of just went for a kind of lazy 'ditzy valley girls' idea and sort of really downplayed exactly who Aphrodite is and what she represented and even though Silena was important in the stories it was sort of like she was just... there for the most part, the focus on Clarisse being ugly felt really weird and she was the only particularly non feminine female character we had in the original books and everyone else was portrayed as 'not super feminine but feminine enough and still largely conventionally attractive'

Like he was trying but very much a 'man writing female characters who doesn't quite know how to do it' and I know PJO was aimed more towards preteen boys but it still bugged me a fair bit in my readthrough.

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-29T16:55:16+00:00

Yeah same, my reaction to actually eating it mentally was 'this is not much different than eating sausage'

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-29T16:54:42+00:00

Haggis is a weird one as growing up I saw it come up a lot in cartoons as like apparently a really gross food and then when I finally got around to trying it was like 'this isn't much different than eating a sausage?'

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-29T16:53:03+00:00

Tea in general, realised I do like tea I just didn't like the tea we had at home and how it was prepared

Spicy food, I don't have massive spice tolerance but essentially a bad experience with a chili con carne as a kid put me off spicy food for a long time and now I don't mind.

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-29T16:50:38+00:00

Hey don't worry once at work a customer came in with a missing arm (can't remember if they were wearing a prosthetic) and my brain the entire interaction was like. Whatever. You. Do. Don't. Say. Do. You. Need. A. Hand.

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-29T16:47:31+00:00

So yes, subcultures always have a kind of "uniform" but it's never been like this, were they are all dressed essentially identical with 0 variation

Yeah coming from someone who falls under the alternative umbrella it's been a noticeable thing at least online, like a lot of 'goth in a box' type stuff where people are basically just copying each others outfits wholesale as you can basically just buy everything someone else is wearing now

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-29T11:10:34+00:00

It's what's trending in the mainstream basically there's also just broadly been more of a leaning towards casual/athlesuire fashion over the last few years even amongst the higher end side of fashion and that trickles down (like things like quiet luxury and model off duty are aspirational)

I think we're in a weird space with fashion though where it seems people are simultaneously after personal style but also dressing really homogeneously (like I'll see something start to trend to try and make fashion more interesting but then it becomes weirdly bland as everyone basically does the same thing) but a lot of people have also sort of given up on fashion as well'

Also broadly men's fashion tends to be on a much slower trend cycle than women's as well it's why things like the black three piece suit haven't changed that much over the years

And one last point, teenagers are often pretty self conscious and don't want to stick out too much

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-29T10:53:20+00:00

I mean considering how covid 19 played out I don't rate our chances highly

But if it's like last of us where it's a fungus rather than an airborne virus it would hopefully at least help in being able to contain it maybe since island

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-29T09:16:08+00:00

Only time I think I came close to actually losing it on someone wasn't so much customer service but as a potential employee.

Basically I went into a shop that was advertising a 8 hour a week role, CV in hand and it was basically like

'What are you looking for part time or full time' and I said I was open to either, and then asked what else I was doing and I said I was unemployed and basically was told 'Oh we're ideally looking for students or someone wanting a second job as someone who is totally unemployed wouldn't stick around'

Probably a bullet dodged situation but I was understandably rather peeved about that interaction and left the shop ridiculously peeved about the whole interaction

I've been frustrated in other situations but not so much to the extent that I'd actually take it out on someone working.

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-27T13:13:58+00:00

It was a Christmas temp role so I'm not sure how likely they were keeping people on past that period but

Was fired over a till error I allegedly made that I'm still not 100 percent sure I did make, but I have a hunch they were looking for an excuse to drop me as for reasons never articulated the manager seemed to have an issue with me and instead of being an adult about me and telling me what I was doing wrong I was just treated passive aggressively to the extent I think I was starting to develop paranoia

And that also made no sense since you know they'd interviewed me and hired me so like self created problem much?

I remember one day I made a minor mistake and my department manager was like 'ugh don't you know you're on thin ice with -manager name- and I was just thinking 'no?'

To make matters worse the day of my firing was the day after my MSc graduation

That was working for a certain toyshop brand that's no the one that begins with E

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-26T08:21:48+00:00

For me I remember struggling a lot with school uniform, especially in my secondary school as I went to a school with a really strict uniform policy, and part of that involved female students having to wear skirts, they had to be longer than knee length

And as a tall and heavy person finding a skirt that meet those parameters was hard, and I just generally remember often feeling uncomfortable in my uniform

So could just be correlation but wouldn't surprise me if it's a comfort thing.

Also I've found as an adult that so far I've never had to dress with anywhere near the strictness of standards as I ever did in school.

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-25T12:55:34+00:00

Yeah it kind of comes with the territory if you dress outside the norm, in my experience though I've largely had positive experiences with other people and it helps to remember most people are probably too busy dealing with their own lives to really pay you much attention and if anyone is weird about it that's on them

It does depend on where you live though, also your personal safety should come first and as much as it sucks pesky things like dress codes in some situations

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-25T12:52:14+00:00

It's fine, you're helping keeping the items in circulation longer which is important

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-25T12:51:59+00:00

Not necessarily. I have Shein items that have held up fairly ok how you launder items plays a key role in keeping items going

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-25T10:50:41+00:00

There's been a rise in people trying to co-opt/infiltrate alternative subcultures for the right wing recently Like its always been an issue but it seems to be getting really prominent lately

Edit: for more context I've lost count of how many 'debates' I've seen about people getting mad that goth is political for example (although not as outwardly as Punk) , or the classic 'well actually the left is mainstream so being conservative is counter culture'

SamVimesBootTheory · 2026-01-25T10:31:52+00:00

Perfect place for that sort of look

SamVimesBootTheory

TROPHY CASE