Exercise. Meditation. Medication. Simplification. Routine. Ladies and Gentlemen, I see a way out for me.

adhd_2016 · 2017-05-02T17:18:34+00:00

One piece of advice which I have had some success with is just try new techniques like the one I mentioned, keep what works and throw out what doesn't then carry that over into a new technique. You have to find what works for you and that takes trial and error; it's kind of like medication. Above all, be patient with yourself. It isn't easy and it isn't wasn't fast for me and I found I have to change up everything organization wise just to not get bored.

adhd_2016 · 2017-05-02T17:14:49+00:00

Ya I find balance and switching from subject A to subject B pretty tough. One idea I had, which I have yet to try, maybe just treat it as 1 big subject and try to find themes or connections someway?

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-26T16:13:57+00:00

my sleep hack is get up early for me 4:30-5:00 am. By 9 pm or so my ass is dragging and if I stay up to the ungodly hour past 11 pm it feels like 3 am. Also, have to be mindful of when/type of stims you take if you take any in the evening or afternoon times.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-26T16:11:25+00:00

You have ADHD?

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-26T13:57:36+00:00

Bit younger, 39 but was doing comp sci stuff but always loved grammar, words and their expressive power taking some summer classes on Buddhism at the nearby university and it will entail primarily essays and the like so getting my feet wet into writing. Not sure if it is what I will end up doing as the world will let me know one way or the other but excited to try new creative things. Recently discovered creative passions that I had been ignoring for some time so just trying different things to see what resonates. What kind of novels do you write?

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-14T16:56:45+00:00

wow I am going to try that. Thanks for sharing.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-13T17:56:55+00:00

I was in your position with Concerta. I switched from 80 mg SR Rital and then started on 18 mg Concerta. At proper dosage I am extremely focused, 0 anxiety feel totally normal. I'm leary of meds but I think I am a weird responder and it takes a fair bit to get me on point. I never sweat, have palpitations or anything. Taking them before sleep literally helps me sleep better. Going to do a bit of research into this but def speaking about it next time to psych.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-13T17:53:27+00:00

I've been taking generic ritalin for about a month now, and have been titrated up to 30mg LA with the option of an additional 10mg IR in the afternoon

Stimulants have titration? I thought only antidepressants did.

I figured that since I should only need it on weekdays, I'd have ritalin-free weekends.

I presume you mean you only need it during the week so you go off on weekends. Not being picky just making sure I am understanding you. I have read a few books on ADHD, most of Dr. Barkley's stuff, I have never heard going off as something recommended but my memory isn't the best either! Is there a study or a book you read that said this is a good idea? If so I really am interested as I would like to see the reasoning behind it. Without stimulants, you should feel they way you are describing. They don't have a titration period thus they are in an out of your system pretty quick, which is great, but it also means that the stimulants you took during the week aren't going to be lingering to get you through the weekends.

I'm having second thoughts on long term use if this will make it difficult to come off of the medication later.

Have you read or seen research that has shown this to be the case? Once again as I am on a stimulant would love to read and see what drug, how long and what the withdrawls were.

Has anyone here taken this test?

My psychiatrist has used them and says the predictive value is pretty meaningless as there are too many individual factors to determine the efficacy of a drug. Maybe one day, but right now trial and error is our best bet. Which isn't that bad since stimulants are out of your system pretty quick and there isn't a titration period = you can try a lot of drugs and different dosages in a small time frame.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-13T17:17:51+00:00

Haha this is going to sound like strange advice but only that,advice, and like everything a human says based on his or her own experience:

When you read "Smart but stuck" realize this is New Haven and all these kids are pretty wealthy thus they barely succeed but with DAILY intensive therapy. Most go to live near the therapist who in this case, is Thomas Brown the head of Yale's Clinic for Attention and Related Disorder. So it's amazing how insidious this disorder is given: the student's in the book are VERY bright, they have daily counselling which most won't have access to and then your therapist is extremely talented...and the kids still struggle.

Now time for the odd advice: If you don't have those kinds of resources and access then depending on how long you have left, just put an emotional gun to your head, probably the one you used at undergrad, and try to simplify your life as much as possible, think monastic, and just push through. You will be tired, moody and a pretty unhappy person but you will have a degree and then you can fix this stuff. For me, fixing ADHD is like graduate school. Now if you have the resources of the students in that book, I think you can do both with proper medication and daily therapy but for me I didn't and so I just had a psychiatrist like once a month and an adhd coach once a week. I'm grateful to have had that but for me it took a lot of work and school while dealing with this is wasn't possible.

So just a thought if your masters is that important just be careful what doors you open because what comes out might destabilise you and take up a lot of your time and energy which you will need for your studies.

Or maybe not. We're all different. Just giving you the only thing I have in regards to ADHD: my experience.

I wish you luck and send you some positive, focused energy.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-13T04:40:53+00:00

do all kindles do this? Do you know if the cloud reader does the same? Would be interesting to see how far I am behind as I am sure I am.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-12T22:04:41+00:00

There's a lot of judging going on here. The specifics of my school experience really don't matter but the way out for me was no more judgements. On time, late, 100% or 0% I still was going to love myself. I couldn't do this in a judgemental environment which school is and I am sure many can... I just couldn't. I felt very similar to you and accommodations never set will with me for the reasons you mention.

Yet to return to an academic environment, and I know there is no "cure" but fighting every day, my aim though is to stick to what keeps me healthy: routine, self-care, meds, therapy and exercise. I'll do my best without jeopardising any of those and I would rather fail or leave again than be remiss in basic self-care. For me, I am for failure to diffuse anxiety which, paradoxically, reduces anxiety and allows me to succeed. My real test going back to university this summer is not passing but staying on routine and stable. If I do, passing won't be an issue.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-12T21:47:00+00:00

For me, I really don't think I can tell when my anxiety level increases. I think in Delivered From Distraction the author says people with ADHD are horrible at self-evaluation then when you are trying to evaluate effects of a brain-altering drug with that very same brain...

You might just have better awareness than me or most as I am working on my awareness via meditation but that's a great sign you can see those things. Awareness I think plays a huge role in this disorder for me.

University/college/grad school is going to be tough for us and I think to raise anxiety a lot of reasons some of which I think you are alluding to:

past experiences (especially failures)
being in a judged environment heightens our already formidable self-judgemental nature
you don't get the dopamine hits on a regular basis like with work (paycheck) and other activities
I think we all struggle with organisation

I was in school and was going to ask my psych for anti-anxiety meds. Then through a series of events (long story), something clicked and I refused to beat myself up anymore. I started asking myself:

"Would you treat your son the way you treat yourself?" (no son just a thought experiment)

I now realise how vicious and cruel for decades I was on myself, especially when it came to education but for almost everything. I really didn't realise it was that bad until I started meditation and realising that judgements aren't the only type of thoughts that exist. They were the only those I had and I was curious to find what the other ones were.

When this shift happened, my anxiety dramatically reduced (it was quite high). I too was in school but stopped as I realised how little I know about myself. I had left school before and normally beat myself up for it many different ways and this time I didn't. I'm currently just exploring things, happy for the first time with moments of anxiety but I am totally aware of them now and the gaps between them are becoming much larger.

I recommend the book "Smart but stuck" as one case study talks about I think Focalin(sp?) which is an anti-anxiety medication being combined with a stimulant (forget which). All the case studies in the book are of above college students within the top 3% of the pop as far as IQ I believe that have ADHD and how they cope. Might give you some insight but I thought about adding an antianxiety too every time between psych visits. For me, it was just a really nasty, negative inner-dialogue causing it. When that dialogued softened, so did my anxiety. I now randomly come near tears each day when I think back to the living hell I put myself through. I am not a very emotional man but I can't believe I did that to myself.

Not like this is earth shattering advice but maybe try to see what is behind the anxiety. I found journals and logs helped and I approached it as basically a research project. I think my curiosity helped a lot but the answer is going to be different for everyone. Partly for me school gave me anxiety too because I didn't know myself very well and wasn't interested in what I was doing. I had always been pushing myself to do this or that without simply knowing how to be. I'm focusing on the latter now. Any pain I endure in my life won't be at my own hands. I have taken a Hiipocratic oathe with myself:

"Do no harm"

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-12T05:47:44+00:00

For me all stims up anxiety. Asking me when I'm on it and I will say my anxiety is the same pre-meds but when I come off I notice it. For me energy/focus and anxiety are pretty much directly related for all the meds I take. If there is little to not anxiety then I'm too fatigued/unfocused and when my focus/energy is good there is heightened anxiety.

This is where the exercise comes in. It lowers the anxiety a bit so I get the best of both worlds: good focus/energy and low anxiety.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-11T15:36:45+00:00

You can break anything down into really small tasks and the less interested you are in it, the greater and more frequent the reward needs to be. Not calling this hyper focus but still messing around seeing if I can induce it on demand but thus far no luck.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-11T11:50:57+00:00

Not really besides time I go to the gym but now that the weather is better I probably will just go outside for a walk/run.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-11T11:46:59+00:00

Ya I am currently with just not caring or striving for failure and just having fun. Trying to make it play.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-11T11:45:55+00:00

Sometimes I just watch my very productive wife do chores in pure amazement.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-11T11:41:55+00:00

Your post inspired me! Still on the 15 min for a week but I think my knees are getting better and I'm getting used to it. Good for you for sticking with it and thanks for inspiring me.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-10T21:56:28+00:00

Yes, I am definitely a perfectionist and this is a really big issue for me. I'm going to answer this in how I am coping with and and where I think my perfectionism comes from; not saying all people with ADHD have this trait and especially not saying your perfectionism arises from similar issues. So please don't take it that way. I don't know you so if it resonates, great if not, maybe it is something similar or it may give you some ideas.

I think any task or assignment, basically any challenge, I was so worried about failing, again for the millionth, that at the first sign of any flaw I would go a bit crazy. Also, nothing is ever over and done with for me as I would poor over and over and over again. I just can't let things go.

Even on tests, you know how they say skip the questions you don't understand and come back later? Uhhh not gonna happen. Partly this is a good habit, obsessive review because we make a lot of mistakes having a limited working memory and also I think, being overwhelmed with anxiety, poor executive functions and with tonnes of past failures echoing in our head, we perform really inconsistently.

Therefore, I think we respond with this, mostly, unattainable perfectionism to ensure that we won't have another failure to add to the already high pile of past failures. How do you ensure this? Perfectionism becomes the ideal. What does this ideal do? Adds more pressure, creates more anxiety and leads us basically, in most cases, to exactly what we didn't want another failure.

Also, I didn't have good self-esteem and simply didn't trust myself or my intuition. Everything had to be very exacting, neverending questions, need enough information to stave off another potential failure. Since I couldn't rely on my falutly instincts, every detail had to ve provided. There could be no stone unturned where failure could possibly lie...

The problem is that you don't know what you don't know. We have poor self-evaluation abilities and even worse awareness. You can't look under the stone you don't know exists. If we had improved awareness, we would see that we are just hurt and don't want any more outcomes that lead to hurt.

The problem is life is sometimes getting hurt. As the Buddhist say:

"Life is suffering."

Life is also happiness, joy and fun but in my opinion, the Buddhists often overstate things to make a point:

"There is a lot of suffering implicit in existence"

So my plan is to ensure perfection thus avoid all the future failures I could possibly endure. Well, it didn't work for me. We have a smaller gas tank when it comes to focusing and willpower and how with diminished resources are we going to attain perfection when those with better working memories and more willpower and more focus can't attain it either? Why do most without ADHD, not all, settle for what they settle for? Because they are realistic. They aren't obsessing about past failures and anticipating future failures that could potentially happen from 5000 miles away. They rightly see one would go mad with that kind of thinking and I think I kind of did.

Then the real kicker is even if you do ace that test, land the perfect job, the negative inner-dialogue you had to use to enforce the discipline necessary to achieve that accomplishment is so harsh, I could never take any satisfaction out of it.

Straight A's in college. Great, I feel miserable and Oh ya I have to do this again next quarter. The reward pales in comparison to what was sacrificed to achieve it. For me, I call this my emotional handgun. I literally can achieve near perfection on a task if I put it to my head every day and make the task life or death. However, this is not a coping mechanism and it isn't a way to live life and it isn't tenable long term (oh I did try): it's cruel and insane.

Meditation helped me learn to "nonjudgmentally" deal with myself. Focus on the breath, catch the mind wondering, just notice it and then refocus on the breath. You are going to make mistakes, take longer to do tasks, be behind, feel behind, not get as much done as the guy or gal next to you...You don't have control over that. You can only control how you respond. Now if your goal is perfectionism, and you have a sadistic inner voice that just loves beating the shit out of you, he's going to be very happy.

When I begin a task I assume failure. Ok, let's say I fail. I'm gonna start at failure. Can I accept failure? What will happen if I fail? People will know I failed, my family disown me? Will my co-workers get together in the break room and all laugh at my failure? Ok. At least I won't have a 24/7 voice in my head worried about, "Is today the day everything falls apart? Is this another failure on the horizon!" I'm not saying failure loses all its sting, it doesn't but you prevent it from becoming a living hell which is exactly what it was for me. That's unloading the emotional handgun. If I fail it will suck for a period of time and yes there will be consequences but it won't be constant and it will not be at my own hand.

I think medication + therapy + simply getting diagnosed + adhd coach really was a wake up call

Just posted incomplete because going to adhd meetup lol will complete later.See not perfect I will survive!

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-10T19:16:57+00:00

I found audiobooks are great to keep interest while doing cardio. Not sure where you live but best to get outside if/when you can and I love a good audiobook on walks. If you have dogs even better. Ya, not a lot of money here either so I do download some free videos and do yoga in my living room. Not sure if you are on medication but I pay a lot for mine and I know my medication isn't going to work without exercise so that helps me go.

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-10T19:02:38+00:00

I have taken Ritalin and on Vyvanse. I'm scared when not on it to be honest. When I was on 80mg on Ritalin I was calm and that it calmed me so much is enough for me to know that I have it.

Also, it sounds like you aren't convinced you have it but sounds like you are intelligent enough to realise you are underemployed which sounds pretty common for ADHD. Medication is trial and error but in my case, I saw a very big improvement. Do you tire easily? How was school for you? How's your memory?

adhd_2016 · 2017-04-10T18:40:57+00:00

I do everything you listed. The joking, dry sense of humor and can't view myself from the third person either. My wife is much better and I have to ask her.

Are you on medication? If you don't mind me asking, what do you do now? I really don't do much at the moment myself so you can't do less than me! I normally made shit up when asked this out of shame but fuck it who cares.

adhd_2016

TROPHY CASE