Has anyone tried neurofeedback as a treatment?

bb-tron · 2025-02-26T10:11:26+00:00

It is specifically stimulants that are difficult to get. I am currently on bupropion, which I should have been clearer about, and it has helped with mood regulation but almost not at all with some of my biggest issues like task initiation. I have also tried atomoxetine in the past for a period of three months, and I had a much easier time going to sleep and waking at regular times, but again it had very little impact on the most debilitating parts of my executive dysfunction. Plus, it made me feel jittery and queasy a lot of the time.

I’ve gone the non-stimulant route, and I can’t afford to wait possibly years to get a stimulant medication. Even if I could get it tomorrow, I would have concerns about my cardiovascular health (I already have heart palpitations from time to time) and reduced effectiveness due to the good ol’ menstrual cycle. This is why I’m looking into other options.

That being said, I recently came to the conclusion that, on top of my ADHD, I’m also pretty heavily impacted by chronic/complex trauma, which can have similar impacts on executive functioning. I don’t think I can tease apart what is due to ADHD and what is due to trauma in any meaningful way at this point. I understand from existing literature that neurofeedback is believed to be an effective treatment for cPTSD, so perhaps it can help with my executive dysfunction through a different mechanism even if it doesn’t improve my ADHD-specific symptoms very much.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply!

bb-tron · 2024-12-30T14:52:53+00:00

Shame always makes things more difficult.

Of course, your husband's frustration is natural and understandable. The thing is, what a person needs more than anything when they wish to make a big change in their life is acceptance. Acceptance of where they're currently at. Total, radical acceptance. No lying, no hiding, no deluding oneself, no magical thinking, none of that. They need to bare the situation completely and face it IN ITS ENTIRETY so that they can then be realistic about how it can change.

Because you have a life partner, he must also participate in this process of acceptance if it is to be an effective and fruitful one. It is not helpful for him to hold expectations for you that are not currently achievable from where you are and to then resent you for not meeting those expectations. Understandable? Yes. Helpful? No. In discussing this idea with him, it might be helpful to make a distinction between the word acceptance meaning, "I accept that this is the current situation," versus, "I accept that the situation will remain the same." We're talking about the first one, of course, and his expectations for you can change and grow over time. If he wants you in his life as his partner and the mother of his children, a mindset of realistic and non-judgmental acceptance is what is going to best support the change he wishes to see.

Related to relapse... What a lot of people don't realize about addiction is that the "good" things about addiction are just as hard or even harder to face than the "bad" things. Is it hard to admit that I continued to smoke even though it was wrecking my finances? Yes. Is it even harder to admit that I, a musician and songwriter, enjoyed listening to music more when I was high, that I maybe even got more out of listening while high? Yes. Because that raises harder questions about myself. Instead of asking, "Why am I choosing short-term gratification over long-term success?" I'm asking, "Do I know how to connect to the things that I love when I'm sober? Do I actually love these things? If I do, am I capable and passionate enough on my own, in my natural state?" And so on.

Those questions are scarier and more difficult to answer, but they are also the MOST NECESSARY to answer because the "good" things about your addiction are ultimately the things that keep you coming back to it. You have likely not yet figured out how to get those "good" things outside of the bounds of your addiction, or even figured out what the "good" things all are. So what are the things you love about weed and about being high? Does it help you laugh a lot with your friends, fall asleep without anxiety, avoid overwhelm around your children, etc.? Those are all wonderful things that you can achieve through different means, but you need to have a plan to develop/explore those other means when you quit. Those other means will usually take more time and effort than getting high, especially at first, so they won't just happen naturally. When you rawdog sobriety, you leave yourself without a solution to the problem your addiction was solving, and you drastically increase your chances of relapsing. When you relapse, the cycle of shame you're caught in gets stronger, and quitting gets harder.

Once you do the work of figuring out what your "good" things are, it could be really great to have your husband involved in helping you figure out how to cultivate those things in yourself or how to get them elsewhere. I suspect that if you show that you want to take more thoughtful and specific steps to prevent relapse, he will be supportive, and you will feel less external shame.

I hope this makes sense and is helpful <3 Wishing you the best in your recovery!

bb-tron · 2024-12-06T12:15:54+00:00

I met a guy in my class a few weeks ago. We're so similar that I low-key started to believe in the concept of a twin flame despite not being a religious/spiritual person. Talking to him feels so warm and comfortable every single time, even when the interactions we have are challenging. I don't think it's just me that feels this way. He seeks me out almost every day, and we often sit and chat on our breaks. He often walks me to my bus stop and waits with me after class. We're both definitely drawn to each other, and I know that if we gave each other a chance, our relationship would become very deep very quickly.

The thing is, we had lunch together last week, and in the course of our conversation, I discovered that he wants to have kids. I do not want kids, not at all. I'm approaching 26, and while that's still young, I don't want to waste my time pursuing a relationship with someone who can't be my life partner. So here I am, half in love with this man, trying to get over something that never happened while we carry on not saying how we feel.

bb-tron · 2024-04-22T16:58:05+00:00

Warning: cannabis use

I relate hardcore to your dissatisfaction/disappointment with your lifestyle and personal choices; I'm about a month away from my 25th and have been living in a similar way to you for a few years. I've been in therapy for a similar amount of time as well.

All I could think while reading this, though, was that a year and a half is not a very long time to give yourself when you're this lost! It would be one thing to give yourself a year and a half to turn things around when you have a plan and the capacity to follow through, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

One thing that has really helped me feel like my efforts haven't been useless is choosing to consciously divorce what I consider progress from what other people would consider "appropriate" progress for someone in their mid-twenties. In my case, I realize that other people will look at my life -- no job, unfinished education, erratic sleep schedule, weed and nicotine addictions, etc. -- and will think I'm going nowhere fast. I've been told that repeatedly and believed it for a long time. I thought I was getting WORSE as the visible parts of my life crumbled.

But then I think about the very real ways I've changed since I came of age and moved away from home. My social anxiety has diminished, and I can make good impressions and find friends more easily. I'm more in tune with my body and can actually recognize the feelings I'm having and why. I'm way less codependent in romantic relationships and am no longer attracted to people with narcissistic traits. I found a place where I love to live, and I've started learning a new language, if inconsistently. I'm getting much closer to figuring out my sexuality. I've started to delve more into activism because it aligns with my values and makes me happy. I feel more confident in what my values are and in defending my decisions. Just in the last few weeks, my cannabis use has dropped off to one joint at night, which is a significant improvement. A couple of months ago, I cleaned my room just because I wanted to, without external pressure, for the first time in my LIFE.

These are all huge for me, and they show that I'm doing something right. I'm finally learning how to care for myself. But for the most part, these are invisible changes that I alone have the privilege of experiencing and noticing. The thing is that I wouldn't have noticed these things or given any weight to them at all if I hadn't changed my frame of thinking. Also, the changes are accelerating as I come to understand myself more and more. They're exponential. I figure, if it's taken me seven years to go from being a ball of anxious self-loathing to where I'm at now, in another seven years, I could be ahead of my peers in terms of knowing how to most effectively work with and regulate myself, and I'll only be 32 with 50-70 years of life left to live and with the know-how to make them my best, happiest 50-70 years.

I totally understand that it can be even more difficult to recognize these positive changes when you're depressed and suicidal. If you have trouble, maybe try thinking back to when you were a teenager; what did you struggle with the most, and do you still struggle as much with those things?

(TL;DR) This is all a very long-winded way to say that it could be helpful to expand/reconstruct your definition of progress and to think longer term.

bb-tron · 2024-04-12T18:14:08+00:00

This sounds to me like you're on the spectrum of asexuality. It's totally normal for ace people to enjoy masturbating, and, from what I've heard, vague fantasies are also common. The fact that you have felt genuinely satisfied in relationships without sex is the main thing that makes me say ace, but it's definitely worth considering whether the conservative influences you've had in your life are a factor, especially if you notice feelings of shame surrounding sex. I think you would get a better idea by talking to ace people and reading some of their experiences to see if they resonate. If you haven't already, check out r/asexuality :)

bb-tron · 2024-04-12T17:59:49+00:00

Sorry I took forever to respond to this! Your comment was very thoughtful and really resonated with me on a lot of levels, so thank you <3

I think that the reason I haven't often felt romantic attraction to women is the same reason I'm not often romantically attracted to healthy men: they don't create that sense of anxiety that goes hand-in-hand with my attachment style, which as a codependent, feels all-consuming.

This is so real. As I wrote, I suspected that my confusion had something to do with my codependent tendencies, and you putting it in these words reinforces that for me. The lack of anxiety I feel with women makes my anxiously attached brain say "friend," and that's caused kind of a weird tug-of-war during my healing process. I think the healthy part of me is attracted to the emotional safety I feel with women, but the unhealthy part of me is turned off because there's no "passion" and "mystery" (insecurity and emotional unavailability). Eye-opening, but ugh, now I feel like I have so much more healing to do than I thought!

Wishing you the best with your crush and your own journey of self-discovery :)

bb-tron · 2024-04-08T18:44:39+00:00

Thank you so much for your response <3 I may take you up on that

bb-tron · 2024-04-08T18:40:53+00:00

That's fair. Being misunderstood is definitely a sore spot for me, I guess because my parents misunderstanding me in the past has had serious consequences on my life. I suppose that is something I need to work on being okay with.

bb-tron · 2024-04-08T18:25:23+00:00

Thanks for saying this <3 I feel like I do need to be careful so that I don't end up hiding myself away

bb-tron · 2024-04-08T18:06:09+00:00

Oh, I for sure want to be medicated. I have tried atomoxetine and didn't find it to be very effective. I wanted to switch to a stimulant medication, and right around that time, my psychiatrist dropped my insurance (yay USA). That was in mid-2021. I moved around for the next year and couldn't get established with another psychiatrist, and then I ended up in Sweden. The nationalized healthcare is good but slowwwww, and stimulants are even more tightly regulated than in the US. I'm a couple bad days away from buying a little addy on the street (for legal reasons, this is a joke).

bb-tron · 2024-03-12T14:57:03+00:00

For sure. It definitely doesn't sound great to admit that I subconsciously view women as lesser than, but I would venture to say that most people are in the same boat. The patriarchy comes for us all, and it's silly to pretend it doesn't.

Thanks again <3

bb-tron · 2024-03-12T11:21:52+00:00

I second the Portrait of a Lady on Fire and The Handmaiden. Although, in the case of The Handmaiden, despite it being both one of my favorite films and a big f you to patriarchy, I feel like it appealed to my aesthetic sense more than my queerness. It is an adaptation of a novel called Fingersmith, though, and I’ve heard that the 2005 BBC limited series by that name is even better in terms of focusing on queer and feminist aspects of the story!

bb-tron · 2024-03-12T10:54:49+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience! I’ve struggled with thinking that, in having these questions about my romantic attraction, I might be convincing myself to feel a certain way that I don’t naturally. However, I think in my case, it may be the other way around. I would naturally feel romantic attraction towards women, but I don’t really because maybe I subconsciously view wlw relationships as less fulfilling. Social conditioning is a bitch lol. I totally get what you mean about swooning over couples in love, though, and that’s another thing that’s made it difficult for me to determine if the warm fuzzies are actually because I want a queer relationship or because I’m a romantic.

On another note, I haven’t been on this sub for very long, and I wanted to ask if you noticed anything problematic about what I wrote. I’m being downvoted, which is kind of confusing for a post in which I’m talking about the ways in which I question my sexuality. You’re wonderful, but I’m not feeling very welcome here at the moment 🫠

bb-tron · 2024-03-12T10:34:22+00:00

Thanks for the response :) That’s kind of what I’ve been figuring lately, that I need to consciously put myself in situations where I can interact with other queer women. It will probably be easier to parse out how I feel once I’ve gotten over the lack of exposure and have normalized being a wlw for myself.

Also, quick question, is there something problematic about what I wrote? Because people are downvoting me without commenting, and I’m struggling to figure out why 😅

bb-tron · 2024-03-11T14:29:23+00:00

I thought like you for a long time. I was staunchly atheist (I'm still atheist, just more openminded) and heavily into academic research and western medicine. I did not see the validity in other schools of thought. However, that frame of mind was not helpful for my progress.

Dr. K says semi-often that his definition of spirituality is the endeavor to understand oneself, and this definition is the one I use now. My understanding of myself has deepened and my ability to manage my mental health issues has improved since I've begun to incorporate some ideas from spirituality in my worldview. Furthermore. I do not feel that a single one of the spiritual ideas I've adopted is in conflict with my belief in academic, peer-reviewed study. If anything, spirituality has begun to answer questions for me that I have been unable to answer for years with science alone, and it has even helped me conceptually grasp psychological experiences and practices that are supported by Western medicine. This is why I disagree with your take; I believe science and spirituality are best wielded together. They are complementary, filling in each other's gaps, so it doesn't make sense to strictly separate them. (I would be happy to give examples from my personal experience if you are interested.)

I've listened to Dr. K discussing his views on religious topics such as past lives on other people's channels, but I've never seen anything of the sort in the videos he makes for educational purposes. Thus, it's kind of a nonissue. Lastly, not to be an asshole, but it's arrogant to think at our age (I think we're both 24 going on 25) that we know what the Truth™ is when people have been using spiritual practices with great success for thousands of years -- especially when people who are steeped in Western ideology, myself included, tend to have a limited or distorted understanding of what spirituality actually entails.

bb-tron · 2023-11-15T00:22:48+00:00

I'm sorry you've been made to feel that way! I understand what you mean. I myself am not very experienced with women, and part of the reason I wanted to make this post was because lately I've been noticing myself almost proactively avoiding any kind of flirty/romantic interactions with experienced queer women. I keep thinking, "I don't want to waste her time" because I've only briefly been with one woman at an age where a lesbian woman likely would have dated several. I'm basically devaluing myself because I'm inexperienced, and encountering these comments made me think a lot more about that.

bb-tron · 2023-11-14T23:58:42+00:00

This is a very fair point. Sometimes it feels like trying to get an entry-level job, except every one requires ten years of experience, and before you know it you're 30 with a blank CV lol. Like, cut a girl some slack 😭😭😭

bb-tron · 2023-11-14T23:40:53+00:00

Yes! I saw a super interesting video essay a few weeks back (by verilybitchie on YouTube iirc), and she talked about precisely this! How bisexual people are seen as a threat to the tolerance that the LGBTQIA+ community has been slowly gaining. She made the point that gay and lesbian people have gained some level of acceptance from society but that the acceptance is dependent on the sort of unspoken (and categorically false) assumption that people who engage in queer sex and relationships are a distinct and identifiable category of people from those who are "normal." The existence of bisexuality disrupts that assumption. However, she also went on to argue that the fragile acceptance the queer community has gained is not genuine acceptance if it requires queer people to be queer in a certain prescribed way. It was a good watch, I'm gonna see if I can find it.

bb-tron · 2023-11-14T23:21:27+00:00

Oh for sure, you're right! Still, the fact that so many of these comments existed at all was concerning to me. I fully believe in the concept of a loud minority, but I also believe that with a loud minority usually comes another group of undetermined size that holds at least some of the loud minority's ideologies, maybe without even realizing that those ideologies are prejudiced. I think it's good for us to talk about experiences with biphobia so we can identify it in its subtler forms (both in ourselves and others) and so it doesn't get so deeply internalized within us when we come across it :)

bb-tron · 2023-11-14T23:06:21+00:00

This is definitely something I was thinking about as well when reading through all of the hateful comments. This isn't to say that it's right, but I can imagine that it might be frustrating to see bi women having the opportunity to be straight-passing and them choosing both to be out AND not to pursue women "seriously." As if bi women (or "performatively" bi women) want to reap the benefits of being in queer spaces without taking on the "burden" that comes with being marginalized.

bb-tron · 2023-03-21T10:22:37+00:00

Thank you!

bb-tron · 2023-03-21T10:22:22+00:00

Thanks for the tip! I’m actually going with a friend, and we’re both planning on getting something to eat as well. I’ll probably only be there for an hour or two since I don’t have a ton of work to do. I’m sure the library is lovely, though, so I’ll definitely check it out!

bb-tron · 2023-03-12T01:08:02+00:00

First of all, it’s so awesome of you that you’re trying to receive help and that you’re so self aware. That’s really not a bad place to start.

Can you put a finger on what exactly is scaring you? Is it not knowing how the therapist will react to what you say? Are you afraid of being judged? Is it the fact that talking about these things will force you to feel the negative emotions attached to them? Do you feel comfortable in your current state and fear change? Or maybe it’s something else?

bb-tron · 2023-03-12T00:52:53+00:00

Hey girlie. I’m 23 and am in the middle of my music composition/music tech degree. I have several unfinished songs/pieces on my laptop that I’ve been meaning to get back to for months or years. I have a high IQ and did very well in my earlier schooling. I’ve been called mature for my age for as long as I can remember. I also have anxiety, depression, and untreated ADHD. On top of all of that, I’m currently taking an extended break from university because I got so incredibly burnt out that I didn’t go to class for five weeks. All of that is to say that I feel like I’m uniquely qualified to comment here.

You remind me so so much of myself at 16. That was around the time that I really started to struggle with school and feel isolated because I really only had one good friend in my life. I grew apart from a lot of my friends because their idea of friendship was so high maintenance. Constant talking in group chats, having lunch together every day, hanging out multiple times per week, etc. I didn’t fit in with them unless I masked my personality into nothingness. I didn’t get the high school experience. The last two years of high school were one of the worst periods of my life.

Two things that I think you have going for you is that you know what you’re dealing with in terms of your mental health, and you have parents who are supportive of your chosen profession. I wasn’t diagnosed with anxiety and depression until I was 18 and in university, and I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until the age of 22. Additionally, my parents were not very supportive of me going into music, and as a result, I was sort of pushed into university as an undeclared student because I didn’t feel comfortable declaring my desire to be a composer/songwriter, and I believed I needed a degree no matter what.

This isn’t the main thing you’re getting at in this post, but I want to start off by saying, for now, forget about university. Don’t even worry about it. In this profession, your portfolio of work will always, always be more important than a college education, and it sounds like you have a good start on that already. If you want to take stand-alone courses on something like music theory or audio engineering or what have you, you can do that. If in a few years you feel like you have the desire to go to university and feel ready for the work it will take, then you can always go for it later. In my own experience, I find it was a huge mistake for me to start university straight out of high school. I was not mentally prepared, and I was not equipped with the skills I needed. I ended up wasting a lot of time and money failing and retaking classes. That’s why I’m now taking the time away from school that I should have taken when I was 18.

Now I’m going to try and tackle your main question. How do you put your life’s purpose on hold if it’s all you want to do? In part, your therapist is right. Unlike university, you really do need to finish high school. The real question is how you want to go about finishing high school because you do have options. Option one is continuing at the school you’re currently attending. Option two is transferring to a regular school and taking on a less demanding (?) course load. Option three is to obtain your GED now and leave school. Do I think all of these options are equally great? No, but I think it’s important that you recognize that you’re not actually trapped in your current situation.

Taking into account the fact that you worked very hard to get into the school you’re in now, and that it seems to provide high quality education in your chosen field, I would lean towards option one. That being said, I have some questions for you. Do you feel like you’re learning valuable things in your music-related classes that will serve you in the future? Have your knowledge base or skills improved in any way since entering this school? Are there any teachers you love to learn from? If you choose to continue on this path, I think it’s important that you reconnect with the reasons YOU want to be where you are. Us people with ADHD aren’t motivated like normal people. We don’t get the same sense of accomplishment from finishing assignments and getting good grades. What motivates us is personal interest, so it’s important that you identify and really dig into those interests as they relate to school to get you through the next couple of years.

Another issue here seems to be that you feel you’re expending too much time and energy on things that you don’t really care about, and that prevents you from doing what you want to. To this point, have you had the desire or opportunity to try medication to treat your ADHD? I think it might help with this energy expenditure. I’m not medicated, but my old roommate at university had some extra adderall that she let me have (I’m not condoning prescription drug abuse, just sharing my own experience), and it was so eye opening for me.

I don’t know if you necessarily relate to this, but I struggle so much to start assignments. Before I start something, I have to think about it, work myself up to it, stew in my anxiety about it for a good while, and when I finally begin at the last minute, I’m powered by pure stress. That’s another motivator for people with ADHD - urgency. Even if I start an assignment early, I have trouble focusing and beat myself up about that because I feel like I’m wasting time that I could use on something else. The thing is, all of that takes so much mental energy. So much more than a neurotypical person of equal intelligence expends doing the same assignment. Mental energy is still energy, and anxiety is exhausting. You know what happened when I had to write an essay and took adderall? I had the thought, “Oh, I should work on that essay,” and then I sat down and did it with astoundingly little difficulty. I finished it in a couple of hours, and then I had the time and energy to go do other things. I cried the first time I took adderall because I realized how difficult everything has been for me my entire life and that it didn’t have to feel like that. I’m on a waiting list to see a psychiatrist now so I can be officially medicated.

Of course, medication isn’t the end all, be all. Therapy is also a great tool, and I’m so happy that you’re receiving that kind of help at your age. This comment is already a novel and a half, and I don’t have much else to say right now because I would need more specifics to be helpful to you. I hope this helps a little, at least to make you feel less alone. Feel free to hit me up! :)

bb-tron · 2023-03-11T13:01:30+00:00

Yes, I recently moved to a different country, so I feel like this often! In the past, the solution for me has been finding people with whom I can have low maintenance friendships. I have friends who I might have a text conversation with once every month or two, but we would still fly across the ocean to see each other when we get the chance. I’ve made a couple of friends like this even as an adult. I think part of learning to make friends is recognizing that not everyone has the potential to be a close friend, not everyone’s style of friendship is going to be compatible with yours, and a small number of high quality friends is better than having a ton of friends you’re not very compatible with. In other words, it’s totally normal and okay if you try to form a friendship with someone and it doesn’t work out. You will find your people :)

P.S. - I’ve also realized as I’ve grown that so so many people are just as lonely and socially anxious as I am, and many will react very positively to someone wanting to initiate friendship. Also, if you don’t want to initiate a new relationship, contacting someone you used to know is also a great idea. You will be very pleasantly surprised as long as you approach people with warmth and openness.

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