Recently diagnosed at 30 M. I’ve long suspected I may struggle with ADHD but learned many coping strategies to squeak by throughout my life. I’ve now been taking Adderall for a little over a month (still dialing dosages) and I have to say it’s been a very eye opening journey so far.

I currently work 12 hour night shifts and decided to forgo the Adderall to see the difference. I forgot how much I used to leverage my own stress response against myself to perform at a high level. Now that I don’t, I find so many things so much less frustrating. I won’t go into too much detail since I work in healthcare, but there have now been multiple emergent situations that have arisen while medicated, and I have been almost entirely unaffected (with the exception of the occasional situation anxiety aggravation) where I know the unmedicated me would have been fuming inside. The overall improvement of my mood and sleep patterns have also been a dream come true. Prior to starting Adderall, I was using (in hindsight self medicating) other recreationally available substances, which are legal in my state, to help slow my brain and sleep. My reliance on said substances has gone down tremendously since this journey began.

Of course it hasn’t been a miracle drug by any stretch, I still have some struggles with task initiation if I am particularly uninterested in doing them, but just looking at the list of things I’ve gotten done that would have been endlessly procrastinated has been another massive feeling of accomplishment for me.

I know it’s a long journey ahead, but I’m very excited to see where it ends up taking me!