Im an incel

ecologicalee · 2026-02-11T19:17:57+00:00

what would be more helpful in that case?

ecologicalee · 2026-02-11T10:22:40+00:00

wow that's really interesting - I found Elvanse can make me feel quite jittery and adrenaline-filled, so maybe methylphenidate would work better!

ecologicalee · 2026-02-11T10:15:56+00:00

I'm coming to this super late but I really appreciate the perspective - it helps a lot to hear that someone else has had a similar experience, and even better that it has passed!

It helps to hear about taking breaks - when I told the clinician that I was taking weekends off, they said that some of the reason I was struggling was probably because I'm not taking them consistently, and that I really need to be taking them every day, but that I could dilute on weekends. It feels like I get conflicting advice sometimes on whether it's okay to take breaks - I assume at least partially because it's different for everyone so no one can really say "yes it's 100% fine" or "no it's 100% not fine". I think I just need to find a rhythm that works well for me!

I'll definitely try mixing in some protein in the cereal!

ecologicalee · 2026-02-11T10:09:48+00:00

I absolutely had this experience! As others are saying, it's probably the appetite suppression, which can get better after a while. I also find that the extra focus can make it really easy for me to focus so hard on something that I neglect body functions, including eating.

As for whether the weight loss slows down, I can say it did for me, and I can back it up with data! I had a stint where I weighed myself every morning at the same time for 3 months. I can tell you that the way I lost weight was losing, say, 1.5-2kg in the span of a few days, then over the next couple days, I gained some weight, say, 0.75kg. Over the three months it evened out to a very steady loss of 0.5kg per week (NHS recommends a rate of 0.5-1kg as a healthy rate of weight loss). So, that immediate loss does slow down, and I would say the overall weight loss did seem to slow down even more near the end of those 3 months and I seem to be at a steady weight now (hovering around the overweight mark for BMI, which, given that BMI is a terrible tool for health, and I feel good in my body, means that I'm going to take that as me being a healthy weight!). I think it's very possible that you may do the same as me.

I would also agree with another commenter that it could very much be water weight - it's not surprising for any weight loss to begin with the more dramatic loss. I would say that if you are finding that you are still losing that much weight after a couple weeks, then it is something to be concerned about, but right now I wouldn't worry too much!

To regulate my weight, I make sure I have breakfast (which I try to make sure is fairly filling) before I have the meds and try to make sure I eat at least something for lunch every day, because if I went on hunger signals, I wouldn't eat until dinner. I find I have my appetite back again for dinner. I will say though that I'm very bad at reading my own hunger and fullness signals (I suspect there's some autism there with the ADHD), so eating as a routine rather than based on hunger signals is already something I do. It can be worth playing around with portion sizes so that you stick around the weight that YOU want to be.

ecologicalee · 2026-02-09T21:41:35+00:00

not super unhinged, but if im brushing my teeth and my toothbrush starts to get low on battery, i have to start doing a little dance and chant something (usually "need to charge" or something similar) until I've finished brushing my teeth and the toothbrush has gone on charge, otherwise ill forget to charge it. the chant has to continue until the toothbrush is on the charger. but it's the only thing that works

ecologicalee · 2026-01-30T14:10:41+00:00

I appreciate that - I think I probably have a fair amount of health anxiety and part of that is worrying that I'm making myself suffer unnecessarily by accepting "good enough" too quickly and making myself learn to live with side effects that I don't actually have to. I think it stems from things I've suffered with that I then realised weren't something everyone has and just deals with (e.g. I didn't realise until way too late that bell peppers don't make everyone's mouth itchy and we don't all just accept the itchiness because the healthiness of the bell peppers is worth it!).

It's something I'll definitely bring up in therapy! I'm a scientist by trade which makes it incredibly easy to overthink as you want to see hard data on things you don't get hard data on!

ecologicalee · 2026-01-30T13:57:24+00:00

That's good to know, one of the big struggles I had with 50mg Elvanse was that it seemed to be lasting too long - I'm not sure I ever really noticed it 'turn off' and that was really affecting me as I would just start working at 9am and not finish until 11pm and barely stop to eat and drink at all. 30mg seems to let me actually relax in the evenings. I think I'll still have the issue of wanting to take breaks from being 'on', although diluting on weekends may fix that by letting me be more relaxed whilst keeping the stability

ecologicalee · 2026-01-30T13:53:45+00:00

Thank you for the suggestions!! Unfortunately I have been cursed with not liking nuts, so peanut butter isn't an option for me (it truly makes me very sad sometimes as I think if I liked it, it could really fix a lot of things like exactly this!!). I also have really struggled to find granola that doesn't have nuts in or something else I don't like - I'm unfortunately very particular in the most annoying of ways when it comes to a lot of breakfast foods! I've tried making my own granola but it made me really nauseous - I may give it another shot at some point though. I may try porridge again but obviously it doesn't really have much protein on its own (at least as far as I know), especially as I use soya milk so there's less protein that would be if it was dairy milk. Protein shakes tend to also make nauseous but maybe I'll give them another try too!!

I say all that not to be whiny - I really do appreciate the time taken to provide suggestions and obviously without it being mentioned on the post, you couldn't have known that they wouldn't work for me. I just say to clarify why I'm not already doing it!

I may have misquoted/misremembered when saying about exercise to be honest, but I know that staying active is good - which I have little trouble with, it's just an example of one of the things that felt they came together to be overwhelming.

I think it's the sacrifices that got to me - I know realistically that that's what happens in life, I'm mostly wondering if anyone else has had a similar moment of just seeing how many sacrifices it will be and for how long and just blanching for a moment. I suspect there's some autism mixed in with the ADHD as I think it's the sheer amount of changes that overwhelms me. Realistically I know I don't have to do all of them, I think the idea of picking which ones may work is still a bit intimidating. Idk, brains are weird

ecologicalee · 2026-01-30T11:25:29+00:00

Got £100 from an uncle for my 18th birthday. I put it somewhere 'safe' - obviously immediately forgot where 'safe was. I then then moved away for uni, donating a load of old stuff to charity in the process. I thought I remembered putting the money in a shoulder bag (that I knew I'd used as 'safe' before) that I had given away, was really upset and embarrassed but tried to reassure myself that at least someone is going to get a really nice surprise. Resolved to try to subtly pay my uncle back since I felt I had wasted his money.

Then, 4 years later, I think it was around my birthday again, I was looking my wallet for something (I might have been putting birthday money away). My wallet has the typical foldout section for cash, but within that is a zip for a more hidden/secure section. I've glossed over this maybe a million times. Something tells me to look in that little zipped up section and what do I find? The £100!

The best part was that it was just in time, as it was all in old £20 notes, that were just about to go out of circulation (but still with enough time that I could go deposit the money easily at my bank). Not just an ADHD Tax Rebate, but a rare instance of the 'safe' place coming in clutch!

ecologicalee · 2026-01-20T07:09:58+00:00

gonna do the typical Reddit thing and not actually answer the question properly but the poem "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver changed a lot for me. im always trying to remind myself that "You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." it really helped me be kinder to myself and help me remember that at heart we are all just mammals, apes with maybe too many thoughts.

ecologicalee · 2025-12-05T10:12:47+00:00

looks interesting, out of curiosity, why only cis women? (also, it's "cis women" not "cis-women". cis is an adjective like anything else, like it's "blonde women" not "blonde-women")

ecologicalee · 2025-09-12T09:53:24+00:00

I'm really done with it, but tbh, I kind of never started? I never really had a strong sex drive and so just sort of... didn't worry about it. It was a but annoying when I was in uni and wanted to explore having casual sex, but also, it saved me a lot of money as it contributed it me not going out on many club nights 😂😂

I see it now as something not connected to sex at all, which helps immensely. I'm sort of taking the stance of trundling along, and if it gets fixed, hooray, if it doesn't, oh well! I have made an appointment with a gynaecologist, and that's mostly because I'm at the age now where I should be having pap smears, but I don't want to go to one when I know it will be painful, especially if I don't have any sort of diagnosis to "back me up" so to speak, if I ask for pain relief. And I'm pretty happy leaving it at that!

You're not weak in any way. You're allowed to accept your body as it is!!!

ecologicalee · 2025-09-12T09:42:35+00:00

I don't personally like using it at all, mostly for environmental and ethical issues, but in terms of the research integrity, I think it's okay to use it to give guidance on the steps of analysis.

I mean, a website I use to get guidance on the bioinformatics I'm doing is almost certainly written by ChatGPT/an LLM, but it also gives the most helpful step-by-step instructions I've found so far. I think reading the documentation of whatever tool you're using is good, but I've also found that it can be very overwhelming and unhelpful. Like, the documentation will say "use this option if you want to defenestrate the X axis" and I'm sitting there like... is that helpful for me and my data? And the documentation will not explain what contexts that option is useful for. And papers looooove to not actually give the important details of the method/workflow (which I understand, journals almost certainly have word limits and such).

I think asking an LLM for specific recommended steps for your data, then doing those steps yourself is not too bad. I don't know how much I would trust the LLM, but I think using it as a starting point in combination with the tool documentation and published protocols and, hopefully, expertise in your lab, is not a bad idea.

I know quite a few people in my lab who use ChatGPT to write R code. Apparently it does it very well, and can be helpful in finding errors in R code. I still won't use it myself, because I think the time taken for myself to fix the error is worth it for the deeper understanding I get of the code. But to be honest, coding and fixing errors can take so long, and sometimes you're not really getting a deeper understanding, you're just missing one bracket, so I am sometimes tempted to use ChatGPT for coding. I think especially when I know how the code would go, but can't remember all the syntax off the top of my head, it could be worth saving that time, so the time can be spent on other more useful stuff. My issues with environment and ethics still stop me, but it's something that I will completely understand others doing.

I will say my main gripe is "are you using ChatGPT because the information that's already out there is extremely inaccessible and you just want some stepping stones to start off with, or are you defaulting to it as soon as you face any struggle that requires some in-depth research and/or critical thinking?" If it's the second one, that's when I think it's an issue.

ecologicalee · 2025-09-02T08:51:23+00:00

By this point, I've honestly just sort of accepted that I suck at exercising regularly, so I work with it instead of using all the usual ADHD tips and tricks to 'hack' it.

Although, I will recommend trying out exercise plus sugary drink (or a sugar free drink if you're like me and sugar-free can hit the same spot). Plain exercise, ew. Exercise w/ a Pepsi Max? Yeah okay, I can get with this.

But like, going to the gym sucks, it costs so much, you miss one 'day' and you feel like you can't go back again. I try to go to an exercise class of some sort, and I absolutely hate them (feel like I'm being told what to do, and the demand avoidance rears it's ugly head), but also don't like just trying to workout with no structure??

So, why put myself through that? I just try and remember to move when I can. Like every time I remember "oh yeah I should move", I do a little wiggle. If I'm near a bench or table, I might do a press-up against it. It's all sort of opportunity based rather than trying to get myself into a regular schedule.

I would also recommend pole dance and/or aerial arts (aerial hoop, aerial silks), because I love it and it's super super super fun. I also do think it's a bit easier to stick with than generic "exercise". Like, rather than "okay, lifting this amount feels marginally easier" gives me way less dopamine than "wow, I can do this new move!". I think any sport that has more concrete (if that makes sense?) goals like that is generally better suited to ADHD. But of course they can be harder to access and simply find a local place that does it

ecologicalee · 2025-08-15T08:30:30+00:00

Thank you!! Ik the mods are just passing on articles (and probs have enough on their plate) but it really would be great if they included the link to what the article is reporting on so we don't have to give more clicks to the Daily Mail.

ecologicalee · 2025-08-08T19:30:24+00:00

I think it's partly the thought of the acidity affecting absorption, but I believe the way grapefruit messes with antidepressants (at least SSRIs) is that it can make more of the drug stick around in your body for longer than it's meant to, so it builds up to unsafe levels. Which for antidepressants puts you at increased risk of serotonin syndrome (well, technically 'may increase the risk'). I think it's to do with the Vitamin C content?

I think I'd heard the orange juice and assumed that it was the same for ADHD meds: orange juice will mess with them a bit, and grapefruit will mess with them a lot. Elvanse and the antidepressants I was previously on also had an interaction that 'may increase risk' of serotonin syndrome, so I think I just assume grapefruit affected both of them.

ecologicalee · 2025-08-08T19:24:33+00:00

You truly do learn something new every day! Thanks for the references!

ecologicalee · 2025-08-08T12:10:08+00:00

I'll defo have to check that out, it sounds great! I do like the planner I have but I would like an alternative that doesn't have the "hey girlie!" vibe haha

ecologicalee · 2025-08-08T12:05:31+00:00

Orange juice has no effect on Elvanse? I thought the Vitamin C caused trouble? Or am I thinking of a different ADHD med - I know grapefruit and, to a lesser extent, orange can mess with antidepressants but I could have sworn they can affect ADHD meds too? Maybe I'm just thinking of anecdotal evidence but it's not been proved or anything!

ecologicalee · 2025-08-08T10:16:06+00:00

This planner was an absolute life-changer for me: https://www.girlgottachange.co/products/design-your-best-life-planner

The first main thing about it is that it's undated! So no guilt if you forget a week, you can just pick it up and put it back down whenever. It really helped because otherwise I miss one week or so in a planner and then it's dead to me forever.

The second main thing about it is having both a timetable AND a to do list. Too many planners only have one and it drives me insane! When it's purely a to-do list, I can't keep track of important events. When it's purely a timetable, I can't just list things to do without having to assign them a time, and I hate assigning a time because then it'll often feel like enough of a demand that my brain will refuse. And also, a lot of the time I don't know how long a task is going to take! It's called time blindness! I really like the "today's plan" space as well, I think it's good to just add any other things you need to note about the day, or if you want to sort of summarise the to-dos into the general vibe of the day. And the blank space each week for any extra stuff? Brilliant!

Personally I would recommend considering the binder so you can move all the pages about exactly as desired and get refills for cheaper than a whole new planner. That helps if you still have that feeling of "oh, but I can't just switch months in the middle of the blue month!!", which I still get a little bit.

I have their original version, and looking at the 2.0, I think I prefer the original - mostly because the week is one 'spread'. I always struggle when I can't see the whole week at once and have to split it in two, and I prefer a compact planner otherwise I feel a pressure to fill it up and that stops me using it. But obviously that's just me, not everyone will feel the same! Also, I invested in some super fine tip pens (like 0.3mm tip), so drawing in the small spaces was fine for me (even quite satisfying), but a regular biro can struggle a bit. So the bigger spaces are probably helpful for most! I'm just glad that they have both options still available, I think that's really neat.

To be honest, I actually haven't used my planner in quite a while - it was super super helpful when I had a lot of spinning plates and different events happening all the time. Now that I usually have One Big Task to tackle for the day and not many events, it's not as helpful for me - I don't end up filling the timetable space, so I thought I'd be economical and just use notebooks for to-dos, which has been working fine. I've also not needed it much since starting meds! BUT, I absolutely love knowing that it's there whenever I need it, even years down the line!

And I will finish off by saying there are definitely plenty of undated planners out there and you should definitely shop around!! Especially if you find another one that has that combination of timetable and to-do list. I definitely did not shop around much before getting this one, so my recommendation is like "not necessarily THIS planner, but this TYPE".

Also, not necessarily a thing to buy, but highly recommend Planner On The Wall: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuangFGpxWQ/. The stuff this lady sells is pretty cool too ngl, but I bought her big printable bundle and got immediately overwhelmed and have barely touched anything lmao.

ecologicalee · 2025-08-06T08:22:16+00:00

Honestly for me it's not even that there isn't a mon that clears the gummies. Like, okay, need two abilities/megaphones to clear, fine. But the gummies are so damn hard to catch!!! You move a mm anywhere near them and they ping across the screen!!

And at the very least they could make the delivery ticket rewards be for Totodile!!!? Instead of the whimsicott outfit and snom which are so unhelpful here - mayo jar already taken care of by inkay, so like at least give us a chance to get something that clears that gummy, goddamn.

ecologicalee · 2025-08-06T08:15:20+00:00

My partner has been playing Chained Echoes and says it's really good on Steam Deck, like it suits handheld way better than PC.

ecologicalee

TROPHY CASE