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Me: I need to leave this community. What if these memes are just making me think I have ADHD when I don’t.
Also me on literally every meme that’s posted here: haha, hard rel8
All these ADHD memes have several times made me think if there’s a light version?
But from what I understand everyone can experience ADHD “symptoms” from time to time, but people who are diagnosed with it have symptoms that are several orders of magnitude more intense.
I’m gonna sound like a broken record here but my favorite thing is:
Everyone pees but when you pee 60 times a day you go see a doctor
Not diagnosed till late 20s.
I’m “twice gifted”, so my intelligence can help me mask my ADHD in some ways. Looking back, all… ALL the signs were there, but no one was looking, or just didn’t understand. Lots of “you just need to apply yourself” kind of shit.
Anyway, check out Russell Barkley, if you’ve got a thing for educational videos, his are interesting enough, I feel, since he’s talking about me.
He made me feel a lot more confident that I have it, despite 3 different psychs already agreeing I do… and made me feel a lot more comfortable with who I am.
I hate explaining ADHD to people because it’s a completely unintuitive disorder. It’s like “I’m easily distracted” yet at other times I’m completely incapable of tearing my focus away from something. I have continual thoughts of things unrelated to my current focus, and other times I can’t think of anything at all, I just can’t hold on to any thoughts. I’m fidgety, almost all the time, but I can sit still and drive a car on the freeway for several hours with absolutely no issues.
It’s like, for every symptom I have of the disorder there’s always a “but sometimes” caveat that is present. It’s just a nightmare to try to make someone understand especially when they’ve never struggled with the disorder or anything like it. It’s a complete conundrum.
I have no problem staying committed to a task when my life depends on it. For all other cases meh.
Feel like my forgetting where I put things have any exceptions that aren’t average NT on my best days or because I have a system that most of the time works (it’s been a while since I’ve had to search for my wallet and keys because the basket is right at the front door now and immediately getting out of work clothes is a top priority, so removing the usual pocket stuff as I enter happens 95% of the time - the atypical stuff usually gets accidentally left in the pockets and remembering to lock the door on my way in is still RNG).
It’s not that you don’t have attention, what your lacking is the control over your attention. This means that you have a harder time directing your attention to what is “necessary”.
The result of this might be not being able to focus your attention on something, but it can show also as not being able to shift the attention away from something.
It’s actually not two different sides but rather the same.
I would say for me it’s that most aspects of life lack necessity and so are hard to find engaging.
I like to describe a normal persons focus as a laser, it has a good balance between being able to aim and its power
Meanwhile adhd is an extremly high power Death Star laser, however you cannot aim it at all for better or for worse
And the “but sometimes” thing is the polar opposite
Totally it’s like when you’re a kid and you say “I’m not hungry” and then someone brings out a cake and you’re like “well obviously that doesn’t count for cake” but it’s 100 PERCENT TRUE
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Welcome to the gang. The natural follow up question then is that if it indeed is weed then which is worse; the ADHD-like symptoms or living without weed.
I’ve heard about many ADHD’ers unknowingly treating their symptoms with weed. Weed is especially addictive for us because it helps us feel better. Atleast in my own case it allows me to have long uninterrupted trains of thought. Like instead of the same thought just looping around it actually starts moving forward logically.
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For some reason, the substance abuse genes skipped me, though it runs in the family. I have very firm rules on over indulging on weed. I have thankfully never had an alcohol problem and “failed” miserably at nicotine addiction. Hell, I somehow tested negative a couple months ago for weed when my doctor had to do his required Adderall confirmation test, and he tests at 10, instead of 20 or 50. If my depression ever gets the better of me and I feel like I am overdoing it to cope, I just stop for a while.
Finding the right strains that play well with my body and head can be a challenge at times. How do other people figure that out or deal with it? I have severe muscular issues and getting muscle spasms is rough. Or worse, it makes me hyper aware of the pain that I usually ignore. I have one or two that actually help with the pain some, but I can’t always get those. Freak Show is probably my favorite for that and it puts me in a good mood too.
Hahaha - this is my train of thought too! Didn’t smoke for the month of November as an experiment. Started dreaming vividly, but no improvement in my awake state.
I’m assuming a 1-month break probably wasn’t enough for my brain to re-build neural connections… but how long of a break is! Maybe I’ll try again?
How are you ‘figuring this out’?
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I needed to give up weed for a while for a hormone test. A month is exactly how long I had to take a break.
It takes 30 days to detox from weed entirely. So a month is the minimum, personally I’ve found I don’t start noticing improvement until I’ve been sober for about three months, because sleep gets messed up for longer than it takes to detox. You have to go all the way through the withdrawal symptoms until you’re sleeping healthily again, then you’ll start to notice improvements in life. Small, incremental improvements.
Maybe I’m just a douche and don’t care about others enough to remember what they tell me. But I do care, I think.
This is also me but since people in general still seem to like me despite me considering myself a bit of an asshole I’m then also wondering that maybe I’m just a charismatic psychopath that manipulates people.
Oh. Good. I’d gone a few minutes without doing this mental check, thank you for putting it back in there for today. 🫠
i was diagnosed early in childhood. my parents chose to believe it was fake and more than once actually pleaded with me to explain why beating me senseless every other day didn’t make the behavior stop.
Fucking hell sorry your parents were abusive monsters.
oh they still are, mom likes to work “subtle” transphobia into every single conversation so she can act like a victim when I point it out, and my dad told me in so many words to go fuck my freeloading self for wanting to crash his guest room and stop being lazy and sensitive when I found myself unemployable and facing homelessness after moving to be closer to family after my wife took her own life and my living situation fell through. good christian folks you know?
Damn that is so fucked up, and I am so sorry to hear that. That family doesn’t deserve you. I hope you find your true family someday.
I am very lucky to have landed in a lovely and accepting community where people truly care about each other, and as a bonus the landscape is jawdroppingly beautiful, so at least a there was a good outcome at the end of it. The US South is no place for anyone who isn’t cis, het, white, male, nominally “Christian” in a way that would absolutely shock Jesus of Nazereth to his core, and neurotypical, and it’s mindblowing to me how much better my general mental state is just for being away from that culture.
Jesus fucking Christ, your parents are the worst. I’m so sorry.
Fuck them, I’m so sorry for you
and this is why i have a profund desire to start a commune that just freely gives people housing and spaghetti, no questions asked
What the hell. That sounds painful. I know it’s not much, but at least accept my virtual hugs if that’s worth anything.
Whether you “officially” have ADHD or just the symptoms, it’s not your fault. It’s your responsibility.
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I partially agree with you. What angers me is the fact that your comment reads like it’s a simple issue of will and everyone has just to decide on doing this. Not like it’s kind of part of a lot of (not so crippling but still) disorders to sit there, do nothing and scream internally about not being able to do something about it. It’s very hard work to change something about it. And your comment does not acknowledge this…
Sounds a bit like my dad saying ‘walk it off’ .
While I can speak first hand of the ruinous effects of ADHD medication and the need to approach them with care - even avoiding them if it’s reasonable to do so, I disagree this one-size fits all approach - although I think it’s applicable most of the time.
I thought this a couple of years ago, even though i was diagnosed at 5 (29 now). It’s funny how i went my whole life thinking it was just the stereotypical adhd is just hyperactivity and laziness because the doctors never really tried to explain how this disorder could affect me. I decided to look it up studf about adhd and am deeply conflicted by how it literally explains my entire life and behaviors even though i thought i had it under control. On one hand im glad there is something that explains a lot of my struggles and medical issues but on the other i feel like my entire personality is just dictated by adhd and that i never really had as much freedom of choice as i thought i did.
I feel like the more you understand how your brain works, the more you learn how to work around it.
Full disclosure: I’m not diagnosed, but on a waitlist for ADD - for over a year now and it’s not moving, but I digress. I am diagnosed with autism though.
To me it feels like my brain is a wildwater. You can’t control it, but if you change the environment around it, you can guide it into useful directions. I’m lucky that by now the people around me have accepted it and are able to laugh with me when I fuck up. We have a lot of systems in place to reign in the worst effects, and the more we get used to it the easier it gets not to fall into traps and not to be unreliable.
I guess I’m working on my skills as a mindbender who tricks my brain into being useful while still allowing it to get that dopamine?
It’s weird, isn’t it? I was diagnosed as an adult, just a couple of years ago, and it was surreal how much sense it made of my entire life. I’m now on guanfacine which makes me feel like I have a superpower, but it’s really just being able to remember things, notice more things, and concentrate for more than two seconds.
At age 41, I just figured out I have ADHD, I assumed my entire life that I had a complex set of flaws.
I am 50. After reading a lot about the subject, I also suspect I am affected - my whole life. Getting an appointment with a psychiatrist to be sure right now. It would explain so much…
Well good luck - Vyvanse has a generic version now and has been working wonders for my 40 year old self… Except for the insomnia tonight.
Amphetamine is great, isn’t it. The Germans knew what they were doing! Most of the time.
It’s best to take vyvanse no later than 12-14 hours before you expect to go to bed, but some people need longer. Try taking 500-1000mg vitamin C a couple hours before bedtime, maybe also some magnesium just before you go lay down.
The vitamin C is particularly effective in flushing out any residual vyvanse in your system to prevent it from keeping you awake, and the magnesium will help you fall asleep. Zinc-magnesium supplements are also common, and the extra zinc is needed for your body to produce dopamine (which is something that is put under stress with ADHD medication releasing so much of it).
Oh I took it at 10am yesterdsy. I didn’t fall asleep until 630 am. I was up at 730? So a solid hour.
Thanks for the vitamin c tip. I will try that
Edit: should also mention that I just stepped up to 40 after having taken 30, but hadn’t been able to get any for a few weeks, so I’m gonna check it up to a bit of system shock. I’m sure it will level out after a few days, I wasn’t having trouble sleeping on 30
No problem! It’s a cheap solution for me, but everyone is different ofc. As a 75kg guy who’s struggled with insomnia from birth, I can wake up way too late after losing sleep, then take my 70mg dose at 15:00 and still fall asleep by 22:00 if I take 1000mg vitamin C by 20:30
I see magnesium+zinc supplements labelled ZMA in health/fitness shops, highly recommend something like that too if you normally have trouble falling asleep anyway. It knocks me out quickly, works wonders for my sleep quality, then the next day the meds are even more effective/helpful because I got such great sleep.
I’m gonna give this a few days to see if my body gets used to it again, I’m feeling tired now, but obviously only running on an hour of sleep.
But if the insomnia keeps up I will def give that a try, probably move my multivitamin to nighttime rather than the morning
I was able to fall asleep by 3am last night - so I think after a few more days insomnia won’t be an issue, but I do think I’ll move to taking my multivitamin at night alone with extra vitamin c
Thanks for the tip!
Do you have a blood pressure monitor at home?
I do, yes
Awesome! My Dr lets me do telehealth regularly bc the only thing she does differently when I’m there is BP, so just upload the data and stay home now.
Same age. CVS has been out for two weeks. Glad I finally got my life in order thanks to Vyvanse only to realize it’s a temporary fix once it’s unavailable.
Have you used their mail order service? They don’t have a shortage at all. CVS / Caremark - I get 90 day supply of generic Vyvanse for $75
Tf?? I get everything else through care pass but they won’t deliver this bc drug schedule. I’m in SF, maybe just a local law? Or California?🤷
In fact, my Dr can’t prescribe more than 30 days. Even if she does three months, I have to show up ON the 30th day, no sooner, hoping it’s in stock.
It’s been 3 weeks. I think when I get it, I’m going to continue a break for another month and save for next emergency
You might be able to get around that buy having the meds delivered to a CVS pharmacy - call your insurance and ask, they will help you navigate your state laws.
Also I’m just as surprised as you on the 90 day thing. But I talked with my doc and they said I just need to visit twice a year for consultation and adjustment but they will do 90 mail direct to my house with Caremark… I just have to be there to sign for it.
Who is delivering it to the branch?
You may still have a complex set of flaws, homie
I def do
I figured it out last year, I was 39. You’re in good company.
I just couldn’t figure it out until I came across information about ADHD and everything clicked. I’d be lying to say that I haven’t had moments of self doubt and imposter syndrome like the op suggests.
To me, at the end of the day, whether I’m actually ADHD or not, I have very similar tenancies and traits and the treatment works for me. That’s all that really matters.
Late bloomer here too! My 39th birthday gift was my first adderall xr and a taste of what it’s like to think about either nothing or just one thought of my choosing.
38 here, about two or three months into Adderall XR after a late diagnosis. It’s insane how much of a night-and-day difference being medicated is.
I’m actually able to adequately track my daily work tasks without scrambling around trying to find a thread to remind me. I’m able to sit and just work without having that pull to do something more enjoyable. I’m able to stop bouncing everywhere and just sit still.
It doesn’t help that every asshole on the Internet suddenly has a psychology degree to tell you you don’t actually have ADHD/autism.
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Like you said, it’s a spectrum. Your kids high support needs don’t invalidate those of us who have lower support needs and have been masking our entire lives.
It’s also hilarious how I mention it and one immediately shows up
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The literal diagnosis of autism from my fucking psychologist you absolute troglodyte
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What’s wrong with you?
You understand it’s a spectrum but you’re claiming that unless someone needs heavy support they’re faking it? Fuck any diagnosed kids then if they’re not heavily autistic.
It’s literally this attitude that keeps so many people from getting a diagnosis and receiving any help they might need. This attitude makes people think “Oh im not the perfect model *insert neurodivergency*, I don’t want to take away resources from anyone else, I’ll just cope for the rest of my life and go on living like this wondering why I feel so different than other people”
Respectfully,fuck you.Actually fuck that you don’t deserve my respect.
The meme you’re responding to exists because of your attitude and people like you.
When I read your comment the first time and saw the “respectfully” I thought, wow, you are more polite than I have been x) it made me chuckle to see you reconsider (rightfully, in my opinion).
Edit: forgot a word
As someone diagnosed after much fighting in my thirties who still has every new doc trying to tell me I can’t have it: fuck you. People like you are the reason no one believes the people who are skilled in masking because they got abused enough as kids so they don’t even knowwho they are underneath the mask.
Ugh, self appointed internet psychiatrists are the worst. I’ve been told so many times I don’t have things I am diagnosed with. All because I won’t give a random internet stranger enough proof. Or because apparently it’s impossible for a doctor to cause trauma.
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Oh no, I knew I forgot something 🤦. Ugh, people suck. I’ve also gotten “have you tried not being traumatized?”. Like oh, I wish.
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Thanks. Yeah, it ain’t easy. My parents blame me for my bad health, because apparently them ignoring my problems growing up meant they didn’t exist. Take care of yourself as well.
This is unironically me. I just went through a lengthy diagnosis process that determined I do not in fact have ADHD, despite ticking an alarming number of boxes. I call myself ADHD-adjacent now.
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I’m considering a second opinion, after a rest period. The process took a lot longer than it was supposed to and stressed me out quite a bit. The person who started my assessment left the company before she could finish, so someone else had to take over, and no one knew this fact. Took months to get an answer. Sigh.
Wow does that feel worse? I mean ADHD or no, you’re still beholden to your neurology to some degree.
Even if isn’t a common diagnosis for the kind of thing you are.
It felt pretty bad at first. I wanted to be able to help myself somehow, and I thought this was a great place to start. It was like starting back at square one. But practices and therapies that assist with ADHD also tend to help me out, so at least I got something out of it.
Hmmmm I dunno, if get a second opinion, if you’re that closely aligned with ADHD. It could be that you just have a “lighter” case? Anyway, I’m not a doctor, but if you’re still struggling and using coping mechanisms, then to me that says you would maybe benefit from other help too.
I absolutely love this take and I can relate.
– humor dissection to follow –
In reality though, it’s possible, but Occam’s Razor would have us disagree. And a pragmatic take on all that would be: does it matter, especially if treatment and coping mechanisms also work in both cases?
Also, as a fellow ADHD-er I strongly believe that diagnosis is not an excuse; it merely explains how and why. Responsibility still lies with the afflicted regardless, with an ethical responsibility towards others for those that are self-aware.
“What if I don’t actually have ADHD, I simply share some behavioral issues that make it seem like ADHD because I was raised by parents who did have ADHD and I just kind of adopted it from them?” - Me, like once a week since getting diagnosed.
If it helps, ADHD has a heritability of 77-88% according to one study. That’s on par with height.
I’m like the tallest person in my family, too. I wonder if the grandpa on my mom’s side I never met had it, too (it’s where I supposedly get my height) 🤔
Imposter syndrome?
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Remember watching a video like a year ago about how intelligent people with ADHD do at school and it was like a 17 minute video and it was like the guy was talking about me the whole time, but you know, maybe it’s just a coincidence
I’m not officially diagnosed yet, so this is where I live.
Getting diagnosed is a joke. Literally took 10 minutes. They don’t verify or go into depth about anything. At least it was that way for me. They gave me adderall but it made me feel like a crackhead so I only used it for a month. Vynase was better but still didn’t end up liking it too much. These days I let Jesus take the wheel.
Yep, this. I read an article recently how COVID h showed a sharp rise in telehealth, and ADHD diagnosis counts also shot up with it. Half the article made me feel like an imposter, where it was just a 30min video consult before being diagnosed/medication was discussed, but honestly that’s fine. I was not looking for a therapist, I was reasonably sure I had it, I had the signs since I was a child but no one did anything about it. I ended up seeing a PA, who asked me the questions and ultimately let me know what I had a strong feeling was already the case. She does consult with the doctors, and I’m pretty low-demand from a patient standpoint.
I just hope that this surge in diagnosis doesn’t cause some major problem later on. I know there’s an end-of-year thing about having to see an in-person doctor every 6 months, but I haven’t heard anything from my provider.
Hmm. Not what they’re prepping me for. Have a 1 hour telehealth the day before to go over what I will be doing and how I should I prepare, then the day of the in-person appointment they told me to make sure I had 4 hours available. So… Dunno yet. 10 minutes seems like bullshit considering lol.
