[Misc] ADHD - NEURODIVERSITY

ChickenBaltiPie said:

My friend said: ‘‘They are not addictive and they are not like antidepressants which need a month or so to build up. I take them when I need to focus. It's like taking paracetamol in that they work for about 4 hours and then the effect is gone.”

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ChickenBaltiPie said:

My friend said: ‘‘They are not addictive and they are not like antidepressants which need a month or so to build up. I take them when I need to focus. It's like taking paracetamol in that they work for about 4 hours and then the effect is gone.”

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aolstudios said:

Do you know which medication your friend's referring to?

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aolstudios said:

Do you know which medication your friend's referring to?

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JetsetJimbo said:

I'm guessing Ritalin, as this is exactly how I find Ritalin works for me.

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ChickenBaltiPie said:

View attachment 186367

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JetsetJimbo said:

I'm guessing Ritalin, as this is exactly how I find Ritalin works for me.

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carteater said:

I was diagnosed with adhd (combined type) early last year, in my mid 20s

I had a speech and language dev delay in early years.
I was put on an early warning register for SEN for when I would start school.

After about a year I could speak perfectly well for my age. Discharge form said no sign of attention deficit.
However, many of the appointment records said I needed “a LOT” of praise before they could actually get me to say things.
So I was taken off the early warning register for SEN about a year before starting school.

I was okay at school until GCSEs and then I started to really struggle with the not just being able to drift in and out of daydreams in class.

Medication has helped a lot with my ability to focus, social anxiety, mood, concentration etc.

Despite that my ADHD still affects my ability to wake up and get up early in the morning. I also have issues with being late to things, and I either think of nothing else but an obligation, or I will just forget about them until the last minute.

Without medication I struggled to follow multiple instructions without getting frustrated as I forgot some of them, with medication that’s not so bad.

I also struggle to read for a long time without eye strain or getting bored.
My comprehension is atrocious so I have to read at the same speed that I would read out loud.
Visually I can read much faster, but if I don’t slow down my reading I will usually just forget what I’ve just read, despite recognising the words, catching missed words etc.
This is fine when reading things like menus, short novels, forum posts etc.
But things like medical books and journals that I have to read for university (went back after being diagnosed for a career change) are difficult because of this.

Sorry for the essay but I hope there’s some interesting things in this post.

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carteater said:

Does anyone else have excellent long term memory but not very good short term memory?

Also

Personally it mostly affects me negatively. The positives I can think of is when the stars align and my hyperfocus aligns with the things that I actually have to do.

I managed to study independently for a 3rd a level, after leaving sixth form with two, in seven months and got a respectable grade for it. Purely from a revision guide in that time and stress watching YouTube videos hours before the exams.

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JetsetJimbo said:

Ah that's interesting about diet, I've heard people say it helps but I haven't looked too far into it.

From my own experience, one thing that helped me massively pre-diagnosis was working out. But in typical style, I arguably got too into it - at one point I was doing a three-hour workout four times a week. But that was arguably the most "successful" period of my life so far.

When people raised an eyebrow at my workout schedule, I'd say "I do it for the mental benefits more than the physical ones tbh" and assumed that everyone knew what I meant, because I thought everyone got the same feeling from working out that I did. But it turns out exercise is really good for kicking dopamine systems into action.

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