Making better and worse life choices

[dira]

So about a week ago I decided that, no really, for real, seriously this time, it is time to talk to my doctor about getting some ADHD meds. I have, uh, always been distractible? To say the least?


I don't know if I was ever formally evaluated for ADD - I found paperwork from the one evaluation I remember undergoing around age ten, which tagged me with sensory integration... something. Syndrome, I think. But my mom told me right around that age that I, like three of my four brothers, had ADD.

Then she told me that I didn't need medication or any other kind of treatment because I'm smart enough to compensate for it, which, like, is true? If we're only talking about my grades/ability to hold down a job/ability to crank out quantities of fic other people find slightly alarming. (The quantity, I mean. Although also the fic itself, sometimes.)

But doing all of that stuff is hard, and it's exhausting, and I am in an objective sense really shit at my day job and could be writing so much MORE if I could just. start. writing. when I look at the screen and I know what the next bit is and I have some time to write and I want to write, instead of looking at the blank screen and then veering off again and again to go refresh a news site to read more depressing headlines (that haven't changed in the last half hour) or go play Candy Crush (I'm on level 445, you guys, that has to be a clinically recognizable symptom of SOMETHING) or doing anything else except the thing I need to do and want to do and know how to do that is going to require me to focus for a little while.

I've obviously learned a lot of ways to manage this--lists and spreadsheets and phone timers and little mental tricks to make anything I really want to do something I have to do so I don't have to make a choice--but, you know. Sometimes the tricks work and sometimes they don't and sometimes they backfire and I refuse to do anything I need or want or am supposed to do and spend some number of hours staring dully at Tumblr because at least refreshing Tumblr doesn't commit me to paying attention to anything for three minutes straight.

Uh. So it's been a rough month for my executive functions, is what I'm saying, and ever since deciding to talk to my doctor it's been... worse? or just as bad as it's been since the end of March (when I upset my personal routines by going away for three days on a work conference and apparently just IRRETRIEVABLY UPSET MY MENTAL APPLECART FOREVER? or that could be a coincidence) or, I don't know, it's just like the caterpillar forgetting how to walk, you know? Managing my totally shit executive functions and attention span is something I've done semi-successfully for the last twenty or so years, and all of a sudden I'm constantly noticing how I do it and trying to flag what I'm going to tell my doctor in the stupidly short check-up appointment slot I'm going to try to cram this into and, uh, mostly what I'm doing is tripping over myself and failing at everything.

So. That's happening. That feels like the main thing that is happening right now. I'm afraid first that I won't get the meds, or that I'll have to go through some long process of getting evaluated before I can get the meds (I should say that all three of the aforementioned brothers have gotten onto some variety of ADHD meds as adults and, give or take one maybe-or-maybe-not-associated episode of atrial fibrillation (#4 brother is, generally speaking, about two steps up from pre-serum Steve Rogers in terms of his general health, so it could've been anything), they are all doing great on them, and my dad also had a good experience with them, so I feel like I have a reasonable expectation of a good result with medication for my specific brand of brain thing as long as sex differences in medication response don't totally fuck me over--eldest brother and I especially are pretty much brain twins, and Adderall's been great for him)... is this all one sentence?

Anyway, so my primary fear is not getting the drugs because it's only been a week and the prospect of maybe getting the drugs is already so fucking derailingly distracting that I don't know how I'm going to handle it if this process drags on for months or something.

And my other fear is getting the drugs and having them work great and being much happier and more productive, because that will mean that all the things that I haven't managed to do, and all the things that have been hard, and all the things that have made me unhappy over the course of my entire adulthood while I wasn't getting myself medicated for a condition I knew I had... it will have been fixable. And that means it will have been my own fault for not fixing it sooner.

But--that's a thing to write down on the list of things to tell fifteen-year-old me, along with "maybe read a book about asexuality" and "look, just don't tell your mom about your hobbies, it's just not worth it." The only thing to do now is try to fix the thing. So. Onward.

...Okay so I just meant for that to be an explanation that, yes, I know I have ADD and, yes, I have probably been in need of brain meds for it for a while, but. I guess I had some things to say?



Um, so, bullet point #2 for this post (the eponymous worse life choice, given how much I already have on my plate): I'm auctioning off a story at fandomaid! To keep it simple for myself, and up the odds of the winner actually receiving their story sometime this year, I've limited it to a Steve/Bucky story, but if you want one of those from me (uh, and if you want to outbid the person who's currently got me at $50) my thread is here!

Comments

[watersword]

<3 I hope you get exactly the medication that works for you and the courage to tell your jerkbrain to shut up, because you deserve all the good things and none of the guilt.

[dira]

Thanks. <3

[lilac_one]

I spent a few years working on a study of ADHD that involved interviewing kids to evaluate them for ADHD. Now I live with 3 people who have ADD and 1 who has ADHD. I can say from experience that the right meds can have a tremendous positive impact on executive functioning and self-esteem and productivity, and and and.

If your regular doc feels comfortable prescribing ADD meds, it shouldn't be a process at all. You fill out a evaluation scale, the doctor scores it, you qualify, you get scrip for the meds. If Adderall is working in your family, that's a really good thing to tell your doctor, too, since it's an indicator that it will work for you.

As for being upset with yourself for not doing anything about it sooner, for what it's worth, not being able to do anything about it sooner is a symptom of ADHD. So try not to be too hard on yourself.

So that's my 2 cents.

*all the hugs*

[dira]

*hugs back*

Thanks for the encouragement! I'm thinking of making an appointment with my workplace employee assistance guy for after the appointment with my doctor, so that I can either get referred to a psych, if I need an evaluation, or get hooked up with some coaching to work along with the meds, if I get those.

[norah]

I am in the same boat somewhat. Only recently diagnosed and I am HIGHLY functional, like, very few people understand how much effort and how many strategies it takes to keep my shit together but it feels like a constant scramble on the inside. But I am wavering about medication, and I SO hear your ambivalence about what it means if it works and how wonderful it would be if it did and... yeah. I sympathize, is what I am saying. And I send love and support.

[dira]

I am definitely yay pro medication, possibly because I have always known I had this and my brothers have found it so helpful. Like, my fear of it working is definitely in the realm of "that would be a really nice problem to have."

*love and support back*

[toft]

Good luck with getting meds that work for you, and I hope you manage to untangle your feelings about this and feel good about the choices you've made to be the awesome person you are!

[dira]

Thank you! <3

[staranise]

I have ADHD too (adult diagnosis). ADHD is a funny beast in how much one can't get one's shit together. I had to get my pharmacy to put together bubble packs of meds every month and auto-refill my prescription because if I forget one dose, the next day's dose is even harder to remember, and so on and so forth, and eventually I had to say, "I cannot willpower my way out of this. I need someone else to take this over."

I'm betting the drugs will not fix everything--and that you'd still have had difficulties and unhappinesses all along even if you were on them--but I hope very much that you get them, and they help.

[dira]

Yeah, that is rough. And, I mean, I do pretty well at the things I know I need to do! Just that is a very limited set of things and it's very tiring and basically I want the brain meds equivalent of my contacts, a -1.25 prescription that just makes things sharp and saves me from screaming eyestrain headaches.

[glittertine]

I don't have brothers, I didn't get attemptatively diagnosed as a child bc my parents stepped in and "trained" me, and I won't tell my GP (she'll probably not believe me, and I can't deal with that) and instead have been waiting for months for an appointment to get diagnosed by a specialist. Other than that, this is almost exactly the point of ADD I am stuck at.

I am supremely afraid of being unable to convince the doctor that NO, my coping mechanisms don't work well enough anymore, please please please please please let me try meds. I am (metaphorically) weeping every couple of minutes for the past three decades of failures at life due to what I am convinced is ADD behaviours and brain patterns. I am having a hard time accepting the Halowell mantra of trying to not focus on the bad parts, but see all the terrific parts about ADD. I am letting myself fidget now, and it's a revelation because it *helps* me concentrate, and fuck what others think of me constantly moving, if that's the only way I can work, then I *will*. But I am in the most featherbrained status of mind I have ever been, and I wish I could just get the diagnosis, now, so I can get on meds and therapy/coaching and omg. :(

All this to say: your post really speaks to me. It's at the same time comforting and incredibly sad how many women seem to go through this exact process and cycle of emotions.

[Also: the quality/output of your fic is unbelievable already now. Your hyperfocus must be WAY intense. Wow.]

[dira]

::hugs:: I hope you get your diagnosis and all the rest soon!

[It's weird because I feel sure that anyone who knows me--or just looks at the quantity of fic I produce--would laugh their ass off if I said I don't do the hyperfocus thing, but it doesn't FEEL like that, or at least not lately. My brain doesn't stay still that long; when it comes down to it I'm a fairly fast writer--I can bust out a thousand words in 20-30 minutes if I can stay focused that long--but that's as long as I can stay focused at a stretch, so it still takes me all damn day to have a 5,000-word day, for instance, punctuated by a lot of other things before I drag my brain back to writing. And that's a really extraordinarily good day. IDK. But maybe being able to write a thousand words in a half hour means that I AM hyperfocusing? for twenty minutes? Is that hyperfocus?]

[glittertine]

Thank you! 6 more weeks until my first appointment, and then who knows how long - the process takes a while in Germany. :(

[I don't think anyone could say whether your writing is hyperfocus, actually, without longer observation, and you're probably the best judge of your behaviour. But just because you need to drag yourself back to writing (or anything else), doesn't mean you don't hyperfocus when you *do* write. Hyperfocus isn't to be equated with enthusiasm for doing something, it's just the ability to get really into it while you are doing it, and that you are less distractable while you are doing it than when you're doing something you're not that interested in. Hyperfocus doesn't mean you can't be ripped out of it by someone/something disturbing you (and then going back to it might seem the hardest thing you ever did omg) - hyperfocus just means that your own brain doesn't ping you with an impulse to do something else every few seconds.

1k in 30 minutes sure seems incredible to me personally, hyperfocused or not, and 5k a day not at all unproductive for something which requires the brain to light up with a mix of being creative and craft - that's *hard*, and requires frequent breaks for most writers. But of course there's a possibility your writing speed is not hyperfocus, and instead could be due to a really well ingrained habit/coping strategy or "just" talent. I think your own feeling that it's not hyperfocus should probably be reexamined/observed by you for a while, but generally trusted.

For example, I have come to the conclusion that I sometimes hyperfocus on podficcing, reading fic, any many other things. I think so because in contrast to some work tasks, my productivity goes up exponentially and I can - though don't always - stay on it for a couple of hours before being exhausted, instead of a couple of seconds or minutes at most before running away/giving up/being distracted.

One reason why your output seems so impressive to my personally is because I podfic in bursts, but then don't for long stretches at a time - and you write so incredibly regularly. But considering what you said re the having to drag yourself back to your writing, it would make sense if your writing had developed as a coping mechanism for you. ADHDer coping mechanisms can be incredibly powerful and awe-inducing. Anyway - I shouldn't talk like I know what I'm talking about just because I've read a few books about the subject. ;) ]

*hugs* All the best. It's hard. But there are so many of us. If it helps you, keep talking about it. Reading about other ADHDer/ADHDwomen's experience always makes me feel less like an alien.

[princessofgeeks]

Good luck! I have family members with ADD.

[dira]

Thanks!

[makoyi]

I have Sensory Integration Disorder and what you're describing is definitely not it, but it's crazy hard to figure out what's going on in the head of a kid that young, especially when the literature about a lot of these neauro-atypical things are written from 'experts' looking at how they seem from outside.

My brother has ADHD and started meds as an adult - he and some of the people he talked to about it when making the decision to start meds have a big warning to share. If you end up on too high a dose, some people experience some abrasive personality changes and some doctors like to jump in and say Oh you have a mental/personality disorder too - Don't let them do that. Just find the right dose for you and it works itself out.

[dira]

Yeah, the evaluation I remember was all focused on my shitty proprioception/motor skills/tactile defensiveness, which is a whole other thing. And plays into ADD fidgeting in some fun ways--my mom is fond of telling the story about how I fell out of my chair so many times in one day in second grade that the teacher took the chair away and just made me stand for the rest of the day.

[helene94]

My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD several years ago, and your earlier commenter up the thread was right, she just went through the evaluation, qualified and we started the process of finding medication that worked for her. This doesn't include the several years before this where we tried literally EVERY OTHER strategy we could find for her executive function problems before we finally decided to try medication, mostly because she was so unhappy. So it's a process! Good for you for trying to take some steps to make your life better, even if things are screwed up in the interim.

One thing I will say about ADHD medication (and I am totally a fan!) is that once you find a med and a dosage that works for you, you still have to unpack and reorganize years of coping mechanisms and behavior patterns. We're still in the process of this with our daughter, although its going really well. In the words of Willy Wonka: "Nil desperandum, dear lady!"

[sanj]

Oh, honey, I SO hear you. I muddled through *really* well as long as there was school, structure, and executive function in the form of my mom. After she died, everything went to shit, and it took a while to figure out that it wasn't "just" grieving, but that I really, really have a problem with this stuff (and had managed to totally outsource it, as had my dad). Counseling and coaching have helped a lot, but stimulants have been a godsend.

(Which also, BTW, answers the question of how I was able to get through my undergraduate program - I drank an average of 12-15 little dining hall glasses of Coke a day, plus all the coffee I could stand...! I had heart palpitations my senior year. I'm just glad nobody offered me speed or cocaine.)

Now I spend a lot of time explaining to little kids that they can be smart and good and still need help sometimes. I wish to hell someone had told me that before I was 38, so I also get the feelings you're having about lost time. I pay a therapist to remind me that what I can do is what I can do, and that it's not a race, and that I still have time. For a while I had a therapist *and* an ADHD coach, until I learned some strategies. Between the ADHD and its beloved dance partner depression, I constantly feel like someone stole about a decade of productive time out from under me while I wasn't paying attention. I literally do not feel my age. I can't be 43, that's impossible, I don't even, what.

You're still relatively young, is kind of what I'm saying? Many women with high IQs and ADHD get overlooked until they hit a block in their adult life or career, so go-Dira-go for being aware and proactive now.

[rabid_bookwyrm]

I desperately want to outbid the person who has you at $50, but I had a really expensive month and it's just not in the cards. Alas.

[templemarker]

Managing my totally shit executive functions and attention span is something I've done semi-successfully for the last twenty or so years, and all of a sudden I'm constantly noticing how I do it

You just described me, last year. In the previous 12 months to my assessment and care, every routine and system and plan I had developed over years of highly functioning just completely fell apart. I didn't have the greatest experience through diagnosis, and I would change how that had gone if I could. But my GP was completely on the same page on me, and the medication I advocated for has been working very well. So much better, in fact, that it was like a missing puzzle piece to my entire schema of mental health. Cognitive behavioral therapy has also been helpful at re-establishing some of my systems, but when my insurance changed I dropped it. I really need to get back into it.

You are a bomb-ass librarian, so take this with a grain of salt, but I have read exhaustively the most respected books for the layman on ADD (which is me) and ADHD out there, and I would be happy to throw a few titles your way when you get to the point of wanting to explore further.

And I would be very happy to be supportive as you work through this, having been just where you are. Let me know if you want to talk or need encouragement. Smart chicks with good coping mechanisms who only now fit the profile for attention deficit have to stick together.

[billie]

Hey there! I'm here because glittertine linked me. Hope that's okay.

I HEAR you about the feeling of lost time. I'm still grieving for the years I spent depressed and unable to get anything done because I was so swamped and overwhelmed, all the while being told "oh, everyone has trouble with papers, don't worry, you'll do fine", thinking that probably meant that despite the fact that I rarely had trouble understanding the stuff presented in class, I was just too stupid for uni (and realised it way too late to drop out). It didn't help that doctors and therapists kept telling me "procrastination is a symptom of depression, it'll pass", whereas I was (and still am) 99% sure that procrastination and the inability to get ANYTHING done, and the resulting feelings of worthlessness, are what triggered the depression in the first place.

I only got properly diagnosed a month and a bit ago, and I'm still waiting for the paperwork that gives me the dx of "ADHD Type I -- Primarily Inattentive" black on white. I wasn't initially going for the diagnosis in order to get meds; I just desperately needed a professionally qualified someone to tell me I'm not just exceedingly lazy or stupid, and that it wasn't all in my head (or, well, that it is, but ... that I'm not imagining shit? that I actually find it harder to do this stuff than other people do? something like that).

I'm also having a bit of an identity crisis because a lot of stuff I always kind of jammed into the drawer labeled "my personality (some shitty some nice)" apparently is ADD related, and I'm not sure how to feel about that. Like a specimen, and not in a good way.

Regarding medication: the more I think about it, the more I figure I don't have much to lose. Worst case scenario, the side effects are too much for me, and I drop them. I'm in Germany, so thankfully insurance will not be an issue (though finding a GP who'll prescribe the meds might). Best case, I might actually learn to tidy my room without supervision, consistently remember to take my other meds, stop getting "OUT OF RAM -- PROCESSING -- PLEASE WAIT" shutdowns, learn to finish stuff (case in point: my housemate just yelled for me to get my pasta. It'd been on the hob for about thirty minutes at that point. I'd just meant to peek at DW really quick.), you name it. I guess it's worth a shot. I'll just have to keep reminding myself that second-guessing the way my life's gone so far won't change anything, and ... I dunno, embrace whatever comes next?

Sorry. This was rambly and long and probably way more ME ME ME than I meant it to turn out.

tl;dr: thank you for sharing this. In a way, it's a huge relief and help to see that and how other people deal with all this.



(Also I ADORE your fic and the icon on this post and ajkdshfasd am more than slightly AWED at the amount and quality of productive output you have despite ADHD. Just, kudos. Wow.)