I’ve been struggling to write this. The ideas come…and then they’re gone. I really should write things down when they come to me. But I’ll try to fill you all in on what’s been happening with me.
We laid a bunch of people off at work. A coworker and I had to turn off all of their accounts. We were the executioners. It was terrible. I have so much more to say on this topic, but I’m honestly not sure what I can say. There’s a press release. If you know me, then you know where I work. Read the press release if you're inclined to learn more. It’s been an incredibly trying few weeks. Worse for the people that were laid off, I’m sure.
I did give up caffeine. I went cold turkey instead of tapering. I just wanted to get it over with. I’m coming up on three weeks caffeine-free. To say that it’s been wild is a gross understatement. I thought it had lost its effect long ago, but I was wrong. It’s been three weeks of being completely scattered, leaning into every distraction, destroyed sleep, and the list goes on and on…
My care situation is finally looking up. The new provider that I had just started seeing when I posted last got me through intake, retrospective interview diagnosis, and my first med management appointment, all in three weeks. All before my next scheduled appointment with the other care provider, who I’m still fairly convinced doesn’t believe that I have ADHD and was never going to put me on a stimulant. Every time I jumped through a hoop she put in front of me, she laid out another one. I don’t know how a person can take an oath to do no harm, see a suffering person, can help, and still stall and redirect. I seriously considered filing an ethics complaint, but I know that everything that was done or not done can be hand-waived away with some bullshit justification of erroring on the side of caution to protect the patient. I’ve never in my life been in as fragile a mental state as I’ve been for the last few months. But oh well, moving on as expeditiously as possible is the best thing I can do for my mental health. Meanwhile, my new provider was honest with me about my risk factors, including that my continued use of nicotine and history of self-medicating with excessive stimulants places me at increased risk of a heart attack. That adding a stimulant med adds to that risk. She also recognizes that not properly treating me leaves me at increased risk of numerous other comorbidities. SHE DIDN’T REFUSE ME or give me the runaround. She did start me on a lower-than-typical dose to gauge how my body responds while acknowledging that the efficacy will likely be lacking. It's a fair compromise, I think. We’ll meet again in a couple of weeks to assess and adjust.
I’m finally on a stimulant medication plan. And it works! For the first couple hours of the day, at least. I started Adderall yesterday. I heard the white noise in my house for the first time when I was working yesterday morning. It was off-putting. That must be what it’s like for normal brains in quiet places. I planned my tasks for the day and just started doing them. Unfortunately, that passed by about 10:30 when I found myself wandering, looking for a distraction. My focus wasn’t completely gone, but much more effort was required to stay on task. I got distracted many times between 10:30 and 2:00. Some were OK - I wandered into the kitchen and realized I needed to eat. Others were a total waste of time. I was on task for maybe 1 hour of that 3.5-hour block. From 2 p.m. on, it was terrible. I rambled and ran a full hour over my 2:00-3:00 meeting. I wasted an hour of my colleague’s time. At the end of the typical working day, my big task in the morning that I’d made so much early progress on still wasn’t done. Near the end of the day, I stumbled upon something broken, but no one knew yet. It will blow up in 2 weeks. I needed to fix it. That derailed me for a few hours. I refused to leave my desk until I at least got the first task done and did get it done, eventually.
Today was about the same. Friday schedules are a bit different, though. We have an all-hands meeting in the morning, and I have a few other recurring meetings after. I’m not reasonably able to focus on my tasks until about 1 p.m., which is, unfortunately, after the meds have (mostly) worn off. I did catch little spurts of focus/motivation through the afternoon, knocked out some one-and-done tasks, and progressed a few others. I impulse signed up for a same-day COVID booster. Something new was that I crashed today. At about 4 p.m., it started becoming increasingly challenging to stay awake. I went for my booster at 5 p.m. today. Fortunately, the pharmacy where it was administered is only a mile away. Any further, and the sleepiness could have been bad. I came home irritated that my most productive window of opportunity today was wasted on other people’s priorities. I was then too tired to do anything meaningful with my evening. I ate a big bowl of ice cream for dinner to get my brain going and did the same forced hyperfocus that I had done the night before. I knocked out a task that had been hanging over me for weeks, and every time I’d start, I’d get derailed by something. You know? Like terminating the accounts of a bunch of my colleagues, for example. It feels gross to depend on hyperfocus to get things done, but it does feel good not to have that hanging over me now.
And now…I’m sitting here at nearly midnight and writing this blog post instead of sleeping. Now that I know this, I think I should go to bed.
I’ll leave you with this for the night:
It gets better. If you’re going through it, too, don’t quit. It sucks. I know. But don’t stop looking until you find the help you need. I’m not “there” yet probably never will be; it's a lifelong journey, after all. But for the first time in a long time, I feel optimistic. And I wanted to give up; I really did. I considered returning to the status quo of too much caffeine until my heart popped. I’m glad I kept going.
And to bite on some other ADHD content creators - if you’re reading this and find my struggle relatable, GO DRINK SOME WATER. You know you need to.
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