About two years ago, I read a comment on here about the signs that you might have ADHD. I already knew that I had ADHD — I’d been diagnosed and treated in my late teens. However, the medication had done a number on me and after a year or so I’d dropped it completely.
I’m in my thirties now, and was stuck at home during lockdown with my then pregnant wife. I’m a working developer, but I knew my work was inconsistent. I blamed myself, and had mostly forgotten the diagnosis. Living and working in the same house as me had made my wife begin to notice just how much ADHD affected me day to day, and was starting to become frustrated with it.
Immediately after reading the comment on here, I created a doctors appointment. I ended up going back on Adderall, but when discussing dosage I asked for the lowest dose possible. 5mg. My doctor told me it was a child’s dose (not in a mean or demeaning way,) and was happy to start me there.
I’m still at 5mg. It hasn’t made living with me the easiest, for sure. But according to my wife it’s been a huge improvement. I’m so much more focused and capable. I really cannot overstate the improvement at home. My wife is less nervous about distractions and issues related to having a newborn being taken care of by a wife with ADHD.
Of course, it’s helped at work as well. I’ve been more productive than I previously thought possible. I’ve also just learned so much more and read so much more. Earlier this year, I ended up realizing that I’d like to try interviewing for the first time in years. Within a month, I’d doubled my salary. That last part is probably the least reproducible thing. But I do think I was essentially accepting a salary level I could live with because I knew I was an inconsistent employee and my employer was letting it slide.
Obviously, everyone’s body and mind are different. This isn’t meant as an unreserved ad for ADHD medication. Living with someone who could give me her perspective I’m really helped — I probably wouldn’t have stuck with it had she not been able to articulate a marked improvement within a few weeks.
Still, this single recommendation to go to the doctor and talk about ADHD was the single biggest life improvement me or my family could have ever received.
Whilst furloughed from my job during lockdown, I found myself bouncing off the walls at home consistently enough to finally seek out the ADHD diagnosis I’ve always suspected.
I’m 29 years old, and one of my earliest memories is of my parents (lovingly) threatening to put an electric fence around my seat at the dinner table. I’d be up and down like a yo-yo after each mouthful.
For the last 5 years, “my friend” has been obtaining prescription pharmaceutical meds from the dark web to treat “his” symptoms. They’ve been life changing — one day of medication leads to more productive output than would ever be imaginable the rest of the week without them.
But they’re a double-edged sword. Like another commenter says, overdoing them leads to one feeling like a shell of their former self.
But at least you have something to show for it.
I put off my diagnosis for years, because I was afraid. I was terrified I would be told I didn’t have ADHD — at which point I would have no answers or excuses any more. If it’s not ADHD (that I know I can treat), then what the hell else is wrong with me? Or, worse, I feared I would be told that I was simply drug-seeking. I felt like I’d entered the Matrix — you take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland.
I’ve had 3 appointments with a psychiatrist so far, and, finally, my prescription begins next week.
If you seriously think you have ADHD, don’t make the same mistakes I did.
Life is too short to waste time fighting against yourself.
I can relate to this. I was diagnosed at 31, and my doctor at the time asked me "so, are you having issues at work? Is anyone pulling you up on your effort?"
The answer was "No". His response was "well, then what's the problem?"
The longer answer from me should have been "no, but keeping up appearances requires Herculian effort, and I pay a tremendous emotional and personal cost, I am distant from my wife and 2 kids, and at night time, the anxiety is enough to materialize a cold ball of steel in the pit of stomach".
I managed to get a diagnosis anyway, and my psychiatrist got me started on Ritalin, and then onto Concerta (I take Vyvanse now). The difference was like flipping a switch. My work output improved out of sight, I stopped being a zombie at night time because I didn't have to go through a cycle of wake up -> work -> burnout -> sleep -> recover every day, and I'm earning more than twice what I was at the time of my diagnosis, and I don't think any of that would have been possible if I'd remained in the same situation.
What I've learned over the years is that the problems associated with ADHD don't "go away" with medication, they just become more manageable, and knowing how my brain works both on and off medication has been TREMENDOUS tool for increasing self-awareness and understanding that the anxiety/procrastination/apathy etc is a function of neurochemistry, and not a harbinger of doom or destruction.
>Adderall totally changed that. I'm able to focus on tasks long term AND even if something bad happens in my life I'm able to keep right on track
That sounds amazing. I can't even imagine that. I've just been diagnosed at 32 this year. Been on Ritalin for a few months but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Maybe 3% better. Things going bad still derails me significantly.
They're fairly conservative with meds in my neck of the woods, but I'm going to persist with my doctor to try them all to find what works.
The struggle to push through actually going through all the phone calls, emails and appointments necessary to get to that point is very un-ADHD friendly. So many times I considered just to give up and forget about it.
I'm in my 40s and have suffered with undiagnosed ADHD my entire life.
Two days after I suspected I had it I saw my doctor. One month later I was on medication. A few more months and I am in weekly counselling. For me personally, the positive changes from medication and counseling have been dramatic and immediate.
After only 4 months, my coworkers impression of me is starting to shift for the better.
ADHD is a serious mental illness. I'm so thankful that the help I'm getting is working.
"Taking Charge of Adult ADHD" by Barkley, helped me understand ADHD and how I should deal with it.
My ADHD was diagnosed last year, around the age of 30. I started medication in January and I've been able to turn my life around - I no longer have that awful feeling that my next crisis is constantly flying towards me, just waiting to happen.
I was open and honest in my interview with my current company about my ADHD, and that I didn't need any form of special treatment (with the exception of a keyed locker to keep my medication in - it's a controlled substance in the UK). Everyone was understanding about it, and I have a lot of support on offer from them, but ironically I no longer seem to need it, my medication has completely removed my symptoms.
Large companies these days want to appear welcoming and care about things like diversity. We have a disability, and it's important we see it that way. Without my medication, I struggle to integrate with society, I struggle to focus on tasks (or obsess over them to an unhealthy degree).
There's also a lot to be said for hiring developers with ADHD who are being treated: We spent decades learning behaviors to allow us to focus on tasks, once we're being treated, the issues goes away but the behaviors remain. It can be a superpower sometimes.
I spent my life wondering how people focus on work for 9 hours a day: It turns out that they don't, but decades of trying to emulate that combined with "performing enhancing" medication means that we _can_.
I was of this mind at one point. I didn’t take ADHD medication through my teens or early 20s. It wasn’t until I got married and had a kid that I found myself struggling to provide for my family in a very real way that I saw a psychiatrist and started Adderall.
I’ve tried a few times over the years to stop, and each time my career has taken a tail spin. I go from being a top performer when taking a small amount of Adderall to having difficulties doing the most basic work tasks because they’re boring.
I can acknowledge all I want that I’m stimulated by different things, but without a diagnosis to give a professional an idea of the symptoms I face, I wouldn’t be a successful or happy member of society.
Before my diagnosis and treatment I was EXTREMELY depressed and anxious all the time. The diagnosis has been literally life changing in the best way possible.
Thank you for your post. I'm not married nor do I have kids but the rest of your post is very familiar. It was suggested that I be assessed for possible ADD/ADHD when I was younger but my father was very much against the concept and refused. Later on, in my mid 30's I had been speaking to a doctor about several ongoing issues and it was also suggested that I speak to someone about ADD/ADHD.
I was diagnosed fairly quickly and currently take a small daily dose of stimulant medication. I've no interest in abusing this medication or taking more than absolutely necessary because stimulant drugs do indeed carry side effects. That said, with a dosage that strikes the right balance between benefits and side effects, it has made a huge difference WRT the primary symptoms as well as the secondary problems my inability to focus had caused (depression and anxiety).
I could waste days contemplating how things would have been different if I'd treated this earlier but at this point I think that would be counterproductive. I'm just glad I'm addressing it now.
I'm 26, and I was diagnosed with ADD last year, at the suggestion of my dad, who was not diagnosed until his 40's. It took me almost a year to start actively researching ADD, because I grew up in an upper-middle-class community where it was primarily over-diagnosed in unmotivated kids whose parents were convinced that brain dysfunction was the only thing that could possibly keep their children from being A students. To say the very least, I was skeptical.
When I finally began learning about ADD, I was startled by how standard my story was. Reading Driven To Distraction was a watershed experience for me; at times I was convinced that they had simply copy-and-pasted my academic transcript: "Dreamer," "Has a creative mind that would produce incredible results if he applied himself once in a while," "Inconsistent. What happened to the A student sitting in my classroom last year?"
In perspective, so much suddenly made sense; not just my experiences in high school, but beyond that as well. I failed only one class in my entire academic career, a programming course in my second year of college. How ironic and confusing that my only failure would be in the subject for which I had the most passion. Now it made sense. Only two or three years ago from today, I almost lost my job because my output was so inconsistent. I barely scraped by and recovered, but the experience shook me. Now, I understood.
There are many forms of treatment, all of which I have experimented with. When it comes to medication, it took me a long time to settle on Adderall, which lets me focus like a normal person without any appreciable side-effects. The drug was a game-changer for me, like the first time I put on glasses.
I think I'm glad that I wasn't medicated as a kid, if only because of a deep uncertainty about medicating something as malleable as a child's brain. Conversely, going 25 years without diagnosis has also drastically affected every part of my life. (I have no idea how my dad dealt with it for almost 50 years.) This was also something that I grew to understand as I learned more about ADD; undiagnosed, it can lead to perennial struggles with depression, self-esteem, poor impulse control and a host of others. I think the most important thing about ADD isn't necessarily medication or even "treatment" but simply awareness.
"Laziness" is a symptom, not a root cause. If we can be mindful about the signs of ADD in childhood, we have already taken a huge step towards improving the quality of life for people with the disorder, and everyone they interact with. I'm sure there will be debates about how to treat it for many years to come, but simple awareness can only help.
> It's important to note that an ADHD diagnosis does not necessarily end with stimulant medication. Stimulant medication can be helpful for some people, but it's not the only way to treat ADHD.
One may not need medication, but also don't be TOO reluctant to use medications. After my diagnosis, I fell back into the "Now that I know, I should be able to do this with will power and todo lists" trap and resisted medication for too long. Going on medication was, and is, life changing for me (16 months later).
> I put off my diagnosis for years, because I was afraid. I was terrified I would be told I didn’t have ADHD — at which point I would have no answers or excuses any more. If it’s not ADHD (that I know I can treat), then what the hell else is wrong with me?
This is an amazing thing to share. Reading some of the other replies in this thread from folks who are now motivated to seek help because they experience the same range of symptoms others are expressing, I bet your comment is going to have a direct and positive impact on someone's life.
It's not easy to share things like this and folks will definitely feel supported by you. Thank you.
> But they’re a double-edged sword. Like another commenter says, overdoing them leads to one feeling like a shell of their former self.
I firmly believe that self-medicating in the manner your friend did exposes you to a heightened risk of this sort of experience. As noted elsewhere, there are so many variables to consider with the various medications that it really does require a committed, serious doctor to collaborate with you during titration. My journey so far has been four different drugs, with seven different dosages, and 4 different timed release / instant release formulations.
> I’ve had 3 appointments with a psychiatrist so far, and, finally, my prescription begins next week.
This is really wonderful news. I've found that the process of ironing out the right medication can be a frustrating one, because my doctor is a careful and methodical person and my instinct is to say "hey let's skip from 18mg to 54mg". No advice, but sharing my story just in case you experience the same thing. I've found that it has gotten a lot better, and I was surprised by the different experience of the different medications.
> My reason was that I had realized that a lot of my old ADHD symptoms were actually still happening. I was still procrastinating, still getting stressed when forced to focus on stuff I don't care about, still forgetting stuff.
Anecdotally, I've watched a lot of friends and colleagues go through this exact cycle: Going on meds and then just focusing more intensely on their distractions. I really think we're doing a disservice to all the people who get a prescription and get sent out the door without a more involved framework for how to use the meds as part of their ADHD treatment strategy rather than a presumed cure in a pill.
As someone diagnosed with ADHD in their mid 30's, I've had plenty of environment changes over the years (including with a Psychiatrist who understood my then-reluctant view on meds); honestly none helped me nearly as much as meds.
I was diagnosed at age 44 and it made me reevaluate the course of my entire life. It took me a few years to adjust adequately and I'm still adjusting at 51. Learning about ADHD and effective strategies to deal with it has helped. Getting to know other people with ADHD has been the most helpful of all. I suggest searching YouTube for reactions to ADHD memes: it's a little painful on account of so much truth being told, but also nice to feel less alone.
My experience with meds might be interesting: I work in a customer-facing technical role where my soft skills are paramount. Taking stimulants was disorienting, but helped me manage emotions very well. They worked well for focus, but killed my ability to be fundamentally nice. I might have been able to adapt in time, but I would have had to change careers in the meantime. I now take buproprion and it works well enough on motivation without causing social problems.
My wife and I both started Adderall in adulthood. She has the hyperactive, can't watch a whole movie type ADHD and I have the absent-minded, a couple hours can go by before I realize I'm not working type.
She got her life together after starting treatment and can now handle a lot of responsibilities and a demanding job. It only helps me a little, and I still have trouble with motivation and self-discipline. She divorced me.
Thanks for the push. I've been working with ADHD my entire life. I never considered medication before until my son started on it and I watched an absolute transformation in the way he works at school. His 4th grade teacher literally cried it was so positive.
I finally decided to talk to someone about this about two years ago, in my mid-30's. I was always able to achieve satisfactory results in school, work, etc. without have to dedicate myself too much. As I got older, it became clear to me that other people were able to focus substantially more than me for longer periods of time. The more I read up about Adult ADHD, the more it became very obvious that I had it.
I've found that adderrall, for me, has been very helpful and has not really produced any negative side-effects. I don't take it on the weekends and will skip a week or so every now and then, just to get a read on how I'm feeling without it.
One thing to keep in mind is to check your expectations. Normal stimulant dosing for treating ADHD is not going to make you limitless. Your mind will be able to stay more focused but you need to actively use that focus to start developing organizational frameworks that you can work within. Building these frameworks and habits and sticking to them was extremely difficult prior to medication but now that I have them, I find it much easier to skip the meds and still be able to be as productive as I want to be.
I would recommend you find someone who specializes in Adult ADHD, especially one that has experience dealing with otherwise competent professionals because they'll be able to help you make the most of your treatment.
Also, no matter how much you might beat yourself up over lot being able to live up to the standards you'd like, please be grateful for what you've accomplished even with your limits. Unfortunately a lot of people with untreated (and even treated) ADHD fall into vicious cycles of risky behavior and end up with crippling addictions to drugs, gambling, sex, and other dopamine-producing behaviors.
I'm a successful 33 year old adult in a career ideally suited to the way my brain works, so I was VERY skeptical about whether it would make any difference to my life to get diagnosed or go on meds. Now that I have, I can confidently say that it was a total game-changer and I wish my parents had gotten this done for me when I was a kid. It would've made so many things so much easier.
I currently only use my meds (specifinally, Vyvanse) once per week, because I don't love the side effects and I can manage fine without most of the time. On that one day per week, I do everything that my brain chemistry usually makes difficult, which is mostly paperwork and cleaning.
The difference it's made is HUGE. I went through a whole grieving process when I realized how much easier I could've had it all along. I can sit down, spend four hours doing my taxes, and then be done (and then realize the bathroom needs cleaning, and also do that), instead of sitting down, getting a snack, doing ten minutes of taxes, cuddling with the cat, starting a conversation, going on hacker news, doing ten minutes of taxes, going on hacker news, and finally finishing the taxes ten hours later at a quarter to midnight.
It's also made a huge difference to accept that some things are simply symptoms, and not signs that I'm a disorganized failure who'd too stupid to manage daily life. It's also helped to live with people who know and accept this about me, and who know that although I'm very good at managing my symptoms, sometimes things go wrong.
Yes, sometimes everyone is mildly inconvenienced because we were about to leave and now I have to go on a ten-minute WHERE IS MY WALLET tear through the house. It's fine! Sometimes, we're mildly inconvenienced because my girlfriend's insulin pumped is clogged and she needs to spend ten mins fussing with the catheter. These are things that happen when you have a chronic health condition, and no reason for anyone to get upset or berate anyone else. Accepting that has made me a much happier person.
I got diagnosed at 24 with ADHD-PI after being the “brilliant but lazy kid” who dropped out of Community College after being put on SSRIs for depression(mostly as a result of feeling like such a failure after being told since I was a child that school would get interesting in college, and it didn’t, the SSRIs made me lose all interest in everything), subsequently taking a full-time job, and having a co-worker suggest I might have ADD.
This article spoke to me, I bookmarked it and will probably recommend other people around me read it. I was especially moved by the parts about being traumatized by people treating you like you’re a bad person. Made me realize that I’m trying to fight off a depressive episode currently that was probably made significantly worse by my former lover(the breakup/cheating being what caused the episode) constantly acting this way, despite knowing I had ADD.
One part sticks out though as being overly optimistic,
> “and even if you stop taking them or can't get them later you'll still have those accomplishments. Maybe the emotional impact of seeing yourself finally achieving things will be so encouraging that it'll eradicate your feeling that you can't accomplish anything - speaking from experience, it will.”
I have to put this in context: So a little over a year ago I lost my job, I had been able to, thanks to adderall, move up to a pretty good position at a small business, that very unfortunately went belly up due to a new landlord who no longer wanted said business in their space and an inability to move due to the business being effectively grandfathered in. About a year later, as part of my breakup I suddenly lost my place of living and as a result, my new semi-decent job. Even with my good job I had been mostly priced out of psychiatric medicine for a couple of years. I didn’t get employer based health insurance, and individual ACA insurance has been getting more expensive every year. This was fine at first, which made me not make the necessary sacrifices to keep myself medicated, but over time my symptoms regressed. I’m now making like 20% of what I was when I was medicated and the hill to get back to a satisfactory career position feels utterly monumental.
I now feel effectively trapped by my ADHD, which is completely resistant to being fixed by healthy routines. Since I broke up and moved back in with my parents I’ve been exercising daily— lifting weights and running—have a pretty amazing diet, meditate, have a group of old friends to socialize with, have good sleep hygiene, and after 4 months of all this I’m still struggling to improve my situation, I’m still depressed, my ADHD is as bad as ever and I’ve made basically no headway in terms of reestablishing a career. And the fact that when I was on adderall I was the me I’d always wanted to be, able to start (and finish!) things I wasn't interested in, not waste (mountains of) time losing things and keep track of time effectively is now completely out of my reach, really brings me down, a lot.
I SO BADLY want to update my website and work on a software/tech project. I’ve even gotten as far as figuring an original project out, doing research and wire framing the design. But I’m now stuck in analysis paralysis and my road to Getting There(tm) keeps shifting. I should obviously get on benefits, I paid into the system and deserve unemployment, but every time I’ve tried to get on it there’s problems. I‘m on Medi-Cal but apparently I need an office visit to get reregistered in my new county, I ironically got my benefits card after I got kicked out, after a 6 month process; ADHD makes signing up and getting benefits a nightmare, I’m constantly forgetting to do the next step or miss an appointment. Doubly bad when you’re depressed as I struggle with feeling persecuted.
I recognize I’m really an asset in the workplace but I need to make moves to find a job and prove my skills. I see people’s job hunt infographics where they apply to like 100’s of companies, and it’s honestly baffling to me, it takes me the better part of a day to tune my resume and write a cover letter I’m happy with.
> Get diagnosed and get a low-dose of meds. It helps _a lot_. You will likely hate the feeling they give you for the first week (you will genuinely feel high even on 10mg Adderall XR), along with nightmares and night sweats but after a few weeks, you'll suddenly be productive at a very normal level.
I wonder if I could have persisted long enough with Adderall to find a theraputic effect if it had been during lockdown. 10mg of Adderall made me unsafe to drive to work (I would suddenly get the subjective sense that my car was completely still and instead all the parked cars on the side of the road were hurtling at me at 25 mph).
My doctor actually started me on a higher dose (15 or 20mg maybe?) because I needed such a high dose of Ritalin to get a theraputic effect (and at that high of a dose it greatly impacted my sleep). I took it exactly once and I didn't feel tired for 36 hours and was completely non-productive. For the first time I finally understood what all that clinical language describing the symptoms of a manic episode were all about.
Vyvanse did not feel nearly as bad subjectively, but my wife insisted I change meds because I was (in her words) "an asshole" while on it.
Finally settled in on 20-30mg of Focalin a day. The year of titrating the doses of each medication was hell. And then when we finally figured it out, my company switched insurers I had to change the pill sizes (not total quantity) to get it covered with the new insurance.
The one thing I'd like to add is that diet for me made a huge difference. I might as well not be taking the meds if I have a carb-heavy breakfast. Prior to taking the meds I had quit eating breakfast altogether because I felt like such crap around lunchtime if I ate breakfast. Obviously taking stimulants on an empty stomach is not a great idea, and my psychiatrist helped me out to go for a breakfast that doesn't provoke such a strong insulin response.
I’m in my thirties now, and was stuck at home during lockdown with my then pregnant wife. I’m a working developer, but I knew my work was inconsistent. I blamed myself, and had mostly forgotten the diagnosis. Living and working in the same house as me had made my wife begin to notice just how much ADHD affected me day to day, and was starting to become frustrated with it.
Immediately after reading the comment on here, I created a doctors appointment. I ended up going back on Adderall, but when discussing dosage I asked for the lowest dose possible. 5mg. My doctor told me it was a child’s dose (not in a mean or demeaning way,) and was happy to start me there.
I’m still at 5mg. It hasn’t made living with me the easiest, for sure. But according to my wife it’s been a huge improvement. I’m so much more focused and capable. I really cannot overstate the improvement at home. My wife is less nervous about distractions and issues related to having a newborn being taken care of by a wife with ADHD.
Of course, it’s helped at work as well. I’ve been more productive than I previously thought possible. I’ve also just learned so much more and read so much more. Earlier this year, I ended up realizing that I’d like to try interviewing for the first time in years. Within a month, I’d doubled my salary. That last part is probably the least reproducible thing. But I do think I was essentially accepting a salary level I could live with because I knew I was an inconsistent employee and my employer was letting it slide.
Obviously, everyone’s body and mind are different. This isn’t meant as an unreserved ad for ADHD medication. Living with someone who could give me her perspective I’m really helped — I probably wouldn’t have stuck with it had she not been able to articulate a marked improvement within a few weeks.
Still, this single recommendation to go to the doctor and talk about ADHD was the single biggest life improvement me or my family could have ever received.
reply