Ananääs

I have a relative who was a brilliant student in school, studied law, moved to China, learned the language, always very high achieving and motivated to succeed in what ever she chose to do, seemed like she was aiming high career-wise, then she met an arab guy, turned muslim to marry him, got two kids, as far as I know is a house wife now. They live in the Emirates so life must be very restricted for her. We are not close but it was quite surprising that she chose a closed life and conservative religion instead of career. But like said, I don’t know her enough to know her side of the story, but I’m sure she’s happy with her life.

A friend of mine, when I first got to know him, didn’t strike to me as a person with many goals in life and was at that point unemployed and living with his cousin, hadn’t really studied, wasn’t doing much anything. Well he got into gardening, wen’t to career school to become a gardener, one day he decides to become a landscape architect and study in the most top tier university in the country, so he just studied to the entrance exam like hell, failed a couple times and kept on pushing and finally got it. Very proud of him. Not the easiest path if you come from career school background. Also how the hell can someone be so motivated to bang their head onto the wall until they finally succeed?!

When I was younger I was offered a gig to help disassemble an abandoned cottage by hand. Turns out it had burned from the inside when a fire had spread from the fireplace - somebody had went inside to try and keep warm in the winter and ended up burning themselves and the cottage. What adds some spice to the story is the fact that in the past the cottage was a “troll’s hut” funfair kinda thing where kids, myself included, went to meet the “forest troll” and do some drawing etc.

Had nightmares about it for quite a while.

From looms to wrooms, why not!

Could be basically any japanese company 😅

How bout the where ever you are larm?

I once found a fake Harry Potter book named Harry Potter and Deatbly Hallows, probably just a pirated version of the actual book, never read it, but funny to not spell-check the name.

Oh boi this is so relatable. It seems that I’ve been running on anxiety my whole life.

For me it seems to help that I find validation and reasons for those feelings (eg from videos explaining why ADHD or CPTSD causes such behaviors and thought patterns) and through that understanding internalize that there is always a reason for everything and no, the reason is not that I’m a shitty person.

Allowing myself to stim helps, I didn’t even realize how much I’ve been blocking it.

I think the most noticeable help from the meds is in social situations, but also the fact that I can always “play the AuDHD card” helps - given that the people are safe enough to reveal this diagnosis.

I process thoughts and feelings by doing physical things so evening walks are super important to clear some of the chaos inside my head.

My SO is also on the spectrum but in a way opposite of me that they don’t really have strict rules and schedules to keep their life together like I do, so we learn from each other: I try to give more space to things that cause me anxiety and over all loosen my grip, and they try to create more structure in their life.

Also conscious choices on what to ruminate and what not is sometimes helpful: do I REALLY need to think about this right now?

If I’m full of chaos or anxiety when I go to bed I have a conversation in my head with an imaginary friend that will validate my feelings and experiences and tell me what I need to hear. It gives a different perspective which can be helpful.

So many things yet to understand and the re-learning is just in the beginning, but even so it feels like a big change already! The years of neglecting myself have taken their toll for sure but I hope there’s still hope left.

This july I finally realized that I have no choice but consciously change the ways I think and react to things. There has been plenty of difficult things in my life the last couple of years and after experiencing a burnout (again, I understood afterwards it’s not the first time but hasn’t been this bad before) this summer I had to look myself in the mirror and decide to start making changes, things can’t go on like this anymore, I can’t keep on living like this anymore. It’s sad that it seems often these realizations only come when one hits the bottom in a way or another.

I’ve been to a 3-year therapy and tried meds and so on, I’m sure they “paved the path” but didn’t help me comprehend why I have these troubles that I have and didn’t give me the understanding/empathy towards myself and others that is needed to actually change the thought and reaction models that are problematic, especially anger and shame issues.

Anyways I’ve been looking at videos on youtube about CPTSD and they have helped me a lot. Especially I find Tim Fletcher’s videos useful as he thoroughly looks into the underlying issues and different ways CPTSD shows up in people, just the facts as they are. He’s kind of an old school lecturer type guy, nothing fancy and shiny (needs to be taken with a grain of salt though as he doesn’t seem to have understanding on ADHD/autism and has religious aspects in some of his videos).

Of course being recently diagnosed with ADHD gives more light to why I’m the way I am. But now I’ve been able to start to work on my stuff from a different angle and it seems to take an effect! A difficult and rocky path but I suppose the first steps are the hardest.

Feels.

Also: Under-stimulated -> anxiety -> Have To Do Something, Anxiety Driving Me Nuts-> DO ALL THE THINGS -> stress!! -> stimulation burst because of stress -> overwork -> over-stimulated -> burnout -> depression -> under-stimulated

The neurospice flows strong in this one

Two plus two is four, minus one that’s three QUICK MATHS! -Roadman Shaq

That object, my friend, is me.

I find it easier to make friends with people that are also on the spectrum and then other stuff comes on top of it, rather than trying to find friends through a shared interest and then trying to adjust to normies strange way of being 😅 (although it seems that many of my friends that I made through a shared interest in the first place later turned out to be on the spectrum…)

You can definitely split the Elvanse capsule for a smaller dose, it’s safe and doesn’t affect the drug itself. Where I live Elvanse is so expensive it would make sense to try and get as high dose as possible and just split it to smaller doses to save money. The price is like 95-135€ for 30 capsules… Also a good-to-know that doctors don’t tell but should: 2 grams of vitamin C should get rid of most of the drug in your system in about an hour or so, take with plenty of water and prepare to piss a lot. For example if you have problems falling asleep or feel like it’s lasting too long you could try if vitamin C helps. Also if you accidentally take too much. I wonder why the doctors don’t often mention about this because taking vit-C supplements will lessen the effect of Elvanse.

And like the others said, it will take a while to get used to the drug. There’s also the “wow-factor” in the beginning that might make the effect of the drug feel stronger. But it’s a good idea to start with a smaller dose first. No need to force yourself and feel uncomfortable with too big a dose.

You are undead now, just like Jesus

Well I did self-medicate a bit while waiting for the actual diagnosis and I think that would be valuable information for the doctor as well, only if I could tell about it honestly. The meds can be used to validate the diagnosis after all. But it also gave me insight on what works and what doesn’t and how. Where I live one has to try 2 different meds (usually both are methylphenidate) before lisdexamphetamine and for me at least the mf’s cause quite awful side-effects (like dissociation) which elvanse doesn’t so at least now I know not to force myself to the bad ones and go through the process to get to the ones that actually do the trick.

Substance abuse is pretty common among ADHD people but you can’t get the diagnosis if you admit that or get caught in the screening (drug tests are also required here for the meds). Probably many drug users too have ADHD but they never got proper diagnosis and treatment and never will.

No hotdog is a cheezburger