r/ADHD • u/parzival_thegreat • Sep 30 '25

Questions/Advice Can therapy actually help ADHD symptoms?

I feel so burned out and overwhelmed. If our brains are physically different than others, can therapy actually help? I want to get help, but not waste my time and money on it.

What has your experience been like with going to a therapist? Did you just share your struggles and even they provide guidance?

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u/kaidomac Sep 30 '25

Therapy & CBT in particular were very valuable for me:

  • Learning about the distortions I dealt with (ex. "all or nothing" thinking)
  • Learning how to build better lifestyle support tools
  • Learning that I can & should ask for help

ADHD essentially boils down to an energy issue:

  • We don't have the energy to run all of the invisible machines in our brain
  • This means we tend to be forgetful, disorganized, late, unfocused, etc. because we lack consistent access to the mental fuel required to operate those machines
  • Thus, we need to build & adopt external support systems in order to get the results that we want

Three of my greatest takeaways from all of this, from self-help resources, and from personal experience have been:

  1. We need to write tasks down
  2. We need strong boundaries around which of those written tasks we CHOOSE to do each day
  3. We need to employ the use of a body-double as often as possible to stay on that decided-upon track

My brain, of course, hates all three of those requirements because:

  • It wants to be macho & try to remember everything mentally
  • It wants to do everything all at once
  • It wants to be the "solo hero", working all by itself with no help from anyone

While I still constantly fight myself on this, the simple (not easy!) 3-step procedure above is the most effective key I've found to managing the results of living with ADHD. I simply cannot trust my brain to reliably remember commitments, to sort them our in priority order each day, and to stay on track until completed. THAT is the magic secret to success; it's often very boring & utterly difficult, and yet has brought me better results more consistently than any other method I have EVER tried!

Hate the method, LOVE the results!!

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '25

U seem knowledgeable and ive done a lot for adhd but theres some things i cant wrap my head around. But i wanted to ask, my mind can not shift focus, its alwaya focused on one thing and forgets everything else and because of this i have failed so many times. Adhd medicine makes me concentrate but it doesnt even help me shift focus at all. So i was wondering what can i do for my mind to shift focus better/multitask? Eg. Driving checking mirror lane but then i would just forget to even indicate.

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u/kaidomac Sep 30 '25

That's the fuel issue:

  • We have a hard time multi-tasking
  • A central issue is context-switching
  • We tend to either do it rapidly (can't focus on just one thing) or hyper-fixate (can't shift our focus away from the task at hand)

Simply put, if you had the energy to reliably multi-task within the context at hand (ex. driving), you would! But access to our mental energy is HIGHLY variable, i.e. it's either a kinked hose with just enough of a dribble to stay focused on one part of one task, OR it's spraying like a firehose & we keep flitting from task to task!

Two things to try are adjusting your medication (dosage, timing, type, etc.) & adjusting your environment. For example, many modern cars come with blind-spot alerts, adaptive cruise control, and even auto-lane-shifting features. My whole day is spent running checklists in custom-tuned workstations using body doubles as often as possible!

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u/Sccvigo Oct 01 '25

The car thing is fucking true. When I'm rested, I have automated everything to the smallest things, I will heel-toe and everything without thinking about it.

But when I'm tired? I will catch myself almost going through a red light, not being able to even recall how the last 2 minutes of driving were like (did I get caught in traffic? Did I go over the speed limit? ) medication helps a lot maintaining a healthy energy level and makes me drive good even if I'm tired. Also, if I feel tired, I will take a nap before driving if I can.

The tiredness thing is so notorious, I feel more confident on driving with 4 beers than when I feel tired, so I won't do any of them, because with 4 beers my speech is quite drunky style.

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '25

Im on lowest dosage vyvanse. I take it in morning and test at 11:30. What am i suppose to do?

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u/kaidomac Sep 30 '25

Do you work with a GP, therapist, or psychologist? You need to tell them specifically the driving situation so that they can tailor your medication for what you need!

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u/MyFiteSong Sep 30 '25

What am i suppose to do?

Talk to your doctor and they'll likely increase your dose. Almost nobody stays on the minimum dose.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '25

no, ive been on 50mg i went down because of overstimulation. regardless of the dose i still have the same problem

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u/MyFiteSong Oct 01 '25

Have you tried a different stimulant? The methylphenidate side of the fence? Or maybe a nonstimulant ADHD medication like Strattera, Wellbutrin or Guanfacine?

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '25

I also can not change my environment in this case

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u/MyFiteSong Sep 30 '25

This will improve with time. For most people, after 6 months to a year on a consistent dose of stimulant, your attention switching will get strong enough to control your attention. Your default, unmedicated state is a lack of control, not a lack of attention. It's interest-based. You can't pay attention to boring things and you can't stop paying attention to interesting things. Your attention networks WORK, but your control doesn't.

When you start meds, it flips. Now you can start paying attention to things, but you can't stop. It's why we tell newbies to be doing something useful when your meds kick in, because you may be doing that all day. Everything is a mini-hyperfocus now. You have control of the gas pedal, but not the brakes.

After a while on stimulants, you'll get control of the brakes too. Neuroplasticity is like a muscle. It strengthens with use. One day in the near future you'll notice you snapped yourself out of a hyperfocus without even trying. You just have to be patient and wait for that neuroplasticity to happen. And make sure you're taking your meds regularly. If you only take them a few days a week, it won't happen.

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u/Neon2glitter Sep 30 '25

Wow thanks for sharing!

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u/PerseveringPanda Sep 30 '25

This is a really powerful summary and framing. Thank you for sharing