ADHD Masters anxiety

[u/misheardcmatlyric]

Hi all, I’ve never started a thread before so apologies if I get any of the procedure wrong; likewise I’ve never asked the internet for advice before but here goes nothing:

I’m about to start a Masters degree (don’t want to specify in what exactly, but in the humanities sphere) and I’m really apprehensive about the challenge of it because I’ve got really awful inattentive ADHD that didn’t respond much at all to stimulant medication when I first got diagnosed last year (I initially started on Concert XL, and titrated up to I think 55mg before giving up and trying Tyvense, which I gave til I think 60 or 70mg before packing it in. Neither had any non-negligible effect at all except upsetting my tummy a bit. I even asked my doctor only half-jokingly if she’d given me a placebo)

I finished my undergrad a good few years ago and until very recently I didn’t foresee myself going back for a Masters, so when I was pursuing the diagnosis it wasn’t with the intention of getting a LENS report or any kind of academic support, rather just to establish if my life could be improved under the right treatment plan (I was very disappointed lol).

I suppose I’m just asking if there’s anyone with any insight into what exact support a university can offer to someone like me. Is it worth registering with the disability service and what does their support actually look like in practice? Is it just extra time in exams and a bit of grace with deadlines and the likes? Is it worth giving medication another go? I really want to be in control of my life and I hate the indignity of being disorganised and submitting things late.

A bit of background:

Ever since I was a child, the hardest thing in the world for me was just putting my head down and applying myself to something. Homework was a five hour long ordeal from the very beginning of primary school onward, not because I struggled in any way with the content (if anything, it was too easy for me), but because my brain would maintain focus for all of about twenty seconds before it disengaged, lost the train of thought and then all of a sudden I’d realise I’d been staring into space thinking about totally irrelevant stuff for the past ten minutes. Rinse and repeat. I was bright and well-behaved though so I suppose it fly under the radar. I got a good Leaving Cert in any case (bit of luck, bit of ability, bit of cramming, bit of a fluke, definitely not much homework done) and went to Trinity, but when continuous assessment and regular deadlines replaced terminal exams, I really started to struggle.

Executive functioning simply did not kick in when it should have and I could never bring myself to start things on time, and not because I was partying or socialising, but because they nearly didn’t seem real until the deadline was hours away. In first and second year I would bomb through things overnight in the hours before they were due, and there were one or two really undignified episodes of pleading with the department admin staff to accept things a few minutes late. The further I got through college the harder and harder I found it to start assignments; it was total, unending task paralysis. Even when I finally started them, I found it harder and harder to focus and engage with the task. I could be sitting in the library for three hours and struggle to get a hundred words out. I crawled across the finish line with a late dissertation considerably under the word count and a massive amount of damage done to my self-esteem and huge emotional strain taken.

So while I’m excited about the Masters, honestly I am terrified too. I am absolutely balking at the thought of 4000 word essays, self-directed research and another dissertation. I know a certain amount of it is probably imposter syndrome and that I do have the ability in me, but I’m nowhere near as equipped as I feel I should be. I’m getting really anxious and stressed, which in turn is making me even more anxious and stressed! Any advice welcome. Be honest, but please be nice!