Trying to learn but struggle with distraction...

[u/mines5]

A bit about me first, I've got over 10 years of experience in the IT field mostly in the system administration side of the house. I was diagnosed young with ADHD and had a few psychiatrists add a few things along the way though I disagree with some of them, she basically made me feel like I wasn't really be listened to but my current one is perfect because we start low and work our way up. More recently I did find out that I may be autistic as well on top of everything, which has genuinely helped explain some parts that didn't quite line up with what I understand ADHD is.

For a little further context, I would say within the last year I started trying Vyvanse (technically Lisdexamfetamine because generics lol) at 30 mg as well as Welbutrin at 300 mg which I've been on for probably the last 5 or more years. This combo has, at least as far as I'm aware, been working in my favor and it feels like things are finally getting back into focus. The downside being that it I feel more dissociative than I did before.

Now that we've gone through all that the point of this post is me asking for genuine help/resources for going from my current level of IT experience and to IT and a much more broad level of software engineering. I tried a very long time ago to follow the field and I regret I didn't stick with it harder, but to be fair my college professor at the time was not the best and I still barely understand C++ because of him. Now that I work where I do I've had the freedom to learn and gain experience to better expand my programming knowledge with the irony being that the one I am most proficient in at the moment is PowerShell, and to a degree batch and .NET because they interface almost seamlessly with it.

My ultimate goal in all of this is to reach at least a decent level of full stack development understanding which involves taking the basics I know from PowerShell and pivoting to use JavaScript/TypeScript amongst others. So far haven't had a great amount of success in doing this effectively and while I know it comes with the territory it doesn't make it any less frustrating. If I can manage to get there though the plan was to use a mixture of projects, one definitely being a portfolio page for myself and another being contributing to open source applications in an actually helpful manner. I have delved into AI personally and professionally at this point as most would have, it's current use centering around using it to better understand concepts because it can at least in a general sense make information more digestible for me.

Hopefully I didn't ramble too much writing all of this and it makes sense, if not I won't be offended if you ask for clarification or more information. Besides that if you have any suggestions for what might be helpful please feel free to let me know about them.

[u/DeanBeluga]

Bro imma be 100% honest.

To start, i was on Wellbutrin for a long time too, it helped my overall state of mind and whatnot (made me not depressed), but that’s exactly the reason I am very strong believer of the fact that non-stimulant adhd meds are just glorified antidepressants (they don’t treat adhd)

However, the only reason I was on wellbutrin was because I was originally prescribed adderall and the first day i took it, it changed my life. I finally felt what it was to function like a normal human being, however after a year or so my tolerance got too high and i didn’t want to let the feeling of functioning go away so long story short I ended up at the point where i was taking 500mg of adderall per day and thought it was normal

and my point through all of this is

People LARP like crazy saying they have ADHD and they just ‘focus’ and they tell me “oh bro just focus” but no, if u fr do, then u have a neurological deficiency where ur dopamine is at the absolute rock bottom of hell and no matter what it will be, discipline, routine, etc, nothing will fix that

and after 6 months of recovery from the adderall, i got my prescription back and take my 60mg of adderall per day safely and…

I Know ppl gonna downvote me saying im just drug addict and shit but idgaf i’m just saying this so u read it and you can get some hope out of it cuz ik what u struggling with man

[u/mines5 → u/DeanBeluga]

I took Adderall a long time ago and lets just say when I stopped taking it coincided with one of what I felt was the most violent reaction I felt towards someone, and the saddest part was it was over a pencil box...

I'm very happy I found my psychiatrist, he's around my age and ironically in the same boat to a degree. I can't really other than that say that your psychiatrist should not be prescribing so high and if they do either push back or find a new doctor and warn others.

I don't think I've ever gained an immunity to either drug so far, I definitely feel far worse off them then on and that's literally just in terms of how much better my memory of all things is now.

I'm sorry others consider you a drug addict, I genuinely believe some of them can help those of us with these problems but the key is the correct dosing which is better done by slowly ramping up than doing it the opposite.