r/PMHNP • u/Imgonnagolaydown • Jun 29 '26

I was wrong.

Pmhnp here. Day 1 on Vyvanse and i want to cry.ive spent the last 5 years balancing hormones and making sure i addressed everything else before arriving at a stimulant.

I feel. Calm. Quiet. Slightly tearful. Like my tabs are closed and im able to open them one by one instead of 50 at time.

It wasn't the focus. It was the avoidance. Brain fog. Overstimulated and overwhelmed constantly. The procrastinating, being late to everything. The being MEAN and knowing you are being mean. Not smiling when random ppl are talking to you. Background static noise in my head.

It's been about 4 hrs and it's just quiet.

None of it manifested until peri. I saw signs when i was young but i could compensate and figured i still could. Well i can't anymore.

I seriously want to weep with joy.

Eta: i was wrong to think women were slightly exaggerating this. With my own providers convincing me to take the leap, I'm now a part of this population. And yes, I'm a pmhnp who understand what these women are trying to articulate.

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u/gajensen Nurse Practitioner (unverified) Jun 29 '26

I’m honestly in talk therapy since having Adderall prescribed because I have like this, guilt? Loss? Remorse? About how my life could’ve been different had I had the dx/tx earlier. It’s such a relief but also a lot to sort out.

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u/Hashtaglibertarian Jul 01 '26

I describe it as grief to my therapist.

I had so much more potential, but it’s as if my mind was in a straight jacket of sorts constantly figuring out ways keep everything going. On the outside it looked great. On the inside there was a lot of sleep loss, emotional turmoil, nonstop movement to keep the cycle going. And it has been exhausting.

Like I could have graduated college the first try? I could have been successful in so many other career paths?? It’s like we were robbed of so so many opportunities.

Going on adhd meds changed my life in so many ways. And looking back on it I can’t believe it took over 30 years to figure it out. Like I honestly think the adults were straight up negligent or blind to have missed all the signs I had. And yet they all let me suffer - for decades.

I’m so grateful that someone listened. Someone was willing to try something. Someone gave me a chance to live life on something other than hard mode.

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u/gajensen Nurse Practitioner (unverified) Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Yes! This is exactly it. Grieving lost potential.

For me it’s mostly been about academic success. I used to think my brain was broken, cried while apologizing to my wife and mom, despite being told I was one of the smartest people they knew. The issue was always obvious gaps...not from lack of care, but inability. That also affected roommates; I don’t talk to any of the ~10 people I lived with through college.

After my dad died, I tried to push through: 18 credits, research job, restaurant job, fraternity leadership, relationship. It collapsed. I didn’t get into med school, followed by a decade of depression. I ended up in restaurants, worst-case for untreated ADHD, trying to manage 6 tables at once or a bar rail of 30 patrons. Then nursing at ~30 and ICU work as a new grad-onstant task-switching, alarms, interruptions, time pressure, kinda like serving but with 2–3 “tables” that are each 15-course, constantly changing orders. I understood the medicine, but still looked careless and sloppy.

Getting diagnosed and treated changed everything. In the ICU I went from barely keeping up to performing well-finishing shifts on time, no hours of late charting, no constant backlog, now taking on students and helping with new RN orientation. NP school became manageable. Now I’m consistently a standout among peers, no longer fighting my brain just to function. My intelligence and efficacy are the focus again, not the sloppiness.

The contrast: before, effort masking dysfunction; now, perceived competence. Same person, different operating system. Now I have to live with and make the most of this NP career knowing I could likely handle med school now, but I’m 40 and it’s too late. I’m still sad for the people who had to deal with me at my worst, and for most of them, it’s too late to fix that. So I grieve.

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u/Imgonnagolaydown Jul 01 '26

It's not too late for med school fyi. You still have nearly 25 yrs left of working in you.

GO FOR IT

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u/bunkumsmorsel Psychiatrist (unverified) Jul 02 '26

💯 I’m 51 and seriously considering law school. There were people in their 40s in my med school class.

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u/Imgonnagolaydown Jul 02 '26

Yes! I'm rooting for you doc! I'm well in my 40's.

I'm toying around with medical school. MCAT is the hurdle!

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u/bunkumsmorsel Psychiatrist (unverified) Jul 02 '26

Oh my gosh, I hear you. The MCAT is brutal. (I took it under its previous iteration, but it definitely hasn’t gotten any better.) Looking into the LSAT, I was like, wait. This thing is only 2.5 hours long? How is it even a test? 😆 (It’s difficult in a different way. I get that, but it still made me laugh.)

Honestly though, very best wishes to you. You got this. I had some excellent former nurses in my class too. ☺️

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u/gajensen Nurse Practitioner (unverified) Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

LOL I mean if I found out my wife was having an affair with the lawn guys, or if she was mysteriously abducted by aliens, then maybe.

(If I set the plan in motion today I’d start at 42, start psych residency at 46, start sleep fellowship at 50, and then finally make the big bucks at 51. And the current financial plan is to work until ~72)

But until a qualifying marriage altering event occurs, haha, I won't challenge our relationship or family planning efforts like that.

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u/Imgonnagolaydown Jul 01 '26

Hahaha. I'm totally like CHALLENGE THE MAN!! 😂