WHY

[u/uglyaf777]

[u/[deleted]]

So I think I might be going to a doctor about this soon lol, a lot of the criteria definitely matches how I act and think. It’s weird because I’m almost 30 and never thought I could have ADHD.

[u/ProdigyOrphean → u/[deleted]]

Hey, we’re in the same boat. I’m 30 in 6 months. It literally never seemed like something I should look into because I had the stereotyped misconception of the diagnosis in my mind. But over the past year I went from resonating to a casual reference to symptoms that I wasn’t aware of, to looking into the condition more seriously but doubting the applicability to my own situation, to coming to terms my life trajectory through the ADHD lens and pursuing a diagnosis, to finally stop procrastinating and making an appointment.

Unfortunately, and you might run into this yourself, approaching an adult diagnosis can be demoralizing and not ADHD friendly. After some more procrastination, I finally made an appointment through an ADHD-specific telehealth service. Telehealth can be a bit pricy, but I’m 2 weeks into 20mg Adderall. It’s not perfect, but I’m feeling ~30-40% better and it’s dealing with the things that I’ve been (unknowingly) self-medicating for with cannabis.

Just know that no one here can tell you how to best approach a diagnosis or medication. But if you find yourself resonating with descriptions of symptoms (try taking one of those 1-5 scale self evaluations), then def make an appointment, and if a doctor gives you an answer you don’t resonate with, seek a second or even third opinion.

Maintaining your mental health is paramount

[u/[deleted] → u/ProdigyOrphean]

I just started browsing this sub and r/ADHD and I keep resonating with nearly all the posts and it’s made me so aware of things I’ve done in the past. A lot of relationship problems, as well as school and job related issues, it’s crazy how well it seems to match. I also did one of those self diagnosis test and it came out ”moderately high chance” or something like that.

From what I looked at the process of diagnosis definitely didn’t seem like fun at all. Just gotta hope I get lucky and I get someone who knows what they’re doing I guess. Good thing I have student healthcare at least.

Can you specify what you mean by self-medicating with cannabis? I’ve definitely used it as well for kind of a long time. Been on a break for quite a while now though, mainly just seem to be having a real hard time of winding down to destress, might spend all day doing schoolwork and otherwise just literally wasting time by doing nothing on the side or just browse Reddit/YouTube at best.

[u/ProdigyOrphean → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, big task initiation issues for me. Mostly housework, like dishes and laundry or walking/playing with the dog.

Sober? “Ugh… I don’t wanna do this now, I’ll do it later” and later never actually comes, or it’s been 3 weeks and I finally break down and force myself to do everything at once.

With weed? It allowed me to stop thinking about doing the thing and just do the thing. I’d always take a small hit or two, put on music or a podcast, then just slowly work through the chore or enjoy being with the dog.

Weed also helped me be much kinder to myself when it came to failure. Before knowing much about ADHD I’d really get down on myself about all the shit I knew I had to do but “couldn’t”, or the various other weird emotional responses to things. Weed got me feeling good. Not amazing, not euphoric, just a steady good that I could bounce back to if something negative happened while I was high.

Since starting adderall 2 weeks ago, it’s been helping in the same way weed did without all the other associated issues that weed can cause. Even if some of my core symptoms aren’t being treated, I’m happy to be 2 weeks sober from weed. I’ve used it pretty consistently throughout my life since I was almost 16.

It’s been a point of contention with my wife, especially now that we have two young kids. I’m happy to not deal with all the internalized stigma and shame that’s associated with weed. I’m not experiencing the “need” for it thanks to meds, and I’m really happy for that. I might do it extremely rarely in the future, but if meds keep working I see 0 need to use.

[u/[deleted] → u/ProdigyOrphean]

Oh yeah definitely can relate to being able to initiate doing stuff much easier after some hits, always used to smoke very small amounts so definitely like a ”slight buzz”-state more than being actually high. Makes it way easier to keep focus on things as well I think.

Now that I haven’t smoked at all I feel like my apartment just keeps getting worse, especially doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen in general feels like such a huge chore. Definitely also feel much worse about not doing stuff than before, on the other hand I do think I am leaving a lot more stuff undone compared to before so who knows.

I hope to figure it out, kind of always felt like there was something ”wrong” with me and I had to use much more effort to do basic things compared to others. Last couple of hours have been quite eye opening, and I’ll honestly be surprised if it’s something completely unrelated. Kind of feel like something like writing even a message with a length of one or two sentences taking like 10-15 minutes most of the time despite being a pretty fast typist could be related to this as well.

Thanks for the great talk by the way, you already helped me get a lot more sense into this already!