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Yaknow the first thing i realised about ADHD medication? (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/neurodiverse@hexbear.net
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The feeling I assumed was anxiety my whole life was gone. The uneasy feeling of dread or that I was forgetting something of terminal importance. The way stuff bounced around in my head and made me ruminate on unnecessary things. I just never had a word for it before now.

This whole time I've been in SNRIs that are supposed to help with the same things, but never quite did enough.

I'm only 2 weeks in and it isnt like taking the limitless pill or anything but even just that is a relief rn 🥹

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[–] 27 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Those first few weeks are like being given wings. Then your brain gets used to the meds and tries to go back to being the lazy little shithead that it's always been.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Half the struggle of having ADHD and being medicated is suppressing the urge to just play cookie clicker all day every day

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It’s kind of like spending a few decades with shackles around your legs and finally getting them taken off. Problem is you now have to learn to walk. And you’re much past the age where people will show you how.

    ADHD meds are great, but you have to exercise your executive functioning in order to get the full benefit. It sucks.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    My psychiatrist recommended I take about 5 days off every month, to kind of reset the brain's sensibility to the pharmaceutical, and to have the same effect as at the beginning. I'm on the last day of my very first break, so if it works I'll let y'all know.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    That advice is common but outdated. Skipping days can make a psychological difference because the contrast between medicated and unmedicated is so stark but you don't actually restore pharmacological sensitivity in a week or two.

    You never get that first superhero feeling back because you can't go from being non-functional to functional for the first time in your life again. Being medicated starts to feel normal (which is good) and being unmedicated starts to feel really horrible (which it is but you didn't have context for how bad it was before). For me I skip doses solely to build up a back stock for when there is inevitably a shortage or prescription delay.

    A lot of people think that the meds aren't helping after a while because of that first incredible phase where you feel like you can do anything. That's not what they're supposed to do for you. They're supposed to make it possible for you to control what you focus on. The actual work of completely rewiring your brain is intensive and exhausting and realistically can only go so far. Somehow that doesn't get properly communicated to people who are recently diagnosed.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago

    My psych didnt really explain that well either, BUT I've got a few good folks who warned me that the first doses would make me feel like you've actually taken the limitless pill.

    They sorta did, too, but at least knowing it was meant to come back down eventually helped me adapt. Without that knowledge I might have tried chasing the initial feeling or gotten disappointed.

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