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    That advice is common but outdated.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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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago

    Yeah same, for me it was like fitting in the molecule I was missing my whole life. Transformative

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

    huh i got a horrible anxiety spike. glad it's going good for someone

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

    yeah.. someone at work gave me one of her pills and suddenly my mind went quiet and i could focus.. it was a stunning moment for me. I eventually got a dr to rx me adderall and I took it for a couple years until I lost my job and couldn't afford either the dr or the medication anymore

    now i can't find a dr who will prescribe it again

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

    Try Wellbutrin, much easier to get prescribed

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I've been prescribed Wellbutrin several times in the past and I don't see the parallel to Adderall

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    it's definitely not similar but it is a common offlabel for adhd. sorry that it doesn't seem to help with yours :(

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    that's okay, thanks for the suggestion anyhow

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    From some other people I know, general practitioners are more likely to prescribe Vyvanse or Ritalin than Adderall because they're much less easily/commonly abused, whereas psychs with a diagnosed patient prefer Adderall because it's just better.

    Vyvanse is pretty much the same active ingredient as Adderall but designed (in multiple ways that are more complicated than anyone cares to know) to be way less possible to abuse. Vyvanse doesn't have a generic so it's a little pricey.

    Ritalin is a different simulant than Adderall that has a shorter half life and is less commonly abused for a couple of reasons.

    You might have better luck with getting a prescription for one of those two if your doctor isn't willing to give you the good stuff.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    what's "yaknow"?

    I've never seen a real yak (in person) neither now nor any other time

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Taking the limitless pill that turns off 10% of my brain so I can focus on doing my work reports.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    oh look, it's a post about me doggirl-kiss

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    For me it was first really awesome, I had suddenly way more time (I don’t feel time normally straight and sometimes I kinda freezed in place thinking stuff without really realising), after about two weeks, I realised what tasks and actions I always wanted or had to do but neglected as they faded away in my neurodivergence brain, they don’t do that, while I am on medication. But that let to a an overload and I had burn out symptoms for two weeks. Since yesterday, I feel awesome after a break of medication in the weekend (I suppose my sender neurons where too empty from a MD trip and because of medication the refill process of the botebstoffe was too slow.. who knows, but in the end, I think, it had a positive after effect after all.

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  • [+] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)
  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 year ago

    thank you! I've been recommended a secret trick to get my work-based medical insurance to cover it

    secret(Bupa UK doesn't cover therapists for ADHD/ASD, but does cover "emotional instability" and lets you pick ADHD specialists)

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  • [+] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 child)