Ramblings of an ADHD and Anxiety Riddled Adult

Diagnosed with ADHD at age 8 Generalized Anxiety disorder at age 18 PTSD at age 25 Childhood Sexual abuse survivor

[resplendeo]

“Nearly everyone with ADHD answers an emphatic yes to the question: “Have you always been more sensitive than others to rejection, teasing, criticism, or your own perception that you have failed or fallen short?” This is the definition of a condition called rejection-sensitive dysphoria. When I ask ADHDers to elaborate on it, they say: “I’m always tense. I can never relax. I can’t just sit there and watch a TV program with the rest of the family. I can’t turn my brain and body off to go to sleep at night. Because I’m sensitive to my perception that other people disapprove of me, I am fearful in personal interactions.” They are describing the inner experience of being hyperactive or hyper-aroused. Remember that most kids after age 14 don’t show much overt hyperactivity, but it’s still present internally, if you ask them about it. The emotional response to the perception of failure is catastrophic for those with the condition. The term “dysphoria” means “difficult to bear,” and most people with ADHD report that they “can hardly stand it.” They are not wimps; disapproval hurts them much more than it hurts neurotypical people. If emotional pain is internalized, a person may experience depression and loss of self-esteem in the short term. If emotions are externalized, pain can be expressed as rage at the person or situation that wounded them. In the long term, there are two personality outcomes. The person with ADHD becomes a people pleaser, always making sure that friends, acquaintances, and family approve of him. After years of constant vigilance, the ADHD person becomes a chameleon who has lost track of what she wants for her own life. Others find that the pain of failure is so bad that they refuse to try anything unless they are assured of a quick, easy, and complete success. Taking a chance is too big an emotional risk. Their lives remain stunted and limited. For many years, rejection-sensitive dysphoria has been the hallmark of what has been called atypical depression. The reason that it was not called “typical” depression is that it is not depression at all but the ADHD nervous system’s instantaneous response to the trigger of rejection.”

—

“Devastated by Disapproval” - William Dodson, M.D., ADDitude Magazine

I did both of those two personality outcomes. Magic or something, I guess. -J

(via actuallyadhd)

I don’t think this is necessarily exclusive to ADHD - it’s extremely familiar to me and, while I have some ADD-ish traits, I very definitely don’t have hyperactivity. It sounds a hell of a lot like a lot of other autistic-or-otherwise-neurodiverse-but-not-necessarily-ADHD people I know too. And it also sounds a lot like something that comes from a (vaguely complex-PTSD-ish?) unconsciously-learnt response to repeated experience (or, in less clinical-sounding terms, internalised oppression), rather than something that necessarily comes from a particular cognitive difference.

(via spikyprofile)

Perhaps this is different where you live, but here “ADHD” now is an umbrella term that covers both “Hyperactive type” and “inattentive type.”  I am inattentive type, and I must say that reading this article was like looking in a mirror, it’s amazing how accurate it all is to my life.  I was diagnosed 11 years ago and somehow never knew that this was common in ADHD.   But I think you’re right that it might have more to do with our conditioning than with our neurotype.  I’d love to learn more abut this and see if there’s any more information on the causes.  

(via squidsqueen)

[actuallyadhd]

One thing that still makes me laugh is that they keep saying they don’t know how we get RSD. Like… really? You don’t know how ADHDers develop RSD? We spend our lives being told off for things we can’t control and having moral judgments applied to our symptoms (which again, we can’t control), and you don’t understand why “overreact” to criticism or perceived criticism? Really? Have any of you read anything about anxiety, perfectionism, and so on? Like, it’s not different for us just because we have ADHD. Mental health is still mental health.

-J

[adhdattemptingadulting]

“Just”

When talking to an ADHD person please remove the word just from your vocabulary.

It’s super frustrating, insulting, and a hurtful word to us.

I’m so sick of people starting sentences with “you just need to” or “why can’t you just”. Your sentence is already hard enough on us, but adding the word just, makes it so much worse.

[adhdattemptingadulting]

Why do I have so much energy? Why can’t I get into my work? It’s a mystery.

10 minutes later... Oh hell, I don’t think I took my ADHD meds! That explains a lot!

[adhdattemptingadulting]

Ok Rant Warning

With the increased media attention and an increase in shooting, I hear a lot of people bringing up the issue of mental illnesses being left untreated and how dangerous that can be.

I totally agree, ignoring mental illness no matter what kind can be dangerous possibly to other, but definitely to the person who is struggling alone. But here’s the thing that nobody talks about. Getting treatments for mental illness here in America is very expensive and some people can’t afford it.

I am a 25 year old woman with ADHD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and PTSD from childhood abuse. I was getting so bad that my negative thoughts were taking over and my ADHD was running wild and ruining my career I worked so hard for. I decided to get some help. I love my therapist and I have great doctors.

Here’s the awful part. I have a pretty good job (accountant). I make decent money, but I’m going in debt just to pay for my medical bills.

Here’s a break down of my monthly medical expenses after insurance:

Therapist for PTSD therapy twice a month: $238 for both visits

Therapist for my GAD and ADHD once a month- $72

ADHD meds (Vyvanse)- $234

Anxiety Meds- $15

Psychiatrist- $21

Total medical bills a month for just mental illness related- $580

Yearly total for just my mental illness bills- $6,960

Then add to that the cost of my medical insurance monthly- $585

Total mental illness bills and insurance- $1,165

Total annual cost for mental illness and insurance- $13,980

For the record that’s 31% of my annual income from my job.

Now will someone explain to me why I have to pay all this for mental illnesses that I had no part of developing. Trust me when I say that I would have never asked for even one of my disorders and if I could make them go away, it would be a dream come true. However the reality is, my choices are to stay in a unhealthy place and continue my downward spiral and be able to buy a house, or get help and ruin plans for my future and become in debt. It’s really discouraging to see my savings that I worked my ass for disappear and watching my husbands stress levels rise about finances. He makes sure I know that if this is what needs to be done to help me that we will find a way to afford it.

It shouldn’t be this way. Throwing more stress and guilt onto the shoulders of people who are desperately trying to dig their way out of out of their own personal hell is very counter productive.

[adhdattemptingadulting]

Vyvanse

Anybody on or have been on Vyvanse? Did you like it? Any bad side effects?

I just switched from Adderall XR 60 mg to Vyvanse 80 mg a few weeks ago.

Adderall works so well at helping my ADHD but I was just not eating on it and kept losing weight. (I am a naturally skinny person, so I don’t have much weight to lose) It was a mixture of simply forgetting that I need to eat and not being very interested in food.

The Vyvanse seems to not really touch my ADHD symptoms. It helps curb some behaviors, but I still have a lot of Adderall 20 mg (the normal kind) that I would use when I worked late hours to help me after the extended Adderal worn off. I find if I don’t take the Adderall with it multiple times a day, it’s not very effective.

I’ve also noticed that I am still struggling with remembering to eat due to the adderall, but now my sense of taste has changed and is off. Pickles are like my favorite thing in the world and even with Adderall I could eat a whole medium size jar of the smaller pickles in one sitting. Now they taste super weird and so have other foods. Nothing tastes good now, it’s like everything has a weird spice added to it that just doesn’t belong.

Has anyone else has taste issues with Vyvanse? Has the Vyvanse worked well for anyone?

The pills were super expensive so I’m damn sure going to finish the month supply. But I didn’t know if maybe it took Vyvanse a little longer to take effect or not. Adderall is a pretty instant difference.

[adhdattemptingadulting]

ADHD Problem

Spending 25 minutes deciding what you want to watch on Hulu, then only watching about 5 minutes before you forget about it and go do something else.

[adhighdefinition]

having a whole folder of stuff that you’ll “look at later” is adhd culture

[adhdattemptingadulting]

ADHD Problem #11

Had a good post in my head, got distracted by an email on my computer, now I have no idea what the post was!

Well that thought was good while it lasted I suppose.

[adhdattemptingadulting]

This is why I can’t be trusted with paperclips! Who needs fidget spinners when I have paperclips to occupy my hands.

[adhdattemptingadulting]

Need a new Therpist

I swear my therapists office has something against people with ADHD. I have both my psychiatrist and therapist through this place.

Their phone system only reminds you of appointments half the time.

They send out individual bills, for each appointment and they don’t put any summary of past bills of even what this bill is actually for.

I get between 3-4 bills a month from them at different times.

And when I forget to pay one or forget to actually mail it, they will just send me an extra bill a month later, it doesn’t even mention that it’s a past due bill.

The only way to look any bill up online to pay is to have the exact reference number from that exact bill. Can’t just look up by account number.

I just tried to call to get a prescription refilled and by the time the answering machine was done telling me everything I needed to include in the voicemail, I had already forgotten most of the list. I had to call back and listen to it 6 times before I got the whole list written down.

I missed an appointment because I forgot to write it down on one of my many calendars and they never said a thing just sent me the bill for a missed appointment. It didn’t even say when and who the appointment was with. Just hat I missed it.

[adhdattemptingadulting]

So my much older sister has decided that since she struggling with not being able to focus that she must have ADD. She even went as far to go to her regular doctor who just gave her a prescription for Adderall.

Now here’s the thing that is really pissing me off. She’s a 40 year old woman, she is in the middle of the breakdown of her marriage and she has a severally mentally handicapped child. Her distractibility is most likely due to stress and anxiety.

We have different fathers (I am the 2nd marriage late in life baby) and I got my ADHD from my father.

When I was first diagnosed she fought with my mom on the diagnosis and was pissed she was putting me on meds. And I have talked to her a lot about my ADHD and she has never been able to understand what I go through. She has never shown any ADD signs. She never struggled in school, she is really organized and clean, she has no issues with remembering things.

Now I would never complain about someone who actually has it getting help. Lord knows I know what they are going through. But it really pisses me off when people do this.

She has effectively hurt me and made me feel even more isolated, alone, and misunderstood. All this tells me is that she thinks that all my ADHD does is make me lose focus. It makes me and my ADHD feel like a joke to her.

I know she does not realize what she did and I think she actually believes it, but she just isn’t bothered to do any reasearch on it. You don’t develop it at age 40, and it’s not something that bothers you only when you are tying to focus. It’s a constant struggle, it doesn’t go away.

I can’t wait to see what happens when she takes those meds. My mom has warned her if she feels like she’s on sowed that she doesn’t have ADD. (My Mom once mixed up our meds on morning and got to feel my higher dose of Addrall.)

[adhdattemptingadulting]

Just as an update, my sister took her first adderall the other day, and the dose they gave her was really low.

She says she will never take it again because she had way too much energy and all she got done all day was some gardening.

I’m sitting there like guess what sweetcheeks, that’s because you don’t have ADD or ADHD. So thanks for trivializing something that I struggle with daily.

[adhdattemptingadulting]

Coming out of Hyperfocus

That moment when you snap back to reality from hyperfocus is always so confusing.

“What Time it? The last time I check the clock it was 11, now it’s now it’s 3:05! What the hell did I do for 4 hours?!? I clearly was actually only working on the one client, but what did I do? Is their return done? Did I get stuck on something a do research? Oh god if I did research who the hell knows what I ended up actually researching? “

The good news is that with hyperfocus I know I stayed on task, but sometimes researching under the influence of hyperfocus tends to get out of hand. I either research way too deep then I needed too or I start researching topics similar that I didn’t need to.

[adhdattemptingadulting]

Post It Notes

I really love how I look at the sticky notes I leave for myself to remember things, and I have no idea what the note means.

Like there is one on my desk right now that just says “mortgage interest”. I’m a tax accountant during hell week of tax season. This could mean so many things or be rated to so many different clients.

Why can’t I just be more specific. It’s like I’m a serial killer leaving clues for the police. My notes are so vague and cryptic. I’ll figure it out eventually I just like to make myself work for it apparently.

[adhdattemptingadulting]

So my much older sister has decided that since she struggling with not being able to focus that she must have ADD. She even went as far to go to her regular doctor who just gave her a prescription for Adderall.

Now here’s the thing that is really pissing me off. She’s a 40 year old woman, she is in the middle of the breakdown of her marriage and she has a severally mentally handicapped child. Her distractibility is most likely due to stress and anxiety.

We have different fathers (I am the 2nd marriage late in life baby) and I got my ADHD from my father.

When I was first diagnosed she fought with my mom on the diagnosis and was pissed she was putting me on meds. And I have talked to her a lot about my ADHD and she has never been able to understand what I go through. She has never shown any ADD signs. She never struggled in school, she is really organized and clean, she has no issues with remembering things.

Now I would never complain about someone who actually has it getting help. Lord knows I know what they are going through. But it really pisses me off when people do this.

She has effectively hurt me and made me feel even more isolated, alone, and misunderstood. All this tells me is that she thinks that all my ADHD does is make me lose focus. It makes me and my ADHD feel like a joke to her.

I know she does not realize what she did and I think she actually believes it, but she just isn’t bothered to do any reasearch on it. You don’t develop it at age 40, and it’s not something that bothers you only when you are tying to focus. It’s a constant struggle, it doesn’t go away.

I can’t wait to see what happens when she takes those meds. My mom has warned her if she feels like she’s on sowed that she doesn’t have ADD. (My Mom once mixed up our meds on morning and got to feel my higher dose of Addrall.)

[adhdattemptingadulting]

Picky Eater

My friend at work has a 7 year old son that has been recently diagnosed with ADHD and a sensory processing disorder. Yesterday she mentioned to me that he had started ADHD meds last month. 

Me- I will warn you, he is going to pretty much stop eating if you don’t watch his food intake. 

Her- OMG he already has, he was a super picky eater before, but now its impossible. The doctor told me to make sure he eats a fat and carb filled meal before he takes his meds and before he goes to sleep, but all he heard was that he gets to eat ice cream every night. 

Me- If he is anything like me, I can guarantee you that his picky eating is a sensory issue. 

Her- Wait what? He does have a processing disorder. 

Me- I do too, and for me my hatred for most foods has nothing to do with taste and everything to do with the texture of it. Like i cannot eat turkey because the feel of it between my teeth when I eat is something I just can’t handle.

Her- He has thrown up before after he ate mashed potatoes and now that i am thinking about his big dislikes in food they all do have a distinctive texture. 

Me- I have a love/hate relationship with mashed potatoes, I love the taste, but the texture of it if I put even a slightly bit too much in my mouth or if i try to eat too much has caused me to throw up before too. If I were you I’d try to keep a journal of foods he hates and ones that he loves, and you will most likely notice a pattern in the textures and that can help you find new food that he will eat. 

Her- I have to get back to work, but we will go to lunch soon and talk about this more. I need your knowledge on this!

[adhdattemptingadulting]

Helping my Husband

My husband is going through a pretty bad depressive episode. He is really unhappy with his job and feels like he has wasted most of his life at a waste of a job and is having a hard time finding a job that he thinks makes him more worthy.

He has gotten to the point where he goes into a rage over any little thing. He's picking fights with me almost every time we talk for the last week. A couple weeks ago he mentioned that he was starting to deal with suicidal thoughts, and in during a fight last night he actually came out made some suicidal comments. I told him how much him not being by my side would devastate me and how much I loved him. He told me that I was probably the only person who would care if he was gone.

I have been trying to get him to see someone and get some help, but he adamantly refuses. He went to therapists before when his sister died when they were kids and had a bad experience so now he wants nothing to do with it.

To make the problem worse, I have an anxiety disorder and PTSD and as a tax accountant, I am really stressed right not and working really long hours, so I am not doing my best mentally either. I am being way to oversensitive about everything. I am trying to not to let my current mental state show to much with him, as it only makes him feel guilty and I really don't want to add anymore negative feelings for him right now. I also just started PTSD therapy a couple weeks ago, so that has me more on edge too.

I am really worried about him, but I am not sure what I can do to help him. He rejects any compliment or positive thing I say about him not matter how small, but I still say them. I want to make sure he knows how much he means to me and how proud I am of him. But its getting to the point where he needs more than that, and I don't know what to do.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? I have tried almost everything that I knew helped me when I was suicidal. The thing that helped me the most knowing that my death would destroy my mom, she helped ground me to reality, I have made sure he knew how devastated I would. I also tried to use his dog who he got to help him through the last time he went through this. But I'm not sure its working. I want to try anything possible to help him.

He has tried suicide before when he was 17. He tried to crash his car in a head on collision with a bridge, luckily he survived with only scratches and bruises, but he totaled his car and had to be cut of the car.

I was also thinking about going somewhere this weekend to just pull him out of his routine, but I am not exactly sure what would be the best thing to do to help.

[adhdattemptingadulting]

Disaster

So it’s the middle of Tax Season and as a Tax Accountant I really need to be on my game right now.

Well I just went to the pharmacy to pick up my meds, and my Doctor forgot to send in my Adderal! I try to call them and no one will answer. I just ran out of them today!

I’m so screwed. It’s going to be really hard to get work done! I mean I work for about 12-14 hours a day at a desk in a job where I have to be able to focus and pay attention to small details.