The lighter side of ADHD
Image not quite for ADHPeeps but I feel this sort of thing happens regularly for us as well.
Mini thins (gas station speed) and Red Bull. At least that’s what I did in the 90s before I was diagnosed. Oh and pulling all nighters since my tired brain worked more like a normal brain.
When I was a kid I read that mint flavorings can help the blood vessels in your head dilate, increasing the amount of blood flow to your brain and therefore helping you do better on studying and tests.
Whenever I have a test to study for or to take, I made it a point to keep some sort of mint flavored candy around, and consistently across the board I have always done better on tests than my peers.
That being said, it is entirely plausible that this is a placebo effect, but I like my placebo and it works for me. Perhaps it will work for you as well.
I always start chewing gum before a licensing exam. Minty gum and not fruit gum. It also helps me concentrate and eat less. When I was skinny skinny I chewed gum like a candy kid and worked retail.
It was incredibly common at my school for teachers to hand out lifesaver mints before standardized tests.
Holy shit! This post gave me an epiphany.
I was a cartoonist for the student newspaper, and drawing a funny comic strip every day was grueling. But I did better when I drank a Coca Cola before I started to brainstorm. Later, guess what - diagnosed ADHD.
Anyway, I probably took 2-3 hours on each comic, and was paid $5 per strip. And spent some of that on soda. So, it was a labor of love and foolishness. Also, I was semi-famous on campus for edgy cartoons that were occasionally funny, most of which I am embarrassed about in middle age.
I became a pothead because it made the cacophony of thoughts in my head stfu. I didn't realize that my thoughts were like that because of ADHD, since I was only diagnosed in my 30's (started smoking weed when I was 19).
I'm in the middle of diagnosis. I do have Bipolar and have been medicated for 4 years or so. My shrink and I suspect that ADHD is there. It seems to be a common comorbidity. I was self-medicating with alcohol, until I got to a very bad place.
Both bipolar and ADHD have a frightening percentage of substance abuse, often as a form of self medication.
I went to the shrink around the time when I got sober. Quitting drinking and meds literally saved my life.
BTW, I got sober thanks to SMART Recovery. SMART is science based and behavior oriented, so even if you don't have an addiction problem (substances and/or behaviors), You can learn a lot of stuff applicable to behavioral problems. Much of the program is based on Cognitive Behavioral therapies, no higher power required. Confidential. Free.
I think I got this from lemmy?
Look, as long as I can convince myself to go to sleep and not hyperfocus on whatever is in front of me I'll be fine. Problem is, it's a 50/50 toss up whether or not I can ignore my brain on any given night.
What if caffeine doesnt work on me?
I got 10 hours of sleep last night, drank a coffee at noon. Still crashed at 130 and had to take an afternoon nap like normal.
I believe it's common for ADHD folks that caffeine doesn't energize you, but it might help you concentrate better. Or it might not. I don't know, really. I drink copious amounts of coffee and energy drinks and still have trouble concentrating.
I dont see how I can concentrate if im passed out in the middle of the day lol.
That's fair
Rockstar and pseudoephedrine Claritin with a fresh made breakfast burrito. Discovered I could focus easily for hours as the stimulants with a full stomach of food kept me from being overstimulated. Ironically cost me a lot more than Ritalin does as I didn’t have the time or money to pursue a diagnosis at that time.
pseudoephedrine
my Adderall script is in USA insurance purgatory and pseudoephedrine is probably the only thing keeping me employed tbh
Pseudoephedrine has been my thing lately when I need that extra focus for work. Out of curiosity, what dosage do you take?
I was about to say same!
Accidentally, though.
The story is roughly like this: I had bad allergies and fucked up sinuses - I thought. Got sinus headaches every day during bad periods. Lots of sinus infections. Went on for like 10-15 years through periods of being intense and focused and stressed with sinus issues and periods of checking out, being aloof and dippy without sinus issues.
In 2019, sinus rinses, pseudoephedrine, nose sprays, and pain killers weren’t doing it. Resigned myself to having to get the sinus roto-rooter, where they scrape out your sinuses to make it easier for all that junk to drain off. So I went to my doctor to get that in motion. Doctor sent me to an immunologist, who sent me to an ENT, who sent me to a neurologist, who looked at my records for 30 seconds, declared that I had migraines, and sent me on my way with a preventative script.
I was so fucking mad. Didn’t think he could possibly be right. But he was. And then Covid hit and by the time things got normal again, I realized I wasn’t able to work like I was before. So I got got tested for ADHD, and… here I am, rambling.
o/
We got you.
I developed this unique tea leaf / tree bark mix over 20 years ago, and I could swear it changed my life. I studied for 14 hours per day sometimes and absorbed all my training within a few years. Then the effect was gone.
Looking at it objectively, maybe the trick was that it had just the right amount of caffeine, but unlike pure black tea, not too much at once and with a lot of water. Possibly also compensating a micro nutrient deficit. Could also be complex indirect effects, e. g.: ADHD related to gut biome, additional problems due to bad bacteria / yeast overrepresented, medicinal plants in the mix fighting that, to a mild degree.
Treating digestion problems with medicinal tea in combination with caffeine and love for black tea started the whole idea, IIRC, so it's not entirely impossible.
Alcohol. Before getting formally diagnosed and medicated, drinking was the only thing that would quiet the inner restlessness. It worked but it's not a healthy lifestyle at all.
This is something I like to bring up to people who are hesitant to medicate their kids. Yeah, I know you think Timmy is fine because he's not completely failing in school, but you should at least show Timmy that he has options and that it's OK to talk to a doctor and take medication if he needs it. He doesn't have to rely on Jack Daniels and Folgers to eek his way through life.
This one surprised me, too.
I had a nasty habit of waiting until the evening to do my papers in college, because that was when it was acceptable to have some wine or whiskey while I wrote. But it was amazing just how much easier it was to stay on task after having a drink, and during finals - or after college when i was on deadline - i would alternate between liters of coffee in the morning and several drinks in the evening.
Now that I'm medicated both coffee and alcohol are just occasional indulgences... well, alcohol is at least. But I didn't expect it to help curb my impulsive consumption habits like it has- it's been a game-changer.
I've been cutting back on caffeine finally because I thought it was my medicine giving me anxiety, and I'm pretty sure it's the caffeine. Now I'm usually at about two cups of coffee in the morning (the mug I have is American large, and I always seem to fill it up).
Reminds me of when people find out I do cocaine and Adderall.
"Oh Michael likes to get high"
No, Michael doesn't have health insurance and has very severe adhd. I can't live a normal life without stimulants and drug dealers are cheaper than doctors. welcome to America.
Why the combination? I have no idea about either.
Cocaine bad for mental health. Even with ADHD cocaine is so cut and stepped on its not reliable enough to get anything done.
Apparently videogames are a "medication" for my adhd because since i started adderol they don't "pull me in" like they used to.
I miss it a little bit, it's also kinda weird but its also nice to not be compelled to play like before
Videogames weren't a medication, they were just something you were drawn to.
Oh i absolutely use(d) games to calm my anxiety, "straighten out" my chaotic thoughts and silence the intrusive ideation.
Your brain is dopamine deprived, video games are designed to get our dumb monkey brains to squeeze out all the happy juice. Adderall floods your brain with dopamine so the video games just don't hit like they used to.
suprised nobody said smoking weed, i smoke like 10 times a day minimum
Weed can be very helpful for focus. Not necessarily very helpful for clear thinking, but it can be very good for getting started on something so that you can come back to it later when you're sober.
It’s also fantastic if you have trouble breaking out of a negative thought cycle. On stressful nights, weed is the only thing that gets my brain to finally STFU and sleep.
That sounds a bit concerning, ngl >_<
It's used as a treatment in some places. I believe it's a qualifier for UK medical cannabis.
People that "smoke 10x a day" usually take half a day to go through a single joint. Still a lot of weed but not at the level you're thinking.