After heavily relating to an ADHD meme that i saw here, I am now scared that I might have ADHD. I don't have any idea how I'd go about getting a diagnosis as an adult who didn't really have issues in school as a child.
I saw this article posted in this comm, and it seems to have decent advice. Anyone actually follow it here? Especially the adding structure bit?
I usually run away from structuring myself because it's too intimidating and I usually fall off the wagon. Anyone got any tips for being more organized with tasks and bigger projects/long term goals?
I think I mostly figured out the first point of "getting over your inner critic", but I feel like I need help getting through the other parts in the article, and it seems like organization/planning is crucial to that.
The really fucked thing is insurance won’t cover the medication fully because they’re an adult, bc apparently it’s only an issue for kids.
That's the fucking worst, my old insurance wouldn't either no matter how many times my psychiatrist called them or wrote to them (for "prior approval", like fuckin writing the prescription in the first place wasn't the doc deciding it's necessary). Shit makes my blood boil.
Truly. It wasn't lost on me that they put the offices of people responsible for denying claims in the opposite corner of the country from the state that my insurance served
Someone the other day was trying to tell me that a ketogenic diet can reduce ADHD symptoms. I am skeptical.
keto people by and large think it's magic
like the freezing cold shower peopleDepends on the keto people. /r/keto is a fucking cult, but the underlying research is pretty promising. My least favorite thing about being on keto was guilt by association with those fucks; not even getting weird looks from coworkers for ordering a salad or a burger with no bun and -- *gasp* -- broccoli instead of greased taters, or having to argue with my wife and kid because I just wanted to throw together something simple on the grill. (Obligatory :grillman:)
Whatever, it kept me out of type 2 diabetes territory for a while without having to deal with paying for meds mostly out of pocket due to a health insurance plan with an absurd deductible.
Speaking from experience, it does help a little bit. It's not because "mUh MaGiC kEtOnEs" or whatever bullshit the :reddit-logo: /r/keto cultists will chime in with, but it's more due to having a stable, regulated blood glucose level. In order to stay in ketosis, you have to keep your blood sugar below a specific point to essentially trick your body into preferring fat stores over sugars or protein as your primary energy/glycogen source (hence the low carb component of the diet). This means that you don't have the same magnitude of post-meal blood sugar spike and crash that you would on a glycemic diet, so your brain feels a lot more stable overall. For ADHD, that means one less factor to impede your executive function.
It's neither a magic bullet nor a replacement for meds, but my decline has been really fucking bad since going off keto during the pandemic.
I was in a similar boat doing very well in grade school without having to try and thinking everyone felt the way I did up into adulthood even after failing out of college partially from my symptoms. I'd really recommend looking into a consultation with a psychiatrist if you think you do have it; the appointment can feel intimidating, but it's really pretty easy and just going through a questionnaire of the symptoms you're experiencing. I tried managing on my own without meds for years before being diagnosed (or even thinking I had it), and you can get by, but trying to form any lasting habits or stay consistent in your day to day will be difficult. It is a disorder in your brain and trying to form the habits to manage it are much more difficult without first addressing that.
Start small, go slow.
People have told me that the following sounds like a famous piece of shits advice to young men, so bear in mind it’s informed by my own experiences, not some fucked up protestant ethos:
If you don’t make your bed right after getting up (or getting your coffee or whatever), do that. Do it for a week, then a month.
It doesn’t matter if you screw up at making the bed every day, so you done stand as much of a chance of falling into despair over it. Just make it when you notice and get back to doing it at your set time every morning.
Once you have a month of that under your belt, do the dishes after every meal, not just when the sink fills up. It’s no big deal if you fail, just catch it and knock ‘em out.
At best, you’re gonna be working to re-learn processes of thinking and feeling that took twenty years to develop. Your body (incl. brain) is a train and track and terrain that greatly influences how you’ll navigate the world around you. You can’t make some fast change because you don’t have controls in the cabin to turn and even if you did, are you even holding the wheel to make the turn or just jerking it once? Let’s say you held the turn, are there even tracks to the ridge you’re aiming for?
Make small changes and don’t rush em. The goal isn’t to get to the point where you do something normal that you struggle with everyday, but to make it normal for you to do that thing everyday. You’re digging a rut with a paintbrush, it’s gonna take a while.
Hey comrade! Discovering that you have ADHD is nothing to be scared of — if you're like me, it'll ultimately be a good thing to get a deeper understanding of how your brain works, even if the journey can be a bit overwhelming and emotionally complicated.
For me, absolutely no strategies work and work consistently without medication. I could never just add structure and stick with it for more than a week or two without it.
I got diagnosed as an adult too, despite doing well in school as a child. It wasn't too difficult for me (other than a TON of phone tag and appointments. It feels cruel that they put the treatment for "can't solve mazes disorder" at the end of a labyrinth lol). YMMV but here's what the process looked like for me:
- talked to my primary care doctor and got a referral to a psychologist for evaluation
- the psychologist had me fill out a loooong survey about myself, my childhood, my habits, my health, my family history, things like that
- I met with the psychologist, who went over my survey answers and asked me more questions in the same vein — in particular we talked about how I did well in school despite being chaotically disorganized and rarely doing my homework because I've got a good memory and test well and I can focus on things that I like
- The psychologist asked for contact information for my family to interview them. I don't speak with my parents, so they interviewed my sister (remotely and asynchronously since we live in different countries and there's a big time zone gap)
- The psychologist had me do a bunch of tests like memorizing words and copying a diagram and sorting cards and things like that — mostly to rule out things like brain injury or dementia
- The psychologist diagnosed me with ADHD, and threw in an anxiety diagnosis for good measure
- went back to my primary care doctor who referred me to a psychiatrist for treatment
- after a lot of phone calls and waiting I finally got an appointment with my psychiatrist who started me on adderall since I'd taken some in college and reacted well to it
Happy to answer any questions if you've got 'em!
Love and solidarity :stalin-heart:
I came to a similar realization following years and years of executive dysfunction. My doc won't give me the good meds without a formal diagnosis of ADHD but I scored well outside the range of ADHD risk in every test I took, so the executive function problem is something else that they won't medicate for. Right now I've got a different antidepressant that's also a stimulant and it fucks. Might try a different doc to get the good meds.
