marvinhasadhd

[marvinhasadhd]

Okay, so I got my prescription about two weeks ago and since then I have already tried Ritalin a few times.

I started with half a pill (so 5mg) and didn’t feel anything. My doctor advised me to do my next attempt on the next day, but I am chronically bad at listening to medical professionals, so I tried a whole pill (or 10mg) on the afternoon of the same day I tried the first one.

I decided to take it, because our work had been cancelled (I currently work as a security at events which are hosted by our city) and so someone had to wait until the security who worked the night shift arrived. I really need the money, so I volunteered to sit around for a few hours and I decided to take the full pill and try reading for a bit, as thats something where I often struggle with being inattentive and getting distracted by just about everything.

And it kinda helped. I just sat down and read for over an hour without looking at my phone or getting distracted in any other way. I used to read a lot as a child, but since the age of 12-13 I slowly stopped reading as much because I could rarely ever focus on the book for longer times, so reading became a bit frustrating, as I now took days, weeks or sometimes even months to finish books which would have taken me hours when I was younger (one of my biggest achievements as a child was that I finished the whole HarryPotter-Series in just one weekend).

So yeah, that was a nice experience. I tried it again two days later, as I wanted to try studying for university, but this time I tried 1,5 pills (so 15mg) and I didn’t feel much difference to the 10mg. I still couldn’t quite focus on the stuff I had to learn and I kept getting distracted by things around me, especially by the clutter on my desk. I really felt the need to do something about that and so I cleaned my desk. And once my desk was finally free of everything that didn‘t belong there, I cleaned the floor, the kitchen, the bathroom, I did my laundry and I collected all the cat toys and also cleaned all the places my cats like to hang out in of their hair. Once that was done, I tried to learn again and I noticed that I could focus a bit better, but most importantly I noticed that I just managed to keep my focus on doing a cleaning of the whole flat without making any breaks to watch youtube or check twitter or anything. I didn’t even think about my phone, while I did all that. That was kinda crazy, as just about everyone who knows me would describe me as a perfect example of a smartphone-addicted person.

The next day, I tried to learn again and I took two whole pills (aka 20mg or the maximum dosis my doctor allowed me to do before I visit her again) and I noticed that while I could actually focus better, I would also focus very strongly on anything that distracted me. I found one of my cats toys (a self-made mouse) had been ripped and while I was already trying to focus on learning, I just had to get my sewing kit and repair the mouse before I could even think about anything else. So my focus became much better, but also I would focus very strongly on any possible distraction.

The next day my girlfriend arrived and so I didn‘t take Ritalin for a few days, as I know that she isnt too big of a fan of it (that one Netflix-documentary apparently made Ritalin seem like its pure crystal meth) and also I think I shouldn’t need stimulants to be able to focus on my girlfriend. I love her and I always try to give her my fullest attention, so I let the pills in my medicine-cabinet.

Once she was gone again (she has a summer-job in another state, so we only see each other for a few days each week), I tried studying again and so I took two pills in the morning, cleaned my whole learning environment before the effects kicked in and then I actually was able to focus nicely on cell-biology. And ya know, what can I say about that except „The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell“?

Later that day, when the effects already had worn off, I noticed that I also experienced the so-called rebound effect (=symptoms being a bit stronger than usual once the effects of the medication wore off), but as I wanted to continue studying, I decided to take two more pills. So I went to the bathroom, took one, noticed that I had to clean the cat-toilet, cleaned it, forgot that I had already taken one and took two. So I was at 3 whole pills or 30mg of Methylphenidate, which was 1,5 times the maximum dose my doctor told me to take. And then I remembered that I had made plans with a friend to come over and catch up, as we hadn’t seen each other since the whole pandemic started.

So yeah, once he arrived two hours after my accidental intake of 3 pills, I was really focused on what he said and I must say, I felt a mental clarity I usually never felt in normal situations. I also felt a bit more energetic than usual and I experienced the suppressed appetite (which apparently is a rather common side-effect) much stronger than I did with lower doses. Besides that my head felt very warm and I noticed that my pulse was much stronger, so I put on my old smart-watch, just so I could regularly check my pulse (it was constantly over 90, when my usual average it between 60 and 70). Also I told him about my medication and the dosage I had taken, so if I experienced anything bad (the high pulse made me a bit anxious about that) he could inform a doctor. But yeah, nothing bad happened and for two hours we just talked about a lot of things and I just really listened to what he said, which was nice, as I‘m someone who often gets lost in thought while people talk to me, and being able to focus on what he said without getting distracted made me feel like I managed to be a better friend than I‘m usually am.

But nothing lasts forever and so once the effects wore off (took about 4,5 hours) I really couldn’t focus on stuff and I really felt the effects come back much stronger than they usually are. Luckily he is a pretty understanding dude, so he suggested that we just cook until I felt a bit better, which was quite nice, as my appetite also came back and I remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything that day. So we cooked and just played with the cats until I felt a bit better. I noticed that playing with the cats made me quite a bit calmer - maybe it’s the dopamine-boost my tiny fluffy boys give me, or maybe I just overinterpret something. Idk.

(Short break. I know, this post is already pretty long and as it’s about ADHD, I assume that some people reading this also have it. If you managed to read this that far, I‘m really amazed and I really thank you for your attention. Also I made this another text-style, so if you want to take a short break, you could find this spot easier. If you have any tips on how to write so that it’s more suitable for ADHDers to read, please feel free to send me a message, as I would really like it, if I could improve my writing so that my posts are easier to read for other people. Also I promise that this post will be finished soon.)

Okay, so lets continue: once the friend was gone, I washed the dishes, cuddled the cats and went to sleep. Or at least I tried to do so. I just couldn’t fall asleep. It was really impossible for me to close my eyes without having my brain full of thoughts that would keep me awake. I tried to put in calming music, as that helped me to fall asleep back when I was in school, but that didn’t work. I tried to make myself a nice sleeping-environment by putting on nice sounds to pretend that I‘m on the Hogwarts express (I used ambient-mixer for that) and lit small fairy lights, but that also didn’t help. I tried to do a brain-dump and wrote down all the thoughts that kept me awake, but that also didn’t help much. I tried to read all these thoughts out to my cats and talk about all the feelings I had that were linked to the thoughts, but that also didn’t help. (Also the cats kinda decided to run around and play catch after I talked to them for a few minutes. I think they have about the same attention span as I do). At about 5:30 in the morning my girlfriend texted me because she just got up to go to work and I was still awake to answer her. So yeah, at about 6 in the morning I fell into a very light sleep and I can tell you, working a 7 hour shift after that wasn’t fun. So a nice advice of mine: don’t do a higher dose than your doctor allowed you at 6 in the afternoon. Or generally. Listen to your doctors, chances are they know what they are talking about.

And here’s finally the last experience I wanna write about: Today I woke up at 8 and decided that I will use my day productively to learn. So ensured that my desk and everything around it was nice and clean and then I took two pills. And guess what. Now it’s half past 10 and I spent the last 1,5 hours focusing really intensely on writing a tumblr-post about my experiences with Ritalin because I remembered that I wanted to write such a post and I couldn’t focus on anything else while I had this thought. So yeah. Overall I really like the effects it has on me, as I didn’t experience any bad side-effects by now and it really helps me focus, but now I also know that maybe I should make a check-list of things I want to have done before I take it, as these things could be mayor distractions down the line.

I hope these reports could be interesting or helpful to someone out there, but always remember: the experiences of different people can vary vastly, so always remember that such meds can have very different effects on you or people you know. Always consult a doctor or pharmacist if you have medical questions and always remember that taking meds or not doing so is both completely valid, as long as it fits for you.

If you made it this far, I really wanna thank you for taking the time and focus to read this and I hope you found it to be at least somewhat interesting. Feel free to text me if you want to talk about your own experiences, ask questions, give criticism on the way I write or just ask for pictures of my cats. I hope you have a really nice day and yeah. I‘ll post again once something post-worthy happens or a topic which I think to be deserving of a post comes to my mind.

[marvinhasadhd]

Yesterday I got a prescription for Ritalin.

I visited a doctor, who seemed to be a very nice and qualified person, when its about treating ADHD and yeah. Within an hour of going into her office and just talking, she asked if I would be comfortable with trying medication and I said yes. So she continued to tell me about possible positive and negative effects of Ritalin and asked, if I would want to try that and again I said that I would try it, if it can help me.

So I got a prescription for Ritalin, a list of some sources I could give people close to me if they want to know more about ADHD and the advice to also seek out therapy/coaching, to help me learn how to learn (does that make sense?) and just generally to talk about issues with ADHD I might have.

So yeah. Now I have a 30-pack of 10mg Ritalin in my medicine cabinet. By now I have not taken one (or a half one, as she recommended for a start) and I dont know when I will try it, but maybe on saturday or sunday in the morning, as I could try to learn while on it (she recommended that, so I can see the difference to learning unmedicated) and the effects should be gone before I get to my job in the afternoon.

I will make sure to write an update once I try it, but for now I thank you for reading this and wish you a really nice day.

[marvinhasadhd]

Hi

This is my first post on this account and I just wanna quickly introduce myself (altough probably nobody will see this).

I‘m 20 and I used to be a gifted kid. Could talk, read and write before all my friends and classmates could and the thing just about every adult said to me when I was a child, was that I was very smart for a kid my age and that I would be going places someday.

Well, later when I graduated from elementary school, I went on to the next school form and for 4 years, I was one of the best in my class altough I spent most of my time in class reading books instead of being attentive. Had some light struggles in some subjects (like english or later maths), but generally I still lived up to the expectation people had of me.

And suddenly I came to a point, where school started to be more about actually learning and being attentive and my grades suddenly didn’t reflect my self-image of being a smart kid. I got 4s and 5s regularly (where I‘m from 1 is best and 5 is worst) and I noticed that I actually had to learn. But I could’nt. I tried to learn, record things and listen to them, write it down in my own words, etc, but within a few months of seriously trying to learn, I noticed that I just couldn’t learn. I constantly lost track of what I was doing, found myself procrastinating all the time and I just couldn’t get myself to learn.

So, within a pretty short time, I turned from one of the best kids in my class to the kid, who constantly said that he only learns for anything over a 5, as thats enough. And the thing is, I quickly came to believe that myself. Only in retrospect I realised that actually I just wanted to tell myself why I wasn’t getting good grades anymore and why I couldn’t live up to the standard, I set for myself when I was younger.

So the years passed, I graduated from school and started to attend university.

I tough, that now that I actually study something I‘m really interested in, I will manage to be more attentive, to learn and to move quickly through my courses. Well, took me one year and 3 tries to pass my first test (with a 4) and during that time I lost contact to most of the friends I made on campus, as they already were miles ahead of me.

I thought, maybe it had to do with my work-morale and so I started another year where I really tried to be productive. Didn’t quite work out for me. The year is almost over and I had no progress whatsoever (partly due to the whole pandemic).

Well, I had some form of progress. In March, I visited my doctor and told him about my problems, my inability to focus, to stay concentrated, etc and he sent me to one of his colleagues. I had quite a long talk with her, did tests, filled out dozens of pages of questionnaires and a week later, I got a diagnosis.

The diagnosis said „ICD10 F90.0“ which in english is described as ADHD, predominantly inattentive type. Well, I‘m not from an English speaking country and translated from German, the diagnosis roughly said „Mild attention and concentration problem“. I felt not taken serious by this. I‘m struggling for nearly two years of university, I already lost all students payments from the state because I didn‘t progress quick enough and now I get told that thats a mild problem?

Well, three months later I thought about that diagnosis again and decided to google it. Should have done that earlier, because within seconds I saw that it meant ADHD. I started laughing and teared up a little. I was relieved, as suddenly I knew what was going on. I had an answer.

When my girlfriend came up an hour later, I told her with a bright smile that my diagnosis was ADHD. She was kinda confused, why I was happy about that, but after some explaining she understood that I was happy about understanding whats going on, not about having a disorder.

Well, that was a month ago. During that month, I did lots of research, read blog posts, articles and just about everything I could find on the topic and started to look for a good doctor in my area. Found one and next week I‘ll have my first appointment.

I know that many people don’t like meds, but I kinda hope that I will get a prescription, because I feel like I wasted two years of my life. I began university when I was 18, now I‘m 20 and I‘m still trying to learn for tests from the first semester. I hope that getting a prescription will help me to be on the same level of concentration as neurotypical students, so I can actually advance in my studies and hopefully get my bachelors degree as soon as possible. (And hopefully my masters after that. And maybe a phd after that. I dream of staying in research and working in conservationist breeding, so being able to get my phd one day is one of my big dreams and goals in life.)

Well, yeah.

Thats my (not so) short introduction and a quick summary of my story until now.

If there’s any weird formulations, please forgive me, english isnt my first language.

If you read this this far, thank you very much. I hope you have a great day