#with either anxiety or neurotypical productivity levels

[autisticlenaluthor]

my ADHD is finally medicated im about to be so fucking productive the world isn't ready for it

[garymower]

I have to be vulnerable. And honest and free. I still feel very triggered because I was living in a constant state of healing/productivity/irritation/annoyance and it was just a feeling I always had whenever anyone would interrupt me and my flow and so confused and having so much internal conflict because of it making me so outrageously emotionally disregulated and from the adderall and me not having a community. It’s been harder on myself and I knew. I didn’t want to be around people either because I could only find peace when I was alone and was annoyed by everyone and everything. When I don’t know why I am acting or thinking a certain way my brain tries to find answers, place blame, make sense of it until I find the answers.

I want to do what’s best for me and then our relationship. It is on the surface now and I can communicate where I’m at but it might always during this time have to be constantly workshopped and not taking things personally.

I have been not doing good and not understanding why or able to figure out why. My serotonin levels are already out of Wack so I will be ebbing and flowing while trying to figure out what meds I should take because no matter what, I will always have anxiety, depression, unregulated reactions but will always apologize when needed after the fact and not take things personally or act defensively. My underlying fears will pop up no matter what but I can take a timeout and revisit it. You might be a constant line of feeling good and regulated but I do not feel like that ever. With or without medication, I will always have lack of serotonin, triggered, adhd, trauma, etc and that affects my every day, I am okay with who I am and cant be treated like someone who is neurotypical and has normal brain and body activity.

I feel good in my body until someone is or something triggers it. I feel positive one moment and two seconds later I’m anxious as fuck and looking through and treating everything with that lens until I notice it and use the tools I have to bring me back. It’s trial and error all the time.

I am slowing down to understand, nurture and practice.

[angerissue]

@mynameisanakin​ asked... 16. Does your muse experience obsessions or compulsions? From this headcanon meme. Open to everyone.

I believe this question pertains to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.  Furthermore, I’m going to define "obsessions" as persistent and unwanted thoughts that can become repetitive to the point of causing distress in someone. "Compulsions" are behaviours and/or rituals that someone is driven to act out repeatedly in order to decrease their distress caused by an obsession. Both are often debilitating because the person has little / no control over them, and it can consume time they want to spend elsewhere; in other words, they aren’t just small habits or quirks that someone chooses to do on a whim, or even because they want to.

Knowing this, I wouldn’t consider Bruce to have OCD, because he doesn’t experience obsessions or compulsions on a level that interferes with his daily life in a debilitating way, or makes him excessively stressed. That said, he does have a few muted, wholly automatic worries that may be considered obsessions if they were more pronounced in nature. He also has some nervous habits, but they aren’t debilitating enough to be compulsions.

First off, Bruce has a tendency to check his surroundings and maintain an updated awareness of them, meaning he’ll periodically look up from whatever he’s doing and scan the area, even if it only happens for a moment in a single glance. This becomes even more frequent when he’s in a transformed state — at these times, unless Bruce is actively speaking with someone, his eyes will constantly flit around the room, and he’ll be very attuned to changes in his environment. This tendency gradually lessens over the course of his timeline, for both of his forms, until it's almost nonexistent in verses like The Persistence.

This behaviour is a consequence of hypervigilance and anxiety, which was caused by the abuse in Bruce's childhood, in addition to traumatic occurrences in which he was found by Ross (which often happened in places he initially believed were safe). These days, Bruce is unconsciously tempted to look around every now and again, even if he is alone and the chances of someone actually being there are low, to ensure he won't be caught by surprise. This happens because even if Banner can rationalize that he's alone (and therefore safe), this rationalization is always overshadowed by a low-level fear that is so subtle, he can seldom detect it. This fear comes from his sympathetic nervous system, which has a much more active baseline than that of a neurotypical individual.

(In other words, he is usually in fight-or-flight mode, even if the symptoms are either imperceptible or very mild.)

Secondly, whenever Bruce enters a building, enters his bedroom, or goes to bed, he tends to double- or triple-check whether the doors and windows of applicable rooms are locked. This isn't a guaranteed behaviour, though. If he's distracted by something or otherwise preoccupied with a task, he won't bother checking more than once, if at all, because his mind is too absorbed in that unrelated task; it's not as restless and is less inclined to "search" for something that's wrong. And it usually doesn’t happen if he’s in the Northwind Observatory, too, because he tends to trust those doors more than others.

Evidently, this is a ritualistic behaviour that makes Bruce feel safe and secure in his environment. It's also difficult for Bruce to reason his way out of the behaviour once he's set on doing it. Furthermore, even if he is rationally aware that he locked a door moments earlier, he's often driven to take an additional glance at it, as if he couldn't process the initial locking, or he couldn't trust his own judgement and he needed to reaffirm the event to himself. But fortunately, unlike what often happens with OCD, where an individual is driven to repeat a behaviour multiple times, he doesn't repeat this process of checking more than once or twice. Additionally, he won't return to a location to repeat the behaviour once he's already left it.

(For instance, if Bruce settles into bed and starts wondering if a door is really locked, he can assure himself, with relative ease, that he wouldn't have gotten into bed in the first place if he didn't already confirm it was locked.)

If these behaviours were debilitating enough, to the point where Bruce could actually be diagnosed with OCD, he would likely be considered to have the checking form of it.

Last but not least, while they are not compulsions, Bruce does have a few different nervous habits. These include shrugging his shoulders, clenching his teeth, biting or licking his lips, pacing, and messing around with the cuffs of his shirt. These usually happen when he’s unsettled or agitated, at which times he instinctively channels his sentiments into smaller physical symptoms, rather than vocally expressing them, or expressing them in a more obvious physical manner. This is because he was taught from a young age that drawing attention to himself was dangerous and emotionally harmful, and these habits are a vestige of that. They’re a means of dispelling excess energy as quietly as possible, and with as minimal of a footprint as possible, lest he incurs a punishment of some kind. He doesn’t think about this when he does them; they just happen automatically.

These nervous habits, just like Bruce’s tendency to check his surroundings, are also the product of trauma and anxiety. They are ingrained behavioural patterns that he benefitted from as a child and in his early teens, and because of it, they have stuck around.

Hulk, on the other hand, doesn't show any of the above behaviours. He's much more confident in himself than Bruce is, in addition to more assured of his prowess at both detecting and neutralizing threats. After all, his very purpose is to protect Banner and provide a barrier between him and emotional distress, and in his eyes, he does a good job at it, and he doesn't need to put in as much effort to ensure it. Thus, Hulk doesn't feel compelled to spend much time looking around, inspecting his surroundings, and double-checking locks. Despite this, he still has a highly pronounced level of external awareness and is very sensitive to changes in his environment. He is similar to Bruce in that way; his nervous system, too, is often more activated than that of the average person.

As a footnote, Bruce does become preoccupied with certain things. This includes his scientific work, his impact on other people (whether positive or negative), how other people see him, how he’ll be remembered when he’s gone, and his condition. But as mentioned earlier, these are not obsessions in the truest sense of the word, nor are the behaviours he does to address them (like long stints in the lab and researching his condition) compulsions.

[maximuswolf]

Backstory, just got on meds, super perplexed now via /r/ADHD

Backstory, just got on meds, super perplexed now

Hey there! Just joined this sub. I'm a 35 f, always suspected I had ADHD, but never bothered to look into it because I did well in school and my parents didn't see a lot of problems with my behavior. I spent most of my time in gifted classes, then skirted along until college, where I had to drop out due to funds.

I've always had a strong work ethic, and it's a common solution in my family that any problem can be solved by simply "working harder," if that makes sense. As a result, I typically have just berated my procrastination/lack of productivity as a sign of laziness. I've had a WFH job for years that I love, but it's been hard to keep a consistent schedule when I make my own hours. It's gotten way harder to do so since Covid hit and I moved in with my boyfriend. Zero motivation, even with countless to-do lists, shutting myself off from the rest of the house, and knowing there are bills due. For a while, having a deadline for bills helped, but after a while, even that wasn't enough incentive to sit down and just work. Most days in the last six months, I've felt like the embodiment of a potato. I would stare at mindless things online for hours, or lose track of how long I spent on the couch. Days slipped by.

I finally got diagnosed almost a month ago, and I was started on Adderall. She prescribed me 10 mg in the morning, and said I could follow up with an additional 10 mg in the early afternoon if needed. She also advised me to skip days if I didn't feel like I needed it, or to take half doses if I so chose.

The first few days, I felt like a weight had been lifted. I was no longer "fighting myself," and I suddenly had the energy and drive to match my ambitious goals. I signed up for online courses, put in far more work hours, tackled long overdue chores, and even started learning a new language. I felt focused, on my game, and in my element. I was no longer so fidgety. And I felt so calm! I'd notice that 30 minutes after I took a dose, I would subconsciously let out a long sigh of relief, I was that calm.

I found that I seemed to be highly sensitive to the dosage, and if I took 10 mg at 8 am, I'd still feel focused and driven, well into 4 or 5 pm in the afternoon. Accordingly, I'd either skip the evening dose, take a half dose, or wait a few additional hours before taking a second dose and tackling more tasks. I even slept better, because I no longer had that nagging anxiety of "you should be productive," as I knew I was getting enough done.

To add, on the occasions or days when I'd skip, I didn't feel anything like withdrawal symptoms. There's been mornings I've forgotten to take my dose, and don't feel very different than when I'm on it, so I don't think I'm developing too much of a dependency on it to function. It seems lately, either way, there's just a "meh" feeling about my energy and drive levels.

The last week or two, I don't feel the effects as noticeably. I'm struggling to figure this out. With how careful I've been to not take more than necessary, and often take less than prescribed, I don't think I could have built up a tolerance inside of a month? Then again, the last 3 weeks have been far more stressful in the house (bf is dealing with a vicious custody battle, and we've been putting in greater effort to keep his kids happy/entertained when they're over.) So I wonder if it's just the stress from that affecting me.

This week, after giving all our energy for the kids on visitation days, I still feel sapped days later, and I've actually found myself even dozing off after taking my typical dose. The last couple days, I've been in full-on potato mode, despite meds. Seems I'm back to being distracted by others' needs, and once I'm derailed, it feels impossible to get back on track.

Tonight, boyfriend came home from work, and was surprised that I had taken my evening dose just a short time prior, and was still struggling to sit up on the couch. I was just normal-alert, but still unmotivated. In his younger days, he had taken Adderall a couple times recreationally, so he's still in disbelief how differently it can affect someone with ADHD vs a neurotypical person like himself. ("I'd be painting the walls at 3 am if I was on that stuff.") He admitted that it's hard for him to see a lack of motivation as anything but laziness (given his bias of being normal), but he acknowledged that we have difference experiences, and clearly very different bodily reactions to the same medication. Still stung a bit though, to have a loved one echo the voice in my head that's always saying, "this isn't real, you're just lazy. Get up and work harder!"

I also recently learned that sometimes people with a low thyroid, if untreated, can affect the effectiveness of ADHD meds. I'm considering getting bloodwork done just to be safe. So now I'm just sitting here, devastated that I feel like I've gone back to my former self. And debating if this lack of drive is from a developed tolerance, a low thyroid, stress, or maybe the dose wasn't substantial enough to begin with, and that's why it doesn't seem to be doing much anymore.

​

I just needed to vent. It felt so wonderful to finally feel like I was finally accomplishing things and feeling "just like everyone else," when it came to energy levels and drive. So to be back in potato-mode is just... disheartening. I'm talking to my doctor Thursday for my follow-up, and I'll bring up all these issues with her then, but man... today I'm just not sure what's going on with my body, my brain, and the meds. Can anybody relate to this?

Submitted February 20, 2021 at 01:56AM by PowerSprayer500 via reddit https://ift.tt/3aC8jha

[surrexi]

my advisor/dissertation director is moving this summer (booooo) so i met today with my co-chair to talk about options. overall it was productive there were good takeaways, namely that barring administrative snafus we should be able to keep things mostly the same, because advisor wants to stay involved even though he’s leaving.

but there was this moment that’s left me just generally unsettled and low on spoons.

recently i saw and reblogged a post on here about an adhd symptom called “rejection sensitive dysphoria,” which is the name for the thing where a person with adhd super overreacts to rejection/negative feedback/etc. seeing the post was a really validating moment because wow, yes, i once had a panic attack because my sister frowned at me and i knew it was fucking ridiculous but i couldn’t stop, i couldn’t moderate my reaction. and even if i don’t go into panic mode, i do get angry or feel irrational levels of hurt/disappointment/dejection when i get negative feedback.

anyway, when i was talking to co-chair, i was telling her about how this paper that i submitted to an issue of transformative works and cultures got rejected, but included a note that the reviewer suggested cutting out several thousand words (basically somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 of the paper) and resubmitting for a different section of the same issue. and i was trying to explain how that made me feel, because it made me feel a lot of things, lol. and i tried to explain rejection sensitive dysphoria.

sidebar: for all that we’re supposed to be the crazy progressive liberals ruining things and turning children into snowflakes or whatever, professional academia is actually a really unfriendly culture if you are not neurotypical. like i’m just guessing based on experience here but grad students are probably statistically more likely to have a mental health issue (either situational or ongoing) but we’re implicitly and explicitly told not to talk about it, because we have to seem competent and look like we can handle the fucked up rat race that is trying to get a job in academia.

back to the story. as a person with an assortment of mental health issues (depression, anxiety, adhd...) and as a person who has chosen to make mental health awareness/the destigmatization of mental illness one of my main activist focuses, i try to make a specific effort to be as open as possible about my own issues while also trying to be cognizant of whether or not i’m shooting myself in the foot by doing so. so i’ve been open with the people on my committee, particularly advisor and co-chair, that my brain is sometimes a bag of cats.

which brings me to today, and me trying to explain rejection sensitive dysphoria to co-chair, and her scoffing and complaining about the medicalization of personality traits, and something about adhd being this popular thing, and just... my stomach hurts, and i sort of feel like crying but not? and that intrusive inner monologue is spiralling off into worry over whether or not the whole department thinks i’m just some weak child despite being in my 30s who is just trying to pass my failings off as illnesses...

and like, this lady is not some conservative hack who hates anyone not like her, she’s an excellent feminist scholar who does interesting work about communication and women’s health, and she does work within the university to help promote diversity initiatives and improve campus climate, etc.

so idk, i think i’m just shook that someone like her, who does the kind of work she does, could/would say something so dismissive and ableist, particularly to someone she knows has mental health issues.

i guess i’ll wrap this up with a psa: there’s a difference between being distracted sometimes and having adhd. there’s a difference between being sad about something and having depression. there’s a difference between being worried about something and having anxiety. and if you are neurotypical, it’s probably going to be really hard, if not impossible, for you to accurately imagine those differences. but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. that doesn’t mean people who give those differences names are just trying to medicalize everything. it helps, probably more than you can understand, to give the problem a name. to acknowledge that it exists, that others feel it too. names are powerful. that old idea about naming something letting you control it, that doesn’t just apply to people. don’t take away the power a diagnosis can give a non-neurotypical person just because you don’t understand it.