Adderall & Me, 3 Weeks Later

Three weeks ago I started on a prescription for Adderall, in the hopes of getting a grip on my ADD.

For background, I was diagnosed with it as a child, and did a couple of years of treatment with an occupational therapist in lieu of attempting treatment with Ritalin. At the time, this worked out pretty well for me. I learned to cope with what was going on in my head, at least well enough to take me through elementary school, and I started building some cognitive responses to the stuff I had a hard time dealing with instinctively. It’s the stuff that, in retrospect, makes me wonder about the genetic component to my own son’s challenges with ADHD, anxiety, and Autism Spectrum Disorder. But, anyway, as time went on, I figured out how to cope, mostly, and did well enough with school and such that it never seemed like I needed more help.

Since leaving home, however, I’ve noticed a complexly progressive decline in my ability to cope. University was… more of a struggle than I thought it would be, and I thought it was just the increased difficulty level. But since then I’ve started to wonder if it wasn’t just me hitting the end of my ability to cope, unaided. My current workplace situation brought that home to me in a pretty big way the last couple of years. For the first time in quite a while, I’m being expected to juggle multiple priorities in an environment where I can’t expect to be left alone to work on stuff for as long as I need to. It’s a mix of immediate, short, and long term stuff, with a dash of perpetual maintenance cycles.

So yeah (as I come back from dealing with some interruptions), eventually it got to be too much and I decided to try a medical solution. Just willing my way out of it wasn’t quite doing the trick, and that was a little tough to swallow. I’ve always taken some pride in having been able to get by without medication, but it also occurred to me that the pride was also getting in my way, not letting me see what I really needed to do.

Thus far it has worked out really well. My doctor warned me that it would wear off or drop out toward the end of the workday, but so far I haven’t noticed that effect at all. The other side effects typical of stimulants–racing heart, shortness of breath, etc.–haven’t been an issue. I think I have more of an issue getting anxious about the side effects, and thus simulating some of them, than the actual symptoms themselves. But I was also thinking this morning that it might be a good idea to cut back or knock out the caffeine, so I’m only dealing with one stimulant at a time. We’ll see how well that actually works.

I go back to my doctor in January to talk about it, but so far, so good.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.