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That's me. And still in the same loop after several ADHD medications; this makes me think that it's not something that can be solved by a pill. I hope I can so

That's me. And still in the same loop after several ADHD medications; this makes me think that it's not something that can be solved by a pill. I hope I can solve this someday. My coping mechanism is to never commit to anything (outside work obligations).

romwell 5y ago
That's me too; and I've also been diagnosed with ADHD last year. Medication[2] does help me quite a bit, but it's not a silver bullet. Have you tried Body Doubling[1]? It works wonders for me. The idea is working alongside others, when everyone is doing their own thing. There are online Zoom and Discord groups that facilitate it (look up Discord Study sessions; and also more at [1]). [1] https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Body%20Double https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Body%20Double [2] https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Medication https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Medication
Mezzie 5y ago
Have you considered anxiety as a cause? It can cause similar issues but giving it ADHD meds is a BAD TIME.
tgaj 5y ago
That's true. It's important to remember that you need also to "rewire" your brain It's often accustomed to many years of your life without meds. And many of this years were probably hard, full of anxiety and depression. It will take time to change how you think and you subconscious.
MiddleMan5 5y ago
I feel like the medications can make my "doom loops" even harder to avoid. The stimulants make it easier to hyper focus on one task, and feel even less guilt for ignoring the rest of the world. Executive Dysfunction is killing me
nelsonic 5y ago
What system do you use for task tracking/prioritisation?
TechBro8615 5y ago
The pills help but motivation is not some emergent property of normality. You first need to care about, and genuinely want to do, the task required to accomplish your goals. I’m a fan of this quote from Steve Jobs – (paraphrasing) “every day you wake up and look in the mirror, do you like what you’re doing that day? If not, it’s time to do something else.” The other quote I like is Jeff Bezos and his “picturing myself on a rocking chair when I’m 80, do I regret not doing this?” If you can solve these problems then the pills become just a tool to help you execute on the solutions. Source: Diagnosed with ADHD (because I asked for it - duh, this is the only way), never had a real job but fairly happy with my direction so far. YMMV of course. Be happy with yourself first and foremost and everything else will follow.
- katmannthree 5y ago
  In your experience does the medication get more effective if you can find ways to work with it? I've been trying to make it work for a while now and it seems like it either does nothing or makes me lock on to some random tangential (usually useless) task I'm near when it kicks in. Really not getting a quieting like with caffeine, which has been disappointing.
  - xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
    Have a plan before the start of each day, drink lots of water, exercise, eat, get plenty of rest. Maybe take a day or two off meds over the weekend, if it's burning you out. It's tough to get into a groove and don't last long enough but if your force yourself to do these things you can find a rhythm for a time and that's the best I've found.
  - gregoryl 5y ago
    Its a tool. You need to be self aware enough to take the meds, and then consciously engage with tasks that you want to get done - this wont be a skill you have developed, as its likely never been possible/effective previously. You can, when medicated, actually consider what you need to get done, and then decide to act on those tasks. You can also set timers/alarms to timebox tasks, and reign in hyper focus - it should be relatively easy to change tasks with the alarm interruption (vs. unmediated, where I find it practically impossible to move to any new task).
WHA8m 5y ago
> this makes me think that it's not something that can be solved by a pill. 2 years after my diagnosis (and medication since then), I'm still stuck. I've never had anyone professional to show me how to deal with this other than "here're the pills". I'm currently looking for a therapist.
throwawayboise 5y ago
This describes me to a "T" lately. Though I don't see doctors, so I don't take pills.
dathinab 5y ago
> be solved by a pill Most likely, especially that if it's exactly like described in the article it's more like a anxiety and/or long-term-miss-conditioning problem then one caused by a short attention span.
- jack_pp 5y ago
  I've only tried xanax once but if anyone thinks that will solve this.. it probably won't, because once on xanax you lose the anxiety but also you won't care about the thing that's causing anxiety, in my case I didn't care about anything, said "stupid" (things I wouldn't normally say so casually that hurt them) shit to people I knew because I didn't care about the consequences. This likely stems from me usually just doing stuff that feels or doesn't feel right instead of actually thinking about things rationally so if you think you're a rational person this might not apply to you. All I'm saying is be careful.
  - analyte123 5y ago
    I had a very similar experience with Selank, minus the saying dumb things. Intended to "chill out" a bit about some tasks to get them done, suddenly did not give a single whit about the tasks or anything else surrounding them. Not a productivity tool!
  - dathinab 5y ago
    I wanted to include that point: > xanax you lose the anxiety but also you won't care about the thing that's causing anxiety but I didn't as I was missing the expertise/experience with that. Just from my understanding anxiety is (often?, sometimes?(1)) a unhealthy over reaction of the same "thing"/"system" which makes you care about thing. I heard about it before that for some people with anxiety disorder and depression, the time they where least anxious was the time they where most depressed, because they simply didn't care about anything anymore. (1): Anxiety and especially depression are not a very clear cut defined (i.e. not like a broken bone) and can have noticeable different effects on different people, I do not have the expertise to guess in which range this effects can lie for it to still count as depression and/or anxiety.

romwell 5y ago

That's me too; and I've also been diagnosed with ADHD last year. Medication[2] does help me quite a bit, but it's not a silver bullet. Have you tried Body Doubling[1]? It works wonders for me. The idea is working alongside others, when everyone is doing their own thing. There are online Zoom and Discord groups that facilitate it (look up Discord Study sessions; and also more at [1]). [1] https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Body%20Double https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Body%20Double [2] https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Medication https://romankogan.net/adhd/#Medication

Mezzie 5y ago

Have you considered anxiety as a cause? It can cause similar issues but giving it ADHD meds is a BAD TIME.

tgaj 5y ago

That's true. It's important to remember that you need also to "rewire" your brain It's often accustomed to many years of your life without meds. And many of this years were probably hard, full of anxiety and depression. It will take time to change how you think and you subconscious.

MiddleMan5 5y ago

I feel like the medications can make my "doom loops" even harder to avoid. The stimulants make it easier to hyper focus on one task, and feel even less guilt for ignoring the rest of the world. Executive Dysfunction is killing me

nelsonic 5y ago

What system do you use for task tracking/prioritisation?

TechBro8615 5y ago

The pills help but motivation is not some emergent property of normality. You first need to care about, and genuinely want to do, the task required to accomplish your goals. I’m a fan of this quote from Steve Jobs – (paraphrasing) “every day you wake up and look in the mirror, do you like what you’re doing that day? If not, it’s time to do something else.” The other quote I like is Jeff Bezos and his “picturing myself on a rocking chair when I’m 80, do I regret not doing this?” If you can solve these problems then the pills become just a tool to help you execute on the solutions. Source: Diagnosed with ADHD (because I asked for it - duh, this is the only way), never had a real job but fairly happy with my direction so far. YMMV of course. Be happy with yourself first and foremost and everything else will follow.

katmannthree 5y ago
In your experience does the medication get more effective if you can find ways to work with it? I've been trying to make it work for a while now and it seems like it either does nothing or makes me lock on to some random tangential (usually useless) task I'm near when it kicks in. Really not getting a quieting like with caffeine, which has been disappointing.
- xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
  Have a plan before the start of each day, drink lots of water, exercise, eat, get plenty of rest. Maybe take a day or two off meds over the weekend, if it's burning you out. It's tough to get into a groove and don't last long enough but if your force yourself to do these things you can find a rhythm for a time and that's the best I've found.
- gregoryl 5y ago
  Its a tool. You need to be self aware enough to take the meds, and then consciously engage with tasks that you want to get done - this wont be a skill you have developed, as its likely never been possible/effective previously. You can, when medicated, actually consider what you need to get done, and then decide to act on those tasks. You can also set timers/alarms to timebox tasks, and reign in hyper focus - it should be relatively easy to change tasks with the alarm interruption (vs. unmediated, where I find it practically impossible to move to any new task).

WHA8m 5y ago

> this makes me think that it's not something that can be solved by a pill. 2 years after my diagnosis (and medication since then), I'm still stuck. I've never had anyone professional to show me how to deal with this other than "here're the pills". I'm currently looking for a therapist.

throwawayboise 5y ago

This describes me to a "T" lately. Though I don't see doctors, so I don't take pills.

dathinab 5y ago

> be solved by a pill Most likely, especially that if it's exactly like described in the article it's more like a anxiety and/or long-term-miss-conditioning problem then one caused by a short attention span.

jack_pp 5y ago
I've only tried xanax once but if anyone thinks that will solve this.. it probably won't, because once on xanax you lose the anxiety but also you won't care about the thing that's causing anxiety, in my case I didn't care about anything, said "stupid" (things I wouldn't normally say so casually that hurt them) shit to people I knew because I didn't care about the consequences. This likely stems from me usually just doing stuff that feels or doesn't feel right instead of actually thinking about things rationally so if you think you're a rational person this might not apply to you. All I'm saying is be careful.
- analyte123 5y ago
  I had a very similar experience with Selank, minus the saying dumb things. Intended to "chill out" a bit about some tasks to get them done, suddenly did not give a single whit about the tasks or anything else surrounding them. Not a productivity tool!
- dathinab 5y ago
  I wanted to include that point: > xanax you lose the anxiety but also you won't care about the thing that's causing anxiety but I didn't as I was missing the expertise/experience with that. Just from my understanding anxiety is (often?, sometimes?(1)) a unhealthy over reaction of the same "thing"/"system" which makes you care about thing. I heard about it before that for some people with anxiety disorder and depression, the time they where least anxious was the time they where most depressed, because they simply didn't care about anything anymore. (1): Anxiety and especially depression are not a very clear cut defined (i.e. not like a broken bone) and can have noticeable different effects on different people, I do not have the expertise to guess in which range this effects can lie for it to still count as depression and/or anxiety.