4 ms·
I'm pretty much the same as you, only that during lectures I don't draw anything, I just space out after a while and it's hard for me to sustain focus for long
by mikevm 13y ago
I'm pretty much the same as you, only that during lectures I don't draw anything, I just space out after a while and it's hard for me to sustain focus for long periods of time. Lectures are largely a waste of time for me.
I ended up going to a special ADHD clinic and I got diagnosed. Unfortunately, a week and a half after beginning the titration process of Concerta I started getting side-effects (palpitations). Apparently, I also have anxiety, so the doc told me that I could either start again with a slower titration process, or take antidepressants along with the ADHD meds. I decided to drop it and not take any of the meds because the side effects of the antidepressants scared me (not to mention the negative vibe you get from people when they hear that you're on psychiatric meds).
College is really hard for me. I do very well in some classes (mostly in the applied CS courses), and just average to poor in others. The reason is mainly because even though I love programming, many of the Computer Science courses are theoretical and boring to me, so after about a month into the semester I start spiraling down and barely doing the homework assignments, or seriously going over lecture notes to try to gain a deeper understanding of the material.
During the finals, I end up wasting days on doing nothing productive (like right now -- I have a final next week and I'm sitting here doing nothing) until I conjure up enough willpower to actually open the books and start studying (usually the fear of failure takes over and then I force myself to study... with lots of anxiety). And even then, I still find it hard to fully concentrate on the material.
I find myself trying to read a textbook, and I feel like my mind and body are pulling me away, so I end up just getting up from the chair, and walking back and forth around the house while my mind just entertains some random thoughts.
I realize that I've been like this my whole life (my High School years are very similar). When I find something that really interests me, I will do it from the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to sleep. For example, I've done programming projects that forced me to learn new technologies where I had to read over 1,200 pages of documentation, and I would just do it obsessively until I'm done with the project. After the project is done though, and it's time to just maintain it (fix bugs, for example), I usually get very bored with it and dump it.
I guess because College assignments aren't interesting to me (for some reason, the grade on the final exam isn't enough of a motivator for me to study) I have a hard time applying myself to them the way I apply myself to things I'm really passionate about.
- benjamincburns 13y agoI wonder if ADHD clinics are a bit like a hammer in search of a nail. Unsolicited suggestion: go to a neurologist. Failing that, go to a psychiatrist. When I took Concerta I had similar problems. The irritability was awful. My nerves just felt raw. Methylphenidate (aka Ritalin) anecdotally amongst the people I know who've taken it seems to be the most likely to cause heart problems - with one friend having been hospitalized. If you feel like you aren't making it, there are other options.
- mikevm 13y agoMany neurologists don't have a deep understanding of ADHD, so if I were to go to one, I'd need to find one that specializes in this field. My ADHD doctor was a psychiatrist, by the way. I agree with you about the Concerta. I have a short fuse, but Concerta made it much worse. Unfortunately, I don't live in the US, and the only gov't subsidized ADHD medication is 'Ritalin'. That's right 'Ritalin'. Not even the active ingredient 'methylphenidate' (which is why Concerta is much more expensive than Ritalin around here). I know some people report that methylphenidate based drugs doesn't work for them, and yet the amphetamine-based do (Adderall, Vyvanse, etc...), but if I get a prescription for either, they're going to be very expensive, and the import process for these kind of drugs is a bureaucratic nightmare. I guess I'll just have to suck it up. Next year is my senior year, so the end is very near!
- benjamincburns 13y agoThis is a total tangent, but some of us in the USA look to countries with socialized/subsidized medicine programs as ideal. What country are you from?
- mikevm 13y agoI'm from Israel.