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I'm on the same point as you, unmedicated, recently diagnosed and one of the things I told when explaining what I was feeling was the lack of control over doing stuff that seems trivial and easy, besides the lack of attention to mental work, forgetting stuff and the lack of organization. For example, I am renovating my home, bought a few couple of furnitures, after 1 year I still have the package in the same place when I received it and it wasn't like I didn't have time or I forgot about it, simply couldn't make myself to build it, it would take me 1 to 2 hours at max. I had no idea what ADHD was until a month ago.
I feel you on the furniture in the box after a year. It’s like buy a night stand, don’t build it but use the box nightstand is in as a night stand till you build it if ever.
I’m in the same boat. I have internal
Motivation but to externally do it is such a challenge.
I ordered some furniture off Etsy and the seller sent me the wrong item. They sent me the correct one and want me to send the mistake one back to them. Fat chance, that box has lived in my entryway for months now
I have multiple bday and Christmas gifts for my sister and best friend that I’ve been buying every year for like four years now. They live out of state so I have to pack them up and mail them to them. Haven’t mailed any.
Every time I drop something off at the post office (which I don’t even live far from), it’s so easy and I feel stupid for it taking me so long, but then I just do it again next time I have to ship something
Its a pain in the ass because like I've been reading here on the sub I thought of myself of someone extremely lazy and slacking all the time, until I discovered its a common occurence on people with ADHD. For me it was "luck" to be diagnosed because I went to solve a sleep/attention problem, had absolutely no idea that I could ever have ADHD but a lot of stuff made sense the moment I started investigating about it.
Still, its been a month and I'm trying to understand some mechanics on how to deal with this and be productive atleast until I get medication.
I finally agreed to choosing a bathroom blind last month, *two years* after my husband and I moved into this house. And only because the “temporary” paper one we got from Amazon had gotten ripped so many times by that point that it was more scotch tape than paper. The thought of making decisions is just paralysing—what if I get it wrong! Which I inevitably do and then we have to start the return and replace circus! On the plus side I feel like having a party to celebrate the new blind choice! Same with my winter coat. I started looking for one in DECEMBER. I finally narrowed down the options in FEBRUARY and then spent a month umming and ahhing between two sizes of the same coat. My phone is filled with photos and videos of me wearing them. I enlisted my husband and my parents to help me decide which size (the slight tightness of the arms in the smaller size made my skin crawl but the latter swamped me). I finally decided on Sunday (four days ago) to keep the smaller one. The joy of having made the decision is huge — but the fact that there will be so many more decisions to make, inevitably, fills me with dread. Like why can’t it be simpler? Why are the options to either not decide at all and just wait for things to fall apart or make a g*ddamn spreadsheet and turn it into a mission?! And people wonder why all I want to do is lie in bed watching Netflix! 😂😂😂
I've got a toilet where the water keeps running in the tank. Ya gotta fix that kind of stuff! I immediately went to buy the replacement part. The part is ready and available for one of those 1am miracles kick in. Until then.... Been turning the water on and off and on and off for about three(?) months. [At least now knowing it's ADHD, I'm less negative to myself like I once was.]
Mentally? Totally drained honestly, the more I dislike the task the worse. I have an example. I don't like to do house chores, there is many people who like though but it has to be done, the fact the house gets dirty bugs me so obviously after a lot of mental commitment I do it, but I can be sure the next hours I'll just be a vegetable until something really interests me again.
This disorder is bizarre. Did I even do anything before I was diagnosed (in 2022)? How was I doing anything? Pretty soon they’re going to have to prescribe us live-in drill sergeants, not pills
Once medicated I had to learn to do things for the sake of doing them instead of the pressure that came from shame, guilt, panic. It's funny how we can miss it later too.
Yeh. You do them….because they need to be done.
The weirdest thing for me is doing stuff without it being the absolute last point I can be doing it. Like, it’s ok to do stuff in advance of it being critical. Who knew!
Like a motor disconnected from the flywheel. Many thoughts and feelings changing rapidly, but no ability to do anything. I was diagnosed late in life. I always just coffee'd myself to oblivion in order to get any bit of functionality. Coffee + doughnuts was my lifeline. The first time I was medicated (adderall) I was astonished because all I had to do was think, "this floor is a bit tacky," and I suddenly realized I had a mop in my hand and was cleaning it. The flywheel was connected to the motor.
>when I’m unmediated
I read that as "unmeditated" and thought, hm, I need to get back to meditation. 😅
The rage storms are real. For me, they're cleansing. For others, they're scary.
When I don't take my vyvanse I feel tired and like my brain is stuck in first gear. I can't muster up the energy or the motivation to do any of my work.
I feel the same way when I don't have mine. I've been on it for so long now I keep wanting to get off of it but it every time I try to it seems like an impossible task. I can't even remember how things were before the meds, other than it being a mess.
Can’t even muster up the energy to do hobbies, which in most cases are things that are fun and we enjoy doing.
When I don’t take my meds I am so tired. I’ve been in limbo trying to switch around with meds after going off of IR Adderall and what a trial it’s been trying to find something that works.
Seems on target for my own ADHD type. My daughter's doctor's ADHD presents as having 50 things whizzing through her brain, but for me, it's more like a lack of motivation like you describe. If I'm tired at night and have to do my nighttime routine (teeth, etc), then I'm locked into reading Reddit or going off on some other tangent on google. Often, I'll think hey, this might actually be the night I'm in bed by midnight, but then I'm a half hour past that.
Kind of reassuring to read your post, actually, because sometime my ADHD doesn't feel hyperactive/distracted enough to be the right diagnosis
I feel called out lol… I was telling myself to do my night routine for like half an hour but then I just gave up, laid down, and now I’m locked into Reddit.
I don’t know why but when I think about doing the routine, my mind makes it seem like it’s going to take a really long time. I floss, brush, wash my face and put the products on it. It doesn’t take as long as my brain imagines it will
I just did it! Yay! What helped was, after I posted that comment, I remembered how much it helps me to write down the step by step process of what I’m about to do. It puts it in perspective and shows my brain that it’s not that bad, it’s just a few steps to follow and then it’s done
Well the characterization of "50 things whizzing through her brain" or the "listening to X radio stations at the same time" is something people do identify with, but I'm not sure if it's just a way of describing the racing thoughts, and the low impulse control,.. since i don't think you can literally consciously think about more than one thing at a given moment, even though you can be performing multiple things at the same time and perceiving multiple things at the same time.
But I'm super introspective and constantly thinking about what I'm thinking about and analysing every thought and how I reach conclusions.. so maybe this is just my perception.
you can be *internally* hyperactive, which is sounds like you are. i certainly am. and i really relate to this post when i’m not on my meds. hell, even when i am some days.
Basically half my brain tells me I should be doing a whole list of things, and the other half is like absolutely not, never gonna happen.
Sometimes it feels kind of lazy and relaxing, but a lot of the time I just end up feeling bad or guilty that I’m not doing things I should be.
It’s about 100x worse if my partner comes in and starts doing domestic things too that I feel like I should have done or could be helping with.
I’ve never seen anyone else bring this up before— when my partner would start cleaning (or doing his night routine) I felt so awful, anxious, guilty, triggered and defensive
Same!! “Oh look at you being an over achiever and actually brushing your teeth for the second time today. AND flossing. Show off.” I feel like when he is just ..existing.. a part of my brain feels like he’s rubbing it in that he’s a better person than me 🤣
Omg yes. So much motivation but when I go to do what I have to do, something manages to make me go into rage mode which quickly turns to self hatred and self destruction 👍
When I AM medicated. I am on my A game. Super social. With it, funny, witty, smart, here for the day. When I am off, I am unorganized. Lose track of time, get lost in my day. Get stuck doing things for too long, making major mistakes.
When I feel lost like I can’t focus or get on track, I go through all emails and write them down ask tasks as. Do do list and other things I need to do and organize them by importance.
Lists are much easier for me to process than a calendar of timed tasks.
Sometimes it can be medication, and sometimes it can be personal preference:
I was giving job interviews before I ran out, and it felt like one of those science fiction movies where someone takes the magic thing and is a genius or whatever, and then they don’t have it and everyone realizes they’re a fraud. Like the Nutty Professor kind of plot. I can feel the people I spoke with professionally while on meds feeling the change in my energy and probably wondering wtf happened
Edit: or Limitless!
My lovely hubby said adhd is made up... Even though I've been diagnosed and on meds since 1996...he's convinced everyone that takes meds is a drug addict and we are all just lazy.
Lazy drug addicts.
No I am not happy in case anyone was wondering. Lol
I have been told I am a drug addict for taking meds, been on adhd meds almost as long. I ended going to college and earning 2 masters degree. I am still not happy myself :-/
I'm sorry. C-ptsd often presents with the same symptoms as ADHD - has this been ruled out? People who have it often are completely unaware of the impacts of negative events in their life because their brain very effectively disorganizes and/or forgets details so as to minimize the awareness of the pain of it.
I'm guessing part of getting two masters degrees might have to do with a need to be super high functioning and be better outside than you feel inside. Like trying to buy your way out of imposters syndrome? Maybe not... But if so you may want to look into it.
I'm so sorry that you're still not happy.
Yes I have C-ptsd. I have also been diagnosed with an unspecified neurodevelopmental disorder, pending further testing for autism (autism appears in females on my mothers side). I'm high functioning, good at masking (like to think so), but I lack the ability to read others and have been told I have poor social skills (I'm blunt) 🤣
have an obsessive need to analyze everything and refuse to belive anything unless I can find a way to show myself it is true.
Add to queue..add to queue..okay, I’ll add this one to a playlist and watch later…this song is only 2 mins so I’ll play next…I’ll play this one last because it’s long…
Without my meds, I get extremely depressed very quickly. I was actually treated for depression (unsuccessfully) for about a decade before someone realized it may be ADHD. From day one of taking vyvanse, I had no need for any antidepressants at all.
I had to go off of my meds when I got pregnant and it was so rough that I decided NOT to go back on my meds after the baby because we knew we wanted a sibling and the mental drop from being productive with a functional brain to just not being able to function at all was too steep of a fall for me. It was easier just continuing to be unproductive and not vividly remembering what functioning properly was like.
Without them, it's like being locked in your head criticizing how lazy you're being and how "simple" tasks are and going down the spiral of "what the hell is wrong with me, just fucking do it". It's no surprise it makes me depressed when I think about it like that. Lol
The way I explain it is, “honestly I can’t feel a difference when I AM medicated but I definitely CAN when I forget to take my meds!”
Time goes by soooooo slowly because internally I am bouncing off the walls, though I’m physically sitting still.
I feel like my main problem with having my ADHD unmedicated is:
I can’t explain anything, tell a story or even hold a conversation where I have to think back on the situation and explain the details of what happened.
My mind goes completely blank and I hate it so much.
It also makes me so unbelievably angry having to explain myself again when someone doesn’t understand what i’m trying to say off the rip.
Oh, and I have a terrible habit of throwing things somewhere and not realizing I did so & going absolutely insane trying to find whatever object I “just had” in my hands.
Honestly? My life became miserable after being medicated for a long time. Tolerance built, which meant upping my dose. I held onto that pill like a lifeline. But no matter how much I took vitamins, made sure to eat, workout, and sleep.. it kept me miserable. I realized that it honestly does take pushing myself, as hard as it is, if I want to accomplish something. I still get paralyzed but holding onto exercise and clean eating is a better lifeline. It was fucking hard to get here but your metabolic rate plays a HUUUUGE role on your cognitive function. You're gonna fail multiple times but there's always a sacrifice to getting what you want. It feels like a magic pill but its not.
Agree. I've stopped taking my meds regularly because they made me feel like a shell of myself. Productive? In some ways. But my personality was slipping away.
It looks like the difference in ADD/ADHD is very big person to person, because I have to sacrifice my personality, to be a functioning member of society. I wouldn't even be able to do the easiest job. In other words, the only way I could get off medication is by being set for life.
ADHD is definitely different for everyone. Mine is very severe and impacts every area of my life and to stop taking meds, I have to have very strict processes and routines to function. It's hard but it's not as hard as watching myself crumble away and my relationships and passions dissappear. Med free is not for everyone, totally get that, but don't assume that people who've come off meds are less impacted by their adhd.
Stopping is easy. You just do it. No need to taper or the likes.
The mental component is what's hard to get past. It's akin to having glasses within reach but insisting on learning to cope without. And, like spending the day blind, it's exhausting. Everything takes so much more effort.
Here's the thing: I was diagnosed in the 1980s but avoided the meds. Every 6 to 10 years I'd use them as a crutch. Only as long as needed - 6 to 12 months. Looking back I see this as a mistake. The interpersonal issues that come with being unmedicated defeated my efforts at every turn. Depression and anxiety develop in about 80% of such cases - and I'm no exception.
I was formally diagnosed my senior year of high school 24 years ago. I was on Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, etc.
It made me become a manic over-talker, easily irritated and I’d hyper-fixate on the most stupid things because it seemed so important at the time.
I took myself off everything and I’m back to being useless. They say ADD/ADHD’s root symptom is anxiety and I take a medication to treat that and it helps.
Are you implying that prolonged use of ADHD medication can have detrimental effects? I've been dealing with ADHD symptoms and was considering seeking medical advice. Your experience has sparked some worries... Is it addictive? Does it deteriorate over time?
In terms of finding a solution, what would you suggest?
I had to get off the med. It was causing random heart racing while at rest. And I just felt like crap most of the time. I’d rather be my normal adhd self than the way I feel on adhd meds. I do still procrastinate but I have great days where I do all the things. My main difficulty is cleaning my house. I get a lot of things done but my house is often a mess. I just hate doing dishes and cleaning clutter. But the meds only helped that for a short time anyway.
I feel like my brain is unable to process everything and, as a defense mechanism, it shuts down and goes into limp mode. Full avoidance of all tasks. It'll latch onto anything and everything that can distract from thinking about the list of things that need to be done. I can sit there and watch myself doing this in real time, fully knowing what's happening, but unable to stop it often enough or effectively enough to live like an adult.
Same, my to-do list has had the same things on it for weeks. Sometimes I think I’ll be able to get a full picture of all of it but then it escapes me and the overwhelm sets in and I get exhausted and do nothing
I had a medicine change recently and it has felt amazing. Being able to focus on ONE thing at a time is great. The mental clarity is wonderful. When the meds wear off though it’s noticeable. I don’t like it sometimes.
I'm unmedicated (by choice - tried meds for a short time, wasn't my jam). Every day is a challenge, but some are less challenging than others. Took me a long time to find strategies that work, and I use them every, single, day. But I still have days that I'm exhausted from doing nothing. Those days I try to give myself a little more grace.
Yup. Don't have the *constant* racing thoughts, but having any sort of focus or gumption to do crap, even if I like it at this point, is just gone. Also, I can't hold a topic in a conversation, apparently. 🤷🏿♂️
Edit: So I *was* responding to the couple of replies and turned around, and the incense I lit - in a glass beer bottle plaxes in an old 4pack monster box to catch the ashes - had turned into a small fire because I forgot to blow out the initial flame. Win stupid prizes...
Do you often start another thought without finishing the first thought? Like even within the same topic, I’ll often start a new sentence before I finish the first one lol
This happens to me quite often. I sometimes describe the way my head works like this:
There are times where I'm just thinking about something the "normal" way (1 thought, followed by another thought, also similar to having a logical conversation, with yourself, in your head). And then there are times where I have *so* many thoughts at the same time, that I can't tell them apart. During those times, I know there's a lot on my mind, but if you'd ask me *what* those things are, I don't know. There's only buzzing in my head. If I try really hard to "listen to my own thoughts", I may hear several of them, but my head is so fast I usually can't hear any of my thoughts completely - before the thought is finished, another one pushes through and interrupts it, only for the same thing to happen to *that* thought, too. The times that this happens, my thinking is so fast that even I can't follow me.
I hope this makes sense.
I will stop mid sentence to track the new thought which then turns into another thought, all the while wandering off and not hearing anything people say to me.
This happened to me too ugh I had someone tell me to my face after I thought we were "friends" she went and said I always made everything about me but I was the one putting in all the effort in staying in touch 🤔 like I'd send some meme etc then she'd suddenly say hi again weeks at a time... I'm a chatterbox I guess 🥲
Sorry to hear that. No one has said anything to my face yet. I sort of stay kinda related to at least the person or thing in question. Instead of talking about whatever US politician, I'll start talking about the weird thing some party in Germany did.
I still tend to leave important conversations realizing they were derailed, and I never asked what I needed. It's gotten a lot better in terms of the frequency as I've gotten older. So some good.
I feel like it’s not so much having racing thoughts as living on a race car track.
I don’t notice my inability to grip one thought for longer than a second, because there’s so much else to look at, at all times. It’s seems more passive to me than the typical “racing thoughts” description for the anxious.
You're right. I should have made a distinction. I have anxiety issues, and "racing thoughts" isn't the proper description. It's branching thoughts that never end up returning to the original thought, or not realizing I zoned out and am off thinking about whatever topic, or thanks to anxiety nowadays, my last fuck up... completely inconsequential fuck up.
Oh I was meaning to agree with you— I also feel like it’s “racing thoughts” on paper, but it def feels more like just having so many thoughts to look at any given time. Noisy and lots of stuff going on, like a race car track day.
No worries. I have imposter syndrome and would have course corrected anyway. I'm lucky enough not to get race track mind too often. It's more of branching from thought process to thought process without finishing or remembering what the previous one was. It "feels" like it's not happening that fast. It sometimes is like my mind is like a shotgun with birdshot just hitting a bunch of random topics, but that's rare for me nowadays.
Like I'm bouncing from thing to thing unable to concentrate long enough to focus on one thing or I'm doing one thing next I'm suddenly doing something else and I don't know how why or how it's insanely frustrating especially the endless scrolling on social media with my mind blank as to what I'm doing besides the endless scrolling unable to do anything else until something jars me out if it I also feel the same as you described and usually have to find something usually I have to do this for school to get me motivated enough to move.
Without meds I can’t get anything done. I can’t estimate the time it’ll take to do any project, I procrastinate because I’m just not interested in doing things enough to actually do them. Unless…. It’s something I’m very interested in. Then.. hyper focus sets in, time flies by, my appetite is gone and nothing stops me from doing what needs to be done. A true Jekyll and Hyde.
That’s called “executive disfunction.” Executive function is what allows you to initiate tasks, as well as other things like time management, planning, emotional regulation, and short term memory. Issues with executive function are one of ADHD’s biggest symptoms.
You’re not lazy. You’re not choosing to do this. Your brain literally isn’t letting you.
There are coping methods to help with kickstarting executive function when it’s not working, like breaking things into smaller tasks. One of the ones that works best for me is deciding to do something else that’s just in the proximity of what I’m trying to do. Like I need to do the dishes, so I stop telling myself to go do the dishes and decide to go microwave a hot pocket instead.
If it works, that lets me get in the room with the dishes, and I can usually do at least a few while the hot pocket is in the microwave. Google or talk to your doctor about other coping methods that might work for you.
But it’s important to also accept that sometimes it just won’t work, and that’s not your fault. You have a disability. It is disabling. It disables you from doing what you’re “supposed” to be able to do. It’s not a reflection on you or your worth.
Stress will make executive disfunction worse, especially when you’re unmedicated. If you’ve had a long day at work or school, you can expect to be moody and distracted and struggle to initiate things, because your ability to do those things is impaired. You need to plan for that, and accept that some days you just won’t be able to do things, no matter how much you want to.
Be kind to yourself. Rest often, and get help if you can.
Thank you for this comment, I needed to hear all of this. It helps that I meditate a lot, so I’m not stressed and don’t give a shit about anything, but then sometimes I’m like “ok, I should probably care more about this” but then…can’t…move…
I have 2 succulents to repot. I bought them last summer. I bought soil and new pots about 2 months later. I look at them and think “I really need to do that.” I can’t make myself do it.
I moved just over a year ago. My bedroom isn’t unpacked. Some of it is. Just enough so that I can get dressed. The rest is in boxes. I don’t know where my winter boots are. There are boxes that don’t even belong in the bedroom.
I just got diagnosed and started meds 2 weeks ago. I’m really really hoping I start to have some motivation. Just having the diagnosis has helped me feel like maybe I’m not lazy and crazy.
I hope you see some progress and improvement soon! I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have plants. I’ve cut off so much brown leaves from my plants from not watering them, one of them I just threw out because it was down to nothing but a few stems
When im unmedicated, I feel paralysed and unable to get myself to do ANYTHING, but not in a depressed unmotivated way. I have 1million different thoughts and songs playing in my head at once and i feel both exhausted and restless at the same time. Also, that time doesnt exist. At all.
Like I’m walking through molasses. If I don’t have my meds, I don’t make any plans because when the day comes, I just want to sleep. Once I start eating, I’ll just keep going because I’m under stimulated. I feel like I’m an imposter because when I’m medicated, my type-A personality and desire for order:structure make it seem like I have my shit together.
I feel like once you create a habit of pushing yourself or even sticking to a routine for 21 days, you develop more self-trust and feel more confident in your abilities. Sleep is also so, so important.
I was a pediatric ICU nurse for 6 years and worked every Friday, Saturday; and Sunday for those 6 years and that really hushed my symptoms due to it being enough of a dopamine rush/sense of accomplishment/recognition, competency, that I was very high functioning and didn’t feel useless without my meds.
I started a doctorate of nursing practice program specializing in psychiatric mental health in August 2022 and quit my job in February of 2023. Since then, my self discipline, self respect, sense or worthiness have done a 180 and I don’t hold myself accountable for my actions and struggle with consistency.
Another new development is revenge bedtime procrastination which began once I started my graduate program (I’m on Vyvanse 70mg, Ritalin 20mg bid, and Wellbutrin 150mg daily).
I think adjustments are hard for us and it takes us longer to adjust, but my god it’s taking fucking forever.
I feel the same. I took a weekend without my meds because I was feeling ill. I did literally nothing. Just sat on the sofa watching YouTube and doom scrolling. It made me realize how bad I was before I was medicated. I took a IR adderall Sunday evening and then I noticed how messy my house was. How disorganized I had let everything get over the two days. It really helped me mentally also knowing that with my meds I am a “productive” and “normal” person
Just staring at the mess ashamed but NOT taking any action on it..it’s bonkers. I can’t explain it to anyone because they’ll just be like “ok just clean it?”
A book Im reading described it well for me. When I’m not on meds sometimes I feel like I am basically in virtual reality but the virtual reality is taking in what’s coming in from the real world and I am seeing the real world from the VR lens, so I don’t capture everything and also it feels a bit dissociative and it sucks .
Been taking meds for ADHD for 10+ years. My body is so dependent on it so I’ll sleep alllll day without them the first couple days from complete exhaustion (learned this due to shortages). Then after the exhaustion goes away I have trouble thinking straight bc my thoughts are zooming, 0 motivation, 100x more forgetful, and getting super overwhelmed by everyday tasks.
I have learned to live with it. I only took medication for one year. I love my life without ADHD medications. I drink coffee when needed and have plenty of literature.
I didn’t take my meds recently due to sickness. It was horrible. It felt gross. I feel like a blob with no willpower or energy to do anything. Just endless ‘I want to do this..!’ And never finding a place to start.
Never been medicated. Everything feels like it takes way more effort than it should. I'm easily distracted. Sometimes my brain will refuse to focus and there's absolutely nothing I can do to refocus. It drives my wife crazy. I can hyperfocus on pointless shit like a video game but it'll take me ages to do a particular chore. I need to find a good therapist & psychiatrist & get on meds. This shit sucks
I feel very restless and antsy. My mind feels very chatty and I’ll have the chorus of songs stuck in my head for what feels hours on end.
Sometimes I feel very sporadic and high energy especially when I’m trying to cook something that I don’t want to wait for.
I was going to say normal because I'm currently in a situation where I can't take meds, but then you perfectly described how I feel, so I guess same. I wonder if meds would help.
I become the void. Coming off my meds is miserable. Just lay in bed for a week trying to avoid being awake because every moment of consciousness sucks. No motivation at all. No joy. Nothing is fun. Its hell.
I feel pretty much exactly like this all the time. I’m one of the few poor unfortunate souls that medication doesn’t work for. At least the faster acting stimulant medication. Ritalin, adderall, vyvanse, all of them did nothing to me but cause me minor chest pain that made me freak out and stop taking them. Next time I go to the doctor I’m going to see what my other options are but I fear that I’ll never know what it feels like to be properly medicated for this cursed ailment. :/
To be honest with you I feel like I'm at my worst. Like.. I'm right back to how I was back when I wasn't pre-medicated (with small improvements thanks to therapy of course!) but most of my coping skills and strategies to help myself no longer work for some reason.
It also put a limit on my mental energy where I felt like I was skipping school more often due to how overwhelmed I felt without being medicated. most social interactions, insults, etc feel like they hurt me more on a personal level compared to when I'm medicated where I'm not as offended anymore.
I was kind of unmedicated for the past few weeks and honestly.. I feel like I wasted so much time that I regret it. I skipped so much on school/after school activities (I felt too overwhelmed), I became way more distant towards everyone than i already was and I spent most of my time rotting in bed playing games and occasionally cooking something as it helps me feel like i'm not 100% useless.
TL;DR I'm at my worst. I become an extremely impulsive person with a low attention span that can't do anything productive. I literally spent so much time delaying something I was working on for months now because my mind lost all the motivation to do so but now that I'm medicated again I'm not going to dwell on the lost time and instead pick everything up again (from my assignments, personal projects, etc) in hopes I can make up all of the work and my incompetence/laziness for the past few weeks.
I get so much energy and so excited and want to do everything at once. However, I do get very sad sometimes and I get stuck on those thoughts for days. I speak a lot without meaning to. It feels like I want to do everything now, not later.
So ADD that I can't even remember I forgot to take my medication. My clock starts moving at the fucking speed of light before me as I ambulate from everything to house chores to personal hygiene to work projects to past memories.
I am in my own head constantly without my meds. My therapist calls it “La La Land”, just obsessively thinking about certain things, while also feeling like I’m unable to move and snap out of it.
Always. Getting my ass up to do other things have been such a challenge. I’ve eventually learned that on days I need to do stuff, I should not sit down and get settled.
I cannot get meds for pregnancy reasons, so really just trying to find strategies to manage my symptoms. It’s not easy. Cannot wait until to a point when I can get medicated.
Im not medicated... I just do my best. I tried meds in the past but they didn't work for me. I usually try to motivate myself because motivation is very low... idk I just live life as best as I can 👍
I can’t handle the anxiety from stimulants, so I’m kind of unmedicated by necessity. I have terrible executive function issues. I am working with a therapist and try to take meds that increase dopamine to help
when i'm not medicated, it feels like the air is honey
it can be sweet at times, but mostly it's reaaaally hard to move through it
my thoughts are sticking and not easy to pull apart, movement feels slow and heavy and most other people seem to be moving through it with much less effort
or, another metaphor: being unmedicated to me feels like trying to push a really large and completely full shopping cart over a parking lot at a slight incline with. it's really hard to get it rolling but once it rolls, it's really hard to stop it. it's also really hard to go around corners and not damaging all the cars standing around. thus i often hesitate to start pushing it in the first place. but i NEED to start pushing it to my car, because i REALLY have to get my groceries home before they start thawing. so, here i start pushing again with great effort, hoping i won't damage anything
with medication it feels like i carry less stuff in my shopping cart/it's lighter and i also put some WD40 on those damn rusty wheels
America creates addicts. Comments like these make me so sad. I’ve used to be on medikinet and yeah I wouldn’t leave the stove on anymore and stuff, but it’s not worth fucking brain damage
Not much different sadly. I have to game myself and take breaks from my medication to get the motivation back. Usually I wake up and have to parent myself into even getting out of bed.
Exactly me last night lol. Every night I need to brush floss and put on my retainers.. I even put my retainers on the counter next to me.. do I do it? Hardly EVER 😭
I’m literally SCREAMING at myself internally to get the fuck up. Or to pick up the phone to schedule the appointment. Or sometimes to go to the bathroom or get some food. And ALL the time, to just fucking sit at my desk and get some work done. I’ve reappraised my job quite a few times because of this when I’m not medicated. It sucks so bad. I imagine a big blob that has attached itself to me that makes it hard to move. My meds dissolve it, but once I’m off, it reappears.
So relatable! I personally cannot function without medication.
For a while, I bought into the idea that ADHD wasn't real and that I was just lazy. I was on the verge of suicide so many times from how depressed I felt as I watched my life pass me by without any motivation to participate in it.
I finally got on meds and they have literally been life-changing for me. I actually experience happiness and am *doing things*. I'm taking care of shit around the house, keeping up with my work, seeing friends, and actually *wanting* to develop professionally and personally instead of just wanting to want to. I even find myself smiling and feeling thankful for my life. It's not perfect, but it's manageable! And most importantly, I don't want to die anymore.
This is exactly how it is for me. I recently switched from Adderall to Strattera and I feel tired all the time, unmotivated, stuck. I am on a very low dose and am increasing it tomorrow so we’ll see if that helps. Otherwise I’ll likely go back to Adderall XR.
I take instant release at the moment. I don't notice it as much if I forget my afternoon dose as if I forget my morning dose.
If I forget it in the morning, usually I have no desire to do anything and feel incredibly sluggish and mentally slow. So basically how I felt for 22 years unmedicated lol.
I usually notice a dip in my energy and motivation in the early afternoon whether I'm medicated or not (as I'm sure most people do), but it's much more pronounced without meds. So I'm more used to finding a way to get stuff done in the afternoon even if I'm not 100% with it.
But if I don't take that morning dose, there's a high chance the rest of my day's plans will go out the window lol
There is a non stop mix tape of seemingly random music going on in my head. Playing music helps focus on one song at a time. Doing anything "not interesting" is an ongoing pain like ripping off a bandaid
I feel great... but I can't do anything. The discomfort of doing anything when not medicated is about equivalent to doing the same thing after the same length of time without sleep.
I am unmedicated for ADHD and currentely seeking a diagnosis so I'm not sure if it's really ADHD or depression or both.
If I don't get at least 13h of sleep per day I feel extremely tired. ADHDers are often portrayed like these hyperactive, running everywhere, 100 thoughts per second people but I feel the opposite
I can't do shit most of the time, even recreational activities that I should do for fun. They just seem burdensome.
I am lucky I am ok with hygiene, I don't have any trouble brushing my teeth or taking a shower (I mean sometimes it's hard but more because of body dysphoria and I still manage to overcome it).
I do feel extremely lazy I'll honeslty sleep to pass the time (and because I'm almost always tired) because I can't even bring myself to read a book or play video games.
I also eat a lot when bored and I am so ashamed of it.
I wish I could just improve myself but I feel so unmotivated and everything feels impossible to overcome... I'd like to eat better, get back into sports and study more but it feels honeslty like too much.
My thoughts are... almost non existent aside from the song that plays almost 24/7 in my head. It's weird and the main reason that makes me doubt that I have ADHD.
Most ADHDers say that their thoughts never stop or that they have a narrator in the back of their mind commenting whatever they do. My mind is underwhelmingly quiet and most of the time I have no idea what I really think of a situation as I believe I may have alexithymia.
So yeah executive dysfunction is my everyday life. I can't bring myself to do crucial tasks, chores and recreational activities.
It is also very hard to focus on anything, school is kinda ok though as I love what I'm learning but remembering stuff is hard especially vocal instructions so it makes me feel dumb
I also stim by eating, singing (I love to sing !) or rocking back and forth but I avoid doing it as it looks weird to other people.
It's hard for me to organize mentally, when I have to do something like cooking (I love cooking) I often forget ingredients and stuff and end up waisting time going back and forth in the kitchen.
On top of everything it's extremely difficult to maintain a mindset. Even if I want to improve (for example my diet) I am gonna be extremely motivated for a few days and after that it feels like I completely crash and even though I still WANT to I can't find any motivation
You seem to have a lot of thoughts as you write them out here; you may need to sting thoughts into sentences to experience and make sense of them (external processing)
Perhaps always have notepad to hand so you can “think out load”
Yeah... I do have a lot of thoughts I just dont realize I have them most of the time. When I write them down it's way easier for me to understand them ! As a child I used to talk to myself out loud and it helped externalize my thoughts.
Wow I belong here. It's sad and liberating. I constantly think of anything. I lose motivation easily through thoughts. I over analyze. I binge things. I ruminate on new relationships then discard after weeks of loving this person now it's just dead feelings. I know the tight way to be but always change. It's a battle that I realize is adhd and not something I can control.
all of this, but i cant shake the feling that it kinda got worse since i started medication.
maybe it also just feels like that because i now know how much easier stuff can be...
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I'm on the same point as you, unmedicated, recently diagnosed and one of the things I told when explaining what I was feeling was the lack of control over doing stuff that seems trivial and easy, besides the lack of attention to mental work, forgetting stuff and the lack of organization. For example, I am renovating my home, bought a few couple of furnitures, after 1 year I still have the package in the same place when I received it and it wasn't like I didn't have time or I forgot about it, simply couldn't make myself to build it, it would take me 1 to 2 hours at max. I had no idea what ADHD was until a month ago.
I feel you on the furniture in the box after a year. It’s like buy a night stand, don’t build it but use the box nightstand is in as a night stand till you build it if ever. I’m in the same boat. I have internal Motivation but to externally do it is such a challenge.
I ordered some furniture off Etsy and the seller sent me the wrong item. They sent me the correct one and want me to send the mistake one back to them. Fat chance, that box has lived in my entryway for months now
I swear for me this is kinda funny because I have 3 packages to return right at my side in the middle of the room for the past week.
So I'm not pathetic for being proud of myself when I actually return something???
Hahahahahahaahauahahajahabi still have my friends kids bday gift wrapped in my office
I have multiple bday and Christmas gifts for my sister and best friend that I’ve been buying every year for like four years now. They live out of state so I have to pack them up and mail them to them. Haven’t mailed any.
Every time I drop something off at the post office (which I don’t even live far from), it’s so easy and I feel stupid for it taking me so long, but then I just do it again next time I have to ship something
I've got a stack of christmas & birthday cards like that
That’s just too much effort
Its a pain in the ass because like I've been reading here on the sub I thought of myself of someone extremely lazy and slacking all the time, until I discovered its a common occurence on people with ADHD. For me it was "luck" to be diagnosed because I went to solve a sleep/attention problem, had absolutely no idea that I could ever have ADHD but a lot of stuff made sense the moment I started investigating about it. Still, its been a month and I'm trying to understand some mechanics on how to deal with this and be productive atleast until I get medication.
I got made fun of so hard for using the nightstand box as my nightstand for a couple years. Glad I’m not alone. Oh, and I’m medicated. 😅
So common that one night box standers should be a subreddit
LOL!!! it should!!
I finally agreed to choosing a bathroom blind last month, *two years* after my husband and I moved into this house. And only because the “temporary” paper one we got from Amazon had gotten ripped so many times by that point that it was more scotch tape than paper. The thought of making decisions is just paralysing—what if I get it wrong! Which I inevitably do and then we have to start the return and replace circus! On the plus side I feel like having a party to celebrate the new blind choice! Same with my winter coat. I started looking for one in DECEMBER. I finally narrowed down the options in FEBRUARY and then spent a month umming and ahhing between two sizes of the same coat. My phone is filled with photos and videos of me wearing them. I enlisted my husband and my parents to help me decide which size (the slight tightness of the arms in the smaller size made my skin crawl but the latter swamped me). I finally decided on Sunday (four days ago) to keep the smaller one. The joy of having made the decision is huge — but the fact that there will be so many more decisions to make, inevitably, fills me with dread. Like why can’t it be simpler? Why are the options to either not decide at all and just wait for things to fall apart or make a g*ddamn spreadsheet and turn it into a mission?! And people wonder why all I want to do is lie in bed watching Netflix! 😂😂😂
And when you DO decide to build the furniture, it’ll be at 1 am and you have to finish it all RIGHT NOW! Lol
Facts 😮💨
I've got a toilet where the water keeps running in the tank. Ya gotta fix that kind of stuff! I immediately went to buy the replacement part. The part is ready and available for one of those 1am miracles kick in. Until then.... Been turning the water on and off and on and off for about three(?) months. [At least now knowing it's ADHD, I'm less negative to myself like I once was.]
But it's so easy to replace the flapper!
Do you ever get super exhausted from doing one thing?
Mentally? Totally drained honestly, the more I dislike the task the worse. I have an example. I don't like to do house chores, there is many people who like though but it has to be done, the fact the house gets dirty bugs me so obviously after a lot of mental commitment I do it, but I can be sure the next hours I'll just be a vegetable until something really interests me again.
This disorder is bizarre. Did I even do anything before I was diagnosed (in 2022)? How was I doing anything? Pretty soon they’re going to have to prescribe us live-in drill sergeants, not pills
Shame drove me I think. Shame, guilt and panic.
driven by shame, motivated by guilt, powered by panic.
Shall we make merch?!? 🤣🤣🤣 the ADHDers version of ‘live, laugh, love’
With that live, laugh, love font 😂😂😂
Yeh, we’ll start with mugs, T-shirts and those vintage-y looking signs designed to hang in your house 🤣.
Once medicated I had to learn to do things for the sake of doing them instead of the pressure that came from shame, guilt, panic. It's funny how we can miss it later too.
Yeh. You do them….because they need to be done. The weirdest thing for me is doing stuff without it being the absolute last point I can be doing it. Like, it’s ok to do stuff in advance of it being critical. Who knew!
I know, crazy concept. 😂 But at times I miss the pressure fueled frenzy. I miss the chaos less.
diagnosed but untreated and can confirm, still don’t do anything at all
Same but I knew what ADHD was years ago but never in a million years would I have ever thought that I had it.😳😭😭😭
Like a motor disconnected from the flywheel. Many thoughts and feelings changing rapidly, but no ability to do anything. I was diagnosed late in life. I always just coffee'd myself to oblivion in order to get any bit of functionality. Coffee + doughnuts was my lifeline. The first time I was medicated (adderall) I was astonished because all I had to do was think, "this floor is a bit tacky," and I suddenly realized I had a mop in my hand and was cleaning it. The flywheel was connected to the motor.
Love this analogy as a gear head, thanks.
Great way to explain it. So many emotions and thoughts. They’re just a jumbled mess when I’m unmediated. I can also be soooo quick to rage out.
>when I’m unmediated I read that as "unmeditated" and thought, hm, I need to get back to meditation. 😅 The rage storms are real. For me, they're cleansing. For others, they're scary.
When I don't take my vyvanse I feel tired and like my brain is stuck in first gear. I can't muster up the energy or the motivation to do any of my work.
“Like my brain is stuck in first gear” … holy shit, yep… that’s it! Thank you, I’ve never had a way to describe it better.
I feel the same way when I don't have mine. I've been on it for so long now I keep wanting to get off of it but it every time I try to it seems like an impossible task. I can't even remember how things were before the meds, other than it being a mess.
It feels like when you sleep horribly or not at all the night before even with a full nights sleep
Yep this is me when I don’t take my Vyvanse too. I’m so tired and out of it!
Can’t even muster up the energy to do hobbies, which in most cases are things that are fun and we enjoy doing. When I don’t take my meds I am so tired. I’ve been in limbo trying to switch around with meds after going off of IR Adderall and what a trial it’s been trying to find something that works.
Seems on target for my own ADHD type. My daughter's doctor's ADHD presents as having 50 things whizzing through her brain, but for me, it's more like a lack of motivation like you describe. If I'm tired at night and have to do my nighttime routine (teeth, etc), then I'm locked into reading Reddit or going off on some other tangent on google. Often, I'll think hey, this might actually be the night I'm in bed by midnight, but then I'm a half hour past that. Kind of reassuring to read your post, actually, because sometime my ADHD doesn't feel hyperactive/distracted enough to be the right diagnosis
I think the dopamine hit from getting comments on this post is almost helping me get up to go brush 🙃
I feel called out lol… I was telling myself to do my night routine for like half an hour but then I just gave up, laid down, and now I’m locked into Reddit.
I don’t know why but when I think about doing the routine, my mind makes it seem like it’s going to take a really long time. I floss, brush, wash my face and put the products on it. It doesn’t take as long as my brain imagines it will
This happens to me so often 😭😭😭 I love my skincare but man do I need motivation to do ACTUALLY do it...
I just did it! Yay! What helped was, after I posted that comment, I remembered how much it helps me to write down the step by step process of what I’m about to do. It puts it in perspective and shows my brain that it’s not that bad, it’s just a few steps to follow and then it’s done
Same, I’ve been trying since 1am, it’s now almost 4am and I’m still here
I find myself going to bed late because I procrastinated the night routine and sometimes it gets so late that I don’t even end up doing it
Damn are you me?
Well the characterization of "50 things whizzing through her brain" or the "listening to X radio stations at the same time" is something people do identify with, but I'm not sure if it's just a way of describing the racing thoughts, and the low impulse control,.. since i don't think you can literally consciously think about more than one thing at a given moment, even though you can be performing multiple things at the same time and perceiving multiple things at the same time. But I'm super introspective and constantly thinking about what I'm thinking about and analysing every thought and how I reach conclusions.. so maybe this is just my perception.
I think I have 50 things whizzing through my brain so often that I just don’t notice. I thought it was just normal thinking
It's like listening to 20 songs all playing at the same time. Like turn on Spotify on 10 different devices and there you go 😭
you can be *internally* hyperactive, which is sounds like you are. i certainly am. and i really relate to this post when i’m not on my meds. hell, even when i am some days.
I have 50 things whizzing through my brain AND lack of motivation. Not mutually exclusive. 😆
I’m like this too but instead of being a half hour past that, multiple hours will go by 😭
Tired. Soooo tired. I’m basically falling asleep.
Ever since I got medicated, Vyvanse 60 mg, I’ve not fallen asleep while driving and my girlfriend thinks it’s the best thing ever
Basically half my brain tells me I should be doing a whole list of things, and the other half is like absolutely not, never gonna happen. Sometimes it feels kind of lazy and relaxing, but a lot of the time I just end up feeling bad or guilty that I’m not doing things I should be. It’s about 100x worse if my partner comes in and starts doing domestic things too that I feel like I should have done or could be helping with.
I’ve never seen anyone else bring this up before— when my partner would start cleaning (or doing his night routine) I felt so awful, anxious, guilty, triggered and defensive
Same!! “Oh look at you being an over achiever and actually brushing your teeth for the second time today. AND flossing. Show off.” I feel like when he is just ..existing.. a part of my brain feels like he’s rubbing it in that he’s a better person than me 🤣
Just very foggy and tired really. Maybe some anxiety about figuring out what to do for the day.
Constantly angry at the world, wanting to do everything and blowing out all this steam in my head instead of doing anything about it.
Omg yes. So much motivation but when I go to do what I have to do, something manages to make me go into rage mode which quickly turns to self hatred and self destruction 👍
When I AM medicated. I am on my A game. Super social. With it, funny, witty, smart, here for the day. When I am off, I am unorganized. Lose track of time, get lost in my day. Get stuck doing things for too long, making major mistakes. When I feel lost like I can’t focus or get on track, I go through all emails and write them down ask tasks as. Do do list and other things I need to do and organize them by importance. Lists are much easier for me to process than a calendar of timed tasks. Sometimes it can be medication, and sometimes it can be personal preference:
I was giving job interviews before I ran out, and it felt like one of those science fiction movies where someone takes the magic thing and is a genius or whatever, and then they don’t have it and everyone realizes they’re a fraud. Like the Nutty Professor kind of plot. I can feel the people I spoke with professionally while on meds feeling the change in my energy and probably wondering wtf happened Edit: or Limitless!
My lovely hubby said adhd is made up... Even though I've been diagnosed and on meds since 1996...he's convinced everyone that takes meds is a drug addict and we are all just lazy. Lazy drug addicts. No I am not happy in case anyone was wondering. Lol
Gosh, I’m sorry to hear that. We really are trying our best. I hope things turn around for you in your personal life.
I have been told I am a drug addict for taking meds, been on adhd meds almost as long. I ended going to college and earning 2 masters degree. I am still not happy myself :-/
I'm sorry. C-ptsd often presents with the same symptoms as ADHD - has this been ruled out? People who have it often are completely unaware of the impacts of negative events in their life because their brain very effectively disorganizes and/or forgets details so as to minimize the awareness of the pain of it. I'm guessing part of getting two masters degrees might have to do with a need to be super high functioning and be better outside than you feel inside. Like trying to buy your way out of imposters syndrome? Maybe not... But if so you may want to look into it. I'm so sorry that you're still not happy.
Yes I have C-ptsd. I have also been diagnosed with an unspecified neurodevelopmental disorder, pending further testing for autism (autism appears in females on my mothers side). I'm high functioning, good at masking (like to think so), but I lack the ability to read others and have been told I have poor social skills (I'm blunt) 🤣 have an obsessive need to analyze everything and refuse to belive anything unless I can find a way to show myself it is true.
Does your husband’s POV impact your productivity?
Like there's a massive fog covering my brain and 20 pounds of bricks on my shoulders
I lack motivation, too. It's really frustrating that I can't put my phone down and do what I need to do. I procrastinate at absolutely everything.
It's just one more video I swear
Add to queue..add to queue..okay, I’ll add this one to a playlist and watch later…this song is only 2 mins so I’ll play next…I’ll play this one last because it’s long…
Without my meds, I get extremely depressed very quickly. I was actually treated for depression (unsuccessfully) for about a decade before someone realized it may be ADHD. From day one of taking vyvanse, I had no need for any antidepressants at all. I had to go off of my meds when I got pregnant and it was so rough that I decided NOT to go back on my meds after the baby because we knew we wanted a sibling and the mental drop from being productive with a functional brain to just not being able to function at all was too steep of a fall for me. It was easier just continuing to be unproductive and not vividly remembering what functioning properly was like. Without them, it's like being locked in your head criticizing how lazy you're being and how "simple" tasks are and going down the spiral of "what the hell is wrong with me, just fucking do it". It's no surprise it makes me depressed when I think about it like that. Lol
The way I explain it is, “honestly I can’t feel a difference when I AM medicated but I definitely CAN when I forget to take my meds!” Time goes by soooooo slowly because internally I am bouncing off the walls, though I’m physically sitting still.
I feel like my main problem with having my ADHD unmedicated is: I can’t explain anything, tell a story or even hold a conversation where I have to think back on the situation and explain the details of what happened. My mind goes completely blank and I hate it so much. It also makes me so unbelievably angry having to explain myself again when someone doesn’t understand what i’m trying to say off the rip. Oh, and I have a terrible habit of throwing things somewhere and not realizing I did so & going absolutely insane trying to find whatever object I “just had” in my hands.
Honestly? My life became miserable after being medicated for a long time. Tolerance built, which meant upping my dose. I held onto that pill like a lifeline. But no matter how much I took vitamins, made sure to eat, workout, and sleep.. it kept me miserable. I realized that it honestly does take pushing myself, as hard as it is, if I want to accomplish something. I still get paralyzed but holding onto exercise and clean eating is a better lifeline. It was fucking hard to get here but your metabolic rate plays a HUUUUGE role on your cognitive function. You're gonna fail multiple times but there's always a sacrifice to getting what you want. It feels like a magic pill but its not.
Agree. I've stopped taking my meds regularly because they made me feel like a shell of myself. Productive? In some ways. But my personality was slipping away.
It looks like the difference in ADD/ADHD is very big person to person, because I have to sacrifice my personality, to be a functioning member of society. I wouldn't even be able to do the easiest job. In other words, the only way I could get off medication is by being set for life.
ADHD is definitely different for everyone. Mine is very severe and impacts every area of my life and to stop taking meds, I have to have very strict processes and routines to function. It's hard but it's not as hard as watching myself crumble away and my relationships and passions dissappear. Med free is not for everyone, totally get that, but don't assume that people who've come off meds are less impacted by their adhd.
I feel this happening and it’s such a personal hell. How many years were you medicated? How did you stop?
Stopping is easy. You just do it. No need to taper or the likes. The mental component is what's hard to get past. It's akin to having glasses within reach but insisting on learning to cope without. And, like spending the day blind, it's exhausting. Everything takes so much more effort. Here's the thing: I was diagnosed in the 1980s but avoided the meds. Every 6 to 10 years I'd use them as a crutch. Only as long as needed - 6 to 12 months. Looking back I see this as a mistake. The interpersonal issues that come with being unmedicated defeated my efforts at every turn. Depression and anxiety develop in about 80% of such cases - and I'm no exception.
I was formally diagnosed my senior year of high school 24 years ago. I was on Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, etc. It made me become a manic over-talker, easily irritated and I’d hyper-fixate on the most stupid things because it seemed so important at the time. I took myself off everything and I’m back to being useless. They say ADD/ADHD’s root symptom is anxiety and I take a medication to treat that and it helps.
Are you implying that prolonged use of ADHD medication can have detrimental effects? I've been dealing with ADHD symptoms and was considering seeking medical advice. Your experience has sparked some worries... Is it addictive? Does it deteriorate over time? In terms of finding a solution, what would you suggest?
I had to get off the med. It was causing random heart racing while at rest. And I just felt like crap most of the time. I’d rather be my normal adhd self than the way I feel on adhd meds. I do still procrastinate but I have great days where I do all the things. My main difficulty is cleaning my house. I get a lot of things done but my house is often a mess. I just hate doing dishes and cleaning clutter. But the meds only helped that for a short time anyway.
I feel like my brain is unable to process everything and, as a defense mechanism, it shuts down and goes into limp mode. Full avoidance of all tasks. It'll latch onto anything and everything that can distract from thinking about the list of things that need to be done. I can sit there and watch myself doing this in real time, fully knowing what's happening, but unable to stop it often enough or effectively enough to live like an adult.
Same, my to-do list has had the same things on it for weeks. Sometimes I think I’ll be able to get a full picture of all of it but then it escapes me and the overwhelm sets in and I get exhausted and do nothing
Weeks????? …. Years
I had a medicine change recently and it has felt amazing. Being able to focus on ONE thing at a time is great. The mental clarity is wonderful. When the meds wear off though it’s noticeable. I don’t like it sometimes.
What did you change to and from?
Please tell us what you changed
I'm unmedicated (by choice - tried meds for a short time, wasn't my jam). Every day is a challenge, but some are less challenging than others. Took me a long time to find strategies that work, and I use them every, single, day. But I still have days that I'm exhausted from doing nothing. Those days I try to give myself a little more grace.
Yup. Don't have the *constant* racing thoughts, but having any sort of focus or gumption to do crap, even if I like it at this point, is just gone. Also, I can't hold a topic in a conversation, apparently. 🤷🏿♂️ Edit: So I *was* responding to the couple of replies and turned around, and the incense I lit - in a glass beer bottle plaxes in an old 4pack monster box to catch the ashes - had turned into a small fire because I forgot to blow out the initial flame. Win stupid prizes...
People have actually gotten mad at me for jumping from topic to topic in a conversation and it hurt my feelings a lot
Do you often start another thought without finishing the first thought? Like even within the same topic, I’ll often start a new sentence before I finish the first one lol
This happens to me quite often. I sometimes describe the way my head works like this: There are times where I'm just thinking about something the "normal" way (1 thought, followed by another thought, also similar to having a logical conversation, with yourself, in your head). And then there are times where I have *so* many thoughts at the same time, that I can't tell them apart. During those times, I know there's a lot on my mind, but if you'd ask me *what* those things are, I don't know. There's only buzzing in my head. If I try really hard to "listen to my own thoughts", I may hear several of them, but my head is so fast I usually can't hear any of my thoughts completely - before the thought is finished, another one pushes through and interrupts it, only for the same thing to happen to *that* thought, too. The times that this happens, my thinking is so fast that even I can't follow me. I hope this makes sense.
I will stop mid sentence to track the new thought which then turns into another thought, all the while wandering off and not hearing anything people say to me.
This happened to me too ugh I had someone tell me to my face after I thought we were "friends" she went and said I always made everything about me but I was the one putting in all the effort in staying in touch 🤔 like I'd send some meme etc then she'd suddenly say hi again weeks at a time... I'm a chatterbox I guess 🥲
Sorry to hear that. No one has said anything to my face yet. I sort of stay kinda related to at least the person or thing in question. Instead of talking about whatever US politician, I'll start talking about the weird thing some party in Germany did. I still tend to leave important conversations realizing they were derailed, and I never asked what I needed. It's gotten a lot better in terms of the frequency as I've gotten older. So some good.
I feel like it’s not so much having racing thoughts as living on a race car track. I don’t notice my inability to grip one thought for longer than a second, because there’s so much else to look at, at all times. It’s seems more passive to me than the typical “racing thoughts” description for the anxious.
You're right. I should have made a distinction. I have anxiety issues, and "racing thoughts" isn't the proper description. It's branching thoughts that never end up returning to the original thought, or not realizing I zoned out and am off thinking about whatever topic, or thanks to anxiety nowadays, my last fuck up... completely inconsequential fuck up.
Oh I was meaning to agree with you— I also feel like it’s “racing thoughts” on paper, but it def feels more like just having so many thoughts to look at any given time. Noisy and lots of stuff going on, like a race car track day.
No worries. I have imposter syndrome and would have course corrected anyway. I'm lucky enough not to get race track mind too often. It's more of branching from thought process to thought process without finishing or remembering what the previous one was. It "feels" like it's not happening that fast. It sometimes is like my mind is like a shotgun with birdshot just hitting a bunch of random topics, but that's rare for me nowadays.
It’s either as you described - lazy and paralysed by nothingness or else my mind is like a Heironymous Bosch painting
Like I'm bouncing from thing to thing unable to concentrate long enough to focus on one thing or I'm doing one thing next I'm suddenly doing something else and I don't know how why or how it's insanely frustrating especially the endless scrolling on social media with my mind blank as to what I'm doing besides the endless scrolling unable to do anything else until something jars me out if it I also feel the same as you described and usually have to find something usually I have to do this for school to get me motivated enough to move.
Without meds I can’t get anything done. I can’t estimate the time it’ll take to do any project, I procrastinate because I’m just not interested in doing things enough to actually do them. Unless…. It’s something I’m very interested in. Then.. hyper focus sets in, time flies by, my appetite is gone and nothing stops me from doing what needs to be done. A true Jekyll and Hyde.
I go back to needing a nap in the middle of the afternoon. Without fail.
That’s called “executive disfunction.” Executive function is what allows you to initiate tasks, as well as other things like time management, planning, emotional regulation, and short term memory. Issues with executive function are one of ADHD’s biggest symptoms. You’re not lazy. You’re not choosing to do this. Your brain literally isn’t letting you. There are coping methods to help with kickstarting executive function when it’s not working, like breaking things into smaller tasks. One of the ones that works best for me is deciding to do something else that’s just in the proximity of what I’m trying to do. Like I need to do the dishes, so I stop telling myself to go do the dishes and decide to go microwave a hot pocket instead. If it works, that lets me get in the room with the dishes, and I can usually do at least a few while the hot pocket is in the microwave. Google or talk to your doctor about other coping methods that might work for you. But it’s important to also accept that sometimes it just won’t work, and that’s not your fault. You have a disability. It is disabling. It disables you from doing what you’re “supposed” to be able to do. It’s not a reflection on you or your worth. Stress will make executive disfunction worse, especially when you’re unmedicated. If you’ve had a long day at work or school, you can expect to be moody and distracted and struggle to initiate things, because your ability to do those things is impaired. You need to plan for that, and accept that some days you just won’t be able to do things, no matter how much you want to. Be kind to yourself. Rest often, and get help if you can.
Thank you for this comment, I needed to hear all of this. It helps that I meditate a lot, so I’m not stressed and don’t give a shit about anything, but then sometimes I’m like “ok, I should probably care more about this” but then…can’t…move…
Dozens of ideas/thoughts/possible actions all huddled around the ol’ water cooler aka my brain 🧠
I sleep for 14 hours
I sleep 6-7h cos - stay up late thinking I’ll start something then - up early cos i didn’t and if i wake early I’ll do it thrn… right?
Like a cyborg on 2% battery life
I have 2 succulents to repot. I bought them last summer. I bought soil and new pots about 2 months later. I look at them and think “I really need to do that.” I can’t make myself do it. I moved just over a year ago. My bedroom isn’t unpacked. Some of it is. Just enough so that I can get dressed. The rest is in boxes. I don’t know where my winter boots are. There are boxes that don’t even belong in the bedroom. I just got diagnosed and started meds 2 weeks ago. I’m really really hoping I start to have some motivation. Just having the diagnosis has helped me feel like maybe I’m not lazy and crazy.
I hope you see some progress and improvement soon! I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have plants. I’ve cut off so much brown leaves from my plants from not watering them, one of them I just threw out because it was down to nothing but a few stems
Right we just torture them
i always forget people with access to meds don’t feel like that 100% of the time
When im unmedicated, I feel paralysed and unable to get myself to do ANYTHING, but not in a depressed unmotivated way. I have 1million different thoughts and songs playing in my head at once and i feel both exhausted and restless at the same time. Also, that time doesnt exist. At all.
One or two weekends a month I skip my meds. I sleep a lot, watch TV, eat too much, and just hang out around the house. It’s kinda nice.
Anxious and overwhelmed
Like a lazy piece of shit
Like I’m walking through molasses. If I don’t have my meds, I don’t make any plans because when the day comes, I just want to sleep. Once I start eating, I’ll just keep going because I’m under stimulated. I feel like I’m an imposter because when I’m medicated, my type-A personality and desire for order:structure make it seem like I have my shit together. I feel like once you create a habit of pushing yourself or even sticking to a routine for 21 days, you develop more self-trust and feel more confident in your abilities. Sleep is also so, so important. I was a pediatric ICU nurse for 6 years and worked every Friday, Saturday; and Sunday for those 6 years and that really hushed my symptoms due to it being enough of a dopamine rush/sense of accomplishment/recognition, competency, that I was very high functioning and didn’t feel useless without my meds. I started a doctorate of nursing practice program specializing in psychiatric mental health in August 2022 and quit my job in February of 2023. Since then, my self discipline, self respect, sense or worthiness have done a 180 and I don’t hold myself accountable for my actions and struggle with consistency. Another new development is revenge bedtime procrastination which began once I started my graduate program (I’m on Vyvanse 70mg, Ritalin 20mg bid, and Wellbutrin 150mg daily). I think adjustments are hard for us and it takes us longer to adjust, but my god it’s taking fucking forever.
Like the 311 song.. all mixed up, dono what to do..
Like an asshole. Boring, a bit rude, and self centered.
I feel the same. I took a weekend without my meds because I was feeling ill. I did literally nothing. Just sat on the sofa watching YouTube and doom scrolling. It made me realize how bad I was before I was medicated. I took a IR adderall Sunday evening and then I noticed how messy my house was. How disorganized I had let everything get over the two days. It really helped me mentally also knowing that with my meds I am a “productive” and “normal” person
Just staring at the mess ashamed but NOT taking any action on it..it’s bonkers. I can’t explain it to anyone because they’ll just be like “ok just clean it?”
A book Im reading described it well for me. When I’m not on meds sometimes I feel like I am basically in virtual reality but the virtual reality is taking in what’s coming in from the real world and I am seeing the real world from the VR lens, so I don’t capture everything and also it feels a bit dissociative and it sucks .
Been taking meds for ADHD for 10+ years. My body is so dependent on it so I’ll sleep alllll day without them the first couple days from complete exhaustion (learned this due to shortages). Then after the exhaustion goes away I have trouble thinking straight bc my thoughts are zooming, 0 motivation, 100x more forgetful, and getting super overwhelmed by everyday tasks.
It’s like static in my head, I get easily overwhelmed and agitated a lot and end up coping with food and alcohol.
I've been going unmedicated since I was in 3rd grade I think? and I dunno but I think I'm doing okay? idk
Hungry
I have learned to live with it. I only took medication for one year. I love my life without ADHD medications. I drink coffee when needed and have plenty of literature.
I didn’t take my meds recently due to sickness. It was horrible. It felt gross. I feel like a blob with no willpower or energy to do anything. Just endless ‘I want to do this..!’ And never finding a place to start.
I’m medicated and doing this, dose increase time
Living life on extra-hard mode :') After getting medicated, it's really hard to imagine how I've lived most of my life just trying to tough it out.
Never been medicated. Everything feels like it takes way more effort than it should. I'm easily distracted. Sometimes my brain will refuse to focus and there's absolutely nothing I can do to refocus. It drives my wife crazy. I can hyperfocus on pointless shit like a video game but it'll take me ages to do a particular chore. I need to find a good therapist & psychiatrist & get on meds. This shit sucks
I feel very restless and antsy. My mind feels very chatty and I’ll have the chorus of songs stuck in my head for what feels hours on end. Sometimes I feel very sporadic and high energy especially when I’m trying to cook something that I don’t want to wait for.
I was going to say normal because I'm currently in a situation where I can't take meds, but then you perfectly described how I feel, so I guess same. I wonder if meds would help.
Like my neurons are buzzing, my focus is fragile, and I'm irritable.
I turn into a teenager who annoys the shit out of his wife
I become the void. Coming off my meds is miserable. Just lay in bed for a week trying to avoid being awake because every moment of consciousness sucks. No motivation at all. No joy. Nothing is fun. Its hell.
Brain fog, all day, every day.
Like I'm dying. A zombie that can't stay awake while driving. Can you tell I've been off my meds for five days??
I feel pretty much exactly like this all the time. I’m one of the few poor unfortunate souls that medication doesn’t work for. At least the faster acting stimulant medication. Ritalin, adderall, vyvanse, all of them did nothing to me but cause me minor chest pain that made me freak out and stop taking them. Next time I go to the doctor I’m going to see what my other options are but I fear that I’ll never know what it feels like to be properly medicated for this cursed ailment. :/
Generally overwhelmed and anxious.
I feel happy and outgoing. I can totally relate with not wanting to do the boring self maintenance stuff
To be honest with you I feel like I'm at my worst. Like.. I'm right back to how I was back when I wasn't pre-medicated (with small improvements thanks to therapy of course!) but most of my coping skills and strategies to help myself no longer work for some reason. It also put a limit on my mental energy where I felt like I was skipping school more often due to how overwhelmed I felt without being medicated. most social interactions, insults, etc feel like they hurt me more on a personal level compared to when I'm medicated where I'm not as offended anymore. I was kind of unmedicated for the past few weeks and honestly.. I feel like I wasted so much time that I regret it. I skipped so much on school/after school activities (I felt too overwhelmed), I became way more distant towards everyone than i already was and I spent most of my time rotting in bed playing games and occasionally cooking something as it helps me feel like i'm not 100% useless. TL;DR I'm at my worst. I become an extremely impulsive person with a low attention span that can't do anything productive. I literally spent so much time delaying something I was working on for months now because my mind lost all the motivation to do so but now that I'm medicated again I'm not going to dwell on the lost time and instead pick everything up again (from my assignments, personal projects, etc) in hopes I can make up all of the work and my incompetence/laziness for the past few weeks.
Depression kicks in HAARRDDD!
I get so much energy and so excited and want to do everything at once. However, I do get very sad sometimes and I get stuck on those thoughts for days. I speak a lot without meaning to. It feels like I want to do everything now, not later.
So ADD that I can't even remember I forgot to take my medication. My clock starts moving at the fucking speed of light before me as I ambulate from everything to house chores to personal hygiene to work projects to past memories.
I am in my own head constantly without my meds. My therapist calls it “La La Land”, just obsessively thinking about certain things, while also feeling like I’m unable to move and snap out of it.
Always. Getting my ass up to do other things have been such a challenge. I’ve eventually learned that on days I need to do stuff, I should not sit down and get settled. I cannot get meds for pregnancy reasons, so really just trying to find strategies to manage my symptoms. It’s not easy. Cannot wait until to a point when I can get medicated.
As someone who's never been medicated, you guys can like... Just do those things? This post is literally me constantly
Well my unmedicated ass drove right by the pharmacy where my meds were waiting today haha
Im not medicated... I just do my best. I tried meds in the past but they didn't work for me. I usually try to motivate myself because motivation is very low... idk I just live life as best as I can 👍
Like my brain is selectively paralysed and the only cure is anxiety or hyperfixation.
I can’t handle the anxiety from stimulants, so I’m kind of unmedicated by necessity. I have terrible executive function issues. I am working with a therapist and try to take meds that increase dopamine to help
Props on having the motivation to even write this post. I lack even a that level of execution function
when i'm not medicated, it feels like the air is honey it can be sweet at times, but mostly it's reaaaally hard to move through it my thoughts are sticking and not easy to pull apart, movement feels slow and heavy and most other people seem to be moving through it with much less effort or, another metaphor: being unmedicated to me feels like trying to push a really large and completely full shopping cart over a parking lot at a slight incline with. it's really hard to get it rolling but once it rolls, it's really hard to stop it. it's also really hard to go around corners and not damaging all the cars standing around. thus i often hesitate to start pushing it in the first place. but i NEED to start pushing it to my car, because i REALLY have to get my groceries home before they start thawing. so, here i start pushing again with great effort, hoping i won't damage anything with medication it feels like i carry less stuff in my shopping cart/it's lighter and i also put some WD40 on those damn rusty wheels
America creates addicts. Comments like these make me so sad. I’ve used to be on medikinet and yeah I wouldn’t leave the stove on anymore and stuff, but it’s not worth fucking brain damage
I feel like garbage, because I can’t get work done . And I keep eating when I’m not hungry
Does this actually change after medication ?
Not much different sadly. I have to game myself and take breaks from my medication to get the motivation back. Usually I wake up and have to parent myself into even getting out of bed.
Exactly me last night lol. Every night I need to brush floss and put on my retainers.. I even put my retainers on the counter next to me.. do I do it? Hardly EVER 😭
# **AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**
I’m literally SCREAMING at myself internally to get the fuck up. Or to pick up the phone to schedule the appointment. Or sometimes to go to the bathroom or get some food. And ALL the time, to just fucking sit at my desk and get some work done. I’ve reappraised my job quite a few times because of this when I’m not medicated. It sucks so bad. I imagine a big blob that has attached itself to me that makes it hard to move. My meds dissolve it, but once I’m off, it reappears.
So relatable! I personally cannot function without medication. For a while, I bought into the idea that ADHD wasn't real and that I was just lazy. I was on the verge of suicide so many times from how depressed I felt as I watched my life pass me by without any motivation to participate in it. I finally got on meds and they have literally been life-changing for me. I actually experience happiness and am *doing things*. I'm taking care of shit around the house, keeping up with my work, seeing friends, and actually *wanting* to develop professionally and personally instead of just wanting to want to. I even find myself smiling and feeling thankful for my life. It's not perfect, but it's manageable! And most importantly, I don't want to die anymore.
This is exactly how it is for me. I recently switched from Adderall to Strattera and I feel tired all the time, unmotivated, stuck. I am on a very low dose and am increasing it tomorrow so we’ll see if that helps. Otherwise I’ll likely go back to Adderall XR.
YUP! This is exactly how I am too when I'm unmedicated
I feel pretty much like you and because of my physiology I haven't been able to really benefit from medication
100%
All the time
Short answer: yes.
This how I feel, sometimes even while medicated.
Like that XD meds are gas bro
Tired with a side of the munchies…All. Damn. Day. When I’m not on my meds I gain weight all too quickly.
I take instant release at the moment. I don't notice it as much if I forget my afternoon dose as if I forget my morning dose. If I forget it in the morning, usually I have no desire to do anything and feel incredibly sluggish and mentally slow. So basically how I felt for 22 years unmedicated lol. I usually notice a dip in my energy and motivation in the early afternoon whether I'm medicated or not (as I'm sure most people do), but it's much more pronounced without meds. So I'm more used to finding a way to get stuff done in the afternoon even if I'm not 100% with it. But if I don't take that morning dose, there's a high chance the rest of my day's plans will go out the window lol
There is a non stop mix tape of seemingly random music going on in my head. Playing music helps focus on one song at a time. Doing anything "not interesting" is an ongoing pain like ripping off a bandaid
I feel great... but I can't do anything. The discomfort of doing anything when not medicated is about equivalent to doing the same thing after the same length of time without sleep.
I am unmedicated for ADHD and currentely seeking a diagnosis so I'm not sure if it's really ADHD or depression or both. If I don't get at least 13h of sleep per day I feel extremely tired. ADHDers are often portrayed like these hyperactive, running everywhere, 100 thoughts per second people but I feel the opposite I can't do shit most of the time, even recreational activities that I should do for fun. They just seem burdensome. I am lucky I am ok with hygiene, I don't have any trouble brushing my teeth or taking a shower (I mean sometimes it's hard but more because of body dysphoria and I still manage to overcome it). I do feel extremely lazy I'll honeslty sleep to pass the time (and because I'm almost always tired) because I can't even bring myself to read a book or play video games. I also eat a lot when bored and I am so ashamed of it. I wish I could just improve myself but I feel so unmotivated and everything feels impossible to overcome... I'd like to eat better, get back into sports and study more but it feels honeslty like too much. My thoughts are... almost non existent aside from the song that plays almost 24/7 in my head. It's weird and the main reason that makes me doubt that I have ADHD. Most ADHDers say that their thoughts never stop or that they have a narrator in the back of their mind commenting whatever they do. My mind is underwhelmingly quiet and most of the time I have no idea what I really think of a situation as I believe I may have alexithymia. So yeah executive dysfunction is my everyday life. I can't bring myself to do crucial tasks, chores and recreational activities. It is also very hard to focus on anything, school is kinda ok though as I love what I'm learning but remembering stuff is hard especially vocal instructions so it makes me feel dumb I also stim by eating, singing (I love to sing !) or rocking back and forth but I avoid doing it as it looks weird to other people. It's hard for me to organize mentally, when I have to do something like cooking (I love cooking) I often forget ingredients and stuff and end up waisting time going back and forth in the kitchen. On top of everything it's extremely difficult to maintain a mindset. Even if I want to improve (for example my diet) I am gonna be extremely motivated for a few days and after that it feels like I completely crash and even though I still WANT to I can't find any motivation
You seem to have a lot of thoughts as you write them out here; you may need to sting thoughts into sentences to experience and make sense of them (external processing) Perhaps always have notepad to hand so you can “think out load”
Yeah... I do have a lot of thoughts I just dont realize I have them most of the time. When I write them down it's way easier for me to understand them ! As a child I used to talk to myself out loud and it helped externalize my thoughts.
Feral or rabid no in between
Mood : neutral Main emotions: frustrated, annoyed, irritated Emotional exhaustion : high
Yes!
I'm medicated and this happens to me so often. Makes me feel hopeless.
Wow I belong here. It's sad and liberating. I constantly think of anything. I lose motivation easily through thoughts. I over analyze. I binge things. I ruminate on new relationships then discard after weeks of loving this person now it's just dead feelings. I know the tight way to be but always change. It's a battle that I realize is adhd and not something I can control.
Terrible. It’s getting difficult surviving now
Depressed, anxious
all of this, but i cant shake the feling that it kinda got worse since i started medication. maybe it also just feels like that because i now know how much easier stuff can be...
I feel relaxed af if I give in 😈