To think that ADHD is killing me

[LazyCrazyAndStupid]

Definitely slowly but also not so slowly. I just can't take care of myself.

I have got a massive cavity in my tooth. The dentist said she doesn't believe me that it doesn't hurt like crazy (it doesn't) but I know it very soon will. Still I can't make the appointment to get it actually filled. It took me more than 10 years to just schedule the initial consultation.

I have got high cholesterol (and all the other markers of early heart disease), high blood pressure, I'm pre diabetic and am severely deficient in vitamin d and moderately deficient in vit b12. But I don't take the supplements let alone do anything about about my bad lipid profile.

I regularly have blood in my stool. I know I need to get it checked but I don't. I get regular chest and arm pain after walking or climbing stairs. I'm terrified I'll have a heart attack soon but I can neither change my lifestyle, nor ask for treatment or even schedule an appointment with my GP. I know It's not like I can't. I make appointments for the kids or DH all the time. I just can't do it for myself.

I can't even wash fruits before eating. It's so stupid. I religiously wash them for the kids or anyone else but not for myself. I'm constantly kindly dehydrated. My throat is so dry it's burning but I still won't drink water. Even when I have a glass of water next to me I won't drink it.

I am getting quite far sighted and it's really annoying me but of course I can't make an appointment with the optician and get varifocals.

I am nearly fifty and I have young kids and I feel terrible about not taking better care of my health and making sure that I'll be around and healthy enough to look after them while they need me. The only thing I somewhat manage to do is look after them and do my work. My work is draining me, especially because I'm so inefficient and slow but it's the one thing I won't completely neglect. The house is a tip and I've got very elderly parents who are suffering massively and desperately need my help but right now I barely manage to even call them.

I don't know what to do. I mean I know exactly what I have to do but I can't . I won't. I mean how do you do anything when you just can't do anything? I know it doesn't make sense but at some point everyone needs to "just do it" and I just can't "just do it".

I am medicated. I think 50mg of lisdexamphetamine. My psychiatrist added another dose of 20mg on top of that recently but most days I forget to take it. When I do I am alert for longer but don't use my time any better.

I am addicted to browsing my phone. I use all kinds of apps to limit my use but I get around them. I need to just get rid of it or at least completely block the browser but I won't do that.

Sorry for the long novel. I'm at the end of my tether. I'm tired and I'm depressed and I don't know how to get myself get out of this rut.

OP I know it is not easy. But can you call the dentist now and then report back here?

I have a tendancy to procrastinate when it comes to issues of health, but I do eventually get round to dealing with them, even if it takes years. I don't have ADHD or other.

A few years ago, I heard a woman talking on the radio about how difficult getting things done has been for her during her long life. What eventually helped her was to break everything down. Sounds trite, but I have to say, it's really helped me. Don't put yourself under enormous pressure by thinking it all has to get done immediately, but just do one thing or a part of that one thing, and so on.

I find that life can be very tedious. But following a health scare a few years ago, I promised myself that I'd be grateful for being alive and actually having those mundane, daily routines.

Not sure if that'll help in any way

I think you need to fix the B12 first. As that should help with everything else. Can you put your supplements in a 7 day pill case with your ADHD medication and take them all together in one mouthful? This is what I do and then sort it all out on Sundays. I would second adding HRT after this. B12 injections even better if that's on offer.

You might need to specifically book time off work to deal with some of the other things if you don't have capacity in a normal week.

Edit: ditched post. Overshared

I totally agree with you.

OP, I get you are struggling hugely, but please see your GP about the blood in your stool and chest pains. You cannot ignore those symptoms.

Absolute bollocks.

The OP describes classic symptoms of executive dysfunction.

I was shocked by how much worse peri menopause made my ADHD. Even medicated (72mg methyphenidate) everything is such a struggle. Way worse than it was before peri. I feel like I am fighting myself most/all of the time.

What helps me is understanding why I do (or don’t do) certain things. Knowledge is power after all. For example, the doom scrolling / excessive phone use is due to dopamine hunting. ADHD brains are much lower on dopamine so our waking hours are pretty much a constant quest for dopamine. While we can’t change that, being aware of it helps you find alternative ways of getting dopamine that are better for you / more compatible with daily life. So try to find other things that give you dopamine and that will help keep you off your phone to some extent. Exercise is a great one (if you like it!). Eating is great for dopamine release but the downside is that you risk ending up 200kg 😉

Try and see your GP about HRT. It may help but don’t expect a miracle-cure. Hormonal changes and ADHD is a powerful combination. I feel like I’m trying to control wild horses.

Most importantly, don’t beat yourself up. That doesn’t help.

Very quick one as I've got the app blocking thing on set to two hours of day for certain apps and I only have about ten minutes of internet access left. I've skimmed over the posts and will read them properly tomorrow when my quota resets. Hopefully in the day and not at midnight.

I just wanted to say thank you so much. Without this thread I wouldn't have tried another app (tried too many but got around all of them,). It might not last for long but today it's working. I made a dentist appointment. Different dentist because I don't trust the other one though I feel hugely guilty about spending more money. Made an appointment for the kids and invited a new friend to dinner (I'm absolutely horrible at keeping up friendships so this is massive for me).

I am not lagging behind with work terribly but at least I've made the dentist appointments. Thanks. I'll read and answer properly when I can but just wanted to say I hugely appreciate people taking time out to help and empathise and just be nice..💜

Just a few things. I wasn't neglected as a child at all. my family was and is very caring and supportive which is why I haven't gone completely off the rails I think though it wasn't the happiest of childhoods for other reasons.

Body doubling works brilliantly for me which is why I work so much better in the office than at home. DH is supportive. He has to pick up a lot of the slack. I know I'd resent him though for trying to push me and I'm too ashamed to tell him how much I'm actually struggling as he's got enough of his own shit going on.

I need to look up PDA. Just 5min left and I need to keep that for emergencies.

Oops I meant I'm lagging behind with work terrible and my long to do lists mean I'm never really relaxed.

Also I'm prescribed 70mg. 50 in the morning and 20 around mid day. I've tried methyl phenidate but it gave me a rash though that was ages ago. Was on dexamphetamine for years but it's not available anymore. Or very difficult to source. I think lisdexamphetamine works well even though I hate how it makes me feel. Flat and joyless. So I hesitate or forget to take the 20mg booster

I don't know if you're UK based but I have been prescribed dexamfetamine for the past 18 months and have had no issues with supply. I know there were various issues with supply of ADHD meds around 2023/2024, I'm not sure if that coincided with when you had problems or if I've just been luckier.

I really feel your pain as I’m a similar age and almost no executive function. HRT has helped along with ADHD medication and use of trackers as I get a dopamine hit from ticking things off the list of tasks. I really recommend you speak to your GP about HRT and also about your ADHD meds as they might need to give you something more effective or change your dose. Wishing you all the best, I know it’s so bloody hard having ADHD and it can really affect our lives in many ways.

Now you have more time as you have less doom scrolling I would try listening to audiobooks of Atomic Habits. Some great tips there on how to make good habits stick. If any of them work well for you then you can apply them to life and work.

Some people’s ADHD is so severe that there’s a mental block between knowing what to do and doing it. It’s as if the “take action” part of the brain is missing.

This is very much how ADHD presents for me as well.

I can have periods of being more functional but I can have weeks/months/years of being like this, it is depressing. And even in my more functional times I will have aspects of my life which are like this. For example at the moment, even though I have been able to make appointments and deal with some admin tasks that have been lurking, which are usually things I struggle with, I have not been eating meals. I just eat snacks instead or forget that I was hungry in the first place. It's making me ill - I am underweight and I look pale with dark circles under my eyes but that doesn't really make a difference to me feeling motivated or not to change my behaviour. Actually, if anything I ought to probably ensure I put on a few kg or I will be under the safe weight to take my current dose of medication.

Phone/internet addiction is particularly tricky. I do find LDX effective for myself though.

I was listening to a podcast recently where the host reckoned relationships/other people is THE thing which is important in ADHD which might be why people tend to find body doubling works well. I thought about this a lot, and I actually do think this is true for me. I think it's even part of why I tend to be drawn back to sites like mumsnet, reddit, Facebook (esp groups) etc. I've always loved this right back to the times of message boards and forums. I think it's the way that you can feel like you're connecting with so many people at once and the connections/conversations can feel very real and deep (I am doing it right now. I should probably be making food.) <Added later: DS1 came down and made food so I ended up joining him and we made pasta>.

Prioritising IRL relationships and trying to make sure I spend some time every week in the physical proximity of people does really help me, I think because it tends to ground me in the timeline of other people's lives. I think a lot of the time the procrastination is very much about feeling unanchored from time and not really having a sense of time having boundaries. (I don't know if this makes any sense to anybody else). I don't think I would do well at all in a WFH role, and I have avoided looking for any kind of work like that aside from casual stuff. I am extremely time blind in all senses of the word. Medication helps a bit with this.

I do resonate with elements of PDA but I don't recognise the PDA description in the glass of water for myself. For me, it's more like - I'm thirsty and I just keep thinking I'll get a drink soon but it never actually translates into the action to physically move my body and go and get it. Something else might trigger me to get up, and then I'll get the drink (if I even remember) but equally, it might not, and in that case I just won't. There's not really any specific thing blocking me from doing it, it's just I keep thinking I'll do it later and then it never turns into now. Some nights I'll procrastinate on going to bed because I'm thirsty but if I get up then I should go to bed but I should drink first - before I know it, it will be 2-3am and I will neither have had a drink nor gone to bed.

Anyway - I will log off now and eat my body-doubled pasta. But I did want to share something I found yesterday - one of my favourite internet people is Dana K White aka A Slob Comes Clean. She somehow got me to clean my house in a way that nobody else, not even FLYlady, not even social services or DH had ever been able to do. She has a new book about procrastination and reading it feels very much like reading the book she wrote about cleaning. All these little ways I think which just seem perfectly normal and logical to me at the time but she is exposing it as flawed and it is eye opening.

You manage all this for your family members. Can’t one of them manage it for you? Make your appointments, get you there etc.

My DC is having CBT at the moment. We think he has ADHD (but mild) One of the things the therapist said which really struck me, was don't wait until you feel motivated to do the thing. Do the thing first, then dopamine/motivation comes afterwards.
We've also been told to schedule things you want to do. For example, at 11am I will make myself toast and marmite. Be specific, and set an alarm.
There's much more chance of doing it if it's scheduled, apparently.

Lastly she said note how you feel afterwards. The idea is to remind yourself you feel better now it's done. Then that's what you try to think about next time you have to do something.

What make is your phone? I just bought a Balance subscription which blocks all social apps and websites apart from whatsapp. It cannot be turned off. I struggle with phone use.

Bollox is it!
If it wasn't the phone it would be some other distraction to steer your head away from these important 'tasks' that need addressing.
OP speak to your GP or see if you can join a ADHD support/information group, this is, it maybe worth looking at ADHD executive functioning challanges.

Pay - pay for someone to come - a sensible cleaner could also book appointments and ask for several reminders nearer the time, send a text to your DPs for you on your phone, pick up food to drop at your DPs, throw out fatty food that's bad for you, buy food for DCs.
Come on - no excuse

This is self destruction. I would get talk therapy. You are perfectly capable of taking care of other people but are destroying yourself through self-neglect. It's passive, but it's still a terrible form of self-harm. Seek help to understand why you are doing this to yourself, and to stop it.

Dump your phone.
Read a book
Go for a walk

I was gonna say - a phone addiction (or any addiction for that matter) is not a cause.

I also suspect that HRT is not 'the' solution. I've had ADD since childhood. I wasn't hormonally imbalanced or insufficient (tested many times since).

Tough love here from a fellow 49 year old, OP:

1. If you take nothing else away from this comment, the blood in your stool needs addressing TODAY, with an appointment at the GP. Call the surgery and tell the receptionist you have blood in your stool. TODAY. 😠
   Edited to add: for the avoidance of doubt, blood in the stool is a red flag for bowel cancer, which is very treatable IF it’s caught in time. 🚩

2. Only you can start to turn things around. If you won’t do it for you, do it for your children. Stop making excuses. START SHOWING UP FOR YOUR LIFE. 😠

3. Change your username. Stop NLP-ing that shit. 😠

❤️

A friend did this and he said it really really helped - please try this!

Also - when you book your kids’ dental appointments book one for you too. In my family we all have 6 month check ups on the same day, one after another, parents and kids.

Plus - tell your psychiatrist your meds aren’t working - surely there are some other options you could try?

There’s some really nasty responses on this thread, I really don’t understand the spite and vitriol