If you have ADHD and can't/don't take medication, what helps?

[MsRosewater]

I have a new diagnosis of ADHD. It explains a lot for me!

It's going to be about 7 months until I can start treatment but I'm really struggling to function at the moment. It's a particular issue at work where I'm perpetually missing deadlines, unable to initiate things through inertia/ procrastination and not being able to concentrate in ( interminable) team's meeting so missing things .

I'm in a new , senior NHS role and the sole breadwinner so not a lot of room to manoeuvre there but keen to know how others manage....,

Thanks

@Shineyitem that makes me so mad! It's not his job to make judgements like that! Especially outside of his "general" expertise. I'd go back and see another GP. I wander what the NICE guidelines are...

I know you shouldn't have to, but it would be about a grand for a private diagnosis so I would do that if it mattered a lot to be (and could manage the cost)

@Drunkpanda

I know you shouldn't have to, but it would be about a grand for a private diagnosis so I would do that if it mattered a lot to be (and could manage the cost)

The difficulty is whether a private diagnosis will enable you to access medication via the NHS though. That's my main concern.

Something to think about with the going private thing is it’s not just that one off cost IF your GP won’t agree to shared care (like mine).

I was around £700 for my diagnosis and it’s £80 every six weeks or so for medication reviews (apparently this will cut down in frequency once I’m settled on meds), £20 for every private prescription they write me and £100 for a two month supply of medication.

I am lucky that I am able to pay for this but people shouldn’t go into it thinking it’s a one off cost. You may be lucky and have a reasonable GP who take over shared care. I imagine most would want you stable first. Of course medication is life changing for most of us so if you get your diagnosis and meds privately then can’t keep that up and the GP won’t agree to shared care then you’re almost worse off because you’ve had a ‘taste of the good life’.

My medication actually cost me £160 to get this time because I had run out and was back to being 100% ADHD so the first and second prescription I received I left too collect and had to request a third!!

I am back on my meds for the first time in months today.

@Shantotto so frustrating … you shouldn’t have to cope! You should be able to live your life like anyone else. People with ADHD have to use so much more energy to get way less results than anyone else at most things in life and it’s just unfair

It makes me want to scream to think about how my life could have turned out had I been diagnosed as a child.

Interesting about being good in a crisis. I am generally good in an emergency. I don’t freeze, I don’t freak out, I react and start dishing out orders to all the people standing around staring.

Teaching and training people has worked out well for me because my mind works fast and I can jump in to cover for someone at a moment’s notice. Lockdown and furlough crushed my spirit completely after the initial crisis management stage because of the unending routine and boredom, at one point I could barely motivate myself off the couch.

I have asked MN to move this to the new Neurodiverse MNetters section

Hello! I've found my people. In all our neuro diverse, wonderful glory. I actually had a little cry reading this thread. I spent most of my life thinking I was incredibly stupid until thinking I could have ADHD about 10years ago and then procrastinating for about 5yrs until paying for a private assessment.

I recognise so much of what you are all experiencing. From the helpful of being great in a crisis (which does come in useful in my social care job but as I'm senior I'm meant to design processes to minimise crisis), to the downright fucking frustrating - memory of a goldfish, inability to focus, going to bed stupidly late all the fucking time, procrastination, endless lists that I either forget or ignore, unable to order my thoughts effectively, making an already busy and stressful job more stressful because of all the things I have mentioned. A house that I cannot order and several monologues running concurrently in my head. Oh, and using alcohol as an emotional crutch of sorts, especially when I am up at 1am.

I've not told any of my friends or family about my diagnosis as I'm too fucking ashamed. My partner doesn't 'believe in ADHD' it's just something lazy kids use as an excuse to be lazy 🤔. I told my boss at the time I received my diagnosis and they told me I didn't have it as they knew people with ADHD and I'm nothing like them.

I've spent a lifetime feeling a fraud which has definitely taken a toll on my mental health. My ADHD assessment report also stated I had depression. I've been depressed for so long I can't quite remember life without it.

But 2022 is the year I'm going to be kinder to myself. I'm not stupid I'm different. And, despite those differences, like many on this thread I am good at many aspects of my job, I've raised wonderful human beings who are an asset to this world and I am a caring person.

To us 🥂

Anyone else bought heaps of birthday cards well in advance of the actual birthday then never manage to post them and have to make terrible excuses about the bad postal service?! I've literally lost count of that one!!!!

Lovely thread. Sometimes these get started and turn into a pile on with comments from people with no experience of neurodiversity, saying effectively ‘everyone does that sometimes, ADHD is all in your head’. This thread hasn’t gone that way, so it’s nice to be on it.
I totally relate to the birthday cards thing! And presents. People are used to getting their presents a few months later. Nothing helps (except my mum reminding me - I’m 47!! And even when she does, I’ll often be oppositional about it and still not manage, as I can’t do things when I’m ‘told to’ unless it’s at work).
Sometimes I’m still really down on myself, but as a pp says, it’s important to remember how our brains are different.
Learning to relax is my hope for this year. I’ve never been able to - life is an endless series of tasks to complete. I don’t want it to be like that.
I’ve hyper focused on Animal Crossing on the switch since January and find it really relaxing. But I’ll be bored of it soon.
Libraries are my nemesis - anyone else? My poor children. I just pile up fine after fine as o CAN’T take books back! Idiot!

@parrotonmyshoulder

I’ve hyper focused on Animal Crossing on the switch since January and find it really relaxing. But I’ll be bored of it soon.

Me too! It save me in lock down ! 600hours later I have a lovely island but bit bored as I have been playing it over a year now so something are the same.

But I love it so.

And the seasons change so it doesn’t get boring, so the animals you catch change. You catch different ones at different times of day. Took me too long to work that out!

I'm not really sure a diagnosis would have helped me when I was growing up. My parents would have still been annoyed by my clumsiness, my impulsiveness (why are you so careless? Why don't you just think?) and my forgetfulness (you lost a pair of school shoes?) And it IS annoying. Ds lives in constant chaos. He loses things. He has no concept of time. He gets distracted easily and doesn't seem to care about anything. I know I should be sympathetic, but fuck me it drives me mad. And I know how I should be dealing with him- both on a personal and professional level.

I never struggled at school, because I'm fast and if I'm interested, will remember.

I have wasted, and still do, an inordinate amount of time trying to come up with systems to make my life more efficient. I come across as hyper organised, but I have to be.

It’s great for the mindless bashing of trees and things, simple rewarding tasks like gaining nook miles, little routines like changing clothes! Unfortunately it’s DD’s island and she doesn’t play much. I might take over her profile as well actually. Wish we’d had it last year. I’ve never been interested in a computer game before!

@Woffle

The Happiness Planner sounds interesting but I think I’d fill the six tasks with household chores… put a wash on / hang it out / put dry clothes away / empty bins / order more milk / put vac round / cancel subscriptions / ring doctor / go to library sort of things!! That’s half the problem!

Could you change that to be 1.) 20 mins of laundry sorting (which covers putting on a wash-load, hanging it out, folding and putting away 2.) 30 mins admin (which includes call doc, cancel subs etc 3.) walk and coffee with friend (2 things that help - exercise and caffeine) 4.) Go to library on way back from walk 5) Something happy and productive 6.) Something else happy and productive.

By the way, I use reverse To Do lists, as even if I plan to do 6 things next day, I inevitably only do 2, 1 or none of them and then feel deeply guilty about my lack of drive and focus. Instead, I list what I did do.

E.g. yesterday I intended to sort out the laundry mountain and hoover the house.

I did neither.

But i did go to bootcamp, go for a 20 minute walk, have a bath and wash my hair, write 1.5k words of a report, finish reading a novel (big focus challenge for me as my concentration means I usually abandon them a third of the way in).

Not perfect and laundry mountain will need to be done today but it reminds me that I did do more than watch Netflix and browse MN for hours (I also watched Netflix and browsed MN for hours )

@Popstarrrrr for you.

And YES to library-fails & hyperfocussing on iPad games. (It's the Scapes games & Delicious World for me).

@hivemindneeded

By the way, I use reverse To Do lists, as even if I plan to do 6 things next day, I inevitably only do 2, 1 or none of them and then feel deeply guilty about my lack of drive and focus. Instead, I list what I did do.

E.g. yesterday I intended to sort out the laundry mountain and hoover the house.

I did neither.

But i did go to bootcamp, go for a 20 minute walk, have a bath and wash my hair, write 1.5k words of a report, finish reading a novel (big focus challenge for me as my concentration means I usually abandon them a third of the way in).

Not perfect and laundry mountain will need to be done today but it reminds me that I did do more than watch Netflix and browse MN for hours (I also watched Netflix and browsed MN for hours )

This is so interesting- similar to you, I often have a ‘to do’ list and then achieve 5 annoying jobs that have to be done, but they are never the ones on the list.

The list is like a action avoidance list.

I make myself laugh but is this a adhd thing?

Starting the new week with new targets again.

The list is like a action avoidance list.

{grin] Brilliant. I know exactly what you mean. Don't know if it's an ADHD thing though.

I love this thread. I've been meaning to post on it for nearly 10 days though (since it first appeared?)! Haven't got around to it even though the tab has been open and I've been reading through everything since then.

I totally agree about the birthday cards and presents issue. Wedding presents are the worst! I'm so ashamed that so many people still haven't had a wedding present years after the wedding. I'm actually glad so many people ask for money now as easier to organise, don't have to choose something. But really, I recognise almost everything on this thread.

In some ways I feel like it's getting worse as time goes on? (I'm 40 now) Although it probably isn't and in some ways I'm probably just more aware. In terms of work it does feel an actual disability. It's been making me a bit sad this weekend even though usually I'm okay with it (although I'd rather know it was adhd and be a bit sad about it than just think I'm lazy and useless and hate myself, which was how I used to feel).

I didn't know about the Access to Work scheme, (so thank you!) which I might look into although not totally clear about what I would want from it.

Also - the weirdest thing I've done with work this week: there's a medium-urgent project i'm meant to be working on that I've really really struggled to work on, can't keep my mind on it at ALL. I was doing anything else, helping people with their stuff - I physically couldn't even look at it.

Then a colleague invited me to a zoom quiz (yawn)! I felt obliged to attend because they meant well and I was worried no one else would turn up to it (hardly anyone did). It was so dull I immediately opened the HARD PROJECT and got on with it furiously between questions for a whole hour, and then that had got me into it so I spent the rest of the night on it even after the quiz finished

I can't believe I need to get colleagues to rope me into terrible boring forced events to get me to do work though!!

This is such a great thread! Does anyone find that whatever strategy you use wears off after a while? I've tried so many timers, alarms, reminders on phone/alexa, list apps etc, but they all seem to become invisible to me after a couple of weeks. I end up ignoring notifications without meaning to. Does this happen to anyone else?

@Boeufsurletoit

Yes! Definitely. That’s what’s so annoying about anyone’s well meaning advice. ‘I just make a list’, ‘use this app’, ‘write it in a diary’.
If I could, I would!

I have just missed a 4 monthly appointment (non ADHD and non urgent, but some companies would charge for it). I have been having these for over a year so this was the fourth. I have missed EVERY one of them, to be reminded after I’ve missed it while I’m being waited for. I don’t understand how I can sabotage myself so much.
I also have piles and piles of paperwork mocking me at work. It’s probably all done, or now redundant, but I can’t deal with putting or throwing it away. Partly because I may uncover something I haven’t done and I don’t want to feel that awful feeling.
But seeing it everyday, and everyone else seeing it, is so much worse than that!

This thread has been really illuminating and Ive read with great interest. My mum admits now I probably have ADHD and there were traits evident as a child but 1) in wasn't such a thing in the 80s and 2) I was viewed as some kind of genius by teachers and parents so that kind of guy he through school. Massively underachieved though due to no focus, inertia, procrastination and huge difficulties with executive functioning. I know I have ADHD as been informally diagnosed at work my psychiatrist colleagues but it's just affording and getting the formal diagnosis that's proving difficult. It would send me info debt unfortunately.

I have £6k credit card bill as I'm shit EU money and spend impulsively. I have just done an assignment for my post grad teaching certificate and it was awful (the process of doing it). Never known procrastination like it, unable to think about or do anything else for months. After I'd submitted it I felt sick with anxiety it was wrong. I really really struggle to organise academic work and get myself in a complete panic about literature searching and referencing. I've attended study support sessions and workshops but to no avail as I can't retain information and I forget which one of the multitude of notebooks I've got on the has the notes in as to the steps to take.

Birthday cards etc are an utter nightmare, I hate myself for looking so careless and thoughtless but I've had to say to friends that they're a step too far for me. Ive never written a thank you card after dc parties when they were little. When I did a clear out I found x 8 packets of unopened thank you notelets I meant to send but never did. These have been hanging round my house for over 5 years! Hoarding and inability to let go of "stuff" is another issue, I hate it.

But yes great in a crisis! I used to work as a senior practitioner in complex mental health. I was great at the risk and crisis work, safety planning, finding beds, lots of urgent and immediate liaison etc etc. But seeing people week after week for 1:1 work where there was very little change I couldn't cope with, the slow pace of it didn't suit me. I'm quietly very fast driven. I too have changed jobs multiple times due to boredom! The ironic thing with the essay writing is I'm actually pretty good at writing, I can bash out a project idea or a 5000 word clinical report in an afternoon. It's just organising searching for literature and organising the references that's completely beyond me.