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Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical structures for work?

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Re: Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical structures for work?

#21

Post by briHass »

gazby wrote: post #18
Mo3 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are welcome. For myself, it was immediate. There seems to be a certain kind of intuitive understanding that becomes obvious after the first doses of a medication. It is quite hard to explain, but it seems like the brain knows exactly what it needs. Unless you have uncontrollable addictive tendencies, you will automatically gravitate towards the dosage necessary to restore chemical balance. You will redose when it…

Thank you mate! To clarify, my current dose is 20mg XR daily. I have raised with my doctor that this dose is completely spent (I have other [diagnosed] issues that lead to an overly acidic stomach) long before the end of the work day, and thus I don't have medicinal help when I turn to my personal life. As yet she seems quite unwilling to adjust the dose or add an IR (anecdotally adding an IR seems very common), and…

Personally, I found the promise of XR's delayed-duration to be massively overstated. I like the IR's better, because you can figure out when to re-dose through experimentation (which my doc encouraged.)

I was also motivated to change to IRs, and mentioned to my doc, that the generic IRs can be had for less than half what generic XRs cost, with GoodRx. I have insurance, but GoodRx is cheaper, and insurance gives me runarounds with 'prior auth' nonsense.

My timeline was a month before switching meds/doses. Obviously, you want to give it an honest shot of a few weeks, but if something isn't working after a month, your doc should be willing to change it up. If they're giving you a hard time, I'd explore other options. There seem to be a number of providers that have a prejudiced view of stimulants. If you needed to switch/increase the dose of say, an antidepressant, no doctor would think twice.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical structures for work?

#22

Post by softcactus »

I don't have anything to contribute, but the fact that you are in a senior position of an important project is good news to hear. I have been anxious for some time that my horrible working memory and executive function are going to stunt my career growth unless I start snorting lines of adderall, which I don't want to do.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical structures for work?

#24

Post by annie_muss »

I suffer from ADHD. I'm not sure my advice is a good fit for your specific situation, but these are some things that I think are helpful.

1. Get your health/medication on point. Find out what medication works for your and take it consistently. You can't afford to lose out on the extra executive function good medication can give you.

2. Accept your ADHD. Flagellating yourself for missed deadlines, forgotten tasks, procrastination and so on will only make things worse. I used to beat myself up about procrastination and it led to a cycle of anxiety that only made things worse. If you have a low productivity day accept it. Take each new day, each new project and each new task as completely fresh an isolated.

3. Record yourself working. Use a camera or a screen recorder. Try to notice exactly what happens. Do you start a task and then procrastinate? Do you procrastinate before the task starts? What triggers it? Is it internal? External? It can feel like you know what is triggering things but getting an actual recording can show you things you would have never noticed in the moment.

4. Inject novelty into boring tasks. Often simple boring tasks don't have enough excitement to make them interesting. Counterintuitively, making a task more difficult can add novelty and help stop you procrastinating. What adds novelty and challenge will be very individual.

5. Make peace with that fact that some techniques will stop working for you and you will need to change how you work. Just because something was working great last week doesn't mean it will work this week.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical structures for work?

#25

Post by adave »

I mean ADHD is a challenge in of itself, why not push back on the promo or go on a trial phase to figure out how stressful it is. I don't understand the need for people to keep pushing and advancing beyond their means.(goes beyond streching)

Is there a reason you put so much stress and was it all worth it? Are you doing it for money, prestige or a combination of both?

Most of the times its always better to slow down and not fight with your condition just to perform your regular duties. Taking medication and optimizing all for doing your job seems like a waste and something that will have its consequences in the long run.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical structures for work?

#26

Post by sibeliuss »

I don't mean to dismiss your ADHD (and I'm not), but all of the items you listed impact just about everyone and pretty much in the same way. It's the difference between greenfield and something someone else wrote. Keeping track of all of the details in a large system is hard, and most of it is boring. And just about anyone who has a real interest in the field would like to work on something interesting; when the interest isn't there, or the role doesn't align, it's easy to get distracted. And then one has to work twice as hard to keep up. Its basic human nature.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical structures for work?

#27

Post by [deleted] »

Mo3 wrote: post #6

I assume you will get a lot of helpful tips here, and I too have successfully managed to cope for almost 30 years, but I have to honestly admit that getting on medication was the best thing that has ever happened to me. There is only so much you can do to alleviate a chemical imbalance. My life has never been the same since I got on it. The first few days I had to cry a lot, it was so incredibly beautiful and liberat…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical structures for work?

#28

Post by eyelidlessness »

sibeliuss wrote: post #26

I don't mean to dismiss your ADHD (and I'm not), but all of the items you listed impact just about everyone and pretty much in the same way. It's the difference between greenfield and something someone else wrote. Keeping track of all of the details in a large system is hard, and most of it is boring. And just about anyone who has a real interest in the field would like to work on something interesting; when the inte…

> and pretty much in the same way

This is the dismissive part. It doesn’t even affect those of us with ADHD the same way, or even affect us each individually the same way every day.

At my best, I’ve been pretty consistently praised for being good at keeping track of how everything fits together and all of the details that should be considered for a given effort. At my worst, I know there’s a short list of things which will pass as functioning if I can bring myself to follow through with it.

Neither of those extremes are normal everyday experiences for most people. And that’s good, and it’s understandable you recognize the wide gamut in between.

I don’t want to dismiss your much broader more general experience either. I just want to push back on the thing that feels invisible for those of us who aren’t actually experiencing that broader more general thing.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical structures for work?

#29

Post by sibeliuss »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #28
sibeliuss wrote: post #26

I don't mean to dismiss your ADHD (and I'm not), but all of the items you listed impact just about everyone and pretty much in the same way. It's the difference between greenfield and something someone else wrote. Keeping track of all of the details in a large system is hard, and most of it is boring. And just about anyone who has a real interest in the field would like to work on something interesting; when the inte…

> and pretty much in the same way This is the dismissive part. It doesn’t even affect those of us with ADHD the same way, or even affect us each individually the same way every day. At my best, I’ve been pretty consistently praised for being good at keeping track of how everything fits together and all of the details that should be considered for a given effort. At my worst, I know there’s a short list of things whic…

I honestly didn't mean to come across as dismissive. Taking the OPs words exactly as they were written, I only meant to say that generally speaking, those responses are all quite expected, independent of any diagnosis. Having ADHD could of course make each of those bullet points much worse! But as the post was written, it seemed like textbook dissatisfaction that all of us experience when placed in a role that isn't quite right, and when that happens it's often easier to check out or become distracted. I don't see how ADHD stratagems could alleviate this without increasing unhappiness lower down. In the end, if you're not doing whats right for you then figuring out how to focus better is the real distraction.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical structures for work?

#30

Post by eyelidlessness »

The best advice I can give you is what I wish I could have told myself over the last decade: your expectations of yourself are higher than anyone can reasonably expect of you, be very cautious of burnout, counter any self doubt with the knowledge that your talent is already seen and proven, and rest.

You're already qualified to do the work or you wouldn’t be recognized for it. You don’t need to do more. Getting a promotion is a formal acknowledgment of work you already do! This is your chance to be rewarded for it and relax.

Congratulations, also, are in order. It’s really tough for us to thrive with this kind of anxiety and pressure. Reward yourself. Take a vacation if it helps. And keep doing the things you’ve found rewarding and successful.

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