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My ADHD founder toolbox

hypatia.ca

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Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#201

Post by selfhoster11 »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #51

I diagnosed when I was like... 8 years old. From then to 17 I was on various meds, finally gave them all up. So for about 22 years I've coped with ADHD without meds. I am a Staff Engineer and make a good living, respected in my field. Regardless of anything else, I think the key thing to remember about ADHD is that you do not need to be a high-performing human being, at all, in life. You will forget things and get di…

I probably have ADHD or something similar, and have coped for nearly 30 years of my life with that. Let me just say, f*ck going through it all without help.

The moment I get an official diagnosis, I’m getting on meds. I don’t know what the side effects are, but I struggle to imagine that they are worse than barely being able to function as an adult IT professional.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#202

Post by andai »

herbst wrote: post #184

Many people here write about trying or hoping to be normal. Do you realize how man founders and extraordinary people have or had ADHD? How about not getting normal, but finding a life/work that fits to you and your lifestyle.

The "be successful without becoming normal" idea possessed me for many years, and for me it was a trap because a significant portion of my abnormalities were genuinely pathological, and I thought they were me instead of just bad and unhealthy habits.

I thought I had to be genuinely inspired to get work done, and chased that fleeting motivation like a mirage for years instead of just learning how to sit down and work.

I thought my sleep was just "different" and my physical and mental health (not to mention productivity) suffered horribly and pointlessly for years until I put my foot down and... just fixed it.

Since fixing my sleep, for example, my productivity went from about 2 hours a day (of solid, focused work) to over 10 hours a day. In the span of ten days. That's not a bad exchange rate for a bit of normalcy, is it?

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#203

Post by techstrategist »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #51

I diagnosed when I was like... 8 years old. From then to 17 I was on various meds, finally gave them all up. So for about 22 years I've coped with ADHD without meds. I am a Staff Engineer and make a good living, respected in my field. Regardless of anything else, I think the key thing to remember about ADHD is that you do not need to be a high-performing human being, at all, in life. You will forget things and get di…

thanks for this.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#204

Post by Cthulhu_ »

resonious wrote: post #128
yc-kraln wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was diagnosed when I was six, and, like you, I dropped all meds at 17. Recently (as in, this year) through a combination of therapy and introspection, I realized that while indeed I was able to have a successful life, career, relationships without the medication, and that, yes, my coping mechanisms were satisfactory, I was punching myself in the face for no reason Last month I saw a psychiatrist and got a prescript…

One interesting point about stimulant meds: they also help people who don't have the ADHD diagnosis. The black market for stimulants is pretty sizeable, not to mention the legit market for things like coffee.

I've tried my GF's meds once to see what it was (and using medication is one of the diagnosis tools they use); I found myself focusing and intetionally task switching for about two hours (that and palpitations), but I wouldn't say they "help"ed me.

If you feel like you need stimulants to perform well in a job, you need to reconsider your career choices. It shouldn't be a rat race.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#205

Post by TeMPOraL »

nicbou wrote: post #167
TeMPOraL wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

N=1, I can confirm this effect. I started to call stimulant medication "sticky". As in, when they kick in, I find it much easier to focus on doing whatever it is I am doing at that time. So, if they kick in while I'm on HN, I can kiss the next couple hours goodbye. It's a trap that took me too long to figure out, and one I still fall into quite often (the period between taking a pill and it kicking in is long enough…

This feels so validating to read. I was having problems with my attention cannon and they just handed me a bigger one. I stopped when I caught myself in a deep dive about the different types of flour in Germany. It also affected my mood in really unpleasant ways, both for me and people around me. And it gave me a productivity boost at work at the expense of my life past 4PM. Nowadays I just have a coffee before work.

Everyone's different. In my case, medication almost entirely eliminates the anxiety that's been a constant background presence, slow-burn torture, for most of my life. They also stabilize my mood. If the meds were to suddenly stop having any other positive effect, and kept the negative and neutral side effects, the anxiety reduction and mood stabilization alone would make them worth their weight in gold for me.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#206

Post by TeMPOraL »

yywwbbn wrote: post #195
TeMPOraL wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe you can get off them safely, but not always easily. You're implying addiction, but in the more common case, people with ADHD can be apprehensive about getting off the meds for the same reason people with chronic pain can't easily get off painkillers, or people in general can't easily get off oxygen. > like my friend N., who rather than swallowing his medication (Ritalin?), he crushed it & snorted it like coca…

> can't easily get off oxygen. I’m sorry but this is just beyond silly.

So is telling people who are only functioning thanks to medication that the meds are bad for them and they should try to do without.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#207

Post by doix »

elcritch wrote: post #112
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #51

I diagnosed when I was like... 8 years old. From then to 17 I was on various meds, finally gave them all up. So for about 22 years I've coped with ADHD without meds. I am a Staff Engineer and make a good living, respected in my field. Regardless of anything else, I think the key thing to remember about ADHD is that you do not need to be a high-performing human being, at all, in life. You will forget things and get di…

> Regardless of anything else, I think the key thing to remember about ADHD is that you do not need to be a high-performing human being, at all, in life. You will forget things and get distracted and not get as much done. So what. You are still intelligent and caring and dedicated and responsible and a hard worker. Exactly! I was diagnosed later in life by which time I had experienced a significant amount of trauma e…

How did you get diagnosed? Do you feel like it was worth going through the process?

A lot of what you said resonates with me...

> Being constantly criticized because you forget what often amounts to trivial things is one of the worse "symptoms"

I spent a lot of effort removing "trivial" things from my day to day life. I have a rule of ever only doing a single "life admin" thing per day, ideally 0.

A lot of people act like I'm crazy when I talk about hating the dishwasher because it creates a future obligation of having to unload it later.

I'm actually writing a productivity book that revolves around doing less each day and avoiding tasks that create future commitments to avoid cognitive load. When I talk about it to some people, it really resonates. Other people look at me like I'm crazy and and tell me to stop being lazy.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#208

Post by [deleted] »

anshumankmr wrote: post #153
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(sorry, I feel I'm taking over this post, lol, but f it) my coping strategies have been: 1) carve out some time to do distractionless work. check calendar, put up away message, close email, turn on background music (cafe jazz, Bob Ross, or intelligent d&b) w/headphones, write down a small task to complete on sticky note next to monitor, set timer (maybe multiple). 2) have a routine. weekday: work 9-5, gym, cook, misc…

Thank you for the comment. It's good to hear from someone who has been able to cope without the use of medication. The most advice I've been able to find online is really buy XYZ drug OR buy ABC app. I've been trying to stay away from these sort of things.

[deleted]

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#209

Post by eigart »

rtpg wrote: post #52

Regarding meds, are people willing to share what kind of doses they are on? I take 27mg of Concerta, and I remember talking to someone taking like... 5x that? And being quite shocked, but there's always that curiosity about what dosages makes sense.

I just got diagnosed this year in my mid-thirties and have ramped up to 80mg Ritalin (methylphenidate), which I take all at once in the morning. I also tried 70mg of aduvanz (lisdexamfetamine).

These are the maximum doses where I live, and to be honest, I've not noticed too much of anything from either. If anyone has any experience/literature on what makes medication work/what determines the required dose for an individual, I'd appreciate it.

The most helpful thing I've tried is meditation, which doesn't really alleviate any symptoms, but it has enabled me to accept and be self compassionate and grateful for the life I have.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#210

Post by fredgrott »

brian_cunnie wrote: post #93
TeMPOraL wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is especially true with stimulant medications. Hard to see how this is " especially true" with stimulants, given they're the rare case of psychiatric meds you can get on and off safely at any time, and the bulk of the effects appear in hours to days after starting the treatment (and disappear just as fast after cessation). Contrast with e.g. depression treatment, where it takes a month or more before it's clea…

> psychiatric meds you can get on and off safely at any time Maybe you can get off them safely, but not always easily. My alcohol/drug recovery group is filled with people who couldn't easily get off them, like my friend N., who rather than swallowing his medication (Ritalin?), he crushed it & snorted it like cocaine.

You might not be aware of this, there are 7 variations of ADHD and half of them are the pysch kind in that you have to up your L-DOPA dose to counter having to take 5-htp. Its the 5-htp that is part of the reason why medical treatments include the pysch drugs and in fact you can get off them.

They do not tell you that part for obvious reasons, but if you find the right doctor to explain the biochemistry of how they work it then becomes obvious.

Rhodiola is MAO inhibitors and so is Ginkgo, while 5-htp is the serotonin intermediate and corresponds to SSIs. Not to say that you need not to be careful, that still is required but with other cofactors consumed you can micro-dose.

Note, due to my understandings of what cofactors I need I do in fact micro dose L-DOPA as some recommend 500mg but I only consume 20mg daily.

Cofactors such as aromatic amino acids to increase tryptophan absorbtion across blood brain barrier including Macca extracts and fenugreek and Phenylanaline .

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