Lost and Scared

[_DeeMaria_]

I’m 28 year old mom living with ADD/ADHD/Anxiety. I was diagnosed as a child and recently as an adult. I started taking medicine to help with symptoms but haven’t found the right one yet. I’ve tried concerta, retlin and Vyvanse recently. Concerta was helpful in my childhood but I believe I caused depression. I’m currently on Vyvanse 30 which isn’t helping me focus. I’m so inattentive & easily distracted. I’m trying to be strong and move through this but honestly I’ve been really down and depressed lately. I’m willing to give medicine a shot but that’s not even going well for me. I recently started back school and I’m not thinking that was a bad idea. I’m feeling so alone and the little family I do have don’t understand ADHD so talking to them makes me feel worse. Any advice on medication. Thanks

[dgs2018]

DeeMaria, so sorry I can't offer advice on medication because I chose not go that path in dealing with ADHD. Only can suggest that you find some activities which are not harmful nor expensive and pursue them. Hobbies, sports, other interests can help to anchor your sense of self-esteem. When you physically feel better, often it helps your mental and emotional state. Take care.

[_DeeMaria_ in reply to dgs2018]

Thank you! I agree with you. I was thinking about working out regularly. Trying to learn how to be consistent with working out.

[Better_Life]

Hello Deemaria, I am a male in my late 40’s. I was only diagnosed approx 6 months ago with adhd, so had 43 years of undiagnosed adhd, depression and anxiety and likewise, same issues with family. I am on strattera its helping with focus, concentration and its also calmed down the barrage of constant thoughts but has done nothing in the way of helping with the ‘get up and go side of things’. I have not been able to get on ritalin so cannot help there. I also agree with what dgs2018 said but like yourself having troubles getting into consistency.

To try and help you with your family heres a good link for explaining depression

psycom.net/depression-what-....

This one sort of gives an explanation of adhd but some of these examples sound like they come from lucky ones whos adhd helps them! The one in ‘blue print’ (without meds) explains me.

untappedbrilliance.com/adhd...

Here are some clips by Russell Barkley on ADHD

youtu.be/q-QC4voqmRg(Not working as expected?) and this one youtu.be/_tpB-B8BXk0(Not working as expected?)

and incase you haven’t heard of Jessica McCabe. She runs a great youtube channel titled ‘How To ADHD’. This is her very first Ted Talk youtu.be/JiwZQNYlGQI(Not working as expected?)

You may also gel with this one

understood.org/en/community...

This is by Jeff Copper

Emotions and ADHD

youtu.be/CIGXH8xFY7c(Not working as expected?)

Sorry about all the links DeeMaria. Wishing you all the best.

PS: If by any chance you have been looking around for an application. Something thats flexible that would allow you to work with your brain whether thats for storing things, working on a project, whatever. Then take a look at milanote.com

youtu.be/y4Aj3gPXNs4(Not working as expected?)

Wishing you the very best

[Better_Life in reply to Better_Life]

Forgot to mention theres a ‘milanote web clipper’ extension too

[_DeeMaria_ in reply to Better_Life]

Better_Life! I watched all the videos and clicked the links... it was very helpful and much needed. I’m getting a chemical text Monday so hopefully it effective and that can start me on the best medicine for me. I’m also hoping that the medicine helps the anxiety and depression. I was emotional watching Jessica McCable, she’s great! it really is alot of help for ADHD. For you to be recently diagnosed you have so much insight. That’s great and your kind. We are all going to be okay. Thank you for your support.

P.S my family believe I can control how Feel and focus so I will be showing them these videos

[Better_Life in reply to _DeeMaria_]

Hi DeeMaria. Oh wow, that is great news! I really am glad to hear that. Good luck for next monday too. Do you know which medication it will be? I’m going off my personal experience here but I’m sure several other million people would have had the same experience. I was put on venlafaxine also known as effexor as an anti-depressant. Then pharmac changed it somewhat. From the very beginning it did absolutely nothing for me other than making it really difficult to get a good nights sleep. Also made me (and many others I hear) have a lot of suicidal thoughts.

Hope you had someone around when you were watching Jessica-for comfort. I was feeling quite irritable last Friday because I had an opportunity to see Jessica as she was in town to talk to the adhd association. Thank you for the kind comments and you are very welcome.

For the sake of a happy family environment. I sincerely hope those videos help because I can tell you that this adhd caused many 100’s of arguments in my family and I hated every single one. Please. feel free to show your parents this message because this no joke. Just because you don’t have a broken bone that they can visually see, that you are in pain. Does not mean theres nothing wrong!!

Maybe some of these may sound familiar

- You have a lot of trouble sticking with something and seeing it to the end?

-Especially if it requires a lot of mental effort. Try as you might, you just cannot seem to get past specific thought patterns or as soon as you try and think laterally its like the brain saids argh no you don’t and pulls you back into darkness.

-Maybe you also find yourself becoming very emotional over daily criticisms where neurotypical people would just brush them aside and think nothing of it.

-They say that you are too sensitive.

-Even though you may be around loved ones. You can’t help but feel so alone, so isolated, so overwhelmed at times.

-You want to be able to explain how you feel, your emotions etcetera but you just cannot seem to find the right words or maybe you cannot hold on to them long enough so as to be able to get everything out.

One other thing. As adhd has a lot to do with the lack of dopamine. For interest sake. Google ‘Symptoms of Dopamine deficiency Depression’.

PS: If you wish to get better search results. Go to duckduckgo.com. Unlike google, who tracks everyone across the internet (ever had adverts come to you, thinking to yourself. Hey I was only searching about such a thing last night-how weird!) duckduckgo does not track you, does not put cookies on your computer (except one-a non identifying one) and they don’t send any targeted adverts your way-NEVER. Oh and they also force websites to use encryption and they even tell you how many tracking companies they are blocking for you. If you have an iphone, you can change to duckduckgo within the search engine settings. Goto: settings/Safari/Search Engine/Duckduckgo and on a desktop if you download their web browser extension the computers default search engine will change to DDG automatically. For android and iphone if preferred you can download their actual browser from the app store.

[Better_Life in reply to Better_Life]

other good sites understood.org/en/learning-...

understood.org/en/learning-...

[Viciouscircle]

Large amounts of cardio and cleaning up my diet has helped me as well as the typical adhd meds. The problem is I get bored of trying to improve my situation.