Hi, My name is null. I’m 26, from Texas, and currently am kicking ADHD-like symptoms and substance abuse problems in their ass. Or so I say to keep a positive mind. I’m just throwing my head out. I am open to feedback of any kind. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read.
I like to think I’m not alone on this whole thing and I find myself questioning like everything of everything and can’t find the time to just pause, grab a thought, work on that thought, with input from my emotional side and logical side, decide firmly and follow through with my action. And lastly, be ok with my actions.
I go nuts no matter how <fill in any adjective> my actions are. I notice when I doubt myself and have realized that, i act with the intention of pleasing others and forget that I am also part of whatever decision I make.
I just reached the idea of practicing mindfulness in a monk type of way haha. [re-reading this, I found the jump of topic funny as hell hahaha] With everything going on globally and me being on leave from work to get all this worked out, I find it’s the best time to work on some heavy self-discipline. I will fight against my brains routine of day to day tasks with hopes of understanding myself on a much deeper level and what they say is the near impossible task of regaining control of my reward system due to both Illness and substance abuse. I’m ashamed of saying all this, but I’ve taught myself and have learned that shame, is one of our biggest obstacles from being the best version of ourselves.
And to put some awareness out there and encourage vulnerability, I cry almost every night, discrediting everything I have done and remind myself of everything I haven’t. I become so hateful to the point that I start to believe my unworthiness to the world. I have gone untreated since like 7 and have been completely unaware of this illness until I decided to work on my problem with substance abuse. I always felt different growing up, like I just wasn’t like kids my age. I think different, act different, see different. I am proud of the day when I was talking to my boss 1 on 1 on my performance at work, because something just hit me that day and I told myself, “dude, you aren’t strong enough for this. A real man reaches out and recognizes his limits, you are at your limit”, I broke down entirely during that 1 on 1. Since then, that was a little over 2 years ago, things started working on its own. Slowly, but surely they were and I was not even realizing it. Where I am now, is, coming up with shit like this monk meditation for mindfulness lol, I am more mindful of what I’m doing and finally sleep and take care of my 11 month old pup, reach out to people I finally can say are friends that give a shit about me, joined a brazilian jiu jitsu program to occupy my time, and I continue to work on the shame I hold so strong for all the things I have done in the past. 🥵 I’m burning out and crashing, well no, yeah lost train of thought 😂
This was written and posted with the intention of helping someone who is feeling alone, confused, irritated and was done with much love and care.
I get really intense and into the things that I do hehe, well, good night I guess. Sleep well and remember to tell yourself how great you are before you sleep and remind yourself again when you wake up.
Marijuana - weed - is definitely a heck of a drug and something that a person in recovery from substance abuse definitely needs to avoid or risk falling out of recovery.
While in some research studies there is evidence that, in a controlled situation, cannabis products could help with anxiety, there is no evidence it will help outside of that controlled situation. For many people who are struggling, it will make matters worse.
There is no evidence that it will treat ADHD symptoms, and lots of experience that it will cause more executive function problems. It can make a bad situation much worse, with mental health and legal issues.
FakeHackr, keep the conversation with your doctor open and honest. You've put a lot of work into getting to the point where you now are, able to care for your puppy who needs you, and reaching out to family and friends who care for you. This is good! Keep going; the road is long but there is help along the way.
For any one interested, here are two articles on cannabis products and their relationship to ADHD:
Agreed not for everyone and easily abused and can make things worst in most cases but this have certain situations in which is does as all humans are not 100% the same. Long term use can be highly negative for add adhd patients even if it did initially help.
Definitely helped me slow down and process my thoughts before I was diagnosed and started Vyvanse which is better alternative but still did help me have a normal life than when I didn’t smoke. I’m highly against drugs but my experience with weed has changed mine and many other I know lives what had cancer and other health issues.
@fakehackr
Everyone is different but make sure you talk to your doc and have a plan to do what’s best
Each to their own if they are healthy and happy who is anyone else to say or stop you
My 7 year old pit has been a vital part in Handling depression and anxiety since i got her as a pup
I’m still figuring things out myself everyone situation is different and should take things low and steps
I was raised by a single mother that unintentionally mentally abused me and my brother. She didnt know that negative effects she was doing then but we know that mothers do what they do out of love.
Asian communities aren’t as open to mental health as other nationalities and was hard to explain to my family what was going on so I had to find alternatives prior to my official diagnosis,
To stay clean and actively apply yourself to improve, maybe spend more time with your dog and look into local support groups as that should help with anxiety also to know you’re not alone and you can get through it easily with the proper steps.
Staying physically fit helps and playing sports slow the thoughts as you workout cardio yoga meditate can help if you can actually follow through as not easy sometimes with ADHD and try to be the best at what your doing or learn the proper way. Why waste time to do something wrong is how i see things
I know I panic due to the unknown but by slowing down writing things out getting a planner staying organized in general it helped the anxiety and everything else like prioritize what more important to do like smoke or clean my room. My adhd is telling me smoke but my body wants to clean the room. So by just taking a minute to play with my dog or text a friend or listen to music to get back into the groove
Watching motivational videos of what I’m doing while I’m doing it helped also haha
Seems like you know what your doing and just keep up with talking to your doctor or support as that helped me. Take it day by day and remeber to breath (i forget to do that sometimes when to hyper focused my watch has to remind me to breathe lol )
Know your not alone and that someone has probably experienced what your experiencing so just try and find people stories to relate and helps calm anxiety.
Hope my weird story helped even a little somehow to someone
ADHD isn’t a big thing IMO but not something to take lightly
We just got to figure out ourselves and do what’s best for us.
I went from job to job growing up and never was happy once i reached my limit at each job and position. Once i knew everything and was a semi “pro” at my job i lost interest and quit or got fired cuz i didnt care.
After i was diagnosed it changed my life being able to talk to doctors that understand as trying to talk to family and friends who didnt.
Recovering from meth is no joke and props to you to be able to do it as Ive heard most people who try it and get stuck are never the same.
Not saying my advice is best and talk to doctor before cuz if your on meds then different things can counter act with your meds and you dont want that.
But i found the people i knew of that was addicted to meth was able to use cannabis to slow down their thought before they went clean.
Cold turkey is always best if possible but everyone is different,
There is a possibility your brain chemistry is different from everyone else due to your past experience which is all good each to their own but know that you just need to figure out how to help you in the best way for you and not what others who dont know anything think.
As i see a little of me in your post about you, stay as clean as possible and stay organized planned out your day week month to advance yourself and grow and you’ll be fine.
Stay away from meth tho that ain’t no joke. Everyone makes mistakes and goes through tough times where we get lost in a black hole in our past but let it be a learning experience to never fall back and know people are here for you and that your not alone.
Like “teamspeak” or certain chat forums that are great for people like us with past substance abuse and want to better ourself. Keep your support group strong and you will be strong.
People always told me to stay in my lane and hang with people my level but if i stay like that and not kick it with people better than me, ill never be able to grow and be better also so surround yourself with people that want you to be the best you
Even if they aren’t local or available immediately, know that there are good people there for you and want the best for you so just take it slow and do what’s best for you.
Me too! Can't explain how amazing and overdue it is to read from people who get what I'm going through - at 47 f*n finally figuring out why my life seems so randomly awesome and at the same time completely a mess. Thank you!
I completely understand your post. Even the side posts! You give me hope that I can figure this out. Dealing with adult adhd sucks and to add an addiction to that...well I am flipping proud of you! Thanks for the post. 😊
Diagnosed as an adult sucks but it’s life and It’s possible to deal with now that we know what we’re going thru.
Stay busy and organized to assist with addiction as it’s best rehab imo but I’m not a doctor so don’t quote me.
Even with this website where we are here for Random People we don’t know in hope for people to not have to suffer from bad experiences others already went thru and wish the best and guide people to better themselves to be the best them.
Going to try to keep this short (heh - so much to say)! First of all, I could have written your entire post, from just figuring out what the common thread is of all of my ups and downs (ADHD, diagnosed at 45! Now 47...).
I relate completely - from being excited about all the possibilities to crushed from being a failure. I lived in Texas until I was 28, and moved to California to get away from those critical of creative thinking, and all of the "you'd be great if you could just get your head on straight!" critiques.
After a lifetime of coffee and anything caffeine, at 30 I found other stimulants - staying vague bc internet - and for the first time the brain chatter quieted and I first glimpsed this thing they call "focus"! So amazing! But science wasn't a good answer - I eventually thought that if some is helpful, MORE would be amazing! I eventually replaced illegal stuffs with Ritalin that I got from a friend - but not in a healthy way. I was mentally and physically exhausted and the more I tried, the more completely I burned out.
[Side note on such stimulants - I'm realizing now - 2 years away from them (mostly, lol) - is I was using them to quiet my mind. Now Adderall does a decent job of that on its own, though truth: it took me a LONG while to give it a chance to do that (as I was still doing the other stuff at the same time until recently). Wanted to say point-blank: I get it! They really do *seem* to help - but because we're so hyper-focused on whatever it is we're doing while using those things, we don't realize how badly it's affecting us at the same time - like not sleeping, or picking at our skin, or time warping researching this or that on the Internet, or finding the perfect cleaning supply for hard water stains when we have a huge project due in the morning... did I mention how ORGANIZED my sock drawer is? Not even kidding...
Long way of saying, I GET IT - and to show you the light at the end of the tunnel of NOT doing the sciences that make you feel like you have super-powers is that you aren't physically draining yourself so much that it's impossible to do the things you need to succeed (when and if you COULD actually concentrate enough to do them)!]
After years of that, I finally (FINALLY) realized - that cycle isn't sustainable, and thanks to getting medication (a little Welbutrin for depression, Prozac for anxiety, and just recently Adderall for ADHD).
The strange thing about Adderal - unlike other stimulants, it helps me focus (instead of just making me alert enough to try to finish all the bizzilian things I'd put on my to-do list), and doesn't keep me up like other stuff, hoorah! Help had found it's way to me! But now I have to learn WHAT to focus on and am researching the f*k out of ADHD to try and figure out why I can't seem to get that right.
Current gold mines of understanding:
How to ADHD YouTube Channel - holy wow I've binged watched pretty much every video after finding her through her TED talk about ADHD:
Pretty much everything on this website (I've of course bookmarked ALL THE THINGS and downloaded ALL THE THINGS and haven't been able to stay on target to get through them all - can we say ADHD? Ugh.):
And my current nugget of gold that I'm trying to absorb completely (found it a month ago and keep coming back to it and learning more I didn't catch the first 10 times):
What I'm realizing now is that I don't want to do this alone, as I'm often like a cat chasing their tail until exhaustion - I'll fix this! Which will help me fix this! But wait, first I have to fix this! And if only I did this one thing... oh wait, but is that the right direction? I don't want to waste my time (again)... Rinse repeat.
I've been leaning on my (older, stable) roommate to give me deadlines and make me accountable to her (which she doesn't REALLY want to do, she's not my mother/keeper/etc), but without deadlines and being accountable to someone else, I'm not getting ANYTHING done.
Current status with this whole Virus Self-Quarantine stuff is that I'm on unemployment (about half of what I need for basic bills), no car (no money to get a new one), and so good at so many things I can't figure out what kind of job to try for (if anyone is even hiring right now anyway, ugh). I've done everything from book production to sex ed to marketing to information architecture - and most recent customer service at a friend's flower shop, where I got into a tunnel vision rut of being underpaid, over-worked, drained emotionally and physically from the crazy hours (with public transportation each way), and now I'm gun-shy to get another below-my-talents temp job because I tend to figure out how to make them interesting to me and stay way longer than is helpful...
So here I sit, at home, with spiral notebooks everywhere (each with a different business idea or project for my community that would SOLVE EVERYTHING, etc.) and at the same time wishing I were with my parents who are in their late 70s (in Texas) but no car no money no focus to get there...
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