ADD + physical condition: any experiences/tips for managing life with a health condition+ADD/MDD/GAD symptoms?

[distressedOctopus]

❕Trigger warning: topics like suicide and cancer, so if you find these posing a threat to your current wellbeing, please click away!

Hey everyone, I'm new here, and I’m very grateful I discovered this community. So much good advice and relatable stories from intelligent people! I could already relate to many of your experiences, and I’m very grateful to everyone who’s sharing. I couldn’t find any recent threads about similar topics, and I’d really appreciate that, if you can relate to this, you’d share your experience and some of your survival/coping strategies

❔ So, my question is: are you living with a non-mental health condition that impacts your daily wellbeing while also navigating life with ADD symptoms? If so, have you noticed your symptoms getting worse since you got ill? And what do you do other than medication to lift yourself up on day-to-day basis?

🧍A little about me for context: I’m in my late 20s now, been living with MDD+GAD since my mid-teens, including a few serious episodes, hospitalization and a suicide attempt in my mid-20s. I was diagnosed with ADD a few months back, since my symptoms like lack of focus/scattered thoughts, a major tendency to procrastinate and the inability to get things done on time got no longer possible to ignore. I was always this absent-minded and chaotic person who would do everything last minute, completely draining myself out at times but achieving what I set out to achieve. However, this time round I got too weak physically to be able to continue this way, so I seeked for medical help and got prescribed Ritalin, which I've been taking for 3months now. I’m also on an SSRI.

What happened. Last year: malignant brain tumor, 3 brain surgeries and intensive radiation therapy. I had a pineal gland tumor, and that was the treated area, which is responsible for melatonin production among other things, which resulted in chronic sleep apnea and thus no energy during the day. This was also when I noticed that my ADD symptoms were making it close to impossible to re-integrate into working life. For about a year, I was constantly sleepy (yet not able to fall asleep without medication), super weak physically+all the usual ADD stuff+regular panic attacks to make things more interesting. Now that a year has passed, my brain recovered to the point where I can sleep as long as 6 hours with some non-prescription aids, became more physically active and much more efficient. However, I still find it difficult to... well, want to live at all. They found a new thing in my brain, so it’s being monitored with regular MRIs. It’s not getting any bigger for the time being, however, I do find myself looping on negative thoughts, like that I have a ticking bomb in my skull, and it’s a matter of time when shit’s gonna go down again. Being aware of my mortality has had a lot of positive impact on my relationships, perception of self and achieving career/creative goals. But at the same time, I find it difficult to force myself to get out of bed every morning and go about my day, both due to physical discomfort and mental stuff.

Living in one of Europe's biggest pandemic hotspots also adds to my overall tendency to drift into negative thought patterns.

Damn, sorry for such a long post. I admire you if you took your time to go through it all So, can you relate? Are you in physical pain/lack of physical energy due to your condition? What do you do to improve your life, stay focused and motivated and find courage to keep on living with another condition impairing you?

Thank you so much for reading this and I hope there’s someone who’ll have something to share. Sending love and positive thoughts to each and every one of you 💚

[Sunshine1992]

Hi there, first I just want to say that I’m so sorry that you’ve gone through so so much for being in you late 20s only. Your story has really touched my heart. I also have adhd mixed with pretty intense anxiety. I take adderal during the day which helps me focus better, I miraculously got accepted into nursing school finally at the age of 39 this July and I’m doing alright so far but I still struggle a lot because studying has always been extremely painful but this medication seems to be helping me to focus better. Also I take Mirtrazapine to help me sleep at night because I have really severe restless leg syndrome because of the anxiety I get at night. It’s really weird how that affects me because I so desperately want to sleep but my body just won’t let me so this medicine helps. Sometimes though when I’m going through a lot of stress because of so many issues in my marriage I get really anxious, worried and fearful so then My anxiety torments me and won’t let me sleep. So my life coach suggested that I workout every night before I go to bed to release the tension in my body because it’s all connected to the central nervous system and honestly it’s been working for me really well. The few times I didn’t work out before bed the restless legs and anxiety kicked in and I couldn’t sleep. The other thing I want to encourage you in is to surround your self with positive and healthy people, spend a lot of time with them, force your self to go out and do stuff even when you don’t feel like it because your happiness and your mental health is worth it, you deserve it 😍I recently joined a women group and it’s set up for us ladies to get together on a weekly basis. My life coach hosts us at her house and she facilitates discussions , she records a 15 minute you tube message that is intended to inspire us to think about our life, our connection to god and etc. I don’t always feel like going but I force myself and afterwards I’m so glad I went because I feel encouraged and inspired to live better. Another thing that I want to mention is look at your diet and see if there is anything that you are eating that may be contributing to your condition. I’ve been my own health advocate, I read a lot about how food affects our body emotionally and mentally so I really try to eat healthy but I do have a really big sweet tooth lol. I take a probiotic, vitamin D, zinc and vitamin C everyday to make sure my immune system is strong. I hope this helped you in some way. Let me know what you think. Looking forward to hearing from you. Sending you lots of love and prayers your way. Xoxo

[Timster]

Very well written post DO. You have a lot of insight and self reflection. It's late now but I will respond again.

Take care and stay strong.

[Puzzl]

Sunshine1992 has many good points. The two biggest things that helped me are diet improvements like cutting starches and sugar, adding vitamins D, and B12, and Omega 3. But that was because I needed them, they won't help everyone.

The other BIG improvement came from INTENSE exercise. All my doctors agree that intense exercise is very important. (Intense exercise means that you are exercising so hard that you think you cannot keep going. Every moment is difficult.)

This has not only improved my mental state but also many of my physical ailments.

[FearIsALiar in reply to Puzzl]

Omega 3’s are grey for the brain 🧠

[IgnoranceWasNotBliss]

Hey! What a life! You’ve been through so much. A lot of which many of us can relate to. I think undiagnosed, untreated adhd leads to a lot of depression and suicide. I know it certainly did for me! I haven’t had health problems as challenging as yours but I have had health problems. Even small ones can have a physical impact on me because I’m a highly sensitive person. You should google that term and do some tests to determine if you are too. They have good recommendations to help HSP’s fine some peace in the world. A highly sensitive person basically absorbs a lot of the world around them to a deep degree. I only just found this the other day and was shocked! Many people with adhd have hyperarousal or rejection sensitivity dysphoria. I found the definition of an HSP is a combination of adhd hyperarousal and RSD. Except you don’t have to have adhd to have HSP. Though you can. I could really relate to the concept and some of their coping strategies are things I did instinctively. Which convinced me to try other strategies of theirs with success.

Other than that, it sounds like you’re being too hard on yourself. Obviously, life has been hard for you. That’s not debatable. You’ve had struggles that people can only imagine. I can only imagine how hard that is. But I think you need to give yourself a break and give yourself more credit for your accomplishments! You should be really proud of yourself! Like, really proud of yourself! You had/have depression yet you did everything they told you to, to survive! You’re a survivor! And you did that! You’re obviously an extremely strong person. I know exactly what it’s like to not feel strong. I felt that way almost my whole life. Regardless of how many times people said I was strong. I couldn’t see it. I was blind to my strength and instead, felt so weak and frail inside. Like I could break like glass of someone looked at me the wrong way. Eventually, I started to entertain the possibility that I was strong. When I looked more at my accomplishments! Now, don’t get me wrong. I haven’t accomplished things that many others would put on a list, like career, promotions, school graduations etc etc. That always made me feel like I never accomplished anything! But having those things isn’t what makes some people “successful”. There are a lot of things I got through and came out the other side alive! Not everyone does. You should give you’re self more credit. You sound unbelievably strong in this post, even though I can hear you’re being hard on yourself.

Have you looked into meditation? The best I ever did in my life was when I was praying and doing yoga. There were other reasons too but I know it really helped. You should check it out. Maybe it will help center you. It also helps to always look to those less fortunate than you instead of more fortunate than you. In other words, concentrate and look to what you have, instead of what you don’t have. It’s not easy. Sometimes it can be very hard to look at the world that way when life is so difficult. It can be easy to get pulled into self depreciation and negative thoughts when you have so many to choose from! But, when you try to focus on the positive things, and imagine the people who don’t have those positive things, there can be power in that.

I would highly suggest some Cognitive reframing! You wrote this story as a person struggling with depression and suicidal, who is having difficulty because they’ve been faced with an impossible situation that’s really hard to deal with. But that’s not what I read! I see a person who survived. Someone strong enough to do brain surgery!! 3 TIMES!! What? Like, seriously, what! Work it girl! You conquered Mount Everest! And if you need to, you’ll do it again. Because it looks like you’ve been stronger than you think this whole time. I hope you can see that.

[Shirleytaps in reply to IgnoranceWasNotBliss]

I think there is a lot to good stuff to unpack from Ignorance Was Not Bliss for you DO, and I would emphasize the meditation. Meditation in concert with treatment in the form of cognitive behavioral therapy has really helped me to get out of my own head and treat feelings as feelings and thoughts as thoughts without obsession and anxiety (most of the time). Be well.

[Sns89]

I wish I had a positive comment for you, but all I can say is that I'm going through the same thing and I REALLY hope you can find some relief soon because I know how troubling it is too feel this way and not have control of the symptoms that want to destroy you. I'm going to follow this and pray that someone has some good ideas and answers for you, and hopefully they might work for me as well. Good luck! 🤞🍀

[acrononymous]

I've survived some similar health issues. My cancer has been in remission for three years. When I was so bad that a good day was one where I actually got out of bed and got dressed, I came across an article (don't remember where) about how finding just one thing to be grateful for before getting out of bed could help shift one from being hopeless to having hope. So, I tried it. Some mornings, all I could find to be thankful for (in my distressed mind) was that I had a warm blanket or running water. Other days the sun would be shining or my sister would call - and those mornings were easier. I did notice that some of my fight was coming back and I felt less like giving up. So, I started finding more things to be thankful for throughout the day. I still practice being thankful for the little things as well as the big ones.

I still have side effects of treatment that I deal with daily, as well as the ADHD and trying to get my ADHD meds where they need to be (recently diagnosed at age 56 and trying medication for about 6 weeks now). Life isn't easy, but I do find that I appreciate being a survivor.