I was just diagnosed with ADHD this month. I've started medication, which helps immensely, but I'm also overwhelmed when the medication wears off. I haven't worked in two years and I really need to find a job, but I don't know where to start. When I start thinking about options my mind plays -what I call- "ADHD ping pong" and I get paralyzed.
I'm 36 and I'm struggling with thoughts about, "what could have been" had I figured this out earlier. I know I can't change the past, but the thoughts are there nevertheless.
Maybe I'm also just too impatient? Now that I have the diagnosis, I want everything to be figured out and moving forward, but I'm still feeling stuck.
Does anyone have any guidance to share?
<3
I hope this helped you in some way or another.
Newly diagnosed 26 year old mother
I am new here. How do I do it, what should I be doing, noticing or changing?
Newly diagnosed and lost
talking to teen with newly diagnosed ADHD
Newly Diagnosed with Adult ADD
Welcome MisoDashi. I can relate to all your comments. I was diagnosed a couple years ago at 52 and medication also helped, but like you, when it wears off the symptoms come back with a vengeance and the cone down isn’t easy. I take a booster IR release with a XL in the morning when I need it most and then have a booster for the afternoon if I need it. Works great. But I also see a therapist each week who helps a lot.
Thanks for sharing!
Therapy I think will be an essential component for me as well. My therapist isn't really into medication though and the last two sessions have been a strain on me - it feels like he's judging me. He's been very effective for me in the past. I am not sure how it's going to go forward with him though. Changing a therapist is hard with my insurance. I will have to see how it develops, I guess.
❤️
It’s so frustrating, when I went on meds, it completely changed everything. I don’t know if your therapist can prescribe meds. In the US, your doctor or a psychiatrist, which is also a doctor, are the only ones that can prescribe meds and the therapist is meant to help you with tools to use with your worst symptoms. It takes a lot of work, but well worth it. Feel free to message me anytime.
hi MisoDashi,
what do you mean by” my therapist isnt really into medication”?
im wondering if your therapist expressed that they have a bias towards ADHD medication treatment or is it it something else…. if its something else, i encourage you to bring it up in session and get to the bottom of it.
obviously if a client is engaging in self harming or self defeating behavior then its the therapist job to point it out. however, a person with ADHD who is taking stimulants as prescribed, is NOT self defeating. ❤️
I literally screamed at a therapist I went to who immediately took issue with me being on antidepressant medication. I don't think I was on ADHD meds yet--or maybe I had just started.
I called and canceled the next appointment, left a message. He returns the call and asks me to come back at least once more. I called him back this time leaving a message that his thinking was ignorant and stupid and I didn't want to see him at all.
My antidepressants saved my life ... helped me through one of the hardest periods of my life--and this idiot (who I could tell didn't know much about medication) was criticizing what had saved my life.
Thank God for medications. I'm willing to try to come off my antidepressants at some point ... I'd do so very gradually, like over a year or year and a half. But frankly, I didn't realize how depressed I was or how happy I could be until I got on antidepressants. So antidepressants help me figure out what the goal is for my therapy.