Treatment – One Year
A year already… I mean, it’s actually been a little more than a year, but you get me. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out these posts: Treatment – Week 2 Treatment – Six Months My Brain on Back Order Treatment – The Lost Months Caught up? Good! So, where am I at now, a year into being treated for my ADHD? Well, things have settled mostly. I don’t notice when my meds take effect, and I don’t totally notice when they wear off. It’s usually about an hour after they’ve worn off that I notice how chatty I’ve become, how I’m pacing the house, bounding between tasks, or making weird noises/humming bits and pieces of songs at the speed of my brain frantically flipping through every CD I’ve ever owned. I’ve also found that, while my ability to focus is GREATLY improved while on my…
Treatment – The Lost Months
This post is the third installment of the unofficial “Treatment” series, in which I discuss my experiences getting diagnosed with and then treating my Adult ADHD. You can read the first post – about getting diagnosed and starting meds – here. The second post was a very enthusiastic six month update, which you can find here. So what kind of post is this? It’s a continuation of sorts, of the post My Brain on Back Order, in which I was not coping well with being off my meds for six whole days. I went another seven days without any medication before I received my pharmacy’s alternative offering. I was prescribed a generic of Ritalin LA, which is usually only prescribed to children under the age of 12. Because of that, its dosages are lower – 10mg capsules as opposed to Concerta’s 18mg capsules. I was given no other directions than…
My Brain on Back Order
If you aren’t aware, the pandemic supply chain issues have led to shortage of many prescription medications. One of which has been ADHD treatments. I watched the wave of dwindling supply sweep through the various medications – Adderall went first, then Ritalin and its numerous variations. And so it reached me. Concerta is on back order with no ETA on when it will be available again. As of this writing (Friday 12/23/22) This is my sixth consecutive day without my meds. The longest I’ve gone without them since April. I do not like it. I’ve grown too accustomed to having my focus on demand, to pointing my attention to whatever task and completing it. That simply is not an option now. It’s taken me almost 45 minutes to write this much. My search history of the last hour includes such hits as “Van Gogh bipolar,” “grow light string lights,” and…
Treatment – Six Months
Okay, yes. It’s been a little bit longer than six months since I started taking medication for my ADHD. But only by a couple of weeks! This month is always a hectic one, and 2022 has offered no shortage of surprises so far. So I thought it’d be nice to take a step back and look at how these past six-ish months have gone, ADHD-wise. This would be a good opportunity for you to read my initial post about my ADHD treatment journey, if you missed that from way back in April. What’s It Like? Six months in, my meds are still very effective. I don’t notice the transition in the mornings or afternoons as much anymore, I don’t notice the quiet in my brain like I did those first couple of weeks. It was so foreign to me then, a novelty that couldn’t be ignored. But now it is relief…
Summer Thinky-Thoughts
This is it. The last Friday of my summer break. I go back to work on Monday… I have a lot of feelings about that. A lot of them are good. I’m excited to meet our new staff members and reunite with co-workers I haven’t seen since June. There will be tales of summer adventures, healing sunburns, and summer-bloomed freckles. And so many smiles. But I can’t deny a building sense of dread. It isn’t the work itself that I’m dreading, I genuinely like my job. Buying and processing books, helping teens find their next favorite book, and working with our Associated Student Body to make our school a place kids want to be. These are all amazing things I get to do for 198 days a year. But… Going back to work means I’m no longer just a writer. It means that I have to schedule writing time into…
Treatment — Week 2
It’s Friday, the last of my non-work days for the school year, and I’m sitting here after breakfast, sipping coffee and reflecting. I know it’s been a while, Blogland, and there’s good(?) reason. The not-so-good reason is my ongoing obsession with Horizon Forbidden West. Another reason was Spring Break (we’ll catch up on that soon). But the biggest reason is… I started treatment for ADHD. The week I started taking my meds I happened to have one of the worst migraines in recent history, which (long story short) led to a dental issue that had me in pretty bad pain for a week. I’m good now, it was much easier to resolve than I feared, and all is well. But it made my first week on meds pretty atypical. I couldn’t really properly analyze how the meds were affecting me while I was in so much pain. So this week…
Distraction or Reward?
Look. Drafting Victoria has been very slow, okay? It’s just a weird book. It doesn’t call to me the way other drafts have. It makes no demands. When I do sit down to work on it, it flows out of me without much effort at all, which is amazing! But, with my delightful ADHD brain, sitting down to work on something that isn’t obsessing me is honestly painful. Once I’m there, it’s fine. I put on my headphones, jam out to my baller playlist (listen here!), and hammer out some words. But getting there is HARD. The other night I wrote in a whirlwind and wound up with almost 1300 words. A great evening of output, to be sure. So what did I do? Nope. Unh-uh. Not that either… What’s that? “Play Horizon Forbidden West?” DING DING DING! When it comes to my brain, rewards don’t really work. They become…