Reddit mentions of Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

you wrote a great post. maybe, just maybe, i can help answer a couple of your questions or at least point you in the right direction.


let me be clear: i am not a qualified mental health professional. my girlfriend is. however, i am not my girlfriend, just a guy on reddit with an ADHD diagnosis (who, by the way, also got it way late in life). I also happen to have an undergrad degree in psychology--but you can disregard that because again i'm only qualified to serve coffee at starbucks. i have however eveloped a peculiar interest in my psychopathology er..neurodevelopmental disorder and have attempted to learn as much about it as i can.


question 1: Are meds just treating the symptoms, rather than us attacking the underlying conditions?


answer: simply put, yes. complicated question that is hard surprisingly hard to answer but i'll try to anyway. there isn't a cure for ADHD; there appears to be a biological impairment in the part of your brain that oversees executive functioning. what does that mean exactly? executive functioning oversees short term/working memory, concentration, attention span, prioritization, time management, impulse control, emotional regulation, etc. there are several theories as to why this is. but all we know for sure right now is that for most people with this particular psychopathology, stimulants tend to work really really well to "level the playing field".

anyway (sorry i go off track a lot), ADHD can't really be cured.
HOWEVER
it can be treated. managed. whatever you wanna call it.

currently, the best empirical-based treatment for ADHD is: medication + therapy.
there's a saying in the field: pills don't build skills.
the meds will help you pay attention more, sure, but what if you don't pay attention to the thing you actually want to pay attention to? do you know how many times i've cleaned my room/apartment and re-organized my kitchen pantry, or totally owned a 6 hour Overwatch marathon? when i should have studied or filed my taxes. taking the meds isn't enough; it doesn't teach people how to effectively prioritize and not be avoidant. for that, you need "skills" which are usually developed through therapy (as an adult, anyway). i read somewhere that the purpose of the medication is to help you focus enough so that you can use skills effectively.

remember: develop skills + take the pills.


question 2: I feel very strongly that I need to be able to communicate to the people I love what my daily experience is like, and what I may need from them going forward. Any suggestions here?


answer: write a letter to everybody that you would want to tell. you already do something similar with one of your coping mechanisms right? (the bulletpoints--awesome strategy by the way).



question 3, accountability:--sorry bro, i struggle there too. i think we all do. at the end of the day, you're the one who is accountable for your actions, nobody else is. the worst part is, some days when i'm not medicated it doesn't matter because even though i care i still sometimes feel helpless. that's why most days i take the meds (vyvance + ritalin). i end up feeling like i have the mental facilities to be accountable to myself.



question 4: How do you all keep from getting down on yourself? Feeling like you're not making enough progress, slipping up, etc.



answer: this is where therapy comes in. in addition to not having built many developmental skills (organization, time management, etc.) we also seem to suffer from many of the emotional issues you mentioned in your backstory. those issues need to be addressed. surprise! it doesn't come from watching netflix all weekend eating doritos and hating yourself for not wanting to shower.



question: What tips do you have for dating and romantic relationships? I'm pretty worried about this aspect. At 35, as someone who doesn't necessarily want biological kids, I'm already feeling backed into a corner. ADHD on top of it just seems like a death warrant for romance :)



answer: ouch. i don't really know what to say about that. i'm not single, and i'm not 35 (i'm 27, by the way). i don't necessarily want kids myself (girlfriend doesn't either--i think?).

ADHD makes our relationship very, very difficult sometimes. we struggle. we fight. dishes won't get done. i'll take my meds on a sunday morning when we're supposed to go hiking and i won't stop trying to clean the apartment because that's what i'm hyper-focused on and JUST HAVE TO FINISH or i'll go crazy. there's a lady whose name is Melissa Orlov and she writes books on this topic. i'd tell you more, but I have ADHD and never read it because....you know, reasons.


again, great post. i'm glad you're reading up on this. if there's one book I think you should read, it's this one: https://smile.amazon.com/Your-Life-Can-Better-strategies-ebook/dp/B006QL0VJC?sa-no-redirect=1 it's hilarious and so incredibly insightful. dude even still maintains a blog and tries to update it frequently.

>as we've heard both bad and good.

This is very prevalent in today's society even though most of the 'bad' has been remedied in the last 10 years. What you might hear is that children are over-medicated, don't act like themselves, shouldn't be on meds because they are just hyper from being kids, etc. While there was a drastic increase, much of the over-medicating was due to a lack of testing/consultations with proper mental health professionals.

>Myself and my wife are skeptical

I'm glad to hear this. Not because your child shouldn't be medicated, but because this means you are aware and cautious which are both great traits to have when approaching medication.

A good psychiatrist will start a patient on a modest dosage and then through weeks and months, adjust the dosages accordingly to how they feel.

---

I would like to remind you, as parents, to not get complacent once things settle down and your child seems to be doing great. ADHD can change over time and it is very important that every 1-2 months to just sit and talk to see how things are.

Lastly, I highly suggest reading This ADHD book. It is written for adult ADHD but the part I find to be most helpful (which i've applied to my life) is using strategies for accomplishing a task and getting ahead of the game for creating habits. Healthy habits help to reduce the amount of thoughts in somebody with ADHD. Instead of needing to kick yourself for forgetting things, you set up a habit that doesn't require active thinking to accomplish.

I wish you the best with your child :)

Is there anything you can focus on, like school or sports or a hobby? Kick start with something easy.

For example, here are some ways we can turn on focus, taken from Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

1. Personal interest
   
   
2. Novelty
   
   
3. Challenge
   
   
4. Immediate and heavy deadline
   
   Glad to see that working out seems to help. Diet and exercise aren't just for adhd, it helps with dam near everything! take care of your body... feel better! who knew? ;)
   
   

• • *
    
    > and I feel like I have no one to talk to
    
    I feel you here. When I bring it up to people, their reaction is almost always that it isn't a real condition or is all in your head. Depression+anxiety is real enough...why isn't this?! So I've been trying books and this subreddit for help.
    
    
• • *
    
    I will say that I'm glad that you are trying to get help. This can have a big effect on your life and relationships should you leave it untreated (not necessarily being medicated but there's certain things you need to work on that is easier or comes naturally to other people).
    
    See also helpguide.com

I'm a diagnosed ADHD person and in typical fashion, I haven't finished Your Life Can Be Better yet. It's chock-full of tips for folks with ADHD to learn how to person more effectively. However, I've already gotten a couple of great tips out of what little I've read, and I recommend checking it out. Here are those tips and a few others.

1. Remember that tasks =\= projects. YMMV, but generally projects would take more than 30 minutes to do.
   
2. Break projects up into the tiniest tasks. This should result in a long list. (Step 1, make a list of tasks. Step 2, open Microsoft Word. Etc.) Doing this will help you find your starting place, make larger tasks and projects seem less overwhelming, and hopefully help you prioritize what needs to be done in order to make the big projects happen.
   
3. Hide 95% of that list you just made from yourself. Keep it out of your sight. Otherwise, your brain will get overwhelmed by the super long list, and it'll feel like you have an unbearable amount of work to do, which defeats the purpose of breaking things down in the first place!
   
4. Only look at the next 3ish things you need to do.
   
5. Bonus: Make one of those 3 things something you've already started doing. (Step, 1, make a list of tasks. Oh snap, you're basically done with that one already!)
   
6. Keep things in ONE system that will be readily accessible to you. I use Wunderlist as a sort of task warehouse, but my Inbox (first list I see when I log in) only has 1-3 items in it at any given time. The rest are just dumped in whatever sub-list I want them to be in, and when I need to work on Area of Life X, I go to that task list and pull out a couple of things.
   
7. Don't try to force your brain to work on stuff when all you can do is stare at a blank Word document and wish you could be a person who just gets shit done. (Also, very few people "just get shit done.") Really give yourself permission to take breaks.
   
8. This book is about why diets don't work but also about so many other things, and one of my biggest takeaways has been that you can't berate yourself into self-improvement and "you can't hate yourself into happiness." It's okay to seek structure since that seems to help you, but don't let it come at the cost of ignoring your needs and not embracing the things about yourself that are worthwhile and important and have absolutely nothing to do with turning papers in on time.
   
9. Encourage yourself the way you would encourage a friend. Talk to yourself the way you would talk to someone you love and adore. Hopefully you are someone you love, but if not, this is a good way to start working on it.
   
10. Housekeeping stuff you may or may not already know: Talk to professionals and seek diagnosis if that is right for you. If you are diagnosed, consider talking to your campus disability services office about possible accommodations. Regardless, keep open lines of communication with your professors. They want you to succeed and may surprise you with how understanding they can be.

Not preachy at all! It's written by a psychiatrist who actually has ADHD himself, so he's actually very relatable and self-deprecating at times.

It's called "Your life can be better: Using strategies for Adult ADHD"

https://www.amazon.com/Your-Life-Can-Better-strategies-ebook/dp/B006QL0VJC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486157242&sr=8-1&keywords=your+life+can+be+better

the ebook version is a lot cheaper, like 2 bucks.