This week my wife, of nearly 30 years, had a psyc evaluation this week and was diagnosed with ADHD.
Today was her first day on a base dose of Ritalin. by about 10am she made the comment “I don’t know if it is placebo or not…”. For most of the day she was ‘on fire’, until 1/2 way through cooking dinner when she started struggling with focus and keeping track (she has a sore foot at the moment and being hyper focused all day may have exasperated that).
It will be interesting to see how this develops (spoken as an undiagnosed autistic 50 y/o)
*exacerbated 😋
Congratulations! Currently also 30+ and keep forgetting to follow up with my doctor about a referral after forgetting to ask about a diagnosis for literally years.
Glad to hear she’s managed to get a diagnosis.
A relative of mine found medication made a huge difference after they were diagnosed. I think it took a couple of days, but what really struck them was apparently how quiet their mind became - no longer a million different thoughts rushing around.
There was a Malcolm in the Middle episode in which Malcolm encounters a younger kid and becomes envious of his similar level of intelligence. In it, he asks (paraphrasing): “do you ever feel like your brain is full of bees?” and the other kid, trying to emphasize his superiority, says (again, paraphrasing) “yes, but my brain is full of bees with brains like yours.”
DDG’ing (not paraphrasing) “mitm mind full of bees” gets some interesting results.
That’s from the arc with the failed MIT teacher who hated Malcolm. The other kid was his favorite. Both Malcolm and the other kid thought the teacher was punishing them by putting them together.
My experience with the meds was that I felt pretty wired for the first few days, then it stabilized significantly as my body developed a tolerance. Hopefully she has a similar arc with it. Best of luck to both of you.
Congrats ! It was life shattering for me (in both good and bad ways). Realising all the missed opportunities, but also understanding pretty much everything I did and why I did it, was somewhat heart breaking.
In retrospect, I’m wondering how the hell I managed to make it to my 30s without throwing myself off a building.
Medication is great, I very much like the extended release Ritalin, it doesn’t make me crash coming down, like the standard one.
But for me the most important thing is definitely proper follow up with psychologists and psychiatrists, to unravel all my coping mechanisms and understand why they’re here and how healthy (or not) they are. It’s a long disturbing and painful road, but I’m infinitely grateful for my diagnosis.
I hope it’s as liberating for your wife, as it was for me!
Good for you and her! My wife also found her ADHD diagnosis to be life changing. The only issues she has are remembering to take her medicine and to refill it periodically.
