A pipeline

For me it was hiding my emotions while dying of anxiety inside. I thought it was normal for people to have multiple streams of thought at once and to wake up with your mind immediately racing til bed. I did it though, college, kids, house, corporate IT career, until I couldn't handle the grind of daily life and burned out hardcore, several times. Also drank excessively for 20 years.
Thankfully, you can get treated for depression and anxiety for decades, then spend thousands of dollars to get an official ADHD diagnosis, maybe. And the stimulants make my anxiety and depression so much better, and they are super easy to get. Also, no one will question if you really have ADHD, support all the way. Then, back to the grind which you'll run right into with a smile everyday. I love it! It's the best!
- Thanks, I hate it

Isn't it strange that we have a government-ran education system that seems to identify those with significant potential for social change/upheaval and then manages to turn them into aimless mental health cases without the necessary learned skills such as how to study, how to overcome challenge, etc? Surely that couldn't be by design to maintain the status quo and weed out or disenfranchise potential challengers to it before said challengers had a chance to inspire action, could it?

I'll be honest this makes me feel so much less alone. I should have completed my engineering degree by now, but honestly not blaming COVID itself but the situations around it and the isolation among other things sent me down a never ending spiral to the bottom. I come to learn I barely holding on by a thread most of my life and it started to unravel at 21-22. Getting ADHD takes forever in the UK, I just hope I can survive or find something to hold me up until that. I went from potential family top earner to a lost loser who is anxious when seeing people nowadays.

Yeah I swear if they take away my meds and say just get over it

Wtf .. is this real?
I got diagnosed recently and don't want my job back. Freelancing is the way to go. Stay away from corporate culture, stay strong.
- same, same, same, and same.

I'm my case it was an autism diagnosis but otherwise yes.
- For anyone reading this who may not be aware, there's a lot of overlap between the two diagnoses, and there's a chance you may have both.
  
  ADHD may actually be a spectrum disorder. I've seen a few studies over the last few years that suggest this.

Sooo.. where do we go after stage 3? The meds just make me nap a lot :(
- living out in the woods, getting dirt on your hands, and learning to work well with feelings again.
- Unmedicated, unemployed, and homeless. Like me.
- Work with a therapist to improve coping strategies and improve your sleep hygiene. If the meds are making you nap, chances are it's because they're allowing you to relax enough to actually rest. Developing habits that help you to sleep better may help (I'm pretty terribad at it myself).
- try different meds or take them at a different time of day, many people experience a "crash" when stimulance like adderall or medikinet where off.
  I take part of my meds in the afternoon (unless i forget it again...) because that way they where off closer to bed time.

- Damn, brb, I'm gonna go put some stuff away even if I don't know where to put everything
- Thanks. I’m going to get out of bed and socialize poorly tonight because of this.
  Maybe I’ll report back tomorrow how poorly it went.
  
  I just got back! It went well. I felt awkward half the time, but I got to have some real conversations with some old and new friends.
  I have some new friends that I’ve only interacted with in really busy contexts, and it was nice to chat with them in a calmer space. I woulda missed the chance if I didn’t give it a shot tonight.
- My psychotherapist often say to me (paraphrased) : What is worth doing is worth being done badly.
  A thing done imperfectly is better than doing nothing at all.

No some of us have been failures our whole lives, thank you very much.
- Yeah! There are dozens of us!
  
  Baker's dozens, even!

If only we applied ourselves.
- No, trying harder doesn’t work for us.
  
  I think that's the joke. I heard this a lot growing up and it obviously didn't help.
- I feel like if only I had worked up to my potential, my life wouldn't be a shambling corpse-to-be.
  
  As it turns out, our potential is really high in a select few categories, and that makes it look to authority figures like we’re good at everything.

You shut your god damned accurate mouth.
- NEVERRRRRRRR!

I've passed the third section and moved into the fourth, horrible section. "Diagnosed ADHD but no medication will work."
- Went through most if not all of the stimulant treatments 15+ years ago. The most reaction I got was panic attacks for routine stuff at work. In the meantime depression has taken over, with similar lack of response to treatment.
  I feel like I'm an onion inside of a Russian nesting doll stuck in a can of worms that tumbled out of Pandora's box and down the stairs to be kicked around the neighborhood by bored old timey kids before getting stuck in a storm drain and abandoned.
  
  Maybe what you're experiencing is an accurate emotional assessment of the state of our society.

I feel personally attacked, lol
- I apologize for nothing.

The funniest part is I had the diagnosis as a kid but no one did anything about it. They were just trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I got rediagnosed as an adult and got on medication.
I guess knowing about it meant I didn't have to spend years trying to figure out why I was considered gifted but couldn't get shit done.
- I got told because I was good as a kid I couldn't have it. Our system is terrible at actually dealing with the issue.
  Crazy part was I only started wondering if I had it after getting prescribed double Sudafed for bad cold/congestion and could suddenly focus

Serious questions. If I think this is me, is there any benefit to getting an official diagnosis? And if so, what’s the best/least scammy way to go about it?
- It opens up options that your future self may want/need. There are many potential barriers to treatment, you really don't want to deal with these when you actually need to rely on those services.
  Advice depends on location, some systems are harsh. Try to find groups in your area. You will be responsible for your outcome. Health professionals provide guidance and facilitate treatment. Medications can make things easier and enable more reliable behavior, but can be quite user-specific. Professional guidance highly advised.
  Try reading this. It's dense, but extremely informative. https://annas-archive.org/* md5/1a4afb16e9cd8cd7799697ad09c4d08a
- Maybe some type of med would improve your quality of life, and they are only available over the counter to folks with diagnosis+prescription. Having a diagnosis might give you a mental framework to to 'get to work' on improving the least fun things about it :) , like self help tips n tricks, or maybe working with a psychologist to see what might help you the most.
  
  I will point out that, in the US at least, an official diagnosis isn't required to get those meds. It's just a lot easier to be prescribed them with it. I'm not officially diagnosed but I do see a psychiatrist who was willing to try them with no prompting from me.
  Ultimately though they didn't work out because of the impact on my blood pressure, I'm on non-scheduled ADHD meds now that have made a huge difference.

I've yet to get the official diagnosis. But im on track.
- Don’t give up, it took me eight years from my suspicions to actually getting a diagnosis. The hardest part was finding psychiatrists, making appointments, going to the first appointment, and then going to the following appointments.
  
  Apart from stimulant prescriptions, what is the benefit of getting diagnosed with ADHD?
  
  Im at the "psychiatrist referred me to psychologist for testing" stage. As of like, a few days ago. Otherwise identical, 7+ years of wanting testing (and having insurance and money to do it), before even making an attempt at getting treatment.
  Psychiatrist seemed confident meds would seriously help tho! Although i guess they are kinda paid to say that i guess?

I'm deep in phase 2, just building up to phase 3 I think.
ADHD memes do seem to resonate with me, but I'm not sure I experience the deleterious effects to a severe enough extent to really have diagnosable ADHD.
Even if I am, I'm not sure stimulants would be the right way to go, and I'm already doing my best with ADHD style interventions to support productivity et cetera.
- Stimulants aren't the only solution, they're just the solution with the most obviois results
  
  Stimulants best short term, management strategies and lifestyle changes best long term
- Same feelings here

I screwed up and am stuck deep in 2. I even screwed up a miraculous way out with this awesome startup. And I was diagnosed in kindergarten! No drugs, I’m healthy, just… Yeah.
I wish I could subscribe to this community over and over.

Holy shit it's my life

I didn't realize I was under surveillance

Look, mom! I'm on the screen!

Yep. But at least my life makes perfect sense now. Everything just seems so clear now.
- Nothing quite like the feeling of a dumpster fire coming into perfect focus around you.

Hey, it's me!

Just got stage 3 last month. Stage 2 sucks :(

Keep going and try to apply yourself to the ADHD projects as much as humanly possible, you will expand your attention on the things you get all attention deficity on, and can train to be absorb situations quickly and astutely, the more powerful your ADHD the stronger you can train yourself to absorb knowledge because your attention naturally grabs anything happening, also try not to get distracted by a TV every time one is on, so ignore the meaningless stuff, focus the ADHD on important things, and grow as a person using your "disability" as a tool for success. -you will be exhausted regularly if you are doing it right, that much processing has a cost-
- So what you're saying is I have great potential but just need to apply myself?
  
  If I had a dollar...

Oh wow, this hits in a peculiar way