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Tell HN: If you have trouble focusing on projects/meetings, see a psychatrist

by thegginthesky on 11/30/22, 2:53 PM with 209 comments

• by thebigspacefuck on 11/30/22, 3:51 PM

  I got on meds for ADHD and they objectively didn’t help that much. I also felt like my pulse and emotions were greatly elevated in confrontational situations to an uncomfortable extent (though caffiene was involved). The other aspect was that it was almost $300/month for a prescription. In social situations they did help a bit. Any impact on productivity was minor.

  I’d also say right after the meds kicked in I would do something like get on hacker news and write a long post about how everyone should get their ADHD checked and how life changing meds are. That always felt like the meds talking to me.

  Not that anyone shouldn’t try it. I’m glad I did, even though I decided it wasn’t for me, because otherwise I would be wondering how much better I would be on meds. Now I know for me it’s not much better.

• by ynniv on 11/30/22, 3:53 PM

  I did the same two years ago and it's been transformative. There are people who will tell you that medication isn't a complete solution, or that it's not the best one. They're not wrong, but telling someone who is drowning that they just need to learn how to swim isn't doing them any favors. I was 40 when I was diagnosed, and understanding the implications of that diagnosis has made my life much better. My first couple weeks of medication made me far more aware of the people around me, which was totally unexpected. I wrote down that it was like putting on snow shoes, or adding a block warmer to your car. Obviously those metaphors won't mean much to people who didn't grow up in a cold climate, but the crux is that easy things are much harder than they are for other people. The weird part is that because you're so used to easy things being hard, hard things aren't that much harder, and when you're warmed up you perform as well or better than your peers. But soon everything cools off, and making a sandwich is a grueling decision again.

  One thing that eventually pushed me towards trying medication is that I realized I had already been self medicating with coffee. Sometimes when people say "they aren't a person until they've had coffee", that might be true. The problem is that coffee lasts an hour or so and makes you jittery and hungry, while Adder-all lasts 4 ~ 8 hours and mildly suppresses your appetite(s). They're not wrong: sleep, exercise, diet, being social, etc also improve your emotional state, but when making a sandwich seems impossible, the first step might be to stop drowning.

• by whynotkeithberg on 11/30/22, 3:47 PM

  I think this is something more people should share/talk about so I'm glad you did so and I hope people listen.

  I had done the same in the past and was prescribed Vyvanse which I liked much better than Adderall. Adderall was enjoyable & worked but it also felt really good and I wanted to take more when it was wearing off for the day.

  Vyvanse seemed to be even more effective at helping me focus, it would last its 8-10 hours and then I didn't have any desire to take more for the day. It did make my stomach hurt for a short period when it was wearing off though(not for the whole day or even very much of it).

  After a couple Iraq tours I had such difficulty concentrating and became someone who procrastinated & then got days worth of work done in a few hours once the deadline was there. Vyvanse really changed things for me as I was able to not be in such a rush slamming out work and that made me so much less anxious and less depressed. I learned a lot of my depressed feelings were because of my anxiety from knowing I was behind and not doing the things I needed. So getting my ability to focus improved helped me immensely in more than just the one way.

• by green-eclipse on 11/30/22, 4:07 PM

  Not ADHD, but some similar symptoms for me. I could not focus on anything at work. Massive procrastination. It was just brutally painful to try to finish things I was working on.

  Long story short: the culprit was sleep apnea. After a sleep test, I got a CPAP machine. After a bit of time to adjust to the equipment, it made a profound change to my life.

  The next year or so was perhaps the most productive of my life. My boss & coworkers remarked it was like I was a different person.

  Good quality sleep is important, it turns out!

  (Side note: I dropped into REM sleep before my CPAP machine, with lively dreams and stuff. So I didn't really think I had apnea. My faulty mindset of apnea was that you basically couldn't dream at all. But once I had the CPAP machine, my dreams turned into unreal, epic sagas, as my brain started to repair and catch up on all the REM sleep it had missed over the years. My dreams are no longer so crazy, but that first 3-4 months was really interesting)

• by nja on 11/30/22, 3:39 PM

  How did you find your psychiatrist? As someone in a similar situation who has decided several times to get a consultation, it seems like the whole system is set up to be as difficult as possible! Just finding someone taking new patients is hard enough, then you have to worry about whether you have to have a PCP in their hospital, if they are allowed to do telehealth, whether they take your insurance, ..., ...

  It was hard enough finding a therapist (and retaining them -- my therapist dropped me because the office only allows them to see someone for 1-2 years max).

  If anyone has tips on more effectively finding therapists and psychiatrists, I am all ears. (I'm in the US if it helps)

• by max182 on 11/30/22, 4:14 PM

  I was self medicating with massive amounts of nicotine and coffee, which probably was worse for my health than ADHD meds.

  Before I was on meds I was all over the place, could hardly write code even though I knew what needed to be done. Got booted from company I started because of ADHD/Depression. Didn't graduate high school. All the signs were there. I just started seeing a psych from Stanford and he dismissed a lot of my preconceived notions around taking medication.

  I was almost homeless before I started and thinking about working construction. Started meds. Got a FAANG-tier programming gig without even studying for the interview. No harm in trying things out if you're having trouble.

  I can take an Adderall and take the best nap of my life which is the exact affect it should have.

• by tapoxi on 11/30/22, 3:36 PM

  I've been diagnosed with ADHD since I was a teenager, but the shift to working from home and additional responsibilities made it far worse, so I started seeing a psychologist earlier this year to help me reinforce organizational skills while adjusting medication.

  Some things that have worked for me:

  * Less medication. I dropped my Concerta to 36mg which avoids many of the side effects.

  * Frequent calendaring, even for personal life. This helps visualize time commitments.

  * Use of a pen and paper notebook throughout the day, reducing cognitive load. I've tried a lot of digital note taking tools but I end up spending too much time fiddling with them.

  To encourage myself to take notes I just have a loose structure of one page a day.

• by kstrauser on 11/30/22, 5:34 PM

  Please tell me how you got it taken seriously. I feel like this is literally killing me with the stress it causes, and I discussed it with a psychiatrist. Their response was "your coping mechanisms seem to be working, so why upset the cart?" Well, because I'm spending an incredible amount of energy on said coping mechanisms. Yes, I'm doing OK for myself, but I wish it didn't involve heroic efforts.

  Posted under my real name because I'm beyond sick of this being some kind of a taboo. No one's ashamed of talking about, say, thyroid meds.

• by vbezhenar on 11/30/22, 5:04 PM

  My personal anecdote.

  I have issues with focusing and prioritizing work.

  What helped me is getting a work with absolutely floating work time. For example today I went to work office at 19:30 and I'm going to leave it at 7:00 or something like that. It doesn't matter. What matters is: I work prolonged hours (because I still procrastinate, but I've found out that I start to focus on work after 4-5 hours or something like that. And I can sleep as much as I need, without any alarm clock or calls. I usually sleep 8-9 hours, my whole day is something like 25-27 hours, so it's slowly rotating.

  With these weird conditions I'm starting to unleashing my potential and it makes me feel so much better than before. When I'll get to work "late" to 11:00 in a sleepy state, will procrastinate until 18:30, when office is closed I'm going home without completing good work, then work overtime to finish sprint, getting burned out and this cycle repeats again.

  I don't think that my current life style is sustainable and I plan to adjust it to a "normal" style slowly, but it's important to feel that I don't just slack at work and I actually do enough work to warrant my salary. This makes my soul happy and then I can move on with other things. Because when I feel uneasy, I can't really proceed with anything.

  I don't trust psychiatrists, but it's just me. I prefer to find issues and ways to solve those issues. I tried to visit psychologist, but I felt that it's absolute loss of time and money.

• by throwawaytemp29 on 11/30/22, 3:38 PM

  100% this. I have been struggling with this for the last 5 years and only after my son was diagnosed with ADHD did I realize that I have it as well. Just having an explanation for the challenges makes life easier and I don’t have to beat myself up about it so much.

• by machiaweliczny on 11/30/22, 3:47 PM

  100% upvote from my side. Not an ADHD but getting psychiatrist help was one of best decision of my life. I got meds (SSRI) that relived my stress, demotivation, social anxiety and helped me regain control over life. I can't emphasise how big this is.

• by psyman on 11/30/22, 4:04 PM

  Good for you, unfortunately some of us with ADHD want to fly airplanes, and soon enough, realize that the FAA still lives in the early 1900s, where you have to "man up" and "deal with it". So we just silently suffer, every single day.

• by mawadev on 11/30/22, 7:05 PM

  I tried taking medication to deal with a demanding lifestyle before, but then I analyzed how my environment shaped me. Turns out I spent most of my waking hours at work and no matter how much I optimized myself, it never stopped. What helped was switching jobs and where I live.

  I simply needed to do maintenance on the base levels of the hierarchy of needs to keep the upper levels intact. It may not work for you, but most of your effort should first go into evaluating whether what you do still works in your favor.

• by wintermutestwin on 11/30/22, 4:32 PM

  My anecdata on ADHD:

  I know someone who was diagnosed around age 8. Her parents declined to give her the speed that was recommended. When she was 12, she went for a run one morning and found that it made a huge difference in her ability to focus and maintain emotional equilibrium. She ran as many days as possible since that first run and runs ~12 miles a day (in addition to doing multiple team sports and weightlifting). She is doing great in life - about to finish college and is generally happy. She's quite dependent on her exercise though and if she misses a day for some reason, she is pretty miserable.

  I'm not a doctor and have no idea if this would work for anyone else, but I have to think that there are better solutions than giving people speed.

• by luxcem on 11/30/22, 5:45 PM

  I don't know if it's only the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or a real impression but for the past few weeks I've seen a lot of testimony and articles on ADHD (on hn and other media). Some friends also started to mention it more than before.

  I always recognize myself in those testimony and I think it's time to do something about it. So thank you for your message!

• by zug_zug on 11/30/22, 3:54 PM

  Interesting. I'm among the wide swath of people who is trying to decide exactly what proportion of my disinterest in work comes down to me.

  But I'd love to hear from people who have been sticking with a drug for over a year (or conversely people who tried a drug but it didn't stick for a full year)

• by madaxe_again on 11/30/22, 4:47 PM

  I have had quite a number of professionals tell me I have ADHD - but I do not believe them.

  Firstly, I only loosely fit the diagnostic criteria. I am more inclined to think that that which they identify as ADHD is just me being a lazy and impatient asshole - I could probably act differently if I cared enough to try, which I kinda don’t. I can make myself focus myopically on practically anything, which is, as I understand it, contrary to the core facets of ADHD. My life is a garbage fire on a train wreck, but that’s ok, it takes me interesting places.

  Which brings me to secondly - I have a problem with even accepting that ADHD exists. So many kids at school would go get diagnosed as ADHD or dyslexic or whatever, when they patently weren’t, so they’d get the extra time and grade bonus in exams. So many other kids would be forcibly diagnosed and drugged, when all that was wrong with them was that they were being bullied. It feels like the psychiatric industry invented a new product to sell, and needed a diagnosis to stick it on. It’s convenient for schools, as you can label and drug anyone who shows any hint of individuality, and likewise for parents, as it allows easier management of vivacious children. For adults, it’s convenient as an explanation for failure to meet one’s own expectations in life.

  Me, I just accept that I am a bit of a disappointment - “If madaxe would only apply himself, he would be an exceptionally brilliant pupil”, said everyone, ever - and I do not like to apply myself, as as I said, I am a lazy asshole intent on coasting through life.

• by anonym29 on 11/30/22, 4:56 PM

  For struggles with executive functioning like you are describing, traditional ADHD meds (variants of, and combinations of variants of amphetamine salts) have been demonstrated to increase self-reported perception of productivity more than actual productivity. Try out Modafinil or Armodafinil sometime. They are not chemically amphetamines, and the actual productivity increases on those appears to match the elevated self-perception, rather than falling short.

• by xyzzy4747 on 11/30/22, 3:46 PM

  I don't think the problem is that you can't focus - the problem is that the reward isn't high enough.

  I know your post isn't money-related, but let me digress. What is the point of fixing your procrastination? What goal are you really trying to achieve?

  If you can't pay attention in project meetings, so what? It's not like you'll get a $100,000 bonus for doing so.

  If there was a $10 million gold bar in the bottom of your backyard pond I don't think you'd procrastinate learning how and going about recovering it. It would probably occupy all your attention.

  In my opinion the solution is to change your focus in life to things that pay out higher rewards. I.e. instead of paying more attention in meetings, do the minimum to not get fired and figure out ways to make more money (find another job, start a business, etc.). If your job is already high-paying then focus on things that are high impact on impressing your managers.

  If the result of fixing your "procrastination" gives very negligible long-term financial benefits then it's not really worth it.

  I also often don't listen to my wife - unintentionally - but it's because she often says things without a lot of substance. So it's hard for me to keep focus.

  I've had lifelong procrastination issues too. Maybe I have an attention disorder as well (but undiagnosed). But I have a few million in my brokerage/retirement accounts, and my own startup with millions in funding, so do I care? Nope not really.

  Anyways, my advice is to figure out where the metaphorical gold bars are and go after those instead.

• by teucris on 11/30/22, 4:25 PM

  > and it got worse due to a more demanding lifestyle.

  Thanks so much for posting this! I went through a similar journey about a year ago. I was told I had been able to work around my executive dysfunction until I had kids. But even “working around” it, ADHD was holding me back. A manager at one point described me as being “stuck in second gear”. I may not be in fifth yet, but I’m definitely moving faster.

• by throwaway_51122 on 11/30/22, 8:20 PM

  A slight semi-tangential/related question for OP/others who've benefited so much from medication - did you receive any guidance from your doctor on how to use it, or do you use any strategies you figured out yourself?

  I have been prescribed (generic) methylphenidate, but the doc essentially told me "Take the tablets twice a day, good luck!". The medication does give me more mental energy, but it's much closer to "being on a rollercoaster" where you're being flung around than driving a sports car that you're in control of. (I haven't received any particular guidance/therapy etc.)

  To give an example, if I take my dose when getting ready, I'm probably going to be focusing too much on moisturizing my face or arranging my bag, rather than using the energy boost to "just" get off my butt and move out. I should probably add that I don't have very good structures/schedules in place.

  I really would like to help "tame" the med and would be grateful for any HN'ers help/suggestions!

• by nvarsj on 11/30/22, 4:56 PM

  I'm becoming more of an adult-onset ADHD skeptic. I mean, there is even a crisis now because of an Adderall shortage [1]. People who legitimately need them (they cannot hold a job without it) are not able to get them.

  I think there is certainly a spectrum of ADHD. Those with severe ADHD literally cannot function in society, they can't hold jobs, they can't get university degrees, without medication. Then you have the mild ADHD induced tech worker which is becoming more prevalent. Yes, meds are going to help as well. Possibly less social media, less dopamine hits, more exercise, and better sleep would help too.

  Another thing to keep in mind is that burn out symptoms look an awful lot like ADHD symptoms. And burn out is very common in our industry.

  1: https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-a...

  edit: Updated to be clear I mean people being diagnosed with ADHD as adults, not everyone with ADHD who is an adult.

• by prego_xo on 11/30/22, 3:44 PM

  I do hope that you're learning good habits in tandem with your medicine. Stress-management and self-control habits start small but end up being just as effective, if not more than your medication.The idea isn't to make you dependent on a prescription to be productive, you're to learn how to manage your ADHD to the degree where you can lower your dosage.

• by weatherlite on 11/30/22, 3:40 PM

  I don't think I have full blown ADHD but if distraction and procrastination is a spectrum (I believe it is) I'm probably somewhere in the middle. Though I've found ways to battle procrastination and improve it's always there lurking. I wonder if for cases like me (which I think is a huge proportion of the population) meds should be considered.

• by tarokun-io on 11/30/22, 5:20 PM

  I got on ADHD 2-3 months ago and my life changed.

  Up until now, every day was an uphill battle, causing me tons of stress and anxiety. I, too, self-medicated.

  I never thought anything of it because I was always able to work and finish stuff. It was my normal.

  Now I know it shouldn't be that way.

  I did try many other options before starting meds. They helped a little bit, but not significantly.

• by whalesalad on 11/30/22, 3:59 PM

  Do we all have ADHD or are stimulants just good? Seriously. Pretty soon all of us will be on legal meth and we sit back and go "hey this is fun I get this from my doctor it's good" and yet as a society we judge meth, crack and cocaine addicts.

  Nearly anyone will respond well to a stimulant.

• by friedman23 on 11/30/22, 4:10 PM

  I had the same experience. Recently got put on vyvanse and have been on it for 2 months now. My life has changed over night. I used to struggle to wake up to the extent I needed to keep the window open at night and set multiple alarms. All the coping strategies and social pressure I had when working from the office disappeared due to WFH and I could not get myself to do anything.

  It's hard to describe to people what it's like to not be able to do something you actually want to do. Every night before bed I'd tell myself, "tomorrow, I'm going to get out of bed and get ready for the day in 30 minutes" and I would constantly fail at this simple thing. I would stay in bed for 2 hours awake wanting to go and do things but it was just so hard.

• by Apocryphon on 11/30/22, 8:32 PM

  Can anyone elaborate on their ADHD diagnosis experience? The questionnaire-driven, experience seems very subjective. Has anyone tried a more extensive test, what does it entail? Doesn't it cost thousands of dollars and is not covered by insurance?

• by specialist on 11/30/22, 4:31 PM

  Agreed. I struggle with focus and executive function. It took me years to get actionable diagnoses.

  Though my root cause was ultimately physical (pinched nerves in my spine), addressing the mental health aspects is also required. The kinds of stuff addressed in the book The Body Keeps the Score. The skills and knowledge I learned from Swedish Pain Services were the missing puzzle pieces for me.

  My life advice to all other patients:

  1) You must have a patient advocate. Life coach, fights for you, keeps you accountable.

  2) Never accept "no" or "I don't know". Someone, somewhere has the answers you need. Keep digging.

• by sokoloff on 11/30/22, 4:06 PM

  If you think you may have mild ADHD and have desires to become a pilot, you are probably better off going without a diagnosis. You won't be able to fly if you're on any medication for ADHD and will have hoops to jump through if you have a history of diagnosed ADHD even if you're not taking medication for it. (If you have severe ADHD, becoming a pilot is probably contra-indicated anyway.)

• by potamic on 11/30/22, 3:51 PM

  I've seen a few anecdotes of people starting ADHD medication and seeing drastic improvements immediately. But at the other end, also some from people who regret going on medication, that it is more depleting than helpful in the long term. Would love to hear any experiences from people who were able to successfully treat the condition and wean off the medication for good.

• by pbiggar on 11/30/22, 3:51 PM

  Similar thing for me. Went to see a psychiatrist for memory issues, she diagnosed ADHD, and a bit of ritalin helped me focus a lot.

• by pwillia7 on 11/30/22, 3:46 PM

  come hang out at /r/adhdmeme at Reddit. That's how I figured out I probably had it and have had a similar experience to you since then, starting about a year ago.

  While it's trying having your 'personality' shown to you as just coping mechanism of your disorder, but it's nice to feel so included too ;)

• by sruffatti on 11/30/22, 3:35 PM

  If you don't mind me asking, what medicine were you prescribed? What kind of topics do you go over in therapy?

• by thenerdhead on 11/30/22, 4:16 PM

  Sometimes you need help from others before you can help yourself. Good for you to go get the help you needed.

• by AnIdiotOnTheNet on 11/30/22, 3:46 PM

  Sure, great advice.

  Know where I can do that in a reasonable time frame? Because I've been trying to find a psychiatrist to check my work on my Bipolar 2 self-diagnosis and of the 5 clinics I found only 1 ever got back to me about appointments, which are several months out for availability.

• by bottlepalm on 11/30/22, 4:37 PM

  Has anyone ever gone to a therapist where they weren’t recommended weekly sessions?

• by Dendilion on 11/30/22, 7:28 PM

  Thanks to Ritalin I'm were I'm today.

  Unfortunately it also made me more annoyed so I stopped taking it after taking it a long time.

  Still think it's super shitty that it was so difficult to try it in the first place.

• by carapace on 11/30/22, 4:08 PM

  A friend of mine who's a neuroscientist likes to say, "Psychiatry is not a branch of medicine." He means it in a constructive way, the implied follow on is "that would be good though, and we should strive to do that."

  My point is, there are lots and lots of different kinds of therapy, and lots and lots of variation in therapists. If you are having problems seek help please! You're not in this alone and it's important to take care of yourself. My advice is to try several different therapists until you find one that helps you.

  OP got lucky, the psychiatrist they met didn't try to have them committed or anything gnarly like that, and it sounds like they got good results from the weekly therapy with a psychologist and some medicine.

  You might not be so lucky.

  Start with diet. Most of us are making ourselves sick by eating some kind of crap.

  Check physical things: are you getting enough sleep? Too much light or noise at night can act like slow poison. Or you might have sleep apnea!?

  Is your house next to a freeway or an airport? Some chemical source?

  Does your spouse or child or neighbor drive you crazy? Your commute is too long?

  Next, try mechanical interventions: massage, Rolfing, etc.

  If it's not food, environmental, or something in your muscles or bones, then maybe just maybe you might need therapy of some kind.

  Scientifically, we are no better off than witch doctors and fortune tellers. Psychiatrists are trained as medical doctors, which is strange when you think about it, because they don't use any of that training in the practice of psychiatry.("Psychiatry is not a branch of medicine." is "funny" because it's true.)

  (E.g. When you go to a psychiatrist they do not draw blood. There's no point because there's no tests they can run on your blood to know what's wrong with you "psychiatricaly" (because that's a word that means "Western-flavored voodoo".))

  So, to sum up, if you got problems get some help. But beware of psychiatrists because they are even more crazy than most therapists and they often have leverage with hospitals and police to do really messed up violations of your human rights if they get the idea that you have "demons in your blood" (demons with names like "Schizophrenia" and "Bipolar". They can conjure with these names to put you in jail for days or longer even if you have committed no crime or criminal acts.)

• by rs_rs_rs_rs_rs on 11/30/22, 5:41 PM

  "Nothing like regular amphetamine use to make you appreciate how dumb a lot of normal, non-medicated human experience is"

• by achrono on 11/30/22, 8:46 PM

  In the same boat as your previous self, thanks for this timely reminder.

  What did therapy look like? What were the most impactful things for you?

• by uuddlrlrbaba on 11/30/22, 5:29 PM

  This approach sounds lovely, but have you tried scrolling HN comments for hours instead?

• by bvanderveen on 11/30/22, 3:51 PM

  A tautology:

  Adderall improves everyone’s ADHD symptoms! <=> ADHD is just what life feels like when you’re not on speed.

  Cut down on pot and booze, move your body, avoid stressors, and take control of your things in your life. Don’t rationalize/medicalize your way into a permanent cognitive disability. You’re in control!

• by piva00 on 11/30/22, 4:24 PM

  I brought up here on HN in a similar ADHD thread just a couple of months ago that I was going through an investigation with my therapist for ADHD.

  Yesterday we finalised it and I got the diagnosis, I have ADHD. When reading through resources like this: https://invisibleup.com/articles/27/ I could relate to an extreme extent to a lot written there. Both in the blog post as in some of the further resources linked in the end.

  I've gone downhill since the pandemic started, it was bad before but I've definitely tumbled down (and hence why I also started searching why I was like that). Initially I thought it was just some bad behaviour: being lazy, being tired and/or that my anxiety was getting worse due to the pandemic. I never had major issues with anxiety before but it runs in my family and I started feeling it physically.

  Yesterday I finally understood myself better. I've felt guilt and shame through my whole life for simply not being able to perform with the same work ethic as my peers. Guilt and shame for feeling overwhelmed when I have tons of messages from friends and family to answer. Guilt and shame for procrastinating seemingly mundane tasks, being a time optimist when planning my day, not being able to organise myself with to-do lists and long-term planning, etc.

  I did very well in school but could never do homework, or any kind of school project I wasn't interested in the subject. Just sheer pressure from stress could move me to do the minimum to get a decent grade. On the other hand, the projects I had an interest about the topic were always a breeze, I'd go above-and-beyond the assignment because I had so much fun with it.

  I collected many hobbies and always thought that was fun and exciting, lately I've been more overwhelmed by the feeling of never actually finishing a project or getting as good as I would like to in some skill/hobby.

  At work I've always been productive in the end. I've always delivered the projects I've worked on but I learned strategies to do it. If it's boring work I'd fiddle around, with bouts between procrastination and discovery work, to find exactly why something was requested, how that ties to a larger vision. Then I'd develop a personal vision for the project matching the "why"s of requests/plans with my overarching story and view of a codebase or product, just so I could have a thread that made sense to me and kept me interested. When I found those I enter a hyperfocus state and just work until the vision I created in my head is achieved, I've been very good in finding ways to match my visions to the overall business needs, and also being able to pushback on things that I believe don't make sense when considering all the constraints and needs. This ability to pushback has been praised multiple times in my career.

  I think the near future holds for me a slow discovery of many facets of myself, facets that I always treated and viewed with shame and guilt for feeling inadequate and not living up to expectations, not being able to just do work on boring tasks that others seemingly do with a breeze without caring too much.

  Just sharing my experience as it's extremely fresh in my mind and life, I'm still going through the acceptance that I might just have a brain that works in a different way. It's a little bit refreshing and relaxing while at the same time still making me think that I'm just faking it. That I'm actually just lazy, disorganised, etc. It's a strange feeling, like I'm gaslighting myself.

  Only doing this investigation I discovered that my parents and siblings always saw these behaviours in me, my therapist interviewed them and the way they talk about me as a child ticked so many boxes. I might not be the cliche rowdy boy that never keeps quiet or stays put but I've always seek stimuli, I've never had a moment in my life where my mind was actually quiet.

• by pdntspa on 11/30/22, 4:57 PM

  Sure, better get on that 6 month waitlist!

• by vcvzsa3221 on 11/30/22, 5:44 PM

  yes taking amphetamines generally makes people more productive

• by segmondy on 11/30/22, 3:42 PM

  Or figure out a system that works for you. Medication is not the only way.

• by BulgarianIdiot on 12/1/22, 8:37 AM

  So. What medicine?

• by bergenty on 11/30/22, 5:26 PM

  Is this really all that surprising? I’ve taken adderall a few times and it becomes very, very easy to do a lot of work. It’s an amphetamine.

• by mirekrusin on 11/30/22, 3:47 PM

  Be careful. 1 month is not enough to make a judgement.

  I hope it'll work for you long term and not create any side effects.

  I'm worried for you in terms of medication you mentioned. As an extreme example taking cocaine/amphetamines for 1 month would probably make you best dad ever, best coworker and best husband straight away - but would fuck you up totally longer term.

• by joshcsimmons on 11/30/22, 4:44 PM

  Psychologist? Yes.

  ADHD medication? No. Ritalin, Vyvanse, et al. are are legalized forms of speed. They mask the issue and will erode your reward system's ability to work naturally.

  > Following advice from my wife, friends, father, and here on HN, I looked for a psychiatrist to understand what was going on. After a lengthy consultation, the doctor told me I most likely had ADHD, and it got worse due to a more demanding lifestyle.

  To a hammer everything is a nail, why did you not see a psychologist first to see if the condition could be improved with lifestyle changes?

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  I am concerned because I have worked with so many people in tech that are on legal speed and I believe that this medicated state of productivity will become the norm in our industry as we continue to lose focus on the aspects of life and work that make us human.