Im still watching the crappy medical drama I mentioned a couple of days ago, and I have a THREAD in me

One of the doctors - head of her department, very driven - turns out to have ADHD! At first I’m like “wow, ADHD rep that isn’t a hyperactive kid! That’s cool!”

Haha yeah no her plotline is that after 20 years of taking prescription adderall she suddenly gets addicted to it

And like. I don’t know how it goes down in America but that shit is HARD to get hold of over here - if she were going through her supply faster than she was supposed to, how was she getting the extra pills? There’s no suggestion that she was buying them illegally

Also they show NO side-effects of taking abnormally high doses of an adhd med - she doesn’t have problems with shakiness, agitation, dry mouth, increased anxiety - she just overworks & then makes careless mistakes

And then! Once she’s had the requisite rehab plotline, she’s involved in an accident that leaves her with a severe leg injury. When asked how she’s coping back in her role as head of the emergency department without adhd meds she’s just like “oh the pain focuses me”

I’ve been suffering with this ingrown toenail all day, AND I’ve taken my meds, and I’m STILL scatty, distracted, have zero working memory, and a ton of executive dysfunction. Like, that’s not??? That’s not how??? Hajfkjdhdhf?????

It’s acting like ADHD is just “being a bit daydreamy” and “not focusing hard enough” when like, those are my LEAST problematic symptoms?? The issues with short-term memory/working memory are WAY more disruptive to my life???

Adhd involves WAY more than just “not focusing” - it’s problems with starting tasks, shifting tasks, regulating emotions, regulating impulses, holding information in your head, processing information, overwhelm, recall, and many other issues including sensory processing.

Everyone with adhd is going to experience these symptoms in different ways, to different degrees, but it’s not just one solitary symptom, it’s a whole cluster of interrelated ones.

My biggest problems include

- not being able to process how time passes (leading to lateness, poor planning, poor organisation, and an inability to make long-term plans because to me the long-term simply does not exist)

- not being able to break tasks down into smaller chunks, or organise/prioritise tasks meaningfully - when I try to, it feels like trying to hold on to water, I can’t keep all the relevant components in my mind at the same time.

Related to these,

- frustration/overwhelm: when you can’t break a task down, or you can’t prioritize the tasks you need to do, they just feel like an immense, insurmountable obstacle. This often leads to

- inertia - brain is stuck. Frequently trapped in a thought loop.

A “thought loop” is when you’re like “I need to do A, but before I do A I should do B, but before I do B I should do C, but before I do C I should do A” and my brain just gets trapped going round and round and round like that as I get increasingly anxious

I also have:

- low boredom threshold

I need constant mental stimulation and anything less than that feels completely torturous, it’s the worst feeling, like you want to tear off your own skin.

I also interrupt people ALL THE TIME without meaning to

I think I’ve covered most of it, but I also have huge difficulty STARTING a task, switching tracks and then switching back (I never put customers on hold at work because I WILL forget they exist the minute I perform a different action), HYPERFOCUSING, and so much more!