I went through basically this exact same experience minus the divorce and the parenting. I did eventually discover the tradeoff: I started feeling awful, like completely miserable, as soon as the drugs wore off. Eventually I had the same horrible feeling when I first woke up in the morning before I'd taken them. I was angry at everyone, …
I went through basically this exact same experience minus the divorce and the parenting. I did eventually discover the tradeoff: I started feeling awful, like completely miserable, as soon as the drugs wore off. Eventually I had the same horrible feeling when I first woke up in the morning before I'd taken them. I was angry at everyone, I wanted to burst into tears, and I had a throbbing hangover-style headache. I barely had enough motivation to brush my teeth and get dressed, let alone do anything else, until the meds had kicked in. In the end I stopped taking them and I felt much better after a couple weeks. At this point, two years later, I don't believe I've ever had ADHD. I did, however, have a very unhealthy lifestyle involving way too much alcohol, way too little sleep, a terrible diet, an addiction to social media, and an inability to cope with stress in a healthy way. When I finally accepted that those things weren't just a manifestation of undiagnosed ADHD - after over a year of taking adderall daily - I forced myself to make the more difficult incremental changes that have actually durably improved my life. I am in a much better place today.
I'm not saying that this is what will happen to you, but for me personally the adult ADHD diagnosis felt like a solution to all my problems and the way I felt on medication initially confirmed that belief. If I gained anything from the experience it was acceptance that there was no single disorder that explained my deeply unhealthy life and no single pill that could fix it in the long term.
I know a massive number of people who've been diagnosed with ADHD as adults in the past three years and I often wonder how many are headed down the same path I was. I hope they find a similarly positive resolution even if ADHD doesn't turn out to be the answer.
I went through basically this exact same experience minus the divorce and the parenting. I did eventually discover the tradeoff: I started feeling awful, like completely miserable, as soon as the drugs wore off. Eventually I had the same horrible feeling when I first woke up in the morning before I'd taken them. I was angry at everyone, I wanted to burst into tears, and I had a throbbing hangover-style headache. I barely had enough motivation to brush my teeth and get dressed, let alone do anything else, until the meds had kicked in. In the end I stopped taking them and I felt much better after a couple weeks. At this point, two years later, I don't believe I've ever had ADHD. I did, however, have a very unhealthy lifestyle involving way too much alcohol, way too little sleep, a terrible diet, an addiction to social media, and an inability to cope with stress in a healthy way. When I finally accepted that those things weren't just a manifestation of undiagnosed ADHD - after over a year of taking adderall daily - I forced myself to make the more difficult incremental changes that have actually durably improved my life. I am in a much better place today.
I'm not saying that this is what will happen to you, but for me personally the adult ADHD diagnosis felt like a solution to all my problems and the way I felt on medication initially confirmed that belief. If I gained anything from the experience it was acceptance that there was no single disorder that explained my deeply unhealthy life and no single pill that could fix it in the long term.
I know a massive number of people who've been diagnosed with ADHD as adults in the past three years and I often wonder how many are headed down the same path I was. I hope they find a similarly positive resolution even if ADHD doesn't turn out to be the answer.