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Adult ADHD Advice
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Hey best of luck tomorrow. Fitzgerald is a lovely man and he will speak into a dictaphone most of the time. Just remember to be brutally honest about the struggles you have endured due to being undiagnosed, as in, you need to talk about the things that you keep hidden.
Thats all I can i say really.
Let us know how you get on.
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Hello
I posted on this thread a few months ago and was very grateful for the replies. I just forgot to to post again..
I was prescribed Concerta back in January. Seemed to help. I got a job but left a few weeks ago. I could see the same pattern I always had repeating itself and the medication didnt seem to help as much in a work environment. I stopped taking them and I decided to bail before I got fired or went into the same self loathing spiral as before.
I went back on the medication a few weeks ago but no sign of any changes.
I was never given a formal diagnosis. But I did complete the DIVA assessment which gave a strong indication towards ADHD.
I was back with the mental health primary care team last week and they are arranging an appt with a Clinical Psychologist to get a proper diagnosis. I've also got an appointment with an Occupational Therapist.
Just wondering if anyone could give any insight as to what to expect from either of these appointments?
Feeling very frustrated with myself at the moment.
What kind of patterns develop at work? I wonder if other people might identify or have suggestions. If you've no diagnosis how did you get prescribed Concerta ? ( not a dig, just curious!)
Some people find it can take up to 8 weeks for effects to accumulate and kick in, but you should be feeling more focused at the least! That being said, the different medications work differently for different people, and some people go through the 2 or 3 without much success. They say medication is successful for about 80% of people with true adhd/add
While medication (when it works) is a big part of the puzzle, behavioural and lifestyle changes are really important too. I have detailed some of these above, and cannot recommend any without knowing your individual difficulties,but generally things like sleep hygiene, organizational habits, and psycho education about your own conditions and acknowledgment of your strengths and difficulties. Since I am an OT, this may be what the OT will cover with you, but it may not
How the meeting is focused will depend on the setting, reason the referral, and clinicians own experience.
In my experience, many health professionals are not overly experienced with adult ADHD, but since this is part of the query, you should be fine. THE OT will probably ask you what you want to improve, and may set some goals with you, and may do some kind of assessment, I can't say which one without knowing your case, but it will be painless OTs in a nutshell want to help you improve your function and quality of life and therefore are generally speaking client centred and practically focused. Before you meet with them, try to think about if you could just improve one aspect /area, what would it be?
For the psychologist, again depending on their background, they may do a series of assessments and ask you lots of questions, including about your childhood. I would imagine they will also try to rule things out, often a cognitive test is given to rule out learning difficulties. Again, they should be nice, they are trying to help you sorry I can't be more specific, but it's hard without knowing more details, some people have outlined above what their assessments were like, and it's usually fine.
Lastly, try not to feel too frustrated with yourself. It sounds like you are being proactive and seeking out the support you need. You have asked for and are getting help. As many people reading this can attest, the road of adult diagnosis of any neurological conditionis a long and rocky one, but you are further along them most, and in a good situation by being linked in with a team already. While things are difficult at the moment, try to focus on the proactive things you have done.
If you have more questions just put them out here and do let us know how you get on. I think this page is a brilliant resource (although it is getting long and therefore may be tricky for some people with adhd to read through in its entirety! ), and the more info we can pull together about people's experiences the better. 0 -
What kind of patterns develop at work? I wonder if other people might identify or have suggestions. If you've no diagnosis how did you get prescribed Concerta ? ( not a dig, just curious!)
Some people find it can take up to 8 weeks for effects to accumulate and kick in, but you should be feeling more focused at the least! That being said, the different medications work differently for different people, and some people go through the 2 or 3 without much success. They say medication is successful for about 80% of people with true adhd/add
While medication (when it works) is a big part of the puzzle, behavioural and lifestyle changes are really important too. I have detailed some of these above, and cannot recommend any without knowing your individual difficulties,but generally things like sleep hygiene, organizational habits, and psycho education about your own conditions and acknowledgment of your strengths and difficulties. Since I am an OT, this may be what the OT will cover with you, but it may not
How the meeting is focused will depend on the setting, reason the referral, and clinicians own experience.
In my experience, many health professionals are not overly experienced with adult ADHD, but since this is part of the query, you should be fine. THE OT will probably ask you what you want to improve, and may set some goals with you, and may do some kind of assessment, I can't say which one without knowing your case, but it will be painless OTs in a nutshell want to help you improve your function and quality of life and therefore are generally speaking client centred and practically focused. Before you meet with them, try to think about if you could just improve one aspect /area, what would it be?
For the psychologist, again depending on their background, they may do a series of assessments and ask you lots of questions, including about your childhood. I would imagine they will also try to rule things out, often a cognitive test is given to rule out learning difficulties. Again, they should be nice, they are trying to help you sorry I can't be more specific, but it's hard without knowing more details, some people have outlined above what their assessments were like, and it's usually fine.
Lastly, try not to feel too frustrated with yourself. It sounds like you are being proactive and seeking out the support you need. You have asked for and are getting help. As many people reading this can attest, the road of adult diagnosis of any neurological conditionis a long and rocky one, but you are further along them most, and in a good situation by being linked in with a team already. While things are difficult at the moment, try to focus on the proactive things you have done.
If you have more questions just put them out here and do let us know how you get on. I think this page is a brilliant resource (although it is getting long and therefore may be tricky for some people with adhd to read through in its entirety! ), and the more info we can pull together about people's experiences the better.
Thanks for your response. You were very detailed and thorough so I'm going to try and do it justice.
I've definitely been prescribed Concerta. I think you might not be the first person to question how I got it without an official diagnosis so I'm curious now myself. It is Concerta though, says so on the bottle, prescription says Concerta and the pills match the description. Unless its some kind of placebo. I get the prescription from my GP.
The problems I have at work are many and varied, perhaps not all to do with ADHD. I get bored very easliy, any kind of routine eventually becomes soul destroying. This is not the regular 'I hate my job kind of boring' this is agony, almost physically painful and I find it very hard to cope. In one previous job I had, what looking back on it now were probably panic attacks. 10-15 minutes in the morning curled into a ball on the kitchen floor. I'm a grown man and I consider myself resilient. I generally handle stress well, but boredom....jesus.
Since I get so bored I find it very hard to maintain focus. I find focusing hard anyway but in my last job I would usually be going around doing the morning rounds on my own and I would lose focus and end up staring off into space.
It slowed me down alot and led to errors that I'd have to go back and correct making it worse.
The only time I could really focus and get the job done in a timely fashion was when it absolutely had to be done by a certain time or there would be an actual consequence. By that I mean something real would happen, like a truck woudlnt leave on time or I wouldnt be ready for another job that had to be done that day. Its hard to explain but I think I've realised that certain pressures don't click with me. Getting it done fast because I want to be a good worker and keep my boss happy just doesnt work for me because the consequences of failing in that regard are vague and not defined.
Then there is the attention to detail. I just don't have it.
I also hate being told what to do. Time and time again I have tried to just suck it up and get on with it but it hurts. A bit like the boredom.
Like the above example. My boss and coworkers mentioned that I was slow getting the mornings work done. It was pretty obvious that none of them were impressed with the amount of time it would take me. That made it worse for me, because now the last thing on earth I was going to do was go faster. If the lord himself came down and gave me a wondrous potion that would make me go faster in the mornings and stay focused, I'd have told him where to shove it.
A more extreme example. In the job where I was having panic attacks due to the boredom, I was consistently late. Due in part to the effort required to extricate myself from the fetal position on the kitchen floor but also due to the fact I would wake up in the morning when my alarm went off...and then forget to get out of bed.
My boss mentioned it to me and told me to make sure I was on time because I was always late. From that point on I made sure I was atleast 5 minutes late every day.
I'm reading back on this realising I probably just sound like an arsehole. Its still beyond my comprehension how anyone can be told by there boss they need to work faster, be earlier, be tidier etc and then actually go out and do it. I don't know why, Im generally a helpful person and I work hard really. I put in the hours and never complain about problems or conditions, I do overtime without any problems.
Maybe I just have an aversion to being asked to correct problems that I feel I simply can't solve? But I also just hate being given an order or told how to do something. If my boss says 'clean up that stuff you spilled' or 'thats not how X is supposed to done' right on the tip of my tongue is a massive **** YOU! and then I hate myself for just saying 'OK yeah, no bother'
On the subject of solving problems. I get to wrapped up in an issue an focus solely on that to detriment of everything else. I remember we had a minor technical issue in my last job. Nothing major, a tail lift on a truck wasn't working as it should and all the wiring was rotten. We didnt really need it to work it just would have been handy if it was. My boss was away for two days and I spent all that time trying to get this thing working instead of what I was supposed to be doing, I kept saying just another five minutes, I tried and go and do something else but all I could think about was this damn tail lift and why it wasn't working. My boss came back and I still didnt have it working. He seemed a bit annoyed that I'd 'wasted' so much time on it. H told me not to spend anymore time on it because there was other stuff that had to be done. So later that evening when everyone had gone home, I came back and kept working on it. I couldn't stop myself. I fixed it anyway but I don't think anyone noticed.
I can't really understand verbal instructions either. It just turns into noise. I really feel like an idiot when I don't understand what someone is asking me to do. "Bring five bags of cement and put them on that trailer and then load up the van with 2 shovels and 3 rakes". I probably look like a complete idiot when I have to stop and think about what was a fairly simple set of instructions.
I'm sure people I work with think of me as a dope and because of everything else I never really get trusted with anything too important. I really hurts my self esteem and there are times i believe i am just an idiot.
****ing hell I just looked back on how much I've written. I was not expecting to write a novel ::eek:0 -
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What kind of meds are you on? Did you have to go through a load of different ones until you find the right meds?
I've been on a few in the past but haven't been on any in about 4 or 5 years. Been thinking of going back to my Doctor to try something again as my ADD is getting a bit hard to manage at the moment.
I was forst prescribed with strattera - hated them, then it was Ritalin long acting and I am still on them but I'm sorry for the extremely short response - but its the same answer - meds alone do nothing really except make you focus better with bad habits and coping skills skewed by adhd. Look at the post on CBT specifically for ADHD.
Please people believe me 0 -
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I was forst prescribed with strattera - hated them, then it was Ritalin long acting.
Please people believe me
Ah yes, just remembered I was on Strattera for a while. Doc even tried Zyban as it works in some cases even though it's for smoking! Might see what he says about Ritalin.
It's the focus that's my problem at the moment. I also need to get back to regular yoga which I found was helping.
I'll have a read of the CBT thread too.0 -
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