This month wins

[jack]

This month wins:

• Hourly brain self check-ins on many days
• WD-40 to bike chain
• Bought bike lube
• Bought running top, shorts
• Sorted piles of post
• Parkrun time 37:33min (down below 40min)
• Started new meds
• Petted alpacas
• Work appraisal
• Set up weights on patio
• Reprogrammed thermostate for summertime
• Bought little animal clips to identify people's cups/glasses
• Sorted bathroom stockpile and cabinet
• Cleaned half of the kitchen and living room
• Bought filing trays
• Cleared nettles on drive
• Went to Oxford and saw the shark
• Lost pandemic legacy
• Finished work project

When I put it like that, it sounds like I was pretty productive! But it's hard to persuade my brain until (maybe) enough areas of my life start feeling like they're under control that it starts to slowly get my brain used to the idea that I might be adulting ok even if I haven't done something incredibly useful in the last few minutes :)

Comments

[anais_pf]

Wow, look at all that stuff you did! I feel like a slacker now.

[hilarita]

So how is the revised ADHD medication doing these days?

[jack]

I suspect you did some awesome things even if you don't have a list. But either way, thank you! I am not used to feeling productive -- even with a list, it feels like what I'm doing is barely keeping my head above water, which is mostly why I'm collating them...

[jack]

Oh, thank you! Hm, what did I last share? Current status is about a month on non-stimulant Intuniv (Gaunfacine) on a slowly escalating dose. It's more subtle than Elvanse, but I'm fairly sure my executive function and similar symptoms have steadily improved on average. There's still good days and bad days and on good days I ask myself "maybe everything is sorted and I don't need anything else", and on bad days I ask myself "oh god, will I ever manage to do things without exerting minute-by-minute willpower to stop my mood crashing", but the good days and bad days are both much better than they used to be, so I'm very hopeful that I am in about the right place going in the right direction. I'm asking myself to what extent I need therapy as well and on good days it feels like "not really" and on bad days it feels like it would barely help, so probably the answer is, I might or might not, if I go on on a similar trend, it might be that improved brain learns to get over its problems itself, or it might be that some intransigent ones need some help.

Remind me where you are in your journey? And best wishes for continued progress to you also.

[silveradept]

That's a fair bit done there, yes. Well done.

(Sometimes my brain gets after me, even when it's been productive, if there's a specific thing that needed doing that didn't get done on any given day.)

[jack]

*hugs* Thank you!

> Sometimes my brain gets after me, even when it's been productive, if there's a specific thing that needed doing that didn't get done on any given day

Oh yes, I pretty much take that for granted. Even worse, when something DIDN'T particularly need to be done today but I got fixated on doing it today because I was optimistic earlier and added too many things to a list... But even WITHOUT that, it's hard to judge whether what I've done is reasonable unless it EXACTLY matches a list I made earlier. Oh well, I think I'm getting better :)

[silveradept]

Yes, it can be an effort to look at what got done and judge it accordingly, rather than trying to see how well it matched the list that you put together earlier.

Excelsior on progress.

[hilarita]

Cool. That's good to know. Currently I'm at month 10 on a 6-9 month waiting list for medication assessment.

[jack]

Ah, I see. *hugs* Best of luck, I hope you get to the end!