[Galadriel724]

I agree on the burnout thing. You can only try so much for so long before it is just too much, even if you love the job. I am trying to balance that now. I hope that I can. The position that I have has been vacated by everyone who has worked in it because of burnout, as has every position on the team. It is demanding on the best of days. It seems that the neurotypicals actually last less time. Guessing that it’s because the level of crazy that you need to deal with the level of crazy and frenzied nature of the whole thing is foreign to most people and freaks them out. I am used to never knowing what’s around the corner, so have done pretty well.
I think that in every job there has to be a point where you figure out how to manage it and have some routines in place. So that every minute isn’t an uphill battle. Some of us may find that the fact that we have to be creative to find ways to get anything done can help us problem solve that extra bit in certain situations.
Unfortunately we learn to use these methods to adapt by trial and error, mostly error. You can’t mess up over and over in a job and expect to keep it though.
I think that if we all could change jobs and not have it be a problem (it is, when you have a resume that is 10 pages long) we could figure stuff out better.
It is rare to find a career that allows lots of job changes without penalty though.
I think that must be why we seem, as a group, to be stuck at the bottom rung and lowest pay more often than not.
I am in a stage with my job where I need to figure out some new systems to cope with upkeep and tracking of recurring tasks before I burn out. It may just be a hump I need to get over, or it might be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I have an appt with a new MD (I moved and it’s time to switch) and am thinking about strattera, if it is appropriate for me. I can’t count on it helping though, without some extra time brainstorming. On my own time of course, to the detriment of the rest of my life.
It is frustrating. This is the job that I feel has been the best fit out of all the ones I’ve had, and the level of effort I put in is still much greater than most people do….

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[Galadriel724]

I am working in a job that challenges and frustrates me but is still the best one I have ever had- so worth the aggravation. Most of the aggravation is with the stuff that everyone hates about the US public mental health system and lack of resources. I suffer from the same issues with having patients that need more help than I can give all 91 of them.
As a psych nurse I think I have found a gig that uses my ADHD as a benefit and lets my quirks go under the radar some.
I work in the community doing direct care on an ACT team. Since my patients are the homeless, constantly getting arrested, hospitalized, usually strung out on drugs population that no one has figured out how to deal with yet, everything I do right is a big deal.
I can do home visits in the morning as long as I am in the clinic by 10am for the meeting. On days that I can’t stand being at my desk, I ask the program assistant to reschedule my appointments that have to be in clinic (just labs have to be there), and then he calls my patients and tells them to stay home. I go and do their injections and assessments at home, with my car stereo blasting the whole time. If I can work fast, I get home early. Of course, I am endlessly trying to catch upon documentation, but I have my laptop that they gave me and can wait until the times my brain kicks in and do the work at my brilliant moments. I am the only nurse on the team, so no one looks over my shoulder. I am known to get stuff done. Meaning if someone needs something, I have worked in enough places to know who to talk to and what to say. And I use cigarettes as a “creative motivator” aka bribe, among other things.
One big thing is the assistant. The other teams don’t have one. It is something that every person with ADHD could use. Lets me think about the stuff that really matters, and not stress about who needs what and when.
Problem is, to get a job like mine you have to have experience- I have been a nurse since 1998.A lot of people with ADHD have trouble finding and engaging in a career for that long, so many are stuck in positions where they have no autonomy.

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[Galadriel724]

This is directed at the people who I have met in a situaton where I am not “out” with my ADHD and spend most of my energy devoted to keeping myself in check and organized enough to pass.
Dear Neurotypical,
When we met at work you didn’t notice my ADHD. You thought I was shy and maybe a bit nervous in social situations and you weren’t wrong, but you didn’t understand that some of that was just fear of being found out.
As a psychiatric nurse I am responsible for the safety of the patients, the assignments of the staff, and pretty much everything else, since I rarely work on the busiest shift, meaning the managers are gone and I am the person who figures out how to handle things. When to call the MD’s, when to call security, and when to set up the restraints. I have become very good at knowing when something isn’t going right and averting crises. You have seen me save a few people’s lives when the MD’s didn’t consider med interactions or didn’t know what toxicity really looked like. You see my lists and notebook of cheat sheets and are impressed with my organization and time management. I’m pretty proud of that stuff too, but don’t do it to be efficient. I have learned to structure things as a coping skill. For you, work is a challenge and life is easy. For me, work is a known structured setting that I have control over.
How soon you forget that I am the same person on the outside when you see all of the spillover. You see my messy apartment, watch me hunt for things, get frustrated, talk too much, and all of a sudden the offers to babysit your kids are not welcome. You begin to treat me like I am not smart and capable and have no ability to say anything credible. You repeatedly tell me that if I just did things you way I wouldn’t have all of these things stressing me out. When I try to explain things in terms of executive function, you don’t listen, or tell me to stop the obsession with ADHD and to just forget about it for a while. You are impressed with my knowledge and competence in one setting and then completely discount everything I say in another.
I would say that you treat me like a patient but that isn’t the case, because I think you believe that they will get better, and that I have chosen to be irresponsible.You are unable or unwilling to imagine that I can be both competent and hopelessly lost, so you decide that I am either selfish or lazy, or manipulative, and dismiss me. You frustrate me and make me sad that I thought you were also someone different.

This hasn’t happened in a while, since I have stopped hanging out with anyone I meet at work, for this reason, but still pisses me off every time I think about it.
Especially since the last person who really did this in a major way just told me he got diagnosed with ADHD.

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[Galadriel724]

I like “nutter”. I generally refer to myself as “neurodeviant”, but we share that description with a lot of other groups.
Makes me remember that song “I’m an acorn small and round, lying on the cold cold ground…”

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[Galadriel724]

I decided to cancel for now, after I thought it through. I can always make another appointment. I got the price list. He charges in $125 chunks, even if I just have a question about a side effect.
The other reason is pretty basic. If he changes my meds, and something needs tweaking/adjusting on a weekly basis, I can’t afford him. 60 min eval $495. 90 min eval $795. This is also the price he charges for refills and every other visit.
I am a psych nurse and the psychiatrist I work with is really awesome. I’m going to see if she can recommend someone. I’ve been stable on the same meds for 3 yrs and wouldn’t be looking to change anything if I didn’t need to find a new prescriber. I have a 2 month head start too. I won’t go through my insurance company, because of the headache and the fact that most psychiatrists here don’t deal with insurance, but I have my limits. I would pay that much for an eval, but I’m pretty low maintenance and don’t want to have to check my bank balance if I have a side effect question…

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[Galadriel724]

Cross stitching is something I wish I was better at but loathe. It’s why a lot of my creatures have no face…..
I decided to start a new project, my current ones weren’t challenging enough. I am working on a doily, not because it has an actual use, but because it is complex enough to engage me and take my mind off current stress.

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[Galadriel724]

I just saw this thread, or I would have added my 2 cents. In fact I was surprised I didn’t already.
I crochet constantly. It is my way of shutting out the world, or serves as a fidgit type activity when I need my mind to be occupied. My profile pic is something I made. I don’t finish things all that often but this one is a 3 headed slugtopus.
It just occurred to me that I am really really stressed out and overextended. haven’t had time to crochet in a week. That is not good. It keeps me sane. Now to figure out which of my 4 projects that I am working on to start again, or whether to start a new one totally.

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[Galadriel724]

It’s probably a good thing that I have to write such specific progress notes for my patient appointments at work, or I’d never figure anything out. I hate documentation but there is that benefit.
This regularly drives my boyfriend crazy. He also had ADHD and is prone to being overwhelmed by chatter. I can usually keep it down to a reasonable amount but find myself getting worse when I’m having PMS.
I talk a lot more that week, and try to conduct my clinical activities AWAY from the clinic as much as possible. I can do that to a point because I work on an ACT team, where the delivery care more requires 70% of care to be given in the community. If I could just draw labs from my car I’d never have to go to the clinic again 🙂

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[Galadriel724]

I have been told that I talk in circles when I am A) stressed B) exhausted C) haven’t had anything to eat. At least the friends that are tolerant enough to tell me the truth and then stick around tell me that. Actually I talk in circles all the time but during those times it’s 10 times worse.
Sometimes I forget that I’ve already said something, but a lot of the time I know I said it but have this feeling that I didn’t make myself understood, and feel compelled to explain it again, better.
Also I think with my mouth. And when I’m typing sometimes. I realized that last weekend finishing up endless progress notes about home visits I made with my patients. It’s so weird but I need the input then the output before I mentally process some things. I was writing a “Just the facts” play by play of an interaction, and suddenly it popped into my head “oh crap, my patient’s girlfriend is stealing his meds and that’s why she is high and he isn’t getting better”. I had been sitting on the info all weekend and never considered it. That happens all the time…. I have to write out a mental status exam before I know what’s going on with a patient. I don’t get it- it’s in my head- why does it have to come out before it means something to me?

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[Galadriel724]

This is an interesting back and forth. I agree with a lot of it. The gift thing I have a hard time with, because as someone mentioned, a gift is a choice. If I was given a choice, and the ability to see my life as it would have been without the adhd in comparison, there is a chance that I could end up picking the one with the ADHD. However, I see ADHD as something that limits my choices. Neurotypicals have more say in things. They may not want to listen to something that they know is horribly boring yet vital to their job or have the urge to make a comment at the worst moment, but they get that extra millisecond of time that one needs to make the decision based on importance, rather than learn to become a better planner, and work really hard to compensate in other ways simply because we cannot predict whether we will in fact be able to do what we know we need to. I hate boring things but want to hear the important ones. I wish I could force it more. I wish that I could have the choice to do it like other people and not always be rushed and depend on being creative at the right moment. I often am, and succeed surprisingly often, but I know that other people get what they put in most of the time. For me it’s a crap shoot. Tonight that just leaves me exhausted from putting in 100% of my energy reserves.

Another word. I am not the originator of the word, but I am fond of “neurodeviant”. In fact I use that term to refer to a lot of people, I think that some deviancy makes life interesting, if it’s not the kind that gets you arrested….

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[Galadriel724]

My cat is fine for the timebeing…. I am sending her to live with a friend of my sister’s. She is a sweet kitty and I love her so this is hard, but my boyfriend and I decided to move in together a few months back and his mom is deathly allergic. I won’t give notice to my landlord until she is settled and happy with her new owner. So on one hand I am very very happy that I have found the perfect cat mommy, and on the other, shaking my head because she lives a 14 hr drive away. The kitty will be getting some sedatives and a nail clipping. I cannot imagine being in the car with her for 14 hrs…..

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[Galadriel724]

I did when I saw the reminder. I had just set up a vet appt for my cat and an oil change for my car and was about to give myself a free pass to do it tomorrow.
I found one with good reviews and set up the whole thing online. Anything that takes the part where I have to talk to a human out of the scheduling works better. They will text me a reminder the day before and then 3 hrs before.

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[Galadriel724]

Since I had been on hormonal birth control since age 17, I had not experienced PMS ever, and had thought it was a bunch of whining. Then about 6 months after I stopped the pill it occurred to me that the only time I called in sick, I was hiding under the covers, didn’t feel all that bad physically, and that it was every 4 weeks.
It has gotten worse.
I have been procrastinating finding a PCP in the area I moved to, and going in general. So, this has not been addressed due to that procrastination.
I guess that will be my homework for the webinar. Tomorrow is my day off and I will find a PCP on my insurance’s website and make an appt.
Hold me accountable!

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[Galadriel724]

That sounds really cool! It will be on youtube pretty quick- I think the BBC has a channel on there and people will upload it….
Checked- there is a clip. The whole series looks amazing. I am a brain science geek. So this will put me in documentary heaven.

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[Galadriel724]

Things turned out better than I hoped on all fronts. I put my foot down and said no. Decided that all things considered I actually felt crummier than I would if I had a bad headache. Then I went out for a little while. Had to refill my meds anyway, before they ran out for once.
The discussion had stopped when he got annoyed with me interrupting him every 5 seconds ( I do that on a good day- today worse). When I got back he told me that he was going, which I had wanted. When he called he told them I didn’t feel well, and looked terrible, and had gone to lay down but that he wasn’t going to wake me if I fell asleep. Turns out that everyone else had cancelled for various reason (bug going around?). So he is having dinner and watching a movie with them.
He has a tendency to have some initial responses that are a little ridiculous. He also has ADHD, and just started treatment, so we butt heads and need to go to our quiet places and chill out for a while.
The PMS is a major cause for any argument we’ve had. He gets overwhelmed easily, and when it’s that week, I have a tendency to follow him and keep talking until I feel like I’ve explained everything that is pertinent about the topic I’ve picked. I also have no delay or filter, and realize that I’ve interrupted only after. A lot of these issues are also ones that he needs to work on, and he is. I have good reason to blame the PMS for the major blow ups though, because it doesn’t happen every month, but every time he has yelled at me, it was when I was doing the above, and was always the week before my period.
I am thinking of going back on birth control pills. I got an IUD and went off of them a few yrs back. If there is a low dose one that will help, I guess I need to.

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