[hullupoika]

Lollibyte — I am almost 40 years older than you, and I am a man, but my story is much like yours. I also never suffered from dislexia.

I was diagnosed at age 66-67 with a mild form of OCD and ADD/ADHD. This was on top of having been treated for nearly four years for PTSD, anxiety, depression, and all those things that go with it. So, id already been through a lot of counseling, testing, and finding the right drugs to help thos issues.

These issues have mostly been under reasonable control for over a year. That is when my psychiatrist and psychologist continued to look for solutions to other problems that were still causing me issues. That is when i got the OCD/ADD/ADHD diagnosis.

I was started on Adderall. Much like you with the Concerta, cerain side affects were intolerable — including the extremely dry mouth and the constant bad tase in my mouth. It kind of helped but i sure didnt like the feeling. I felt like i was looking it myself from outside my body. I was changed to Ritalin. It started out very well. It certainly helped me stay moderately focused — not super focused, and not totally scatterbrained and doing 17 different things at once

But, I’ve always been high energy and high achieving. The Ritalin took that away from me. I became a couch potato. I had to give it up if i wanted to get anything reasonably accomplisehed according to my expected schedule.

I have been on Zoloft and im on an as-needed dosage of Xanax. For me, the Xanax at leasts takes the pressure of my self-imposed tasks. It is expremely helpful in contolling my anxiety, and especially controlling my anger issues. The Zoloft really helped with my depression, which was also a cause of much of my anxiety.

Ive also been taught to use a lot of easy to use metal tools to compensate for these issues.

Good luck.

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[hullupoika]

Nowork — i could have written 95% of what you wrote, except I am a father of two succesful boys, and Im a 67 y.o. retiree.

I was fortunate to have a career that was mostly very challenging. Enough to give me PTSD, but I’d do it all again. I did extremely well in school in subjects i was interested in, like math and science, but just made it through on subjects like history and literature. To this day i continue to take on-line courses and attending workshops. They are in subjects that intensly enjoy.

There are a lot of good tools and videos on this site. One of my favoite bokks, which is available on this site is “I’m Not Crazy, Lazy, or Stupid”. It is a fun book to read for people like us.

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[hullupoika]

Just look at a number of very recent posts — you are amongst your own.

Does anyone out there have experience with this? What has/hasn’t worked for you? I really need help!!!

We welcome you.  We need a lot more like us posting, to compare what helps us. Many of us here have been under long-term regular care of psychiatrists and psychologists. We religiously take prescribed drugs. We try many.  Some work better than others.  Some work for a while, and we start over.

I’ve been very fortunate.  I spent a childhood and a 40 year career being with people just like us.  The places I worked were extremely successful, productive, and profitable.  The last group I worked for was purchased by a huge international corporation.  During the seven years before they retired me under disability for PTSD/depression/anxiety, we were constantly studied because we were so successful, profitable, and why we had almost zero personnel turnover.  Nobody seemed to notice that most of us were highly functional with ADD/ADHD/OCD/etc., and it caused us to hire people just like us.  All new-hires went through a gauntlet of interviews by eight of our coworkers.  The consensus had to be unanimous to hire a new employee.  Many of us worked at a previous company where every new employee had to have worked with at least three of our staff.  We were really diverse in backgrounds and ethnicity. 

When the TV show “Monk” came on, we laughed at several of our lunchroom co-workers who counted floor tiles when they went from place to place at work.  If a table or desk was moved just a few inches, they knew it had been moved.

Life ain’t perfect.  Even “normal” people have their ups and downs.  It just takes a lot more energy for many of us.

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[hullupoika]

Maclimber,

I went through a real bad period of that during this past January through mid-April.  My psychiatrist took me off the Ritalin in early April, and had me keep a fairly extensive log of how I was feeling.  I crashed even further for about the first two weeks of being off the Ritalin. For about the last three weeks I’ve been doing pretty well, and feel a lot better being off of it.  However, I spend an awful lot of time looking for things I’ve just used.

I’ve been on Zolft for a number of years, and I have Xanax, but I am down to two or three a week.  I don’t figure I’ll ever be off those two.  I’m 68.

Probably the biggest help to me is what I posted above about having a helper.  However, I’m able to I pay my helper.  I a!so help him, but I don’t charge him.  Presently we spend 3-4 hours together two or three days a week.  We wernt able to do that during my real down time mentioned above, due to his his health issues and his wife’s.

Spring weather has helped a lot too.  I just don’t have the will to do as much as I want to. When I met with my therapist last week, she suggested a mindfulness class that meets once a week.  I’ll give it a try.

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[hullupoika]

Meds or not, I’m not sure if we do get out of it.

I am fortunate to have several ways of helping the situation, but…

My wonderful bride of nearly 40 years has her subtle ways of making sure that I keep up my part in keeping the main part of the house, my closet and dresser tops, the decks and yard, the inside of my car, and our garage.  She has learned how to do it without nagging — which I know is not easy for everyone.

Next are my helpers.  Since I retired three years ago, I’ve had helpers here on the farm one or two days a week.  Many times it is just for a half day.  The best one is a neighbor who is also retired.  One of the very best things about him is that he won’t go home if we don’t clean up and put all the tools away, even if we’ll need them the next day.  He has really helped me clean out clutter in my tractor barn, two of my sheds, and the basement.  Each one has usually been a multi day event that looks like a sheriff’s eviction.  We have completely emptied the out buildings.  In two cases we pressure washed the interior, and then painted everything white on the inside.  We built shelves and tool hangers.  Only about half of every thing that came out went back in.

In recent years I’ve also had my teenage grandkids, and my daughter-in-law spend a day or more  with me doing cleaning and organizing.

Yes, it costs a little bit of money to do this.  But it is worth it.  It is a never ending project with me.  It has really helped however.  Partly by embarrassment.  Once we get it neatened, I feel compelled to keep it somewhat organized so that I don’t get “the look” when these individuals visit.

It’s not perfect, but it helps.  I just wish I could keep the inside of my truck clean.

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[hullupoika]

Hullupoika,  I get the feeling through your posts and how you share your story, that you are an intense person with great drive and very high expectations of yourself in all that you do, and always have been. You have shared that you have PTSD which I believe is always accompanied by high anxiety levels. I have an anxiety disorder in addition to ADHD, and still have hyperactivity, and understand the cracks and splits that appear when you want things to be ‘perfect’ – when you give 110% and somebody else’s behaviour or remarks undermine you.  You know all this, I just want to say – be kind to yourself and give yourself a break. Each point of conflict or disturbance in our recovery is something to think about, but not beat ourselves up about. Step away sometimes, and do the things that make you feel better about yourself. Ease the self pressure, because recovery takes a long time. Maybe you are internalising your recovery while still doing everything that you used to do? Something’s got to give if this is the case. Look after yourself.

Lindsey — thank you so much for your insightful post.

I’m not sure I actually know what “high anxiety” is. For most of my 68 years, all of my closest friends and associates, plus many close blood-related relatives, would probably be considered “high anxiety.” I don’t really have a way to compare my issues to others, except maybe though my psychiatrist nurse practitioner, who is great for me because she has many of the same disorders that I have.

I’m fortunate to have an incredibly wonderful spouse of nearly 40 years. She tries to keep me grounded and often accompanies me to my psychiatric and psychological appointments. Until I had a pretty serious physical and metal meltdown, I just though I had higher aspirations than most other people.

Step away sometimes, and do the things that make you feel better about yourself.

I unfortunately do that way too frequently — I can only best describe it as “procrastination.” I can’t even begin to describe the last four hectic days. They did at least end with me taking some fish “culls” from a couple of my fish ponds, and turned them into wonderful fish cakes.

Time for a shower, meditation, and some sleep.

Regards,
Knute

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[hullupoika]

Been there.  Done that.  Most recently, just yesterday afternoon.

Our community is in the midst of a large annual gala event that goes on for for five days.  The event attracts a lot of well known personalities, which brings in other well knowns, which helps many community groups, like one that I’m involved with, to raise a lot of money that results in even more matching funds from other organizations and individuals.  That money gets further multiplied, to where we can provide a lot of food, medicine, firewood, etc., to the elderly here in the heart of Appalachia.

The little group that I’m part of, raises several thousands of dollars that we use to help local residents with serious needs.

But we have some very serious detractors who do a fair amount of hard work, but they drive off many of our best volunteers through their arrogance, attitudes, and lack of patience.

I’ve learned that most of the time I can just shrug it off.  Sometimes it takes a few days.

Unfortunately, yesterday’s episode ended for me by taking a Xanax, and then a while later downing a half-pint of vodka.

And what good did that do for me?   I didn’t sleep well.  I wasn’t as productive as I should have been today.  I let my issues get in the way of a very worthwhile effort.

I just couldn’t get rid of it.  I didn’t sleep well, so I was over tired today.  Just too many voices telling my mind what I should have/have-not done.

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[hullupoika]

At some pont, some of it will hopefully turn into something you will be able look back at and laugh about.

After being diagnosed with depression, anxiety and related issues, I was diagnosed with PTSD.  From childhood to my last days at work (age 64) I had been subjected to many horrific incidents.  I calloused over them and put them in hidden compartments of my mind.

Many memories are crowding in from across my life.

The day I was diagnosed with PTSD was awful. I had a hard time driving home as I began to recount many tragedies long hidden in my mind. Just putting on my seatbelt brought me to tears. I went home and was working on some fencing when I got a small cut on my thumb. As I put my thumb up to my mouth to clean off the blood before getting a band aid, the faint smell of blood opened up a sudden gush of really greusome memories.

Through therapy and drugs these old memories are still there, but at controlled levels.

The other thing that I’ve mentioned in other posts is that I’ve been able to surround myself with people just like me. It includes cousins, and included several uncles.  It included friends at most of my jobs.  It probably goes back to at least 5th or 6th grade in school.  Other ADDers have always made up the majority of my friends. We just didnt realize it. We were the nerds who didnt really fit in, but we were the ones the others came to for help and advice. Sure, I have some “normal” friends and they accept me for my maladies. But they are the kinds of people who just like nearly everyone they meet.

I have a lot of hobbies, many of which appeal to ADDers. Especially through internet forums I’ve found a number of intense crazies like me. One group in particular relates to fisheries management. We are scattered all over the US and Canada. We get together in groups several times a year, usually on fishing trips. I had used a term on that forum last week that brought out the best of the ADDers. One friend said “why do you think I have seven monitors on my main work computer?”  I have also met a lot of great ADDers on a specialty electronic hobbiest forum.

Try to look at the bright side.  In many ways we are gifted — just look at Rick Green and Patrick McKenna here on Totally ADD.  They have been very succesful and well known in Canada and the US for many many years.  Therapy, the right meds, and being able to laugh at ourselves can do wonders.

Good luck,
Knute

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[hullupoika]

I used the term “cognitive fatigue” in a very private, behind-the-scenes note on an agricultural forum where I am a moderator, administrator, and more.

Knute …
Can you elaborate on the ” differences between “Cognitive Fatigue” between normal people and us crazies.”?

My answer to my friends was:

It basically boils down to how we relax. Some relaxation is healthy. Some is not. Here is one very simple and easy-to-understand definition of Cognitive Fatigue:

[quote]Cognitive fatigue is conceptualized as an executive failure to maintain and optimize performance over acute but sustained cognitive effort resulting in performance that is lower and more variable than the individual’s optimal ability.[/quote]

Well, I don’t really know what that means. I’m probably in cognitive fatigue from reading it.

However, in terms I can understand and explain, it means that different people need to relax differently. Not all replenish their brains and bodies the same way. Some of us over do it — big time.

Even today, I can go for many many hours, without taking any kind of a break if I’m doing something my brain is really intensely engaged in. It can be anything from writing software, designing a new electronic circuit, to fishing or gardening. It is known as “super focusing”. To a certain extent, nearly everyone can relax in this way, but it is not very good for those of us with certain brain disorders who do it for very extended periods.

In my younger days I could go for very long periods, sometimes days, without sleep, food, or a break. I was nearly 22 years old, 5′-10″ and 118 lbs., when I got drafted into the Navy in 1969. I was strong, but just skin and bones.

As I’ve gotten older, my long-duration stints have been cut down, but it has become something I now have to be very conscious of. My body isn’t what it was 40-50 years ago.

When I went through SERE training  back in 1970 at Whidbey Island, WA, I was able to go for a week with very little sleep, minimal food, and then through about a day of constant harassment in less-than-comfortable surroundings. I was fortunate that my crazy brain let me be comfortable by super focusing, and knowing (in my mind) that these dudes couldn’t legally or physically harm me. They could literally rattle my cage, they could holler offensive propaganda … But, my crazy brain was relaxed.

For some of us, we can function for very long periods without breaks, food, or sleep if we are stimulated by what we are doing. Thus, that is the reason for stimulant drugs like Adderall and Ritalin. One of the things they do is keep us from going into these long-term stimulated states-of-mind that affect us in physical and social ways.

By not taking breaks, our bodies and brains eventually do begin to diminish and rot. We need to replenish with sleep and food.

I’m currently off my stimulant drugs because I was so uncomfortable when not doing 17 things at once. Over the winter they turned me into a true couch potato to again recover from another bought of “cognitive fatigue.”

So, now that I’m off the stimulants, I’ve taken the couch potatoes and planted them in the garden, along with a bunch more cold-hardy plants.

 

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[hullupoika]

I can totally relate to the posts above.  I loved the part about the letter for the school principal.  I still do those things and I’m 67.

Two weeks ago my psychiatrist and I decided that I should go off stimulants for at least a month.

I had become extremely lethargic and my PTSD nightmares started returning in January, February, and March.  Sleep was again becoming a problem.  Starting in December we started changing doses, times of day to take the meds, and in mid January I switched from Adderal to Ritalin because my atrial fibrillation was returning.

My psychiatrist now has me updating a daily graphical log that tracks a number of factors which we will review in two more weeks.

We had a rather long and brutal winter, starting with about an 18 inch snow in the middle of October.  By the end of November my wife of 40 years moved off the farm and into a small home we own in town, about 20 miles away.  She just couldn’t deal with another bad winter.  I’d go back and forth a few times a week.

All my toys and hobbies are on the farm.  I don’t have any place for my hobbies in town.  So, while in town I didn’t do much but read and watch TV.  Unfortunately, when I was at the farm I started doing the same thing.  I went back to abusing alcohol.  I had all these things I wanted to do, but I had become extremely good at procrastinating, which then increased my depression and anxiety.

That has never been me.  Hyperactive describes my whole life, and in general I loved my crazy life of going around a circle at 60 MPH with one foot nailed to the floor. Yes, I’d always have multiple projects going on, flitting from one to another.  But, I did usually finish some of them.  Actually, I was quite productive, just never in a straight line.

It is now going on 2-1/2 weeks since I’ve been off the stimulants.  Spring has sprung during this time.  My wife dared move back to the farm after I had 200 ton of gravel put down on our 1/2 mile of what had become a mud path.

I’m now having 2-3 really good days for every bad day. I’m getting back to going high speed from sun up to sun down on the good days.  Then I guess I just get exhausted and need to be a slug for a day.

I’ll see how it goes, but I think I’m going to be staying off the stimulants. They slowed me down too much.  I’ve got a lot of support and tools to help me stay partially organized.  I just doubt I’ll ever get off my daily dose of Zoloft and my occasional needs for Xanax.

Time to start about 17 new projects, and maybe put some time in on the other several dozen on-going projects.

Stay safe and crazy,

Knute

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[hullupoika]

Ellen — thanks for resurrecting this old thread.   I hadn’t seen it before.

A little over three years ago, after a pretty severe physical and mental meltdown from PTSD, depression, anxiety, stress, etc.,  I was in serious need of a good psychiatrist. I got that suggestion from a psychiatrist in the cardiac ward where I had spent the day.

None were available, but someone in my doctor’s office (where I‘ve almost exclusively been seeing nurse practitioners for nearly 20 years) suggested I see a friend of her’s, who had just moved back into the local area.  Her friend was a psychiatric nurse practitioner.

I can unequivocally say that it saved my life.

I continue to see the psychiatric nurse practitioner approximately once per month.

I read your blog.  It is what she is all about.

I won’t go into much more detail.  I think she has more issues than I do, but we have many similar issues.  She has been a true godsend.  I believe I’ve also helped her a lot.

With our combined issues, we have been able to work out a lot of issues.  She is so well regarded that she almost always has psychiatric or clinical psychology students observing her sessions with me and many others.

I think you are on the right track.  I have an appointment with her in two days.  I will bring my electronic notebook with me and show her your info.  She stays overwhelmed –which she has helped me learn to overcome.  So, she may not get in touch with you.

The main thing is for people to know that there are so many good people, like you and her out there, that we all need to promote what you do.

Thanks,
Knute

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[hullupoika]

I love these threads and posts.  I could have written nearly any of the posts above. Been there, done that.

I’m doing pretty good these days.  I can go for about three or four 12-16 hour days.  Then I’m a total slug for a day having “comfort foods” and barely moving from in front of my computer, from the TV, or having my nose in a book for hours.  Then the cycle usually starts all over again.

It is good to be retired.  I don’t have to try and make it through a 5-7 day work week.

I’m in the second day of my crazy cycle.  I spent sun-up to sun-down outside today working my gardens and ponds.  Dinner was 90% from our farm, including fresh fish from one of my ponds, potatoes from last season’s gardens,  green salad from the greenhouse, and fish dipping sauce made from my own fresh horse radish roots and last year’s tomato crop. Breakfast was from the farm too — eggs from our chickens, and what those of us in the lower-48 call Canadian bacon (peameal — aka, back bacon north of the border).

But, day after tomorrow I’ll probably spend the day as a couch potato.  It is a cycle I’m working on to overcome.  I’d love to be able to spend 8-10 hours a day doing things that need to be done.  I just never want to quit when I’m doing well, and I over do it.

At least our 12 year old grandaughter will be here over the weekend.  She doesn’t let my wife or me rest when she is here at the farm.

Knute

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[hullupoika]

I’m in the lower 48.  For Adderal, and for my present Ritalin, I’m required to bring my pill bottle with me for a pill count before getting my next 28/29 30 or 31 day prescription.  The prescription must be hand signed, and only I can pick it up.  It can’t be sent electronically to the pharmacy.  I must again show a government photo ID to pick it up.

I don’t have to do that with my Zoloft and Xanax.

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[hullupoika]

!?!

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[hullupoika]

Sounds like one of my typical episodes.

Even with Ritalin, I spend more time looking for tools that I’d used since starting the project, than I actually spend on the project.

One time I lost my claw hammer.  I was using an 8-foot stepladder outside.  I gave up looking for the hammer.  I started to put the ladder away.  I unfortunately found the hammer.  I’d left the hammer on the top step of the ladder.  The claws on the hammer fell on the top of my head.  Cuts on your head sure do bleed.

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