Those first few weeks are like being given wings. Then your brain gets used to the meds and tries to go back to being the lazy little shithead that it's always been.
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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neurodiverse
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What is Neurodivergence?
It's ADHD, Autism, OCD, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, bi-polar, aspd, etc etc etc etc
“neurologically atypical patterns of thought or behavior”
So, it’s very broad, if you feel like it describes you then it does as far as we're concerned
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Half the struggle of having ADHD and being medicated is suppressing the urge to just play cookie clicker all day every day
I am suppressing the urge to learn about cookie clicker. Whatever it is, keep it away! 😬🤣
me when someone asks me for help at work and they get a 15 paragraph response coz i cant stop typing
It’s kind of like spending a few decades with shackles around your legs and finally getting them taken off. Problem is you now have to learn to walk. And you’re much past the age where people will show you how.
ADHD meds are great, but you have to exercise your executive functioning in order to get the full benefit. It sucks.
Yeah, I tell people that medication alone won't fix your bad unproductive habits but it definitely can make you way better and more focused at those bad habits.
The next realization is that the meds are not meant to allow you to hyperfocus 100% of the time but to moderate your attention to a steady baseline somewhere between hyperfocus and dead to the world.
My psychiatrist recommended I take about 5 days off every month, to kind of reset the brain's sensibility to the pharmaceutical, and to have the same effect as at the beginning. I'm on the last day of my very first break, so if it works I'll let y'all know.
That advice is common but outdated. Skipping days can make a psychological difference because the contrast between medicated and unmedicated is so stark but you don't actually restore pharmacological sensitivity in a week or two.
You never get that first superhero feeling back because you can't go from being non-functional to functional for the first time in your life again. Being medicated starts to feel normal (which is good) and being unmedicated starts to feel really horrible (which it is but you didn't have context for how bad it was before). For me I skip doses solely to build up a back stock for when there is inevitably a shortage or prescription delay.
A lot of people think that the meds aren't helping after a while because of that first incredible phase where you feel like you can do anything. That's not what they're supposed to do for you. They're supposed to make it possible for you to control what you focus on. The actual work of completely rewiring your brain is intensive and exhausting and realistically can only go so far. Somehow that doesn't get properly communicated to people who are recently diagnosed.
My psych didnt really explain that well either, BUT I've got a few good folks who warned me that the first doses would make me feel like you've actually taken the limitless pill.
They sorta did, too, but at least knowing it was meant to come back down eventually helped me adapt. Without that knowledge I might have tried chasing the initial feeling or gotten disappointed.
Yeah same, for me it was like fitting in the molecule I was missing my whole life. Transformative
huh i got a horrible anxiety spike. glad it's going good for someone
Oh no! I have seen that some people have a shit time. Feels like I lucked out honestly.
Did you try any different meds?
uh i had one stimulant that helped a little but not enough, and one that fucked me up so much i'll never take another amphetamine
yeah.. someone at work gave me one of her pills and suddenly my mind went quiet and i could focus.. it was a stunning moment for me. I eventually got a dr to rx me adderall and I took it for a couple years until I lost my job and couldn't afford either the dr or the medication anymore
now i can't find a dr who will prescribe it again
Try Wellbutrin, much easier to get prescribed
I've been prescribed Wellbutrin several times in the past and I don't see the parallel to Adderall
it's definitely not similar but it is a common offlabel for adhd. sorry that it doesn't seem to help with yours :(
that's okay, thanks for the suggestion anyhow
From some other people I know, general practitioners are more likely to prescribe Vyvanse or Ritalin than Adderall because they're much less easily/commonly abused, whereas psychs with a diagnosed patient prefer Adderall because it's just better.
Vyvanse is pretty much the same active ingredient as Adderall but designed (in multiple ways that are more complicated than anyone cares to know) to be way less possible to abuse. Vyvanse doesn't have a generic so it's a little pricey.
Ritalin is a different simulant than Adderall that has a shorter half life and is less commonly abused for a couple of reasons.
You might have better luck with getting a prescription for one of those two if your doctor isn't willing to give you the good stuff.
What med?
Elvanse. I think it might be called Vyvanse in Murica.
Nice to know, I've been wanting to get back on that one. I'm detoxing from antidepressants at the moment, and plan to start back ADHD meds soonish.
what's "yaknow"?
I've never seen a real yak (in person) neither now nor any other time
I was saying Yak Now
smells like yaknow in here
who's steve jobs?
oh look, it's a post about me 
pristiq and rits gang wya?
For me it was first really awesome, I had suddenly way more time (I don’t feel time normally straight and sometimes I kinda freezed in place thinking stuff without really realising), after about two weeks, I realised what tasks and actions I always wanted or had to do but neglected as they faded away in my neurodivergence brain, they don’t do that, while I am on medication. But that let to a an overload and I had burn out symptoms for two weeks. Since yesterday, I feel awesome after a break of medication in the weekend (I suppose my sender neurons where too empty from a MD trip and because of medication the refill process of the botebstoffe was too slow.. who knows, but in the end, I think, it had a positive after effect after all.
Taking the limitless pill that turns off 10% of my brain so I can focus on doing my work reports.
Yay - glad you got that feeling! Keep it rolling by taking care of yourself and drinking lots of water 😎
Unsolicited advice that you’re probably already doing- but it’s a good time to find a therapist (and less so a psychiatrist) familiar with ADHD and with whom you connect.
Like you said, the changes in neurochemistry cause pretty major shifts in how one approaches life and, as someone diagnosed later in life, I’ve appreciated the guidance in navigating those shifts. Also, having a professional to consistently talk with has helped with med management (e.g. watching for more manic or depressed moods over time).
thank you! I've been recommended a secret trick to get my work-based medical insurance to cover it
secret
(Bupa UK doesn't cover therapists for ADHD/ASD, but does cover "emotional instability" and lets you pick ADHD specialists)
Oh also “acceptance and commitment therapy” has been what’s clicked best with me - and that was outside of professional therapy- but ymmv on what works and doesn’t. (It kinda feels like a weird secular Buddhism but hey whatever works lol)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KauRG6s50dM
^ and this is how I generally feel as a reluctant therapy-goer
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: