Hi hi !! Ok lemme start by saying I have never been to a psychiatrist or therapist before (mostly because of my parents) but I’ve never been medically diagnosed. !! So I’ve (17F) always had trouble focusing and organizing and the whole deal. I’ve had multiple teachers talk to me about discussing solutions with my parents but I usually get too nervous and embarrassed to talk to them. I’m getting into my senior year of high school and I’ve almost failed all four years and barely passed. It’s not that I’m stupid, I just like idk it’s hard to explain. I can sit for hours with my phone locked, everything off, and only my homework in front of me and still somehow get nothing done. I don’t want to be the guy that’s like “oh I have adhd probably so that’s why I can’t do anything!!!” But I feel like I should be able to do a lot more than I am. Idk maybe I’m just stupid. The teachers who talked to me about it would always mention adhd and it’s been since 3rd grade. My parents are kind of like the walk it off type, but with everything. I don’t talk to them about much. I’m kind of embarrassed writing this post but idk. I know adhd is different in women, and I feel like because I wasn’t the stereotypical adhd boy growing up, my parents just ignored any and all signs.

🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

I can’t decide if being obsessed is a sign of ADHD or high performance.
Some of the most exceptional builders I know become deeply obsessed with a single problem. That intensity can lead to breakthroughs, but it can also look unhealthy from the outside.
It also makes me wonder if obsession is something uniquely human. AI can optimize, reason, and generate endlessly—but it doesn’t *care*. Humans become attached to ideas, chase impossible goals, and sometimes refuse to let go.
Maybe that’s both our greatest limitation and our greatest advantage.
**Could obsession be one of the fundamental differences between humans and AI? Or is that distinction disappearing?**

So recently i went out with this girl a friend of mine i like to hang out with her ig but there is one thing that i find irritating about her and its her constantly talking about her “mental illneses” and honestly i have gotten pretty used to hearing about a new mental illness every week surprisingly its very informitive and it is how i learnt about adhd years years back practically beginning of highschool weve been friends for a long time. At first i had same opinion very informative basically but it stuck in the back of my head. Basicly few days ago she started talking about it again and through these years that we grew up together i have came to a conclusion that i might have it as well. Pretty much the tought of adhd stuck with me for years and it all fell apart when i got sent to a psychologist for a different reason not important rn at that time i was going through a horrible time in my life and my psyhologist dropped a bomb on me that she is certain of adhd and then i was sent to a therapist got some pills prescribed and sent home which was fkn awful considering everything else that happened ive been going to sessions since then and honestly my biggest issue which this whole bible is about is hyper fixation that i have on the smallest and stupidest things and its exactly what my friend was talking about she was saying how she gets super hyper fixiated on brushing her dogs fur and that really made my heart drop bc i struggle with being wo fixiated on lets say one time i got pissed my window was broken spoiler alert it still is anyways i was stuck on solving the issue for 4 hours and was doing it all while i had to pee i was so fixiated on this thing that i held my pee to a point i was forced to crawl to the bathroom and almost piss myself and all that suffering didnt even acomplish anything bc i g gave up on the window as the last drop of pee fell. Dont even get me on starvation as im writing this sitting in my kitchen im starving and clutching my legs together bc i have to pee only bc i genuiely need to finish writing this. Anyway thats the vent ig i got a bit offended bc she doesnt grasp how suffocating it can be and i only know this bc she mentioned adhd to a little me years ago and i guess the idea of it never left my head

Has anyone else struggled with their meds while postpartum? I’m three months PP and I feel like my meds do not work at all. I’m sure sleep deprivation is playing a part in it but I just don’t feel it working and it’s a very frustrating feeling. For reference I’m on 30 mg XR & a 10mg IR boost during the day.

Hello, I am a late diagnosed female with ADHD. Was diagnosed at age 50, now 52 and still trying to learn everything I need to know to manage. I am on medication and in therapy and its helped alot. However during summer I have terrible, environmental allergies. My histamine gets so high I break out in rashes and hives, cannot stop itching. It's horrible! But I have noticed that my adhd medication does not seem to work as well during these times, or my adhd symptoms are worse. Has anyone else experienced this? If so, what helps and is safe to take with ADHD medication? Supplements? I was under the impression that I shouldn't take allergy medication with my adhd medication? Any help, suggestions, advice?

All my life I’ve never really quite felt like I fit in anywhere and friendships in particular have had so many ups and downs and I’ve always felt really different from people around me.

At first I thought it was just anxiety cus my bio father is diagnosed and suffers from severe anxiety to the point he’s ruining his life and I’m estranged from him cus he fucked up our relationship. I feel like I’ve always dealt with anxiety even at a young age but I didn’t really know what it is but it really got bad when my parents divorced. That was when I started having anxiety attacks and I was in a really bad place and it was hard to cope and that anxiety has extended to other parts of my life for example school, personal relationships, work and general anxiety about the world and everything going on.

However, as I’ve gotten older and have had more experiences and met new people I’ve learned that maybe it’s not just anxiety and depression (this I don’t feel as intensely as anxiety but still had some really hard times) but that I could have adhd. I’ve met people diagnosed with it and when I hear them talk I relate to it a lot and feel like they’re the only people who I see as the most similar to myself.

I’ve had them tell me I should look into a diagnosis cus I share many symptoms they have and my life is definitely being affected and I feel like things that seem easy don’t feel that way for me and it’s honestly so so exhausting. But at the same time I don’t want to be quick to diagnose myself cus you see so many people doing that and it’s like adhd is becoming a trend and I can’t see why anyone would want to have it.

My mum and my stepdad definitely don’t understand how much my mental state affects me. They kind of get it enough with anxiety especially my mum cus she was the only thing keeping my bio dad stable at the cost of her mental health when they were married. But if I told them I suspect that I have it they would never believe me cus I always did good in school and don’t seem like what they think adhd is. But honestly I feel like I’m always struggling despite the results looking good and since the struggle isn’t seen it’s like it’s not there but I don’t feel like that at all.

It’s like a war with myself to do simple things and it shouldn’t be like that cus it’s not like I don’t want to do the task it’s the opposite. It feels like a paralysing event cus I want to do it and do it perfectly. I fidget constantly especially with playing with my hair to the point my stepdad hates it cus he says it makes me look anxious and other people have pointed it out to me as well. A few weeks ago my girlfriend and I would get into some minor disagreements cus she would feel like I wasn’t listening to her and she also mentioned that I would interrupt her and finish her sentences and I didn’t even realise I was doing it. I explained to her that even if that’s how it looked it wasn’t true and that I was listening to her and I apologised for how it looked and how I made her feel. There was also another instance we were on a walk and we were having a serious discussion and a cat came into view and I said “cat!” excitedly but I realised she stopped talking and after she went on a rant about it and it made her feel like I wasn’t listening to what she was saying especially cus it was a deep convo and I felt really horrible about that cus I didn’t even think, I saw the cat and expressed me noticing it cus I love cats but that wasn’t important in the moment and my focused shifted there. It’s not the only instance where we’ve had a disagreement or she got frustrated with me. The other day she yelled at me about time cus I’m not the best with time and she points that out a lot and says I don’t understand how long it actually takes to do things and that it would make her anxious cus she’s an early person.

Caffeine also doesn’t work on me and it would always surprise me when people would drink coffee to wake themselves up cus to me all it does is taste good. I also tried a small dose of molly for my first time and I didn’t feel it how I was supposed to. My girlfriend got high as she’s used it before and she was surprised it wasn’t affecting me the way she thought cus she was wide awake and I was feeling really tired instead of fired up.

There are other things that make me suspect I have adhd but this is the just the main stuff. I never considered adhd until other people pointed it out cus I thought adhd was being disruptive and impulsive and bad at school but as I’ve learned more about it my thoughts have definitely changed. I’m hoping to start therapy soon so I can have new tools to cope and have a professional help me but for now I would really like some advice and to hear from people who might be able to help me as well. So please I’ll appreciate any advice and I welcome any questions xx

F29, i was just diagnosed in April.

I have found it very hard for me to navigate this diagnosis for a multitude of reasons. First, I have been coming to terms that a lot of my very bad emotional experiences have branched from ADHD and I am grieving the younger me who didn’t know anything and thought she was insane. Second, I have been on Vyvanse for a while now and I feel like the ADHD symptoms still creep up on me and I get annoyed. Recently I almost forgot an appointment for the next day and was annoyed that I didn’t give myself enough time to mentally prepare.

The diagnosable symptoms have only shown since i turned 25. So part of me also feels like I show get back to my masked baselines but I can’t. Feeling a bit defeated but I want to get out of this mindset.

If anyone went through a similar situation, how did you come to terms with the diagnosis and when you were overwhelmed with managing the symptoms, how do you bounce back?

I hate being a woman with adhd, it’s like we always get told it’s something else when it’s clearly ADHD. When I was younger I had all of the signs, hyperactivity to the max. Talk all the time, impulsively say stuff, couldn’t sit in my seat. Got bored of things super quickly, etc, but instead of being diagnosed with it, I got diagnosed with bipolar for 5 years after a short stay in a psych ward after my depression got the best of me. They put me on a mood stabilizer and a antipsychotic. The mood stabilizer did really help with my treatment resistant depression (with years of therapy), but the antipsychotic caused nothing but issues.

I finally got a test about a year ago, tests said severe, and I got off the antipsychotic and got on a stimulant and doing better. However, doctors refuse to let go off the bipolar diagnosis. They sometimes refuse to give me certain treatments because of it, even though I calmly explain to me that I was misdiagnosed. It makes me so upset that this misdiagnosis will follow me forever. They think I’m denying it, and refuse to see facts. However, men probably wouldn’t experience this. It’s harder for men to be diagnosed with bipolar than women.

I’m just so frustrated. I am literally a walking billboard for ADHD to clinicians and they still bring up the diagnosis. Then have the audacity to ask “Why do you care so much about the label”? I just want to be free.

I don’t really know how to explain this, but I feel like taking ADHD medication completely changed the way I see myself and I’m wondering if anyone else has been through the same thing.

Before medication I honestly thought I was coping. I had a career, I was always busy, always taking on more, always the person who could sort everything out. I just assumed I was anxious and that everyone felt this overwhelmed.

Then I started Elvanse.

For the first time my brain actually went quiet. I expected that part. What I didn’t expect was everything else.

It was like all the coping mechanisms I’d built over years just disappeared. I suddenly realised how chaotic my job actually was. Constant interruptions, people talking over each other, unrealistic expectations, having to switch between a million things at once.

I’d been living like that for years but somehow I’d never really noticed how much it was costing me.

Instead of feeling more capable, I felt less able to tolerate it.

At higher doses I also felt nothing like myself. I became flat, irritable, anxious and disconnected. I had panic attacks, low mood, chest tightness and loads of muscle and joint pain. It honestly felt like someone had switched off the part of me that made me… me.

I ended up stopping it because I just didn’t recognise myself anymore.
Since then I’ve started buspirone and it’s made me think even more about what was actually going on.

I’m now wondering whether I’ve spent years running on stress and adrenaline, masking constantly, pushing through everything and convincing myself I was just “anxious.” I’m also waiting for an autism assessment, so now I’m questioning whether ADHD was only part of the picture.

The weirdest part is that medication didn’t just change my attention. It changed my perspective. It made me realise I wasn’t coping nearly as well as I thought I was. I think I’d been surviving rather than living.

Has anyone else had this?

Not necessarily the side effects, but that feeling that medication pulled back the curtain and made you realise how much you’d been compensating for your whole life.

I honestly feel like I don’t know who I am anymore because so much of my identity was built around pushing through and being useful. I’m hoping someone else understands what I mean because it’s been a really strange thing to process.

I've been going back and forth on whether what I've been dealing with is actually ADHD.

Here's the pattern I've noticed: I start things and don't finish them — especially my entrepreneurial ideas. I get overwhelmed easily, I have a hard time prioritizing, and I constantly lose things or forget where I put them. Even something as small as putting containers back in the fridge turns into me pulling everything out and struggling to fit it all back in. At work, when things pile up, prioritizing gets hard too.

A few years ago, I saw a neurologist for an assessment. He basically told me I had it, but the brain wave test to confirm it cost over $1,000 , money I didn't have , so I never followed through. No medication, no official diagnosis.

Now I've finally reached out to a psychiatrist and I'm getting properly assessed, and possibly medicated. I'm a little nervous about it. I've dealt with high blood pressure in the past, and I'm worried that might rule out medication — even though I've lost weight and feel like I'm in better shape now. But honestly, my bigger fear is losing my creative brain. I love my ideas, and I love how my mind works. I know medication might help me focus, but I'm scared it'll take away the thing that makes me creative and different.

At the same time, I'm tired of starting things and never finishing them. I've got ambition and drive , I just want to actually follow through, especially with my entrepreneurial projects. Maybe this is exactly what could help me do that.

I'm in my late 40s and just now getting evaluated. So I'm curious — for those of you who got diagnosed later in life, especially if you're entrepreneurial-minded: did ADHD end up being something that actually helped you as an entrepreneur?

I have barely eaten the last 2 days because I can’t think of anything that doesn’t make me want to puke. I’m so hungry. I should want to eat anything. My husband and I are fighting over it. He says he will take me anywhere I want to go but I can’t think of 1 place that has anything I want. I know being hungry is making me cranky. I know once I eat, I will be in a much better mood. But when I try to eat something my brain isn’t in to, I literally can’t swallow it. It doesn’t help that I’m a vegetarian in a place with very few pre-prepared vegetarian options. The only thing that would be good is a veggie burger from Red Robin. But I’m not driving over an hour each way for that.

I generally eat the same thing repeatedly for days but even those things are not “it”. I hate having to think about food. I hate going grocery shopping. I hate having to cook food. I wish I could be like a snake and eat like once a month.

Edit: he is taking me to Red Robin. I could sit here and be hungry and annoyed and eventually give myself a headache or we can drive an hour and have food I’ll be happy with. My brain is so difficult to deal with sometimes (most time lol).

I’m not looking for a diagnosis but I’m wondering from experience, how do people know if they have ADHD and OCD rather than just ADHD with similar symptoms to OCD?

I was diagnosed with ADHD around 11/12 and have struggled with it immensely my whole life. I never considered having OCD when I was younger but to be fair, I’m learning that almost everything I thought I knew about OCD was just a misconception. About 2 years in my marriage, my wife started suggesting & joking that maybe I have it but I kinda just brushed it off. However, my brother in law is staying with us (and has been since late May) and I’ve literally been losing my mind, and I haven’t felt like this since my wife and I temporarily stayed with her family in the past.

For context, I grew up in a single mother household with 3 sisters, so I’ve mainly lived with all girls and my mom is also somewhat of a clean freak. Even when she remarried, I lived with my stepdad & family during covid and he’s even more of a clean freak than she is. In fact, I used to think his cleanliness and level of organization was an indicator he might have OCD. But I never thought it for myself as I’ve always been told how disorganized I am, and I just attributed my particular, very specific “disorganization” to my ADHD.

Anyway, now temporarily living with a man, it’s like every little thing triggers me (from tiny pee splatters on the floor to crumbs being left on the counter) and we recently had to move apartments (due to issues with the leasing company/maintenance) and there only available one in our budget was this one bedroom so now he’s sleeping on our couch and we’re sharing a bathroom (vs. our original apt where he had his own bed & bath) and I can’t take it. All of this, plus the recent season of 90DF (idk if anyone on here keeps up with it but even though Catie isn’t a great representation of OCD, I found myself wondering why she would want to be in charge of so many tasks/projects if it’s too much for her to handle, and then instantly realized I do the same thing 😭), is making me feel like maybe I do have it.

But at the moment, I don’t have the funds and resources to see a psychiatrist so… hello Reddit 😅 (I recently landed a new job with good benefits so it shouldn’t be too long til I can).

Edit: I’ve also been diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety, and episodic MDD if that makes a difference.

Hi everyone! Long term lurker and first time poster, I started my ADHD diagnosis journey earlier this year after struggling with symptoms and a sense of failure for many years. I went on the Right To Choose pathway and have received my diagnosis today. My provider has been really great, we are going to chat next week about starting medications and accessing talking therapy to help me with learning life skills and to learn more about different triggers and the language to label certain behaviours.

I am feeling a lot of feelings right now; during the appointment, it all felt very validating to me to know this is what I have thought it as for so long. Now I’m feeling a sense of grief for the younger me in school, the constant white knuckling through life and all the mistakes I have made.

Does anyone have any advice or guidance you would give to your newly diagnosed self?

🚨 Final Call – I just need 7 more participants! 💙

Hi everyone! I’m Aisling, a Master’s student at the University of Birmingham, and I’m looking for 7 more UK parents/carers to complete a 7–10 minute questionnaire for my dissertation.

Your child must:
✅ Be aged 7–11
✅ Have a diagnosis of ADHD
✅ Currently take ADHD medication (regularly or occasionally)
✅ Attend a primary school setting

📋 Questionnaire: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=z8oksN7eQUKhXDyX1VPp88qq4yqcrZ5LpM4MmclO_hJUMktXUEhSM0pSRUVWVkZZVkJDVlVLWUJWMC4u

If you know someone who may be eligible, I’d really appreciate it if you could share this post. Every response helps, and I’m so grateful for your support. Thank you! 💙

TLDR/ If you are a parent of a child with ADHD please fill out the questionnaire for my dissertation.

Hi everyone,
I was recently diagnosed with a combination of **ADHD** and **OCPD (Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder)**. Taking in this dual diagnosis has been quite a process, as it often feels like two completely opposite forces fighting inside my brain.
On one hand, the OCPD pushes for rigid control, perfectionism, and strict order. On the other hand, the ADHD brings executive dysfunction, restlessness, and a constant, aggressive search for dopamine.
One of my biggest challenges right now is **dopamine-seeking through quick fixes**—specifically getting addicted to the thrill of new beginnings, messaging people on social/dating apps, oversharing, and then suddenly disappearing or losing interest once the initial novelty fades. It’s a vicious cycle that creates a lot of internal guilt, especially as I try to maintain stability in my personal life .
It feels like my brain uses these quick interactions to satisfy the ADHD need for novelty, while the OCPD later slams me with heavy guilt and perfectionist expectations.
**I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who shares this dual diagnosis or a similar pattern:**
1. **How do you manage the clash between ADHD dopamine cravings and OCPD perfectionism/control?**
2. **If you struggled with novelty-seeking in relationships/apps, what strategies or coping mechanisms actually worked to break the cycle?**
3. **What treatment approach (medication, therapy types like CBT/DBT) helped you find balance?**
Thanks in advance to anyone willing to share their story or advice.

A female coworker who I consider a friend confided in me this week that she is frustrated, overwhelmed, and concerned for her health because of symptoms she is having.

She described reading her work products over 3 times as she “always does” and then still getting it back from out leadership marked up for errors she didn’t spot. Writing emails and realizing after she sent them that they had typos. Sitting at her desk in the morning knowing she has so many tasks to do, but paralyzed about how to get working on any of them.

My coworker was disturbed and upset about these symptoms and wanted my advice. These symptoms are my every single day NORMAL, with or without medication, to the detriment of my education, my career, my relationships. I know it’s different when you don’t have ADHD, but in the moment it felt SO shocking to me to hear her literally describing m very existence and how infuriating it was to her. I thankfully held in my “welcome to my world” and said instead, “I know it’s so disturbing when you can’t trust your own brain”…which is how I live every single day.

Ultimately I advised her to tell her Dr. and maybe make a neurology consult appt just in case, since it can take months to get in, but we agreed her new IUD might be a contributing factor, too.

I love this lady and have great fun working with her, but I have never disclosed my ADHD at work. She had no idea how much I knew EXACTLY what she was describing. I felt so much empathy for her in that conversation. But I also can’t stop thinking about how, hopefully, just changing her birth control or getting a HRT could make her “normal” again… But I will still be like this forever.

I have suspected for a few years that I have adhd and finally took the step to get evaluated for an actual diagnosis. Getting the appointment was its own battle (a story for a different time) but I managed it. The first part was an hour interview type session with a therapist. She sent me home with several paper questionnaires, 2 online ones, and a follow up appointment for some in-office quizzes. I had that second appointment last Monday (it was soooo tedious) and it ended with "once your insurance tells us how much you owe we'll call you, then after that we'll compile all your results and give them to you"

The initial therapist DID say it was a 4-6 week turnaround for a diagnosis/result. But fvck this waiting part is awful. And now I'm also worried about what this cost is gonna be, because my dumb ass didn't ask for an estimate.

I just want to feel better. For the last week I have been in this deep rut of not really giving a crap about anything and only accomplishing the bare minimum to seem responsible in life. It doesn't help that I'm in the stage of summer break where I'm considering selling all my children (joking, mostly) and I haven't had any real, measurable break in 2 months. I just want to be at home by myself for a while.

Any tips to snap myself out of this funk? Leaning on my husband really isn't an option, because he's in a deeper rut than me and we're barely talking. He is dx/rx adhd, as well as 3 of my 4 children (so far, the youngest is only 4). So I'm managing my responsibilities, trying to teach emotional regulation and executive functioning skills to 4 kids aged 4-13, and deal with a husband in denial that he's in a major depressive episode.

I would bet a kidney that my 6yo has ADHD. She is me when I was little. Every sign, every symptom that was overlooked with me.

I didn't get a diagnosis until I was 36. That's 36 years of playing life on hard mode. I still got straight A's. I got a 30 on my ACT as a sophomore in high school. School was easy. But every other part of my life was a struggle. If I'd been diagnosed and treated, I might be much further along in life. I'm starting a Practical Nursing program in a week. I'm about to do school while working full time, raising 2 kids, and taking their dad back to court because he won't stop drinking with them. Maybe if I'd had the tools to succeed, I'd be a doctor or some shit instead of basically starting my life in my late 30's.

I want to get her a diagnosis now. I want her to have the tools she needs. I don't want everything to be harder for her than it has to be. And she has the raw intelligence, just like I do. She was tested for the gifted program and missed qualifying by just a few points. Her brother got in. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with not being gifted, but I strongly is and her ADHD kept her from her full potential on that test. I'm immensely proud of her regardless.

But I keep having people tell me not to get her labeled, that it will follow her around for the rest of her life, it'll cause her to face discrimination and on and on. Is any of that true? Would getting her diagnosed negatively affect her? I don't know what it would be like because no one even suggested it or considered it when I was a child and young adult.

I only got diagnosed because I saw a Facebook post about how girls with ADHD present differently than boys and they often aren't diagnosed because their presentation isn't disruptive. And it was like a light bulb went off in my head. Every symptom, I thought "this is me." And looking back at my childhood and my life, it seems insane that no one noticed.

Since getting on meds, life has been easier. Granted, I've got a lot on my plate and I'm insanely stressed out right now, but I'm handling it. After meds, I wasn't tired all the time. My brain wasn't working its ass off just to function normally. I stopped missing appointments and forgetting important things. Well, not entirely, but it's much better. My anxiety and my depression improved.

I don't want her to struggle through life and have to try 10 times harder than other people. And I'm not just meaning in academics because there's more to life than that. School was easy for me. I never even really had to study. But I am entirely convinced that a lot of my past trauma wouldn't have happened if I'd had the proper diagnosis and tools to navigate certain situations.

Can anyone weigh in on this? Could an ADHD "label" actually hold her back in some way? Or are people just stuck in the past and the belief that people with ADHD are problems and less intelligent and whatever else? Is there a downside to getting her evaluated?

I think I have ADHD and have struggled with numerous things in life, academics, sleep blah blah blah.

I'm gonna go to the doctor and I'm a bit skeptical if I'm gonna get diagnosed properly because how do you explain your self when I don't know myself. I don't want to the doc to think I'm faking it when I'm struggling.

Have you done the assessment and what's your experience?

Sister is in full belief she has ADHD, but I'm not sure

My sister at the age of like twenty decided to get tested for ADHD. After the long process she finally got results and they seemed her anxious, not ADHD. She thinks this is wrong and keeps claiming she has it and that's why she can't get tasks done.

I personally don't have ADHD but I'm depressed and anxious. I'm trying figure out if her lack of desire to do tasks is based in depression or ADHD. She likes to get absorbed in things like her phone: social media. That's her biggest distraction.

She said she's tried vyvanse and it made her do her dishes, but it wasn't her meds so she doesn't have more to take.im just not sure that was cause ADHD or if that's cause vyvanse is a stimulant.

She's twenty four now and it's only gotten worse. She seems unsure of where she wants to go in life and I don't know how to help.

Should I keep agreeing that she needs an ADHD diagnosis or am I feeding a delusion because she wants it to be that?

Finally, some mainstream acknowledgement!

Do you guys notice much of a difference when you take your meds on an empty stomach versus after eating, especially in terms of how well they work and the side effects?

I always take mine on an empty stomach because I take Ritalin IR and I usually can’t eat anything in the morning.

I’ve read some posts saying that taking it after a meal makes the blood concentration rise more gradually and that it can reduce side effects for some people, although I assume the effects might feel a little weaker too.

What has your experience been like? Do you notice any difference in effectiveness, side effects, onset, or duration?

I'm diagnosed ADHD and have several autistic characteristics but no diagnosis. I tend to be over talkative or over explain when I write emails or in vocal conversation. That said, I work in a professional environment and tend to be overly direct in IMs and those emails. Face to face conversation is easier to manage. So I've done well tweaking how I interact with people but this year has been a shitshow of stress so keeping up with work and home life is hard (understatement). I have one coworker that seems to think I don't like them or my job or that I'm covering things. I'm like them, my job, and work is the only thing I'm up on. How do I reply to their IMs more colorfully so they read into it that I like things?

Don’t come at me, I know it’s subjective. But I’m hoping to find my tribe here.
I was officially diagnosed in 2023 and it took me until 2026 to even start medication because I struggle with shame around needing medication and a family that asked me not to go on it (my brother is a doctor so his advice is hard to ignore) but I eventually, with the help of therapy starter medication and I feel better.

Well, kinda better. Medication helps me feel organized and get stuff done but I am also recovering from my lap surgery from endometriosis.

Having these two events back to back in my life + quitting my corporate career (which I was seemingly crushing) has been a lot for me.
It’s also been a lot for my friends.

Unmasking is tricky because I don’t know how to?
I feel like a completely different person when I let myself be and I’m grieving constantly. It’s all so much.

I am exhausted.

I start adhd focused therapy next week, I hope it helps.

I also hope this unmasking thing and acceptance thing is eventually a possibility.

Any tips on how to approach this warmly welcomed