ADHD

Hey everyone!

I really passionate about games but I struggle a lot to finish the storyline for a lot of them. There are some games I would love to finish like Eastward or Sea of Stars, but I feel unable to reasume them. I feel like if the game is not a dopamine trap(League or Civ VI) I can't continue playing it.

Does anyone here has face this issue and have found a way to work on it?

I'd like to know from anyone who is treated satisfactorily whether they have any symptoms that persist and resist treatment, and if so, which ones. Ideally, I'd like to collect enough data to produce some sort of statistics (not scientific, of course). Feel free to use any format and language you like.

For me:

• The urge to fidget
• Attention span, which is better but rarely exceeds an hour
• Hyperfixation and hyperfocus

EDIT: Got hyperfixated, compiling the following JSON from your answers, so feel free if you want to follow the template :)

{ "diagnosis": "ADHD", "treatment": ["fluoxetine", "methylphenidate XR"], "age": "30", "years_in_treatment": "3", "remaining_symptoms": [ "fidgeting", "hyperfixations", "hyperfocus" ], "attention_span": "60", "record_date": "31/05/2024" }

When you're at work, do you ever find yourself fantasizing and being hyper motivated about being home to continue THAT thing you're really excited about or should be doing. But then once you get home all motivation evaporates and you end up doing nothing and feeling guilty about it?

It's time to know your rights!

If you have ADHD, and you come across a website or app that is playing an animation (video or gif, or any other type), and you live in the US (you don't need citizenship), you can complain to your government that someone is breaking the law and violating your rights.

Yes, you could just use ad-blockers, but you can easily help solve the problem too for everyone just by filling in a form online.

The people you complain about might only get nasty legal letters that annoy their lawyers and cost them time and money to defend or fix, but for like 10 mins of effort on your part, that's a pretty good deal. There could also be fines for them, especially if people have complained before about them. You can even complain anonymously!

How?

To be considered a valid complaint, the animation must:

• start without you triggering it (so on page load, not clicking on something)
• last for longer than 5 seconds (yes, looping counts as lasting forever)
• be alongside other content (like videos in articles, not like a video as the main thing on a page)
• not allow you to pause, stop or hide it with your mouse and/or keyboard and/or touch (or whatever else you use to get around).

For your complaint to be most effective:

• both you and the site should be in the same general location. (US located people complaining to the US Government about a US company is always more helpful than trying to do international stuff.)
• you should probably mention that you have a medical condition that makes it difficult to focus when there are distractions
• you could mention they are not following this rule: "WCAG Pause, Stop, Hide (SC 2.2.2)"
• screen recordings are helpful evidence, but don't let this stop you, you can't upload them to the form and they might not request them anyway

Complaining about any organisation that gets government money is bonus points, they have even less room to wiggle out of it. Anyone from big business to small police department or anything in between has to follow this rule. They might also give some extra weight to complaints from US veterans?

If you think you tick all of those boxes you can fill out the online form on the Civil Rights Division site, but you should read first this ADA info about what happens when you complaint.

So if you find yourself getting annoyed by yet another distraction when you're just trying to get shit done in the US online, you now know you have an option to channel that frustration.

EU residents will be better able to channel their frustration June 2025. Some countries do have options now

A little extra info for the intrigued:

• The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines aren't guidelines anymore, they're pretty embedded in a lot of law. It's the list of things websites must do for people with disabilities. It's a bit difficult to navigate if you're new to it though.
• if you want to know more about this particular rule and why it exists here's an explanation of WCAG SC 2.2.2: Pause, Stop, Hide
• The WCAG is a requirement for places which accept government money under the Americans with Disabilities Act Title 2 Regulations while private companies are under Americans with Disabilities Act Title 3 Regulations. Same rule applies to both, so you don't even need to know this.
• a disability is defined as "a person with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment." Using the internet is a major life activity for many of us, and you don't need to identify as being disabled to fill in the form. The US Department of Labor's own website, the Job Accomodations Network lists ADHD as a disability and details employment accommodations though, so, it's not like you have to prove your life experience or anything

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, feel free to verify or refute this info with your own hyperfixation

Cross posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15867363

Often when I start feeling guilty for putting off a task (even if I genuinely didn't have time), the guilt makes it harder for me to get back to it. It's an additional emotion that I have to barge through in order to get started.

What if the person is annoyed with me for still not having replied? What if they've followed up with a strongly worded email that I'm now going to have to suffer through? And I'm going to have to come up with an excuse for taking so long. This would have been so much easier if I'd done it yesterday.

The guilt increases exponentially. How do you dispel it so that it's not in the way of actually getting to the task?
(Alcohol and sleep deprivation does not count)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15467370

me_irl

Hi everyone. I don't have ADHD, but someone who joined my family some time ago does (we'll call him T), and is currently going through some trouble which I find quite perplexing.

Some background: T has two daughters (8yo and 6yo) under shared custody with his ex-wife (they spend roughly the same time with each of them during the week). T has had some serious difficulties through his life, some of which are structural and will likely stay with him forever, such as difficulty to hold onto a job or keeping his house tidy (even less so when his kids are home), and others of which are temporary by nature, such as the recent death of his mother.

His daughters had been having some issues for quite some time, including school performance and very frequent misbehaving. I don't particularly dislike kids, but holy shit, the very moment they got used to me, they became imps, almost constant screaming, fighting each other, not attending to reason, and so on. And I've barely seen them a handful of times. Anyhow, T decided to seek the root of these issues, discussed with his ex-wife the possibility of getting them evaluated for ADHD, and the ex-wife refused. T went forwards anyway, and the girls are now diagnosed with ADHD, and assigned to a psychologist who should theoretically have a session with them each month, but in practice, they're given less than 5 appointments a year. In general, T's complaints that he wanted more guidance on what to do with them have fallen on deaf ears.

A few weeks ago, social services knock into T's home, and naturally, they find that the house is a mess, because it always is. They take note of it all, and recently summoned him for a meeting.

T's current partner recently told me how the meeting went: social services claimed that the kids are sometimes late to class and they sometimes don't go at all, attributed all the responsibility to him, and he refuted that, while he's sometimes late when it's his turn to take them to school, they only completely miss class when they're staying with their mother. Social services disregarded this (shouldn't they have the means to corroborate it?), and proceeded to explain that, as a person with ADHD who cannot keep his life in order, he doesn't seem to have the competencies to raise the kids, so they want to impose a change in custody where they would stay with him less than 33% of the time.

What I'm getting from this is that the only thing the administration will take into account when determining whether you should be raising your kids or not is your medical conditions and how disorganized is your house. The kids have some issues, sure (I'm not arguing that they being late to class or missing at all is ok), but if there are two separated parents, and one has an ADHD diagnosis and the other doesn't, is it ok to attribute all issues on the diagnosed parent rather than checking where the problems are coming from? Shouldn't the fact that the kids have ADHD a reason to want to make sure and the parent who does also have it to be more involved in their upbringing, since the one who doesn't will have less experience with it and its difficulties?

I just wonder if it actually did get worse or it just seems like that because as an adult you have a lot more on your plate than you did when you were a kid/teen

And second grade...

And third grade...

And fourth grade...

Sometimes I wonder what the next 40 years would have been like if I'd gotten some help instead of just getting yelled at for being lazy.

Hi !

Just to go straight to the point, my doctor is thinking of trying Strattera in me, since it was recently made available as a generic and I tend to have prevailing side effects with stimulant medication (ritalin, Rubifen, elvanse).

I have some questions that would like to hear from people that are/were on this medication to share:

1. I understand this is non-stimulating and seems to work akin to an antidepressant. Therefore, do I have to take it every day? Even on days I do not need ? With stimulant medication I only take it when doing theoretical work, and skip it when on the laboratory or other minor tasks and would never take it in days I'm not working, because I can't just interact with people and gives me a baseline anxiety the whole day.

2. What benefits did it gave you ?

3. Any prevailing side effects?

4. How does it compare with stimulant medication (after taking it for some weeks)?

For a bit of context:

I've been diagnosed for about 6 years now, and started with Ritalin XR. However, I could only keep using it for some months since it gave seriously side effects that persisted 3-5 months after stopping it. I later switched to Ritalin IR, which worked for some time and gave me less side effects. But it started to be ineffective after some months.

Then my doctor tried Elvanse (Vyvanse), it worked on keeping me focused, but the anxiety and the huge time frame of action of the drug led to me only taking it once or twice a week.

I'm now back on Ritalin IR, but always feel the anxiety and aversion to interact with people that I always feel with these 3 stimulants.

I just started interning and it's my first office job (Yay!) but most of the clothes I feel comfortable wearing are not really office attire. Especially shoes. I have no "appropriate" shoes because shoes have always been a particular source of sensory issues so I wear the same black pair of mesh trainers. I have to commute in a big city so I end up walking a decent amount, and shoes that are tight and/or heavy really mess with my focus.

Do you guys have any advice on how to find comfortable shoes that are at least a bit more office appropriate? Maybe solid clean white sneakers? For reference I'm female.

For me showering means standing in a windowless room staring at a blank wall for 20 minutes (I get lost in my thoughts). Also there are several steps and I have to think about each of them.
This means that I only end up showering when my fear of coming across as dirty becomes bigger than the dread of being bored.
What do you do?

Holy fucking shit.

I love these guys. It's not the first mental health video they've done, but now there will be at least one about adult ADHD. I'm actually excited to see this.

I feel seen.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14974194

Me irule

So I've noticed a pattern in my life that I was hoping someone could empathize with.

I've been training for over a year for a physical test that I really want to pass. The other day I tried to do the exercises that I'll have to do in the test and I completed all of them successfully and now I feel that I've lost some of my motivation to get better. It's as if I was trying to prove that I could do it and I feel that I have, although I really haven't since I haven't taken the test. I've noticed this before. A couple years ago I tried really hard to get into a prestigious degree in a reputable university through my own merit. I managed to get in and soon after I lost interest and quit. Has anyone experienced something like this before?

Thank you for your time :)

Ps.: I'm not sure this is related to ADHD, I just figured it might be and the people here might be able to advise me.

Cooking my dinner, best set a timer because I'm bound to forget it's in the over.

Get bored and start reading book.

Timer's done - I'll turn off the alarm and just finish the page.

Ten minutes later ...Wait, what's that burning smell?

I do

I am going to an appt. across town, in part to get my meds refilled. I wasn't paying attention and missed my stop, but I also overestimated the travel time required, and am on my way in the other direction with plenty of time to spare. 😸

Just what the title says. I'm taking atomoxetine since 13 months, and this week will be my first psychological session. I've severe ED issues, to the point I can't do almost anything productive (including meditation itself), no matter how much I want to.

I had to buy a plane ticket which costed 80 $, and since I needed to do two super quick checks before buying it I obviously waited a month. Plane ticket is now 280 $. Cheers

How do you stayed focused on a task when the task involves some type of waiting?

For example, I have a really hard time staying focused at work. The problem for me is, our software can be really really really slow. While I’m waiting for Outlook to load an email, or our internal tooling to populate data, I find my mind is wandering. Often, I’ll start on another task or pick up my phone and just completely forget about the first thing I started.

At the end of the day, I have to figure out why I have 8 half written emails open in the background of my PC.

How do you stay on track when your tasks require patience?