~larold@TTBP



16 april 2019

I have ADHD and take Vyvanse to help handle it. I was diagnosed late, my second quarter of college, after almost flunking out my first quarter. I was never hyperactive, and so my parents assumed that the reason I never did my homework was that I was lazy, not that I was forgetting it every day. I don't blame them for not figuring it out. Most media at that time, and even today, tends to treat ADHD a single way. It focuses on the hyperactive, disruptive part of the disorder, and not the quieter internal component.

Vyavnse has helped tremendously, but it lends a very specific rhythm to my days. I take it at 8:30 every morning. Before then, and before I start to feel the effects, the world is fuzzy, cloudy, obscured by the 12 extra trains of thought running through my head. When it kicks in the first wave of focus is accompanied by a wave of energy, it is a stimulant after all. I'm most productive in those hours after it first kicks in, but for the rest of the day I'm able to focus on whatever task I need to accomplish. No rush like the first hours, but no handicap either.

Something they don't tell you when you start on stimulant ADHD meds is how time changes. Before taking them, I could slip through hours in an unfocused daze, time felt indisctinct. Had it been four minutes? or four hours? who knows! The medication locks time back down, one second per second. Periods of time where im bord pass with the same lockstep rigor as the times im engaged. If there is one thing I dislike most about the times I'm medicated, its this.

If you have any questions about ADHD, or my experiences with it, feel free to ask. I had quite the journey getting to where I am now, plenty of missteps, plenty of fumbles, and I'd like to help people avoid my mistakes.