27 karma · joined January 13, 2016
As far as spiders, monsters, and whatnot, http://erowid.org has good write ups in the experiences section for it.
I've also heard them called "bennies", but you're probably not getting OTC benadryl off the street, so I can't see there being much confusion.
2170/1400 on the sat, 35 on the act, not sure what the cpt is, and anything anything writing/literature related killed me. I passed my senior english class with a 59.5, literally as low as possible without failing. I have a total of ~2 years of credits on my ECE BS, but work as a sysadmin/devops and love it, if I finish my degree it'll just be something to hang on the wall.
I usually refrain from commenting on anything relating to parenting at risk of being (rightfully) shouted down as I have no experience with it. But in this case, as someone that was in your daughters place once, 20 years later I think the best thing you can do for your daughter now is to reinforce sticking with something and finishing it. Basically developing the mindset she has on meds into a habit that she'll eventually be able to keep without them.
I think, as you mentioned, that learning about actions and consequences, especially in the long term instead of immediate ones, will help her a lot down the road. Your daughter is lucky to have you as a parent who is willing to guide her and help navigate through the bullshit that adhd can bring.
I can expand later today when I have a bit more time.
The other big one is 3 goals a day. Every morning when I wake up, I give myself 3 goals that I must accomplish before going to bed. Generally they're trivial things, take out the trash, wipe down the kitchen counter, that kind of thing. I find that no matter how simple, it gives me the feeling of accomplishing something I set out to do and helps me reinforce non-impulsive thinking/decision making and remind myself that I can in fact finish a task that I thought of more than 30 seconds ago.
I can expand on how I cope tonight when I have more time if you'd like.
A few years ago I was diagnosed with adhd at the age of 23, and god damn do I wish it happened a decade sooner, but my parents were the type that didn't believe in that kind of stuff, so I was just lazy. It's stuck with me to this day even, it took me a while to come to terms with it and I at times I still think I'm lying to myself and I'm just lazy, and would never make this post on my main account.
I first started seriously considering that it might be something other than just laziness in college when I was studying for finals with some friends and we decided to enhance that studying with some adderall. Everyone got super focused, churning out work and wide awake for hours, except me. I felt pretty much nothing different at first, and was kinda pissed it didn't work, but got to studying anyways. The next day I was complaining to my friend about my apparent immunity to amphetamines, and thinking back I realized it might've had an effect after all. Instead of jumping around and doing 50 things at once in no logical order I actually stayed more or less on one thing at a time. I didn't get the apparent super human focus and metal boost, and it didn't keep me awake for shit, but I got to pick what I focused on. My friend mentioned that having that kind of reaction to stimulants might be a possible symptom of add, but I didn't take that seriously, since everything is apparently a symptom of add.
Later on I finally got a job with my own health insurance, and went to a therapist for an unrelated reason. Through multiple sessions I unloaded the story of my life, how I could never pay attention to just one thing when I was younger, but I saw it as an advantage because I could context switch between 10 things got damn good at it. How I loved driving so much because thinking about every other car on the road with me and predicting their actions all at once put my mind at ease. But as I got older, the 10 things I tried to focus on each needed a lot more focus than my rapid context switching could provide. It had gotten to the point that holding a conversation was a troubling task because I'd also be thinking about 10 other things and losing bits and pieces of it.
The first time my therapist told me that I may have adhd, I was actually insulted. I didn't want to consider the possibility that something was actually wrong with me, I was just lazy and needed to get my shit together. I never outwardly acted out as a kid, I wasn't hyperactive, there was no way I could have adhd. I later realized that a lot of my outlet went into computers instead, where for me the adhd was actually helpful.
I continued my sessions, and eventually she convinced me to see a psychiatrist. Over a few visits he also diagnosed me with adhd. I refused to take the prescription and ended up going to two other doctors that gave me the same diagnoses. I finally relented and worked with my therapist and the psychiatrist to set a plan of action. I was prescribed adderall, which I took daily for 3 months. At the same time I also started working on behaviors and methods to cope with it without medication. It was a night and day difference. I remember 2 weeks in sitting in my room almost in tears thinking "is this how normal people think all the time? They can choose? Why the fuck couldn't I have that".
After the first 3 months I started skipping my meds for one week out of every month to gauge how well I could deal without. It took about 7 months until I was confident enough to go off of it, but it feels like I never did. As much as I hate pharmaceuticals, there's no way I could've gotten to where I am today without. I genuinely feel that I've managed to change something in my brain to a less chaotic process. I didn't even know there was another way to think, I thought that was normal. Sure, it's still a struggle, and I still have my moments, but I can actually manage my life. I can decide to clean my apartment and not end up starting 5 other projects after 20 minutes of cleaning. The amount of shit I could have accomplished had I been able to handle my mind a decade earlier.
Sorry for the long winded rant, but damn it feels good to actually put that into words. I'm still ashamed in a way of it, it makes me feel "broken" I guess, so no one but my doctors and I know and writing that was a bit of a relief. I'm honestly not sure what my point of writing this was, other that to say that while giving kids heavy amphetamines is probably not a great idea, doing something to help from a young age could be massively life changing, and if nothing else is helping, waiting too long for medication probably isn't a great idea either.