Adult Neurodiversity Thread (Autism, ADHD, etc.)

ok i fucked the thread title when i did this yesterday, here's one with the correct title, i'll ask the mods to lock the old one

Adult Neurodiversity Thread

the main idea is that this is a thread for ilx0rs to talk about their own neurodiversity... there's an autism thread but it's more oriented towards caregiver experiences. being a caregiver is difficult, important, and valuable, much respect to caregivers.

this over here is the caregiver-oriented thread:

What can you tell me about Autism?

I wrote / recorded this about my experiences with undiagnosed ADHD at school (tldr; had a bad time, do not recommend)

https://centuriesofsound.com/podcast/1-1-threw-it-in-the-bin/

Have shared before on the ADHD thread. A year later I am still undiagnosed, as is my son, there is a three-year waiting list for him on the NHS, I cannot even get on a waiting list it seems.

Thanks to gyac because she's the one who first told me about it but there might be a faster way to diagnosis for both you and him through Right to Choose with Psychiatry UK. I know their wait times have increased but I was referred in Feb of 2023 and diagnosed in June that year. Medication has been life changing in several ways. https://psychiatry-uk.com/right-to-choose/ Worth looking into for both you and your son imo.

I had a manager who used to give me Adderall when he assigned me large projects that needed a fast turnaround, and I always assumed it helped me work effectively because it was speed, but sometimes I wonder.

lol wut? where can i find that kind of manager? jokes.

What I could use advice on tbh is eating while on meds. I have no appetite. I've lost about 10-15 pounds which I'm not complaining about but it's not just that I'm not hungry. When I take my meds food is unappealing which is not something I'm used to! I nearly fainted the other day because I hadn't eaten anything and it was 2:30. I'm going to get some protein shakes and snacks but if anyone has any ideas I would welcome them.

Most nights I have been eating dinner between 9-10 because I'm not hungry until then. I have struggled with disordered eating my whole life so I'm worried this might trigger old behaviors etc.

For adderall users: what dose are you on (if you don't mind sharing, obv). Extended release or no?

20mg ER

I totally know that adderall would help me but i also know that a 30 day supply might last me 10 days...

Something that i am working on. the addictive/compulsive thing.

Prob should have said the med in question that's killing my appetite is generic Vyvanse. I have the most addictive personality of anyone I know (she says while vaping, having a drink,and skinning up) but it never occured to me to take this not as directed. Took 2 by accident once and felt terrible. Maybe Vyvanse is diff tho. I know a lot of people do abuse Adderall.

I had a manager who used to give me Adderall when he assigned me large projects that needed a fast turnaround, and I always assumed it helped me work effectively because it was speed, but sometimes I wonder.

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel)

it's complicated

adderall is a drug of abuse for sure, i'm on 10 mg regular release 2x daily, but i only take it 1x daily. i got kinda, this is gonna be nerd reference, but I got Abin Sur syndrome. the story is that Abin Sur was a Green Lantern and one of those fucking oracles, you know the ones, predicted that his power ring would fail when he needed it. so he got out of the habit of relying on it. so out of the habit that eventually he started forgetting to charge it. and, well.

anyway that's my thing, i do the bare minimum necessary in order to function. i don't trust adderall. my oldest brother, who's straight-edge, back when i was talking to him he went after me for taking drugs to better comply with capitalism. i told him yeah, you're right, what the fuck am i supposed to do about it?

my QPP/ex-GF, i think she's on... i don't know what she's on, but she had a meth habit, and they put her on ADHD meds, and she's really good with street chemistry, and she was able to take the supply she had and process them to where she could spend a weekend on speed. for whatever reason she don't take good to adderall, which is good for me because if she did she might well have taken all of it when she relapsed. addiction is just like that.

i don't know. is there a shortage of ER? there's always shortages of something. they put more and more of us on more and more of this stuff like the bill isn't gonna come due.

i got addicted to medically prescribed benzos. worst shit i ever dealt with. they handed it out like it was candy and didn't tell me about the withdrawal syndrome. all it did was dull my emotions. turned me into a fuckin' zombie. then i cold turkeyed. don't cold turkey benzos. the withdrawal syndrome can fuckin' kill you. i'm lucky to be alive.

i'm on a lot of different meds and the only one i don't feel great about being on is adderall. it helps me a lot, but i know that kind of help don't come for free.

the big problem is that i also drink coffee. sometimes i hear people say you're not supposed to mix adderall with caffeine, but yeah i kinda need them both to function at my shitty, demoralizing job. the challenge is that sometimes i get too much in me and i'll have a panic attack. there aren't any effective anxiolytics on the market, that i know of. benzos, obviously, are right out. so i've just gotten used to having panic attacks. they've become routine. they're unpleasant, but i know from experience that they'll only last so long. i've done a lot of mindfulness work. that helps me a lot when i'm having a panic attack, when i know that physiologically i am highly activated and i genuinely can't think rationally.

-

i struggle with food myself. for a lot of different reasons. a lot of it is trauma. my mom was a dietitian who used food as a substitute for love. then there's the body image issues related to dysphoria. i'd fat and then i'd lose a bunch of weight and then i'd think of the clothes i'd like to wear and then i'd get fat so i wouldn't have to think about that. my weight has more or less stabilized. i don't cook but i can feed myself now. trader joe's frozen meals, bagels with smoked salmon, cheerios. and peas. that's my new thing. since transition my body actually feels like mine and i listen to it, i pay attention to it. and sometimes what it says is "put some fuckin' vegetables in me". my mom was always like, oh, eat a bunch of different foods, but you know what, i'm just going to fucking eat frozen peas when my body needs vegetables. it gives me what i need. vegetables and grains and protein and dairy. my weight is more or less stable. i stress eat, and i'm under a lot of stress. i got up to a point where some of my favorite clothes didn't fit so now i'm shifting the stress somewhere else and eating less. just figuring out the least harmful coping mechanisms available to me.

Regarding caffeine - I realised while posting on the coffee thread earlier this week that sometimes I have upwards of 8 espressos in a day in addition to the stimulants so combine that with the not eating and it is bad not good as mark sinker would say.

Heya! Bumping.

There's another ADHD med shortage. These shortages cascade. There's not enough Vyvanse so then all the people who can't get Vyvanse get switched over to another med, so then nobody can get _any_ meds. The delivery chain is apparently set up like the New York City power grid was on July 13, 1977. This is one of the reasons I underdose - so I can stockpile for when there's a shortage. This past week, I said to myself, "You know what, I don't like being dependent on amphetamines to function. I'm going to use this opportunity to stop taking this habit-forming substance." That was great. That was totally effective. By which I mean I spent a week not being able to function at all.

What I learned, though, is that I was not, in fact, "addicted" to amphetamines. Yes, I am dependent on amphetamines. I'm also dependent on, like, estrogen. If I don't take estrogen, I don't function well. I do _know_ what addiction is like, because I have been addicted to medically prescribed drugs - benzodiazepines. Taking those drugs made me less functional, caused me problems, and despite the fact that it was clearly causing me problems, they kept prescribing me higher and higher doses. In fact, I'd probably be something close to being actually functional if I took the medications as prescribed, rather than taking half my prescribed dose every day.

Those of you who aren't dependent on these meds probably don't even know it's happening. I guess that's the main reason I'm posting about this. Because I want people to know that there's a serious problem, that many people like me are not able to get the drugs we need to function. For the second time in a year. There's a shortage, and nobody knows when the shortage will be up.

My friend was driving back from the farmhouse today but couldn't get home. There was a traffic jam. Lines of 4 or 5 miles outside the outlet stores. I can't fathom it. I can't understand it. These people aren't lined up for the medications they need in order to function. That I could understand. As far as I can tell, a lot of them are suffering because they somehow believe that mass human suffering is a _bargain_. That it's a _good deal_.

I'm tempted to call it "sick", but I guess it's the reverse of sick, isn't it? They're _perfectly well_. I'm the one who can't get the meds I need.

In fact, I'd probably be something close to being actually functional if I took the medications as prescribed, rather than taking half my prescribed dose every day.

i.e. my ADHD meds, not benzos. I don't touch benzos.

After she began taking the non-stimulant A.D.H.D. medication Strattera, attending regular therapy sessions and meditating, her ability to focus improved and the anxiety and the depression faded away.

“I cried with joy,” she said. “I knew that I wasn’t crazy. I knew that I wasn’t broken. I wasn’t a failure. I wasn’t lazy like I had been told for most of my life. I wasn’t stupid.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/well/mind/adhd-diagnosis-older-middle-age.html

that's me! well, i'm getting there. therapy and meditating hasn't happened yet but that's what 2025 is for.

Atomoxetine (Strattera) and Guanfacine are what i'm taking and they have totally helped. I have a long way to go but i'm so much better now then where i was at this summer. I was watching an ADHD video on Youtube and they said that SSRI/antidepressants can be really bad for people with ADHD and that was totally true for me. Those things really put me through the wringer. I'm glad I didn't give up.

I'm on my first concerted run with an ADD drug (Strattera) at age 62. 4 months of increasing dosages, I'm up to 60 mg daily and really feel it's doing something.

The nurse practitioner who's overseeing my happy meds also switched me from Zoloft & Wellbutrin to Prystiq. Can't say that it's any better than the previous drugs, so I'm just maintaining instead of improving.

When we started, she had me take a relatively new genetic test called GeneSight, which is supposed to help identify which happy meds you are more genetically likely to respond to. Anybody else done that?

Jury is still out on GeneSight on my cursory perusal of the peer reviewed lit. You’ll never know what you would have been prescribed without it—could have been the same thing! Or something different would have helped more! If you are doing better than fuck it, doesn’t matter.

I’m on month 2 of add meds, first time ever, age 54, after 30 years of SSRIs. I’ve been in a pretty desperate hopeless place with regard to overcoming this terrible counterweight my brain places against doing things and it’s helping. There’s a pharmacy attached to the hospital clinic where I see my psychiatrist and they seem to be able to actually get these meds unlike any of the Walgreens cvs etc I tried first. I’m worried about getting some help only to end up at the business end of whatever impersonal supply chain forces

this is the first time that i have ever put a calendar up where i can see it and add stuff to it. for the coming year. i have never ever done that. i am weird with time. i have always hated thinking ahead. i never have clocks around. never had a watch. never had a cell phone. the past haunts my every move and the future has always filled me with dread. this is the first time that i have ever wanted to put things on the wall where i work! at home it will take me YEARS to feel comfortable enough to put something on the wall.

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/470138060_10162701560217137_8018766098152579960_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=bWgbjk8lGdUQ7kNvgGvxcG0&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&_nc_gid=Am00uB84Rqg0JEGqgbFdijw&oh=00_AYDf8Mlecy2fOT1YTsiY5sT37a6namZxtXoM6ESUhXC4lQ&oe=67624F0D

great calendar too courtesy of my dad...

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/470226605_10162701560407137_1796879076699651466_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=lXTl2eOpQjIQ7kNvgHmUblN&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&_nc_gid=AGWNWfRMkKw4v3zjGmueCKT&oh=00_AYCEawhDYWxJbPGn9_w_pubY_n45ahmiQACjfw2v0sWuJA&oe=6762258F

Is each month a different warning?

haha, yes!

I wrote / recorded this about my experiences with undiagnosed ADHD at school (tldr; had a bad time, do not recommend)

https://centuriesofsound.com/podcast/1-1-threw-it-in-the-bin/

Have shared before on the ADHD thread. A year later I am still undiagnosed, as is my son, there is a three-year waiting list for him on the NHS, I cannot even get on a waiting list it seems.

― This is Dance Anthems, have some respect (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, 17 May 2024 13:18 bookmarkflaglink

Thanks for writing this. Lots of that rang true for me.

Yeah same here. Thanks very much for sharing.

I actually was diagnosed as a child in the Seventies with hyperactivity, aka ADHD (which didn't become a diagnosis until 1980), and I was also in Special Ed, which at that time and place was mostly kids with conduct disorders. I was considered one of them, because I was strange and difficult, genuinely strange and difficult, not just considered strange and difficult by problematic teachers (although I came across plenty of them). I didn't mask enough and didn't have the self-consciousness that I needed to realize that I needed to mask more than I did. I have plenty of guilt over what I put other folx through.

<3

I was definitely one of these kids as well and a lot of the school stuff rings very true. At one point in high school I was in AP English and a special program meant to house delinquent kids, at the same time. Fortunately, somewhere along the line I discovered the cheat code, which is that because I am a straight white man over six feet tall, I am allowed to just be an asshole to people.

Interesting… Special Ed when I was a kid was mostly kids with Down’s syndrome, severe autism, and similar disabilities. Dyslexic kids got sent to a school with a program for that.

Kids with conduct problems just got detention a lot or were expelled and their parents would send them to Catholic schools or military academies… where corporal punishment was allowed.

I had conduct problems and was weird, but I was apparently the smartest kid in all my classes, even the classes for smart kids (this was not a major accomplishment… when I got to college I was pretty average)… so sometimes the teachers would just give me “special projects” to keep me focused and quiet… no clue whether I have ADHD or anything…

Xp unperson — I think size definitely came into play for me… when I was taller than most of the other kids is when I was most “disruptive” but the classes where I was shorter (and significantly younger) than many kids were when I was more quiet.

Interesting… Special Ed when I was a kid was mostly kids with Down’s syndrome, severe autism, and similar disabilities. Dyslexic kids got sent to a school with a program for that.

Kids with conduct problems just got detention a lot or were expelled and their parents would send them to Catholic schools or military academies… where corporal punishment was allowed.

My high school had special ed which was as you describe, but they also had an experimental pilot program for kids who could do the work but wouldn't for whatever reason. That's where I was housed for junior year, but one period a day I'd go upstairs for AP English.

I also failed a bunch of classes freshman year so I had to repeat the year, and my mom sent me off to an all-boys' Catholic school to do that. I came back to public school for junior and senior years.

no such thing as "severe autism", it's a wide spectrum, and yes some are more complex and challenging etc... not being arsey .. just saying in peace!

at the end of my 5th year of high school i was taking a 9th grade science class because i had never passed even one science class in HS and i needed it to graduate - all the kids in the class were terrified of me at first because i was 18 - and i went to my science teacher to ask him if i had passed (if i failed even one class i was not graduating) and he said "Don't worry, Scott, we'll get you out of here...". He totally passed me just to put me out of my high school misery.
i was watching an ADHD video on Youtube and the guy said its common for ADD people to coast through middle school without giving it much effort and then just being totally unprepared to do the work of high school. which was me. my parents even sent me away for a year to a school for messed up kids. i was almost incapable of learning properly. i never passed one math class. i went to summer school every year. it was torture. in retrospect i kinda wish i had done what two good friends of mine had done which was get their GED and then just work. but i didn't do that for some reason.

in retrospect i kinda wish i had done what two good friends of mine had done which was get their GED and then just work. but i didn't do that for some reason.

I probably could have done that but there was some expectation I'd go to college. I wound up doing three semesters at community college. I met my wife there, but I didn't learn a fucking thing.

yeah, i went to a college for a year but it was horrible and i just ignored everything. i only did it because my dad kinda made me. i did have a radio show which was the only memorable thing about it. i think i just stopped going to class in the 2nd semester. it was really bad. then i moved home for the summer and then moved off to Philly. and the rest is herstory.

i did have a fun English professor. his name was DR. HERBERT S. GUGGENHEIM. in his class he taught: Goodnight Moon, The Slaves of New York, and The Names by Don Delillo. which i thought was a cool thing to do in 1988.

no such thing as "severe autism", it's a wide spectrum, and yes some are more complex and challenging etc... not being arsey .. just saying in peace!

its common for ADD people to coast through middle school without giving it much effort and then just being totally unprepared to do the work of high school.

I look back and can’t figure out how I made it through chemistry and physics (with low low Cs but nevertheless) - I didn’t really understand studying so I just refused. In college bio the only way I could figure out how to study was to copy out the textbook chapters over and over by hand.

Xp scott — I took summer school almost every year of high school, but I would take the classes that I knew I would get annoyed and bored with and likely not show up to on a regular basis… I could suck it up for 6 weeks, but an entire year? I was aware of my limits lol.

I was stoked at the idea of college where you could take only classes that interested you and you could skip and not get punished like a criminal.

My crowning academic achievement in high school was doing so bad at trig that after a six weeks they gave me a free period and let me come to school an hour late so I didn’t fuck up their numbers.

I barely graduated college and it took me 7 1/2 years to get my masters because I kept dropping out to do other stuff (including work)… my letter of recommendation for grad school included my impressive radio dj ability lol

But I basically coasted through high school and then had the problem it describes but in college… tracer, if you are reading this and remember college, the reason I very diligently argued about things in the first chapter of assigned texts, is because that was the extent of what I had read and participating in class discussions was part of the grade.

i really thought school was never going to end. it was like a nightmare i couldn't wake up from. being in class made me so tired. i fell asleep constantly. i had zero interest in any of it. so i did drugs. and drank a ton. self-medication for decades. when i started smoking cigarettes at 19 it was like discovering fire. literally. i couldn't believe i went through my teen years without smoking. it made everything better and more manageable.
sooooo, anyway, it takes me until 2024 to get the help i need for something that has been plaguing me since i was a kid. better late than never.

You’re far from the only one. This is a pretty common experience afaict. It’s hard to get the care one needs as an adult.

the thing with me is that i never know exactly how much of my issues contributed to my problems. i didn't graduate college until 40, and even then my ex-wife put in a _lot of work_ to keep me from dropping out. a lot of it was probably the undiagnosed and untreated adhd that left me without the executive function to register for classes and figure out where they were, in retrospect. a very large chunk of my life has consisted of me wondering why i can't do all of these things that are apparently trivially easy for "normal" people, haha

xp The kids with Downs Syndrome, et al, were the kids on the other side of the hall. My program was similar to the one in the book P.S. Your Not Listening, if any of you have ever read that. (Disclaimer: I've only read the Reader's Digest version.)

Speaking of nightmares… one of my recurring nightmares is what Kate describes… that I am in college and I am supposed to be taking exams but I never went to any of the class meetings and I don’t even know where the classroom is or when it meets and I am looking for a schedule or map

my son is having an autism & adhd assessment soon, I have just finished filling out the forms, and lol he does wear big headphones all the time it's true.

a really good development these days is how cheap and absolutely excellent sensory lighting has become these days. You can get incredible and rather cheap shit like LED lamp stands and strips for like £20-30 and fully programable with android app.

the equivalent 15 years ago would cost you grands and would be absolute shite!

RSD was something I only learned about a couple of years ago despite having been diagnosed with ADHD as a kid. It was a bit of a revelation because it is such a learned defence mechanism - reaching down to punish yourself for who you are.

I’ve been taking clonidine for it (on top of the vyvanse) for about 9 months now. The most terrifying aspect of that has been whilst that deals with the neurochemical aspect of it - it is such a learned response that I found myself struggling to activate the RSD. That was pretty bad, not least because it coincided with some pretty bad moments career wise and borderline depression and I kept wanting to punish myself more - for having such a broken brain.

What has helped has been Schema Therapy - this is looking at ingrained behaviours set in childhood. It’s the therapy most like psychoanalysis is a bugs bunny/woody Allen kind of way. (Zooo, tell me about your mazzarrrrr). It goes pretty deep, but it’s what I need right now. I also really like my current therapist. It’s the longest I’ve ever worked with anyone on this.

And this is not going to be popular (sorry sleeve), but LLM AI is an absolute game changer for me.

I am now using Claude extensively to get shit done. I have it pretty well trained and use it as my subeditor, research assistant, coder. You can really see in my published stuff where I started using it as a subeditor - it’s just a lot better; and I’ve automated stuff like grooming my email for expense receipts - I’m actually getting stuff done.

PowerPoint is my nemesis. I have some legit trauma about never being able to produce a good enough PowerPoint for my former CEO - and it being the reason I was the only exec that got downsized. Anyway I fed Claude a financial model last week and it made a legitimately good summary of the business case - recent MBA grads will never find work in consulting again.

Couple of weeks ago I met a guy who’d trained open source AI models on his own work, rather than on the world and I feel like that’s the next thing to do.

Also Spark Mail - it’s not the AI on this that’s useful it’s just the being across multiple inboxes, search that works and being able to surface what’s important.

Oh, hi. I too use AI as a kind of cognitive scaffolding for organizing all my thoughts. I have documented poor working memory and processing speed, so I offload all that to my AI assistant. It's been life changing, I dump all this information in there and we build systems to help me understand it and retrieve the information when I need it, in the appropriate context.

i was using chatgpt to structure some tasks during the year but eventually it all fell apart

im gonna try ollama next to feed a more personal structure if i can

Chat GPT still seems to be too prone to hallucinations, frequency bias and wandering off down blind alleys. In fact it’s like having an LLM with ADHD.

The research assistant I’ve got Claude being is great. yesterday, I had it profile a company that might invest in a project I’m working on. If I’d have done the research directly I’d have fallen down a Google/wiki/news hole and ended up with nothing gained on the project and 50 new ideas.

Promoting, fact checking and editing Claude’s output got shit done. Also I hit the token limit at the perfect moment - a whole heap of info to sift and sort. I fed my edit back in later to try and improve it.

I have, unfortunately, trained it to be as pompous and verbose as me.

The project concept in Claude is where it really shines, IMO. You can set boundaries.

Ollama is basically where I want to go next.

Are you using desktop or code? I've built mine entirely in claude code, a personal context system that's basically external executive function for ADHD. Five subsystems (memory, projects, tools, decisions, goals) all file-based in ~/context/ backed by git, with a CLI tool that handles event-sourced work tracking, integrates external data (calendar, meal planning, finances, workout data, bus tracking, weather), and does semantic search across everything.

how can steal this if i know nothing about coding

Get Claude to code it for you.

I’ve been using it to write python for data analysis, shell scripts to automate things. A bit of embedded c++ development as well. (It’s staggering how bad Gemini is at writing python in collab notebooks)

I’m using Claude desktop, and done a bit with it in vscode but want to dig into integrating it more.

With code you can use Output styles to change the core personality, which I found to be a critical change, otherwise it will try and code everything immediately. Also I use hooks to steer the behavior. On every prompt I submit, it adds the following:

1. Did you learn something new? → Update learnings
2. Are you working on a multi-step task? → Track work status
3. Did you mention preferences? → Update preferences
4. New project context? → Update project files
5. Making a strategic decision? → Create decision doc

This ensures that my preferences, learnings, and work progress carry forward into future sessions.

And yes, I'm not a dev, but I've written enough SRD's that I can get the robot agents to build me just about anything.

You kind of get that with projects there’s memory and a body of knowledge. When I started a project for my consulting business I fed it my resume, LinkedIn a bunch of my writing, outputs for clients etc. gave it access to my email and Google drive etc.

Whenever I correct it it remembers within the context of the project. I also feed it my final versions of anything it has produced and it does learn.

About a month I noticed it start to use a lot of open source tools, npm packages etc. and have been telling it to slow down and show me - not least because having it run these things chews up tokens. Plugging it into the shell and getting it to run things locally would make sense.

its been a year, its been a decade, its been a life tbh

― Wichita Referee's Assistant (darraghmac), Friday, November 21, 2025 11:27 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah so my folks had me evaluated when I was 17, after I dropped out of school. I think they were hoping I would go back to school and get some meds or other accommodations so I could finish. That didn’t happen, and they never told me anything about the results. They must have assumed it didn’t matter if I wasn’t in school. So I was reading this thread yesterday, looked up the doctor who evaluated me in 2001 (now retired) and I asked if she still has any records. I figured it’s a real long shot, but she sent me a report within a couple of hours.

So yeah, ADHD! And also nonverbal learning disability. And some things I figured out on my own eventually: very slow processing speed, difficulty understanding my emotions. She even says why I’m so slow, that in order to process other kinds of information, I need to first convert it into a “verbal paradigm” or something. For some reason I don’t understand this is also why my writing and reading comprehension is very slow and belabored.

I feel for d’mac and everyone itt who is dealing with a recent diagnosis at this stage. Things were looking up, and I’m in a place where I was just starting to recognize the progress I’ve made in my adult life. Nothing major. Just little steps I’ve been able to take that are imperceptible in real time. But somehow, looking back on a life, it all adds up, and I was starting to feel good about that. Well, all of it is undermined by this news. This afternoon, when I look back, all I see is my 17 year old self spinning their wheels across the decades since, stuck in that moment. I don’t wanna let this derail my recent optimism. You know what, I’ve known for a long time that the chasm is too steep and the only way out is further in. Going with that.

Ughh, all that sounds so melodramatic. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I try to treat it and make the hill less steep. I’ll figure it out LOL. Look, parents, please have your kids evaluated if they are struggling.

I want to say I feel unbelievably lucky that a retired doctor retained my records for almost 25 years

i mean right some of us cant find the notepad in which we keep a record of what we had for lunch

i did a quick ilx search to see if others had talked about it and saw that you had mentioned it several times, kate! ed, as well.

i'm wondering if anyone has had any success in addressing RSD head-on. i feel some optimism about it, because i know that, despite lifelong persistent negative self-talk, i've made great strides in the last year or two by just noticing when it happens, acknowledging it, and then trying to 'reset' and shift my thoughts. there's still a ton of negative self-talk, but a lot of it gets stopped at the door where in the past it would live in my head constantly. i'm hoping that keeping a similar mindfulness about RSD will help as well

― z_tbd

rsd, to me, is learned behavior. so to me, the answer is to find situations where i don't get rejected. that's challenging, because a lot of times i don't get what i need. it's not anybody's _fault_, shit just isn't available. i mean _nobody_ is getting what they need right now. so even though i don't take it personally, i do still feel hurt. and i guess i'd say that's an important thing, not blaming myself for feeling hurt. i'm still working on the part where i'm more able to consistently do things. it takes a long time and a lot of work, and i mean, i _do_ have support, i _do_ have people who will help, i just have to take on a lot, and it takes time for me to build up that "resilience". cuz i have the "highly sensitive" thing. when i feel hurt, it hurts more and lasts longer than it does for a lot of people. i'm learning to acknowledge and accept that, tho it kinda sucks.

one of the other things i've learned about recently is invalidation... just because somebody invalidates me doesn't mean they're _wrong_ or that i'm _right_. emotions aren't wrong or right, they just are, so if i feel bad if i say "can i have a cookie" and someone else says "no", that doesn't mean that it's an injustice that i didn't get a cookie. it just means that i'm allowed to feel bad about that. similarly, if someone asks me for a cookie i can say "no" to them and they can feel bad about that, i'm not obligated to give them a cookie just cuz they asked.

I feel for d’mac and everyone itt who is dealing with a recent diagnosis at this stage. Things were looking up, and I’m in a place where I was just starting to recognize the progress I’ve made in my adult life. Nothing major. Just little steps I’ve been able to take that are imperceptible in real time. But somehow, looking back on a life, it all adds up, and I was starting to feel good about that. Well, all of it is undermined by this news. This afternoon, when I look back, all I see is my 17 year old self spinning their wheels across the decades since, stuck in that moment. I don’t wanna let this derail my recent optimism. You know what, I’ve known for a long time that the chasm is too steep and the only way out is further in. Going with that.

― Labubu phalloplasty (Deflatormouse)

was talking to my ex-girlfriend today actually... she was reading over her diary from two years ago and saw that she was saying some of the same things then that she says now, and was dispirited, felt like nothing had changed. but that let her fact-check it, and when she did a comparison, she realized no, wait, i've grown a _fuckton_ over the past two years - she has. just cuz problems don't go away doesn't mean we're not making progress. i mean, i'm depressed now, i was depressed when i was 17... does that mean that i haven't made any progress in the past 32 years? lol.

Are you using desktop or code? I've built mine entirely in claude code, a personal context system that's basically external executive function for ADHD. Five subsystems (memory, projects, tools, decisions, goals) all file-based in ~/context/ backed by git, with a CLI tool that handles event-sourced work tracking, integrates external data (calendar, meal planning, finances, workout data, bus tracking, weather), and does semantic search across everything.

― Jeff, Friday, November 21, 2025 3:54 PM bookmarkflaglink

This week, I got an email from Anthropic and I was identified as a "steady user" of claude code for the past three months so they wanted to know how I was using it. Yesterday, I had an interview with an AI bot that was just me telling it all the different ways I use claude code for organizing my thoughts. Today I get another email from them and they want to actually interview me to hear more about what I've built.

As helpful as building this system has been for me, I'd hesitate to recommend anyone else do something similar. You just have to be the right kind of obsessive/focused. It takes a lot of time, not just in development, but actual day to day use of the tool.

Trying a new med (Risperidone .25mg) to help me sleep because the other med (Lamotrigine 50mg)is making me wake up after 5 hours of sleep. Trying Lamotrigine because Prozac was making my moods really erratic, swinging from "I feel ok!!!" to "I'm such a fuckup *SOB*" to rage rage rage. Weaning off of the Prozac and I'm almost done with it, thank goodness.

But, the risperidone knocks me out at bedtime and I still wake up after around 5 hours, but a little more fuzzy headed or groggy now. If I have time to nap during the day, it's not the worst. But half the time I don't. Today I was exhausted and had to power through it so I crashed at 9pm and here I am, up at midnight. So I'm going to write out all my shit to help me make sense of it. Feel free to skip all of this, sorry it's so much.

After moving from Texas to Georgia I saw a therapist to help me adjust to the move and deal with emotional problems I was having. I was not diagnosed with anything and this felt like normal stress and sadness from a big life change, as well as helping me cope after I stopped drinking and smoking marijuana. Ever since the start of covid, I felt like my brain was stuck in EMERGENCY mode, even about trivial things. After less than a year we both agreed that I had shown marked improvement and I stopped seeing her.

Last election day, Nov. 5th, 2024, I was involved in a wreck that totaled my vehicle and the other vehicle involved happened to be driven by someone I knew. No one was hurt but her vehicle was damaged heavily and the wreck was my fault. This freaked me out really bad and driving scared me for a while. The results of the election also freaked me out very badly and I basically lost faith in myself because of the wreck and I lost faith in everyone else because of the election. I slipped into a depression and I was crying at the dinner table and beyond sad. I was also snapping at the kids a lot. At some point around here I began smoking marijuana again to help me relax. I started seeing my therapist again and it wasn’t enough and I eventually sought out the help of a psychiatrist. In my town there aren't many options, and the primary one is a doddering pill pusher. So I started seeing a recommended psychiatric nurse practitioner (PNP).

After assessing me she recommended Prozac. We started at 10mg and over time it definitely helped and then I started slipping down again. We upped it to 20mg and I remember the first day we upped it my hands were tingling and I felt very up, as if I had taken MDMA but it had not really kicked in yet. After a day this tingly up sensation went away and the Prozac was helping with my depression again.

On May 24th I had a long weekend to myself and I took MDMA. Throughout the weekend I smoked a lot of marijuana and continued to take my Prozac. It was a moderate MDMA trip and it felt good and apart from that it wasn’t really notable. I was tired for a few days afterwards and grumpy on the 4th or 5th day but after that I felt good. A Normal kind of good. At this point I started smoking marijuana more often but not a crazy amount because I hide it from two kids.

At the end of July and throughout August and into September I felt unusually good. At first I attributed this to the Prozac. Time starts to blur a little bit here, but at some point in August I started feeling really, REALLY good and hypersexual. There was a period of 4/5 days where my sex drive was off the charts and I felt highly charged, electric and fast. Very focused and euphoric. Sex became a series of projects involving minute attention to details. It wasn't just sexual, but I had a lot of energy and that seemed to be my outlet for it.

I had lot of energy in general, it felt like my engine was constantly revving during this 4/5 days. My wife definitely noticed this and suggested that I bring it up with PNP. I am considering this a hypomanic episode. By the time it started to taper off it was almost a relief. At this point I started wondering what was going on because it was obviously abnormal but I was scared to address it because I did not want it to stop. It felt like the best version of me and when talking with the psychiatrist in early September I was reticent to fully discuss all of this because I was afraid that it would somehow be taken away from me. By that point I was down from the peak but still feeling good. During this entire period I was smoking a lot of marijuana. The faster my brain was moving, the more I was smoking. There were also edibles, and I was at least a little stoned all the time.

During this time I was also texting a lot with a new acquaintance. Looking back at those texts, I can see that at the same time I was feeling abnormally good I was texting her a LOT. At the time I had no concept of this, but I was oversharing and seemingly blogging my life to this person that I didn’t really know that well. No boundaries were crossed but it was socially awkward after the episode faded. I apologized and she admitted that she could not keep up with my texts. I was embarrassed by this and deleted our conversation and felt so awkward I would avoid driving by her house which is on my way to my kids school.

Since then I moved down to feeling normal for a while and then I kept moving downwards. The house was a mess and I was not taking care of myself. The weekend of October 25th I was very upset with my family and felt like my daughter and wife were working against me. I was getting very aggressive at situations that would not normally set me off. After this I became extremely depressed and was crying a lot and wanting to sleep all of the time. On Oct. 30th the psych doubled my dose of Prozac to 40 mg. The first day my dose was doubled my fingers were tingling and I felt energized but in a negative way. On Halloween I was miserable and on Nov. 1st I had a panic attack at a swim meet for my younger daughter. On the days where I doubled my dose of Prozac I felt as though my mood was being yanked back and forth and it was exhausting. Happy, tired, sad, okay, happy, nervous, sad, exhausted, like a rollercoaster.

Now I'm almost off of the Prozac and my mood feels more stable. The lamotrigine seems to be helping to stabilize my mood and I've totally stopped marijuana, which pisses me off but I understand it is necessary. Once the weed was more or less out of my system I realized that coffee was turning me into a snapping asshole at night so I stopped that, drinking only a cup of green tea in the mornings.

PNP consulted with the supervising Psychiatrist and they are still skeptical that I had a hypomanic episode because of my age (48) and because drugs were involved, even though there were about 2.5 months between the MDMA and the episode. But they did move me away from a diagnosis of depression/anxiety to the larger category of mood disorders. I'm less hung-up on the diagnosis now, I believe I'm bipolar 2 and unless they can tell me I'm something else, that's what I'm going with. I told the PNP regarding her not believing I had a hypomanic episode: "I feel like I had my first orgasm after reading about one for years, and you are sitting across from me with a clipboard telling me no, that was not an orgasm. And that's frustrating."

I have considered ditching her for a recommended psychiatrist who has dealt with a lot of bipolar patients, but if I look at what my PNP has been doing it's more or less by the book. She has me go in for lots of testing to rule out physical brain issues/tumors. She's following protocol and I know that she probably has people approaching her all the time with wack self-diagnosis.

My sex drive is now nonexistent and I'm getting 5 hours of sleep a night. I hate this so much and yet it does make me feel incredibly lucky in a way. I'm very privileged and when I see a homeless person who seems mentally unwell shouting in the streets there's a strong sense of "there but for the grace of god go I." My wife and kids have been understanding and I've reached out to friends with similar disorders and they've been supportive. After living in this town for over three years I have just begun to make a friend but it's really slow going and frustrating.

I keep thinking of the Springsteen lyric, "God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of." Before all of this my sense of self felt concrete and now it's like a rushing river.

Maybe I'm starting to feel sleepy, going to lie down again. Thanks for listening, ILX.

Also, when I wake up in the middle of the night I *always* have Sabrina Carpenter running through my head. Could be worse, I guess.

that’s that you riverrush-o

cow_art that all sounds rough

At least I like Sabrina Carpenter!

I hope you gradually level out into a balance you can enjoy, it sounds like an absolute ordeal getting there, though.

in the past week I've (hopefully) had a breakthrough in a major underlying issue that had been eating away at me for a few years

as im experiencing the euphoria and relief of that, which is now washing through and settling down into what i hope is the start of a new level moodwise (both ways- a new level of mood, being level being new) ive started to notice the effects of the medication ive been on anew, which in one way makes sense i guess.

i have a year's check in with the psych in feb, early days yet but im hoping to have had two good, steady months to that point to assess whether a run of stability (which i have fair hope should be achievable now) impacts the part of things that are ADHD/med related

some of the things cow_art says above i do recognize - sex drive has been all over the place (as distinct from the sex itself, when a feature, which remains geographically fairly consistent) and ive definitely had periods of high mood/low boundaries that i can look back on.

i have a few conversations at work next week that im hopeful will further drive home progress in establishing better baselines of stress and self-regulation.

2025 started in the haze of spiralling badly between an absolutely stinking pair of unrelated ongoing issues and if i can have handled a way out of that place, culminating in even being in a position where conversations and steps ive prompted seem possible let alone all positive, ill look back on diagnosis and medication this year amidst the lows and the pressures as an extraordinarily significant moment and feel very lucky in how straightforward that part of the journey has gone

Not gonna use this open forum to talk about my own shit - but I AM doing better than I ever have in my life, and I wish all of you folks the best in getting titrated up with the right good drugs and adapting to the lifestyle patterns necessary for continuous health and growth into the best people you can become

picked up my starter-dose meds today. I guess I’ll find out pretty soon.

PNP consulted with the supervising Psychiatrist and they are still skeptical that I had a hypomanic episode because of my age (48)

As in that’s supposed to be rare? Idk maybe it’s different for girls? … but it makes me wonder about whether you have some major seasonal issues… like I know I generally have hypomanic type stuff in the summer/early fall, and then when it gets darker and colder, I just want to isolate and sleep.

It’s not rare is the thing. Uncommon, but not rare. 10% of bipolar people have their first episode over 50. She also says that it doesn’t fit diagnostically because of the drug element, but that seems wack because the MDMA was two months before. And as far as weed goes, lots of bipolar people are stoners. I wasn’t having weed psychosis for a month with a four day hypomanic phase.

Oh well. I’ve decided that I know what I am and until my PNP can diagnose me as something else, I’m bipolar 2. As long as she’s giving me the appropriate meds she can call me whatever she wants.

Pretty sure I have mild autism along with adhd, the latter of which I’ve been diagnosed with. Not sure what to do with this or if this insight will help me.

<3

the adhd diagnosis is something that is new to me, too. i'm still grappling with it.

I’ve had the adhd diagnosis for a while. But increasingly certain traits i never thought much of like introversion, craving routine, an overly analytical approach to conversations, have caused problems in my life and relationships. And these aren’t really adhd traits these are “quirks” i’ve had forever but didn’t see as disordered.

I’ve had the adhd diagnosis for a while. But increasingly certain traits i never thought much of like introversion, craving routine, an overly analytical approach to conversations, have caused problems in my life and relationships. And these aren’t really adhd traits these are “quirks” i’ve had forever but didn’t see as disordered.

I’ve had the adhd diagnosis for a while. But increasingly certain traits i never thought much of like introversion, craving routine, an overly analytical approach to conversations, have caused problems in my life and relationships. And these aren’t really adhd traits these are “quirks” i’ve had forever but didn’t see as disordered.

Sorry zing double post

this mf has adhd so bad he can’t count to three

Not sure what to do with this or if this insight will help me.

for me it was a pretty major discovery tbh, like a moment of satori. loads of stuff from my past started to make much more sense to me, it was a real revelation. theres a lot of helpful youtube content and reading material out there that helped me to understand myself a whole lot better, and though that whole journey had a lot of ups and downs, i think i've ended up being a bit kinder to myself, more forgiving of my fuck-ups and weaknesses, and more able to make better decisions going forwards. also over the last year, i've really been battling with autistic burnout and i confess i have totally been a giant shitbag of a person to live with, so i've had a lot more understanding of what was going on there. something was definitely so wrong - zero energy, my whole nervous system felt shredded, like it was made of bare cable ends, fizzing and sparking away. absolutely no patience for anything and i just felt like crying all the time, everything was so overwhelming. there were days when i could hardly speak. i think i wouldve put all this down to depression in the past, but viewed through the lens of autism and reading about other people's experiences was so important. it's not been easy for the people around me, but at least i've been able to explain to them what's going on and what i'm doing to get better. so yeah, hugely useful for me.

well not sure what to say about this but it's some form of recognition, acceptance and visibility.. also just good to see open DEI policies still in action

Mattel adds an autistic Barbie to doll line devoted to showcasing diversity and inclusion
https://apnews.com/article/autistic-barbie-doll-9c33f493a04c4f52bb8d08026b6f5f53

After many many years thinking I’m probably neurodiverse in some way and a year of deciding the dopamine hit wasn’t big enough to fill in the forms my GP gave me for Autism and ADHD I finally found the time (took 5 minutes) to fill them out a month ago and I’m now on the waiting list with Psychiatry UK to get a proper diagnosis for both of them.

congrats! that's a big step forward

Today is the first day of an increase in meds, it doesn’t feel different to the starter dose thus far. I suppose if I didn’t have the supposed condition, I would be reacting more strongly to a lump of stimulants.

Good luck chewshabadoo but i'm pretty sure i caught it off you in the first place :)

ok that's obviously a dumb joke, but it is nuts when you start thinking about your friends past and present through the lense of neurodivergence and seriously 99% of the people i've felt an affinity with are almost certainly autistic or ADHD or both. honestly that should be a huge part of the assessment when they ask you about social differences. it's the seemingly neurotypical ones that have stuck around who are the biggest enigma to me tbh

Haha. Yeah I feel absolutely the same these days - I start to wonder as well how many neurotypical-presenting people I am good friends with may also just be incredibly good at masking.

my partner recently went though the assessment and diagnosis process and I genuinely felt like they could have offered a 2-4-1 deal on our attendance by the end of it

Hard relate to a lot of this.

I've never seriously considered a diagnosis myself. But taking my fiancee home at Christmas, I realised a strong need to prep her a little before we met my friends at the pub, as a good chunk of them could be described as shy, quirky, or a bit on the awkward side.

These were best friends I'd grown up with - one or two who'd had official diagnoses at some point, but many - only in hindsight - are clearly neurodiverse. But it's because we were a kind of "clan" who hung out together and were generally accepting and supportive of each other's quirks these didn't feel so obvious. There was also much less information about neurodiversity in the 90s and 2000s than there is now.

Put it this way, at school our little clade got jokingly referred to by the other kids as "the Mental Gang", a badge we took on with pride.

Another pal from home came to visit me a little while ago and told me his daughter had been diagnosed with autism, and that he hadn't realised it can be hereditary. This led us to thinking about our friendship group growing up and exactly who definitely WASN'T likely to be neurodiverse out of everyone. Spoiler: Not many.

I have wondered for a very long time whether my life would change if I were to get a diagnosis. Either way it turned out, I'm sure it would answer some questions.

There is so much I relate to when I hear about the autistic "experience", so to speak. A major one was trying extremely hard to fit in, to appear as "normal" as possible and dying of embarrassment if I felt like I'd let the pretense slip somehow.

I'd had to teach myself how to socialise, so that by my mid-to-late 20s I'd become incredibly good at it - even found myself enjoying it, like a sort-of game.

Still, despite my best efforts I have always been labeled, lovingly I should say, as a "space cadet". I still don't feel too comfortable in situations like work offices where I'm expected to be "normal" for 7 hours a day. The pivot to WFH was one of the biggest godsends for me. I can put my face on for a Teams call, then go back to being myself.

Of course, to me, this all seems very normal and I assumed for a very very long time that this is a universal experience. It's only recently that I learned it might not be. So who knows.

I can certainly identify with a lot of the things you’ve said there. The only thing I’d add is that diagnosis is not necessarily a resolution. I found the diagnostic process quite weird and casual, and the combination of self-report and the feeling of “surely most people react/feel/behave this way” for lots of the items left me pretty sceptical. I’m told I was a very obvious diagnosis but it’s left me thinking, I don’t know anything new about myself except that a term I’ve heard used ad nauseam can also be applied to me. I’m still lacking in some key areas and I guess I’ll wait to see if medication will alter that. I’m not all that optimistic it will.

<3 dog latin