Burnt Out
Burnt Out
Like the title says, I am burned out.
Im a 45 year old American male and I don’t even know if I have a formal diagnosis yet. I am currently working with my primary care provider and am seeing a therapist that claims she is a specialist in adult ADHD and it has been months.
I remember as a youngster that my mom took me to the doc for hyperactivity somewhere around 2nd or 3rd grade. Somewhere around 1985 or 1986. That doc said I had ADD but it was probably cause by a sensitivity to “red food dye”. “Don’t let him eat red food and he will be fine”.
It wasn’t fine.
A few years back i was diagnosed with GAD and Depression and was given medication for those which helped me for a short time with depression stuff but didn’t do anything for the root of the problem.
I moved across the country and started working with my current doc and he prescribed Wellbutrin for my depression and said it’s also prescribed for ADHD. It wasn’t doing anything for the depression and I’ve since stopped all meds and now am working with this therapist.
Therapy is going well enough dealing with trauma and those things. But we aren’t doing anything with my ADHD which is my biggest problem.
I can’t focus at work. Executive function is gone and has been for a long time. Every day for like over 2 years is complete task paralysis.
My wife and I use this analogy about spoons to discuss mental capacity for life. Everybody has a certain amount of spoons in their drawer. Tasks and thoughts use up spoons throughout the day. Once the drawer is empty, there’s no more to give until you was some dishes and replenish (nap or a nights sleep or something).
Well I’m out of fuckin spoons and every time I check the drawer there are fewer and fewer spoons to work with.
I really hope there is a path to something resembling “better” because I do t know how much more of this I can take”.
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Hey, You’re in a tough spot and I know how hard it can be. I’m sure people have recommended everything under the sun to you and sometimes doing the work to accommodate ADHD feels like more work than just suffering the consequences. Especially as an adult. I love the Spoon Theory and I’m glad you have that as an analogy. I’m going to recommend a few things here, assuming that you don’t have a lot of clinical knowledge about ADHD.
Sleep and exercise are a must. Exercise can (temporarily) improve processing speed which is relatively low in many people with ADHD. You don’t have to be a mega athlete, but a routine of exercise that gets your heart rate up each day can and usually does help. Outside of stimulant medications, exercise and sleep are the two biggest things you can do for ADHD. Read / Audiobook
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
The meds you listed do not help with ADHD directly, but maybe some of the downstream emotional effects. Ask directly about stimulants, they can be a game changer for some, but you will need to be careful with sleep and appetite.
The recommendation to avoid food dyes and additives was huge in the 80s, recent research suggests only 1/3 of people with ADHD benefit from disarray changes. Read / Audiobook: Getting Ahead of ADHD: What Next Generation Science…” by Joel Nigg ^ Can be a bit dull but clearly explains research and evidence as well as examining what treatments are supported by science and to what extent. Use more as a reference than cover to cover.
For the love of all that is distracted, learn about ADHD for real from good sources! I’d start with ADHD 2.0, an update from Hallowell and Ratey, two psychiatrists who have ADHD and are big names in ADHD research. Some interesting suggestions about cerebellum involvement in ADHD and movement / balance therapies still under study.
As a personal tip, try not to get angry or down on yourself with the ADHD instances as much as possible. Forget your wallet in the house? You have to go back anyway, you can go back chuckling at yourself or furious, but you still have to go back. I’f you are angry or otherwise activated then you’re taking up mental resources, making it more likely that you’ll grab your wallet, but leave your sunglasses on the table.
Also look up Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Essentially a culmination of micro frustrations by peers and authority figures over the course of your childhood results in something like 20000 instances before age 12. That can lead to social sensitivity, overreacting to social stress, and a sense that people might be about to leave you / social self-doubt.
Also, if you have access and the money for it, go to a qualified psychologist and get a good psychological evaluation. Knowing your cognitive profile (relative strengths and weaknesses in cognitive functioning) as well as your memory abilities (visual often weaker in ADHD) can really help you assess how difficult various tasks will be for you and you can cope accordingly.
I hope this helps.
Thanks for the recommendations. I don’t really read much anymore. Something I used to love that I can’t even force myself to do.
I looked up that RSD and holy shit that hits home!
Audiobooks have been a massive help to me, both for the information and often the distraction. Thing is, a lot ADHD people — from what I’ve experienced and other ADHD people I’ve talked to — don’t listen to books the way neurotypical people do either. In this case, it actually works in our favor.
When I listen to a book at a normal speed there’s just too much time between the words and ideas and my brain checks out with a million distracting thoughts. If I want to listen to a book and actually get some level of comprehension, I have to be playing it at 2.5–3x speed (depending on the narrator and subject matter). Doing that provides enough stimulation to keep me engaged in what I’m listening to.
It does take practice though, you have to start slow, 1.5 –2x speed and increment upward, people who hear something I’m listening to and say it doesn’t even sound like English. It also took some time to really adapt to paying attention, the first ten books or so I listened to two or three times back to back just to get it all but by the end of that I was good with most material. Drier informational non-fiction can sometimes still require a second listen but not usually.
Completely aside from that, having something I can flip on to keep my brain engaged when doing boring tasks like driving and cleaning also helps me keep up my motivation and minimize procrastination.
Your library probably has audiobooks through Libby or another app, I think it’s worth a try and others have told me the same thing. Try alternating some of the books mentioned above with fiction or something else that really interests you.
I can’t sit down and read anymore either, but I found that audiobooks work well. I can take a walk, do the dishes, clean, laundry, commute, etc. while also being more entertained. I also listen to books with a sleep timer when I go to bed. That lets me distract my mind while I fall asleep and has been a huge help for falling asleep faster.
If you manage to find a way to make reading tolerable, start with ADHD 2.0. It’s worth it.