“The side-effects will diminish, as long as you take it on a regular schedule every day,” he reassured me. I brought up the downsides: insomnia, rapid heartbeat. “Sounds great,” said my psychiatrist on our first check-in call. I felt like I was peacefully moving through the world, doing one thing at a time, able to focus on what was important rather than trivial tasks. The sense of frustration and impatience just dried up. My hypersensitivity to light, noise and sensation faded away: clothes labels no longer bothered me to distraction. I even slept better, because I no longer needed to drink coffee.
Because I had to take my pills with food, and they wore off every four hours, I began eating meals at regular times. During the early weeks, it seemed to fix … everything. The psychiatrist started me on Ritalin at first. And even before Covid, prescriptions of stimulants for ADHD had soared: a record 161,584 adults were given medication in 2021, an increase of more than 50% from 2015. Psychiatry-UK, a private company contracted by the NHS, recorded a quadrupling of referrals between 20 compared with the two previous years. I wasn’t alone: referrals for adult ADHD assessment skyrocketed during the pandemic. In 2014, when a therapist first suggested I might have ADHD, I wrote to a friend: “I’m upset and angry to think that someone who just has energy and the will to move is labelled as sick.” But every word of the article had resonated. I used to be sceptical of ADHD as a diagnosable disorder, as well as the idea of doling out stimulants to supposed sufferers. It was while I was languishing in yet another burnout in late 2020 that a friend sent me an article about women with ADHD eluding diagnosis until late in life. But even on a four-day work week as a researcher, I ended up running myself into the ground again. After a stint in Japan, I moved to the Netherlands in 2015, hoping for a quieter life. My career in journalism and research has been characterised by the same boom-and-bust cycle: I get a job, throw myself into it, and then burn out so badly I can’t work for months. I still oscillated between being manic, sleepless and obsessive or catatonic, blinded by brain fog and exhausted, physically and mentally. It didn’t matter how many habits I tried to build, or “hacks” I adopted. I even slept betterĬertain requirements for being an active member of society – and an employee – eluded me: a regular sleep rhythm, for one, as well as consistency and an ability to conserve energy for big events or tasks. I had to take my pills with food, so I began eating regular meals. At first, Ritalin seemed to fix … everything. Even when sick, I feel like I’m being driven by a piston engine, pushing me to move even though my muscles are worn out and my mind is begging for peace.
BEST WAYS TO STAY AWAKE STUDYING REDDIT TORRENT
With a brain like mine, you’re always “on”: a torrent of thoughts and sensations come in like spray from a fire hydrant, and you’re left desperately trying to stem the flow. After frantic waitressing shifts and studying benders, I drank to get to sleep. I set myself unrealistic goals and took on too much: training for a half-marathon, two part-time jobs, a rule that I couldn’t eat anything I hadn’t cooked myself. I couldn’t sit still and study unless I was physically exhausted. Without the structure of regular mealtimes and bedtimes, my rhythms became erratic. I drove myself regularly to exhaustion as a teenager, but it was only once I left home to go to university in London that things really began to fall apart. I was socially adept and academically successful – gifted, even. In the UK in the 90s, it was cast as a disorder of naughty boys who struggled at school. Still, the idea that I might have ADHD never came up. “You were cute and charming – but very annoying,” my mother recalls.
My parents nicknamed me Tigger, after the perpetually bouncy Winnie-the-Pooh character. Even before I could walk, I was constantly wriggling, fidgeting, climbing things. The first night I slept in a bed rather than a cot, I rolled on to the floor nine times.
Had I always felt this foggy before the drugs? Or was it the drugs? When I decided to quit, I was mired in lethargy and mental confusion that lingered far longer than the supposed “withdrawal” window. I had constant migraine-like headaches, and was anxious and impatient. But after a year on stimulants, things began to unravel.
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