It's actually the normies who can't even do laundry without a little neurotransmitter bottle from mommy frontal cortex. We fight demons every day.

First test: 5 mg (~ 15% of 30 mg) at 8:30 am.

It kicked in really hard, like a thick line of quality speed. It didn't feel like something that a doctor would prescribe. Got a lot done, then hard crash at 12:30, lying down and dozing off for 20 minutes. The mental effect was at least as good as it was with Modafinil: I tackled the most urgent todo without mental effort and little chores just "happened". But with a high like from recreational drugs.

Maybe what contributed was that I did a quick, but intense workout.

So it was perfect - a very safe dose, yet also the productivity boost I needed for the day. 10 mg might also have been fine, but taking the entire 30 mg (or even 20) would have been a mistake. Certainly no risk to not feel anything.

I wonder if I should take another 2.5 mg for the afternoon, or just use tea and coffee as usual.

This strange effect regarding intensity and duration was no surprise - I observed that with other medication and drugs before, the doctor understood it and took it into account, thus the individualised instructions.

I don't know why he does what he does, but he said that I should find the ideal dose, which often is between two capsule sizes. He encouraged me to take any dose lower than 30 mg for the first month, and after he sees me again to fine tune it by dissolving in water.

I dissolved it in some water in a protein shaker with marks, so I can take exact 3 mg doses (10 % steps).

Only thing I don't like about this is that children are in the house, and there should not be deadly poison water standing around anywhere. The capsules are in a lockbox.

When that happens, I do manage to finish the sentence by appending grammatically correct tokens, like an LLM, though

Thanks! I'll play it safe and would rather start with 5 than 10 mg.

Not sure if related, but I have absolutely no problem getting things in the household done when I'm voicechatting with a friend. Odd as it is, videos that don't require watching while listening (e. g. youtubers that just talk into the camera) also work, but podcasts don't (must be mental).

When I can't get my "fix", no friends with time online and no interesting video of that type, I end up searching for it so long that I get too little sleep, rather than just do the 15 minutes work without.

I think it should work exactly like the fire department. Entirely tax funded, no hassle. A hospital is, in my eyes, more similar to a fire department or a police station than it is to a super market, and that's how it should work.

But it only works well all-in. A strange system of compromises forged between parties with entirely opposing views over 50 years is terrible.

Most recent example: Started freelancing in July again, got to pay nearly 1k per month. First money received is EUR 4400 end of September.

I tried the alternative route last time, and it's no fun: Write in certified mail that I make less and need a lower rate, they'll ignore it, say they didn't get anything, I'm not insured any more. Go to a lawyer with the proof of certified mail, win, get the lower rate and they have to pay back medical bills, EUR 500 lawyer costs though. Have to pay back 1k per month anyway if it turns out I make enough in the last few months of the year, so it was all for nothing.

I will never understand how the land of fast food and unnecessarily pre-packed products fills pill bottles by hand in the pharmacy. Like, milk I would understand; I lived near a farm, and we would go over with huge milk cans and have them filled there by the farmer. But that same concept seems strange to me for a pharmacy. Like, even our weed and coke dealers have pre-packed little plastic bags, you don't like bring your joint papers and have them individually filled.

Also, this seems like a really complicated process that causes lots of problems. Isn't it pretty much likely that even in your best state of mind, you'd fill about 1 out of 200 wrong, and about 10 % of those mean near certain death for the patient? So weird.

It's nice that US still ALLOWS to not be insured. In Germany, it's mandatory, it's nearly EUR 1,000 if you don't provide proof that you can't afford that (and they accept the proof), and if you dodge them and they catch you later, you have to backpay for the uninsured time.

So in contrast, we go a little broke always, but we don't go more broke when we get sick.

The method-method: Keep reading about, applying and stacking methods, finding out which ones work for you.

Be meticulous about them, e. g.:

• Can't interrupt a pomodoro session, not even to pee. If it does get interrupted, e. g. a look on the phone screen when it makes a sound, the session is aborted and marked a fail.
• Work strictly by todo list. When something is done but wasn't on the list to check off, it doesn't count as done. Instead of guilt mode immediately, do ONE item from the list and then procrastinate. When there is no list, start the list and then do your procrastination.
• Guilt-free procrastination: Set a time when you stop. E. g.: I keep doomscrolling until 1:10, and then do the thing. Nice thing is that this is now "legal doomscrolling", shorter, but guilt-free.
• Get started. Instead of 0 pushups, do 1 pushup. Instead of no meditation, get into the position and take three deep breaths, done.

Tbh, with all that, I still do only a fraction of what I should. But at least something gets done. Becoming just 70 % ineffective, like you, is my current goal :-) But maybe it helps you progress from where you are anyway.

Thanks, noted! Currently helping myself with Modafinil with pretty good results, but too many side effects. Doc seems to be very fixated on Methylphenidate, so we'll see if they are even open to trying something else. In standardised tests, I maxed out the ADD scale, but missed criteria for hyperactivity by a little, if I understood correctly. Same with childhood ADD; they said they can't tell for sure when it started after so much time has passed.

Problem is that the approach "MUST do NOW, until it is DONE!" doesn't work for many of us. I developed methods for myself, which I try to apply to my own child now, like: "When you get home from school, lay out everything you need to work, then relax. At time X, do 15 minutes on a timer, as far as you get."

He still moans and groans about it, and it's hard for me to tell if my "soft push" feels to him like the "hard push" I got. It's all relative, and nobody else can tell.

Exact same story down to every detail. Both parents teachers, but no clue. The weirdest conclusions and theories about me. Like: Far below average intelligence, but with a talent for languages and mathematics (is that even a thing?), which got me through school with effortless Cs. Most of the time I (and probably others) thought I was just a general shithead.

I realised what it was 4 years ago and told a psychiatrist, who did not disagree, but was like: woa, hold your horses. Got a referral to a full neurological & psychiatric check-up from my GP, who wrote on the referral that he suspects ADD without hyperactivity, 1 1/2 years ago. Couldn't use it, because they are overrun by more urgent cases.

Started paying out of pocked to a private clinic 6 months ago and got the official, written diagnosis 1 month ago (exactly what my GP already suspected). Since then, lots of delays to get treatment. No appointments, then appointment available, but latest bloodwork and ECG expired etc. Had one appointment last week cancelled 2 hours before start.

Honestly, with a medical system so overrun, a GP should just be authorised to do the diagnostic if supported by purely computer evaluated multiple choice test. The standardized tests appear to be the foundation anyway, and the many hours of additional psychiatric evaluation are just something that the medical system can't support.

And yes, now my child. He is a true math genius who could do 2 or 3 classes above his own, but he hates books (only since school, not before!) and his reading & writing is just a hateful, effortless B. In two languages equally well, though. I suspect something is up there, but don't want to project. I never had problems understanding math, but was certainly not ahead of the class. Loved books though, perfect spelling.

Let's hope things work out for us and our children!

It happens, even with popular kids. A friend from daycare invited many people for her 5th, but due to bad timing with vacation, nobody showed up. Nobody. Her 6th was fine, as about 8 out of 14 came.

My son invited 5 for his 5th, but due to some misfortune with sickness etc., only two siblings came. It turned out to be one of his best birthdays ever.

Best to ask for a commitment, a clear yes or no. But in your case, 5 is a good number for a party! 1 or 0 would have been kind of awkward.

The biggest issue was that when I was in a phase where I pursued something worthwhile, such as a science project, electronics, programming, they stopped me and said I obsessed too much over it, took it away, said I needed to focus more on something else. Which then did not stick, as it was forced, of course.

That's exactly the kind of obsession that leads to success, though, and it took me years to recover after moving out. Wish I had those skills I wanted to get in all those areas, but I had to focus on one thing at that point, as the end of my 20s was approaching.

Also when they forced me to do something like "clean your room, immediately, until it is done". With the tools at hand now, I know that I have to talk to myself like "in 20 minutes, set a 15 minute timer and get as much done as you can" or "pick one aspect (garbage, floor, desk) and do that immediately". Or with homework: I know now that one tool I needed was to set everything up at the desk ready to start to get over that first step. An order like "all homework needs to be done immediately to perfection" does not work.

With my own child, the problem is that I don't know who he really is down to the core. Is "10 minutes of cleaning on a stopwatch before dinner" just the right push, or too much sometimes, or too little?

I think a little push is right, to yourself and to your children, but it needs to be a "relative push", depending on the person, the day etc. Some days, just staying in bed and crying is already the best you can do. At our best, we might be capable of doing 10 hours focussed tasks and just need a little "come on, do it". Which of those is it? That's the question. I find that meditation helps best to get a feeling for that. Sometimes, I just need a nap and didn't realise, and that's why it felt like the world is ending.

Absolutely, I could still have done what @Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone said in time, but I made this meme instead.

Store-bought packed cake it is, then. Some cake decoration & food pens.

Also annoying though are people who think they "get it", stop listening and be interruptive after a few words, and totally miss the crucial part that comes later.

Other neurodivergent people are hard to hang out with, except for sharing our grievances in memes :-)

I made it work. When I'm called out, I go like: "Actually, there is a crucial aspect about point X (10 minutes ago) that we just skipped: ..." and it makes me seem thoughtful and thorough.

Oh yes. Quite enabling that where I live, the last opportunity is basically Thursday 4 pm, next opportunity Monday morning, but then the line is usually busy.