Whew, it’s been a really rough few months and I just simply haven’t had the energy to put towards my own interests. Things are starting to sort themselves out though, and I wanted to give everyone an update on what’s going on.
I’ve been seeing a therapist for around 3 years now. It’s probably the longest I’ve seen any healthcare professional and the time we’ve spent together has been invaluable. The funny thing about mental healthcare though, is that it’s often more than just “mental”. From mood disorders to neurological disorders to personality disorders (and beyond), there’s so much happening in our brains and environments that it’s often difficult to get an accurate diagnosis on the first try. Many of us go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed our entire lives.
When I went to my therapist, I had an initial suggestion from my psychiatrist (former now) that I had anxiety, depression, and complex PTSD. She didn’t want to give an official diagnosis on the CPTSD for a number of reasons, and we ultimately agreed (with my therapist) that most likely wasn’t fully what was going on. I was on some medications at the time and they weren’t really doing much, so we worked off of them, I stopped seeing a psychiatrist, and just kept up with my therapist.
Earlier this year I realized I had more than just depression and anxiety going on – something else was causing me to struggle with reading and writing, I was extremely irritable from certain sounds and certain light disruptions (TikTok made me realize I struggle with that, haha), and I have a hard time doing certain tasks for work the way most people would do. I felt like a lot of these symptoms perhaps put me on the spectrum, so I brought them up with my therapist a couple of months ago.
She was immediately like “oh Miranda, that sounds like ADHD and if I had known we’d have done this testing sooner.” 🤕 She had me answer some questions in our session and told me to get in touch with my former psych’s office to have the test done. It took a couple of weeks to get that sorted out (the mental healthcare system is absolutely not designed for people who have mental health problems, but I will talk on that later) but I was able to get a virtual appointment and a test ahead of time to do online.
The testing was an interesting experience – you basically do a few “brain” puzzles, maybe 5 or 6 of them? Each test gives you some measure of 3 failed attempts before it moves you on to the next time, or up to 2 minutes to see how high you score. Examples of the tests include 1 where the screen displays a configuration of circles, maybe 3 to start with. It will briefly display the numbers 1-3 in each circle, you memorize that, and then click the correct order after the numbers disappear. Each time you get 1 right, it adds a circle to the next configuration, and if you get 1 wrong, it goes down 1 circle and you lose 1 of your 3 tries. Another test would display a true or false type statement that you had to answer correctly but the options would be written in such a way that they were intentionally confusing. I was semi-confident on the first 3-4 tests, the last 2 made me want to scream.
Anyway, I scored in the lower 50th percentile (probably didn’t phrase that correctly, but my scores sucked) so combined with that, the discussion I had with my new psychiatrist, and my therapist recommendations, we determined that ADHD was the root diagnosis and the anxiety/depression largely stem from that, which is why so many of the medications I’ve been trying over the years (antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, anxiolytics, etc.) haven’t worked or had significantly negative side effects.
I started taking stimulants in the morning on the first day of September, and a couple of weeks later we added a non-stimulant blood pressure medication that has an off-label use for ADHD. We slightly increased the dose of the stimulant at the beginning of October, and for the last few weeks I have been trying to only take them during the weekdays. Unfortunately, when I don’t take them on the weekends, I end up spiraling and spend the entire weekend alternating between sobbing myself to sleep and sobbing to music (I also perhaps have instigated several fights with my guy and am truly grateful he’s a fucking saint when it comes to dealing with silly outbursts).
I saw my psychiatrist again today (we’ve been doing biweekly check-ins since I started seeing her, this time we get to push it out to 3 weeks!!) and explained what was going on there. She said skipping the weekend is great if we feel like I have a tolerance issue but since we’re still at a relatively low dose and I’m absolutely not able to handle the emotional aspect of being without it (this is not a withdrawal thing, I’m just feeling exactly what I was feeling before I started the meds), there’s no reason for me to suffer – this is supposed to make me feel better!
I also sometimes struggle with irritability mid-afternoon and she suggested that I take the blood pressure medicine earlier in the day since it helps with calming me down. She said if I feel like I’m crashing, we still have room to increase the dose, but I’m trying to avoid that until I need to simply because I don’t want it to interfere with my sleep.
SO – with all of that said, you might be wondering how I’m actually feeling now, huh?
I’m okay. I was really struggling with my abstract thinking for a while and that was adding an enormous amount of anxiety and depression to my life. I’m able to put my creative skills back to work, albeit I’m still figuring out the best strategies for organizing my work and time so I work more slowly than I would like. Even though I’m not really a morning person, I need to take the stimulant early to keep my sleep schedule balanced and that means I’m more productive in the mornings with respect to creativity and getting things done in one go. Good days mean I start working by 7:30!
I start getting restless in the early afternoon which often leads to a cranky meltdown if I don’t stop and do something else. Since the weather is cooling off, I might start taking that time to rollerskate through my apartment complex, otherwise I take care of chores around the house. I had some sleep issues in the first few weeks but those are mostly sorted now. My psychiatrist suggested adding omega-3s with DHA to my daily vitamin routine and recommended something called Suntheanine, which is supposed to help with anxiety. I’ve been a little inconsistent with my vitamins so I added reminders on my phone. 😏
Aside from the productivity aspects of the stimulant, I am definitely more emotionally stable than I was without it. I have emotional regulation back, which I was struggling with for a couple of months leading up to the appointment. Where I thought I was a messy person for years, I was actually just lacking executive function and would end up with decision paralysis for something as simple as taking a cup to the sink. I am able to more easily recognize where I have breakdowns in understanding so I can figure out ways to work around that. It’s a process and it will take me a few months to really feel confident in the tools I have at my disposal.
More than all of that though, I have a sense of relief. The symptoms for ADHD started presenting themselves when I was in kindergarten and it took 30 years to get a diagnosis. That 30 years was hell, but I’ll talk more on all that later in a video, I think. The feeling of FINALLY knowing that you weren’t “crazy” or making things up in your head about your experiences is so validating. Being able to finally experience and appreciate life without feeling like you’re in a constant brain fog is EXHILARATING. I cannot emphasize enough how much my life has changed in a matter of 2 months.
Anyway, I do plan to start writing again and will be updating this more frequently. I just needed to get all of this down because I know so many people are struggling to find the right help but are navigating a system designed to keep them out.
If I can help you figure out how to get help, let me know! We’re only going to get better by helping each other. 🥰
Miranda Writes 