Post by cassandro on Oct 4, 2022 8:26:01 GMT
A quick(?) update on me. I saw the psychiatrist last week and he switched me from the methylphenidate XL to lisdexamphetamine. This seems to have an effect before I started taking the medication, and I got a fair amount done just because the meeting had moved me on mentally.
It wasn't that the psychiatrist was particularly encouraging, but I probably asked good questions about support (see IAPT even though they have no ADHD experience), lifestyle (exercise and the usual that I'm already doing) and 'tricks'. He didn't have much to say on that beyond keeping a diary. So in a way that lack of information helped simplify things. I'm continually disappointed by not having done what I intended to do, so just need to take things a day at a time.
I try to make lists and they end up too long, including things I should have done weeks ago. I try to put motivating things on a whiteboard but make it overcomplicated. And reminders on computer and phone are all very well, but both are intensely distracting - I actually want BBC News and SIgnal popups but they each need attention when I unlock the phone, and completely forget what it was I needed to look up to do the main task. The psychiatrist mentioned memory and agreed that it's specifically a problem with 'prospective memory', remembering what to do when - my long-term memory is good, my short-term average, my memory for intention dreadful.
So the last few days I've taken to writing my to-do list on the palm of my left hand. That is always with me wherever I go, I don't never need to hunt to find it or get distracted by it, it has a limited capacity for four items which is manageable, and it is time-limited to that day, encouraging me to refresh it by writing the important points again and so focussing my mind. At least, that's the theory.
Does anyone else do something similar writing on hands, and does it help?
Separate point: Also, I get a bit disappointed when I carry tasks forward, things I've been meaning to do for weeks or months. As someone else pointed out, it's not just procrastination, but distraction and the way other things take priority and attention. I may also have little confidence about my ability to do them, which the diagnosis itself doesn't help with. I'd hope that somehow these unscheduled, non-urgent tasks bubble to the top at appropriate moments. Very occasionally they do and I can tick something off the list. Or I can imagine a system where one day a week I am reminded to do one thing off the 'long-term' list. Naturally, there are immediate things needing responses, and housework and grocery shopping and so on, but do these leave too small a space for long-term objectives?