I was diagnosed with ADHD later in life. May I ask if any treatments were helpful for you? I’ve tried med after med, then none, then back to ones I’ve tried before. I’m pretty lousy at being able to tell if anything helps or not.
I was diagnosed with ADHD later in life. May I ask if any treatments were helpful for you? I’ve tried med after med, then none, then back to ones I’ve tried before. I’m pretty lousy at being able to tell if anything helps or not.
(I ask this with the understanding that everyone is different & there’s no one way to treat ADHD, though overall stimulants are shown to be helpful for most, though not all people.)
It’s kind of like compulsive avoidance, and it’s a behavior like substance abuse, that gets worse with time, but which also does respond to willingness, interventions, knowledgeable support (which thank God there is now) and... grace .
I also think there is inherited predisposition and co morbid issues predispose one to developing distraction as a coping mechanism for overwhelm which can be provoked by sensory and auto immune and relational issues. I also think neuro-muscular issues like hypotonia can predispose us - like you said there are infinite reasons one starts Developing this automatic stress response- my experience though is that one can learn to observe the nervous system stress responses and build new responses. There is no switch though, it’s not switched off, and one doesn’t wake up and start making different decisions, it’s literally retraining the nervous system you have- which still might include all the co morbid issues that initially provoked the stress response, we can get better at attending those issues and not automatically and unconsciously avoiding.
I was diagnosed over a decade ago - and I wish adults could go to the interventions that children go to - I have done meds, physical therapy for hypotonia and motor planning, adhd coaching and finally somatic experiencing trauma therapy- all of that helped to build the mind body connection bc I think adhd starts as disassociation in infancy or in utero.
By far the most impactful of all those interventions was somatic experiencing trauma therapy.
*Dissociation* - I write with a ton of mistakes. Dyslexia, I can’t be bothered to correct it all for internet comment sections. That used to hold me back from writing bc I was so afraid of what others would think. Now🤷🏻♀️ yeah, my mistakes really bother some people. And that is there problem😉
Ha. I understand. It kills me when I write a thread on Twitter and realize there's a mistake in the middle. I can't ignore it, I have to go back and acknowledge it's there or some asshat will come along and point it out.
Wow, I haven't heard of most of that aside from meds, PT, and coaching. I have no history of trauma other than having an alcoholic father (the military got him to dry out, and he tried AA but didn't go through the whole thing so I suppose he's been a dry drunk for decades). He never hit me or my mother but he had a temper, we butted heads sometimes when I was older because I'm stubborn like him, much to my enabling mom's annoyance. He's a chronic hoarder, disabled... and now I'm realizing this sounds way more traumatic than I originally intended.
I got properly assessed by an ADHD specialist (psychologist), and did therapy throughout the pandemic with telehealth (assessment was in-person because of what it entails). I often feel like coaching would be helpful, but it's not covered by insurance & I don't know how people pay coaches thousands of dollars. I see an osteopath that specializes in psych stuff for my meds, but kind of came to the conclusion that it's pretty much going to be up to me to build the structure I need to do more with my abilities (I did well in school and I was just under what they'd call "gifted," meaning I always knew I wasn't achieving what I could if I had better executive functioning skills). Masked it in school with perfectionist traits, which promptly crumbled under me in college, though I got through and continued on to get a useless masters when I was feeling bad about myself (when I was floundering after college).
Okay, I'm rambling on now, which is my most hyper trait. I was all over the place, & hold no expectation it makes any sense to others. :)
I say this kindly... obviously you did a good job getting through whatever was going on, we minimize how hard it is to do that. You had an alcoholic father, that doesn’t not effect a person, even if that alcoholic never hits them. We tend to think of PTSD as a reaction to big events, complex PTSD or childhood PTSD is the response to ongoing chronic stressors during our development. being accountable is not saying “it wasn’t that bad”, and trying to act as if everything was good enough, being accountable is saying this happened, these are the unmet needs that resulted, this is what I still need, and seeking appropriate help for learning to meet those needs. Everyone has unmet childhood needs, this is true, but somehow in our culture we have normalized both childhood emotional neglect and NOT grieving that neglect because it’s the norm. These wounds are something that we can attend and overcome ONCE we acknowledge that we aren’t all divergent freaks of nature who absolutely cannot function, but humans with human needs that we actually have to attend to in order to function. Yes, some of us have unique needs or uncommon neurotypes, but our inability to sense and respond to our unique needs is because of development trauma and stress due to lack of modeling and practice sensing and attending those needs in childhood. I mean... in my opinión. 😂
Thank you. I think I've always thought of PTSD as for really serious things, like being in war, or trafficking victims. I'll have to look into this more.
Look into somatic experiencing, unlike talk therapy it starts by paying attention to sensations in the body as a sort of bottom up approach to addressing mental health/nervous system issues. It was far more effective for my adhd symptoms than any sort of talk therapy, including CBT.
I was diagnosed with ADHD later in life. May I ask if any treatments were helpful for you? I’ve tried med after med, then none, then back to ones I’ve tried before. I’m pretty lousy at being able to tell if anything helps or not.
(I ask this with the understanding that everyone is different & there’s no one way to treat ADHD, though overall stimulants are shown to be helpful for most, though not all people.)
It’s kind of like compulsive avoidance, and it’s a behavior like substance abuse, that gets worse with time, but which also does respond to willingness, interventions, knowledgeable support (which thank God there is now) and... grace .
I also think there is inherited predisposition and co morbid issues predispose one to developing distraction as a coping mechanism for overwhelm which can be provoked by sensory and auto immune and relational issues. I also think neuro-muscular issues like hypotonia can predispose us - like you said there are infinite reasons one starts Developing this automatic stress response- my experience though is that one can learn to observe the nervous system stress responses and build new responses. There is no switch though, it’s not switched off, and one doesn’t wake up and start making different decisions, it’s literally retraining the nervous system you have- which still might include all the co morbid issues that initially provoked the stress response, we can get better at attending those issues and not automatically and unconsciously avoiding.
I was diagnosed over a decade ago - and I wish adults could go to the interventions that children go to - I have done meds, physical therapy for hypotonia and motor planning, adhd coaching and finally somatic experiencing trauma therapy- all of that helped to build the mind body connection bc I think adhd starts as disassociation in infancy or in utero.
By far the most impactful of all those interventions was somatic experiencing trauma therapy.
*Dissociation* - I write with a ton of mistakes. Dyslexia, I can’t be bothered to correct it all for internet comment sections. That used to hold me back from writing bc I was so afraid of what others would think. Now🤷🏻♀️ yeah, my mistakes really bother some people. And that is there problem😉
Ha. I understand. It kills me when I write a thread on Twitter and realize there's a mistake in the middle. I can't ignore it, I have to go back and acknowledge it's there or some asshat will come along and point it out.
Wow, I haven't heard of most of that aside from meds, PT, and coaching. I have no history of trauma other than having an alcoholic father (the military got him to dry out, and he tried AA but didn't go through the whole thing so I suppose he's been a dry drunk for decades). He never hit me or my mother but he had a temper, we butted heads sometimes when I was older because I'm stubborn like him, much to my enabling mom's annoyance. He's a chronic hoarder, disabled... and now I'm realizing this sounds way more traumatic than I originally intended.
I got properly assessed by an ADHD specialist (psychologist), and did therapy throughout the pandemic with telehealth (assessment was in-person because of what it entails). I often feel like coaching would be helpful, but it's not covered by insurance & I don't know how people pay coaches thousands of dollars. I see an osteopath that specializes in psych stuff for my meds, but kind of came to the conclusion that it's pretty much going to be up to me to build the structure I need to do more with my abilities (I did well in school and I was just under what they'd call "gifted," meaning I always knew I wasn't achieving what I could if I had better executive functioning skills). Masked it in school with perfectionist traits, which promptly crumbled under me in college, though I got through and continued on to get a useless masters when I was feeling bad about myself (when I was floundering after college).
Okay, I'm rambling on now, which is my most hyper trait. I was all over the place, & hold no expectation it makes any sense to others. :)
I say this kindly... obviously you did a good job getting through whatever was going on, we minimize how hard it is to do that. You had an alcoholic father, that doesn’t not effect a person, even if that alcoholic never hits them. We tend to think of PTSD as a reaction to big events, complex PTSD or childhood PTSD is the response to ongoing chronic stressors during our development. being accountable is not saying “it wasn’t that bad”, and trying to act as if everything was good enough, being accountable is saying this happened, these are the unmet needs that resulted, this is what I still need, and seeking appropriate help for learning to meet those needs. Everyone has unmet childhood needs, this is true, but somehow in our culture we have normalized both childhood emotional neglect and NOT grieving that neglect because it’s the norm. These wounds are something that we can attend and overcome ONCE we acknowledge that we aren’t all divergent freaks of nature who absolutely cannot function, but humans with human needs that we actually have to attend to in order to function. Yes, some of us have unique needs or uncommon neurotypes, but our inability to sense and respond to our unique needs is because of development trauma and stress due to lack of modeling and practice sensing and attending those needs in childhood. I mean... in my opinión. 😂
Thank you. I think I've always thought of PTSD as for really serious things, like being in war, or trafficking victims. I'll have to look into this more.
Look into somatic experiencing, unlike talk therapy it starts by paying attention to sensations in the body as a sort of bottom up approach to addressing mental health/nervous system issues. It was far more effective for my adhd symptoms than any sort of talk therapy, including CBT.
I would never try to suggest meds: I’m not anywhere near an expert :)