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Keeping the full text, but as I was writing it occurred to me that this probably means I should engage in community building locally. I thought I could do this through a career focused on climate, but like all technical fields in the US I’m seeing that it's just a way to say “we’re working on this” rather than actually doing anything. ___
How do you deal with mornings? I’ve long struggled with morning emotional dysregulation. Most days I try and get out of the house as quickly as possible (if I have to) so I don’t get caught in a spiral of disdain. As long as I can remember I’ve had an extremely low tolerance for social interaction, and even more in the morning.
I thought getting a stimulant would help (I’ve been prescribed for less than a year, so still very green on the topic) but idk if it actually does. I’ve stopped taking them for the past few weeks since I haven’t hoisted up my bootstraps enough to jump through the hoops to have the doctor resend the prescription (THAT THEY HAVE TO DO EVERY FUCKING TIME). Plus what’s the point idk if the efficacy is even there.
I thought I could trick my brain by bribing it with dopamine for getting out of bed with substances.
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Smoking weed daily and vaping, but that hardly seems sustainable either for respiratory health reasons. Plus nicotine has always lost its efficacy very quickly for me, fortunately including withdrawal too, at least. ___
Idk per previous therapists I’ve tried all of the cbt, mindfulness, etc. and I feel like I have a good handle on those. The issue is that when I’m “in touch with my emotions, body, etc.” it’s resolutely pissed at the state of things. I’m obviously very happy and grateful for the life I have in the imperial core (/s) on top of the mountain of corpses of comrades and those I’d be with if I were a less “useful” ND or had a darker complexion.
Maybe this is just another vent post. But I’d love to hear if any of you have good ways of making it through the day.
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I’m 100% cool with smoking enough weed daily to numb myself to everything around me, but that gets expensive, and hardly feels fair to the people I love. ___
Having a sort of ritual in the morning always helps me and is one of my measure of if I'm doing well mentally.
Mine always includes some sort of auditory stimulus — usually music or a podcast. I leave my headphones on my nightstand because the extra stimulus of music makes it substantially easier to get out of bed, and I can usually give myself a few songs to will myself to get up. (Telling myself "okay, I'm waiting for the next one" a few times isn't a problem since songs are only a few minutes.)
If I can accomplish one task that is decidedly For Me before I go to work, I get momentum from the sense of accomplishment that's easy to turn into a good day. For me that's usually some sort of putter cleaning, making an enjoyable breakfast, some small hobby related stuff, or even sitting down and watching an educational video on a topic I've been interested in. When I'm at my best I do this while I'm waiting for my meds to kick in.
Btw, you should see if your doctor will let you email in your prescription refill requests — mine does and it's a godsend. You can even automate it so an email automatically gets sent each month when you're due without you having to remember or Do The Task.
Awesome tips thanks. I had a good, morning music habit that I remember helping, but moved to a new city and didn’t get around to rebuilding that habit.
In conjunction with embracing sobriety, I got an aquarium to plant and maybe raise some invertebrates, in thinking along those lines that it might be a good, morning accomplishment to care for my shrimp mates.
I changed jobs a bit ago and haven’t built a morning routine yet that’s not centered around getting out of the house so I can catch my bus.
That’s a great tip on the meds too. Had a recent insurance change so I’ll keep that in mind since I’m planning to try a local pharmacy rather than a retail. Never thought of automating it, but that’s a fantastic suggestion. Thanks friend!
Can I ask how you cope when you're at your worst? I feel like I've been in burnout for years at this point. Sometimes, like a few mo the ago, I can get up consistently and I started a routine of getting up, lights on, showering, then cleaning/making food but can only keep that up for so long. I was doing this on adhd meds but felt like I started it before, and then it started to wane before I just quit them (I was trialing a bunch at the time). Feelin very hopeless
Yeah, totally. I'm kind of in a similar boat tbh, the last ~3 years have been the most severe burnout periods of my life, though things have slowly started to look up for a bit. It's definitely not a binary "doing well" or "doing poorly" for me, and it's not really a linear progression from burnout into feeling functional either. Sorry to hear you're going through it too
Some random jumbled thoughts about routines and stuff when I'm at my worst:
The biggest one: Don't hold the bad days against myself, even when there seem to be a lot of them in a row. It straight up makes things worse when I do. One of the benefits of having the really diffuse sense of self that sometimes comes with ADHD is that I know the low points won't last forever either, even when it feels like they will in the moment.
Go with the flow in regards to routines that stopped working. I know that I can do something every day for years, forget one day, and never think to do it again. Instead of trying to force a routine (or part of one) that isn't working anymore, I thank it for its service and try to replace it with something else ASAP. I'll come back to it eventually if my brain ends up missing it.
When I'm in a phase where I habitually spend hours in bed on my phone before I can get up, I try to introduce a low-effort-but-still-stimulating morning ritual that I can do on my phone. The key is having something with a clearly defined starting and stopping point. For a while it was "play wordle" or another do-once-daily phone game (the daily missions on my weather app were p great too), sometimes it's "read a chapter of some nonfiction" (since I find that easier to pick up and put down than fiction), sometimes it's "watch some short video essay or special-interest-related content" -- that sort of thing. I'll try to leave it open on my phone overnight so that it's the first thing that comes up when I open my phone in the morning (i.e. trying to make it as easy as possible for myself to do the thing I mean to do, and harder to get sidetracked doomscrolling.)
Having something to look forward to in the next few months helps my mood overall, though it's not always obvious in the day-to-day. For me that's usually an upcoming concert or an album release. Lately it's been loose plans of moving to somewhere that sucks less. When I realize I don't have anything to look forward to, sometimes I'll try to plan like a daytrip to a museum in a nearby city or something, or a hike or a picnic or a beach trip if the weather's good.
Identifying things that might be contributing to me feeling shitty. Insomnia is a huge one for me, so I've cut some things that lead to me waking up in the middle of the night and I've got some extra strategies for getting back to sleep when I do. Forgetting to eat/drink is another big one, so I've got some hacks to remind myself to drink, and always try to have on hand some reasonably-nutritious nonperishable snacks that are easy enough to eat even when I don't feel hungry (especially nut bars, date bars, protein bars, and the good ol' sleeve of saltines).
Embracing and nurturing any random hyperfixations that appear. Gotta ride that dopamine wave for as long as possible. Getting into a writing kick salvaged 2023 for me, and a few months of OSRS helped me through a low point last year. After spending a long time in "can't do the thing" mode, "can't stop doing the thing" mode can be a relief, and sometimes can provide momentum for doing other things.
Lmk if there's anything that I can elaborate on or clarify! My meds wore off in the middle and I physically can't make myself go back to see if it's coherent lmao.
Hope things look up for you soon
Thanks that is super helpful! I think maybe the hardest thing is acceptance. Like for the past 2-3 days I haven't gotten out of bed really and I have so much I want to do and need to take care of but just cannot bare the thought of it. So then I end up feeling guilty and critical and all of that fun stuff. So I guess that's one thing to work on.
I like the idea of the low effort morning ritual, I'm addicted to my phone and I know its supposed to be bad to just start scrolling social media right away so that sounds like something I could implement easily!