Like mentioned by others, the emotional regulation is a good result from your current medication. Is your psych recommending you switch to another medication?
I’m on antidepressants for my ADHD so the experience is likely slightly different, but being on ritalin solely at the beginning occasionally sent me into a focused spiral into very unhappy feelings that seemed even more consuming than usual. Then I switched to generic wellbutrin, which wasn’t for long but gave me insomnia.
Currently on Pristiq now and I and my partner have noted significant improvements in my short term memory and emotional regulation. Maybe your psych thinks there’s something that can address more than one symptom? Hope it works out for you.
“Just do it”
Well, I’m trying, but my brain decided I should spend the next 3 hours doomscrolling while I mentally kick myself for not doing the thing already.
I think with adulthood there’s been more things I can “just do”, but the smaller things usually get procrastinated to hell and back for no reason besides “my brain didn’t want to do it”.
Same with potential, whatever greatness I was promised by everyone who said that hasn’t happened yet.
I appreciate it. I have inattentive type ADHD (also, I think ADD is now nested under the ADHD umbrella), based on what I’ve experienced so far.
I’m not sure where I fall on the severity scale, to be honest. On one hand, I made it out of education with a 2nd upper class degree in humanities.
On the other, I can’t drive long distances (1h+) unsupervised and unmedicated because there’s a significant risk that I’ll just shut down in the driver’s seat and crash my car, even if I’m smacking my face and trying everything to maintain wakefulness. I can’t help it, and thankfully so far it’s only happened when I’ve been able to pull over and swap drivers or rest.
I’ll take that, brother.
I’m sort of on my last legs at this current job due to an accumulation of mistakes that could be attributed to ADHD behaviour. I hate using it as an excuse, but it colors so much of my behaviour. I don’t ever mean to make mistakes, and so much of them at that…
I have disclosed up my diagnosis to my boss to really try and improve my performance and work within my actual ability, and wrote my boss an email asking for accommodations. The follow up call was basically “You need to focus to do your job here” and “I understand you have been diagnosed, but this should not hinder your ability to do your job”.
I’ve been asked to submit my request for accommodations in writing, so it’s not like they’re completely against it. But I don’t trust that they actually understand the impact ADHD has always had on my ability to perform consistently at work and will be understanding of any missteps, even though I am trying to actively prove that I’m trying with medication and coping mechanisms.
I do have upsides. I work very well in crisis and urgent situations, though the sustained elevated stress leaves much to be desired.
Unfortunately, I’m not in the US and there are exactly 0 protections against ADHD, so me getting canned for underperformance, even if it’s associated to ADHD is fully legal. But I still appreciate your input here.
This exact thing has bitten me so many times!!
I’ll open an email, maybe not pick up on the need to action (especially if multiple people are required to action on things), and then my boss gets to hear about my lack of follow up.
I’ve tried to keep a list, like I’m working on individual work tickets which has helped, but even then I still miss a couple of items.
On hindsight, I do feel a bit silly about being so upset over a job. I left my previous because the workload escalated to too much, but in the current I was trying to stay, but I’ve made mistakes that have impacted business, according to my boss. I really liked the culture, but I think the writing is on the wall now.
In my performance management document, it was just hard to read about the “obvious lack of care” and “lack of proactivity and initiative”. I feel like I’m always struggling to keep my work in a row, to where I’m just tired and don’t have the energy to really ideate or something.
I’ve been started on some non-stimulants, but the psychiatrist said it might take a while to take effect. I’ll probably be more diligent on following up there as well to try and get myself together a bit more. I also do go to the gym about once a week.
It’s hard sometimes to see things not work out/fall apart, and the main common denominator is yourself.
Hm, it feels like I’m always expecting the other shoe to drop, for the inevitable collapse to happen. I’m always scared of that, and so far, despite best efforts, it’s been true.
I usually reach a point where I’m struggling to deliver even a “reasonable” workload in possibly some form of burnout, and then mistakes happen, and bosses start to side eye me. My lack of ability to notice detail at times also doesn’t help, even if I do double back to check.
But I’m still early in my career, so I am learning, developing new coping skills and moving on to do better (I hope).
Thanks for the encouragement. I’ve been put on performance for a while at work and despite my best efforts the situation isn’t improving. I’ve only got a few more weeks before basically guaranteed termination.
I definitely did have a moment recently where I found a mistake in something I made a point to go through with a fine tooth comb when I did it, and I was so horribly disappointed in myself I wanted to cry and resign because I tried so damned hard, but I still screwed it up.
And you are right about gaining experience and starting afresh. I hope that as I go along I’ll just gain more experience and be better at my job until I can work and meet expectations, like the average neurotypical person.
Take some of the questionnaires from more legitimate ADHD resource sites. Where I scored highly likely to be ADHD, my partner did not at all.
That being said, you could also undergo psychiatric assessment with a psychiatrist, but it may be a little expensive. I would recommend it if you can, because medication and appropriate psychotherapy can greatly improve quality of life.
Granted, it would be rather dumb to be going online with anything pirated on the switch, but dual booting is a pretty fair way of going about it if you already own games/ want online options. Just takes extra memory in the SD card.
Definitely recommend it.
I actually bought one for my collection. Takes a lot of tweaking, which I think is what detracts a lot of people, but it’s not bad hardware at all.
Are you also a recipient of the “You have potential, you’re just lazy” award?
Its sad to see that we all bear that weight of all these great expectations we just couldn’t seem to meet, despite our best efforts.
I’ll split it into games your daughter could play, and some that could be fun to watch and get her to interact with. This is coming from someone who was playing Pinball 3D in preschool, so your mileage when bringing up a gaming child may vary.
One thing I haven’t seen here is casual games. The less deep stuff that can still provide a lot of entertainment for kids that may just be starting to get a hang of things like computer mice and keyboard controls.
Alice Greenfingers (1 and 2) is a casual farm game featuring the titular character starting her own farm and selling the produce. No keyboard controls, just mouse controls and it was a pretty great introduction for me as a kid to finer motor movements.
The Diner Dash series is also a pretty good one to start. They have some variations, I know there’s a detective game under the franchise that you could get input from your daughter on as you go through to encourage interaction.
There’s the FATE (the WildTangent one, not the anime one) games, where it was one of the first games I remember that let me create my own female character. It’s a diablo ripoff with much simpler mechanics. Gameplay can be repetitive but it’s still a very fun, mouse-heavy game I still go back to. You can also choose between a cat and dog pet, and feed them special fish you find to turn them into awesome creatures like flaming unicorns!! (I’m sorry, I really love this game) i it’s certainly playable with not much reading skill and therefore should be okay for a child, even if there’s your standard combat violence.
For games that are fun to watch, I remember playing a Hello Kitty game for the PS2. There’s still elements like hitting things, but it’s overall a much cuter aesthetic.
There’s also a PS2 Avatar: The Last Airbender video game that’s based on the show (highly recommended watch even for kids), so you could relive the show you’ve just watched by playing the game with them. It’s 2 player.
Crash Bandicoot Warped - while you play often as Crash, in the latest game I think it’s possible to play everything as his sister Coco, who was already the only choice for some stages in the original game. Violence is mild, and was also one of my early games growing up. Fun to watch and play for kids.
I think there’s a game called Infinity Nikki (PS4, PS5, PC, Android) that’s a dress up platformer game. New outfits unlock different skills. The only issue is I’ve never played it, and it seems like microtransactions may inevitably come into play. Take caution. It’s a crazy pretty game, though…
The Marvelous Miss Take (PC, and some consoles iirc) is a stealth game about a young woman trying to pull off several art heists. It features a female main character and is generally quite fun.
Hope this helps :)
I wish you guys all the fun!
Man, I remember laying my hands on Pokémon Blue before I could even read most of the words there. My uncle had bought it for my cousin brother who was 4 years younger than me, lol.
The older Pokémon games are a linear enough experience that literacy helps, but isn’t required since as a child they’ll likely explore everything anyway and will eventually trigger the right flags to allow for progress. I played like that up till RSE.
As an 8 year old without much of a guide at all, I was a very proud Magician on MapleStory… one who dealt violence with her trusty magic wands and staves… physically.
I didn’t understand what skills and hotkeys were until several years down the line when reading comprehension and life experience improved.
Yeah, a lot of that. If you gave me 5 tasks in a row I’d remember maybe the last 2 and wouldnt even remember there were more tasks. Now my memory is noticeably a lot better. I usually remember what I came back to my room to grab now. It’s very different from what I dealt with before…
Of course I do recommend writing down work tasks and stuff when you can - it helps supplement and cover for the bits you still end up forgetting.