I guess that I started making better decisions and not choosing immediate gratification.

Comparing my life to before I started medication is literally insane. (Diagnosed nearly 40 years old) I was a failure, had a decent job doing 20 hours a week at Apple as I couldn’t do more than that and be happy, I want happy but it would have been worse.

I now drive, have a car and I’m a software developer. The most difficult challenge was trying not to think about the what ifs. What if I found out 2 years ago etc.

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• I don’t feel overwhelmed like I used to. Even if I have an overwhelming number of things to do, I can prioritize a couple of things and ignore the rest. It’s not like I don’t care, but things don’t feel insurmountable
• I’m not an emotional powder keg when Im on meds. I feel I can actually manage my emotions and process criticism like a normal person. If someone is being an asshole to me, I don’t feel like I have a strong urge to respond and I can just ignore them and go about my day
• I don’t have increased focus, but I have more energy that I can spend on focus. This was what surprised me. I thought I would have better focus automatically, and maybe Im not on the right meds, but I still have to put the effort in. The difference is when Im not on meds, my tank feels empty. Even if I want to do the thing or try to focus, it takes so much out of me. At the end of the day when I would get home, I would just sit on the couch and I would be extremely mentally exhausted. I couldn’t even follow a tv show or movie. I would just watch random youtube videos or just sit there like a vegetable. It would take me all weekend of sleeping and doing nothing to recover enough to have the mental energy to face the week. Needless to say, it made making time to spend with friends very difficult and not to mention just normal daily life things. On meds, I get home, I feel like a normal person and my brain doesn’t feel burnt out. I didn’t know what normal was until now
• I was surprised it made my anxiety go away in groups. I can give briefings to a group of people with very little problem. I’m engaged in meetings and will ask questions. Sometimes I think I may be annoying, but on meds I’m like “their fucking problem, I’m doing my thing.” I didn’t used to be as horrible at group interactions, but the last couple of years, things just really went downhill. I think a combination of a bad manager constantly berating me for every little thing, so I ended up internalizing a lot of it (looking back, I hate her for making me feel this way and others in my office), and reaching a point of burn out with my ADHD. The best way I can describe how I feel on meds is normal
• I wish it would fix my sleep, but alas, if anything it has made it a bit worse, so that is a work in progress

I’ve been on it for only two weeks.

Everything. Everything was surprising. It’s not just the motivation, it’s emotional complacency that’s gone too. My doormat instincts are gone, I can politely engage with problems instead of avoiding them. I do the things that I want to do.

On Saturday I did yardwork, took my youngest kid out for a run, then to the beach with our dog where tiny sunfish nipped at our legs, then rock climbing (she’s training for a team), then I made dinner from scratch, and then we went to a local free festival for bazaar shopping and a reggae concert with her big brother. It was amazing.

I’m in my 40s and I’m retroactively angry about my life.