AddLemmus

I'm a single parent and have learned the hard way, over the years, what I need, can do, can't do.

I need nearly 100 % home office, as even one office day will take more mental capacity than all the other days combined. Also, on that day, pets and children tend to get sick, doctor appointments happen, contractor needs apartment access.

And yet, I got lured into a job with the good old bait & switch once more. Was supposed to be nearly full remote, limited time with max. 1 office day per week. Got switched to 2 office days min last minute, when I was already too committed to that offer.

Payment is very good, quite excellent, but it is all about office day logistics. Oh, and it's a 2 hour trip one way. With a child coming back from elementary school, having afternoon stuff to go to.

Also, it's hard not to hate the job and its people after getting lured in with broken agreements. I'm not even sure if they are all assholes or I just feel like that.

Needless to say, my stress level is through the roof. The absolute necessity to get up early in the morning makes falling asleep even harder, which intensifies the problem.

The plan, 2 weeks in?

• No foul play, but accept the great benefits regarding sick days. (On full remote jobs, I sometimes just pull through, as long as the pay is really great and above market.)
• Pull through 2 or 4 more weeks, then demand nearly full remote. They vaguely hint at the option to reduce office days at some point. If they say no, I'll just not come in, but won't quit. They'll have to fire me.
• I already started looking for a new job. When I find one, hand in my notice.

Over the decades, I keep switching between caffeine times and caffeine-free times.

It's like this:

• need an extra boost for morning or afternoon, and it is really important
• it becomes a regular thing again, at least 1xmorning, 1xafternoon
• ups and downs are too strong, switching to guarana
• it works, even boost now
• It turns into madness, e. g. not enough sleep, and it prevents me from napping, or even night sleep is not good anymore. Also, completely dysfunctional in the morning.
• optionally increase up to double dose
• unpleasant withdrawal
• back to start after a month, year or two years

Right now, I'm on day 3 or 4 of a very unpleasant withdrawal again. Headaches, poor sleep quality, muscle and joint pain. Also, the Elvanse boost is really diminished, a lot. Tragically, in terms of productivity and mood, it worked really well with caffeine, just too much madness.

Do you think just staying off for good is the way to go?

When I think about phases in the past, the way I remember it is that I felt lost. Struggling, juggling with all the things to do and solving problems, not that happy, no progress.

On the other hand, while thinking like that, I often feel like things are improving. Until it becomes the past, at which point I think of it again as lost.

I think that my brain has a bias about what memories it stores. I once read that this can be a problem of depressive people, that their brain stores certain bad things better than good ones.

Things that were truly awesome I do remember, but they are rare. What I believe I tend to not remember are the times where everything was just fine and relaxed. Nicely sitting at my desk and watching a show or reading a book, tea is next to me so I don't have to get up, not very hungry, but a nice snack in reach. Or just walking somewhere, the weather is just right, it's through a nice park, nice daydreaming. Watching a mediocre show with the girlfriend from back then, with the impossible-to-recall feelings for her I had then, not now.

I thought about that when I went through boxes of old stuff, some from over 25 years ago, and I saw all the proof of the good times: Tons of books I read and enjoyed, notes of stuff I studied successfully, leading to success later, gifts from beloved people.

Also, some things that I love don't feel appealing when I consider doing them right now, same as when I remember them. A bike tour through the forest? Why did I even do that in the past, why do I have a bike for that? Sounds like a lot of work! I'd sit on the bike, legs hurt, boredom. But as soon as I'm on the bike, I feel great! I just won't remember feeling great. Even watching some 6 out of 10 movie would be more fun, it seems.

Lapacho tea is made from tree bark.

It has been used as a herbal medicine by some native tribes, and there were attempts to hype it as a cure for all sorts of things. Scientific evidence does for the most part not support that, though. The claim as a cure for cancer has been disproven, and others, such as reducing skin redness, are based only on one study.

So it should technically be considered as one of the things that may or may not help a little more than water for some people, like green tea. Clearly no strong effect, such as Lisdexamfetamine.

I started taking it over 20 years ago. There was a suspicion of a yeast infection at the time, lab results came back negative, but in the meantime, I googled a bit and tried it. (Yeast infections are one of the many things it's supposed to help with, probably also a false claim.)

I did feel great in the week where I tried it, but my trust in the scientific method is very strong. The most likely explanation was a placebo effect, combined with drinking more than usual and avoiding dehydration, possibly a minor deficit of a micro nutrient it contains.

What it seemed to "fix"? For once what I now know to be undiagnosed ADD symptoms, as well as minor digestion problems that are always part of my life. (Poo too hard, too soft, too slimy, but rarely requiring medical intervention.)

Over the next decades, I occasionally bought a pack and drank it over a few weeks, and that always correlated with feeling great and enormous productivity and clarity of mind. Still, lots of more likely explanations for that other than Lapacho "curing" anything:

• reverse causality: Being in a good productive mood -> energy for making tea
• Usually not drinking enough water -> now that I made tee, I should not waste it
• Confirmation bias, placebo effect, law of big numbers. Lots of people have ups and downs, and certainly one of them in the world would happen to make Lapacho tea during theirs.
• Psychologically / subconsciously associating it with the first 1 or 2 times, where the improvement was just by chance.

But it just happened again. I went back to it, and I switched from a general mood of "life is hard right now" into a new golden age within a few hours. Again with a completely fixed digestion.

And this time, I question the science. It just happened too often. I had an exact measure of how much I drank before. I did not change the amount of caffeine, meds, or food. I definitely did not expect an effect, certainly not a strong one. I took various supplements before to avoid a deficit.

My theory why it might work? I think its mild anti inflammatory effect has not entirely been disproven, and maybe that happens to hit the exact spot of my specific problem. Maybe morbus crohn or similar, also related to gut bacteria somehow affecting or even causing ADHD (controversial, lack of evidence, but not clearly proven to be false, afaik!).

Well, if one of you has a similar situation, minor, but life-long digestion problems combined with ADD, feel free to give it a try. I drink a lot of it, like 1 or 2 cans. Not during pregnancy or when trying for a baby! (Unless that also is false.)

I describe a personal experience. Trust in established treatments with scientific evidence, not an inferred causality and applicability to your situation.

Super exhausted now. Some of the failed (red) tasks were crucial and are really going to bite me in the arse, and I didn't even get half a day for a relaxing walk or something. 0 income generated, 0 rest, just catching up at least 80 % on general life stuff. Had to skip all work-out, too (usually 3x per week).

So here is my "routine":

• snooze the alarm and can't get out of bed for 25 minutes
• protein shake, Lisdexamfetamine immediately
• usually guarana / black tea right after
• sit down and wait for the kick - but that takes an awfully long time!
  • managed to avoid dopaminergic things like doomscrolling while waiting
  • often watch a show as a compromise, though
  • manage todos, like even starting the list for the day helps a lot when the kick comes
  • start drinking a lot (no caffeine) within ~10 minutes, fast fill-up 1l, then slow down

A faster way is to take the meds immediately with water only, or even in bed, but it doesn't last as long as with the protein shake. Maybe a mix of both would work, like meds on empty stomach, but then protein shake and food 10 minutes later?

Showering works great for some reason, but I lately prefer an occasional bath at night. Is it the "thinking time" with no screens and the simple routine?

In order to deal with executive dysfunction, what works sometimes is to just do a little. E. g. instead of a full workout, I say: I can't do a full workout, but I CAN do 1 pushup, or 1 set.

Sometimes, I can do more with 0 mental effort, only the first one is hard.

At other times, I still don't feel like it. And here is the trap: I could force it like "come on, now you started, you finish!"

But the problem with that is that next time, the "just start" method does not work. The devil on my shoulder would say: "You know it's never just one pushup, more will be forced and squeezed out of you!" And he would be right.

Better to deal with nearly 0 progress occasionally than to lose the method! Be honest to yourself. If you said just 1 pushup, just do the one. More only when it's 100 % motivation-driven.

One thing about tasks and the probability that I'll take them on is the ratio:

reward* : required energy**

But faced with a task, I might remember situations where I did a thing that didn't take long but had great results, and I felt so good after doing it. That is normal, but it can also be a trap. Example:

It's late, but I do have time for a little think such as taking the garbage out or cleaning the sink. But then I think: Yes, the effort is not that great, I could do it, but what difference does it make? Might as well take on all the remaining chores tomorrow. And I don't find a task with a good reward/energy ratio, so I do nothing.

It's always a fallacy.

What works?

1. Simulate tasks in my head and see if one of them appeals; not picking any is fine as long as I simulate them, as it works often enough.
2. Just fuck it, fight back. Screw you, brain, and your dopamine hunt, I'll just do a little thing with almost no gain. Making my bed 3 hours before sleep. Getting an only 70 % full garbage back out. Clean the dust on top of the shelf that nobody sees. Take that!

*(measured in dopamine, visible results, satisfaction, ...)

**(motivation, effort, discipline, time)

Realising more and more how this is related to my ADD.

Forms are just hell for me. The things I have to sign at every new doctor or dentist, government agency forms, residency, new ID, sign the kid up for an activity, ...

I end up asking myself: "What do they want to hear?"

This year at a new dentist, first appointment, they wouldn't let me see him before I finished the forms, and when I had them done, he didn't have time for me anymore. I got in early! There was also a misunderstanding of whether I say when I'm done or they call me in.

A really odd exception are tax forms. I have a business and do my own taxes, but the forms make perfect sense to me. Of course I know the answers to: How much money did I take, how much of that was VAT, what were my expenses and in what category, what percentage did a major purchase lose in value when I bought it in March and its assumed lifetime is 7 years. It's my business, those are very reasonable questions, unlike those on doctor, government agency or school forms. Those would ask things such as: What is the exact date when the child benefit switched from the other parent to you, on what legal grounds did it switch, how many back and forth switches were there, and why? Provide a list with reasons and the address of the department that handled the request at the time.

One possible explanation is that the tax forms are done like a personal interest in hyperfocus. But I think another reason is that there are very powerful lobbyists who want their taxes to be simple and make sense. So a mix of objectively simpler and an ADHD thing.

Regarding UIs, I learned in the early days of web design that ONE menu is what a website should have. That works best for me. The modern sites with a menu on top, side menu, gadgets, menu left, not sure if one of the side menu is subcategories of the top menu or its own thing ...

I'm a backend developer, and 15 years ago, it was a good thing that I liked to work with a console / CLI whenever possible. But these days, a lot happens in UIs. Jenkins, Nexus, Github, Kibana, .... Do an image search for "Jenkins UI", for example. Why are they even all different? Different config, context, hidden menu?

When people try to explain it to me and go like "just click pipeline", the only chance to find it is ctrl+F, and when it's a button or image with text, I'm lost. They have to lead me like: Mouse a little more to the right, now go up, too far, back down, little more left - click!

A coworker in pair programming always stops me when I want to enter a git command in the console and is like: "Oh, you don't have to do that anymore! Just go to the IDE, now click the icon with the tree, ... no, not that one. Left. Well, obviously not the project tree, less left. Down now, where the other icons are ... no, the tree! The tree! Great, now see the new thing that pops up. Just go to the dropdown - no, the NEW dropdown. Pick the one that says whatever, now all you have to do is ..." And that is supposed to be easier that entering a quick command? Even when I have to look up the help, it'd be faster!

Are you like that as well, or is it not relatable?

I mean, seriously: Now that I'm in treatment, that is how I finally contain the messes! Clothes in the laundry basket, not flying around everywhere, shoes stuffed all in one place (that is even a god-damn shoe rack!) dirty dishes IN THE SINK (!!!), all the paper on the desk nicely in ONE stack ...

If that is rage bait, they sure got me.

The whole video makes no sense to me. Why does she have to throw away the shoes she likes? She looks like she has a decent income and can certainly afford a hobby that takes up as much space as 50 shoes. (I'm not like that, I have ONE pair, but to each their own.)

And what's up with the pens? I never have enough pens, wish I owned a glass of pens! I often consider buying a whole drawer of pens and thrown them around the house, but never get to it. How do you accidentally acquire so many working pens that you have to throw them out?

I have used many methods in my life, couldn't get enough of finding and trying more and more. And some worked, even pre-diagnosis.

But here is a new one that I just found recently after watching Dr. K. here, and reading about Rubicon model in more detail.

When to use

• Already got a todo-list
• hard time getting started

General idea

Create internal motivation, rather than the pain of being driven by external motivation, such as deadlines or hunger.

How to do it

• Take the todo-list
• Look at each of the items for 30 seconds and run a "simulation" in your mind: What would it be like to start that now, what would be the effort/pain, and the short-term gain. Short-term gain is not when it is all done, but a few steps in. E. g. what it feels like when I just put the first piece of laundry into the machine. I even write notes about the "simulation".
• Then pick one, IF you really feel like it. Otherwise, back to your shows & Lemmy - have fun!

Example

Initial list:

• shopping
• laundry
• cleaning
• online form

List after "simulation" phase:

• shopping
  • get up from comfy chair
  • away from tea & cookies
  • shoes, bag
  • outside in the rain
  • at least would be on the way
  • probably a no
• laundry
  • get up
  • some spread around, collect
  • might just not do that one
  • pretty low effort,
  • feeling ok about it
• cleaning
  • do I even have the cleaner
  • probably better after shopping
  • nah, let's not
• online form
  • at least not getting up
  • one hell of an annoyance though
  • show could keep playing
  • might take 10 minutes
  • could do

Based on that, I'd pick the online form task and go.

It's weird, it makes no sense, but it works! This weekend, I got 6 out of the 10 things done I was supposed to do (better than 0, right?), but getting started required no discipline or pain. I just wanted to after doing the "simulations". Other semi-successful weekends, I had to force myself to do at least the ones that create the most pain when not done, and it hurt.