Comment by 40acres | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 40acres | Hacker News Reader

I was diagnosed in 2019 after a long series of conversations with a therapist following a work disaster that nearly cost me my job. Getting diagnosed was like finding the missing piece of the puzzle regarding my life. My schooling history suddenly made sense, the poor financial decisions, etc. everything became clear.

The biggest thing I realized is how tightening feedback loops is the key to my productivity, I gravitated towards python because it's interpreted nature meant I could get feedback on my code in 20 seconds max as opposed to 3-5 minutes waiting for my code to build.

Adderall is a help but is not a cure all, it took me months to learn how to use it right, at first Adderall just fueled my ADHD and made everything worse. It's a constant struggle and maladaptive perfectionism is still the one thing I struggle with the most. I can't count the times of I've completed reverted my git sandbox to start from scratch after reaching a certain frustration level with code.

How do you use it right? I was on stimulants as a kid and they worked but made me feel emotionally empty and suppressed my appetite and energy. I’m 28 now and I’ve started taking it again to help with work. The appetite suppression is gone but the emotional apathy remains. If you have suggestions or experiments to make the best use of these meds I’d love to hear them. I started with the lowest possible dose.

Also, your comment on python ... very very true

Stimulants are bad news bro. I was diagnosed as a kid, and my sophomore year of college as well. I also didnt get enough sleep (or low quality sleep), had a terrible diet, etc. You can avoid the grips of amphetamines with regular exercise, mindfulness meditation, keto diet, yoga, etc. It's a bit harder to maintain, but you won't have to take amphetamines.

No, not everybody can. If you can manage it using those topics, great. You're not as far into the "ADHD affect my life" spectrum as other are. Awesome for you.

Get plenty of sleep the night before, try to get some form of aerobic exercise daily, start working on whatever task you need to focus on within 30 minutes of dosing (ideally before), stay hydrated, turn off notifications on your phone and block addictive sites, wear noise cancelling headphones. If you're going to listen to music have it on random shuffle so that you don't have to break focus to change the music yourself.

You may also work with your psychiatrist to try different stimulants. There's Adderal and its side chains, Ritalin and its side chains (mine is one of those - Dextroamphetamine), stimulants bonded to lysine to enforce delayed release, and non-stimulant options.

Don't feel trapped into one option that isn't working for you.

Your dosage might be too high if you're experiencing emotionally empty. I recommend looking into Vyvanse. It's been a game changer for me compared to Adderall.

28 here, diagnosed in 2019 as well. In 2016 I actually lost a job because of the 5 - 10 minutes it took to rebuild Tomcat after I fixed a JS typo. Finally the server starts up and I get called into a retro, or a planning meeting, or town hall. Then I fall behind and feel the need to catch up on work at 10pm. 4am I get to sleep to be late for the 10am standup. Meanwhile the guy adjacent to me is typing on a mechanical keyboard amd screaming through a bluetooth mic on a sales call.

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