ADHD and mental health talk
25 Nov 2023 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneA lot of people, especially women, are now diagnosed with ADHD late in life. And all those undiagnosed sufferers, masking with greater or lesser success, were still struggling all along, which unsurprisingly tends to have affected their mental health. Women diagnosed late with ADHD are especially likely to be receiving treatment for depression or anxiety, because trying to manage your brain's lacking executive dysfunction and people's expectations and avoid all-too-familiar judgments like "lazy" and "careless" with their attendant expectations that you just need to try harder... is depressing.
So a lot of adult-diagnosed sufferers of ADHD find that once they've got treatment and support for ADHD* they are able to reduce or remove their anti-depressants.
*(Though in my case, while my treatment is free, there isn't any ADHD coaching available for adults in Finland yet; Finnish officialdom and medical infrastructure is lagging a decade and a half behind the rest of the world even though the professionals trapped within it all now KNOW about the rest of the world, because the internet, so the social workers and doctors can knowledgeably explain to you how the service doesn't exist yet because we're behind. It's kind of funny when you're able to be philosophical. At least they are sympathetic? And on the plus side, being a native speaker of English at least gives me the fallback opportunity of finding some kind of long-distance Zoom coaching from someone in the UK or Ireland if I have to, I guess. That's only two hours' time difference.)
When I first read that, I thought, huh, okay, but probably not for me. My depression is clearly at least MOSTLY real depression and not ADHD-frustration-induced depression, I thought, because remember that black pit of despair when I was 19-20, and how some times I got so depressed I could barely go outside? And there's my family history too! But I did revisit the idea more recently after all, because:
I've been taking an unusually high dose of an SSRI since before the pandemic and I have a whole host of sleep-related side effects. At first I had alarmingly vivid dreams and was sleeping very lightly and waking up constantly. Eventually I started realizing that I'm dreaming in almost every dream. Also talking and moving around in my sleep, acting out dreams, which I never did before. I've even kicked Wax a few times, but I didn't learn until recently that this symptom has a name. It's called RBD, for REM Behavior Disorder, and reading more about it made me take it a bit more seriously and wonder if I could get rid of it. I mean, okay, just because the people who have RBD without an antidepressant usually have neurogenerative disorders doesn't mean that the SSRI is necessarily damaging part of my brain in order to cause it. But on the other hand, I probably don't have a pressing need for this medication anyway, so.
Aside from the fact that I'm being treated for ADHD now, I haven't met the clinical cutoff for depression in years. And even better, I think the ADHD medication may be incidentally counteracting some of the worst effects of seasonal depression. It's already the end of November, and I don't feel completely terrible about it!
So a lot of adult-diagnosed sufferers of ADHD find that once they've got treatment and support for ADHD* they are able to reduce or remove their anti-depressants.
*(Though in my case, while my treatment is free, there isn't any ADHD coaching available for adults in Finland yet; Finnish officialdom and medical infrastructure is lagging a decade and a half behind the rest of the world even though the professionals trapped within it all now KNOW about the rest of the world, because the internet, so the social workers and doctors can knowledgeably explain to you how the service doesn't exist yet because we're behind. It's kind of funny when you're able to be philosophical. At least they are sympathetic? And on the plus side, being a native speaker of English at least gives me the fallback opportunity of finding some kind of long-distance Zoom coaching from someone in the UK or Ireland if I have to, I guess. That's only two hours' time difference.)
When I first read that, I thought, huh, okay, but probably not for me. My depression is clearly at least MOSTLY real depression and not ADHD-frustration-induced depression, I thought, because remember that black pit of despair when I was 19-20, and how some times I got so depressed I could barely go outside? And there's my family history too! But I did revisit the idea more recently after all, because:
I've been taking an unusually high dose of an SSRI since before the pandemic and I have a whole host of sleep-related side effects. At first I had alarmingly vivid dreams and was sleeping very lightly and waking up constantly. Eventually I started realizing that I'm dreaming in almost every dream. Also talking and moving around in my sleep, acting out dreams, which I never did before. I've even kicked Wax a few times, but I didn't learn until recently that this symptom has a name. It's called RBD, for REM Behavior Disorder, and reading more about it made me take it a bit more seriously and wonder if I could get rid of it. I mean, okay, just because the people who have RBD without an antidepressant usually have neurogenerative disorders doesn't mean that the SSRI is necessarily damaging part of my brain in order to cause it. But on the other hand, I probably don't have a pressing need for this medication anyway, so.
Aside from the fact that I'm being treated for ADHD now, I haven't met the clinical cutoff for depression in years. And even better, I think the ADHD medication may be incidentally counteracting some of the worst effects of seasonal depression. It's already the end of November, and I don't feel completely terrible about it!
(no subject)
Date: 25 Nov 2023 04:25 pm (UTC)If it's any consolation, everywhere in the developed world seems to be constantly lagging about 15 - 20 years behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to things like ADHD and autism.
(no subject)
Date: 25 Nov 2023 07:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 26 Nov 2023 10:50 pm (UTC)I'm still reasonably certain that my lack of executive function is due to the bipolar and that I don't have ADHD on top—and that it is bipolar and not ADHD instead—but gosh, they sure do like to dress up as one another, don't they?
(no subject)
Date: 28 Nov 2023 02:49 am (UTC)