Today is the first day I have a crash since I started taking my ADHD medication again. It’s pretty bad.
Essentially, I have a lot of brain fog, I feel tired as all hell and I can’t get myself to do anything. It doesn’t matter if I try to relax or work, I cannot focus and I’m becoming more agitated and sad.
I’m actively trying not to work today, but each time I start trying to do a hobby, I somehow jump back to doing something productive. Not out of a desire of completing a productive task, so I guess it’s more of a conditioning… or just how I function.
Let’s paint this picture for you. I have 4 different browsers set up; one for each job/project I work on and one for personal use. If I come up with an idea to do with a project, I will often jump into that browser and get the idea written down. If a task is small enough; I will complete it so I don’t need to think about it further. This often looks like blog post drafts with just a title, songs with one phrase written into them, or messy notes about how I want to solve a problem.
I am not under the impression that my medication caused today’s crash. I believe this is simply exhaustion, and I’m just acutely aware of it and how it affects my body and mood. In case I have not mentioned before, or in case this is your first time reading about my experience with ADHD; memory is something I struggle with. I typically do not remember what I had to eat yesterday, or I have to keep repeating what I’m thinking of in a conversation if I want to remember what I want to say. So, I’ll end up repeating myself a lot while blogging or will think I discovered something new about myself even if I had the realization months or years ago.
It’s a big reason my main coping mechanism is to get tasks done immediately or ideas out on paper so I don’t forget; as otherwise I don’t think I would be nearly as “functional.”
Thing is, I also recognize me doing tasks that are work related aren’t dampening my energy and mood; but it’s the action of switching focus so rapidly that’s draining me the most. Hence, why I’m trying to focus on writing this post.
Since beginning writing this, I feel a bit better already. Though I still feel tired and dazed, my breathing is slowing down and my vision is becoming more clear. I’ve been slowly writing this post for the past 2-hours as additional context to how slow my brain is moving and how scattered I am.
Additional things I have tried are playing with the cats, playing some FFXIV (Final Fantasy 14), sitting quietly while listening to music, but none of those could hold my attention so I could relax. So perhaps what I needed to get past this crash is to sit down with my thoughts of why I’m so exhausted and will take this opportunity to fill you in on some life things.
A bit ago I mentioned that I had lost my primary source of income and had been launching new projects to see what would stick and work out; essentially the reality of a self-employed individual who battles with online algorithms for a living. One of the avenues I delved back into was music creation and production. If you met me through my blog Pets Overload, which I chose to stop writing on after we lost Beau, you know I was working with vets and cat shelters in hopes of developing music for cat stress and anxiety.
A lot of this year has been me continuing the project, testing out new songs and getting feedback before publishing.
In the same avenue, I started writing DMCA Free Music for content creators again, but this time heavily segregating them by styles since Spotify can be so finicky when an artist releases music that isn’t similar enough to styles they released before. While I like the fact that my music is catalogued a lot better these days, it does mean that I have to work harder to get the music listened to. Essentially, each band that I launch is starting from ground zero, especially because they are all such different styles that I’m passionate about.
WEEEEELLLLLPPPP and right there, after saying that I was reminded that I wanted to update some promotion material for playlists I’ve been building and got distracted by that and worked on it instead of writing this. ADHD!!!
Nonetheless; the past 2 days have been me going full-force with promotional materials for all of my music. Things like short videos, playlist building, written content, musical research, graphics and the list goes on and on. Realistically, I woke up at 6 AM every day, worked non-stop until 5 PM to have dinner with my husband and then kept working until 10 PM; managing to sleep around midnight. So, it makes sense why I’m exhausted.
It also make sense that I’m feeling sad in my exhaustion because I’ve consumed so much dopamine and serotonin that my body is like… wtf mate? But it’s not as simple as “well, take breaks during the day,” because my brain doesn’t just shut off. I’m either in hyper-focus mode where all I can think about is the thing that’s in front of me, or I’m in this mode where I’m easily distracted by everything that move past me. Every single thought is a call-to-action. And it’s frustrating that even on a day where I’m choosing to relax… or wanting to choose to relax in this instance, I can’t get myself to. I don’t have the energy to hyper-focus on a hobby, so it’s hard to refuel.
I’m not even battling a toxic voice that’ trying to get me to work more. I’m just battling my brain from thinking way too much and not letting me do one thing, which the medication is supposed to help me avoid.
I guess there’s some validity to the question of “should you have taken your medication today if you were meaning to relax?” But to that I have to say, since I’ve just gotten back on my meds, I need to make sure that my body gets used to them again before I take days off; but also, today would have probably been worse if I didn’t take my meds. My meds were at least able to let me focus enough to get these thoughts and feelings out so I could lift some of the fog and normalize my breath, but as I mentioned on the first day I started taking my medication again, they are not a fix all. There will be good and bad days and today is just one of the bad days.
All-in-all, to recap the past few days, the meds really helped me get through everything I needed to do. Even when the medication wore off, I had enough energy to keep going through my hyper-focus. I’ve been feeling a lot happier, a lot more rational and a lot more driven. I’ve been eating more consistently, I’ve been able to do yard work when I take breaks and I’ve been spending more time with the cats. I notice mistakes shortly after I make them and I’m getting a lot less frustrated and a lot less likely to throw tantrums.
The only negative so far is the come-down I have when the medication is wearing off. I get extremely fatigued and irritable. The comedown is the only time I feel like I’m going to have an outburst or tantrum. However, I have enough clarity to understand what is going on and am able to verbally express what is going on. On the day where I didn’t work after dinner, I had the energy to visit my sister and spend quality time with her, even though I was midway through a “come-down” when I was walking to her house. That’s not something that is possible without being medicated in the morning. If I worked in the morning without medication and attempted to visit someone, I would be very snappy or anti-social instead of having that extra energy to be social.
Finally, my sleep has been fine so far. I’m getting tired around 10 PM every day and ready for bed. The only reason I don’t actually sleep before midnight is simply because my wind down period. Essentially, it’s my brain last chance to bombard me with a million thoughts, though versus where I was at before I started taking my medication again, it’s been much better. The chances of me getting out of bed because I’m just not going to be able to sleep are minimal to 0, when without medication if certain thought processes happen I become overwhelmed and get another burst of energy which launches into a spiral of insomnia. I’m curious if this time around I’m not going to get as much insomnia, since I have a better game plan about how to spend my energy, but we’ll see. I have some extra strategies for wind-down time I’m ready to implement if need be.
But for now, I think that’s all. I’m going to see if I can go find something to do to relax. Thank you for reading my ramblings.
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