Quote:
Originally Posted by Mylittlpwn13
I know the feeling! My to-do list is staring at me, and anything that requires sustained mental effort is left undone. Surprised? Me neither. I also have to do a TON of reading for school, and it takes an act of Congress to get me started. The good news is, if I DO get started, I'll usually keep going for a while. Just opening the book, or writing a title at the top of a page, helps overcome the inertia.
One thing I've started doing is the Pomodoro Method. Basically, you set a timer for 25 minutes, work as hard as you can until it goes off, then take a 5-minute break and come back. I use a phone app (Pomodoro Lite) to help me.
Good luck! I hope you find something that works.
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Your post almost describes me to a tee. I'm sitting here right now on my laptop staring at my closed books. Finding every reason in the world to start some other task when I have a final in a few days. I'm 37 and returning to school. I have not been clinically diagnosed, but after the semester that I am having it just seems so clear now. I guess that I have always had ADD possibly ADHD to some extent, but stress and my responsibilities have made it obvious. It had gotten to the point where I was sitting in a calculus class 2 years ago and started feeling dizzy and felt as though there was something physically wrong with me. I didn't know what was wrong with me, but I knew that I felt different.
I went to the ER and over a course of months saw my general practitioner, neurologists and was prescribed medications for trigeminal neuralgia, migraines, tension headaches, had mri's, ct scans, blood tests, and other diagnostic test that i can't recall right now. I honestly feared that they might find some type of brain tumor because I could not think of any other reason to explain the things that I was feeling along with what I felt was my performance and inability to focus.
My ability to function in school now is far different now than the teenager that i was 20yrs ago. I guess that I had some crutch that allowed me to cope with it then. The one thing that has not changed since my early childhood is something that I had repeated after I reached some goal or made some deadline by the skin of my teeth is hearing myself say "imagine if I hadn't waited until the last minute to get started on this...!" Even in the shortened amount of time that I gave and continue to give myself it seems that I had a knack for outperforming some who had put more time and effort into the task.
I dropped out of school when I was 19 because I lacked the ability to structure my life and time in a way that guaranteed success. Oddly enough, I enlisted as a Marine for that very same reason, desiring structure. I took classes off and on from then, but never really got that far along, not that I lack intelligence, mind you. The military seemed like a good fit, but I found myself eventually falling back on the same patterns, with procrastination being the major fault.
I finally broke down this week and went to see my doctor again because things were getting very difficult to deal with. I asked my doctor if there was anything that I could do for my lack of focus, he mentioned that I should take an online self-test for ADD and that he would prescribe something for me. Looking at the self assessments, I began to think someone had been spying on me. The questions asked about things that I had dealt with my entire life. I hate taking medication or pills for that matter, but this problem had also began to affect my performance at work and made me willing to experiment. I work in a technology field and equipment and networking is always changing and for the first time in my life I feel like I am underperforming on the job. While I never obtained my degree, my ability to learn and adapt to new technology didn't make a degree necessary for anything more than my own sense of accomplishment. This week I got to the point where I felt that I wasn't capable of furthering my education or doing my job. My doctor prescribed Vyvanse for me. I think it's helping, but I have only taken it for a few days and the dosage might have to be adjusted a bit.
I found this forum because as the day progressed the drug loses its effect and I find myself in the same predicament now as I was in before. If I had to describe it I would compare it to a fog slowly rolling in towards the shore. I feel like I'm in a fog with an aura of something that I can't find the words to describe right now. What can I do differently? For a person that needs to work during the day and go to school at night I need to maintain my focus for most of my waking hours. Do I have any other alternatives?
Two things that I have learned in the last several minutes of trolling google is the fact that my guilty pleasure, coffee, reduces the effect of the drug and thanks to you the Pomodoro method. I'll be experimenting with that tonight.
Is my experience common?
Sorry for the long post, this is my first post and I'm just venting my frustrations. Reading that person's post just got me thinking.