Like the title says, I am burned out.
Im a 45 year old American male and I don’t even know if I have a formal diagnosis yet. I am currently working with my primary care provider and am seeing a therapist that claims she is a specialist in adult ADHD and it has been months.
I remember as a youngster that my mom took me to the doc for hyperactivity somewhere around 2nd or 3rd grade. Somewhere around 1985 or 1986. That doc said I had ADD but it was probably cause by a sensitivity to “red food dye”. “Don’t let him eat red food and he will be fine”.
It wasn’t fine.
A few years back i was diagnosed with GAD and Depression and was given medication for those which helped me for a short time with depression stuff but didn’t do anything for the root of the problem.
I moved across the country and started working with my current doc and he prescribed Wellbutrin for my depression and said it’s also prescribed for ADHD. It wasn’t doing anything for the depression and I’ve since stopped all meds and now am working with this therapist.
Therapy is going well enough dealing with trauma and those things. But we aren’t doing anything with my ADHD which is my biggest problem.
I can’t focus at work. Executive function is gone and has been for a long time. Every day for like over 2 years is complete task paralysis.
My wife and I use this analogy about spoons to discuss mental capacity for life. Everybody has a certain amount of spoons in their drawer. Tasks and thoughts use up spoons throughout the day. Once the drawer is empty, there’s no more to give until you was some dishes and replenish (nap or a nights sleep or something).
Well I’m out of fuckin spoons and every time I check the drawer there are fewer and fewer spoons to work with.
I really hope there is a path to something resembling “better” because I do t know how much more of this I can take”.
Tons of good advice in this thread, and as someone within a year of your age that got diagnosed in my 30s, maintaining the non-medication changes was a lot easier after getting the right medication for me.
The depression/bipolar meds I tried were awful and almost put me off of medication. Ended up with good old generic for Ritalin and have been taking it since. It doesn’t make everything perfect, but now I remember a comparable amount to most people I know and that is good enough.
The medication helped with the exercise and sleep, although I have drifted out and had to work them back in. I honestly miss being able to sleep when I wanted as the 8-5 workday does not match my sleep cycle but does pay the bills.
All that is to say the road is tough and solutions are not some magical land of everything being easy, but it is a massive improvement that helps with the burnout that I still get from projects and hobbies that I still have trouble sticking with if they aren’t crucial to living. On the upside I manage how much I waste on them a lot better nowadays!