Updated: Never — Philip's Blog

Since I didn't get any beeping on my phone, I decided to come straight home instead. I was reminded that I still have some excellent old ("forgotten") Geuze left, so I'll sit outside and drink that.

On the bike-ride from the station, I remembered the main problem with mind-altering substances: they are habit-forming. Even when they are used strictly following the instructions of a professional braincare specialist.

I had been out of Concerta for a while. As I blogged before, the downwards spiral can be quite tricky to escape. It's very frustrating. I have a whole stack of prescriptions at home, I just need to remember to take one with me and stop by a pharmacy to have it filled. And Edegem has more pharmacies than any other town I've seen. I bike past at least four on my way to work.

Anyway, I finally picked up a fresh supply of pills this morning, so if you've been noticing that my mind was more out of control than usual, you should have noticed the difference too. From the inside of my brain, it felt like being unhit by a brick. Which is a bit like being hit by a brick but in reverse. And gently. It's difficult to describe. :-)

Which brings me back to the habit-forming bit.

When there is no methylphenidate bubbling around in my blood, I find myself craving (and consuming!) much more coffee. It's mostly subconscious too. I have absolutely no idea how much coffee I drink every day but "lots" is probably a reasonable approximation. My mug just doesn't get empty. It's like subconscious treatment of withdrawal. I wonder if any research has been done on this?

This occured to me on my bike because I realized that I was feeling disproportionally dehydrated. Caffeine may be a diuretic, but there is still loads of water in coffee. And I didn't have much coffee today. Again, I don't know how little, but "not much".

Note to self: drink more water. And don't forget to buy your pills, dammit. And remember to eat, methylphenidate is an appetite suppressant.

Chemistry is interesting stuff. It'll be a couple of days before I'm chemically "balanced" again but it's definitely better this way.

To the 'experts' writing articles with titles like "are we drugging our children" violently opposing methylphenidate and questioning its utility: it's all about control. An out-of-control hyperactive mind can be an asset but it can quickly become a serious liability.

As I've written before, I like being hyperactive. But I like getting work done too.

The hyperactive mind has some control over itself, but the control happens in irregular bursts of flow-mode. Any distraction, however minor, blows the flow right away and it's impossible to get back into it.

Instead of spending a couple of hours in flow-mode followed by sometimes days of chaos, the Concerta allows me to spend most of the day in near-flow-mode and softens the blow of distractions. Most of the control still has to come from me, but the Concerta makes the control consume much less mental bandwidth.

Control is good.

Earlier this evening, a devoted reader[*] of my blog mentioned that they now have an ADHD-enabled kid in their home. The kid has been there for a while, and presumably the ADHD as well, but only recently has it been determined that the kid in fact has the ADHD-bit set.

This is not in itself blogworthy news. Though I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the newly-confirmed ADHDer to the club! :-)

What irked me however, was how it was said: "there is a new ADHD-patient among us".

No! No, no no no no no!

I don't know how often I (and many other ADHD-enabled people) have said this: ADHD is not a disease and we are not patients. If you must use a medical term, go for 'disorder', but please remember that it is the opposite of 'order', and that order is bland and boring.

Personally, I prefer to say that I have the ADHD-bit or the ADHD-flag set.

It's a feature, not a bug.

Of course, I've never had another brain than the one I currently sometimes use, but all things considered, I think ADHD does me more good than bad. Which is not to say that it's all good. Just that it is certainly and by a long margin not all bad.

I realize that the word 'patient' was not used pejoratively in any way, and that this rant is perhaps a bit disproportionate (no hard feeling though!) but I feel it can't be said enough.

It really annoys me to read articles in magazines and newspapers which classify me as 'a patient' or as being 'afflicted with ADHD' or similar nonsense. In fact, it annoys me almost as much as the writings of people who, unhindered by any serious research 'in the field', classify the medication we take as 'dangerous drugs'. Ugh!

Having mumbled all that, I look forward to perhaps adding the adventures of another ADHD-enabled kid to my blogroll. hint hint nudge

[*] It is not up to me to say who. That's up to them.

Ellie sent me this fascinating link: The Nerd Handbook and for some reason I felt myself nodding quite a lot while reading through it, and a number of the other articles on the site.

It really is fascinating reading. It reminds me a lot of The Hacker FAQ, which is also required reading for anyone who wants to deal with hackers (really, just a subset of nerds).

I find it quite interesting to read analyses of my mind. Very good. More please. :-)

As most hyperactives are aware, flow mode is a very desirable mental state but often sadly difficult to achieve and mysteriously unpredictable. Even more frustrating is when you find yourself hyperfocusing on completely unnecessary things.

It is amazing what elegant and lucid code can be written in a couple of hours when the mind is completely absorbed by the task at hand though. I think it amply compensates for some of the more annoying aspects of hyperactivity.

The last two weeks, I've been able to get into flow mode fairly consistently relatively late in the evening and have had to force myself to go home to get some sleep. It would be nice if I could train my mind to hyperfocus in the morning or afternoon instead.

Flow mode late at night implies zombie mode early in the morning. I don't like zombie mode. A brain that feels like mush is extremely uncomfortable to try to bend around code written in flow mode. sigh

So, dear hyperactive lazyweb: have any of you found a way to make flow mode more predictable or at least somewhat schedulable?

Note that medication does not help with flow mode. It helps me focus more normally by cutting out mental "jitter" but a medicated mind is not the same as a flow mode mind.

After work today, I went to see my braincare specialist because I ran out of pills about a month ago. I don't know what people outside my mind have been thinking of me the last month, but inside my mind things have been way too interesting. Being an unmedicated hyperactive is fairly detrimental to trying to maintain an organized mind...

Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to be a complete loony to see a psychiatrist. Being a little loony suffices. :-)

Much of the last month can be illustrated by:

begin:

Mmm, I seem to have run out of pills, perhaps I should call the braincare specialist for a new set of prescriptions

I'll do that after I finish this...

I really mustn't forget to make that phone call, but I'll do that after...

[few more iterations]

Shit, that late already, better do it tomorrow

[few more days]

goto begin

In an effort to get my mind in gear, I started making lists again. Predictably, this resulted in little conversations with myself along the lines of:

I guess I'd better start on that list now

...but first...

Oh shit, is it that time already?

The persistent nagging feeling of always "feeling busy" but not actually "getting things done" is unbelievably frustrating and very difficult to describe. Sure, I get things done, but it often takes way more effort to actually start doing something than doing it would take.

It's also not much fun to spend a whole day telling yourself "I should probably leave now if I want to be on time", followed by "mm, I'm late, I should probably call to apologize and leave now", followed, inevitably by "I guess there's no point in going anymore, I guess I should call to apologize", followed by "it's getting a bit late, I should call first thing tomorrow".

Luckily, the person I "postponed" like that is well aware of the symptoms of unmedicated hyperactivity and wasn't very upset. But this is no excuse (I did, of course, apologize profusely eventually, and was, thankfully, forgiven thank you, thank you again) and it annoys me intensely that I can't be relied on. I like being reliable.

I should probably thank ADHD-Mama for providing the "spark" I needed to finally make that simple little phone call. It was while reading her blog that I thought "no time like the present". Thank you. :-)

The internet is a funny place. On IRC today, localhost pointed me to two blogs kept by the parents (mum and dad (Dutch)) of an ADHD-enhanced son. It's fascinating reading and oh-so-familiar. And they link to my blog as an example of a "grown up" ADHD'er.

My parents made my teachers in primary school keep a diary of what I got up to (or not) during the day. I'm sure it was meant more as "therapy" for the teachers than for my parents to keep track of the horrors I got up to -- they knew me well enough to guess!

It is interesting how ADHDers approach certain basic ADHD-features differently. I look forward to reading more about their adventures! Maybe they will inspire me to write more about mine.

I encourage ADHD-parents to blog about their kids. It helps us "adults" (I use that term lightly - I never want to grow up!) learn more about ourselves too. And it's fun for the kids to read when they get older too. I enjoyed reading my teachers' diary. Even the embarassing bits. cough