Backlinks: ADHD log

Concerta day 1, 18mg

Note that I was slightly sleep-deprived. I went to bed around 22:45 but couldn't sleep until around 1 am. I woke up around 6:30 am, so I only got about 5.5 hours of sleep.

Reflections

• Context switching
• Racing thoughts
• Focus
• Distractions
• Motivation
• Timeline
• Spatial awareness
• Impulse control
• Productivity

Time log

All the times below indicate the time at which the note was taken down. Hence, they mostly report what happened in the time period between the time of the header and that of the previous one, except of course, the first one, which reports the time at which I took the drug.

9:15

• Took 18 mg Concerta

10:30

• I could start feeling the effects within about 30-45 minutes
• Reduced racing thoughts
• Reduced day dreaming
• Ability to focus on one thing for much longer
• Impulse control
  • picked up the phone habitually but had the thought "what am I doing? why did I pick this up?", and simply put it away
• Little distractions still:
  • I was googling and reading the onset and time release profile of concerta
• reading
  • while I was reading, I think it was easier to do smooth pursuit eye-movements
  • however, I was still a bit bored and jumped around the long article a bit to read the end first
  • but that might just be because the article was not so interesting
• Stomach gurgles
  • had to eat something (chocolate)
  • maybe because I didn't have a big breakfast? I don't usually
• reduced constant switching between applications while I'm trying to write code to do something
• much easier to write my plan/to-do-list, put it away
• lot more perceptive of my needs
  • knew when to drink water
  • could recognize that I have to pee (not an emergency)

11:22

• I had to change the music from my classic techno playlist to more melodic headspace focus playlists
• I was a lot more distracted this hour, jumping from one thing onto another
  • answering emails, writing new code, answering messages, structuring code, thinking of things to do
  • was productive nevertheless! I did actually do things, just in a complete jumbled mess
• I noticed that I kept looking at the mess on my desk because it annoyed me

13:26

• Was flailing around a bit in the past couple hours
• Making plots prettier
• Lost track of the overall thread of things to do and accomplish
• I think I got hungry and thirsty but the signals didn't reach my body properly so I missed lunch until now; going to eat now
• I still got things done, but was very, very slow. I'd say almost as unproductive as a day without meds, except that I could still focus very well on what I was doing
• Just seemed like a bit of executive functioning was missing, i.e. ability to disengage from what I was doing and re-evaluate priorities

16:44

• Had two good meetings
• Was able to focus quite easily
  • Caveat: I had coffee before meeting 2
• However, I think I did really well. I was easily able to summarize the disagreement, rephrase (fairly complex) arguments, and work my way through while not losing thread of the overall picture. Right after the meeting, I also managed to put my thoughts onto paper and I think I will code this and finish it asap.
• Quite unusually, I was also able to switch contexts and remember what I was doing before, get back to it, and work on that as well

17:55

• Super motivated to work.
• Even after our meetings at almost 6pm, I'm sooo motivated. This is highly unusual.

22:00

• When I got back home at around 18:15, I felt like I had superhuman abilities:

Multi-tasking

• I was able to follow a very nice conversation with Kelly while doing other things:
  • I removed my bike lock and put it away
  • I took back my student ID card
  • I put the bike on its rack
  • I started all the prep for cooking
  • ^^ ALL of this WHILE talking! Incredible
• I felt like I connected with her on a much deeper level than usual, perhaps because I was not interjecting at every moment but rather gave her the chance to speak her mind, properly understand her point of view, and respond only when necessary.

Spatial awareness

• Another thing I noticed when I got back home was greatly improved spatial awareness. I strongly suspect that this has to do with object permanence (or lack thereof on non-medicated days when working memory buffer gets clogged up by random shit that the messed up attentional mechanism picks up).
  • I immediately noticed when opening a door that it might actually pinch Kelly's foot which was right there. I would never have noticed that without meds
  • I opened a couple of cabinets and knew that the door was going to swing open into where my body was. Crucially, the moment at which I noticed this was way earlier than I would've without meds. I normally pick it up at the very last moment, just enough for the physiological reaction time.

Winding down

• I distinctly noticed that the effects were off around 20:00 and that a lot of my symptoms had returned, e.g.,
  • Racing thoughts
  • Day dreaming
  • Doing things without thinking
  • Jumping from one thing to another without ever finishing one thing
• However, the motivation was still higher than usual
  • I did two loads of laundry and hung up clothes! Could never imagine this.
  • I also cooked two pizzas and cleaned up the kitchen
  • I also paid my bills and checked my whole to-do list
• Also, I had much better control over my impulses than I would otherwise and I was not falling into the usual traps of addictive behaviors
• Finally, I had a much better idea of what I wanted or at least what I did not want. Usually, either because of lack of motivation to do anything else or whatever, I would almost never say no to watching TV