my ADD-PI is getting bad. close to the point of total breakdown / a good resource for ADD strategies
icon: "tenebrous (my face, looking down, deeply sad expression, shadowy and blurry)"
So my ADD-PI has gotten to the point where I cry every time I think about it. Just writing that sentence made my eyes well up. I talked about this at the most recent intimacy practice and cried. Heather offered to pick me up and drive me to the sliding-scale clinic and I got there and started filling out the paperwork - and in big letters it said that they don't prescribe adult ADD meds. I welled up but thought maybe they could offer me some other resources or maybe they had non-stimulant meds I hadn't tried, so I filled it out. Then the person checking me in called me over and pointed it out and I started crying, managed to choke out that I was hoping for resources or any kind of help, they sent me to finish the paperwork and before I did someone called me in back to talk to them. I was gasping and crying at this point, trying to get control of myself. I told them I can't remember things that happened three days ago, I can't do things I need to do to finish school, I feel like my brain is crumbling. They listened kindly but uselessly, and told me of some other places I could try. I now realize that before I try to go in, I need to check and see if they even prescribe these meds.
I loathe that the shitbrains in charge care so much more about punishing people who get high than they do about people who need meds to live. This isn't a problem for the rich fucks, a $500 test is all that stands in the way for them, or, y'know, choosing an independent psychiatrist who isn't paid by the government. It might as well be a million dollars: I can't see myself having $500 to spare within the next year.
I'm getting really desperate.
ETA: oh, *angry laugh* I remembered the other thing I was going to post. (ADD memory, so full of holes) Your Life Can Be Better, Using Strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD by Douglas A. Puryear MD is actually really useful, easy to take in, so sympathetic it made me cry many times. It's not a substitute for meds (you have to have SOME level of memory to even write things down) but I found it encouraging, mostly in that 90% of the suggestions it mentioned I had already been trying in one way or another and the last 10% were really great. It was the first time I felt validated in my diagnosis, reading this. And if you didn't have an undiagnosed ADD parent who passed down coping strategies, this will give you all those and more. It's written by a psychiatrist who has ADD: it's choppy but in a good way, most chapters are no more than 5 pages, so you can take it in in manageable chunks. It doesn't have unnecessary "this is what ADD is" crap, either, or medical bullshit that's only good if you're a social scientist seeking academic understanding. And the author makes the kindle version cheap on purpose so that it's more accessible, and keeps a blog where they share strategies. It's not perfect -- there's some fat-is-bad rhetoric, sexism, and classism, but it is MUCH less than I would expect from a default dude, especially one of that generation.