Anyone else have this experience on meds?
Unmedicated, I do absolutely nothing, or the very bare minimum. Everything I attempt to do is a struggle. I get lost in daydreaming all day. I don't enjoy most things I do, and get bored very quickly. Part of my unmedicated ADHD includes being "stuck in my head" and seeming self-centered to the extent that there was some confusion for a long time about whether I had ADHD or Asperger's Syndrome.
Medicated, I'm not normal, I'm BETTER than normal: I'm a superperson who gets four times as much done as a person without ADHD. On any med (this has been true with both Vyvanse and Adderall) I've enjoyed everything I do as I do it and I am not watching the clock. When working, I'm focused on my work and the day goes by more quickly. I used to drag butt through work, struggle, then come home and go to sleep because the effort to stay focused for three hours was so exhausting. Now I'm a powerhouse. I work for four clients now. I even exercise, something I used to hate to do, and I walk the dog for one to two hours a day, something else I used to hate to do.
I'm so efficient that if my morning boss didn't keep me specific hours and stick to that, and give me stuff to do to fill the time, I'd have to leave him because I'd have my job done in an hour and a half and wouldn't make enough money to stay with him. In fact on meds, on the job, I OVERFUNCTION.
I recently switched from Vyvanse to Adderall XR (10mg morning, 10mg around noon). My weekend job gives ample downtime. Since, downtime has dissappeared completely. Every free moment has been getting filled with work, and my partner pointed out that she thinks I am CREATING work to do. Some of this work has been above and beyond what's expected of me. I'm so focused on my work to the extent that it's hard to break away to even text-message my partner.
The main issue is that my partner mostly sees me when my meds have crapped out. She sees me at the end of the day when meds are not on board, and I'm deeply stuck in my head. When I AM medicated, I'm having to get a lot of things done. My ADHD affects EVERY part of my life, not just my work. Maybe the real issue is I don't have enough downtime/I work too many hours at the moment.
And Adderall doesn't work as well for me "off the job" as Vyvanse did. I'm great at my work, sure, but I'm still having issues with getting "stuck in my head" at other times... whenever there isn't a structured thing for me to do. [I'll be totally WITH my partner when we're out doing something - this is an improvement because I used to be "stuck in my head" EVERYWHERE at all times - but I come home, the zoning out starts happening, or I get fixated on my computer.]
I'm much more creative on Adderall - Vyvanse completely killed my drawing/writing. Creativity unfortunately exists in the same part of my brain that does the tuning out.