do you mind sharing which medication? I'm on adderall and while it can help me stay on a specific task, and has changed my life drastically, It does nothing for me as far as forming habits.
The meds won't help you "show up" after the euphoria phase of the first week. But while you are now able to stay on task and complete it, you still have to pull yourself from the couch to the task that needs doing.
I have been medicated for a year now, and the common advice of "just do 5 minutes and nothing more" to get myself started now actually works. I still hate doing chores (I am procrastinating rn because my flat needs some cleaning), but if I start, you better believe they will get done and I might do a little more just because now I have dopamine to tell me "this is good stuff you're doing, carry on", whereas before I was fighting every second the urge to just leave the thing halfway and go do something else. Life was hard.
I'm on lisdexamfetamine FWIW.
EDIT: the dopaminergic system is exactly how you form habits. When taking amphetamines, you have more dopamine, thus habits are much easier to create. Both the good and the bad ones. You just have to fight against the lifelong learned helplessness that effort is not worth it. That takes a long while to rewire. Ok, time to close HN and clean my flat.
> The meds won't help you "show up" after the euphoria phase of the first week.
As some comments above mentioned everyone is affected differently. I have been on adderall for well over a decade, and constantly for the past 5-6 years in which I formed habits and routines that never stuck when I would go off and on due to hating the 'blunting' effect I felt it had on my creativity and personality.
So a couple months ago when I couldn't find them in stock anywhere I figured no big deal, I could keep doing what I was doing and maybe I was using the meds as a crutch anyhow. I was hoping I would get my old 'fun' personally back to go along with my new older-wiser-mature-self that had good work habits and routines. It's been such a complete disaster I had to ask my doctor to lower my dose because that was the only strength one pharmacy had left out of over 20 stores I called, and had them search other branches. Now I have to choose which days to take them because I have to take twice as many to get the workable dose. It sucks.
I don't think I'm suffering from emotional and creative blunting, but I take a relatively low dose (20mg + 20mg 6h later), so that it works only when I am good shape and eating well. In fact the better my diet, the stronger it feels.
You have much more experience than me, but I believe with stimulants too low a dose is much better than too high a dose. During titration I tried the dosage immediately after and I was a machine, both in productive output and in emotional bluntness. I could've reached my full potential but honestly, it's not worth it.
Now I feel with good diet, good sleep and a little exercise I'm operating at 70% of my capacity, while the rest of my life I was running at 20%. This is good enough for me. When I'm off the meds I can see only negatives: hungry, horny, restless, bored, anxious. Perhaps a little more lighthearted, to be honest.
I agree eating right and exercise makes a huge difference and is working well enough right now by taking meds every other day and making sure that on those days I follow a good eating and exercise routine because it will help carry over the habit to the next day--not always, but most days.
My problem taking a smaller dose is that it puts me to sleep. I sometimes split my original dose to use as a sleep aid because I get great sleep on it. Falling asleep on adderall was not fun to tell my doc or the pharmacist when I first started on adderall. I was recommended for more screening. It still makes me tired for 10-15mins as the first dose kicks in.
Lighthearted is a good word to describe the differences I feel as well. Though I am quite hyperactive, maybe they are related--bouncy and lighthearted off and matching the calm of the Vulcans on them.
I've definitely experienced the small dose sleep aid thing. Noticed it from the caffeine I was self-medicating with before being diagnosed. I've assumed that what's happening is that it's suppressing the distractions that are keeping me up.
Some pharmacies will always tell you they're out of stock to see if you're willing to wait to order them, because they're afraid of facilitating abuse. Rite aid is notorious for that.
> but if I start, you better believe they will get done
I have a note titled "ADHD med cleaning spree" where nearly immediately after taking meds I start to realize how messy my surroundings are and just start cleaning because quite magically, cleaning is now just cleaning.
