u/Haru_2888

I’m a minor and I don’t have an official ADHD diagnosis, so technically I don’t even know for sure if I have it. I explained my situation in more detail in one of my previous posts.

My original plan was to save up for a private ADHD assessment. And then, as always, I kept telling myself I’d start saving next month because there was still plenty of time. And somehow I still feel like there’s plenty of time, even while watching the time disappear. The rational part of my brain knows I’m fucking myself over. I know I’ll regret spending the money. I know there are things I desperately need to save for. But apparently I’m only capable of feeling the actual urgency when there’s one day left and absolutely nothing I can do about it anymore.
Right now I have basically no money saved for either the assessment or the plane ticket to visit my home country next summer, which I was supposed to pay for myself.

And even if I somehow get the money for an assessment, I’ll probably wait months for an appointment, pay a ridiculous amount of money, and potentially have huge gaps between appointments during the diagnostic process. Then, if I actually get diagnosed, I’ll have to find a psychiatrist who can treat me through public insurance because I can’t afford to spend most of my tiny salary on medication. And from everything I’ve seen, finding one could take months or years, if I manage to find one at all.
I’ve taken prescribed ADHD stimulants that weren’t prescribed to me before. I know that was stupid and I’m not recommending it to anyone. I took them for around two weeks, and I still have roughly another two weeks’ worth left.

And the fucked up part is that those two weeks were probably the calmest, most productive, genuinely best two weeks of my life.
I still remember the first time I took one. I followed the instructions I’d been given, and on the bus home, maybe half an hour later, I kept waiting for something to happen. Like, okay, when am I going to feel it? When is something going to change? And nothing happened. I didn’t feel high. I didn’t suddenly feel like a different person. I honestly thought it wasn’t doing anything, and when I got home I decided I didn’t want to waste it so I should at least find something to do.
And I just picked up a book and read it for six fucking hours. I love books. I genuinely love reading. I’ve wanted to be someone who reads all the time for years. But normally I just can’t fucking do it. But that day I just… read. I wasn’t changing positions every fucking minute. I wasn’t constantly biting my nails. I wasn’t thinking about getting chips or candy just because I needed to be doing something with my mouth. I wasn’t rereading every paragraph five times before I understood what the hell I had just read.
For those six hours, the thing I was thinking about was the book. Not the book plus 12 completely unrelated thoughts fighting for my attention every 30 seconds.
Looking back, those two weeks were probably the most productive two weeks I’ve ever had. I did so many stupid little things that I had been putting off forever. I finally sent a short fucking email that I had needed to send for almost SIX MONTHS.
And I realized these weren’t some magical productivity pills. I still had to decide to do things. I still had to make myself start. Boring things were still boring. I didn’t suddenly become a perfectly disciplined person who happily does everything she’s supposed to do. It just felt… easier. Like there was still a wall between “I should do this” and actually doing it, but suddenly the wall wasn’t 20 fucking meters tall.

I’ve been avoiding taking them because I know they’ll eventually run out. And somehow it feels worse knowing that if I have an absolutely horrible day, or something extremely important that I need to function for, there’ll be nothing left that might help me.

Today was one of those days. I don’t even know how to describe what these summer holidays have been like. Usually I’m constantly outside during breaks, seeing friends and doing things. This time I don’t really have the money to go anywhere or even casually buy something while I’m out, so I’ve spent an insane amount of time at home.
And I feel like I’m fucking dying in my room.
It feels like my brain is desperately searching for stimulation and NOTHING is enough.
I can’t sit in my chair for 5 minutes without changing positions or getting up. I can’t even make myself play a fucking video game that I want to play. I’ll start a story quest, read one sentence, realise I was thinking about something else and absorbed none of it, read it again, read it AGAIN, and eventually I just get up because forcing myself to continue feels unbearable. Then I open TikTok. I scroll for hours. At some point I realize TikTok isn’t even entertaining anymore, but I keep scrolling anyway. Then I try the game again, then I try reading something, watching something, then something else. 10 minutes later I’m literally jumping around my room with my phone in my hand while some stupid TikTok song is playing.
I cannot just fucking sit still. And it’s been like this for basically the entire break.

On Saturday I finally went out with a friend and it was probably the best day of my entire summer. I talked almost nonstop for like 4 hours. Afterward I finally felt this weird sense of peace, like all this energy that had been trapped inside me had finally gone somewhere.
While after the first hour I could already see on my friend’s face how exhausted she was. And I feel guilty about that. But I genuinely don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

Every fucking night I tell myself I’m going to sleep, and then I lie there thinking about random shit and suddenly several hours are gone.
I keep lying to myself that I’m going to sit at my computer and play something, read something, write something, do literally ANYTHING and 5 minutes later I’m pacing or jumping around my room with my phone again.
I just want to be able to sit at a desk without feeling this unbearable urge to stand up and move.
I want to have a conversation without constantly interrupting people or saying every random thought that enters my head just because I desperately want to TALK.

Today I eventually gave up and took one of the stimulant pills I still had. And it just made me so fucking angry and sad. Why can other people just… do this? Why can someone just decide they’re going to read something and then read it? Why can someone sit down when they want to sit down? Why can people go to sleep without their brain deciding that 2am is the perfect time to think about 1000 completely unrelated things? Why does functioning like a normal human being feel like something I have to fight my own brain for? And if I actually do have ADHD, why is getting legitimate help such an absurdly long, expensive process? Why does the thing that might make everyday life manageable feel completely inaccessible to me?

The funniest thing is that my friend randomly called me today. We only talked for maybe half an hour, but it was genuinely the best half hour of my entire day.
And we’re meeting tomorrow for a sleepover and I’m ridiculously happy about it.
At this point I genuinely feel like if someone put me in a car right now and took me to an amusement park, 99% of my problems would temporarily disappear.

So I guess my actual question is: for people with ADHD who can’t take stimulants, can’t access medication, or had to wait a long time to get diagnosed: how the hell do/did you cope?
Especially with this horrible understimulated, restless state where nothing is interesting enough, but doing nothing is unbearable too.
What do you actually do when your brain gets like this?

Could someone who has ordered through the dn before clarify what it looks like when the package actually arrives? Does it have the recipient’s full name on it, or just their last name? Does it look like a completely normal package?
Unfortunately, I don’t live alone, and if one of the people I live with were to pick it up, or, even worse, open it, it would be a disaster.

My situation is roughly this: I’ve suspected that I have ADHD for several years now. Both of my siblings also have symptoms, and so does my mom, so I’m fairly confident about it. I’ve been thinking about getting formally diagnosed, but the more I learn about other people’s experiences, the less I like the idea. Even if I pay for a private assessment, which is what I’ve been planning to do for the past year, I’d still have to find a psychiatrist who would prescribe medication for me. Overall, the whole process is starting to seem way too complicated, expensive, and exhausting.
Recently, I finally found the energy to figure out how buying things through the darknet works, and after doing the math, I realized how much cheaper it would be. For now, I’m planning to order a small amount and try it. After all, it’s almost the same substance as what’s used in ADHD medication. The only thing I can’t decide on is the dose.
For context, I’ve already had the chance to try Medikinet, and the effect was definitely not what I expected. It actually took me about an hour to even realize that something had changed. In the end, I spent the entire six hours calmly sitting and reading a book, which is something I would never normally be able to do without the medication. So overall, it was a really good experience, and I’d love to be able to feel like that all the time and actually be able to get my responsibilities done.
It was 20 mg of the extended release version, which I took for about three weeks. I still have 17 capsules left, but I can’t bring myself to take them because I know that eventually they’ll run out and I won’t have any more. Kind of a paradox.
What dose should I choose for daily use? Or would it be better to take it twice a day? If anyone has had a similar experience, I’d be really happy to hear your advice.