ADHD & Severe Stress: Paralyzed by Important Tasks, Overthinking, and Coping Mechanisms
Hello, I am writing this because I am currently going through an incredibly difficult time and I desperately need some peer support and advice from fellow adults who might be experiencing the same struggles. I am a 29-year-old adult male diagnosed with ADHD. My current daily medication regimen consists of Ritalin: 30mg extended-release (XR) in the morning, 20mg extended-release (XR) at noon, and 10mg immediate-release (IR) in the evening as needed. In addition to this, I have been taking 75mg of Venlafaxine daily for a mood disorder for the past 5 to 6 months.
Despite being on this medication regimen, I am completely struggling to concentrate on anything, and it has become impossible to make any meaningful progress in my professional career. This ongoing situation is putting a massive financial strain on my family, and it is causing an immense amount of psychological stress for my wife. I feel totally exhausted, burnt out, and honestly, I am at a complete loss.
To make matters worse, I constantly change my workspace, hoping a new environment will fix things, but it never does. I also tend to jump from one task to another constantly, which leaves absolutely everything half-done and incomplete. My mind is constantly overthinking and never shuts down. During these periods of extreme stress and overload, I have noticed that my sexual urges increase significantly, and I strongly suspect that my brain is trying to use this as some sort of an escape mechanism or a way to find temporary relief through masturbation. This has turned into a destructive cycle that leaves me feeling deeply frustrated, and I am truly exhausted by it.
Furthermore, this severe internal tension and stress is severely impacting my family life, affecting both my wife and my 2-year-old daughter. Lately, I have caught myself talking to myself out loud very frequently during the day. I end up muttering disjointed words and phrases that have no logical connection to each other. My wife notices this behavior all the time; she often tells me to calm down because she either perceives me as being overly excited, completely exhausted, or entirely overwhelmed. Finally, a new and very alarming symptom is that even when tasks are extremely critical and important, I have started completely ignoring them. In the past, when I was under heavy pressure, I could at least finish urgent tasks just in time. Now, I can no longer even manage to do that. I feel paralyzed and desperately need some guidance on how to break this loop. Any advice or shared experiences would mean a lot right now.