Was going to respond with this as well. At 27 I decided to reflect on my abilities vs test scores and ability to focus and spoke to a doctor. Parents never considered mental health as a factor, and looking back—but without blame—opportunies and growth were missed. Care to expand on your case?

Edit: Saw your response below.

Glad to hear I'm not alone with my later-ish diagnosis.

Like you, I don't blame my parents. But I do wonder what I would've been able to accomplish academically when I was in high school and a majority of college if I'd had my diagnosis. Many of my friends in college (both ADD and non-ADD) assumed I had a diagnosis and was just distracted by personal projects to perform academically.

How'd you make up for lost time / improve your work habits after your diagnosis?

Well, I don't technically have a diagnosis—I don't think. I have been prescribed some medication that I think helps most of the time, as long as I can get started. 27mg Concerta up from 18mg. It's a subtle effect and I don't take it every day. To re-up this prescription, I'm counting on a walk-in clinic being able to do so by using my existing bottle. Aside from that, I'm also only maybe 3 or 4 months in to using it. What I found to be helpful in terms of study habits—I've been meandering through a degree for about 5 or 6 years—is taking physical notes frequently, for anything I do. Over the last few years it seems as though my working memory has deteriorated severely. This could be a result of a concussion or almost anything, but I've been taking B12 and it's improved a bit. Otherwise, I've reflected a lot over the last 3 years on the things I do and how I do them. In short, one thing I need to enforce in myself is only investing myself personally in stuff I can feel is worthwhile and creates value or is otherwise interesting. I can't work a corporate job for long, I'll get fired and become depressed. I do best with disparate, hard, and novel tasks that don't require me to be anywhere for any particular time. That isn't always sustainable though, so I've started grading my days to hold myself accountable towards tasks I don't want to do, so I can get better at that. That's in short. I've been fired or laid off from 6 or 7 jobs, but can think through complex reasoning tasks pretty well and easily fixate on tough theoretical problems that are approachable for my background. I'm extremely ambitious and aim for hard stuff, so I'd like to find a way to leverage that more.

How do you now balance the use of your mental energy?

I can catch myself when I'm going down a rabbit hole (even an educational or productive one) and re-focus myself or stop. More importantly, I can identify patterns when I'm stressed or diverting energy from something that needs to be done which means I'm falling back on my prior conceited self less and less often as time goes on.

So what did you do about it

Paid to be diagnosed by a neuro-psych and neurologist (which my insurance didn't cover).

Worked to find the right stimulants and antidepressants (fortunately I no longer take antidepressants) and most importantly focus on what I really valued in life which oddly made understanding how to learn more effectively much easier.

I understand there are arguments against ADD / ADHD being "real" ailments, but I can personally attest to being at least 50-70% more creative / productive as an engineer when I'm using stimulants in low-doses and eating right.

> I can personally attest to being at least 50-70% more creative / productive as an engineer when I'm using stimulants in low-doses and eating right.

I'm not saying that ADD/ADHD aren't a thing (as it happens, I'm pretty on the fence about that), but I just wanted to point out that pretty much everyone will be more productive/creative when using stimulants and eating right.

The problem is it's not about the productivity, it's the clarity and it's profound for someone with ADD/ADHD. So I started abusing nicotine at a young age (a very common ADD self medication) and I quit several times over the years and every time I quite my mind would be in a fog and never come out. I am not talking about 5-30 days, I am talking about 5 years later and I wake up every day feeling foggy. I tried everything, and at some point I just relented to the fact that I must have obviously damaged my brain with nicotine, I did not really think about how clear the first cigarette made me until I took recreational Ephedrine as a teen. The funny part is for people with ADD they don't really get that coke speed out from speed, they just get really relaxed and clear, but there is an energy to the relaxed.

So fast-forward to my 20's and I pretty much had ignored that speed makes me clear, when I have some issues and the doc tells me I have ADD, and wants to put me on meds. I opted to not do it, and just kept on abusing nicotine.

Anyways, in my late 20's I have kids and decide they are not going to have a smoker for a dad, and quit cold turkey and that is where things went to crap. I could not focus on work, could not get stuff done around the house and the worse it got, the further behind I fell and it started to look like depression which is what can happen with ADD when you get overwhelmed by not being able to get started on anything. I went back to the doc, they put me on a low dose Meth Amphetamine and it's night and day. I don't think I could have ever quit nicotine if it where not for ADD meds.

Funny part is, I am not really into speed, the few I took in my 20's I never really liked, I don't do drugs but I am pretty sure if I did, I would be a heroin junkie as the few times I have had to have morphine or other opiates (medically) where quite pleasant. Point being the lack of desire for speed seems to be a common sentiment among those with ADD/ADHD

Thanks for your response.

I can also relate to having to nearly abuse caffeine and energy drinks just to reach a point of relative mental clarity for difficult problem sets or serious programming work before I was able to be professionally diagnosed.

What other stimulants did you try and which ones worked the best?

I've only tried Ritalin and Adderall, both in small 5mg doses (at max 2x per day with breaks on weekends).

I've found personally that switching between the two every 5-6 months seems to be a productive course of action. I have not encountered any need to increase my dose due to building up a dependency.

pretty much tried them all, dextroamphetamine and methamphetamine work the best for me. Adderall has too many physical side affects for me due to the levoamphetamine which stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. Examples being twitching, tachycardia. All of the fetamine's do the same e.g Vyvanse. Dextro and methamphetamine are the most effective at targeting the CNS, with methamphetamine crossing the blood brain barrier in higher amounts at lower doeses. Therefore methamphetamine in the form of Desoxyn has the least amount of side affects, for me while providing me with almost super human clarity.

Keep in mind that if you are taking ADD meds and looking to switch meds, some doctors can be pretty funny about Desoxyn, it's an old drug, not many know about it, and some docs see Meth and freak out. That being said, it's no more dangerous of a drug than Adderall is.

Sometimes I wonder if low-dose stimulants should be available without a diagnosis.

Most people don't know this, in the US, a doctor can only prescribe medication for therapeutic use. A doctor can't prescribe someone a low dose of stimulants because that person genuinely enjoys using them, but has no medical need.

Thus, I suspect that some doctors will just write down ADD as a diagnosis because someone wants legal access to amphetamines.

I think the population would generally benefit from legally available low-dose amphetamines or drugs like modafinil.

If it can keep the airforce flying planes for 40hours straight it can probably help people learn more and be better educated.

Caffeine is readily available, even at high doses.

Whether there would be benefit in allowing access to amphetamines is an interesting question, but there are definitely stimulants available.

caffeine does not work for me, it gives me the jitters, anxiety and does not clear my mind at all. amphetamines, nicotine and cocaine (to a lesser extent), seem to clear my mind without causing the jitteryness that caffeine and phentermine cause me to have.

Diagnosed at 65 for the first time. It is effing real - not sure I knew what "attention" was before - not calm attention anyway. Don't take stimulants if you don't have the condition - or you just might give it to yourself. If you must try ephedrine - possibly illegal but still available online.