I'm not going to keep up the day numbering for long. It will get old and pointless fast. For now, I think it is still appropriate. It emphasizes how little time has passed, how little experience I have with what medication is going to do for me. Four days, three nights. Not much.
Did I sleep? That night - the second night - only a little. Four and a half hours or so. I handled it a little differently than the first night. I decided I wouldn't try for long right at the start. If I wasn't getting to sleep within half an hour or so, I'd get up and do something simple and relaxing and then try again later.
So after the first half-hour passed, I did a Sudoku. It was a really hard one, made all the harder by me not realizing that each 3x3 group also had all 9 digits. What can I say? I've never bothered to do a Sudoku before. I came up with some good strategies by considering how I would code an algorithm to solve it efficiently, because it seemed like I might have to do some guessing and see if I ended up violating any constraints down the road. I also derived some rules about eliminating possibilities using unique pairs and triplets of possible cell digits in a group of cells. Kind of necessary when you are unaware of one-third of the constraints and thus have no squares that can be narrowed down to just one possible cell digit.
Then I realized it was 1am, and I was tired, and I was able to sleep.
The next day was interesting. Here I was having slept very badly two nights in a row. I should have been dragging myself out of bed and plodding through the day's tasks. But I wasn't. I was alert, I was motivated. There was zero inertia. When it was clear I wasn't going to get any more sleep, I got out of bed and started the day. Just like that.
Now this, I think, is clearly unnatural. This is not just relieving ADHD symptoms. When I pulled all-nighters in university, or stayed out late with friends, it was not ADHD that made me tired the next day. The part of the Vyvanse that is keeping me awake at night is also preventing me from feeling the effects of sleep deprivation. I guess that's good, in a way. Not sustainable, though.
Insomnia or not, I will have to monitor what the stimulants are doing to me. My doctor's opinion is that people with ADHD underestimate the effect of their symptoms on their life, which causes them to be all the more amazed by how much better they feel once treatment starts. If this is what stimulants are going to feel like long-term, though (and I know it likely isn't) - constant, reliable alertness and energy - then it is not just a matter of feeling like normal people for once. Normal people get tired too. Normal people still have to exert some effort to get out of bed in the morning.
That was Day 3. Yesterday. What is going on today?
The big news is that I slept more or less normally last night. Yay! I bought some melatonin with the plan of using it only after half an hour of sleeplessness, and I didn't have to. I made a point of being physically active in the evening with the hope that this would help. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. I slept, and that's what matters.
Getting out of bed this morning still took much less effort than usual, but it also took more effort than yesterday. This seems odd on the surface, but it makes sense after a little more thought. Being able to sleep means the medication is no longer preventing me from becoming naturally tired. It is natural to be somewhat tired first thing in the morning, even if I did sleep well. This is good.
Other than the insomnia and slightly unnerving lack of tiredness, I have had no negative side effects. A bit of a headache has come on and off, but who wouldn't get a headache after weaning themselves off of caffeine while simultaneously getting crappy sleep?
Irritability? Ha. I feel calmer and more patient than before, and that is saying something. I generally pride myself on being calm and patient. Even with the lack of sleep, I've been able to keep from getting frustrated or angry in several difficult situations over the last 4 days. This effect has now dropped a bit since the start, but it is still there. I think it will last even if it settles to a lower level, because I can connect it back to ADHD symptoms.
One of my major symptoms was work avoidance. Not just my day job work, any work. It was a frustrating struggle just to get the essentials done, so few things bothered me more than someone going and making extra work for me. I would get disproportionately annoyed at people who very much deserved my patience and kindness, just because their mistake happened to be making me work when I didn't want to.
ADHD also (in the opinion of Dr. Russell Barkley, at least) involves an inability to engage our planning faculties in the moments when they are needed. When faced with a challenging situation, I would often fail to remember and use strategies I knew well, and knew I should be applying. Instead, I'd just get frustrated.
Since medication should mitigate these symptoms, it should cause me to respond better to frustrating situations. If I am less concerned by extra work, and if I can engage good strategies, I will be able to be more forgiving and less angry.
I hope the improved calmness and patience endures. I haven't had the chance yet to put it to the best use. I want to reach one of those really tough times first - the times where I failed completely, where I lost whole days or even weeks trapped in a cycle of frustration, furtive self-distraction, and dishonesty to cover it all up. Times filled with a burning shame and self-loathing.
I want to reach one of those times, and I want to push through to the other side.
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