ADHD, Depression and Drugs

When you lose confidence in your instruments, and the situation does not resolve very quickly, you are about to fly into the ground at full speed. Disoriented, you can no longer understand it's a cockpit problem.  I have been in analogous situations, less the corkscrew crash.

I got lost going to an appointment several weeks ago (after dark) for two hours because I was convinced Google was headed for the wrong place. So yesterday, going to the same place in daylight, I did not use Google until the very end. Only 20 minutes late.  By the way, I think I finally need that cataract procedure.

Saw the shrink this morning and got meds changed which should help.  "Old" sneaks up and does odd things.  Different stressors shift moods around and may call for drug adjustments.

I have no problem kicking back alone.  But I cannot accomplish anything without my psych meds: antidepressants and stimulants and tranquilizers.  Once I worried my thinking might be significantly altered by the stimulants and tranquilizers.  Now it is just a matter of survival.  I use the least amount of anything that keeps me functioning and not yelling at people.

Perhaps we have talked about the Elephant / Monkey metaphor for our brains from recent psychology.  Elephant is the part of your brain that does not talk.  The elephant knows how to operate your vehicle, ride a bicycle, feel happy or sad. The elephant makes most of your day-to-day decisions based of stereotypes.  The elephant makes decisions very quickly, something like your pets do.  Takes complicated questions and reduces them to something he has answers for, sensible or not. The elephant understands the world in terms of stereotypes.

The monkey rides the elephant.  He speaks for himself and verbalizes for the elephant.  The monkey is lazy and he is slow.  The principal task the monkey does is to fashion a credible story for why everything the pair do together makes perfect sense.  Rationalization happens without even thinking.  The monkey justifies your every action to yourself and to other people.    So the elephant takes care of most day-to-day living.  The elephant passes questions to the monkey that elephants cannot answer with their methods.  The monkey can do logic and philosophy.  So the elephant drives your car.  The monkey tells him where to turn, knows where home is and all that.  Once the elephant gets the map internalized he can go almost everywhere without waking the monkey.. Got it?  Kahneman.

So the problem with getting lost was the monkey falling asleep while pretending to be awake.  I was not in danger as the elephant is an extremely experienced, safe driver.  But I was just lost and burned a half - tank wandering around.  The thought I might need Ritalin never crossed my mind.  I carry it around for such occasions.  But everything seems exactly the same with or without. Until the elephant notices bad behavior and pops Ritalin, I'm liable to do less than fully controlled stuff if it involves logic or speech.

I have been using Google maps and navigation for a long time.  Once in a while the details are not right. So I know it is not perfect Now that I use it on a cellphone I can barely see in the dark, now that so much content gets pushed at me, I have physical issues hitting the right spot on the screen or navigating past all the junk.

The elephant has moods.  The elephant needs mood drugs, antidepressants, anti-psychotics.  When you drink alcohol the elephant gets bold and sloppy, can't drive well, and the monkey mostly goes to sleep.  Marijuana appears to make the monkey and the elephant feel really well.  It does not affect the elephant's reflexes, so the elephant has no problem driving if he can force the monkey to keep one eye open and pay attention. 

Imminent Danger will focus the monkey pretty well.  I worked for years quite successfully in normal industry without Ritalin.  But terror was always somewhere deep in my brain, making me pay attention.  TERROR. Terror of being leveraged out over Hell's pit, in danger of losing everything pretty quickly if I did not perform.  So I did my homework and never flubbed a meeting or a presentation.  If your boss watches for years and always sees you deliver under pressure he might trust you with more responsibility.  And did, often enough.  One fuck-up is all it takes to crash.  At least that is how I had it wired up.

Terror wears out your body.  Finally, at 55, I was not interested in living with that much constant stress.  I took my name off the list.  There is always hope if you have not scratched your own name off the list.  Goodby career.

If the monkey has trouble paying attention or staying on task, which is ADHD, the monkey needs stimulants like Ritalin or amphetamines to make the brain's executive center work normally.. If the brain's executive is weak, you cannot stay on task,  You just drift around, little of this, little of that, nothing really ever gets done.

So, going back to the first example, the monkey conclude the instruments lie.  The elephant can still do complicated  u turns and backing up and watching out for traffic.  So you stay safe but, because the monkey is thoroughly confused, does not know what to do, you stay lost.  Having been to the place, the monkey says he will remember.  But he just gets lost again because when he found the place the first time after two hours, he was too frazzled to remember carefully.

It's not that I'm getting too old to remember.  If I don't go through the memory drill I have never remembered.  Pity I learned the drill after I retired.

I am on pretty much all the antidepressants I can handle.  I take Ritalin to feel normal and to accomplish anything.  I was customarily not taking Ritalin in the evening because it keeps me awake.  So at church council meetings at 7:30 pm I was not perfectly reasonable and I shouted at people.  So I've tucked in my head and now take Ritalin in the evening so at least I can sit quietly and pay attention.  Then I have to cancel out Ritalin's effect with tranquillizers to sleep.

So the solution appears to be to keep the ritalin levels up when I need to do something.  Then use the tranquillizers to cut the edge on the Ritalin and get to sleep.

We keep on until we cannot.