First off: I am still undiagnosed. I’ve followed the ADHD topic for more than a year now since I seem to match a whole lot of symptoms and behavior patterns. An official diagnosis will most probably still take another year. I live in Germany.
One thing that got me wondering was caffeine. As I’ve heard, drinking coffee will make ADHD folks not feel any more awake, maybe even a little tired.
While it doesn’t make me feel awake as well, I very vividly remember my first coffee a long time ago that caused a massive outburst of productivity when all of the time I was known for being ‘lazy’ and distracted. However the effect quickly diminished with each subsequent coffee over the next year.
Isn’t this a contradiction though? If I actually had ADHD, why did coffee have this awakening effect on me back then?
For me it’s coffee + environment. If I’m just at home chilling then the effect of drinking coffee is very mild. If I’m at a business networking event, for example, it can really trigger my hyper behaviours. I get extremely enthusiastic, creative and happy.
By the way, one of these business networking meetings I go to is exclusively for business owners with ADHD and I can’t tell you how much fun that is!
It’s basically 15 people happily talking over each other and not taking it personally and 5 or 6 who didn’t turn up because they thought it was another day. We have one neurotypical person there to try and tether the ballons that we are down into some sort of coherent group but it is wonderfully chaotic :)
That sounds awesome! I doubt there is but need to look for something like this in my area!