Thursday Thoughts from an ADHDer - Issue #4

Welcome to Issue #4! 🧡

I’m Luce, a newly diagnosed combined ADHDer from the UK. The aim of this newsletter is to share with you my journey as I try medication and other techniques to get a better handle on my chaotic brain. Plus things I have found interesting that week or caught my attention!

There were some issues getting hold of my new prescription this week so in fact I haven’t taken them long enough to have any feedback. I am currently on 50mg Atomoxetine which is a non-stimulant and will take a while to get into my system.

Overall its been a very busy week. I had help recording footage for a pre-recorded talk at the weekend but editing a 7 minute video has taken me forever!

I also booked a few trips this week, woah! I am off to London next week for the NDC London Agenda Committee. 2 days of filtering through 500+ submissions and deciding on who to accept, plus also putting together a schedule that flows well for our amazing attendees.

Then in November I am off to Dublin for 3 days to meet some of my team, including my amazing boss Rita. The week after that I am back in London to speak at MongoDB .local. My first speaking gig for MongoDB, nervewracking but awesome!

As much as I’ve had to juggle this week, I have struggled as always to focus. It’s really rather depressing if I’m honest. I bet I wouldn’t be half as stressed and sat at my computer editing videos etc., half as late if I could just focus and get stuff done.

I did however do one thing, I ordered Starlink!!!! My internet here, despite my proximity to a city centre is diabolical! Starlink is my last hope. I have high hopes though based on things I have read and watched so hopefully next week, I will have good news on that front. Watch this space (pun intended hurr hurr.) 👀

This week I have had the pleasure of listening to a variety of personalised mixes from Spotify including 2010’s and Daft Punk Mix so its been nice to relive some old classics!

This week, I decided to invest in a tripod and USB to lightning adapter to allow me to record decent quality videos from my iPhone, without investing $500 in a mirrorless camera.

This old video from Ali Abdaal proved very useful this week, thanks again Ali!

I must admit, my reading has dropped by the wayside somewhat this last week. My brain has been far too active to be able to focus. I settle down with my Kindle and good intentions but then think of about 30 other things and never read more than a few lines.

I am still reading Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith, as mentioned last week. I have also identified the next book I will read once I finish Atomic Habits, so I look forward to telling you all about that!

Nothing huge jumps out at me this week in terms of my own personal proud moments, so I will instead think about the achievements of friends and pick something they did! So last Friday I did watch something that made me proud of the other person.

The wonderful WhiteP4nth3r took part in CodeLand Conf, where she presented not only her amazing talk on the CSS Box Model (partially inspired by my ineptitude with CSS) but also featured in a Q&A panel with the one and only Scott Hanselman of everything Microsoft fame.

She absolutely smashed it. Both in terms of knowledge and passion but also personality, humour and looking totally at home with the big names. Go WhiteP4nth3r!

Seeing my friends succeed always makes me happy. Especially when you consider how quickly WhiteP4nth3r has shot to fame, 0 to 5k followers on Twitch in just over a year. Incredible.