Commenting to pin so I can reply more fully when less sleepy

Yeah, I second the advice of keeping a journal. It doesn’t have to be something that you continue indefinitely, but it can be invaluable for this initial period, especially if you end up trying out different meds.

The journal doesn’t need to be super detailed, and you don’t need to be perfect in recording stuff everyday (that would be ideal, but we don’t want to let perfect be the enemy of good), but some rough notes are good. Where relevant, include info about if there’s anything that might be contributing to your mental state (e.g. if you got very little sleep the night before, or if you had lots of caffeine).

Also, try not to forget to eat. Adderall doesn’t need to be taken with food, but I found it useful to ensure I did, so that I wouldn’t forget to eat, as it’s an appetite suppressant. Through keeping a journal, I found that my foggy days were more likely to be the ones in which I forgot to eat

Some ADHD medications (like atomoxetine) need to be taken every day, in order for them to be effective, and they take a while to be effective (much like antidepressants). And you’re right that Adderall isn’t like that, and is likely to start being effective straight away.

However, there is still an acclimatization period of sorts. For me, this was discernible in the fact that initially, I had a few minor side effects, but after a while of taking my medication every day, they disappeared. So like, on the biochemical level, there is some impact of taking it regularly. But there’s also the more human side of adjusting to stuff — as I outlined in another comment I left on this thread, once I found a medication that worked for me, I needed to develop new strategies to actually manage my focus and routine and stuff (the meds helped, but they weren’t a silver bullet is what I’m saying).

It’s possible that maybe Adderall just isn’t for you. I was first tried on instant release methylphenidate (basically ritalin, but unbranded), and I think it improved my focus. However, it also gave me brain fog that negated any benefits.

They tried me on the extended release methylphenidate after that, which had similar effects. Then they tried me on dexamphetamine (basically Adderall, but slightly different), and it worked really well for me. So maybe you might need to try other medications (such as methylphenidate, or a time release version of Adderall, such as lisdexamphetamine (branded = Elvanse, I believe), or even one of the non-stimulant ADHD meds, like atomoxetine or guanfacine.

However, I would also note that whilst for me, getting onto medication that worked for my ADHD was like a miracle, it wasn’t something that solved stuff on its own. I remember that when I was fairly newly on dexamphetamine, I spent an entire day organising my Spotify library. I suddenly had focus, but I needed to learn new skills and strategies to be able to manage that. I also find that I am still pretty scattered brained, and bouncing between topics at a mile a minute. However, I do find it easier to follow conversational or thought threads, to help keep me on track.

It’s super interesting to me, because there have been times where I have been unable to access my medication where I was even less capable of functioning than before I had medication. I felt bad about this at first, but a friend explained that it’s no wonder I was doing worse than before I had ever had medication for ADHD, because back then, I had loads of coping strategies to mitigate my unmedicated ADHD. They weren’t bad strategies, but they were built for a particular context, and thus when I started on medication, I gradually learned new coping strategies that fit with the version of me that was medicated, discarding the old strategies.

In short, maybe Adderall isn’t the ideal med for you if you feel like you’re still scatterbrained, but faster. However equally, being medicated doesn’t stop you from being ADHD — you’ll probably always have a higher than average level of scatteryness and context switching. Also, it’s likely you will need to build new coping strategies for the version of you that’s medicated, and that will take time.

Edit: I wanted to give an example of one of my coping strategies. So I have found that even when I am decently focussed and medicated, I struggle to focus on one task for a long time (unless it’s a task that I am enthusiastic enough about that I get pulled into ADHD hyperfocus, a fun but dangerous path that I have learned is healthy, in moderation). So rather than fighting my instinct to constantly be switching contexts, when I have lots of Tasks to do, I will let myself cycle between them — I half-jokingly call this “ADHD circuit training”.

What this looks like in practice is that I might spend a chunk of time trying to write an essay for university. Then once I find myself encountering resistance to this task, rather than pushing onwards, I switch to a new task, such as tidying up my space. Then before I become fatigued with that task, I might spend a little bit of time doing some fun reading. Then maybe I might organise some of my files (a task that feels productive, but isn’t particularly). Then I will go back onto my essay task.

I do still need to hold myself accountable to doing some of the more boring tasks (like, I don’t just give up if I am not immediately making progress on the essay), and I find it works best if, at the beginning of the working day, I decide what tasks I will likely cycle between (so I don’t get too off track from my goals). I also need to set myself some time boundaries — I tend to find that 90 minutes working on a task is enough time to build momentum without being too long. I might take small breaks within this 90 mins, but in general, it’s a good guideline. It’s mostly useful because it means I can set a timer, and it means I don’t lose track of time too much.

For the tasks that I really enjoy (like the fun reading, or mundane organisation tasks that feel productive), the time boundary helps ensure I don’t get drawn into spending too long on one task. I’m fairly adaptive with it though, but that’s because I’ve gotten quite good at recognising when I should push myself and when I need to be kind.

However, I must emphasise that what works for me may not work for you. Someone else on this thread suggested you try various time management and planning strategies that you may have tried in the past but found unhelpful, and you should also not beat yourself up if some of those don’t work for you either. You’ve got to find out what works for you, and develop your own understanding of what battles are worth fighting and when it’s better to just lean into your natural way of working.

Yay, teamwork!

Good kitty

I can’t imagine that it would ever have enough impact to reduce their population significantly

There are people who speak up, but it’s definitely not a sizeable demographic. Even before the genocide started, Israelis who protested Israel’s human rights abuses and wars faced a heckton of suppression. A friend of a friend was hospitalised after being severely beaten by right wing counter protesters at an anti-genocide demonstration. Far from taking action to stop it, the police (as they were watching it happen) laughed at her and said she deserved it.

Children are taught from a young age of the necessity of Zionism, and that they are fundamentally superior to Palestinians and other Arabs, who are inherently violent and dangerous. They twist the knife of the generational trauma of the holocaust, because scared and hurt people are easier to manipulate to hate.

Compulsory military service in the IDF is another powerful tool used to shape Israeli’s opinions; There’s been a lot of research on how the military has a shockingly strong effectiveness at shifting the views of those who serve in it, leading to galvanisation of an us-vs-them way of thinking. People who refuse compulsory service are routinely imprisoned, sometimes for longer than their term of service would be.

Press freedoms are heavily restricted. A friend who was studying in Israel in the late 2010s was astounded by how homogenous the media landscape was, especially in terms of news. There are some organisations that do good work, but they themselves have documented how difficult it is to be a journalist in Israel who isn’t willing to be a propaganda mouthpiece. +972mag is one of the few publications in this space , and they do some absolutely incredible journalism, so check them out if you’d like to be able to get an insight into some of the on-the-ground politics in Israel. Their editorial team includes both Israelis and Palestinians, and much (if not all) of their work is available in both English and Hebrew — because even if there aren’t many in Israel inclined to listen, they want to get their work out to as many people as possible

I deeply and sincerely love whoever made this image

There are worker protection regulations for temperature in the UK, which account for both excessive cold and heat. However, whereas there is an explicitly stated minimum temperature for indoor workplaces (16°C, or 13°C if the work involves rigorous physical exertion), there is no stated upper bound, only that employers must ensure the safety of their workers with respect to heat stress, by maintaining a “reasonable” temperature at work.

We honestly need an update to the regulations, because part of why there isn’t nearly as much guidance for excessive heat is that when the regulations were written, it was assumed that the only workplaces that would be at risk of excessive temperatures were places like bakeries and foundries. Although a kitchen like the one in the article obviously has plenty of equipment outputting additional heat, places like this getting too warm probably wasn’t conceived of when these regulations were written — and it’s only going to get worse.

Unfortunately, the word “reasonable” is pretty fluffy, and I can imagine some workplaces only shutting once workers start experiencing heat stress. And in some cases that I know of, some asshole employers will continue pushing employees past that point — the employees would no doubt succeed if they tried to take action against their employer at this point, because that’s clearly beyond what’s reasonable, but it’s much easier to prove “the temperature was this high” than it is to argue that the temperatures were unreasonable.

I learned a bunch of this from a friend who was concerned for her employees — she was complaining to me about how much work it took for her to figure out what constituted “reasonable” and how the lack of clearer regulations about excessive heat not only made it easier for asshole employers to exploit their workers, but also harder for employers like her to protect her workers (another friend, who was a manager but didn’t directly employ the people working under him concurred, because it took him a lot of arguing to convince the higher ups that AC was necessary in the office)

It’d probably still count as littering, which would be fineable, I imagine

Not only are cashews healthy for them, they also go nuts for them (pun not intended, but I am delighted to have made an accidental pun). I forgot to mention “unsalted” in my comment, so I’m glad you mentioned it

I once had a crow friend who would knock on my window if I was late coming out to give them their seeds. It was just the one crow that was bold enough to do this. Sometimes he’d do it way earlier than usual, and I am 100% confident that he wasn’t mistaken, just being a cheeky asshole and trying his luck. I miss that asshole bird.

Seconding the crow effigy idea (well, I didn’t do it with an effigy, I just left them a couple of shiny stuff).

For me, what I did was sit on my doorstep for a while, to get them used to the sight of me. And then I made sure they saw me leaving the shiny thing. I wasn’t forbidden from feeding them, so I also let them see me putting out some seeds.

Although feeding them is prohibited, the crow effigy idea person said to have a few cashews or similar in the little nesty thing, and I agree that this would be likely be necessary to draw them over at first.

If you’re okay with bending the rules a tad, if the sitting outside thing works and you’re able to not scare them away, then leaving behind just a cashew or two in your wake (if the crows are nearby) could help them to begin to associate you with good stuff.

Though if they’re dive bombing you, it might be challenging to come back from that

I’m trying to persuade my partner to play it with me at the moment. He seems open to it, but experiences inertia around starting a new game.

Privatisation, combined with a government that seems allergic to actually making there be any penalties for water companies’ fuck ups.

For instance, you mention the excess of rain that the UK receives — well another way the water companies keep fucking up is that when it rains, and the amount of water going down drains is too much for them to process, they end up discharging raw sewage into rivers, polluting many rivers that would otherwise be swimmable (last summer, I lived in a place near a river that was beautiful to swim in during hot weather, but before actually doing so, I checked an online map (from a charity doing data activism) to see if there were any points where sewage was typically discharged from, and if there had been recent instances of this. Turns out that one of the most popular swimming spots was downstream of one of these sewage points)

This is meant to be a thing that is only done in the most exceptional of circumstances, but it’s something that is done frequently, all over the countries, because it’s cheaper to do this than to actually improve water infrastructure. Water companies say “we had to do it because of exceptional levels of rain”, but when occasional bouts of exceptionally high levels of rain is the norm, that excuse is more full of shit than our rivers.

My best friend died of COVID. His loved ones weren’t able to be by his side in those last moments, for obvious reasons, and that left a wound that really disrupted my ability to grieve in the wake of his death. If I had been allowed to be there with him, I know that to actually do so would expose myself to a lot of risk, even though it was likely that we had been infected with the same strain of COVID (due to us being bubbled together and falling ill at the same time — me and his housemate had recovered by the time he died, but it would’ve still been risky for us to be there).

Despite this, I honestly don’t know whether I would have been able to stop myself from being there with him at the end. It’s easy to have disdain for people being foolish in this way, but I also have a lot of sympathy for people who make this choice — it’s not necessarily a case of people being unaware of the risk.

I feel like the ideal world would be if there could be collaboration between healthcare workers and members of a community to find a compromise solution that would allow burial practices to be preserved as much as possible, whilst also minimising risk of transmission. I imagine this might look like healthcare workers being involved in the process, rather than simply handing the body over to the family members as would happen if someone died from something other than an infectious disease. It seems like something that should be possible, in theory.

Of course, the problem is that healthcare workers and services are already stretched thin enough as it is, and I don’t imagine they’d have the capacity to even consider doing something like this. I was reading the other day that Trump’s cuts to things like USAID has really impacted the ability to respond to this epidemic

Nerds on this thread may be interested in linguistic research on emoji as gesture by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne.

Here’s an open-access academic paper for the mega-nerds out there

With an overview of that article written for a more general audience, in The Conversation

For those who prefer their edutainment in audio format, McCulloch and Gawne’s podcast is a fun and eclectic listen. Here’s the episode on emoji as gesture.

Further Reading

For those wanting to learn more, McCulloch’s 2019 book “Because Internet” is a delightfully fun read that I can strongly recommend. It looks at the wider picture of how the internet has changed communication, with a chapter dedicated to emoji. There’s been a lot of productive discussion (both academic and informal) in this area since then, and McCulloch’s work has been a key factor in driving that.

Also, I’ve not yet read it, but Lauren Gawne has a more recent (2025) book titled "Gesture: a slim guide " that says it’s “suitable for readers of all backgrounds”.

If you’re interested in either of these books, then you should support the authors and purchase the book(s) if you have the means to. Certainly, that’s preferable to downloading it for free from a shadow library like Anna’s Archive(Wikipedia has reliable and up to date links to this site (so you know what sites to avoid, ofc) and pointing you there means I’m not directly linking you to the naughty site.

N.b. I am a biochemist, not a linguist, and so my word-nerdery is purely of the hobbyist variety. I don’t have particular domain knowledge in this area.

Also, this comment is in part because I linked these resources to a friend not too long ago, so I had it mostly to hand.

Glad you’re still here with us. For a variety of reasons, I’m similar. The average person is pretty pro-NHS, but when it comes to politicians, there seems to be a lack of political will to change anything.

I think something that makes it harder is that it’s not just a case of funding (though that is also needed), but a restructuring to reverse some of the insidious privatisation and outsourcing that’s so prevalent these days. Additionally, there needs to be more money put into skilled administrators — whenever there’s talks about cutting the fat from the NHS, pointing the fingers at “unnecessary” administrative staff is an easy tactic, but a lack of skilled administrators means that medical staff have to spend more time filling in forms and chasing up referrals.