ADHD

This is just my personal experience, so please don't take it as a universal truth. I'm in my 40s..

I experience paradoxical calming with Vyvanse, but at the same time it masks my exhaustion. That itself sounds like it's in conflict, right?

An example: if I don't take my meds I am in a constant state of an fight/flight/freeze depending on the day or circumstances. I've had trouble remembering to take my meds in the past few weeks. On one of those days what was supposed to be a 15 minute speaking part on a tour for visiting professionals turned into the group splitting up and me having to do the whole tour myself. I haven't given a tour in years and it resulted in my speaking for two hours straight which I was not prepared for. It ended at like 11:30 am. I just crashed after. I had to take the rest of the day off work and I just went home and slept until morning.

I think if I had taken my meds the tour would not have taken so much out of me. I would have less decision paralysis. I would have still been exhausted, because walking and talking loudly for that long is tiring for most people, but the crash would have held off for a few hours and not have been so extreme.

Do you have trouble eating or drinking balanced meals? I wonder if a vitamin or even calorie deficiency could be contributing. I have to eat before I take my meds (even though I find it hard to eat in the morning) or my brain crashes hard in the afternoon.

I want to ask more about the overtime. Why are you doing so much overtime? Are you unable to hit objectives? Are the objectives "real" or self imposed? Or do you have trouble transitioning away from work?

I would absolutely not recommend you do what I do, but I think sharing might make you feel less alone: I work excessive amounts of overtime but I just don't log it. I've never had performance issues at work, and keep getting told that 'just because something is easy for me doesn't mean I can expect it from others' so I guess the perception is I am high performing? Is the overtime part of this? Not sure. I usually end up going down unproductive rabbit holes so it's not like I'm churning out widgets and making others look bad in comparison.

Objectively I have received accolades and industry recognition for my work. But I don't see it that way. I feel like I have to work longer because of all the extra effort that goes into doing what I feel are basic tasks. I can't work off a surface level understanding of something. I need to understand it before I make a decision. And then poof it disappears from my brain and next time I need to do this all again so it's not like it's an investment of effort. Part of the struggle is that I don't have objectives or metrics to meet, so there is no measure that I can understand (I'm also autistic btw) that I can use to say I've done 'enough'.

Transitions are also very difficult. I used to work on places with literal bells signifying when lunch and breaks occurred, and everyone started and ended at the same time each day. We would say goodbye and go home. Where I work now there is a lot of flexibility to the work day. We have 'core hours'. I lose track of time, blink and all of a sudden I've been working for 10-12 hours.

Anyways, this is starting to have a massive toll on my physical health. I've been doing this for 6 years now at three different jobs. It started when my job became less defined based on tasks and I started to take legal responsibility for the work of others (I'm an engineer who supervises other less experienced engineers) 0/10 do not recommend. In an attempt to not make this all about me I'll end this with the statement that I have a plan to stop this behavior, so I will be okay.

I wonder if you are able to identify why you are working the overtime and address that. One of the hardest things about having a disability is that you have to tell people about it (at least the functional limitations) and clearly identify that these are a result of the disability. Theoretically once they understand the cause of the behavior (in your case, excessive overtime) they are usually willing to work with you to find a solution versus it becoming disciplinary.

You mention public service so I assume you are unionized? It's so hard to fire someone who is unionized (which I think is a good thing). I was in a situation where in any non unionized workplace I would have had to fire a specific team member. It was awful for everyone. The solution was that we found him another position that better met his skill set (same pay etc) and he is thriving. He was much better at organizing other people than doing the specific technical work that we needed, so we found a spot where it was his job to plan the technical work and not execute it. I wonder if the solution for you is either getting more clear instructions/expectations so you are not working overtime that isn't needed (because you can meet expectations without it), or a change in role to one where you can meet your targets within the normal looking hours.

Good luck.