Noah Kochanowicz

This is the raw stream of consciousness I experienced. Every time listed is the real time that I started typing the sentences that followed. Only some formatting changes and light proofreading were made after the fact.

I'm procrastinating. Ironically on taking my first pill. In a previous post, I alluded to me having ADHD. I didn't officially have it when I wrote it but I knew it was coming. I had been seeing a therapist specifically for this diagnosis, over about three sessions for nearly two months. I went on my walk to Montreal and somewhere east of Kingston I got the email with a preview of my test results.

It's now 10:45am, I was supposed to take the pill first thing this morning but I wanted to write about it. I got a new computer last night and for whatever reason, every other system I had in place to write about something wasn't good enough this morning. I ate my breakfast, had a coffee and then messed around with my computer for about two hours.

Last night wasn't a great sleep, I was thinking about taking this pill for the first time. I've read about other people's experiences on this for several months now. I'm equal parts nervous (mostly that it won't work) as I am excited (that it will work). People have described it as putting on glasses that let you see the world as other people experience it. I'm excited at the prospect of sitting down and writing not requiring me to have hours of build up to get going. That a five minute chore won't require me to spend two hours refining my todo list to be the most optimal. But I'm nervous that it will do none of that.

It's now 10:47am and I'm writing this because of a story I was told about during a high school literature class. I tried looking this up, I thought it was some beat poet like Ginsberg but it might have been Hugh MacDiarmid's *A drunk man looks at a thistle*. I'm not sure that's what it was, high school was a long time ago and I also didn't pay attention very well; overall I'm a pretty unreliable narrator here. Either way, I'm still writing because I wanted to document the experience.

It's now 10:52am, I've taken the Concerta out of the bottle and it's sitting next to me now. The pharmacist said it could take up to 30 minutes to kick in. It's late enough now that I'll probably have trouble getting to sleep before midnight.

It's now 10:57am, I still haven't taken it. At this point I'm having an ill-advised second coffee and will take the pill with it. While the water is boiling I took a moment to pet my dog. She's being very cute right now. She's always cute. But she's also cute right now.

It's 11:01am, my coffee is almost finished. I have a todo list with 14 things on it. I'm still on my sabbatical so I could just do none of them. But two of them are writing this post and taking the pill. My baseline would be that maybe four of those items get completed. My baseline is that the twenty odd unread messages on my phone would stay that way until guilt has built up enough to reply. I'm nervous that the baseline will continue to be my everyday. The pill being next to me but not being taken is a sort of Schrodinger's cat. If I don't take it, there's hope that it *will* work. If I don't take it, I haven't killed the dream that it will work. But if I do take it and it doesn't work, then what?

The time is 11:05. My coffee is done and I'm ready to see what happens.

It's 11:06am. After a long pause holding the pill in my hand, I've taken it with some water. A timer is going for 25 minutes next to me and now I wait.

Waiting

I'm imagining one of those Sci-Fi movies. Where the camera zooms in on the main character's face and it looks like they've been sucked into a black hole. Maybe it will be like that. My wife and I were reading about what happens when you take it yesterday. Impulse control is improved apparently. I joked that we should go to my favourite stores and see what happens. Would I be able to go to IKEA and *not* get a hot dog? Could I just *walk by a Best Buy*? I'm sure there's efficacy to these drugs, but surely they don't make you super human.

It's been almost 4 minutes now. It's 11:10am. I look over to my dog's food bowl and see that it's empty. She usually doesn't eat until the evening when she starts to get hungry, maybe grazing a bit through the day. I could easily fill up her dish but instinctively I added it to my todo list. Will I be cured of that idiotic process of putting off such a simple task. The mere act of adding something to my todo list takes the same amount of time as actually filling up her dish. But the *effort* feels so incredibly different.

It's now 11:13am. If I hadn't done so much procrastinating I would have probably been feeling the effects by now. Or maybe I am feeling the effects now? How will I know? Do you know? Does that worm hole effect really happen? I have that thought often. Not the worm hole thought. But if I had just procrastinated a little less, not no procrastination, just less, then I could have been casually walking to my meeting with someone instead of sweating because I'm trying to catch a streetcar I definitely won't make.

It's 11:16am, I'm gonna go pet my dog.

It's 11:18am, my dog had been pet, I also filled her dish. I'm not feeling any effects, that was more just me wanting to do something instead of think while I wait. What if I do feel different but it's not a good different? Like something that's sociably better and more productive but less creative? This is a brain that invented the renowned *Balls of America* where you boil macaroni in Coca Cola instead of water and then deep fry that with hot dogs, cheddar cheese and wrap it in bacon. Imagine if the world didn't have that?

It's 11:25am, I go on to Reddit to check what should be happening. Most people are saying it can take up to an hour for it to kick in. But the only way to tell is not from an altered state of consciousness but a shift from "I should do this" to "I should do this" and then going an doing that thing. I'll try that when my timer goes off in five minutes. How do I know it's not just placebo, though? My first test will be to cook. I have three meals to make, it should take less than 4 hours from start to finish.

It's 11:30am, I do feel different. It's subtle. I feel like I do after I get a really good night of sleep. I think the best way I can describe what I feel is like when you've been struggling with a stuffy nose and and then all of the sudden you're finally able to blow your nose and it's cleared up. It's like that but with my brain. Something feels like it has smoothed out.

After

It's 11:33am, I'm going to start tackling the cooking.

It's 12:02pm, I just did a lot of the prep work I needed to complete for cooking. I diced up 4 onions which normally would have taken me over an hour. Every half an onion I probably would have stopped and gone to work on something else like scrolling Reddit or doing some cleaning. Even coming back here to start typing something. I would say I pushed through, but it wasn't even pushing. The thought of not wanting to be chopping the onions went through my head multiple times but I kept going.

I'm noting my internal dialog being a lot less noisy. Random thoughts were coming but not sticking. Really the thought that was going through my head was just strictly related to that task and nothing else. Not even thinking about the next thing I need to do. The thought to go on Reddit just popped into my head, but it wasn't strong enough for me to actually open up Reddit.

It's 12:06pm, there's a lot of cooking left, going back to that.

It's 1:32pm, I'm getting to the point in cooking where there's 3-5 minute periods of waiting. My brain wants to do something else, but it's relatively easy for me to not do that thing. I'm aware that if I start doing something else, like checking my email or event returning to this writing that it would be enough of a distraction to derail me for more than 5 minutes. It still take the conscious decision to not get derailed. I consciously decided to return to this writing because it's been a while and I have to wait for a few things to finish anyways. But the effort required to keep moving is substantially less.

There's a red dot on my email app, I know there's a new email to look at but it isn't driving me insane to just leave it there. It's been there for at least 30 minutes (I have to return to my laptop to check the meal instructions) and I've been able to leave it there without it consuming me.

It's 2:42pm, I noticed it starting to wear off about 30 minutes ago. I didn't realise how much it was doing to calm me down. Every now and then I have a thought about something in the past that happen that makes me upset or angry. I had those thoughts pop up a few hours ago, but they just went away. Now I'm starting to see it impact me again.

The last bit of food is in the oven and will come out in three minutes, I just need to wait for everything to cool now so I can put it away and clean up. I'll eat in the meantime. The unread email notification is starting to bother me now but I'm still able to resist the urge to check it though it takes more effort.

It's 2:49pm, I've plated myself some lunch while I wait for the rest of the food to cool down. I emptied the dishwasher while I was waiting for my meal to be done. It took me around three minutes, normally I would have only done a portion of it and left the rest for later.

It's 3:56pm, I sent a couple of emails I've been procrastinating on, but the effort to send them was noticeable. I now need to put away the food but it is hard to get up. One thing I noticed when making the food is I didn't put on any music or a YouTube video. I wanted to, but I didn't do it, I was able to resist the urge.

It's 4:08pm, I'm feeling slightly shaky, like I've had too much caffeine. I think the focus part of this is getting close to wearing off. Starting to feel closer to my baseline again.

It's 4:36pm, the dishwasher is running, there's still more cleaning to do, all the food is put away. I'm still overall above baseline.

It is 5:44pm. I decided less than an hour ago to do a marketplace deal in Scarborough. This put a deadline on me getting the kitchen cleaned up which motivated me to get off my computer. I believe the effects of the drug have completely worn off now. I am on the train now to Scarborough, leaving at the last possible minute.

Next

Starting to cook always took some effort, this definitely helped getting me to finish cooking and clean up without a real deadline. But I have bigger challenges that I'd like to test next.

  

It's 11:57pm, Finally posting this. It's 12:04am, landed on a title -- good enough.