I’ve been struggling with my HRT levels for a while after finding out I was effectively menopausal earlier this year. I noticed this by my FSH being high. Since then I switched from pills to gel and it got me back into the non menopausal range, but only just.

I know this because I’ve been having regular blood tests. My metabolism is quite fast and clears stuff from my system quickly, so the longer release of gel (it builds a reservoir in the fat) works for me.

Anyway, since starting lisdexamfetamine for ADHD, I’ve checked my FSH using urine tests and it got a lot lower still. I figured it was somehow calming down my liver and letting the oestrogen last longer in the body.

Got a new blood test result yesterday. FSH is now MUCH lower, which is good.

But it’s not from oestrogen.

It’s from TESTOSTERONE!

Elvanse seems to have kicked my adrenal glands up a notch. I guess this makes sense. It is a stimulant. It’s taken my T from the very bottom of the female range to the middle of it. Impressive, given I have no ovaries (in cis women, testosterone comes from both the ovaries and adrenals).

Explains why my sex drive has been a bit higher of late, I guess.

Noticed when driving on Elvanse that I have to actively scan for hazards which I just knew about before.

This is making me be super careful when driving.

For those who don’t have ADHD, it’s really badly named. We don’t have an attention deficit at all. We just can’t control what it’s focusing on for long.

Basically our brains are constantly processing the entire input stream from our environment. All of it. You have no idea how utterly overwhelming this is until it switches off for the first time.

And then there’s a moment of clarity, before which you were listening to every radio station in the world simultaneously and always have been.

And now you’re just listening to one.

But with driving, I think that was actually making me a safer driver because it’s hard to become target fixated when your neurology basically can’t do that.

Something for me to be aware of. Now I have to choose to scan for hazards.

Or drive unmedicated.

Apparently if you’re a pilot with ADHD, your medical requires you to fly unmedicated. I now understand why.

Just over a week on ADHD meds now (Elvanse), and honestly, still life changing.

My clinician thinks that 50mg may be “my dose”, but it’s perhaps a little early to tell and we’re going to pick this up in a week’s time.

I’m not averse to at least trying the 60s, but we shall see.

Anyway, apparently a few people who know me find it a bit weird, or even startling to encounter me on Elvanse, especially now I’ve stepped up my dose.

Picture someone you know who has always been a “chaos goblin”. I’ve always been very outgoing (it’s a mask. I’m terrified), mercurial, eager to say my piece, etc.

Now picture such a person on speed, which is basically what Elvanse slowly converts to in your red blood cells.

The picture in your head probably isn’t someone sitting still, waiting their turn in conversation, speaking slowly and with consideration.

I’ve been told I look “drugged”, in a way vaguely reminiscent of benzodiazepines.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I am alert and focused. More than I have ever been before. I just don’t feel the need to interrupt you and finish your sentences any more.

At least, not until the evening, when it wears off. Then I’m the chaos goblin again.

I have just had an utterly cursed insight.

Today at the lowest point of my ADHD meds cycle the injustice and moral outrage over what the UK has just done burns like a million suns. It is physically painful.

It’s said that our emotions are disregulated: we either feel nothing or our emotions are dialled up to a million, with basically nothing in between.

Even though it probably won’t affect me, it HURTS.

And it is the nature of ADHD brains to tell us we are terrible people for not fixing the world’s ills. Suspect that’s why I was so compelled to do trans activism.

And why now, before I take today’s Elvanse, there is part my my brain whispering to me that I am a dreadful human being for not doing more, even though I literally gave myself a nervous breakdown.

That part of the brain is called the Default Mode Network. Some of us call it the “DeMoN”.

It’s also why it looks to us like neurotypicals have no sense of morality.

Because they can look at injustice without it hurting and without knowing that they aren’t a total piece of shit for not fixing it. Elvanse has given me that insight.

I am struggling to not explode with rage at what Labour are doing. Yesterday I actually did, until Elvanse took that away.

And I’m craving having it taken away again today because it’s really very painful.

And that I want that means my demon is telling me that I am the literal worst human alive.