Modafinil

[snarp]

Second day on the stuff. Much more alert and focused than normal, wow. I have gotten things done! Remained focused on unpleasant necessary tasks for long periods of time without exhausting myself!

Cons: it's not helping noticeably for the physical fatigue. I'm also shaky and irritable in spite of l-theanine - not as unpleasantly as with a lot of caffeine, because I'm not wandering off into morbid lines of thought as is my caffeinated wont, but I keep needing to remind myself to unclench my jaw/fist/other-clenchables. Visual processing is unsurprisingly worse than usual.

Still, definitely very helpful! I decided to stay off kratom while I get used to this stuff, and so far have felt no need need to re-think that in terms of cognitive state. When I'm not in pain, my mood is sufficiently under my control lately that the euphoric effect of the stuff actually feels intrusive - that's not something I want when I'm not otherwise anhedonic.

Comments

[umadoshi]

I don't think I'd ever heard of l-theanine before you mentioned it, but from what little I've now read about it, it sounds innocuous enough that I'd be happy to take that too if it meant I could safely take something else that might help me focus enough to ever do much of anything that requires self-direction. :/

I'm seeing my psych on Monday anyway, so I'll mention this to him then, I think, much as I'd rather discuss this sort of thing with someone I had an actual rapport with. (He's fine? But we have zero connection, and as mentioned, he just doesn't seem to listen well.)

[snarp]

Good luck!

L-theanine is very safe, yeah - there's a lot of it in green tea, so if it were dangerous, East Asia would probably have noticed and switched beverages by now. The worst problem you're likely to see with it is grogginess if you take too much in the morning.