I have a different mental illness which results in severe attention deficit. As such, I do not take ADHD medicine, and I largely accept my wandering mind as something which needs to be handled naturally. To me, it's like if almost everyone around me has a pitcher and I have a shot glass. Things happening--good, bad, and indifferent-- fill our various vessels. For most people, at the end of the day your pitcher will not have overflowed. For me, if I am not constantly vigilant about how much liquid in my shot glass, it could overflow within a couple of hours of me arriving at work. Once my shot glass overflows, the productive part of my day is probably over, and it might take me more than a day to recover.
I rely on habit a lot to get me thru things when I am kind of iffy mentally. Of course, Covid basically collapsed all of my habits and that is something I still have not recovered from, whether that is in language learning or in the workplace.
Do you take ADHD medication?
- devilyoudont
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Re: Do you take ADHD medication?
TSS42 wrote:No, I don't take any poison,... I mean "medication".
Good luck if you get a bacterial infection.
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Re: Do you take ADHD medication?
I agree about ADHD being over-diagnosed in people who meet the stereotype of the young boy who struggles with school structure, but it's also turning out to be under-diagnosed in people who don't, such as girls and anyone who copes well at school but has difficulties in other areas of life.
I have a friend who was diagnosed with severe ADHD last year, in her mid-forties, after having fought for it for years, not been taken seriously by the public healthcare system, and paying good money for a private assessment. It's been absolutely life-changing for her, both in terms of the self-understanding and resulting confidence and the day-to-day benefits of the medication.
Her experience has encouraged me to look into it more, because if I look past the stereotypes, the descriptions of ADHD are scarily familiar to me, albeit much less strongly than in my friend. Not just difficulty with attention but under-achievement at work, difficulty with organisation and time management, constant restlessness, difficulty in social life and relationships and commitments, and more. Especially the hyper-focus part where with the right level of inclination and circumstances you can focus intensely on something that interests you, which would explain my academic success which is what had stopped me from ever considering it before. I have always felt I'm not quite "neurotypical" (I use the term purely to describe people without autism or ADHD, not to associate with the very questionable neurodiversity movement) but while I do have a few of the traits of autism/Aspergers it's never quite added up.
Anyway this is very much just a suspicion and not a self-diagnosis. I would like to get assessed sometime, but between the cost (especially when I'm not really interested in medication, considering I've managed pretty well so far without it), the fact that a proper assessment involves talking with family and digging up school reports which is going to take me a lot of courage, and more pressing health issues I'm procrastinating so far.
I have a friend who was diagnosed with severe ADHD last year, in her mid-forties, after having fought for it for years, not been taken seriously by the public healthcare system, and paying good money for a private assessment. It's been absolutely life-changing for her, both in terms of the self-understanding and resulting confidence and the day-to-day benefits of the medication.
Her experience has encouraged me to look into it more, because if I look past the stereotypes, the descriptions of ADHD are scarily familiar to me, albeit much less strongly than in my friend. Not just difficulty with attention but under-achievement at work, difficulty with organisation and time management, constant restlessness, difficulty in social life and relationships and commitments, and more. Especially the hyper-focus part where with the right level of inclination and circumstances you can focus intensely on something that interests you, which would explain my academic success which is what had stopped me from ever considering it before. I have always felt I'm not quite "neurotypical" (I use the term purely to describe people without autism or ADHD, not to associate with the very questionable neurodiversity movement) but while I do have a few of the traits of autism/Aspergers it's never quite added up.
Anyway this is very much just a suspicion and not a self-diagnosis. I would like to get assessed sometime, but between the cost (especially when I'm not really interested in medication, considering I've managed pretty well so far without it), the fact that a proper assessment involves talking with family and digging up school reports which is going to take me a lot of courage, and more pressing health issues I'm procrastinating so far.
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- sporedandroid
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Re: Do you take ADHD medication?
I think I have pretty bad ADHD symptoms, but when I tried Ritalin I didn’t like it. I just felt paranoid and on guard and it didn’t actually help me focus. I tried to get diagnosed as a teen, but I kept getting pushed to the back of the waitlist. By the time I turned 18 or 19 I just got pushed off the waitlist completely since apparently being an adult cures ADHD. It didn’t. I can’t function in any school-like structure, so I thought it would be super obvious.
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Re: Do you take ADHD medication?
Ritalin has gotten a bad reputation, because it gets over-prescribed for kids. It has also gotten confused with adderral, but it's not even the same class of drug. Adderall is an amphetamine, whereas Ritalin is a dopamine reuptake inhibitor. It works by balancing the neurochemistry of people who are over-amped on norepinephrine. That's what causes the poor focus that gets labelled ADHD. What is less appreciated is that Ritalin is also useful in the elderly to clear brain fog. It's quite a brilliant drug. And, yes, I take it.
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Re: Do you take ADHD medication?
luke wrote:With that in mind, we have a new poll:
I wish there was just a "no" option buddy. I am sometimes troubled by a wandering mind, but don't have ADHD, so wouldn't take related drugs. I am not against using meds for it. So I'm not voting on principle.
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- PeterMollenburg
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Re: Do you take ADHD medication?
Le Baron wrote:TSS42 wrote:No, I don't take any poison,... I mean "medication".
Good luck if you get a bacterial infection.
Drugs do indeed saves lives (I have family members who wouldn't be alive today without them).... and drugs do kill.
Death by Medicine, a 2010 film by Gary Null, Ph.D
(Film's Closing Statement)
Death by Medicine required six years of in-depth research on the part of the doctoral scholars who received many hundreds of studies from peer-reviewed medical literature. The only statistics used in this film are from mainstream publications. Referring to Lexus-Nexus, over 300,000 lawsuits have been settled by the pharmaceutical industry, totaling hundreds of billions of dollars. These suits were brought forth for wrongful death, concealing the known toxic and lethal effects of various drugs, illegally selling drugs off label, price fixing, intentionally misreporting studies and falsification of data. All of the major pharmaceutical companies have been involved in these kinds of illegal activities and the most egregious being the 60,000 dead and 120,000 severely injured people due to (left blank for legal reasons on this website). With few exceptions, the principle philosophy of the pharmaceutical industry has been to continue to sell dangerous drugs as long as they are still profitable. The cost of settling lawsuits is simply factored in as part of the cost of doing business. Without exception, all major drug companies have close ties to the FDA, the CDC, the White House, members of Congress, medical publications and associations, and the American media. Their reputations have remained unblemished.
So, take with caution and only if absolutely necessary is my philosophy, and be very mindful of the influences (yes even the presented research can be deceitful) in making an informed decision in consultation with your doctor. The above does not mean don't take medications you have been prescribed - I am not telling you to do that. Medications also save many lives. Look after yourself so you can avoid running the risks of taking medications that do have side effects. Yes I have been known to take antibiotics, but I do my utmost to avoid it. High dose Vit C is one natural alternative with many thousands of research papers that back up its effectiveness.
I don't have ADHD.
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Re: Do you take ADHD medication?
Sorry for bringing an old(ish) topic back up!
I got diagnosed with ADHD about two months ago. I already had my suspicions, but for a long time I was functioning mostly fine because the way my brain works fit my lifestyle at the time, I guess. I was also very good at suppressing some behaviours and overcompensating on others so no one noticed a thing, and had a billion coping strategies. The energy that cost was in retrospect probably one of the causes for my bad burn-out a few years ago. Unfortunately, since that burn-out I've lost the ability/energy to go back to that way of living, and a lot of things are much harder now. Thankfully my therapist (who I was seeing about other things) clocked me as ADHD and started the process to get me diagnosed.
It's been a breath of fresh air, honestly. It explains so much! I was rereading my first language log a little while ago and there were so many red flags (I don't keep any other diaries these days so the language log is the only semi-consistent thing I had to fall back on - I say semi-consistent because... ADHD ). I do actually enjoy a lot of side effects of having ADHD (I'm never bored, for one), and my case isn't the most severe. I still function mostly normally, but I'm learning what my weak points are and how to deal with them without burning out all over again.
Aside from therapy (like MisterVimes said, pills don't teach skills!) I'm taking meds. We thankfully found the right meds and dose very quickly. (The first dose we tried made me feel like I had ten coffees on a hangover not good - and this is just to say: you don't have to settle for meds that don't work for you!) Anyway, I love it. It's making me feel more like myself again, instead of the impulsive, unfocused beast that possessed me the part few years. It's much easier to regulate emotions, I'm less impulsive, I'm a bit more productive, I can hold a linear thought, and I'm not so sensitive to outside influences. As a bonus, I sleep well, and (this is mind-blowing) I feel genuinely rested for the first time in... my life, perhaps? I'm now normal amounts of tired at normal moments, and not bone-tired all the time regardless of how I slept or what I did. I guess this is what normal people feel like all the time? Oh, how much easier it is to deal with life when you're not exhausted all the time!
I got diagnosed with ADHD about two months ago. I already had my suspicions, but for a long time I was functioning mostly fine because the way my brain works fit my lifestyle at the time, I guess. I was also very good at suppressing some behaviours and overcompensating on others so no one noticed a thing, and had a billion coping strategies. The energy that cost was in retrospect probably one of the causes for my bad burn-out a few years ago. Unfortunately, since that burn-out I've lost the ability/energy to go back to that way of living, and a lot of things are much harder now. Thankfully my therapist (who I was seeing about other things) clocked me as ADHD and started the process to get me diagnosed.
It's been a breath of fresh air, honestly. It explains so much! I was rereading my first language log a little while ago and there were so many red flags (I don't keep any other diaries these days so the language log is the only semi-consistent thing I had to fall back on - I say semi-consistent because... ADHD ). I do actually enjoy a lot of side effects of having ADHD (I'm never bored, for one), and my case isn't the most severe. I still function mostly normally, but I'm learning what my weak points are and how to deal with them without burning out all over again.
Aside from therapy (like MisterVimes said, pills don't teach skills!) I'm taking meds. We thankfully found the right meds and dose very quickly. (The first dose we tried made me feel like I had ten coffees on a hangover not good - and this is just to say: you don't have to settle for meds that don't work for you!) Anyway, I love it. It's making me feel more like myself again, instead of the impulsive, unfocused beast that possessed me the part few years. It's much easier to regulate emotions, I'm less impulsive, I'm a bit more productive, I can hold a linear thought, and I'm not so sensitive to outside influences. As a bonus, I sleep well, and (this is mind-blowing) I feel genuinely rested for the first time in... my life, perhaps? I'm now normal amounts of tired at normal moments, and not bone-tired all the time regardless of how I slept or what I did. I guess this is what normal people feel like all the time? Oh, how much easier it is to deal with life when you're not exhausted all the time!
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- FyrsteSumarenINoreg
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