It's me I have ADHD why are they so against meds
You can get a diagnosis as an adult! My stepmom got it and she has nothing but good things to say about Adderall (though I tried it once and it just made me twitchy and sweaty).
I think it's a boomer brain worm that they share. Maybe ADHD is over-diagnosed, I'm not a researcher whose studied it so I can't make that claim, but tons of people in my generation especially are convinced that that's the case, most likely because the national conversation around ADHD (also ADD, Autism, etc) went from almost completely non-existent while we were in school to really loud after we graduated.
Talking about over-diagnosis results in people with a real problem going undiagnosed. So many people rely on adhd meds just to be functional human beings it's really toxic discourse.
Diagnosed at 27. Amphetamine medication lifted the fog from my mind for the very first time in my life. If I had been diagnosed fifteen years earlier I have no doubt my situation would be completely different. I was barely able to graduate college because I literally skipped all my classes, despite having a desire to attend them.
yea same. forced me to transition as well cause I couldn't just disassociate to distract myself from dysphoria afterwards.
Even just knowing this about oneself makes a big difference in my experience
Agreed, I also think that the aversion to taking/giving meds comes from the ableist/eugenicist conditioning that we all get from society. "I didn't need adderall because I'm not one of those", etc.
I hate the discourse around ADHD over-diagnosis, because few people are unable to distinguish between:
a. Lazy parents giving their rambunctious 7 year old stims because they aren't perfectly obedient little kids.
b. People with inattentiveness having serious problems fitting within the parameters society expects them to function.
People then use their perception of A to determine that B are just lazy, poorly-behaved people who have a fake condition used to excuse impulsivity and not paying attention.
Half of everyone I mention having ADHD to looks at me in disgust like I'm a drug addict undeserving of any consideration differing from neurotypical people.
It's possible for a condition to be simultaneously overdiagnosed and underdiagnosed (if the wrong people are being diagnosed). I've never heard anyone else make that observation.
We should print and frame that first sentence. Lots of children are prescribed that don't need it and many more are never diagnosed because young life is already so structured for you.
And like, for adults why the fuck should it matter if I have a true diagnosis? If I prefer my life taking adderall every day I should be allowed to do that. I understand wanting to make sure we’re not just sedating children for acting like children but adults should absolutely be able to make their own choices.
I think there might be some legitimate health reasons to control the drug, here in the UK at least it's a very controlled drug. Doesn't it raise the heart rate and do some serious things to blood pressure? I know I get those monitored regularly as part of my prescription.
Even if we’re gonna restrict it to a prescription, I don’t see why you should need to have a “legitimate diagnosis.” You could just require that you talk to a doctor and have to have monitoring like that. But if you’re fully aware of the potential side effects I think you should be able to make that choice.
Plus in the US going to the doctor is very expensive
I'm not completely sure what the health implications are but I agree mostly. I think if there are health implications that a requirement of the prescription should be the regular monitoring of heart and blood pressure to make sure people aren't going to blow their hearts up. There are definitely variances depending on dosage that can cause me to noticeably feel that I have a higher heart rate, I typically stay below that level as it's uncomfortable and gives me a bit of anxiety but this might not be the case with everyone.
Yeah I have no problem with implementing steps to make sure people do things safely. But if you want adderall even if it’s cause “I like it” I see no problem with that. I can’t imagine it’s worse than alcohol at the very least.
Sure but nowhere near the extent that any of these drugs do, and not for 12 hours per day.
You should not have access to amphetamines just because you want them. That would be a nightmare society.
Because it fucks you up. Not sleeping or eating for days on end makes you become a crazy person. It's also super addictive. There is probably no worse drug to bring to widespread use than amphetamines.
Hang out with some people addicted to uppers and it won't take long to see what I mean.
I think the overdiagnosis thing is a 90s and 00s phenomenon. I think a more common talking point now is about greymarkets for adhd drugs used by people without a diagnosis, especially in competitive professional programs or as early professionals. Which in itself I think is overstated, I know very few people who actually do it, but the claims are that pretty much everyone in a competitive field does.
I feel like Autism is now the popular disability that people claim is being overdiagnosed.
Hated the side effects. Appetite suppression, disruption of sleep. Heightened anxiety at times boiling into suicidal ideation. Everyone experiences them differently, obviously don't assume this will be the case for everyone. Weed was the only thing that could balance the side effects. Now I'm off them and while many times I feel like I'm a bit more hazy, so to speak, I prefer it to the endless anxiety I lived with before.
40 mg of Adderall XR in the morning and 100 mg of THC in butter form on toast every morning for me.
But I work from home.
I don’t watch chapo, but when people hate ADHD meds (not just hate taking them, but hate them as a thing that exists), it’s almost always ableism
All I'll say is I spent ten years trying to sort myself out with antidepressants, often with disastrous consequences, and then discovered that I should have been on ADHD meds the entire time.
Really? Felix goes off on the regular about how all mental illness is fake and how people who take welbutrin are just attention hogs. Pretty sure it's projection tho
Felix and Brace think everyone who says they have a mental illness is a 19-year-old Tumblr user from 2014
My dr giving me an rx for Welbutrin after I had a breakdown in her office is probably the single best thing that has happened for my mental health in my 30+ years of life.
I avoided meds for so long, even though it was really obvious that I needed some help. That internalized "only people with real problems need meds, I don't have real problems, I'm just doing it for attention/I'm clearly faking it, if I work harder and just weren't so lazy everything would be just fine, I'm just looking for an easy way out instead of improving myself" mindset fucked me over so hard and so unnecessarily, especially in college and throughout my twenties.
In summary, fuck anyone who badmouths ADHD meds.
Wellbutrin literally saved my life, even if it has a couple side effects I don’t love. Every other med I’ve taken has either done nothing or made the problem worse, and unmedicated I would’ve killed myself years ago.
Biggest issue is that I sleep too much, taking a lot of naps in the middle of the day, and I doze off when doing long repetitive tasks, particularly driving. Thankfully my girlfriend prefers driving so I don’t have to do long drives myself very often, but when I do I build in extra time to occasionally pull over and take a quick nap.
Other issue is that I sweat too much, I was already a sweaty person but basically if it’s above 75F I’m dripping now
That’s on 300mg of Wellbutrin xr and 10mg twice daily of buspar. It’s also hard to disentangle the effects of the buspar vs the Wellbutrin
buspar
not familiar with that, what is it like?
I had night sweats for the first month of wellbutrin, and also had a couple weeks where I was tired, but that seemed to go away for me.
It’s kinda the reverse Wellbutrin, where Wellbutrin treats depression but not anxiety, Buspar treats anxiety but not depression. Between the two of them it’s like a whole SSRI but your dick still works.
Oh I don't even listen to the pod anymore. Still seems like a weird thing for a first post. Maybe that's just siege mentality on my part because of the recent spat of new accounts trying to stir shit up and I sort of assumed they were referencing the site itself and not the pod. And yes I understand this is running counter to our new policy about not referencing account age and I should probably just delete this but old habits are hard to break. I will leave it up for people to dunk on me for it.
This is the most annoying shit. And I've come across a disappointing number of leftists in my lifetime that will talk about "muh big pharma" using it to control people or how my medication is somehow poison while they stuff their system with alcohol and marijuana.
People handle medications very differently and it can take several tries before finding one that works for you. I have been very happy with Vyvanse and it turned me around from a very violent and sex-addicted maniac to someone able to hold down a job and excel in many ways that I couldn't before. The people who always go the hardest about "mind over matter" with me bitch the hardest when I'm off my meds and not as reliable as they're used to.
As someone who has been prescribed Vynanse for years, I think Brace Belden put it best in the last episode he was a guest on. ADHD is over-diagnosed because the symptoms are basically indistinguishable from normal adolescent behavior. This means people end up getting prescribed medical-grade speed at a young age when they really don't need it. Eventually these people (myself included) end up not being able to function without the medications. For me, I really don't even know if my ADHD diagnosis is valid; because I can't do shit without my meds and I don't know if that's a result of dependency on Vyvanse or actual ADHD.
medical-grade speed
Thank goodness. I should hope medical doctors aren't giving children adulterated street-grade drugs.
I don’t know if that’s a result of dependency on Vyvanse or actual ADHD.
Dependencies subside, congenital conditions don't. Have you ever gone off it for a while?
Medical grade means it's pure. It's super weak doses. I have ADHD but also was a speed freak, so I would like it if maybe something other than amphetamines could be looked into. Also I have seen amphetamines work very well as prescribed and for certain people with adhd it actually helps with sleep and is basically the opposite effect speed normally has. For me and a lot of others, it's fucking speed, which can for sure alleviate symptoms, but that can just make you someone who's really good at doing speed cause you're further from psychotic hyperfocus that can come with a non adhd tweeker. But to me it was still super addictive, I didn't eat and didn't sleep and it led to even worse brain stuff. Bear in mind as well that I was never prescribed anything, adhd diagnosis came after speed addiction. So I'm all over the place opinion wise, like most drugs, if it works for you it works, if it doesn't it doesn't but it can easily feel like it's working real good when it actually isn't as well.
I would like it if maybe something other than amphetamines could be looked into
Good news, strattera exists! It’s a non-stimulant ADHD med. It worked well for me for a while, until the side effects got real bad and I switched to adderall. Adderall saved my life
Yeah, that won't do. I'm also fairly okay with my adhd and don't really feel the need to medicate.
I'm pretty dependent on my medications but that's because I realize how much I can actually do when I have them. I look back at my life before medication and realize how much I struggled to do damn near anything.
I'd love to hear some evidence they hate ADHD meds and aren't just shit-talking addied up PMC strivers who don't have ADHD but just drug themselves to increase their productivity
Speaking as someone with ADHD who takes meds for it: Hating on recreational users just adds to anti-stimulant stigma and I wish people would stop doing it. IDGAF if there are people out there using adderall to get ahead. The war on drugs needs to die
Edit: also, you never know if some of those “addied up PMC strivers” might be (knowingly or unknowingly) self-medicating for undiagnosed ADHD. Does it even fucking matter? Kill your inner cop
Actually strivers who don't have ADHD using aderall to get ahead actively makes the lives of competing workers and students worse by ratcheting up the expectation bar for what is considered acceptable levels of preformance. So IDGAF if a comedian makes fun of them, fuck them.
If you're looking for jokes that through no lens could offend anybody ever at all I'm not really sure why you're listening to Chapo honestly
I don’t see why adults shouldn’t be able to make a conscious choice to take any drug that makes their brain or body work a preferred way and isn’t destroying their life
They can, but if they're a certain kind of person other people can make fun of them
A quick and dirty way to diagnose yourself with ADHD is to do uppers at a party then spend three hours sitting quietly wondering why everyone else is so hyper.
I don't know why, but I would like to note that, like all drugs, there are people for whom amphetamines are extremely dangerous, such as people who have borderline personality disorder. Acting like amphetamines are as harmless as coffee is no better than the existing stigma.
I used to be a speedfreak, if I had a script I will abuse the hell out of it. It's not for everyone
I have ADHD which means I'm allowed to hate ADHD meds (which I do).
I also do think it's over diagnosed/a misdiagnosis of another issue based on other kids I knew in college who got time and a half on tests with me, and that's before considering the people who are doing it just to be more productive.
:downbear:
Who are you to judge whether people needs extra time on exams or medication?
Just because people getting extra exam time may not seem like they need it, doesn't mean that they don't.
Just because you don't like ADHD meds doesn't mean they aren't immensely useful for other people with ADHD.
People abusing my medication do great harm to the rest of us because they trivialize their use and liken them to athletic PEDs.
Please be very careful when discussing the abuse & over-prescription of these drugs, because the rest of us definitely feel the fallout of this discussion.
Seriously. If someone asks for an accessibility resource, fucking give it to them. If time and a half will help you on a test, you should have it. Time shouldn’t be a factor in the vast majority of tests.
:downbear: extensions for disabilities are one thing, but infinite time is incredibly disrespectful to teachers who need to grade the test.
The vast majority of people don’t NEED extra time. I had maybe one test in my entire time in undergrad that I could’ve used extra time, and it was biochemistry, a class with notoriously bullshit exams.
For most people, more time won’t change anything, because either you know the answer or you don’t. It’s fine to have a time limit but if many people are routinely not finishing in time it’s a bad test, and if someone routinely can’t finish tests in time they should have extra time.
Edit: Also, ultimately I do not trust our institutions to determine who does and doesn’t have a valid disability that deserves accommodations. People are wrongly diagnosed or not diagnosed when they should be all the time. And that’s just of people who CAN go to the doctor. Remember: A diagnosis requires seeing a doctor, likely regularly, and in the US that can cost a lot of money.
Who am I to judge? Someone who knows/knew the people I am talking about.
Who are you to assume that because I said that I think it's over diagnosed/a misdiagnosis that I am a person who thinks they it doesn't exist, or that I don't think the meds help anyone, or that I need the same spiel you have repeated several times now?
Who are you to assume that because I said that I think it’s over diagnosed/a misdiagnosis that I am a person who thinks they it doesn’t exist or that I don’t think the help anyone
Someone who deals with the fallout effects from neurotypicals thinking they can discredit people having ADHD. Carelessness with this argument results in you being cited as the "black friend" that NT fucks use to dismiss our struggles.
I've dealt with NTs whining about over-diagnosis and it being a fake condition in the past week, and probably at least once a month since my diagnosis a few years ago.
I may not personally know your cohort, and perhaps they don't need additional considerations, but people dismissing my need of additional considerations does me far more harm than people getting benefits they don't need. (of course these are inextricably tied).
or that I need the same spiel you have repeated several times now?
"several" meaning one out of my three comments discussing this topic.
My comment isn't a personal attack, and I mean nothing but love, but I'm very aware of how NTs will take comments like your original and use that to dismiss the rest of us with ADHD.
My comment isn't a personal attack, and I mean nothing but love, but I'm very aware of how NTs will take comments like your original and use that to dismiss the rest of us with ADHD.
Please don't pretend you didn't intend to be hostile when you gave me a little sticker on your thoughts of my post like this is middle school and ask me who I am to know my friends.
I identified myself as someone with ADHD (meaning that I think it's real) in my first comment that you responded to. Saying that I think it's over/misdiagnosed, or that I don't personally like the meds, isn't contradictory to ADHD being a real disability.
and ask me who I am to
know my friendsevaluate if "other kids I knew in college" have a valid disability.Your comment is okaying it for others to question the validity of whether people are worthy of accomodations...I don't care if you have ADHD or not, this is shit I deal with regularly and it hurts.
The "little sticker" is intended to let you & everyone viewing your comment know I find it harmful.
If your other comments are true, you could have edited your initial comment with the context instead of retroactively adding that your relationship is closer than initially implied, and acting as if the interpretation of the original comment was uncharitable.
No, my comment is saying that I knew who else in my program got accommodations for ADHD because I took tests with them, and that I knew some of them well enough to after 4 years to know that they likely had something else that was misdiagnosed (some of which were later confirmed), or they outright admitted that they didn't actually have ADHD to me. And yes, I found that out because I was friends with manys of those kids, which I have already asked you to stop claiming they aren't, yet you continue.
I didn't need to edit anything. What you did instead of reading what I wrote in good faith was to bad jacket me by talking to me as if I am a chud who found my way on here and that my words were going to change prescription guidelines for the heads of the AMA and DEA that are apparently some of the 500 people online on this niche leftist website. You immediately jumped the most bad faith reading of my comment and have been hostile and bad jacketing anyone in this thread who disagrees with you, including other people with this disability.
You don’t know those people though. You don’t know what’s going on in their heads. ADHD is invisible
Yes, I literally do know the people who were in my program for 4 years.
When some rich kid laughs and tells me they don't have ADHD and their parents just did it so they can get extra time on a test, should I disregard them?
You don’t actually truly know them. They’re just classmates. You don’t know their minds
Please stop telling me I don't know my friends. This is now bordering on hostile.
