> Medication came with unacceptable side-effects for me. Real bummer.
I was tested at very young age, as most millennials were in the US, and was told I did not have it, luckily; but looking back on the people who were raised in that era and how they handed out SSRIs like candy I'm glad I dodged that bullet because the adverse affects of those drugs sound way worse than coping with ADHD--but it also explains why mental hygiene/health issues in the US are as severe as they are.
It's sad that people have ADHD, I personally can enter 'flow state' and block out all things for hours, even days or weeks if I really try; but it's to the detriment of everything else and so horrible for my mental and physical health.
I lived that way for almost a decade with only small pauses in between, power napping is all I slept and a good day was 3-5 hours, with work schedules that were optimized for productivity over everything and my life seriously was in shambles: I was a boot-strapping founder with a stressful day job(s) and side hustles and worked 7 days/week with 90+ hour totals. I tried my best to maintain a very contentious relationship and failed miserably at it.
I think what needs to be addressed is that extremes are all bad, and OP's situation seems like it would be manageable were it not for self-satisfying rationalization to waste his time. It's like those self-sabotaging people who get off on the rush from the failure more than succeeding, this scene in Two for The Money explains it rather well [0].
The stigma of medications is more harmful in my mind, I feel this deeply when I read your experience of life.
The first time I took my meds, my mind was blown. It was the first time in my long life I experienced peace and quiet. Now I am able to track my work, break large tasks into smaller ones, and quiet my brain. I’m on a dose + brand name with no side-effects etc.
The issue, and this isn’t true for everyone but I believe it is true for a lot, is that some doctors start people on what they think they should be at. Instead of starting at 5mg, they will do some BS calculation of gender and weight and start someone on 60mg. Yeah that is going to fucking suck.
> The stigma of medications is more harmful in my mind, I feel this deeply when I read your experience of life.
Mine was a life of extremes, put simply I stopped caring about myself during that time and I poured myself into my work as I wanted to have something to show for what I felt was more than likely going to be a short Life.
I didn't think I was going to get rich doing any of that, in fact I lost money for most of it's existence and I never paid myself in order to pay everyone else and keep the lights on until we accomplished our mission statement, the only thing that saved me in the end was the skill set I developed made me marketable in fintech and I got head hunted to go work for a Megaorp.
I spent my Life doing what I wanted and lived a perilous and risky life and got addicted to the adrenaline rush and still deal with bad PTSD to this day. I take your words to heart, and I'm glad it worked, but sadly a family member who had a schizophrenic break down really early in life (teens) just passed from a heart attack this week; her health really went down hill after having been put on SSRI meds after that. But she also had substance abuse problems with alcohol, that run on both sides of her family, that exacerbated an already bad situation.
I'm devastated, I'm glad it worked for you, but honestly... I'm not sure it's as cut and dry as you make it out to be.
Back then I was trying to cope with my situation as best as I could, without medical insurance for most of that time, but I'm also the kind of person that goes to Ukraine during this situation and goes to help feed and process Ukrainians/Russians/Belarusians at the Mexican border in order to feel anything other than pain and sorrow if I have access to resources to do so. I'm not exactly seeking a medical escape to what I deal with, so much as trying to play a part in trying to accelerate the progress of the Human Condition in it's current form as I fear extinction is a real possibility.
In short, I was trying to fix my Weltschmerz with seemingly noble but self-destructive behaviours because I didn't want to give in to the often depressing and bleak realities of the World. I didn't, nor do I now, want to feel any number than I already was back then. Given your handle, I imagine you understand what that show was trying to communicate the most was about addressing mental health issues more than it was an edgy hacker show with cool realistic cut scenes.
I've since worked on it after the aforementioned situations and a friend's abrupt suicide last year: it forced me to re-evaluate my value system, and gain some perspective on my limitations.
I was tested at very young age, as most millennials were in the US, and was told I did not have it, luckily; but looking back on the people who were raised in that era and how they handed out SSRIs like candy I'm glad I dodged that bullet because the adverse affects of those drugs sound way worse than coping with ADHD--but it also explains why mental hygiene/health issues in the US are as severe as they are.
It's sad that people have ADHD, I personally can enter 'flow state' and block out all things for hours, even days or weeks if I really try; but it's to the detriment of everything else and so horrible for my mental and physical health.
I lived that way for almost a decade with only small pauses in between, power napping is all I slept and a good day was 3-5 hours, with work schedules that were optimized for productivity over everything and my life seriously was in shambles: I was a boot-strapping founder with a stressful day job(s) and side hustles and worked 7 days/week with 90+ hour totals. I tried my best to maintain a very contentious relationship and failed miserably at it.
I think what needs to be addressed is that extremes are all bad, and OP's situation seems like it would be manageable were it not for self-satisfying rationalization to waste his time. It's like those self-sabotaging people who get off on the rush from the failure more than succeeding, this scene in Two for The Money explains it rather well [0].
0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdE-BZoB9SA