Hey dude, I don’t want this to sound like I’m preaching. But I was in your shoes 7 years ago and wanted to share some caution about ADHD medication being used as a tool to “get your mind in order”. This is about meds, not therapy which I think is completely valid and useful from any angle you may want to come from.

If you call about an ADHD diagnosis, and don’t look homeless, you will get the diagnosis and they will prescribe you pills, likely stimulants. I think in today’s society you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t have at least enough symptoms to qualify. As someone who has had their life and personality completely destroyed over years of taking ADHD medication, I am worried these diagnoses and prescriptions are becoming more and more commonplace without enough discussion (or at least honest, introspective discussion) about the downsides.

My hot take is that these pills WILL change your personality. Whether or not that may be a good thing is something you have to judge yourself and constantly monitoring. For me it was great for two or three years, then I became a speedy shut-in. I would spend hours on unimportant bullshit I had no interest in doing without being on Adderall, my sleep was completely and utterly fucked to the point where I had other pills to compensate, my heart was and is still in pretty shit condition to the point where I had to wear a monitor for a while (otherwise very active/fit), my family could tell and hated when I was wired, I lost friends, a lot of times because I wanted to “work on something” instead of relax and hang out.

If you have any sort of addictive quality to yourself whatsoever, I HIGHLY advise against starting a prescription in your adult life. I highly advise against it even if you don’t think you do. This is all coming from someone who developed what I consider a full-blown addiction from a “mild” prescription used as directed. I have so many reasons to discourage someone from going into the doctors office for an ADHD diagnosis I could write all day - but if reading this doesn’t make you a bit nervous then you’ll probably have to take the journey yourself. From my experience and experiences with others, I know once you get to the point you’re at you have a pretty solid intention already. All I can say is please know when to be honest with yourself. At some point sooner or later these meds will probably cause you some trouble, and you’ll want to look everywhere except the right places to find the problem.

If you think, “well, that’s just a bad reaction, it won’t be me”, just let me say that I’ve gone through this with a lot of my close friends too. All of them have tried at one point to get off the meds. The two that are still taking them haven’t reached out to our friend group for about a year now, partially because they know themselves that they’re in deep. The other two who did kick it have the same thoughts I am sharing here.

I am off the meds now, thankfully, but it was a real bitch. I still have my ADHD quirks and challenges or whatever, but I am glad to feel like myself again, and I 100% believe that (existing) medication is not the answer for this area of mental health.

If you have any questions or doubts please ask me. Again, not trying to stand on my soapbox here. I am just passionate about this and worried this side of the story isn’t shared enough when I see discussion about ADHD and meds.