Folks, this is it.
After more than six months on Wellbutrin, being the unfocused mess I’ve always been, and being treated like a criminal and/or child by the most condescending, inconsiderate psychiatrist I’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing, I decided to say fuck it and find another professional.
For six months, I’ve been made to wait by my health insurance provider for an ADHD test that never came. I’m on a mysterious waiting list that moves forward at a pace that is known only to the Nether Gods and in all likelihood I’ll never get to do this test anyways. All of this because apparently a psychiatrist does not have the authority to say “hey, I think you have ADHD, let’s try a first-line treatment and see if it works for you.” Silly me, thinking a psychiatrist would be able to diagnose a psychiatric disorder.
Well, my new psychiatrist decided to try a new approach: I’ve been on Lithium before, because a GP thought I might be bipolar. It didn’t work, because… I’m not bipolar. So let’s try ADHD medicine and if it works, then, well… in all likelihood, I truly do have ADHD.
Folks, it seems I do have ADHD. Vyvanse (actually Lisvenx, same medication, different name) works a treat. A goddamn treat, I say.
Yesterday felt like the first day of the rest of my life. Cheesy cliché, I know, but holy fucking shit it feels like an entirely new world has been opened to me. I taught five lessons without feeling like I was going to fall asleep for even a single moment. My mind is focused, and my internal monologue is only one audio track instead of four.
I have energy, I don’t feel my eyes trying to shut on their own. I can simply get up and fucking do things. Easy things are easy to do. Difficult things are difficult to do for the correct reasons. I defeated the Fromsoft ADHD field boss: I folded all my laundry and put it away.
How did I spend more than 30 years of my life not feeling like this? How many opportunities did I lose, how many things did I abandon because I felt like I wasn’t capable of doing them, not because of my lack of competence, but rather because there was an invisible wall of inability between me and even the simplest task? I now realize how much of a fucking legit disability ADHD is.
This is only my second day on this medication so I’m afraid that things might not always be like this from now on. I’m afraid that this effect may only be an initial honeymoon phase and I’ll eventually go back to how I was before. If that ever does happen, though, I’ll know that that disorganized mess of a human being is not all that I can be.
I can be better. There is hope.
This has been a life-changing experience for sure, and I hope that every single person who needs ADHD medication does get the opportunity to at least try it once, if only to realize that a better life is, in fact, possible.
It sucks, comrade. I was lucky enough to find one that actually listens to me, and I hope you find one soon.
CW: ridiculous ableism
On that note, I have a friend who told me about a friend of hers who had the test results and a written statement by a professional saying that she is autistic. She had to change providers and talked to a new “mental health professional” who told her “you’re not autistic and I don’t care about this statement. I can just as easily write another statement saying that you’re not autistic, so what?”
I’ve always had an axe to grind with psychiatrists. This has literally been the first time I’ve been listened to. I may or may not have cried a little when the doctor took out his prescription pad and said he would prescribe the meds I need.
I once got a psychiatrist who assumed everything the extremely literal autistic girl said was metaphor and completely made up my patient history. Like a fucking dick wolf script. Now I have to explain to every doctor I see who reads the chart that, no, none of that is true, that dude literally just made up everything he wrote. No I don’t want to talk about it, that was a decade ago, shit that didn’t happen, and I have real problems I’d like to deal with. No this isn’t trauma from the-no I’m just sick of repeating myself, and have real trauma from things that actually happe- No I’m not seeking drugs, I’ve never done meth; I don’t even like stimulants! Another just called to have me locked up because I looked sad. The police came to my house, and I lived in a slum so that could have gone very very badly for more than just me. Probably would have if my other roommate had answered. Oh and once an inpatient one drugged andremovedd me. Might’ve been lower staff, but the psychiatrist is the one who decided to keep me there, and other patients noticed, so I think its safe to assume I wasn’t the first and staff knew.
There is so much risk to talking to one of those slimy pieces of shit, everything they say is lies, and even if youre the most obvious case in the world they can just decide not to help you. They’re a fucking blight and I support giving every single one of them the fucking wall.
And thats even apart from most psych meds being trash and most of the good shit for common mental illnesses being illegal anyway.