[N]o other class of medications in virtually all of medicine inspires more baseless fears, intentional disinformation, and wild beliefs as do the stimulants used to treat ADHD.
Interestingly, these fears are almost entirely an American phenomenon that hardly exists elsewhere in the world.
[H]aving ADHD lowers a person’s estimated life expectancy by 12.7 years.
From other articles on the site:
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ADHD medication use lowers risk of death by 19%, risk of overdose by 50%, and it reduces hospitalizations
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[T]he risk of substance abuse decreases substantially when [ADHD] patients are treated with stimulant medication
Capitalism really do be making it hard to be on the right frequency doesn’t it
It always feels like this sort of quandary is utterly defined by its existence in a world order that lets people who don’t perfectly fit their groove starve. Like I can’t even picture what the ideal substance relationship would be without capitalism to define why I would take them. I’m picturing someone with ADHD who, without anything to directly coerce them into doing labor, might just have ADHD and live in a way that is comfortable for them, bouncing between tasks and finding their own groove.
This is not at all to say these drugs are dubious, just that whenever I consider this question I wind up feeling especially asphyxiated by the current status quo.
(If I’m completely off the mark someone tell me, this topic is something I used to grapple with a lot before I personally decided against going on antidepressants in high school, and I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake)
Some ADHDers can probably live like that. Some, like myself, have pretty bad understimulation, but I guess I have yet to see if stimulants make me feel ok.
I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m implying that people shouldn’t take meds, that’s not how I feel at all. I just can’t help but wonder how much of stimulant use (meds of all kinds really) is to help cope with capitalist reality vs to help manage disorders. In a way, it’s an arbitrary distinction, since this is the reality we live in, but it just makes the status quo feel all the more opaque to me, like I can’t even see what lies beyond.
I totally agree. I tend to argue on your side, I am simply compelled to disagree with people.