r/ADHD • u/wildfireDataOZ • 21h ago
Medication Is it normal to grieve the version of yourself you thought ADHD meds would help you become?
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u/Dolphin__Smooth 20h ago
I’m 26 and in school, got dropped from health care (US) and meds are no longer affordable at all anymore. Just been raw dogging life again. It’s been harder for sure and my school work has been a procrastination fight every week but the only thing that really has helped me is exercise and eating right. It’s like the one thing that helps me feel in control again. I don’t want to be reliant on meds so figuring out ways that work for you is def the move. I know how you feel. Try creating a schedule for yourself. It definitely makes it easier.
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u/yawara25 21h ago
EDIT: my last post that received over 1100 up-votes was removed by Mods, so here it is again.
What? Why was it removed?
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u/wildfireDataOZ 20h ago
Like I said, i have no idea! Just did. The mods removed it but didn't say why. I thought it was an obviously engaging topic, and it struck chord with a lot of people.
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u/otokonaki 15h ago
How did you manage to repost it with exactly the same wording and punctuation marks?
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u/wildfireDataOZ 15h ago
just maybe — I copied my original post because I still meant what I said and didn’t feel like rewriting. Sorry I didn’t jazz it up with a new font and interpretive dance to prove my authenticity.
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u/otokonaki 15h ago
I'm guessing it is because the post and OP's replies to comments looked a lot like those engagement-farming, bot-generated content. Also, if somebody's post got deleted by moderators, would one really 1) note the number of upvotes it had; and 2) repost it with exactly the same wording, punctuation and all?
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u/wildfireDataOZ 15h ago
Wow, okay. Guess I didn’t realise sharing a thought online now comes with a full background bot check. My bad for remembering how many upvotes it had — clearly, only engagement farmers keep track of that, right? And sorry for reposting it the same way — didn’t realise I needed to rewrite my own words just to prove I'm human. Next time I’ll throw in a few typos and random emojis to pass the vibe check.
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u/otokonaki 15h ago
It's your choice if you want to take this personally, but there are a lot of content farmers on youtube in the productivity and ADHD content space because they see it's a hot topic on the rise and they target this segment of the population, farm upvotes and karma and later use it to plug their products. And reddit has its own growing bot problem. So yes, people are on the lookout for bot posts and accounts.
The point is not that you have to reword your post or throw in typos to convince people you're not a bot. I just find it very impressive that you are able to replicate something you posted days ago, word for word and punctuation mark for punctuation mark.
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u/wildfireDataOZ 15h ago
Thanks for the TED Talk on content farming. I’m aware bots exist, and I’m aware ADHD is trending — doesn’t mean everyone who posts about it is a crypto-shilling algorithm in disguise. Maybe instead of assuming bad faith every time a post feels “too neat,” people could understand I just wanted to know how my ADHD community is coping.
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u/wildfireDataOZ 7h ago
What makes you think that
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u/Technical-Incident80 ADHD-C (Combined type) 7h ago edited 7h ago
I would guess because it's in the rules. Now, I think technically this post(Don't know about your other post), is on the side of asking for help about Medication not working. So should be ok, it might be that the mod team are rather cautious when it comes to this, and might remove some posts that are in the grey area to be safe.
"""Over the past few years, we have seen a spike in questions related to medication. While we do have some information available on medications in our wiki, overall, medication falls under medical advice. e ask members to discuss medications with their prescriber, a pharmacist, or a therapist if they are open to it. Drugs.com is also an excellent resource that we have reviewed and find to be scientifically accurate.
The following are not allowed under Rule 3:
- Reviews of medications/experience reports/journals
- Requests for doses
- Asking "Does anyone else experience X side effect?"
- Asking if you are being prescribed too much medication
- Asking for medication recommendations
- Asking community members to list all of the meds they have taken, their side effects, their doses, and why were they taken
All of the moderators have been diagnosed with ADHD and do understand why these questions are common, but allowing so many questions about medication has had consequences. We see posts and comments where our members are terrified of medication side effects because of r/adhd. Some people even refuse to take certain medications based on the reviews they see here. Ethically, we feel we cannot foster that type of environment."""
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u/aron2295 20h ago
I personally haven’t had this particular thought, but I have grieved the person I think I might’ve become if I had been diagnosed as a kid.
The “best part” is I asked my parents several times starting at 9 or 10 years old to take me to a psych. I asked several more times in middle school and high school too.
I think though, that what you’re feeling is something I learned about in therapy.
Being disappointed and upset are a result of your expectations not aligning with reality.
On a scale of 10 / 10, you thought life would go from X -> 10.
It went from X -> to 9.9 or less.
Those are just example numbers, but that’s a visualization of why we feel that way when things don’t work out how we thought.
I have felt that general feeling a lot.
I am not as eloquent as the therapist was, but basically, it’s your “fault” for letting yourself think that what you think will match reality.
I put that in quotes cuz I am not blaming you, but you need to better manage your expectations.
That isn’t to say to be pessimistic and never set goals or expectations, but rather to have an internal discussion with yourself and also to remind yourself that you will be best served focusing on controlling what you can control and accepting that there are many things that you cannot control.
For example, you were able to access healthcare and see a provider and you were able to pick up your meds from a pharmacy and you were able to take your meds as directed.
But you cannot control the effectiveness of the meds or whether the meds have negative side effects on you or not.
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u/Vegetable-Handle5432 19h ago
Up until around the middle of last year, in the middle of my trial and error for meds(Ritalin, Focalin, strattera, quelbree). I was defeated and convinced that if a doctor gave me a week of Adderall then I could probably get my entire life together. The problem is I’m 4’9” and 90 pounds. I’ve lost serious weight at times trying different medications so no doctor would ever give me Adderall). I was so desperate for just a week of clarity in my life. Then i switched doctors and this one put me on Jornay PM. it’s nearly $600 if insurance does not kick in. But hey. It’s helping me survive this life 😩. So obviously my insurance denied to cover it. Fast forward to 2 months ago. I get a new job(unemployed for 10 months) and I’m back on Ritalin to try again. And I think it heightened my anxiety so much that I know my coworkers thought I was mental for the first few weeks. Then luckily I was able to get the Jornay for $75 a month. Not great but I’ll take it. It’s the best I’ve felt in a while.
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u/False-Praline-9087 9h ago
When I first started vyvanse I finished a school paper in less than hour when it used to take me several hours. I also gave a presentation that my professor told me was one of the best presentations he’s seen from a student but the year before I almost failed his class because I struggled so much with the presentations and assignments. I was so excited and thought that this meant things were going to get better but now I’m still doing better than off the medicine but I’m not as productive as I was when I first started. I do grieve that I’m not the person I was when I first started medication but I still have hope that over time I can work on myself and be that person. I have also considered changing my medicine. I can’t increase the dose because higher doses turn me into a zombie but maybe a different medication would help.
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u/januarysnow_11 20h ago
I grieve the person I was before my meds tbh
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u/Heliola 20h ago
How come?
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u/januarysnow_11 20h ago
Things were not easy, it was difficult to focus, but I was always laughing and working out. I actually made it through college (barely) and could handle a receptionist job (mainly because it was a desk where everyone passing by could see what I was doing). After being on meds since 2019 I’ve felt my body slowly become less healthy, it’s difficult to workout after work cause my body is so tired, and every day it’s like I don’t have emotions. I’ve gotten far in my career, which I’m grateful for, but I’m not happy with how my body has changed. I’m still doing everything I can to be healthy though, it’s just harder. I go every day wondering if it’ll be a good adderal day or not.
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u/potatoloaves 17h ago
I feel this. I get a lot of tension in my body and mouth sores from adderall.
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u/EMU_Emus 9h ago
Honestly, no, because I had zero expectations of medication. The fact that it improved anything at all was a lifesaver and I've never really built up any image of myself that changes because of medication. It's just another tool.
I was lucky in that there wasn't all the internet noise around ADHD when I was diagnosed about 10 years ago. These days there are a million posts on any platform gushing about how life-changing ADHD meds are, and how your entire world changes once you take an Adderall.
Don't get me wrong, they were life changing for me too. But I've never viewed them as anything more than another available tool. They aren't a savior on their own.
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u/Peregrine-Developers 7h ago
YES.
My experience is a bit different from yours, but:
In fact I have, on more than one occasion, achieved a feeling of complete calm from a combination of caffeine and Concerta, and the fact that it took an unhealthy amount of caffeine to achieve makes me grieve the experience I've had that's unsustainable on my current med regimen. Having that much caffeine every day would have long term health consequences.
I could ignore irrelevant stimuli, read every word in a paragraph without skipping or missing any, think things through before doing them, and more, for just a couple of hours.
Grief and mourning are completely understandable in the context of being neurologically different from the general population. When you're surrounded by expectations of being able to be the person you want to become, but can't be that person, grief is a natural response.
I'm going through it right now. I know that even if I could have that much caffeine every day, my body would just adapt and the experience would get worse over time while still having those negative health effects. And if I asked my psychiatric NP to dramatically increase my Concerta she'd say no (for good reason) due to simply developing a tolerance and having to change meds or go higher over and over again.
I digress. But yes, it's normal. You're not alone
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u/LolEase86 16h ago
💯 This was my experience. Firstly the utter frustration of not knowing wth normal was supposed to feel like, or even if that was what I was going for. Then the realisation that the methylphenidate type meds were just increasing my anxiety - ultimately leading to a panic attack at a training and having to leave early, man was that embarrassing.. Then getting onto dexamphetamine and accepting that I needed a lot more tools around managing this, than I'd initially hoped. Recently went on a wild ride trying vyvanse. This ended in disappointment after it helped my emotional regulation but I metabolised it too quickly and felt totally whacked out at midday. Not ideal two weeks after starting a new job!! Back to dex it was!
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u/Due_Consideration618 20h ago
Can you talk to your perscriber and see if you can change meds? Mine actually talked about it early on and how I might have to change them every so often because of tolerance.
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