Since not all ADHD medicines are dopaminergic, people would have to be short on norepinephrine and… whatever it is Intuniv/Tenex does as well.

I'm not very keen on the "everyone needs a dopamine break" hypothesis because I'm not sure those are actually the symptoms of amphetamine withdrawal. I mean, for me when it crashes it just makes me unable to get off the couch or go home from work because I forget to do it.

I know I'm telling you what you likely already know. But please please please please try to make the appointment. The only reason I was able to was because I created some sense of urgency to do it. Maybe have a friend that you make yourself accountable to? Tell them you owe them money if you don't make an appointment before X date and then more money if you don't go to the appointment?

If you need someone to talk though it with or if you have questions, my email is in my profile.

> Comments like these are hurtful. I ask myself the question the commenter asked me every single day. I just try to approach them with care and the assumption they are coming from a good place. I know that isn't always the case, but it's the best I can do.

I try to as well, I had to rewrite that comment several times to be bit more generous but had to leave it where it was. It's hard - Ironically it comes from a place of wishing the world would be more generous to you. Beyond regular therapy I don't talk openly about this, both for this reason, and as I had been struggling with, and treated, for depression for over 20 years (which it now turns out is exacerbated or even caused by the untreated ADHD).

I've spent an incredible amount of effort and energy actively hiding this fact and any consequences from employers, teachers and loved ones out of fear of what it would mean for my already difficult to maintain status quo. I've seen what the stigma of mental health can do to ones career and future opportunities (unless of course you are an active and visual advocate, campaigner as well as your normal role).

I'm in a similar position as you.

It's deeply unfortunate that it's so asymmetrical. u/symlinkk has asked a question that in isolation is merely a category error, a lazy intellectual argument regarding burden of proof, subjectivity inherent in the DSM, clinical standards regarding impairment, etc., that can be dispatched in short order. However the emotional effect of a question that implicitly denies the existence of the illness remains long after the intellectual error is corrected.

It's structurally similar to LGBT erasure. We have already gone through life for years believing that there was something wrong with us that we could fix, and therefore was a moral failing and source of shame ("just use a planner" [1]). If in fact it is an immutable characteristic akin to sexuality, then it cannot be a source of shame. One would not ask nowadays whether one was really sure about their sexual orientation. Then again, very few people recreationally take testosterone.

I can only wish you the best regards, and be grateful that we live in the modern day where science (but not the general public yet) has developed an understanding of these things.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/pelip6/how_i_cured_my...

> I think you’re purposely pretending like you don’t know what I’m talking about.

No I wasn't. Though I'm aware of the effects you mention in this comment. Adderall or any amphetamine, including methamphetamine acts similarly. But I do think "euphoria" and "focus" are kind of antithetical, so likely not happening at the same time.

However people with ADHD don't experience these things, not euphoria or energy anyway. "Focus" is more like decreased distraction or clarity of thought. With medications ADHD people typically are calmer, more "centered" and more appropriately motivated to get done what they need to.

Ironically the "stimulant" medications aren't stimulating to those with ADHD. IOW they don't feel anything in particular from the medications, it simply allows them to function more fluently. Of course if the dose is way too much, even ADHD folks will have side effects (usually jittery sensations, anxiety, interference with sleep, and other effects).

Naturally I can't recommend using prescription and DEA-controlled drugs without a good medical reason, but of course I'm sure you knew I'd say that. :)

A strong cup of coffee (or anything above the low Vyvanse dose I usually take) actually makes me so jittery I concentrate even less. Though at least if you took too much Adderall IR, at least it'd wear off in 3-4 hours instead of 12.

I think you're purposefully misrepresenting what "works" means in this context. ADHD people can think a lot more clearly with it. The effect of stimulants is completely different on a brain like ours compared to a normal person as it helps regulates brain function in a way that ours can't.

For normal people it just gets you euphoric and agitated, we get CALMER cause we live in a state of constant agitation.

It absolutely has, going by people's subjective ratings, different effects on NT people. That's not to say it doesn't work, there are plenty of explanations. We don't really get how neurotransmitters interact, so it's possible these drugs trip some cascade effect which incidentally treats ADD. More likely, there's a good place to be on the tradeoff curve and different symptoms below and above it. Perhaps large enough doses could push through (though I doubt that amphetamines are so well targeted to permit it), but it's fair to say that if I'm at a 0 and Adderall takes me to a 2, and an NT person is a 3 with Adderall taking them to 4, I can get to 2 and they can't. Is that "working differently"? Depends on how you look at it.

It, for many people, works differently. If you look at people talking about their experiences, those with ADD consistently describe different effects than NT people. It's still good, but it has more of an effect on energy than focus, though the two are well correlated. It might be an overshoot/undershoot thing, it might be that different effects are salient, but I can assure you that if Adderall could do as much for a healthy person as it does for me, we'd be living in utopia.