I imagine most of the stories you'll hear here are going to talk about how transformative a diagnosis was and the immense positive change most people have felt after starting medication. I do think this is probably the most common experience but my personal experience is a lot more mixed, and my relationship with my ADHD diagnosis and medication is complicated.

To start with, it wasn't a surprise when I was diagnosed as an adult. Teachers suggested I get tested for ADHD throughout my entire childhood but my parents held off since I wasn't a disruptive student, did well academically, and had often voiced an interest in joining the military and a childhood diagnosis of ADHD could potentially be disqualifying.

Ultimately though my goals changed and ended up going to graduate school with an aim to study cognitive science. That's when I decided to get tested, and not surprisingly, I was diagnosed with ADHD predominately inattentive subtype and prescribed Vyvanse. The change was profound. Before medication I would start books and never complete them, but suddenly I was finishing several books a month. I found keeping tack of things and cleaning and organizing my environment became second nature where I had struggled deeply with those things before. It also lead me to a career in tech. Prior to starting medication I had always had an appreciation for formal systems and logic, but Vyvanse super-charged that. I was suddenly able to deeply engage with math and formal logic in a way I hadn't been able to before because of my lack of focus. I became interested in software development. Taking Vyvanse and writing code became probably my favorite activity, and it's because of medication and my ADHD diagnosis that I ultimately became a software developer. I excelled at coding because I loved doing it. I would pop a Vyvanse and code for hours. Ultimately however, it became the only thing I really enjoyed. I would take an extra pill to stay up late and finish tasks, or get work done on a side-project. I ended up taking more than prescribed and I would run out before my refill was available leading me to have huge surges of productivity at the beginning of the month and huge periods of inactivity at the end when I was out of pills and suffered rebound effects like a complete inability to focus and extreme fatigue from not sleeping or eating correctly while on meds. In the end I realized it was also starting to take a toll on my personal relationships since I was living in my head all of the time not giving my live-in girlfriend nearly enough attention and instead just working and coding. So I decided to quit. After quitting my productivity took a hit, but ultimately I was able to reach a decent level of performance, though no where near what I had been doing previously. But I realized I was no longer deeply engaged with my work and I ended up transitioning careers from software development to becoming a sales engineer/solution architect.

Now, several years after quitting, I'm much happier. My live-in girlfriend is now my wife and I have a much better work-life balance. I'm still a bit of a workaholic, but I can disengage and maintain a better balance. Working as a sales engineer is also a really nice spot for my ADHD mind as constantly jumping between tasks and moving between technical and non-technical activities keeps me stimulated. I could never have done this job while on Vyvanse, as the focus I got from the meds would actually make it difficult for me to effectively move between so many different events in a day. Of course, I also can't code like a used to, but I do still enjoy engaging deeply with technical topics of interest. The odd reality for me though is that without that diagnosis and the medication I never would have been able to find a role like the one that I have now, which is such a good match for my unmedicated brain. I was able to derive a foundational knowledge about tech and computer science that I use today because of medication, and I don't know exactly where I would be if I hadn't gone down that road initially.

Looking back it's not too surprising I ended up abusing a prescription. Substance abuse disorder is a common comorbidity for people with ADHD and while that's often attributed to self-medication, I don't think that was the case for me. I just like altered states. I experimented with a range of drugs in college but it's easy to put up boundaries around things like that when you know it's recreational. When you're using a prescribed medicine it's much easier to justify the behavior. I think most people who are prescribed stimulants will take them correctly and will likely see a benefit from doing so. I don't think that's an option for me though and I've found more success building a life compatible with my condition rather than trying to fight it. There was a now deleted site called Quitting Adderall[1] that shared other people's similar experiences and it really resonated with me when I was considering the change.

That said there's no obligation to take stimulant medication if you do pursue a diagnosis, and I wouldn't tell you not to try stimulants if you think there could be benefit. I would just advise you to monitor yourself if you do take them, especially if you have a personal or family history of substance abuse.

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20210125224905/http://quittingad...