Comments on: Ritalin is easy, ritalin is good

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:38:39 +0000

Children having this drug forced upon them doesn’t make sense to me. The one example in my life of a child being drugged in this way has produced a jaundiced and zombie like shadow of an active former cool kid. I feel that in this life unusual situations are presented to people allowing the authorized and the merely concerned to do the absolutely wrong thing. Schools and psychiatrists offices are pretty similar in the way they run I think, not much room for dissent or unexplainable behaviour. And thats how cities and everything else in this world works now too right? That’s what keeps this machine rolling along, nicely functioning parts. Scientologists are nuts and so are Psychiatrists. Drugging children because you cannot solve behavior that you object to or can’t explain is wrong. The institution of School is to blame and money and cowardice and a zillion other things, and I am afraid for the future in this land.

By: Cliff Hall

Cliff Hall — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 22:43:36 +0000

Welcome to the club. In my experience, itâ€™s all about accepting your interrupt driven nature, even a pill canâ€™t fight it.

Iâ€™m 42 and still your description of your state is still quite familiar. Iâ€™ve got a trail of unfinished projects as far as the eye can see. Depressing in a way, but, really they every one taught me something finished or not and the lesson learned carries into the more important things that eventually do get done. They taught me a lot about focusing my energies on realistically achievable goals, and consequently I gained a fine understanding for what I just canâ€™t get done by myself. And also to remember that pyramids are best built of stone and not bits.

I was on Ritlan for many years (remember the teacher dispensing it to me in first grade at the prescribed times) and my family remembered me as being catatonic and lifeless. I myself remember little of the period up until the prescription was lost and thereâ€™d been a family shuffle so to speak. Essentially I writhed in the floor screaming for hours on end from the withdrawals. Pain in the stomach I can remember the feeling of to this day. I hear the stories about how great it is to people to be able to focus, but Iâ€™d never touch Ritlan again. Not if thatâ€™s what happens when you quit. Iâ€™m happier to just work on the challenge of dealing with the way I am naturally.

By: Nikita

Nikita — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:15:01 +0000

I’ve got all the situations described and some more. It got much better after several years of body psychotherapy. If you don’t want to be on prescribed drug for all your life you should try something similar. If you don’t care or if you don’t want to invest your time in your health stay with drug.

By: Brandon Ellis

Brandon Ellis — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:36:55 +0000

I was diagnosed with AD/HD about nine years ago. Ritalin is not for everyone but for me, it changed my life. Every symptom you listed above – that was me. I tried explaining it to my wife and the best analogy I could think of was this – know how you have dreams where you run as fast as you can but your legs are going really slow? Thats what it felt like in my head till I was 35.

Good luck.

By: rich

rich — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:01:20 +0000

yeah, sounds like a pretty similar situation, and if people are suggesting it to you than that is a pretty good sign you might need to at least talk to someone about it. Good luck.

By: jordan

jordan — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:47:19 +0000

Rich, thanks so much for that information. I am currently in the GTD/to do list phase but realizing there is much more to my forgetfulness and non-focusing thought patterns. I have had friends blatantly come up and tell me while I am running around doing things in my house that I may need to see someone. I start doing one thing and then end up doing like 5 things at once forgetting what my main objective was. Today at home I had put a dress shirt in the dryer to put on over my undershirt. I am now sitting at my desk at work with just an undershirt on (luckily it’s a black shirt). It can be funny, some of the things i end up doing , but after a while it can affect not only me but the people around me. This hopefully I can get under control soon.

By: Mattius Finklebaum

Mattius Finklebaum — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 22:30:31 +0000

so wait…who drank the last Pepsi?

By: rich

rich — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:32:18 +0000

By the way, for thos of you who might be just starting or considering these meds, DON’T take it and then go to kickboxing class…

By: rich

rich — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:30:05 +0000

jordan – you need to go see a psychiatrist, usually things like this are not a general physicians field (I might even question the situation of a general physician prescribing meds like ritalin). The diagnosis is the hard part…there’s no ‘official’ test for it, it’s more like examining a consistent pattern of behavior over the course of your life, and having those ehaviors exist in different aspects of your life (like at home and at work, for example).

A number of people have recommended chadd.org as probably the top resource on the web for AD/HD information, so you might want to check that out as well.

Goat – thanks, that’s good to hear. I’m definitely working on both approaches right now, the meds and the behavior modification. However, I’ve been trying to find ways to cope with it my whole life, without even realizing it: making todo lists (that I would forget about or lose, or just stop using them), putting things in the same exact spot so they’d be easy to find when I need it (but still losing them anyway), etc etc, and right now, I don’t have the decision to control things like losing track of what I was talking about right in mid-sentence.

By the way, what married man doesn’t space off when his wife is talking?? (babe, if you read this, i love you!! )

By: Goat

Goat — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:53:40 +0000

I have to echo Lee’s comment about the behavior modification.

I was in the exact same place four years ago. Once I started taking medication, I realized that I now had a choice whether I wanted to pay attention or not. I still periodically find myself spacing off when my wife is talking to me , but I realize it now and can make the decision to put the focus back on her (which wasn’t possible before).

It takes some time and patience, but the road blocks are out of the way. Best of luck!