ADHD

I did it for the meds. Essentially legally prescribed meth is one hell of a tool to radically increase ones output. It does change me and I like myself more when I'm not on em. Hence I use them as a tool much the same way I use nicotine and caffeine. I don't take it every day doing such can cause addiction and dependence (ideal for the company selling said meds). I use em when I need to spend 3days strait without sleep to cram for a deadline that I have inevitably left to the last minute. Importantly don't take anything I say as advice speak to a doctor.

Get a diagnoses so you can understand who you actually are with the right tools.

My mum got me diagnosed as a kid but my dad said ADHD wasnt real, stopped me taking meds and thought beating a child is how they "snap out of it". I grew up thinking that so i also thought ADHD was a scam. Took me too long to realise my mistake of trying to shove a triangle into a square wondering why everything felt wrong.

Getting diagnosed and taking Vyvanse was such an important turning point in my life. The first day was like opening both eyes instead of squinting. Not being distracted so i could focus properly on clients - i felt like superman! I had concrete information and not people just telling me things or me yet again getting the wrong idea.

I would 100% get a diagnoses. You might not even have it and have something else. You never know until you know.

EDIT: also depends on your drive. My brother also has it and never bothered taking meds. He never wanted to climb a ladder so he's been a waiter all his life. I wanted to climb the ladder in corporate. I suffered so much until meds, he didnt.

Sounds like you need to take your fuckin meds.

See? I can mock you regardless. Stop worrying about other people. They're ultimately not as important as self care.

If you're worried about the process, you can research the doctor and be explicit. Go to someone who specializes in ADHD. Tell them you're only there to see if you have ADHD and not anything else.

As for your friend, I've never heard of BPD causing license loss unless it's tied to extreme impulse control issues. If that's not you, then don't worry. If that IS you, then don't drive the two ton death machine.

I'm happy with the way I function and also, I'm generally a happy person living an nice life

I don't think you need a diagnosis then. The diagnosis gave me some structure and concept of what I can work on to maybe someday be at peace with myself. If you're already at peace, why the urge to get a diagnosis?

You're preemptively bullying yourself out of medical care that may improve your quality of life. Not a big deal given what you're saying about the apple cart and all but if there are areas where you see a negative impact from lack of treatment, it could be worth reconsidering.

Nobody else has to know whether you take medication, what you take, or why. People can always find other ways to be assholes whether you're on meds or not.

As for losing privileges or rights due to a diagnosis, that's unlikely. It can happen but there needs to be a good reason for something like that to be put in place. Nobody wants to do that kind of paperwork because they don't like your haircut or something.

I like my mind and I wouldn't want to alter it with medication any more than I already do. I don't want to be normal whatever that means. I'm rather disliked for who I am than liked for who I'm not.

i'm not diagnosed, but i got prescribed dopamine and serotonin blockers to help with presumably stress-related muscle pain and depressive symptoms. "coincidentally" (thanks to a doctor who actually listens) those meds also dampen adhd symptoms.

in the past few months, it feels like i've become... more me. i use less time stuck in bad thoughts and decision spirals. i can actually look into the future instead of just focusing on what's in my immediate vicinity. i can sit still long enough to actually do my hobbies, rather than getting up and randomly wandering every few minutes. i can put things in my head aside for later now.

i know this is trite, but if you worry about bullying, don't. that's also a symptom, a mental spectre that disappears once you get the right stuff in you. if you've spent decades with this, you're old enough to know (logically if not emotionally) that bullying is pretty rare outside of the school environment. if you're not being bullied now, becoming more comfortable with yourself is hardly something that would make it happen. and if it does happen, being more comfortable with yourself means you won't care.

in short, meds don't change you. they give you more time as you.

Can't say anything about the legal consequences; typically, an ADHD diagnosis does not affect any rights and is confidential anyway.

Keeping your health situation very private is a good idea for any health issue.

As for not needing them: Per definition, you don't have ADHD if it does not significantly impact your life negatively. It's a "must"-criterion, no matter how many other indications there are.

But if you benefit from it, my experience is that it only changes the things about me I disliked. Everything is only better. Only thing to watch out for is not to use the medication boost to focus even more on unproductive things.

I requested an ADHD diagnosis while serving in the US military. Specifically, my last year of service after submitting my request for retirement. I figured, "What are they gonna do, force me to retire?"

At first, the military was resistant. You can't join the US military if you have an ADHD diagnosis, so their response was that I don't have it, since I had already served successfully for 19+ years. (For the record, if you're already serving and get a diagnosis, they'll let you continue to serve)

But I refused to take no for an answer, so they finally agreed to get me diagnosed. But of course, they don't have anyone at the military hospital who can diagnose me, because they don't deal with ADHD people. So I was referred to a civilian specialist in the area. A lady who got her doctorate in ADHD studies and had been in the field for 11 years.

She told me I was the worst case of ADHD she'd ever seen.

She immediately wanted to get me on a regimen of pills. She claimed that ADHD wasn't an exact science and everyone responded completely differently to medication, so it would likely take months of trial and error to find the exact type and dosage of meds to help me.

The military immediately shut it down. They said I was only authorized for the diagnosis and they weren't going to cover any medication at this point. The specialist did give me some meds as part of her initial consultation and recommended I try them to help identify a baseline for meds in the future.

Since then, I've retired and tried a few different medications. Thanks to a 100% disability rating with the VA, I'm covered for literally all medical and dental for life, so I asked them about being prescribed ADHD medications and they were more than willing to help.

After testing several different types though, I've realized that I'm just not myself on any meds. Despite having a bad case of ADHD, I've inadvertently built my life around it and have learned how to use it to my benefit.

Knowing I have ADHD makes it easier to identify when I'm getting lost in the details and helps me to pull myself back to reality. But in the long run, my specific type of ADHD means I can hyperfocus on mind-numbing projects for hours and never be bored. So I'm actually extremely productive.

Medications just made my brain all fuzzy and killed my hyperfocus. I could silence all the noise in my brain, but it wouldn't necessarily focus me. It would just give me the space to pick a direction to focus, but then I'd start missing details and making mistakes because I didn't have the nagging voices telling me I need to double- and triple-check my work.

In the end, I much prefer to be unmedicated. But like I said, everyone responds differently. My wife also has ADHD, but she's unable to do anything unless she takes her meds. She's way too distracted and basically shuts down without her meds.

So if you're happy with who you are, you can just refuse to get medicated. A diagnosis doesn't mean you need to take meds. The diagnosis just helps you to understand more about how you operate, and you can do whatever you want with that information.