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Comment by FlyingSideKick | Hacker News Reader

I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and given medication which made me feel numb and completely changed my personality. After a year or so my father decided to stop giving me the medication and I returned to normal which must’ve been hell for my teachers.

Besides science classes, I received Ds in every class through my sophomore year. At the time I looked like a failure but today Id consider myself happy and successful as I’ve travelled the world, become a father and started a number of innovative businesses.

ADD is a gift as it has enabled me to make creative connections that others simply don’t see.

If you have kids please focus on their long-term well being. Please love your kids and support the things they find interest in. Getting good grades being well behaved in class aren’t everything are not necessarily an indicator of future success.

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Can confirm. I'm an American male and was diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school in the mid 1990s. I took Ritalin, Adderall, and Concerta for something like seven years. It totally changed my personality and suppressed my appetite, but I did do very well in school for awhile (advanced placement classes etc).

High school sucks and everything is weird and I was depressed at some point. Eventually I decided on my own to stop taking the medication and it was like I woke up. I started enjoying life, surfing, going to concerts, being creative, etc. I've also traveled all around the world since then and been very successful.

I don't think I'd change anything about my experience, but in retrospect I think I was probably misdiagnosed. Also it's important to realize that everyone is different and we need to try to accept that.

Dude holy shit. I wish I could've woke up. I woke up a tiny bit, but I'm still mostly subdued by all the negative thoughts that crept in while I was taking it. These sold-for-profit pills took my adult body away. I can't believe nobody is seeing through this, but big pharma seems to have an incredible PR arm. You can't find discussion of these drugs without someone singing the same old praises, and I have a hard time believing it every time when it was such a definitively HARMFUL experience.

This is a very good mindset, but not everyone holds out that long. I had the same experience and hated how the meds changed my personality. "It wasn't me. I'm not following my own personal destiny on meds. It's someone else."

ADHD has some very neat pros, but without a proper support network and a good foundation, going without meds is hell. I recently finally gave in to my idealism (even now I don't want to call it that) and convinced myself that I have goals, and those goals can't wait another year for me to get things right. I've wasted enough years struggling for air.

The first month was pretty bad, adjusting your family and friend's expectations. I even found myself avoiding conversation "until the meds wore off and I was me again." Few will understand any of the things in your post, but it will spark some thought in those that are susceptible.

Most of ADHD's clinical symptoms are hilariously identical to having bad habits. Of course a dopaminergic pill is going to alter reward mechanisms in the brain and help a shitty snotnosed kid do things they would normally not do. But discipline and wisdom can also impart behavioral changes, and is much more lasting and real.

Amphetamines are performance enhancing drugs for air force pilots to do 16 hour sorties.

They are too hard a drug to give to a kid to bandaid over his impulsivity.

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