Off My Meds

The video speaks for itself, but I have to write some words here it seems, so let me just add a bit of a disclaimer because I think it's important. I am not against psyche meds when carefully prescribed by someone who takes the time to understand the true causation of the patient's symptoms.

In fact, I lived with undiagnosed ADHD until five years after I wrote this. I'm not sure if the diagnosis or the meds have helped me more. I had been misdiagnosed with major depression for many years, and all anyone ever wanted to do was blindly throw pills at my dis-ease. Turns out they might have worked, if they were the right kind. I was depressed, sure, but it was circumstantial depression, a result of living so long with not understanding why I was the way I was, why I couldn't seem to change it. and living with the circumstances brought on by that misunderstanding of self.

Quoting oneself is kind of silly, but here's my social media post from the day I was diagnosed:

When you think for your whole adult life that you are an inherently lazy, disorganized procrastinator because you aren't working hard enough to overcome your character defects... because you are too much of a lazy, disorganized procrastinator to do so.

But... it actually turns out that you have impaired neurotransmitter activity due to a deficiency of norepinephrine in your frontal cortex, limbic system, and other really-kinda-important brain neighborhoods, so your dopamine can't catch a ride to the reward center to make you feel good about completing boring day-to-day tasks.

Look, I'm not trying to inspire anyone to throw away their meds and start a revolution. Then again, I'm not NOT trying to, either.

This rant was scrawled quickly on a scrap of paper in for an open mic session during a retreat for my MFA Creative Writing program.