I was diagnosed in grade school, took Ritalin through high school. Maybe it helped, but I'm sure a lot of folks here had similar experiences to me in school. Sc

I was diagnosed in grade school, took Ritalin through high school. Maybe it helped, but I'm sure a lot of folks here had similar experiences to me in school. School just sucked in general: I was always bored, and when I wasn't bored I was being tormented by classmates, mercilessly. Ritalin might have helped my grades. I dunno, though, as I graduated second to last in my class at a super posh boarding school. Ritalin made it VERY hard to sleep, that's for sure. That wasn't helped by typical boarding school hazing bullshit. All I know is that when I flunked out of college and got really, really depressed, I stopped taking Ritalin and moved to the Bay Area. I've never felt ADD or ADHD here simply because people understood what I was talking about. Computers weren't really a thing where I'd come from, beyond being tools for work. I'm not convinced I don't have ADHD or what not, but I do know that I had a massive existential crisis when I first got here trying to figure out what aspects of my personality were really me, and which aspects were just me tweaking on Ritalin... Like, did I really enjoy doing X, Y, Z? Or was I just all Ritalin'd up and doing it because of the drugs? Who was I, really? If I could do it all again, I feel like me being held back 1 year in school would have accomplished the same thing as Ritalin, but I'll never know. Socially, I was just not up to my grade level, even though I was easily grasping and becoming bored by class work. I definitely move and talk fast, but I am able to do long stretches of work when I have to, and when I care. That's the key, here I think. Maybe that's the whole problem: kids like me just don't have the patience for stupid busy work, like homework, penmanship exercises, or date memorization. When I actually was interested in something, like Philosophy, I geeked way out over it and could concentrate for hours... But I ramble (imagine that!). Long story short, today, I don't medicate my ADHD with Ritalin. I've just arranged my life so that my job and world are filled with stuff I care about, and not stuff I don't. Compared to some of the other ADHD adults I've met, I think I'm completely calm, frankly. From the outside, it's probably way fucked up I was put on Ritalin. Inside, meh... it built character I guess.