I grew up under the misconception that the technology and knowledge in our day and age was limitless, short of time travel and curing cancer. It was this utopian perception of our society that kept me sheltered from realizing just how many mysteries we still haven’t fully understood, despite one of these issues affecting my own daily life. Being diagnosed with severe attention deficit disorder at a very young age, I grew up with a lot of preconceptions about my disorder and absorbing them without a second thought. My general understanding was that while I do cognitively struggle in certain areas that are second nature to most others, these issues could be reverted with the ingestion of a pill each morning before school. My mentality about this routine remained unchanged until I entered college, where both my academic and personal life would be put to the test. While I certainly owe the temporary improvements of my cognitive shortcomings to these pills, I believe it comes at costs too detrimental to maintain a sustainable way of life.
Sure, I was well aware that my “medication” was just a drug, but under the rigid five-days-per-week dosage I’ve been following since my diagnosis in fourth grade, I never realized how much of my life was affected by Adderall. The line between the side effects of Adderall and my “natural” self had been blurred over nearly a decade of routine use during my school years. Throughout high school, it hadn’t fully clicked as to why I’d have bursts of focus during the day but unmanageable brain fog in the afternoon, why I was never hungry during the day, why I had random mood swings or why I would sometimes spend hours trying to sleep. I chalked it up to just burning out easily, blaming the nasty cafeteria food and moodiness.
It was only until this 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. routine of daily classes had been broken upon entering college that I began to realize a concerning correlation between the drug and my quality of life. While its immediate effects still helped my academic performance, I’d often burn out by the time I had to attend my evening courses, many of which are classes for my major and of actual value to me. The problem with this burnout or comedown is that it incites the opposite effects of the stimulant’s intended purpose. With it comes a lack of motivation and distraction, making it excruciatingly difficult to function personally, let alone academically. College is a period meant for self-discovery and growth, and while grades certainly matter, I don’t think they should come at the cost of being too cognitively inconsistent to focus on one’s passions and personal life as a result of stimulant side effects.
The other problem is that these stimulants, like any other drug, build up a tolerance with extended use. I am prescribed 40 milligrams of Adderall XR (extended release), but both the effectiveness and the comedown of the drug are never set in stone. I notice that the more consecutive days I take it, the less effective it becomes, while adversely exacerbating the effects of the comedown. Reflecting on past psychiatrists who had prescribed me less compatible stimulants like Ritalin and Vyvanse before I discovered Adderall, I found that they would commonly resort to simply raising my prescribed dose when my young middle school self would tell them I still had trouble focusing. The common solution is to simply raise the dose of patients’ medication, without considering that it may have additionally contributed to the very issues it’s intended to mend.
What I’ve come to believe is that medications for such learning disorders are not necessarily a solution, but rather a short-term remedy for the sake of one’s GPA. While a drug producing the effects of these stimulants without unwanted side effects would be a dream come true, it unfortunately does not, and likely cannot, exist. Considering the cost at which these short-term benefits come for myself and others alike, I don’t believe stimulants are a viable long-term solution to managing such cognitive disabilities.
Sean Morton is a junior majoring in English.