Better living through Chemistry.

In honor of Huey Lewis' "I Want A New Drug" and the role it's been playing in my mind lately, I got a new drug.
This was at my own request, and if you had known me for any amount of time you'd be like "What the Fuck JRM! You've vowed not to do this since the late eighties!"
See, the drug I got is Strattera. An ADD/ADHD drug.

In the fourth grade the school I was attending insisted to my parents that they place me on Ritalin. It was 1987/1988 and ADD and Ritalin were the hot new things. Hell, ADHD hadn't even been coined yet but you can bet your ass that once they were my diagnonsense was amended.

At any rate, on the Ritalin I went, and suicidally depressed I became. Yep. In the fourth fucking grade I was suicidal. Now, my mental issues are genetic in my family, and it's likely I would have had them no matter what, but I believe to this day that they were triggered early by the Ritalin. It was only a year later that I began to take laxatives and exhibit the signs of my eating disorder.

Ever since then I have been adamant (successfully so) to every doctor I've had that I will NOT take ADD drugs. I developed tricks, and I put up with the lack of focus and the loss of attention to the task at hand.

Then I had a baby.

May I just say that all my coping mechanisms have gone straight out the window? Babies make even a non-afflicted person feel like they have ADD. For me, well, I have no clue what I'm doing any more. The other day at work I literally walked around for ten minutes because each time I changed location I couldn't remember why I'd done so.
Also, like I said, I wanted speed. So I thought hey, I've got therapy coming up, I'll get me some Adderal. After all, Tom Cruise hates it, there must be something going for it.

Well, it's a schedule two drug, one that drug companies won't provide for free to the poor and that the hospital won't allow the clinic it's ridiculously low $3 co-pay on. So I got Non Stimulant Strattera. And hey, if it's going to help me focus I wouldn't need the speed anyway. My Doc said it can take up to a month to hit full effectiveness since it's not like Ritalin and Adderal, so you can chart the progress with me. Won't that be fun!