A Sordid Business, Sanity

Mr. Price,

Three years ago I became the thirty-millionth person misdiagnosed with ADHD in the United States. The first feeling I imagine people have when they hear this, and even what I feel myself, is pity. I am yet another person tragically harmed by the overzealous Big Pharma-influenced healthcare system. Had I not been fed medication from the age of seven, persuaded to ingest greater and greater amounts of amphetamine to mitigate what was clearly insidious inattentiveness, I would Today have been Sane and 10 years of age. Instead, I now sit in a psych ward; removed from society, evidently for its (and my own) safety, I am the death of potential.

There were, then, thousands of apes crawling magnificently down mahogany stairs and devouring its wood, the framework of which stretched below it indefinitely–infinitely. Chomp. Chomp. They go, one after another, a teeming sea of brown and black striped bodies that more than somewhat resembled rats, the uniformity of them. A hum fills the room, a murmur that reverberated in that quiet way where you could just make out noise but heard too little to find coherency. I listened patiently anyway. “A blue pill, a blue pill,” they said, “take a blue pill.” The active ingredient in Adderall, Sir, is Temptation.

But when I think a little more and truly reflect on my Misdiagnosis, I reach my second feeling, which is joy. Besides its resulting in my removal from the general public, I didn’t, for the most part, mind the drugs (in fact, at times I enjoyed them). I had fun: playing Pokemon for 12 hours, reading the entire Magic Treehouse series from start to finish, watching the sun set on the solstice, etc. Once, when my mother wasn’t watching, I delayed taking my Adderall XR until an hour before P.E; I had never felt such concentrated bliss running laps (perhaps even running, period) in my life. I felt as though I could run across the universe, the firm traction from my Nike Borough 2’s propelling me onwards through space and beyond. I didn’t want to stop, never and forever. I skipped the next period and then the next.

I had yielded to the thrill of trying a dose too high and getting used to it–-but only once it started wearing off. Looking out the window, I now see snow, snow, and more snow. Safely indoors, I don’t feel the need to experience it. I am safe inside a structure of warmth and comfort; the worst thing that can happen to me is taking a mental dive, which, rest assured, I know will happen soon. The high can never last; for one second, many seconds, I may feel it stronger than anything I’ve ever felt: I am “gone.” I always come back, and if I don’t, I am dead. That is drugs in one statement. Feeling-not feeling-feeling too much, hating feeling, stopping feeling, coming back to feeling, feeling too strongly, not feeling at all. Death and Life. I believe you are the summation of everything you have ever felt. Mr. Blue Sky is playing on the loudspeakers and I am basically basic. Mellow.

The third feeling I encounter when thinking about, how do you call it–if you would choose to call it that – my “situation,” is one of relief. The dark thing no one talks about when discussing drug addiction and its negative effects is its silver lining. Once you are an addict or in my case, an admitted addict, there is a low bar for future achievements. No longer can I be reproached for not saving money, buying a new house, or getting married. There are no realistic expectations for my success because I have already failed in what is collectively decided by society as the worst way possible. Consequently, I no longer have to deal with the Societal Pressure that non-addicts do. I am the death of potential; once pronounced dead, however, any activity I do is doubly magnified. That is why I am relieved; there is no further for me to fall and endless opportunities to rise.

One thing I must say is that I bear no ill-will to the bloke who Misdiagnosed me. I empathize, actually; were I faced with a desperate mother in need of an urgent change in her son, looking at me in earnest torture, I would also seek to remedy it promptly. Looking at my fidgety hands and tap-dancing feet, inconclusive tests, and growing pressure (surely you can do something, doc), he or she must’ve been stumped. So I say this: I took my blue pill consciously, regretting nothing, no matter what my erstwhile classmates or overly talkative neighbors might say.

The final feeling I get is not so much a feeling but a question. Can I call it a questioning feeling or is it a feeling of questioning? There are so many ways to look at and feel about my time with Adderall. They call me crazy–insane because I say I saw things after taking 80 mg of it. To be fair, I saw unusual things (and imaginary things at that), but I also saw (and see) real things: poverty, the need for hard work, the subtle emotional states of people around me. I am not violent; I am not suicidal; I am simply irrevocably changed. What to do? I no longer think about what would have happened had I not been Misdiagnosed. It happened in the past, where I have no power and of which I do not even have a complete recall. If I seek to change the past, it can only happen by convincing my doctors I am sane, something which I am not sure I am. So do I fake it?–But what is sanity?

You know, I’ve always thought I revealed too much by talking: just words on words on words. I have, you know, always had a strange relationship with this idea, this puzzle of how abstract concepts could be translated to language and have an impact on other people when they translate it back to thought. I could start in my head, then, and end up in someone else’s. More words seem to me, because of this, better; I can really delve into all of the things that make me unique and so impart who I am to others. My doctor, however, disagrees. “It is not appropriate to discuss death and drugs with others so casually,” he reminds me. “It is distressing and triggering to many.” I understand to some extent–I am not a fool. Drugs are simply what have impacted my life the most and considering the circumstances I am currently in, the most frequent raison d'être for conversation. I wonder. Can one ever be fully themselves to others and be perceived as sane? Are there degrees of sanity/insanity or are you one or the other? I can hardly imagine someone who gabbles about demons and ghosts to be taken as more serious than one who doesn’t, or someone who can’t stop thinking of impending death more normal than the opposite. But what if people said nothing? They spoke nothing, admitted nothing. Is sanity revealing only what you imagine is accepted?

Writing this plea of Sanity, rereading this draft of what I have composed so far, I can tell it won’t be accepted. It is bizarre and “incoherent,” and it is not remorseful enough. I have nevertheless come to terms with it. Sanity for me means to be honest with myself–as well as others–and wrestle with the problems I see with pragmatic sureness. Sanity is shades of consciousness in a sea of reservation and conforming. I cannot, in this light, be everyone, only myself. Perhaps more drugs will change my mind, Mr. Price, or an increase of Lexapro to 40 mg. I do not know and I am not sure Dr. Geri does either. I hope that if my earlier words do not convince you, the next ones do. I am Sane.

Cheerfully yours,

Eli Strongman