Ritalin man

cogi · Post by **cogi** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 5:02 am

Fuck, i'm currently beginning a ten page paper due tomorrow morning on

"How differently does the state treat large religious minorities in the United Kingdom, France and Iran?"

Anyways my point is I took some ritalin because i heard it will help me and I feel really wierd.
I think this shit is way over-prescribed in the States as 1 in 5 students here at USC seems to be on it, not that many of these kids can have ADD

Any opinions on ritalin/adderall espescially in the context of a performance enhancing drug?

tacospheros · Post by **tacospheros** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 7:12 am

that shit is used so rampantly that it freaks me out . half the people i know who use it do so to study or for writing papers etc.

but still

the decoy · Post by **the decoy** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 9:10 am

I had been on ritialn, but I was taken off of it in middle school because I guess I learned how to look like I was paying attention and aim so low that I could pass with little effort.

I remember when I was on it I was always more concerned with finding the hidden pattern in the fake wood grain of my desk that what the fuck the teacher was talking about. I did, however, find where the pattern repeated, and there were something like 2.5 repetitions of it, but they weren't centered so there must have been a huge plank with the repetitious pattern on it and then it was sliced into desk sized pieces with out regard for the pattern.

more contemporarily, one of my friends gave me an adderall when I was helping her pack dishes for her move and I was amazed at how focused on the problem at hand I was. I didn't even care so much that I was just being used, so to speak, I just wanted to fill the boxes and stack them.

I guess I have that uh... thing...

oh!!!

there was a cricket at work today and instead of letting my coworker smush him, I captured him in an altoids can and poked hole in it for ventiliation. I now have a pet cricket. his name is jerome. he looks like a jerome.

badger · Post by **badger** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:04 am

is ritalin basically just prescribed speed (amphetimine)?

thinking · Post by **thinking** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:42 am

badger wrote:is ritalin basically just prescribed speed (amphetimine)?

it is an amphetamine, yes, but it's not very much like amphetamine sulphate which is your common or garden speed you'd buy from your drug dealer.

I took Ritalin for a year or so, although funnily enough I took it once I'd left school. You don't feel rushy, you don't wanna dance all nite or chew your face off, the effects are mainly psychological/physiological.

It's an interesting drug, inasmuch as it enables you to focus very much on the (any) job in hand without really being aware that you're doing so - you'll look up 3 hours after taking one, and realise you've been working for hours without much in the way of conscious/abstract thought.

I think taking it as you have done to complete a specific task, it would prob help you get the job done, but i'm not sure you'd want to do it too often. ADD/ADHD is generally linked with a chemical imbalance in the Limbic System (which is linked with emotional & behavioural function), and the aim of long-term Ritalin use is to continually 'kick-start' the Limbic System into correcting itself. I don't know what effects/side-effects would develop in a 'normal' person's brain through regular & sustained use.

Personally I found it to be quite a destructive drug, I developed harmless but nevertheless annoying OCD-type traits, and it very much zombifies the regular user - I can see why it is such a popular thing to prescribe to troublesome kids who are lumped under the ADHD/ADD banner, the nickname 'Chemical Cosh' is 100% appropriate. I also developed what some would call an addiction - I didn't crave it, but my mood was inextricably linked to taking it 3 times a day, massive UP after taking one, slow crash after...

If you're genuinely having trouble concentrating on/knuckling down to your work, then it will prob help as a one-off ting.

pdomino · Post by **pdomino** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 12:50 pm

Thinking developed the shit

skipple · Post by **skipple** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 12:55 pm

screw you, you had me all hyped that marvel had unveiled a new superhero...

shonky · Post by **shonky** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 12:59 pm

I had a mate who was going out with a nurse who managed to supply us all with ritalin for the evening, was quite good, could drink like a bastard and still be reasonably coherent.

I've lobbied for us to get it at our workplace but they just look at me strangely.

badger · Post by **badger** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 1:03 pm

Shonky wrote:I've lobbied for us to get it at our workplace but they just look at me strangely.

are you sure that's got anything to do with the ritalin request?

dubluke · Post by **dubluke** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 1:06 pm

apparantly i have ADHD, and they're putting me through all this testing and shit, but i think that in a lot of cases its just a name put to a bit of troublesome behaviour, i think that if like thinking says it can help you on a few one off tasks that would definetly sort me out because i do find it really really really really hard to knuckle down onto any sort of work task, and i get distracted by literally anything

however i think it can have really negative effects, particularly the 'zombifying' that thinking wrote about, my best mate started taking it before his exams to help with his revision, and one day during study leave we all went to a party in the evening, he'd been taking the slow release ritalin during the day while he worked and you could really tell that it was having a zombiefying effect, this guy is normally a life and soul of the party type bloke, hilarious guy, always up for a laff and just a generally bright and happy bloke, but when he was on the ritalin he said literally nothing all evening, and just sat in a chair looking completely out of it, i couldn't work out what the fuck was wrong with him until he told me he'd been taking the ritalin to work, and for the next few weeks he would hardly even talk to anyone, i actually recommended him stopping for a while and it immediately sorted it right out

so basically i think that if you do get put on ritalin, unless you're a seriously chronic case (ie. severe anger from the ADHD, or uncontrollable behaviour), only really take it when you have to to complete a complicated work task or something

badger · Post by **badger** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 1:49 pm

yeah theres such a problem with overprescription of drugs these days and its literally everything from drugs like ritalin to antibiotics (and looks what thats done), even people taking painkillers for minor headaches which mean they get a resistance and have to take stronger ones. don't know if it's pressure from drugs reps or just doctors wanting to make more money or what but its very disturbing. humans have managed for millennia without drugs and now it seems that im some cases its doing more harm than good

shonky · Post by **shonky** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 1:53 pm

badger wrote:yeah theres such a problem with overprescription of drugs these days and its literally everything from drugs like ritalin to antibiotics (and looks what thats done), even people taking painkillers for minor headaches which mean they get a resistance and have to take stronger ones. don't know if it's pressure from drugs reps or just doctors wanting to make more money or what but its very disturbing. humans have managed for millennia without drugs and now it seems that im some cases its doing more harm than good

When you figure how much of ADHD is down to bad diet and lack of exercise it's frightening that doctors just right a scrip rather than pass them over to nutritionists. Same goes for Prozac in a fashion, fails to address the root causes and just medicates entire estates.

*grand* · Post by ***grand*** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 3:51 pm

thinking is a don.... always comes with the knowledge.. i was suppose to be on that crap when i was little.. but i managed to focus on tasks.. by carrying them out systematically in the quickest way possible... leaving me no time to really think about anything else as one thing would lead to another based on what ever task i was doing.. but these days i dunno.. find it hard to focus.. hold tight my ADD taking over again. Or is everything i do fucking un interesting.

pk- · Post by **pk-** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 4:01 pm

i'm convinced 95% of ADD/ADHD/dyslexia/dyspraxia diagnoses are wrong

shonky · Post by **shonky** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 4:11 pm

pk- wrote:i'm convinced 95% of ADD/ADHD/dyslexia/dyspraxia diagnoses are wrong

Sorry, I got distracted halfway through that sentence.

I do wonder how much of this is based on "yeah my kids are out of control, all I do is give them coke and sweeties and never let them outside and they're just really hyper and aggressive" - yeah, funny that eh. Bit like the prozac people who find that bringing up a kid on their own, with little support, always being broke and never getting to go out might affect one's joie de vivre somewhat.

I think we're only so dependent on this sort of "treatment" because actually dealing with the problems would be way more expensive.

badger · Post by **badger** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 4:31 pm

Shonky wrote:I think we're only so dependent on this sort of "treatment" because actually dealing with the problems would be way more expensive.

nail on the head

it's far easier for parents to think that the actions of their children is due to a mental illness than face up to the fact that their parenting skills are lacking

chunkie · Post by **chunkie** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 4:32 pm

Shonky wrote:I think we're only so dependent on this sort of "treatment" because actually dealing with the problems would be way more expensive.

dubluke · Post by **dubluke** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 4:38 pm

Chunkie wrote:
Shonky wrote:I think we're only so dependent on this sort of "treatment" because actually dealing with the problems would be way more expensive.

yeah shonky you really have hit the nail on the head, teaching people how to bring up their kids properly in terms of behaviour, diet etc. or providing cognitive behaviour therapy for kids who genuinely have something like ADD is gonna cost the government far more that just chuckin some pills down them, nail on head for sure

i think in america the problem is even worse, a mate of mine who went to univeristy out there said anyone who ever has concentration problems, however minor, is put straight on it, he said like 2 out of every 5 people were on it

shonky · Post by **shonky** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 4:42 pm

badger wrote:
Shonky wrote:I think we're only so dependent on this sort of "treatment" because actually dealing with the problems would be way more expensive.
nail on the head

it's far easier for parents to think that the actions of their children is due to a mental illness than face up to the fact that their parenting skills are lacking

There was an interesting article about middle-class parents who after investing so much effort into bringing up their little darlings to be kings of the world, found that they had given birth to divs, and managed to get these kids diagnosed as dyslexic by doctors, so that again it would be seen as a mental disorder rather than the fact that they were lacking intellectually.

dubluke · Post by **dubluke** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 5:40 pm

Shonky wrote:
badger wrote:
Shonky wrote:I think we're only so dependent on this sort of "treatment" because actually dealing with the problems would be way more expensive.
nail on the head

it's far easier for parents to think that the actions of their children is due to a mental illness than face up to the fact that their parenting skills are lacking
There was an interesting article about middle-class parents who after investing so much effort into bringing up their little darlings to be kings of the world, found that they had given birth to divs, and managed to get these kids diagnosed as dyslexic by doctors, so that again it would be seen as a mental disorder rather than the fact that they were lacking intellectually.

yeah i used to see that happen a lot at my old school, about 5 out of every 6 students were on extra time for "educaitonal difficuluties", or parents would insist their kid was ADHD and the reason they wren't working was distarction not that they were just plain lazy/troublemakers

Ritalin man

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