There's no possibility of a second opinion either because I'm really damn lucky to even have access to a GP, the waiting list for one is ~4 years long right now if you don't already have one.
Could you possibly do something similar?
There are no private doctors and private psychiatrists are not legally allowed to perscribe. ADHD medication is controlled so only NPs, GPs, and (I think) psychologists are permitted to write a script for it.
Basically there are no options for me except the ones I have already taken, short of moving to a different province thousands of kilometers away.
My previous psychiatrist said he's had some luck with patients on stimulants lowering their stimulant doses and adding a non-stimulant treatment like Strattera, but his patients rarely had success stopping all stimulants and taking only Strattera. That's just one docs opinion, but having been treated for adhd for 15 years, it doesn't surprise me.
So, consider yourself lucky you don't already need stimulants to get by. Some of the newer non-stimulant options may be effective for you, and you won't have to deal with the "druggy" aspect of being on stimulants for work. Stimulants can seriously affect your life, both positively and negatively. You might be able to get things done that you never would have done before - I felt like I was finally able to compete at a normal level when I started - but you might retreat from society at the same time, be less interested in spending time with loved ones or building relationships, and then there's all the short-term side-effects like trouble sleeping or losing interest in eating.
Basically my experience has been a double-edged sword and it's bittersweet. For every way that it's benefited me, ADHD meds negatively affect me in some other way and it's hard to quantify the net balance.
I wish that were the case, I've been heavily "abusing" Redbull and Claritan-D (non-drowsey with sudafed, I found this helped purely by accident a few years ago) for years just so I can barely function enough to hold down a job. It's probably part of why my blood pressure is so bad in the first place.
I have to put literally all the energy I have into work, by the time 1700 rolls around I have no energy left to give for anything, I just crash. Most nights even getting supper is a huge ordeal, much less anything else.
Non-stimulant drugs might be an viable option, I haven't inquired about that yet, but I intend too.
I apreciate you giving a small window into what the medication has been like for you. How it would affect me and how I'd change on it has been one of my main concerns should I somehow actually get perscribed anything. At this point I'd try anything because the older I get the less sustainable this all becomes.
You’d never be able to get a foreign prescription filled in Canada, federal and provincial regulations forbid that. Brining medicine back would be fine, but then you can’t get more without an expensive flight again.
If I lived near the US border I’d just get an American doctor and get prescriptions filled in America, but I’m nowhere even remotely close to the border.
My assessment took several days, totalling around 8 hours of time in the clinic. A lot of interviewing and cognitive assessments. I'm not sure if that's standard, but maybe that gives you something to contrast it with. I left the experience with a fairly hefty document describing my abilities/disabilities along with various recommendations moving forward.
I also received an IQ test result which was strange to see, and I actually would have preferred not to see it.
I had to get that all together and done before I went, because the clinic is a 2.5 hour drive meaning it wasn't practical to spend a ton of time there.
The actual clinic time consisted of an interview that took ~2 hours and seveal tests. The only test I remember clearly was something called the CPT test, because I thought what they were asking me to do was actually impossible (don't press the X when it's shown).
After that I had a follow up virtual call a few weeks later to discuss the results and they provided me with a document about all the testing, results, and steps going forward. In their own words I have "severe inattentive ADHD".
My main issue is if you know exactly what to tell them of course you'll be diagnosed, it's not like a physical issue that you can't fake. Someone seeking a diagnoses just for drugs could easily have gotten it. Additionally it was a private clinic and I worry there was some incentive for them to provide the result they thought the client wanted.
Why is that?
I had aspirations I didn’t pursue because I thought I wasn’t capable, for example. Lacked confidence because I believed I wasn’t competent. Suddenly I was faced with the notion that I wasn’t failed by genetics or something I couldn’t control, but rather, I’d simply lived for decades apparently completely unaware of myself and wasting my potential. What a strange thought.
My score wasn’t exceptional. I expected it to be much lower, though.
I’m still not sure how I feel. I wonder if I should do more with myself or not, if any of it even matters, that sort of thing. I suspect never knowing actually could have been better; it’s unlikely at this point that I could ever realize potential that I was previously unaware of. I don’t think it serves me at all. In a strange way I guess I liked assuming I wasn’t intelligent. I genuinely don’t feel intelligent.
For what it's worth, I don't actually think IQ is a canonical measure of intelligence, and the narrative people have of "being stupid" is often driven by society valuing certain kinds of intelligence more than others. But the kind of intelligence it takes to do software dev is more widely considered the "legitimate" kind of intelligence (by people who tend to view intelligence in more reductive, "black-and-white" terms).
Not only IQ is correlated with every positive prosocial behavior we, in general, value but every seemingly disparate form of intelligence is correlated to the others so we can, in fact, talk about a single form of intelligence that manifest in different form (generally named "g factor"). This is just the inherent unfairness of life. I wish it wasn't true and only your hard-work would matter, but it doesn't.
After some consideration I was left with the sense that I’d squandered something because I was too busy mired in egoism, navel gazing, insecurity, and helplessness driven by the sense that I’m less fortunate. And yet I’ve had a lot of good fortune which clearly stemmed from mental characteristics I believed I didn’t have.
I suppose I always felt like such an imposter. As though I was only ever hours or days away from being found out, then being relegated to a life more suited to someone as incompetent as I was.
Now I try to be less self absorbed and think more about what I can do for other people — people who can’t thrive in a technology-driven world due to innate disabilities, for example. Statistically it’s known that this is a staggering portion of our population, and these people deserve to get as much out of life as anyone. Living in poverty because you can’t understand how to apply for a job online, perform many basic jobs, navigate state or provincial websites to obtain disability assistance, or manage personal finances and so on is such an egregious offence to humanity in my mind.
In summary, I should have spent less time feeling sorry for myself and more time helping people with real problems.
I suspect I will never manage to meaningfully help people more than I would have when I thought I was stupid. I believed in pro social behaviour before the test. For that reason I’m not sure it helped me to see the IQ score.
I got into software because it was the single thing I cared about that could earn me money. I really had no idea what I was doing and constantly went from frying pans into fires, learning what I needed in a frantic race to avoid being “found out”, so to speak. The last 7 or 8 years has been a lot better now that my foundations are better and I have a bit more confidence. My career would definitely benefit from more confidence.
> the kind of intelligence it takes to do software dev
This is true, but I suppose at the time I didn’t believe I was actually doing it. I’d endlessly compare myself to genius-level developers, or simply others with skills I didn’t have. If someone at work could do something better than I could, well, it was obviously because I’m incompetent. How could I be 10 years in and this person who’s 5 years in understands debugging and testing so comprehensively? Man, everyone’s going to realize I’m a fraud soon. I better cram in testing and debugging research this week.
The IQ definitely did come as a surprise in spite of that. I can mechanically shovel software knowledge into my brain, but I don’t do anything novel or interesting with it. I write okay software, but it’s largely just a feat of mimicking the work of intelligent people. I can make the thing that makes the company money, but I can’t make a thing that others would mimic as I do.
As I mentioned in another comment though, a lot of this was me being insecure, indulging that to excess, and being quite neurotic about it to the point that I was clearly overlooking significant advantages I had over others who truly did and still do experience disadvantages due to lower intelligence. That was a well deserved blow to my ego, to realize I was so self absorbed as to ignore values I believed were important to me. I didn’t think I was like that, but in fact I was — extremely so — for decades.
If I can live comfortably with a job in software, why am I spending time feeling sorry for myself while other people, some I know personally, live with less because society values their minds less?
I suppose though that the reason I didn’t want to see the IQ score is because I suspect it was too late in life for me to respond in a meaningful way that would be aligned with my values. I have the sense that I squandered something. Rather than feel sorry for myself about it, I’ll do my best to turn things around.
I have wanted to try medicine to see if it helps me at all, but I've never been able to do so. My GP was willing to perscribe me something, but decided my BP was too high and that was that.
There are definitely anxiety issues at play as well, but I don't know to what degree.