That may be true, or maybe you need to try some other things, including different medications and different pursuits.

Fwiw, I've been taking Concerta 27mg since being diagnosed. Haven't really felt much of a need to experiment with others, but full-on depression is a rarity for me, perhaps helped by investing heavily in my social and physical life. The only time I get jittery is when I accidentally drink as much coffee as I would on a non-medicated day, so I have to be a little careful with that. It's a very mellow, long-acting, subtle effect that is most noticeable when I'm trying to flow through a conversation or imagine things, which I think I'm better at on non-medicated days, but am okay with the temporary tradeoff. Overall, it's not magic, but it helps keep me on track. Higher doses have been slightly unpleasant and I've dropped back down.

I think what's become more clear to me over time is that I really shouldn't try to live like the stable careerists around me and on HN who have different kinds of parameters for success, yet have what I'd describe as immensely boring unhealthy or obsessive vanity-oriented lives. I'll never have a house, and I may never hold a job for 2 full years, but I can push myself to the top of a mountain, make friends and keep them in my thirties, and maintain a strong lean physique. The most difficult thing is figuring out how and where to apply myself when I have a blank slate professionally. I don't and will never speak like a manager, and yet my conduct with juniors in a recent role seemed to be welcomed and appreciated, before they threw me under the bus for some inane issue and fired me.

I say this mostly because although life is difficult, isolating, and ambiguous at times, to be comfortable in ones own skin means coming to terms with the things you do well, having humility, being open, ambitious, and authentically grateful for what that brings you (without depending on explicit praise or reciprocation, because it may never come from what you'd hope). You must be able to throw your own parade sometimes, be proud of the floats you can put together, and happy about whoever was able and willing to show up.

On this site there's constantly a vibe of "what should I be doing", but fuck that, do whatever you need to do and then let yourself do what you want to do; take some time, figure it out, let the nebulous sense of guilt subside, because it's not good for much.

Given you have some experience with this sort of medication would you say it could help with restoring any motivation? It's killing me slowly, but surely...

I found Wellbutrin to be the best one on that front. It's also, by far, the easiest one to get prescribed. Stimulants have too many peaks and valleys, but if you have a global sense of low motivation and want to raise that general baseline, Wellbutrin is awesome.

Welbutrin, while having some sort of stimulant effect, and often prescribed for ADHD, is not at all the same as real stimulant medications.

It often helps people with ADHD because they have been prescribed this almost-stimulant to anxiety or depression (often caused directly or indirectly by ADHD symptoms and life), and it makes them better, because it's finally treating an actual cause rather than a downstream effect.

But most people running into that situation are way better off just taking a real ADHD stimulant.

It looks like Strattera is similar. It claims to be about as effective as Concerta, but being someone who has tried welbutrin, there is just no comparison to what a moderate dose of a real stimulant does.

The continued refusal for society to just let ADHD people take a tested, proven, safe, effective medication because if you smoke an entire bottle of it at once it will get you high (something that is less useful to someone with ADHD! Lots of people found out they were ADHD when they tried cocaine for the first time, and instead of being high, were suddenly normal ) is infuriating.

One other note, my family for multiple generations has massively struggled with "seasonal" depression, or chronic depression, or constant "Fatigue" where working a full 8 hour day leaves you feeling like you just ran a marathon and your brain screams out to just go lay down and not function. My mother continues to suffer from this. I was starting to suffer from this immensely, and was worried I also had Fibromyalgia like my mom.

Right up until I took the first, minimum dose, of concerta. I haven't had that fatigue since. Because it was ADHD. It was always ADHD. I no longer get Seasonal Affective Disorder. I recently went through a life event that in the past would have left me crying in bed for an entire year. I am sad, actually I am gutted. I am depressed. But I can still do my job right now, because I can focus on what I want to focus on, and process my feelings when it's healthier to do so.

Did you know one of the side effects of Concerta is "elevated mood"? Literally a happy pill. You know what's really effective for an ADHD person who has spent their entire life spiraling in anxiety and suffering from depressive episodes? Being able to focus on the here and now, rather than whatever anxiety your brain was stuck on.

I'm not going to tell you to try those stimulants since you might have already, but so many people are sandbagged with their ADHD diagnosis by people giving them a shittier medication just because it won't involve paperwork with the DEA, or some moral panic bullshit.

I have tried a wide variety of stimulant ADHD medication over the years, but I developed bipolar disorder in my late teens and it just doesn't work the same ever since. I haven't made it more than a couple months on any stimulant med without discontinuing it since then. Let's just say that "elevated mood" is no longer a selling point.

Strattera really did work well for me but my doc won't let me take both Strattera and Wellbutrin, and the depression is a much more pressing concern than focus.

I'm also very internationally mobile at this point, and it's much easier to get a walk in GP in a foreign country to refill Wellbutrin/Zyban than Concerta.

Those are all "me" problems - I definitely suggest everybody who gets an ADHD diagnosis does full trials of some kind of extended release adderall variant and an extended release ritalin variant at some point.

In your opinion, how does extended release Adderall differ from the equiv Ritalin?

Adderall felt to me more like a drug, and seemed to cause more of a feeling of being on speed with less objective productivity benefit. A lot of people prefer it though.