What Ritalin Won't Do

My final judgment on Ritalin is still suspended as I continue to mess around with finding the right dose—one large enough to have some effect on my concentration whilst small enough to allow me to avoid clenching my jaw all day and other random side effects. Right now I'm on 36 mg/day of Concerta, an extended-release form of Ritalin. Unless I'm imagining things, I believe it does give me that added push to plunge in and work on something that would otherwise seem too odious—whether making a Christmas card address list or doing anything related to my dissertation. It's like someone giving you a little push when you're standing at the edge of the pool, reluctant to jump in. Same with kick-starting the day in general—it wakes me up the way a cup of espresso would. What won't it do? Alas, it won't:

• Add more hours to my day. I still have to find and block out the time needed for my dissertation myself. Between working 30 hours a week at my job, trying to cook and work out occasionally, and hanging out with Mr. Flossie, this is tricky. Lately (very lately, like this week), I might have caught on to a schedule that will work for a while: work 8:30-3, go to the library study carrel and dissertate 3-6 Monday through Friday.

• Make my dissertation seem more interesting. I still have to repress the thought that I'm spending untold hours of my life on something five people will ever read—and worse than that, that I would only want five people to ever read. I've never written a diss before, obviously, so I don't know what I'm doing...and there are structural things I've done that I already realize I would do differently, but I'm on this road now, and it's too late to go back.

• Make me work faster. I still ruminate endlessly.

• Make me smarter. I still read high theory and think, "What the hell did I just read?"

• Make it easier to remember what I was doing. Even one day off, and I have to make up time by figuring out where I was in my thought process.

Here is the sad, star-bereft December calendar.

They Fixed My Brain, Yay! (P.S. WTF?)

I went back to see Dr. Nice, the attention deficit disorder specialist, for a follow-up, very curious to see if she thought the Ritalin was doing anything for me. I wanted to make sure I had enough in my system to register any possible change, so I took 20 mg (about double what I'm prescribed by Dr. Conservative, but still a safe amount). Well. Dr. Nice highly approved of the double dose, said it was the correct amount for my weight. Then she gave me that computer test again, the one where you hit a space bar every time the letter that flashes in the middle of the screen is not X. This time I did much better, rather than hitting the space bar like a maniac like I did pre-Ritalin. After that 5-minute test, I took a thirty-second test where Dr. Nice would point to various plastic cubes on her desk in turn and I would have to repeat her actions in the proper order. Apparently I did much better on this test as well.

"The Ritalin has really improved your brain functioning," she said, and added that I should continue to take the higher dose to see the best results. I suppose this is great news, and I'm glad to hear that there's hope for me, but my question is, Holy shit, what has been wrong with my brain functioning all this time?! When I told her at the beginning of the meeting that I wasn't sure if the Ritalin was working, she said that people with ADD are unreliable self-reporters on the efficacy of their medicine, because "Since something has been wrong all their lives, they don't realize what it feels like to be better."

So I am "better," now that I can hit a space bar or point to some plastic boxes with more accuracy? Dr. Nice said that these tests are useful because you can't think your way out of them--they are boring and abstract and designed to allow your attention to drift.

A friend of mine recently said she was on the fence about taking antidepressants--she was afraid of changing her personality. I remember feeling that way when I was first prescribed ADs ages ago, but then after starting to take them, deciding that it was OK, that they don't really change who I am. Except now I'm a little freaked out about the Ritalin for exactly the same reasons.

One thing that jarred me was that Dr. Nice suggested I take a long-acting, all-day dose of Ritalin, so I don't have to keep taking pills as they wear off every four hours. I said, "It's OK--I only need it for short periods of time, while I'm working on my dissertation." She responded, "But don't you need to pay attention all the time--when driving, working? Wouldn't you like your attention to be functioning at a normal level?"

I feel a bit like someone has informed me that there's a color that everyone else in the world can see and I can't.