Why I Quit Meds Part III

Reflections and a request for grace.

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Hi pals,

You ever have that thing where you rent a mid-ass Airbnb and try to save a bit of money by flinging FutureYou into a reality with best wishes and gnashed teeth from PresentYou, but it all goes predictably pear-shared because all the versions of you lack any chill and have many, many persnickety needs and powerful dislikes?

Yeah, that.

Heartfelt apologies for missing last week’s newsletter. I couldn’t sleep at all in the “flat” I had selected for a stopover into London before returning to New York. I was tragically indisposed learning the odious lesson above that I hope not to soon forget.

OK, so in Part II, I’d talked about Vyvanse and the effects on my work. Specifically the book I am currently writing.

More specifically, I wrote this in the last missive:

I am lead to believe that the more I sat down to write when I absolutely did not have it, when without the meds I would not have been able to produce anything, but instead turned out hundreds of thousands of words of a story… something became dark and denatured. This work was somehow unrecognizable but enough like me that I found it deeply confusing.

It’s why editing has felt like snaking a slop sink drain where I’m pulling out torso-sized fatbergs made of foiled dreams and felted hair.

(Weirdly, it’s going well? Like, I’ve murdered so many side quests and it feels crazy but terrific.)

In any case, in the last two installments, we’d also discussed the NYT article about ADHD and the effects of medication over time where I essentially felt a creeping sense of dread and abject capitulation because the whole article was very, “cursed if true,” raised to the power of, “please untag me.”