Let's take a segue.

When I last wrote, I was giving another piece of my ADHD diagnosis story. Unfortunately...that portion of my story wasn't very positive. At all. Which leads me to this segue - the abuse of ADHD medication, specifically Adderall. I decided it was necessary to reflect on this issue because undoubtedly the abuse of this drug is part of the reason why it's so difficult to obtain it even when you truly need it.

Personally, I don't get why people feel that it's necessary to take Adderall recreationally. I don't mean to sound all high and mighty, but until recently I'd never tried the stuff nor had the desire to do so...though it had been offered to me numerous times over the years. I definitely have friends who took it in college to study all night for a midterm or final. I have friends who took it so that they could drive long distances without feeling sleepy. And I have friends who outright abused it - by either snorting it or simply using it to stay up and party.

Still, how is that a handful of people abusing this drug makes it so that people who truly need it have to jump through hoops and sometimes even take $1,000 tests in order to get some help? Spend an hour in a room with me when I'm not on this medication and you will know that it's something I need. In fact, the other day my husband admitted that he's known for years that I have ADHD (having had experience with it in his family and whatnot) but didn't want to insist that I get help - he knew it was a conclusion I'd have to come to (or not) in my own time.

That said, another friend of mine admitted that she also ran into that "$1,000 test/assessment" road block when trying to find out if she had ADHD...and that's just an exorbitant amount of money to toss out for an issue that may or may not be there, simply so you can get a negligible prescription that few people in their late 20s/early 30s would be stupid enough to abuse or sell.

I guess the question is...is there a way to fix this broken system? Because if you've read my first few entries, you already know the first couple of hoops I had to jump through to get a diagnosis...and I'm not even halfway done writing about the two-ish months I sloughed through to get to where I am today.