The Medication Waiting Game

I took a new ADHD medication this morning. Within an hour, I had a pounding headache, heavy eyes, and thoughts that felt like they were running at half speed. I am currently writing this from the couch, which is where I have been all day. I’m drained in a way that not even a nap could fix (although I tried). This medication is supposed to help me focus, be more productive, and get more energy. Clearly that’s not what’s happening.

But this is not my first rodeo.

I’ve been managing meds for various mental health diagnoses since I was in high school. I've been through four anxiety disorders and years of trial and error and error and error. I’ve had more conversations with psychiatrists than I can count. So I know how this goes. The meds help, or they don’t, or they do until they don’t. You change the dose, the type of medication, and start over. And every single time, you swallow the pill with a stubborn hope that this one will work.

Anxiety Story

A few years after I was diagnosed with OCD and Panic Disorder, I started on a low dose of anti-anxiety medication. I remember being terrified of taking that medication, though, because I was convinced that my anxiety was what was driving my success. If the medication worked, I thought, I’d become someone I didn’t recognize. My anxiety, however, was so debilitating that medication was necessary. Finding what worked didn’t make me a different person. It just let me be the person I already was, just without constant interference.

The journey to getting on the right meds, though, was in no way linear.

After multiple trials of various anti-anxiety medications, my psychiatrist put me on Xanax. Within 30 minutes of taking my first pill, I became a complete zombie — physically present but mentally somewhere else entirely, like I was trying to reach my own life through a TV screen. So we tried a diluted liquid form. One drop on the tongue every morning. And that worked. Until it didn’t.

Here’s the thing no one advertises about these kinds of medications:

Sometimes things work perfectly for a year and then just stop. Your body adjusts, your brain adapts, and all of a sudden the thing that was helping you just stops working. So you have to start all over again. It’s a particular kind of exhaustion that you experience, like you are almost at the finish line and then someone moves it.

ADHD Story

I was diagnosed with ADHD more recently, which has opened up an entirely new pharmaceutical can of worms. We started by upping the dose of something else I was already taking. My executive function improved drastically, but the side effects were too painful. I was bedridden with stomach aches every morning through the afternoon. So we tried a new medication. And it had zero side effects, which was fantastic. The only problem was that I was so focused on how the meds affected my stomach that I completely forgot to ask whether they were actually working. They were not.

And then my psychiatrist left the practice. If you’ve never had to find a new psychiatrist while actively taking a medication that isn’t working, I do not recommend it. Six weeks passed before I got an appointment with someone new. My new psychiatrist tried adjusting the dose, but that led to another month of nausea and dizziness. And another month of feeling hopeless. Maybe nothing was ever going to make me feel better.

My Current Situation

Today, I started taking a stimulant. My psychiatrist told me that many patients feel an immediate cloud lifted — that they can suddenly see clearly through a fog they didn’t know existed.

So I swallowed the pill this morning with the kind of hope that only exists when you’ve been disappointed enough times that having any kind of hope feels foolish.

Fifteen minutes passed. Nothing. Thirty minutes passed. I started feeling weak. An hour in, my eyes went heavy, my thoughts became slow and thick. Two and a half hours later, I woke up from an unplanned nap, with a raging headache and the sinking feeling that this was yet another dead end.

I’m writing this four hours in, and I’m angry. Angry at my body for reacting poorly to something that is supposed to help. And angry that patience is apparently a prerequisite for treating a condition that makes being patient nearly impossible.

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The Word That Keeps Me Going

On days like this (and I’ve had many of them), there’s one word that I repeat to myself.

Yet.

Nothing is working yet. I haven’t found the right medication yet.

“Yet” doesn’t make me more patient or fix anything or make the side effects go away. But it does remind me that this is not the end. It takes “nothing is working,” which feels like a conclusion, and turns it into something that is still in progress.

I am not out of options. I have a team of people dedicated to helping me figure this out. I have found medications that have worked before, which means it’s possible to find them again.

“Yet” gets me from one day to the next, even if that next day is just as demoralizing as the day before.

If you’re in the middle of your own medication journey, I want to be careful not to offer a silver lining you didn’t ask for. The process can be harder than some people make it out to be. It requires a level of persistence that seems genuinely unfair. It forces you to decide whether or not your hope is a liability or a lifeline. It involves showing up to doctor’s appointments, filling out a ridiculous number of symptom questionnaires, and explaining embarrassing side effects to a psychiatrist you just met, all while just living your life.

That’s a lot to ask of a person.

And yet…