The Stimulant and the Void, Part 1

A Geography of ADHD, Depression, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

The purpose of this essay is to tell you that some people actually do need to take Adderall to function as a normal adult. I happen to be one of them. I’m sorry if some bald, muscled podcaster told you stimulants are prescribed for authoritarian mind control or whatever, but that has not been my experience.

And yes, I am aware that in certain circles it’s become fashionable to insist that ADHD is merely a trendy diagnostic fig leaf for people who can’t be bothered to cultivate discipline, or a pretext to get pharmacologically ripped on Schedule II amphetamines in lieu of developing an inner life, but the truth is that, for a lot of us, it’s a bona fide neurodevelopmental disorder that corrodes self-respect and makes even basic daily obligations feel like a sequence of unsolvable ciphers.

This requires exegesis, not declaration, so stay with me. I promise you’ll understand ADHD and depression a little better by the end of this.

Why I’m Telling You All This

I now have 800 subscribers, many of whom are not my mother, my Aunt Barbara or one of my friends from the Army who literally has said to me, “Greg, I already upgraded to paid. I don’t have anything more to fucking give you.” He left the active duty military and then went back to school for biology so he could go to medical school, and now he just finished his 3rd year of residency and he’s acting like he doesn’t have all the money in the world. I guess success and erudition really do go to some people’s heads. As I told him, it’s just the “cost of a cup of coffee,” and basically, you’re doing alright, buddy.

And I bring up this milestone of 800 subscribers not in a masturbatory way, but in a corporate strategy sort of way that says:

“The author’s content resonates with some critical mass of white men under the age of 30 who grew up riding in cars with leather seats. Certainly a good number of Asians with emotionally distant parental figures who read this on the subway with passing interest but do not speak of it to anyone. Very few blacks, if any, only because he grew up in a 98% white community. Possibly an open-minded Latino or two who has read Drown by Junot Diaz after she broke up with her boyfriend at Vassar.

The author gained 700 subscribers in 30 days, a growth rate that places him in the top 10% of Substack authors globally. While his growth rate will slow over time (as all do), if he keeps generating content of similar or better resonance with his audience, it is reasonable to assume he could break into the top tier of internet writing. If he continues being authentic. He will make very little money doing this, even in the upper tiers.”

As such, I am impelled to tell you more of the real shit. Not to be exhibitionist – but because it might help people. That’s only because this incipient cluster of followers establishes a baseline of credibility, allowing me to say devious things that would weird out readers for 90% of authors, but some number of people will hear me out because of my modest following. In turn, some number of people will feel less alone.

In some sense, as one’s following increases, so too should their honesty, irrespective of its attendant embarrassment; the paths of comfort and morality do not always align, and it makes scant sense to expect someone whose subscriber base is comprised of his mom and his ex-girlfriend to present a level of nudity inappropriate given the resultant yield. A greater following demands greater resilience and an elevated capacity for dissidence.

I will talk about another time I cried again, which is uncomfortable for me, but it feels like the right thing to do, so people can understand that there is a difference between men having difficulty naming emotions and not having them at all. The best writers tend to name that forbidden energy that often suffuses the space between souls – all souls in the room are aware of it but are too circumspect to put it in writing. Too rational to shout into a void when they could be doing something constructive. There is no less honor in this modesty than wearing swim trunks to the beach. But I’m already at the nude beach, or so it would seem. Others are free to join me at any time there, like, figuratively.

What follows will be a narrative – as best and as honestly I can recall – surrounding how ADHD and depression affected my life. And chill out. It’s not a sob story, and yes, I’m aware of my privilege. I realize that I’ve lived a generally joy-filled existence since the moment I was born. I understand I am white – as have been all Italians since about 1920, and I’ve never met one among us who’d dispute that. I am aware of the souls inhabiting failed states, who rise each day to a life of abject poverty and food insecurity. I’m not a victim of anything, other than experiencing reality as a conscious being having a human experience - but this is far from unique.

I’m just telling you what happened to me, because it’s what I know, and others who have been similarly adrift as I once was may benefit from this. Maybe this series of essays will make them hate themselves less, which will in turn make them less threatened by you. And besides, you go to Columbia and will be working in private equity before you are 28. Please calm down, young man or young lady. Problems that seem trivial to you do not seem that way to those who have been fortunate enough to never experience your particular psychic pain. Mine still hurts, by the way, and just the same as yours does. Maybe you’ll understand that when you grow up – when you learn that identity and character are wholly unrelated. And that the capitalist economic system, in which we all must compete to survive, is indifferent to your outrage.

And that there is a frightened child within all of us, begging to be looked in the eye, and held, and treated with kindness.

[If you can’t read any further, it’s because I always paywall stories of my humiliation. I need an expression of earnest support if I am to feel safe with you, and you’d feel the same way in my position.]