Ritalin Girl had always had her ups and downs. And they tended to be long. It felt like having two different personalities. The depressed withdrawn version. And the outgoing, euphorically happy, limitless energy version.

 

Things reached a peak during lockdown. She had been on a 5 year waitlist for ADHD treatment and her “ADHD symptoms” seemed worse than ever. She would rinse her manager in team meetings, highlighting his mistakes and denting his pumped-up inflated ego. Her mind was racing until 2am 3am every night with an endless outpouring of ideas. She’d spend most of the night writing. Word associations, rhyme and new inventive ideas for social copy flowed out effortlessly. She was impatient and more confrontational. This caused drama at work. She was constantly coming up with new ideas for a promotion and putting them to her not-so-entertained manager. He hated her by this point.

 

Feeling caged in at work she left and started working as a freelance writer. Whilst doing this she found a new role as a social media executive. Around the same time she was started on medication for ADHD. Alleluia, she thought. Finally she would have relief from her crazy ADHD symptoms and be able to sleep at night. Wrong.

 

The ADHD meds made sleep even more elusive. She had a hair trigger temper which was a detriment in a new role especially. She would post mindless provocative bullshit to the company social media accounts and have no recollection of any of it afterwards. Until her manager rang her up the next day, irate, ordering her to take it down immediately. How did this happen? Was someone impersonating her? Trying to sabotage her in her new role.

 

Her sex drive was through the roof and she could easily lose 6 hrs over a 24 hr period to porn and masturbation. She had her dildo, her vibrator and a screen. What more could a girl need? Heaven. Except it wasn’t. Giving herself shaking orgasm after shaking orgasm sent her even higher and sent her life into even more disarray. She was missing deadlines at work and overall productivity was low. She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t keep still. Life was a flurry of frenetic ideas and boundless energy.

 

Ritalin Girl had trauma bonded with the supposed “friend” who had assaulted her and kept bizarrely ringing him up at random times of night. 2am, 3am, 4am you name it.

 

Apart from all of the above. She couldn’t stop talking. At work, with friends, with family. Non-stop motormouth.

 

Eventually she got sacked. If ADHD medication was meant to cure her why was she so successfully and adeptly wrecking her life? What was going on?

 

Then the crash came. She lay in bed for days on end. No energy. A flat battery. Months of barely sleeping had finally taken their toll.

 

For about a year she had non stop cycling of depression with bouts of hypomania. Excessive spending, impulsivity, hypersexuality.. eventually she sought a second opinion. And after months of monitoring and mood charting he diagnosed her with bipolar type 2. She was started on anti-psychotics and some of the side effects were horrific. It was a long journey of trial and error. Until eventually she landed on the right one. Olanzapine. Finally, she could sleep. It stabilised her weight. It calmed her. She was able to focus. It was a magic pill. And then she started getting her life together again. Step by step. Building block by building block.