thinking about the “people with untreated ADHD are at higher risk of dementia as they get older” statistic

wondering if maybe part of it is “the symptoms of ADHD get more pronounced as one gets older, and the symptoms of ADHD can have similarities to dementia, and it can eventually reach a point where there’s no meaningful difference”

definitely noticing an increase in how often I’m having trouble with my short-term memory, in ways that seem related to my attention span (like, forgetting why I walked into a room, or forgetting a task I started, because other thoughts distracted me)

can imagine those symptoms being a real serious problem if they got severe enough

although I do take some medications, I would still consider my ADHD “untreated” since I haven’t been on any of the ADHD-specific medicines in a very long time

and in the time I’ve worked in a pharmacy, I’ve become more and more certain that I do not feel safe starting to take those meds

…not because of anything about the safety of the meds themselves… but because of how horrifyingly unreliable the whole system is at getting those meds to people when they need them

whenever I see those posts going “Why would you choose not to start a medication because you could get dependent on it? you’re already not okay without it” …I feel like ranting about the specifics of the situation and why it’s more complicated than that

if the med is one of the schedule II amphetamines that are prescribed for ADHD, the real problems are the every-year-recurring pharmacy supply shortages… and changes in how insurance does and doesn’t cover it… and laws and pharmacy policies that keep changing (and that no one’s consistently kept up-to-date about, even in the pharmacy)

you won’t just get dependent on it, that part’s not the problem. if it lets you drop your current exhausting coping mechanisms and actually relax for once, starting to depend on it would be great

the problem is you’ll start depending on it, get used to the chance to relax… and then be forced to suddenly stop taking it, cold turkey, without warning, a couple times a year probably, for unknown amounts of time

and that kind of thing, in my experience, is even worse for my life than constant exhausting coping mechanisms

but both those things suck.