One of my pet peeves is when people say stuff like “If the medication were working, you wouldn’t have to keep taking it.”

That’s crap.

The medication IS working.

That’s WHY you keep taking it.

Look at it this way: any of you take a vitamin supplement of some sort? What would happen if you stopped? Let’s say you’re vitamin D deficient because for some reason your body does not absorb it the way it should. I’m using this as an example because vitamin D deficiency is very common. So you take vitamin D. Because if you didn’t, you would go back to having a deficiency. Which means you could experience things like muscle fatigue or you might have a weakened immune system. As a result of the lack of vitamin D, your body would, in turn, be less capable of absorbing calcium, which will have an effect on your bones.

So. If you are a person whose body does not absorb vitamin D effectively, you can do one of two things:

Take vitamin D supplements to make sure you have healthy muscles and healthy bones.

OR

Don’t take vitamin D supplements and risk the consequences. Which you’re going to experience. Because you need vitamin D to function at the same level as a person who does not have a vitamin D deficiency. Get it? You don’t take the vitamin D, you don’t receive the benefit.

Medications for chronic conditions work much the same way. In this instance, I will use ADHD as the example because I have it and am therefore familiar with it.

But first this:
Yes, ADHD is a real thing. It is not the result of bad parenting. It is not a result of improper nutrition. And although behavioral therapy and a good diet can improve the symptoms of ADHD, they cannot eradicate it entirely. It is a neurological disorder primarily affecting the areas of executive function found in the frontal cortex of the brain. Which means that the ADHD brain functions somewhat differently than a neurotypical brain and this can be observed in an MRI. For more information about that, you can check out the blog I wrote outlining the specifics of the ADHD brain here.

When compared to a neurotypical brain, the ADHD brain shows a lack of norepinephrine and dopamine. Or more specifically, the norepinephrine and dopamine are present, but get misplaced, which means there is a deficiency of both in the places of the brain where they need to be. And when we have a deficiency, we need to what?

Supplement. Good. You’re catching on.

So you can think of ADHD medication as a device to get the norepinephrine and dopamine to the places where it SHOULD be. To make MY brain function more similarly to a neurotypical one. Therefore: I no take medication, I don’t receive the benefits. It is not a cure, but it does help me manage the symptoms. The same is true of medications for bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, lupus, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia and a whole host of other psychological and physical invisible illnesses.

And you’ll find that a lot of medications are like this. With as smart as we are, there is still so much that the medical world does not know. So many things they don’t have a cure for. Although they’re finding new solutions every day. But until then, the best they can do is help people to manage their symptoms.

However, symptom management in and of itself is not a cure. So if you want to keep receiving the benefits, you have to keep taking the medication. Not just until you feel better. Because if you want to continue to feel better, you have to keep managing your symptoms.

So for goodness sake, please stop stigmatizing medication. Yes people might be able to function without it. I, myself, have been able to function at some level without medication. But it’s easier with help. And sometimes, medication is the help that people need. So just because you don’t need it doesn’t mean other people don’t need it and just… please be considerate and supportive. The medication is working. That’s why we are taking it.