Disclaimer: I’m referring the the US medical system, but I imagine people in other countries may encounter similar things.

I cannot be the only one who has had this experience, but all my dealings with the medical industry feel like they were refined by a group of psychologists to exploit the weaknesses of those with ADHD.

The volume of calls, appointments, and paperwork I had to full out to get a diagnosis and prescription for treatment is completely unreasonable to expect someone with poor working memory and attention issues to navigate.

Then, to stay on medication, you need to schedule and make appointments with a psychiatrist every month, for the rest of your life, and if you miss a single one, you will run out of meds (and likely charged a fine), which will make it even harder to remember to make the next one. If you miss too many, that psychiatrist will refuse to see you again and you have to go back to your PCP to get a new referral.

Look, I understand that their time is valuable, but this system couldn’t be designed any other way to be more accommodating to people who clinically forget things?!

It’s like designing a wheelchair ramp that’s actually just stairs that are 3x as steep as the regular stairs. Also, if you fall to the bottom, someone takes your wheelchair until you can climb back up.

    • AddLemmus@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      7 hours ago

      Nice! It worked out great in my case, but I had to lower my expectations regarding the timeline and how much I had to keep pushing for the next step. They’ll probably get you evaluated by a psychologist now and take care of the series of appointments, but you probably have to be quite pushy to get the formal diagnostic, either from a licensed psychological psychotherapist or a psychiatrist. Then, push again to get an appointment with the psychiatrist for the prescription. (Or find a local one yourself; it’s good profit for them when you are already diagnosed.) Would seem more efficient to me when the psychiatrist also does the diagnostic.

      Still 100x easier than the “normal” method. It would be a great improvement when they take care of a series of appointments until you hold the prescription in your hands.