At university, I medicated heavily with “the hard stuff” - stimulant medications. These took a heavy toll on my body; I had nervous tics and twitches galore. The meds gave me enough focus to develop good study habits and after 2-3 years I ceased them.

Once I joined the workforce, I focused on doing things that I was passionate about. For me, ADHD doesn’t always mean lack of focus; I can hyper focus when I’m motivated by something. Having a job that I liked to do turned me into a low grade workaholic (too much hyper focus!) but I became successful in my career.

For the past few years, I’ve been medicating with a non stimulant that I tolerate very well. I still do what I love, at work, and Strattera helps me stay focused on doing the things that are most important to my employer and myself, but my days of being a workaholic are over.

If you are like me, then doing what you love is essential, and finding the right medication is a big help, though not strictly essential.

Well, now it’s surrounded by Azerbaijan – not so much before 2020, though!

This was a fascinating read that led me down a rabbit hole of other queer Forwards content. Thanks for sharing!

You could try 25mg for a month and see if it’s in the sweet spot, if the 40mg provokes side effects you dislike.

40mg is a good starting dose but you may want to go lower.

The right med depends on your brain chemistry. For some, the stimulants do wonders. For me they had horrific side effects. Strattera has been a big help, not perfect, but with no side effects other than the beneficial ones.

Everyome’s brain is different. No shame in asking to try stimulants for contrast, if your doctor is willing.

What’s your dose? I had some issues with a higher dose (40mg) and settled on 25mg as enough to mitigate my symptoms without causing insurmountable issues.

Astoundingly, it’s still defaced at this very moment.

How incompetent are they?!

My personal rubric, developed with much insight from my husband:

1. If queer peoples’ behavior is criminalized, the place is a strict no-go.
2. If violence against local queer people significantly exceeds levels in my home state the place is a firm no-go.
3. If the place is under autocratic/junta rule, it’s a firm no-go.

There’s a whole tranche of countries I’ll probably never set foot in due to rule 1, e.g. virtually all of the middle east and Africa, but more recently, also US states such as Florida.

There are countries like Belize that I greatly enjoyed visiting, but, once I became aware of the rate of violence against queer Belizeans, I decided I couldn’t support with my tourist dollar. Perhaps if I took great care only to patronize LGBTQ-friendly establishments – and how would we even identify those when sexuality is largely a taboo subject, in country? – I might visit these places again in the future.

Rule 3 is of more recent provenance. It’s a hypothetical at this point, as every place I’ve visited has been under some sort of healthy parliamentary rule. I greatly want to visit Turkey some day, but supporting a profoundly broken system by forking over money to hoteliers and airlines who are more likely than not aligned with AKP, seems like a bad precedent. As under rule 2, I might identify businesses whose values agree with mine, but it would be problematic.

In the US press, there was some coverage of the sier/xier body of neo pronouns for enby people. Are those the ones you mention that didn’t catch on?