My second year in college was a disaster. I dropped a couple of classes to avoid failing grades and even received a failing grade because I was unable to keep up with the material. Instead of reducing my course load and seeking out academic support resources, I decided to do what I thought seem the most reasonable solution. I got myself an Adderall prescription. See, I began working at a pharmacy shortly before I started struggling in school. After filling countless Adderall, Ritalin, and Vyvanse prescriptions, I began to think that my problems could be fixed with a pill. It seemed like everyone was doing it… so I jumped on the bandwagon and got myself medicated . Life was great again, until it wasn’t, again.
The following semester I manage to raise my GPA by one point and even received a promotion at work because of the improvement in my performance. I felt like I was living up to my potential until I became an anxious insomniac.
There were a couple aspect from this story that were recognizable from our readings. Karl Elliot made a claim that our true self is the one that is created by technoscience. There were other resources available to me when I was struggling, but I choose to use medications because I too thought that I could be my true self with adderall. I also recognize Hacking’s term “semantic contagion” in my story. Each prescription I filled at my job further normalized my thought of using adderall to be the person I wanted to be. In a way, it made me label the issues I was having in life. That label gave me some hope that was packaged in a peach tablet. Would I have gotten a prescription had I not worked in a pharmacy? No. I probably would not have even considered it.
Lastly, Latour’s reading poses a question to me. Can technoscience create a diagnostic model to quantify illness that are not physically measurable? Do we accept an ADHD or ADD diagnosis as valid based on a passing score on a questionnaire? There are flaws in mental health diagnosis. How can we reduce or deal with the limitations of the instruments that are being used? Although my ADHD diagnosis was inaccurate, techno-science has influenced my construct by legitimizing issues I’ve dealt with. I can’t pinpoint the impact on my life, but I can say it has brought me to a state of content that I don’t think I could be in without it.
I too have considered getting a prescription for Adderall (that looks weird typed). I have struggled with focusing issues and I have not been diagnosed as ADD or ADHD. I don't know if that is what I have (but I have a feeling I can diagnose myself at this point.) I never thought of myself as a person who needed drugs to do anything, but after starting college, it seemed like a better reality for me. I thought that if I were to focus better, my grades would be better. However, I never got a prescription for any meds (sadly) and I live with subpar grades. I do wonder about what my life would've been like with the assistance of something like Adderall, but then I think, "well, I can't afford food, how am I going to afford to medicate myself." Therefore, I live my life subpar and most likely with undiagnosed attention disorder. This could be related to our discussion of Carl Elliot and me being a hypochondriac, but I think I need some type of drug to help me. I just won't get it.
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