Spoke to my therapist about attempting to get a formal ADHD diagnosis and the conversation went... sideways...

She seems to be a big fan of the social model of disability (which I am as well), but also seems to be completely against any medical treatments including medication to the point where our entire session became about why I would be "medicine seeking" or why I am insistent that I "need to be fixed"...

She asked me what I thought me + Ritalin/Adderall could do that me without foreign substances in my body couldn't do.

I thought it would be a step forward since I am heavily dependent on caffeine to even function with multiple energy drinks, coffee, and soda all being necessary for me to focus enough to perform my day job and said that I felt that a supervised dosage of stimulants had to be better for my health than self-applied legal stimulants with no direction...

Needless to say, she disagreed and immediately moved to "What if we worked to make it so that you don't need any stimulants?" which felt a lot like she was denying my personal experience...

I have tried going caffeine-free and it gets really bad, like missing appointments and failing in my obligations to people that I care about bad... All sense of time goes right out the window and everything I do seems to become special interest directed... It's not good...

I'm sure that my immediate and chosen families would give me some grace while attempting such a journey of self-actualization, but there are also the realities of Capitalism where I am the primary income in my house and I have a whole host of responsibilities that I have taken on as a parent, home owner, and adult that I can't just throw off onto others/disregard because "using caffeine to regulate my brain chemistry" is somehow denying my own inherent worth? Ugh...
@BeardedRogue is your therapist suggesting you go off coffee because wow does that seem like a bad idea. I had a bad therapist that kept pushing a reconnection to Christianity and brother were they off the mark

@Boardinthelibrary Nothing as drastic as turning to Christianity, she is a Buddhist and understands that a lot of my major hang-ups are from my Catholic up-bringing...

She seems very anti-medicine (including of course big pharma) so much so that the mere suggestion of looking into medicine resulted in her suggesting that we should instead be moving in the other direction and look to start removing anything that I am currently using to manage things...

@BeardedRogue anyone who is anti medicine is a huge red flag for me. I spent some time with my therapist looking at possible meds and their overall viewpoint was it was worth exploring to see if the results help. In my case they did not help (the side effects outshone any benefits) and I was glad to experience it myself so I had a better understanding of what I needed
@Boardinthelibrary I never even brought up seeking meds, just seeking a diagnosis and then trusting a professional if they recommended meds... That was apparently a bridge too far...
@BeardedRogue I mean seeking a diagnosis seems completely reasonable. I’m sorry that your therapist is so resistant. And I think it sounds like a smart move.