OP stated he’s 18 months out of insomnia, but the adhd-like symptoms still prevail up to a point where he is suffering so much that he hides his (or her) identity when speaking about it. He describes himself as “permanently cognitively impaired”.
I used to believe in all that fear mongering about stimulants for years, but as long as you stick to your doctor’s prescription, start with low doses and pay as much attention as possible to yourself and how you react - through therapy supported by mindfulness - the risks are very low compared to the risks of having a “cognitively impaired” life. That state, however you label it, does not only hurt your performance at work, it hurts your relationships (healthy relationships are correlated with mental health and longevity), it increases your risk of car accidents (some of them kill) and it exposes you to financial risks. It’s not a good place to be, and I support everyone in that place with a simple message: go to a doctor, get therapy, get medication, be mindful about it.
If you would check again: it’s the third advice, not the first. You cannot get it without consulting a psychiatric MD, and at least in Germany, you have to commit to long term behavioral therapy as well. To make it as clear as possible: I would not recommend popping pills as a solution to the problems faced by the parent comment, but as a viable part of an integrated solution. Fear mongering doesn’t help anyone.
>From my own experience: go get therapy, meditation classes and Ritalin!
This is your first advice. Anyway, no need to get pedantic. Fact is you're carelessly suggesting the use of some pretty heavy and specific medicine, to someone you don't know, based on a few words of text he wrote on an anonymous internet forum.
What degree of heaviness is okay for drugs to be an okay recommendation on a quite specific problem? Did you ever recommend someone to get an Aspirin due to headache? Hope you didn’t - Aspirin is so dangerous, there’s no way we would allow it on the market according to today’s regulation.
That said, the point here cannot be the danger of medication, but the public perception. Ritalin in adults is very safe if prescribed and monitored by a doctor and supervised by therapy. Taking into account the rate of comorbidities of untreated adhd symptoms (btw, as far as science goes, it’s a spectrum, not a classification, so you’re higher high or low in such treats), such as depression, implying Ritalin were dangerous even if taken as a part of a broader treatment regimen, is much more dangerous.
