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    It was in the fifth grade when I really started to feel the social effects of my five years of intercourse with Ritalin. No kid likes to be medicated. No kid wants to hear that they need it. They gave it to me four times a day: once in the morning, once at school with the nurse after lunch, once before dinner and once again before going to bed. Sometimes I believed that it helped. Sometimes it hurt. It always left a bad taste in my mouth.





"Go take your medicine... He said go, what are you stupid?"

 
    My doctor also prescribed a special special diet-no caffeine. That meant no chocolate and no Coca-Cola or root beer, in fact no soda of any kind except for a pale and boring 7-up, Sprite, or ginger ale. This lifestyle became impossible to conceal from other students. All the teachers knew about my behavioral diet, so they excluded me from dark and indulgent class treats at times. Additionally, if I forgot to go to the nurse at lunchtime and she would intercom the classroom calling, "Kevin Schwarz needs to come to my office and take his medication." Eventually the teachers, when I was acting up a little too much, enforced my disorder: "Kevin did you forget to take your medication today?"
 
    My professed psychosis had become universally apparent. Everyone knew enough about ADHD to know that it meant those affected harbored mental problems. I hated the way that made me feel.
 
    I did some substitute teaching about a month ago and a buried echo unearthed. On my first day a girl in the class asked me for permission to go to the nurse to take her medicine. One of the other children in the class called out that she was crazy so she had to take Ritalin. Ignoring him, I told her she could go and she continued to talk to me. The same boy laughed at her and he cackled, "Go take your medicine... He said go, what are you stupid?"
 

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