hi, i'm an adult, early 30s who struggled a lot with work and motivation over most of my professional life. On the surface noone knew, i've worked at the same place for almost a decade, was never really criticized for performance in a highly challenging environment but underneath i always felt like i was about to fold under the seams. i would go through what felt like months unable to do more than an hour of real work a day then go through short surges where i couldn't stop working. it felt very difficult and each time the challenge to start actually working seemed to take longer and longer to come back. i went through a terrible depression, sought therapy, went on ssri's... after a while on ssri's i felt like i was really acting out, started doing drugs etc.. had a one night cutting episode, was diagnosed with borderline personality, then few months later was diagnosed instead with bipolar and put on mood stabilizers, which actually helped me on the surface. i felt okay but i still didn't feel like i could adapt to any healthy routine. started a little cocaine habit where i started feeling like i could deal with routine by doing small doses at intervals... although i knew it was a bad road to go down and was disturbed at some level by it, it was after admitting this i was diagnosed with add, then taken off all the other psychiatric drugs then put on ritalin. several months into taking ritalin daily my life has stabilized so much, work doesn't feel like such a struggle. i still have my off days, but for the most part i've been very consistent for me. i don't suffer emotional highs or lows, i don't seek out risky behaviour, i don't want to do drugs or drink... etc...

but i wonder if i really have adhd and what will happen to my life when i can no longer have ritalin or if it ever stops working for me. i was feeling like life wasn't worth it and wanting to be dead and now everything just seems okay, normal and manageable.
Is it wrong to take this medication even if you really don't have adhd? I'm afraid of what will happen to me when i go off it.

an adhd drug has made it possible for you to lead a stable life.
It`s obviously working for you....maybe that`s how you can know it is really ADHD!