My brain is kind of fiery, uncontrollable. If you hooked it up to one of those brain scanners that identify holes in the brain tissue of drug addicts, mine would be like a firework show gone wrong, like the misignition of a 4th-of-July show.
To confirm this, doctors in crappy looking sweaters -- shrinks -- diagnosed me with ADD when I was twelve. They then prescribed me powerful amphetamines that supposedly have the opposite effect on individuals with this ultimately un-measurable disorder.
But that's bullshit; give anyone, including tweakers, a dose of amphetamine and they will focus well. Just ask anatomy students during finals week, or attorneys preparing for the bar exam.
And at first it did work. My grades and school behavior improved, which must have been a delight to Ms. Harding, who had pointed my parents toward the amphetamines after being unable to keep up with my tempo.
I'd wake up in the morning, pop the pill, and leave early for the bus stop. I'd smoke a cigarette, and the combined effect of the prescription and the nicotine gave me a euphoric thrill.
"I know you smoke before school, Dane ," said Emily Feder once as I settled onto the schoolbus. Emily and I had shared romance the summer before.
"I can smell it right now," she declared.
But I'd become disinterested in her, and it puzzled me as to why. She was good looking, she liked me, but my libido had gone limp -- and I wondered why.
It was the morning cocktail of stimulants. They were making me snappy, too.
"Don't tell anyone, Emily. I--" I glared at her. "Just don't tell anyone, including Stephanie."
My grades sunk back into shit by the end of Middle School. No amount of stimulants could make school interesting to me, but I continued taking the dope. Eventually dependence plagued me, and by the middle of my Freshman year I was abusing the pills.
I'd save them up, distribute them to friends. Then we'd stay up all night enthralled in circular conversations, during which we somehow convinced ourselves we'd reached a synthetic level of genius.
The side effects eventually grew severe enough that, thankfully, I quit taking the pills altogether. Some of my friends did not quit, and slipped into hardcore addictions as adults. A couple of them died as a result.
Maybe those pulse-pounding stimulants work for some. But they didn't work for me, and I'm glad.
