Raised on Ritalin

by Tyler Page

I was diagnosed with ADD when I was 8 years old and prescribed Ritalin. I would take it for almost 8 years. Did it make me who I am? This is a personal story of ADD but also the story of ADD/ADHD itself - what it is, how it came to be, treatments, controversies, and lots of context.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Memoir, Nonfiction, Adhd

399 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

About the author

Tyler Page is an Eisner-nominated and Xeric Grant winning comics artist and educator based in Minneapolis, MN.

Reviews

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

This felt ... epic. I was expecting simple autobiography, but Page delves deeply into the subject, giving the history of the diagnosis (as well as of psychiatry itself), all relevant research on possible causes, and analysis of the various medications prescribed to treat ... if there's ANY topic related to ADHD that's not covered in this book, I'd love to know. Oh, and there's autobiography as well. The going gets slow in places, but the sheer amount of information contained within these pages is breathtaking. There are a few pages with no artwork at all, just many lines of hand lettering (with, sadly, a few spelling errors here and there.) I am just in awe of the time and dedication it must have taken to research and produce this book. Recommended!

[Matthew Noe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the more unique offerings in the graphic medicine canon (so-to-speak). Tyler offers us a thesis level analysis of the history of ADHD, the common treatments, and backs it up with bibliography that could occupy you for months. All of that is meshed together with his personal story and experience with ADHD from childhood to present day.

There are a ton of graphic memoirs, fewer graphic guides, and yet fewer still research based graphic novels. This is a combination of the three - and that makes it special.

[Devang Thakkar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apparently no one on Goodreads has read this book, which is sad for this is a pretty holistic coverage of the problem that is ADHD. Not an easy read but I'd recommend it.

[Carol Tilley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful, honest, and carefully documented memoir / investigative history of ADHD; straightforward and clever visual storytelling.

[Cecilie Jøhnk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was far more technical than what I had counted on. Actually, I am pretty sure I didn't understand half of it. But for any layman or - woman who really wants to go into detail understanding the history and development of our understanding and treatment of ADHD, this is a thorough and honest guide, and you can just read the details slower than I did.
The biggest virtue is the meticulous nuancing of the many questions that are often inexperetedly being discussed in public, like "Is ADHD an actually existing condition" and "Is medicine just drugs that turn kids into obedient zombies".
If like me, you find science in the book it is more than you can digest, you can read the personal story of Tyler Page and just skim the details of brain functions, medicine, and diagnostics.
The central message of the book is (thank God, I should say) more relevant in the US than in Denmark, where I live, since combining behavioral methods with medicine is already the standard approach here. (Though, alas, not always followed as much as it ought to be.) Of course it also helps that we have universal healthcare, so that the the golden calf of capitalism is not the sole master here.
Profits is the worst guide in important decisions about people's health.
Tyler has (as a typical ADHDer) been *very* thorough and wanted has chosen to let the many, many words of the book present themselves in very, very small letters. I recommend a good reading lamp, and if you sometime use reading glasses, find them and use them. Page obviously just didn't want to leave out any facts.

[Daniel Citron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first graphic novel I've read where I can actually say that the images detract from the content. The content is excellent - learning about someone's personal journey to understand how their own mind works, and picking apart their relationship with medication and the medical establishment. However, the images that go with the words are largely distracting and irrelevant. There are a lot of very bad jokes that do nothing to advance my understanding of what's going on or fill out the emotional journey that the author is clearly intent on conveying to readers.

Overall, I got a lot out of this book but it was a real slog until I started covering up the images with a bookmark in order to avoid the distraction. Maybe the writing style works for other people, but it did not work very well for me.