Will ADHD medication change my personality or make me feel like "not myself"?

Had a rough first week where I did feel kind of flat, mentioned it at my two-week check-in and we dropped the dose slightly, fixed it completely. Would say don't just white-knuckle through it if it feels wrong, that's literally what follow-ups are for.

Genuinely understand the worry, this is one of the most common fears I hear about before people start, and also one of the most common things people report going wrong when a dose is actually too high rather than being an inherent property of the medication itself. What you're describing, flat, robotic, less funny, is a classic sign of overshoot, not a normal expected effect at a properly titrated dose. At the right dose, what most people describe is closer to 'quieter background noise' than personality change, the constant internal static that made it hard to finish thoughts or stay present in conversations settles down, but the actual sense of humor, opinions, interests, all of that stays intact. If anything, a lot of people report feeling more like themselves, since the ADHD symptoms themselves were getting in the way of them showing up as their actual personality before. That said, the coworker story isn't made up out of nothing, overmedication is real and does produce that flattened, subdued effect people describe as 'not themselves.' The fix isn't avoiding medication, it's dose adjustment, which is exactly the kind of thing to flag to your provider quickly if it happens rather than assuming you have to choose between focus and feeling like yourself. Track how you actually feel the first couple weeks, specifically whether you still feel like you, just less scattered, versus feeling muted or dialed down, and bring that distinction to your provider directly if something feels off.