DJ,
I'm sorry for your troubles.
And glad that you have surmounted many of them.
But people who take therapeutic drugs are subject to side effects, because drugs are not precision instruments, more like specially shaped hammers. They do the job, but only if weilded correctly.

Side effects may be better named "Adverse effects".

Imipramine is a good example. It is one of the tricyclic antidepressant drugs, of proven (Class 1 evidence) use in clinical depression, but it has many different types of adverse effect listed. And a special warning on its use in children.
See: http://www.fda.gov/medwatch/SAFETY/2...anil-PM_PI.pdf
You can look up any drug there - I assume you are US based.

So modern medicine does not '"neglect" such things, but seeks them out, to better understand the many ways that a drug can work. Sometimes rare or difficult to observe adverse effects remain unknown until the drug is released for general use. I don't know about US practice, but the UK has a special reporting system, that monitors all drugs, to try and pick these up.

A good example of this, though from a long time ago, is thalidomide. The unborn children of mothers given this drug to combat morning sickness of pregnancy suffered and suffer dreadful handicaps. As well as acting against sickness, it is a sedative, an anti-inflammatory and is presently being investigated for use against cancers. Which is the therapeutic effect and which the side effect? I except the phocomelia - that has to be adverse.

And amphetamines. They have not been banned worldwide, they are still part of the range of drugs available for use in certain conditions, for instance nacolepsy. And ADHD. Though they are and should be prescribed only by specialists. Although the field of AHDH is one I am not qualified in, it is clearly one in which the whole diagnosis, let alone treatment is contraversial.
For information on ADHD, I would trust a site like your National Institute for Mental Health: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/ rather than the Wikipedia.

I'm glad the previous links I posted are helpful, and I hope these do the same.

John