Depression or ADD or addiction???

[Alyssa 17]

Like many, I treat my depression with adderall. But what does this depression mean exactly?  

Does this mean by some awful fate our brains were naturally born depressed, and then we got our ADD diagnosis, and then we were like wait this solves my depression too hell yeah! And self medicated?

does this mean that we never had ADD but really we just had depression, which cause ADD like symptoms? 

OR are we FEELING depressed because adderall addiction is screwing with the rewards system in our brains? 

^ which basically is our addiction speaking, telling us now that we have been depressed all along, and need the drug more than previously conceived. Right?

Is this depression ( whether natural or causes by adderall ) able to be solved WITHOUT medication??? 

to those who are still on it, what are your moods like?

To those who quit, do you feel you will always battle this depression?

are there any of you who have never felt depressed???

(i have been feeling insane these past week or two. I upped my dose to higher than before to lose some weight, and then it pissed me off so I quit cold turkey for a week, that made me almost psychotic so now I'm back on it, and right now I feel INSANE I took 40 mg and wow talk about a tolerance break. I'm tweakinnn) 

[Frances B 9]

I think depression has a lot to do with it.  It's so hard to quit when you have this amazing hot body and everyone around you rewards you and compliments you for it, and we live in a culture where a woman's physical appearance (especially weight) is directly tied to her self worth.  Best of luck in trying to get off, I'm struggling too.   I have depression and adder all seemed to have masked it.  

[ownerofalonelyheart 13]

I was really depressed before I used adderall. I was depressed while using it and now that I am in the process of quitting, I am more depressed than ever. However, I don't think it is easy to be able to figure out where one begins and the other ends without stopping the adderall. The years that I took the adderall just numbed me, but when it wore off I was left with all of the same problems and then a giant one of top of that. I actually miss the days of my garden variety depression- at least I didn't have a drug problem....

[Emmz12 8]

I've though about this a lot lately. It's been  11 months since I took my last adderall and I have ups and downs. Some days I feel okay (these are unfortunately the ups) and other days I feel completely useless. Like I could sleep for 28 hours straight and still not be rested. I often think, is this because I'm still not over my adderall addiction? Or is this because I have some sort of motivational depression and this is just the new norm for me. I'd be devastated if this was the new norm for me. Would drive me to use adderall again. It sucks.

[EricP 241]

1 hour ago, Emmz12 said:

I've though about this a lot lately. It's been  11 months since I took my last adderall and I have ups and downs. Some days I feel okay (these are unfortunately the ups) and other days I feel completely useless. Like I could sleep for 28 hours straight and still not be rested. I often think, is this because I'm still not over my adderall addiction? Or is this because I have some sort of motivational depression and this is just the new norm for me. I'd be devastated if this was the new norm for me. Would drive me to use adderall again. It sucks.

I am about half way to 11mo. I am certainly hoping to feel better than the way I feel now by then however your description sounds like I feel now. I do believe underlying depression has something to do with it. Then there is our brain still adjusting to the lacking dopamine flood stimulatin. I don't think we will ever feel anywhere close to Adderall days however I pray a new "normal" is coming! 

How is your nightly sleep? Do you get a solid 8hrs?

[Alyssa 17]

5 hours ago, Emmz12 said:

I've though about this a lot lately. It's been  11 months since I took my last adderall and I have ups and downs. Some days I feel okay (these are unfortunately the ups) and other days I feel completely useless. Like I could sleep for 28 hours straight and still not be rested. I often think, is this because I'm still not over my adderall addiction? Or is this because I have some sort of motivational depression and this is just the new norm for me. I'd be devastated if this was the new norm for me. Would drive me to use adderall again. It sucks.

So this sounds a lot like the questions I ask myself a lot.  My therapist is telling me that I have a problem with "lows" and "highs".  I think this is an effect of adderall, and driving us to need that ultimate high that literally nothing can bring you down on.

I think this new norm for you might feel depressing just because you clump all not extremely awesome feelings together under depression.  That's what I do, did at least.  I am learning to be more comfortable with the normal pace of life.  Everything I do isn't absolutely the best ever, like it was on adderall, but I am learning to feel peaceful with normal day life.  

It seems like you would benefit from anti depressants and a therapist. It's a process but there is hope. 

[Alyssa 17]

On October 20, 2017 at 11:45 PM, Frances B said:

I think depression has a lot to do with it.  It's so hard to quit when you have this amazing hot body and everyone around you rewards you and compliments you for it, and we live in a culture where a woman's physical appearance (especially weight) is directly tied to her self worth.  Best of luck in trying to get off, I'm struggling too.   I have depression and adder all seemed to have masked it.  

Yeah.  I lost my amazing bod though due to college, even on adderall.  

You should try antidepressants! I recently started and it's been a roller coaster, but along with a therapist, I am in a better place than I have been in in 2 years. 

[Emmz12 8]

4 hours ago, Alyssa said:

So this sounds a lot like the questions I ask myself a lot.  My therapist is telling me that I have a problem with "lows" and "highs".  I think this is an effect of adderall, and driving us to need that ultimate high that literally nothing can bring you down on.

I think this new norm for you might feel depressing just because you clump all not extremely awesome feelings together under depression.  That's what I do, did at least.  I am learning to be more comfortable with the normal pace of life.  Everything I do isn't absolutely the best ever, like it was on adderall, but I am learning to feel peaceful with normal day life.  

It seems like you would benefit from anti depressants and a therapist. It's a process but there is hope. 

It's not so much that I feel depressed as in sad... It's more like I just don't have the energy or motivation to do the things I should be doing. I sleep all day when I have the day off and at work I'm a half asleep zombie the first part of every day. Is this lack of energy and motivation? Or PAWS? Now that I have discovered this thread and realized that this is a thing (today!!!) I finally might think its still withdrawal from adderall. Before today I had suspicions of it still being an issue but intense fears that I was just always going to be this tired and lethargic and lazy for the rest of my life. I was on adderall or some other amphetamine for over 20 years. Never with a dose of over 20 mg a day, tapered off my dose and quit several times in the last 5 years, and even was able to end it up doing 5 mg every other day. But even the small doses that I was on gave me some sort this of stimulating effect...

[Emmz12 8]

9 hours ago, EricP said:

I am about half way to 11mo. I am certainly hoping to feel better than the way I feel now by then however your description sounds like I feel now. I do believe underlying depression has something to do with it. Then there is our brain still adjusting to the lacking dopamine flood stimulatin. I don't think we will ever feel anywhere close to Adderall days however I pray a new "normal" is coming! 

How is your nightly sleep? Do you get a solid 8hrs?

I've been using for over 20 years though... It's prob going to take me longer to kick this than most... I'm not even kidding when I say most nights I get around 10 hours of sleep. I'm a bartender so I can sleep in all I want.... Which I've found out is bad.... Lol! I know it's possible that I'm sleeping too much... But i only sleep so much because I feel completely useless without that much sleep. Actually feel pretty useless with any amount, so I figure I need more. Ugh it's a never ending fatigue cycle.

[Alyssa 17]

On 11/9/2017 at 3:23 AM, Emmz12 said:

It's not so much that I feel depressed as in sad... It's more like I just don't have the energy or motivation to do the things I should be doing. I sleep all day when I have the day off and at work I'm a half asleep zombie the first part of every day. Is this lack of energy and motivation? Or PAWS? Now that I have discovered this thread and realized that this is a thing (today!!!) I finally might think its still withdrawal from adderall. Before today I had suspicions of it still being an issue but intense fears that I was just always going to be this tired and lethargic and lazy for the rest of my life. I was on adderall or some other amphetamine for over 20 years. Never with a dose of over 20 mg a day, tapered off my dose and quit several times in the last 5 years, and even was able to end it up doing 5 mg every other day. But even the small doses that I was on gave me some sort this of stimulating effect...

You are very brave for turning your life around after so long. Keep going!!!

[Alyssa 17]

On 11/8/2017 at 4:40 PM, Emmz12 said:

I've though about this a lot lately. It's been  11 months since I took my last adderall and I have ups and downs. Some days I feel okay (these are unfortunately the ups) and other days I feel completely useless. Like I could sleep for 28 hours straight and still not be rested. I often think, is this because I'm still not over my adderall addiction? Or is this because I have some sort of motivational depression and this is just the new norm for me. I'd be devastated if this was the new norm for me. Would drive me to use adderall again. It sucks.

How are you doing as of recently?

[EricP 241]

I can relate to the Sadness, I had lows where I would literally wake up fighting tears... Needless to say I tried Welbutrin first, it did help my motivation a bit for a few days however that quickly faded and it did nothing for the sadness.

So I took my docs advice next and tried an antidepressant Zoloft. While I know a few here speak strongly against SSRI's for me it did help my overall mood and the "sadness" disappeared. I can say it did absolutely nothing for my motivation, maybe even slowed me down a bit however it really helped my mood and the sadness disappeared. After about a month and a half (that is all) I tapered down a couple days and stopped on my own just to see what happened... The sadness has not come back and my energy increased a bit... So maybe recommend trying something like this if you have not already. Everyone is different so you won't honestly know until you talk with your doctor a bit and try something like this.

Until then just take it a day at a time, even in my lowest times good days would come in waves.