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Welcome to Hell week? Months ? Years?


Littlemissnikkie

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Hey hey 

Oh man . Ok first time posting. Little anxious about this but I’m always in a crappy head space right now so ....it’s been about 3/4 weeks since I stopped taking adderall 10mg Xr after being on it for a year cold turkey by accident.Im 30 year old female and used to be quite active .I went out of town and forgot my prescription. I had my first two first time ever in my life  panic attacks while I was out of town and ended up on the ER with a clean bill of health thank god . things were ok and not Aweful my dr gave me Xanax but I tried  not to take it.I want to get back to my same old sober self .

 I had my third and massive panic attack 4 days ago, But since that last one my anxiety  has seemed to have gotten worse as far as the anxiety and panic attacks are concerned. I can’t even leave my house which is aweful I was never like this before I started taking adderall.I have zero appetite, my sleep is off. 

who else has experienced this !?! How long should I anticipate feeling like this?  How long does it take to recover ! How long were you on adderall and what dosage and where are you now ?  I Need something ! anything !that this gets better and if you have tips or anything please help. I’m currently on a small dose on colonadine .1mg  and it doesn’t do much. 

 

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hi Littlemissnikkie,

welcome to the forums! i'm sorry to hear about your experience out of town. panic attacks are bad enough, never mind being in a foreign place when it happens. i can definitely relate, i remember having a particularly scary one while driving to work for the first time after quitting (thankfully, incident free!). after that episode, i too shut myself indoors for a few weeks. it was so bad, i couldn't even bring myself to call work and explain that i was not coming in. there was a constant dread and panic that i had seriously and permanently fucked my brain up, and my life was ruined.

of course, these types of things can become reinforced by overthinking and catastrophizing, but there are the other types of panic attacks that just come up out of nowhere. my theory on this is that the panic is mostly a result of your mind being in a totally new, never before experienced state of neurochemical imbalance. it's such a foreign state that your mind / body doesn't know how to deal with it and you get the panic response. this makes sense to me because the majority of my panic attacks occurred the first time i tried to quit. i eventually relapsed a few months later, then was back on it for 3 years, but the panic attacks never came back on my second attempt.

to answer your question, i would say the period of intense panic attacks shouldn't last more than a month or so. i wouldn't say avoid the Xanax altogether- if the panic is severe enough to land you in the ER, you should definitely keep it handy, but just be careful about relying on it otherwise.

good luck and stay close to the forums (:

 

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Hey thanks for the response ! It took months oh man!! congratulations on you’re three years that’s amazing ! I’m so tempted to go back on then taper off ? It’s been a month and it’s just getting almost worse ! No one understands around me and I’m so glad to have found this group  and I have to work so I just wish there was something magical to help. I don’t want to take adderall ever again but I also don’t want to feel like this. Sorry to be such a downer. I feel so out of touch cause I did everything my dr said to do I didn’t abuse it. I just forgot it, but after the way I felt not having it. I never wanted it in my body again, I never knew about the aftermath . My DR never told me about this. 

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1 hour ago, Littlemissnikkie said:

 ! I’m so tempted to go back on then taper off ? It’s been a month and it’s just getting almost worse ! 

Please don't do that....the next time you try to quit will not be any easier.  You have already begun your journey through Hell, and, as Winston Churchill said..."if you're going through Hell, keep going".  Your dosage was low, you didn't abuse it, you were only on if for a year, and you are only 30.  Many reasons to believe that your recovery will easier (and shorter) than most.  Good Luck!

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I second that! Don’t go back on at this point!!

My doses were also low however I was on it longer and I am a bit older. I can tell you I did nearly the same thing, stopped cold turkey and rushed to my GP thinking I was going to die. I didn’t even connect the dots in choosing to not take my meds while recooperating from a cold. 

The first 1-2 months I had the worse panic attacks. I had lorazepam (similar to Xanax) that I would only take if totally freaking out. You will still have occasional uneasy anxiety after that thru the PAWS process however you’ll learn to manage it.

There are other vitamins you can take to help calm your nerves like 5htp, magnesium, lithium orotate, theanine, melatonin etc. google them a bit. I take lithium orotate with vitamins in the morning. The rest I take before bed to assure a good nights sleep however can be experimented with in the day (besides melatonin) as well. 

Welcome to the forum, keep posting your questions and your progress. We all help each other here!

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From my personal experience I’d toss that Xanax away. Sounds like so far your not into taking it but be aware it actually creates anxiety your brain gets use to it and without it things can get real bad. I recall one day driving and had to pull over I was freaking out about everything to scared to even drive sat in a parking lot for 2hrs. Never in my life had I had panic attacks. I didn’t even connect that I was using Xanax often to knock myself out from 48 hr binges on addy and OxyContin. But finally did research found the Xanax was causing these attacks. 

I was on 60mg of adderall but often took way more than that. My length of time was around 9yrs and been clean for 2yrs 3months. Things are finally turning around for the better looking at things more positive. Given your length of time and dosage guessing your recovery time will be shorter but doesn’t mean it will be easy. You go back on it now your just going to make things harder in the future. Understand at no point of your life is it ever a convenient time to stop. 

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Welcome to the forum littlemissnikki, you are not alone in what you’re going through. When I quit the first time after being on 60mg a day for 5 years, I had my first panic attacks that freaked me out so bad it led to me relapsing because I thought I was gonna die. When I quit again I knew that panic attacks were part of recovery so I toughen it out by getting outside and walking a lot. It was really hard but I made it through and I know you can too. I’d keep the Xanax handy but don’t take them if it’s not absolutely necessary. Xanax is a double edged sword, it’s highly addictive and has a lot of negative side effects. It sounds like you didn’t abuse adderall and you weren’t on it too long so I’d say stay quit since you’ve already started. It will get better but you have to go through the hell of recovery, here is no other way but through. Welcome again to the board!

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On 2/26/2018 at 8:22 PM, EricP said:

There are other vitamins you can take to help calm your nerves like 5htp, magnesium, lithium orotate, theanine, melatonin etc. google them a bit. I take lithium orotate with vitamins in the morning. The rest I take before bed to assure a good nights sleep however can be experimented with in the day (besides melatonin) as well. 

Thank you ! I ordered a bunch of stuff. I feel like when I have one good day. Then the next I have a panic attack and I’m bed stricken.I just started counseling too.The anxiety is just so foreign and unforgiving.I just want my headspace back I want to be happy I want energy not adderall energy but a cup of coffee energy.im feeling super discouraged.

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On 2/27/2018 at 11:23 AM, Frank B said:

 Sounds like so far your not into taking it but be aware it actually creates anxiety your brain gets use to it and without it things can get real bad. I recall one day driving and had to pull over I was freaking out about everything to scared to even drive sat in a parking lot for 2hrs. 

The anxiety. I am so thankful it was only a year. But I’m still just at a loss with the how to get normal again. I have the panic and I’m spent and worthless for the rest of the day cause I just snowball and I try to tell myself to chill but at this point It’s almost like a battle of the  Conscious mind versus the subconscious. I feel totally out of control.ps I really appreciate this site  and everyone’s support it’s so positive in here when I feel like junk I always come here. 

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7 hours ago, Littlemissnikkie said:

Thank you ! I ordered a bunch of stuff. I feel like when I have one good day. Then the next I have a panic attack and I’m bed stricken.I just started counseling too.The anxiety is just so foreign and unforgiving.I just want my headspace back I want to be happy I want energy not adderall energy but a cup of coffee energy.im feeling super discouraged.

Totally understood!! I get frustrated also as even after months I still have what I call “crash days” after good ones where I just end up wiped out and almost stuck on the couch all day. The anxiety is near gone now for me however finding consistent energy is still a challenge. Coffee does nothing for me still other than the smell/taste therapeutic effect on cold mornings...

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On 3/3/2018 at 10:37 PM, Frank B said:

I find it amusing people with the “I must have my morning coffee memes.” Like dude that’s nothing try doing addy for several years every morning to wake up and stopping lmao. Recall most days I’d set my alarm early take a pill go back to sleep for 15 minutes then wake up wired as fuck. Those were the days if I only had video of how insane I must have acted most of the time. 

lol, i slept so little during my binges, my alarms were no longer for waking up. they were to remind myself to start getting ready for work cause i'd be up all night obsessed with something or another.

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