Allow me to reintroduce myself...to myself? 85 days clean and trying to sort out life.

[olivia115]

I remember the first time I took a blue Adderall, it was my friends who I had convinced I wanted to try to finish a paper. From that day forward I thought about Adderall every single day. I came home from school and the first thing I did was set up a psychiatrist appointment so I could get my own rx. I was in love. I lost weight. I was funnier. I felt more beautiful (a combination of the weight loss and the extra energy I could devote to making myself up each morning) I knew from the start this drug could be bad for me. I started off on focalin and developed a horrible rash on the trunk of my body. The docs were convinced it wasn’t the focalin but I was, but I still took it…eventually I got switched over to dexedrine spansules 10mg twice a day and I fell in love all over again. I would chew the little beads, even though the bottle said not to. I would take more than I needed. I had a roommate who was also on add meds and I would try some of her meds like vyvanse and I loved that because I couldn’t find a way to abuse it so much, but unfortunately my insurance didn’t cover it so I continued my roller coaster ride with dexedrine. I was in organic chemistry at the time and if you’ve ever taken that class you know how much being organized can help…unfortunately I would read the textbook word for word and pour over my meticulously color coded notes into the wee hours of the morning then sleep for about an hour, wake up get ready, somehow manage to look like a rockstar, pop another pill and skip to class like I had everything under control…I remember coming home from class after lab on these days and looking at my hands, they would be all ruddy looking and my eyes would be bloodshot but I still felt like I could run a marathon…

I was also working as a waitress at this time and doing a lot of partying. I felt like I was having the time of my life. I would start taking more pills and would start to have to learn how to ration them so I would have enough to study for a test, or make it through an early morning shift…pretty much whatever I had to do to make it until my next prescription or my next psychiatrist appt. I remember going to 5 or more CVSs until I could find one that had my medicine in stock. I couldn’t just wait until a few days later when a new shipment would come in, I had to find one that had it. I would call places, drive 20 miles, whatever it took. I remember the smile and heart pounding joy I would feel when I’d call a pharmacy and they’d say, yeah we have that in stock, do you have a prescription. I would hand up the phone and dance. Looking back now, it’s so sad….

I remember going to my psychiatrist too. Whenever I was in his office I had been off my meds for at least a few days since I had stopped taking it as prescribed and ALWAYS ran out early. It was such a struggle to put myself together and make myself look presentable for these early am appts but I always kept them early so that after the appt I could go fill my script and have that immediate gratification I yearned for. He always asked the same questions. How are you? How is the medication working? Any side effects? Any drugs or alcohol? I always lied. I wasn’t going to tell him my heart was pounding and I felt like he knew I was lying. I wasn’t going to tell him about my hands that were always shaking, the dry mouth, the teeth I never stopped grinding, the heart that I felt you could see pounding outside of my clothes, my increased blood pressure, the lack of sleep, the lack of eating, the mood swings and so on.,..if I told him that he might take away my superwoman pills! I couldn’t have that now! So I just sat there and acted sweet and demure and got my prescriptions and went straight to cvs after every visit.

I started running out of pills quicker and quicker each month. I stopped being productive. I would stress about doing things so id pop a pill thinkning I could get more done but instead it had an idiosyncratic effect and I just did less. I would clean my room, my bathroom, my kitchen anything but what I needed to do. I mean I didn’t really have to do it right then, I could do it later, I had pills, I could do anything.

For me, the turning point came around when I had not slept for a long time. Im in nursing school and I was in my mental health rotation. I remember I had gotten in a fight with my boyfriend and I had had a bunch of things going on so I had taken way too many pills. I hadn’t slept in over 2 days and I was tweaking out on Adderall. I remember being in a small room with another classmate and our clinical instructor feeling like the room was closing in on me. Like I was watching the scene from outside my body. Whenever I spoke, the words that came out of my mouth made no sense and I was having trouble diverting attention away from myself. I could feel the anxiety building. I was moving every limb of my body non stop…I couldn’t sit still no matter how hard I tried. Every little noise terrified me and startled me…I thought I was starting to hear voices and I remember thinking I belonged in this mental health facility but I just had to keep it together enough until I could make it home…

Luckily my boyfriend was incredibly supportive. He has some process addiction problems himself so we talked early one morning and came clean about all our shit. I handed over my pills to him and my 2 remaining scripts. I asked him for a few pills over the next week and by the end of the week I told him I wanted to flush everything. So we did. I was lucky this was at the beginning of my new bottle because it gave me no way of getting my hands on any pills for about 3 months. Ive never gotten them illegally and don’t have the gall to do so, so it wasn’t a concern to me. I made it through these first 3 months. I don’t want to go see my doc, I got a call from them about 3 weeks before my next appt saying they would have to reschedule because he was going to be out of the office which I looked at as a blessing. I never rescheduled my appt and they haven’t called me back…I know ill have to see someone new, but for now in this acute phase I just needed to stay away from any access to dexedrine that I could. I didn’t trust myself going to this appt and going through the same act as I had before saying everything was fine.

So here I am now, 85 days clean. It’s been incredibly hard. The past 4 years of my life seem like a blurry dream. I did a lot of incredibly careless things. I almost forget who I was before dexedrine and it’s hard to learn to cope with things I haven’t had to deal with in years. I'm in the middle of a competitive nursing program right now and I quit using about halfway through it, and no one knows this..So what I struggle with now is differentiating between these two sides of me..The medicated superwoman who was to be honest, quite crazy and volatile but energetic...and the real me who is still adjusting to the nonmedicated version of me, and I almost forget what she's like. I could read a weeks worth of reading in a few hours...but would i retain it? Nope. Now i can barely open a book to study and i wonder is it because i dont care or because I just need to relearn how to focus? I’m getting As and Bs so Im not dumb, which ive always known. Ive gained some weight which has been a pretty big struggle for me and really bothers me. I have trouble in social situations still which is hard. I feel less outgoing but once im in a group im confortable with im good, I just have a hard time thinking other people want to hang out with me because I know deep down I have some baggage. It's a lot to deal with at once but I'm doing it...I just need to learn to accept that perfection is not only a crazy standard to set for myself, but that it's OKAY to set goals that don't include perfection in it! Sounds stupid when I type it out...but I've been setting myself up for failure for a long time by only accepting perfection from myself.

I know it’s still early and I know that I cant expect to be better already but when did you guys start noticing life became a little easier than it did when you first quit? When did you guys start feeling the biggest milestones of getting better? 6 months? Longer?

Anyway, that’s the short and sweet of it, I wish everyone the strength to keep at it one day at a time. Our healthier future selves will be so proud of us! I love reading everyone’s stories on here and I am so glad I found this site.

[lea]

Hi Olivia115 -- ahhhh yes the perfectionism ... I enjoyed reading your story because so much of it is very familiar -- the nightmare of addiction, running out of pills, absence of sleep, flushing the pills ... and the struggle of finding who you are without the pills - check - all of the above. 85 days clean is about 65 more than I've got right now so I think you're doing great! In my experience recovery is a work in progress. You never know what you're going to get from day to day but regardless, it always passes after a while and it's never as bad the emotionless speeded out zombie I was on ritalin. You will get a lot of information on what it's like to be where you are right now and you will know for sure you are not alone. ((( big hugs )))

[BeHereNow]

Hi Olivia, thanks for sharing your story! I can relate to a lot of what you said too. Congrats on 85 days!! Question..... you said that you had almost 3 months (90 days) prior to flushing. Does your doctor know you've quit? If not, you might be at risk of losing all that hard work and everything you've been through, all the progress and healing that's happened in those 85 days even if you don't feel it yet.... you HAVE healed a lot. Your brain has been working hard to replenish your dopamine etc. Even the weight gain is part of healing and even if you've gained weight, at least you're nourished and sleeping and you CAN lose it again if you start working out or something.

Anyway, part of being addicted is recognizing and accepting that we do not always have full control over ourselves, which is really hard. Everyone is different, but if you still have the option to call your doctor, it sounds like that might be dangerous for you right now....

[Motivation_Follows_Action]

Your description of your adderall addiction and its grip on you and then downfall is so very accurate. Even though we are no doubt a generation apart, there were moments of your story that brought back terrible memories for me. Especially when you had your final breakdown and the room felt like it was starting to close in on you, where every noise was terrifying, etc. That same thing happened to me but I was in a different country at a conference. Talk about terrifying. That whole event feels like a bad nightmare now.... I have thought about hypnosis to try to make me forget it, I still have lots of nightmares about it.

I wish I knew the answer to your question about when it gets better. But you have to agree with me (as we are at around about the same place now) that you have some good days where you "remember who you are", right? Times when it's easy to just be in your own company, and you don't mind engaging with people (strangers in public, talking on the phone etc)? Cling on to those days, because that's the real you.

You're lucky your boyfriend has been understanding and supportive, and that you have had the consistency of school to keep you going. Hold on to those things, they are threads that will support you as you continue to feel better. Those things will help remind you of the person that everyone else saw in you before adderall. Ask your family and friends to comment on how your personality has come back; don't be afraid of sounding narcissistic - I honestly believe adderall affects the part of the brain that impacts memory development and it's memory development that impacts how our character evolves.

You are you, and you're more "you" today than you were yesterday. Congrats on staying off the adderall for so long. Hope the cravings aren't too bad and you take the good days with the bad! You should feel proud of yourself.

[Cat]

You are farther along than me so I don't have answers about when it gets better (although reading other posts, it seems like it takes anywhere from 3 to 6 months if you're lucky, or even a year).

I think it's an important realization that adderall tricks you into thinking you'll get more done when really it's the opposite. On adderall I spent so many hours believing I was "working" but really it was cleaning, organizing, or getting hyperfocused on details. Focus does not equal work! To be honest, the time I spend slacking or procrastinating now is probably equal to the time I wasted being TOO focused on adderall.

Congrats on staying off so long, can't wait to reach 85 days.

[olivia115]

Wow, thanks for all the positive words here! I agree, the days when it's easy to be around people I remember that I'm pretty funny and that people like to be around me. I don't know why I forget that so easily sometimes. I think when i was taking dexedrine I lived my life so compartmentalized I would get lost in enjoying the moment. I would always be focused on my next move, I could never enjoy what was in front of me. It's something that I need to focus on everyday. I am very good at laughing, despite feeling a heaviness on my shoulders sometimes. As the weeks go by I am counting on that helping me out a lot. I might feel some lows, not too many highs, but overall things have stabilized. I dont have those nights where I'm balling my eyes out screaming at my boyfriend anymore. Where I am now is so much better than that, and I know things can only get better.

My doc does not know I quit. I havent been back yet since the end of last october and i havent made a new appointment yet. I think I might end up looking for someone closer to my home ( my last doc was an hour away) that I can just be straightforward and honest with. The longest conversation I ever had with this past doc was my first visit and every time i went to see him afterwards it was just to refill my rx. It would be nice to see someone I could feel more open with and not like I had held back so much from.

The whole concept of not being responsible for one's addiction but being responsible for one's recovery strikes very true with me and gets me through the tougher days.