Suni

It all started when I entered 2nd grade. I was a cute little 7 year old girl who had many friends and had a very bubbly personality. My teacher one day gave me a note to give to my parents. I did so. She had scheduled a parent/teacher conference. She informed them I had a bad conduct; C minus. Also, she told them I had been daydreaming frequently in class, was very easily distracted from my classwork, which caused my grades to be very poor, was very disorganized, and that I talked excessively. My parents decided to schedule an appointment with my pediatrician to see what the problem was. Dr. Reddy immediatley diagnosed me with ADD and prescribed the drug, Adderall. I was given the pill any day I had school. My grades were improving, my conduct, and everything else. It was all fixed. Except when I would take the drug, I would have to eat a fairly large breakfast or I would vomit up the pill later. One morning before school, I ate a piece of toast that morning. I went to school and ended up vomiting everything in my stomach up in the middle of class. My parents still continued to give me the drug, despite the side effect. I took it all the way from 2nd grade to 7th grade without having any problems with the drug. The only side effect that my doctor paid close attention to was my low weight. Vitamins took care of that, though. At the beginning of 8th grade, I noticed I was a very "zombie-like" person at school, and that on the weekends I was different. I actually ATE on the weekends and had personality. At school, all I would be focused on was doing school work, and I didn't socialize often, though I had friends. I was basically an unnoticed person in the clique I was in; one of the followers, not the leader. I blamed all of this on my adderall, and to test this "theory", I didn't take it one school morning. I showed up to school and was a completely different person. I was basically Miss Personality. I made everyone laugh, talked a lot, flirted with boys, acted crazy, and was super confident. One thing I did notice is that I had no desire to do any assignments I was given. So to not risk bringing down A's and B's, I cheated off of people. I started to just not take my medicine at all. I loved being the center of attention. I felt like I did when I was a little girl before I started taking the medicine. It felt good. I only took it during exams when I would need it to focus. During the summer after 8th grade, I noticed I had gained 20 lbs from the school year before. What was this reason? Never taking my adderall in 8th grade. I was 130 and only 13. I felt very fat. From the adderall I had saved up in 8th grade, I was taking it occasionally throughout the summer to keep my weight down along with excercising. It worked! I am currently now at the end of my freshman year in high school. I barely took my adderall at the beginning of freshman year. 1st reason: cheerleading. I had to be perky and happy on the sidelines! 2nd reason: I wanted to be ME. As I am writing this, I am in my adderall "zombie-like" state. Why? I was given a very negative wake-up call. My parents were telling me I was a failure at everything because I was not taking this pill and that I was overweight and needed to take control. I suddenly became insecure about everything. So I went back to adderall. I wanted to be in control again, like I used to be. I now take it on the weekends, too. I sometimes take it twice a day. I'm very deeply afraid to be fat and for my grades to drop. I'm currently 110, when I should be 130 or 140. I'm addicted and I'm only 14! It's crazy. I'm always afraid my grades will drop if I don't take it. I have straight A's and want to keep it that way. I like being smart, skinny, and independent. I feel like without it, I will not be able to control my ADD. I want to be perfect and I feel like adderall is doing that. But most of all, I don't want to appear as a failure to my parents. I feel as though they are the reason for this addiction. I want to be my old self again..