pkr

The last thing anyone wants here is a to go through benzo withdrawal. Adderall discontiunation is a walk in the park compared to Xanax, which has the added bonus of things like questioning your sanity and seizures. It will literally bring you to your knees. And the problem is, you will eventually have to go through withdrawal because of dose tolerance. You can read more about it here: http://www.benzo.org.uk/ I was never told you had to taper, so when I stopped quickly, I had no idea what was happening. Once I figured it out, I was able to go back on it and taper properly. But, I was milliseconds away from a psych ward before I did. I never really liked Xanax that much, because it mostly made me tired. So, despite my previous physical addiction, I'm able to keep it with me strictly as a crutch. My feelings now are: If you're going to take benzos, really try to avoid taking them every day. But, if you must, it's very important to use a longer acting one. Xanax is the worst offender as far as serious withdrawal problems--valium is much safer. I've since swapped Xanax for beta blockers (Atenolol), though. They ameliorate all of the physical sensations of anxiety, and for me that prevents the mindf*ck cascade that happens once those sensations arise. If you haven't looked into beta blockers, they're a really good option for anxiety. Good luck! PKR

Hello all, It's been a long time since I've posted, and I've been doing pretty well. After 3-4 years of solid use, I'm about a year free of this, thank goodness. A lot of what I'd lost has come back, relationships, bonding, patience, all senses heightened in a good way. Mentally, I'm still sluggish, and my memory still suffers for sure, but I do see signs of that improving. What eludes me still, and shows virtually no signs of reappearing is a general sense of peace and warmth--that's the best way I can describe it. What I'm referring to is the awww feeling I used to get when the kids would jump in our bed on the weekends. Or the coziness of a quaint town or restaurant, or baby animals, or touching stories. After all of the progress, I STILL don't see that coming back. The weird thing, is that I don't feel a great sense of fear either. It's like both ends of my emotional spectrum have been lobbed off. And I'm nervous, because there was a specific incident that caused these feelings to go away and never come back. I'd been spectacularly worried about one of my kids who'd had a sudden, drastic behavior/energy change after having a bad flu. It took me two years of maniacal, adderall induced searching to figure out he'd developed food intolerances, and thankfully he is fine now. Long story longer, one night I was so frantically, hyperventilating(ly worried and frustrated that I thought I might die if I felt like that for another moment. And then something happened, where suddenly I felt nothing--emotionally numb--and it's stayed for 3+ years (1 year of that clean)! Some emotional components are coming back, but the general sense of safety/comfort and joy seems to be gone forever, as does a general sense of fear. I think I did some permanent damage, maybe in a PTSD way, because it's like my mind and body made a decision to only allow me to feel so much. Some of it is emotional, but it's also physical! For example, when I go on roller coasters, I'm not even scared. I don't get the stomach dropping feeling. Things that used to worry me, don't at all anymore. I can cognitively understand that I should be feeling differently, but it's like a wall went up between my heart and my mind, and they just don't work together anymore. Does this make any sense? Has anyone gone through this? Wishing you all a safe and productive journey! PKR

Very interesting! It's probably some sort of survival mechanism. Emotions have got to be just a distraction to the fight or flight, response.

Let me clarify. Every day it does NOT get better. It's haphazard. Don't get discouraged by the bad days, because this recovery is not linear. Just remind yourself that even when you have bad days, you are still making progress and the good days will return. pkr

Steve, I'm in the same place as you with the anxiety and depression. And yes, once you quit, you'll be right back there. Please go out and get some Sam-E (start with 200mg a day, build up until you get some relief and then step it down til you feel like you need it again--it builds up and too much can make you very anxious. Ultimately you'll find your proper maintenance dose), fish oils, magnesium -there's a good one called "Calm" by Natural Vitality, a good quality multivitamin with the RDA of B vitamins, and some vitamin D. This will help tremendously with the depression and anxiety. Sam-E is an absolute miracle supplement, and I'm amazed it doesn't get the recognition it deserves. It also combats a lot of the fatigue. I also find it helpful to take a lot of supplements to satisfy my pill popping cravings. And do cardio like crazy! I swear, I've been sweating out four years worth of toxins, and my body feels infinitely better. I'm not totally out of the woods. I've made great progress since March, although I continue to cheat with 2.5 mg when I'm out in socially demanding situations, which I'm working on. But it is out of my everyday life. It feels so much better to actually feel life, to feel joy, to feel moved by something, to laugh, etc. I still feel like I don't have my full laugh back, and that drives me crazy. I also have periods of time where my head feels completely empty. After being a hardcore thinker my entire life, that is really disturbing to me. And I still feel disconnected from who I am, like I have to get to know myself again. My natural personality is still not ready to come out for some reason. But, every day it gets a little better, and every day I'm more grateful. And I swear I can feel the neural connections repairing. Good luck, and treat that depression! You'll be fine. pkr

Hello everyone, I'd recently discovered, thanks to Cassie, that during recovery our brains have sort of synchronization issues, and it is important to understand that this is just part of the healing process. She emphasized the importance of keeping yourself 'entertained' while nature does its job. (Thank you again for that!) I'd been surviving with exercise, Sam-E, B vitamins, fish oils, magnesium, vitamin D, and occasionally N-acetyl Cysteine, but I was very discouraged that the recovery seemed to be so haphazard. Cassie's posts kept me optimistic, thank goodness. Recently, I added brain training exercises from Lumosity, and I have to tell you it has made a tremendous difference in a very short period of time. I've been fearful that I'd permanently damaged my memory, and when I started the training a week ago, I scored in the bottom 9th percentile for memory, attention and flexibilty. I've trained for about an hour a day every day, and I'm now in the 75th percentile. Obviously, as you learn the games you get better at them. However, it's tremendously comforting to see not only your own progress, but where you stand compared to others your age. I couldn't be too damaged if I'm scoring better than 74% of my peers a week into it. And my problem solving ability scored in the 95th percentile from the start--interestingly enough, I'd never been fearful I'd lost that. The game reflected exactly how I felt about my own functioning. Anyway, aside from the reassurance, I have to say that I'm 100% feeling the improvement it's making in my daily functioning. I'm definitely feeling sharper and more flexible in my thought processes, and the tendency I had to mentally wander off has diminished dramatically. Neuroplasticity is the answer here. We have to demand more from our brain and have the confidence that it will rise to the occasion. I hope everyone is having more good days than bad days, and they have a free three day trial if anyone wants to check it out. PKR

Cassie! I owe you a huge thank you. I've had three good days in a row, and the difference has been your post. Every time I feel out of sorts, I've reminded myself that I'm not damaged, I'm just out of sync right now, and I just have to trust the process while nature heals. I can't even tell you what a difference your words have made, not only in how I'm feeling now, but my hopefulness in the future. My next hurdle will be when I have to work go back to the night shift at the end of the month. Wish me luck! I'm so thankful for all of you, and I hope you're doing well!

You are absolutely right. Incidentally, I did the same thing ten years ago quitting (chain) smoking, and to this day I smoke one or two a month and always have nicorette on hand 'just in case'. Just in case what?! WTF is that? I am long past any sort of chemical nicotine addiction. And with xanax! Just a crumb, every now and then. I'm talking a nibble of a .5 mg, despite the fact that I have about 100 of them. Omg...epiphany. I'm using it all as a crutch, probably because I'm scared. Of what?! With the adderall, I went from totally fine socially, to a complete crazed maniac, and now I'm not sure what I'm left with, so that makes a little sense. But the rest of these little crutches? Why? Probably time to bite the bullet and find out. Looks like I have some work to do. Thanks guys!

With regard to the 2.5mg cheats, I've been justifying it as a sort of a bifurcated weaning process. I.e. I can handle being adderall free for the day to day grind, work, kids, etc. But with regard to the social situations, I feel like I should have been weaning. And going from 30mg a day everyday, to 2.5mg every few weeks, in most respects feels like a victory. But of course, I would love for it to simply not exist in my life. I wonder what is a more efficient recovery method--to wean or not to wean. Fortunately, adderall scares the hell out of me right now, so at this point I'm not worried about stepping back up. I'm not so naive as to believe I'm not vulnerable to changing my mind some day, but I'm way too pissed off about missing these precious years with my kids to even consider it right now. So quit once, you think the tiny doses for certain situations aren't a good idea to function as a weaning process while I get myself together in other areas?

Thank you, Cassie! That is very encouraging. "Synchronization" hit the nail on the head. I feel completely out of sync, with myself and the world. It's probably some sort of dopamine regulation issue as we heal. When I'm crazy busy, I'm desperate to have some couch time. When I do have some time to chill, all I do is feel guilty about the things I should be doing. When I'm alone, I feel like I should be social, and when there's any social event at all outside of my comfort zone, I just want to be home. Restless all the time!! I love the Voltaire quote (I would have thought Hippocrates!). I guess I just have to make peace with this process and have faith it will sync up at some point. And in the meantime...hmmm...work out, read good books, wine with close friends, and good quality family time. Thanks for taking the time to respond. Your insight is incredibly helpful.

After 5 years of consistent use, I started the weaning process in March, and I've been almost completely off adderall since June. I feel good having quit, and I've had some pretty good days where I am so thankful for simple pleasures like smells and tastes and occasionally life in general, but they never last. When I envisioned recovery, I think I envisioned more of a one step forward two steps back scenario. I guess what I didn't expect is that I'm finding that I have many different kinds of days. Days where I can't feel a thing, completely numb to the world. Days I'm depressed, days I'm anxiety ridden, days in mourning for how I've represented myself to my neighbors or for how I'd treated my kids. Days where I see a glimpse of my former self, days where I don't know who the hell I have ever been. This supposed recovery is really very haphazard, and it's making it hard to feel like it's moving in any one positive direction. Is this typical? I'm having a lot of social anxiety, because I feel like I'm not getting proper feedback from the world around me--like I'm still faking my responses to it, because my natural instincts aren't kicking in. Does that make sense? I used to be quick witted and funny, but now my natural laugh still escapes me, and any funny response I might have is either too slow, or if it does come, I'm finding myself weighing whether I should say it or not. That was NEVER me. Social anxiety was never a problem, and I'm not sure if forced interactions will be helpful or if I should keep to myself for a while. We have a party in two weeks to meet the parents of the my daughter's classmates, and I have a real dilemma. It's a first impression situation of a very social school that she'll presumably attend for the next 8 years. Right now, I feel like if someone just met me, I'd come off as weird. Distracted, not engaged, slow, faking a laugh, just generally awkward. I have a very hard time following a conversation, and catch myself furrowing my brow and squinting in an attempt to sort of hold onto the words. It's ridiculous! And these are the handful of times that I've given in and had just 2.5 mg to help me out a bit. I've been taking Sam-e, which is very helpful, and I'm working out like crazy. I so want my old self back. Does it ever really come? I'm so thankful for everyone on this board1

You are welcome! I hope you don't have any guilt about that time. It sounds like your mom was incredibly lucky to have you.

Empathy is certainly a tricky thing. I think my lack of empathy with adderall stood out, in particular, because it was so counter to who I was before that. But certainly, my empathy has caused me plenty of trouble in my life. It's not necessarily a bad thing not to have it. In fact, I'm not sure a lot of doctors have much. My dad is a doctor, and he has none whatsoever. He cares, but he's not taking on anyone else's pain. And that's probably necessary to some extent. Just like everything else, there's a full spectrum of empathy, and you probably don't want to be too far to one extreme or the other. Adderall completely ameliorates it for me.

I've been taking it on and off for years. It does amazing things for depression and doesn't get nearly the attention I think it deserves. Far better than any SSRI or St. John's Wort. I would like to have stopped taking adderall long ago and only taken Sam-E, but I haven't been able to get myself there (until now, hopefully). One possible negative that for me is a problem is that if I take it with adderall, it can put me in a (relative) rage, so I have to be very careful with the dose. I'm always playing with the dose, because it builds up in your system, and you can get to a point where you find yourself super angry with little provocation. I want to say that it has that potential without the adderall, but that the adderall lowers that threshold? But it's been four years on adderall, so I can't remember for sure. Anyway, I'm playing with the dose again, being completely off adderall. Typically I take 400mg for about three days, til I feel a little edgy. Then I stop completely for a few days and let it work it's way through. Those are the best days, and I probably go a week or so before I take a maintenance dose of 200mg maybe once or twice a week. It would be nice if it came in a smaller dose, because I tend to forget about it until my husband notices and asks me if I've been taking it. Then I start all over. I'm always surprised that more people haven't tried it. I wonder if they just don't know about it, or if they just feel more comfortable with a prescription antidepressant. It's great that it's working for you! And you just started? Would you mind keeping me posted regarding any 'build-up' scenario? I'm curious if everyone experiences edginess with higher doses. Have a good one! P

Whittering, I suspect that part of the problem is that you're so far away from the Adderall hell that you've forgotten why you quit. I'm happy to be reading your post, because it serves as a warning down the road. I'm in quitting euphoria right now, having had my first truly good day of feeling crumbs of normalcy, and I can't wait to see if I feel even better I tomorrow. After reading about your situation, it appears that quitting is its own drug right now, and if pills aren't thrown out at this stage, then I'll be where you are in four months or so. I'm guessing that if the laundry had been piling up and my daughter had ripped her toe nail off and I had been taking adderall, that my first reaction would have been a mental fury over one more frigging thing to deal with-and I wouldn't have had the patience and compassion that my daughter deserved. I would have manufactured it at some point, but it wouldn't have been immediate or natural, and she would have sensed my frustration long before she felt compassion. That's because I'm new to quitting and remember clear as day how I've been reacting to these situations, and the thought makes me shudder! I imagine as time goes by, as our memory protects us from the bad, that I'll forget how emotionally 'not there' for my kids I've been. That thought makes me shudder too. Good luck, and please keep going--for your kids, for you and, well, I'm just going to ask you to for me too. I'm just barely peeking my head out on the other side of this, and here's your chance to be inspirational! P

Thanks so much for your responses. I'm so thankful to hear that it's going to come back. I'd been cutting back slowly, and I've had zero pills for about a week. Suddenly, today I felt good-for many reasons, which I'm posting here mostly so I can go back and reference the list when I feel tempted. 1. I felt NO paranoia today. Why would I ever take something that is GUARANTEED to make me feel paranoid and crazy? 2. Food smelled and tasted pleasurable. 3. I was patient...and fully present...with my family. 4. I truly enjoyed the sun and the breeze. 5. I drove through my neighborhood and remembered a long lost feeling that I'd had ten years ago when I knew I wanted to live here forever. I'd forgotten how much I loved it until this morning. It stood out, because obviously I drive through it every day, and the scenery hasn't changed, just my perception of it because of these stupid pills! It makes me wonder what else I've been missing! 7. I felt a genuine sense of comfort, that had been long gone. 8. Today I didn't once wonder what it's all for. 9. Nothing I did today made me hate myself. I sensed something shifting when two days ago I cried watching a Hannah Montana movie with my daughter! Ha! I've been taking N-Acetyl Cysteine, Curcumin, and a tiny amount of Sam-E this time. I have no idea if it's making a difference, but all I'm hoping for is that I still feel this way tomorrow. I'm definitely feeling mentally sluggish, but I'm fairly certain I'd prefer all of my days to be more like today than what they've been for the past four years. Thanks again! P

Hello, I have a question. Has empathy been an issue for anyone? I used to be a very empathic person, but since adderall, I have almost completely lost that. I have had to remind myself to listen and try to feel what the other person is feeling. This used to be a skill of mine...people always come to me with their problems, and I had lots of patience and good advice. But now it's gone. I don't have the patience to listen, and feel like I don't care at all, when cognitively I know I should. I'm in the process of quitting..periodically I've gone days and weeks at a time without any, and am now down to about 7-10mg a day, only a couple of times a week. But I don't see any evidence of my old empathy returning. Please, if anyone has had a similar experience, I'd like some reassurance that it will return. I also just feel a general emptiness in my mind, which is very disturbing to me. In fact, that scares me so much, that I think it's my number one trigger to take it. I need an extra push to just toss them out completely, so if anyone has some insight on the general emptiness and empathy, and some encouragement that the empathy will return and the mind will refill at the point that I'm free of this garbage, I would greatly appreciate it.

First of all, thank you all for replying, and Cassie, thank you for reminding me about neuroplasticity. That definitely gives me hope. I've actually read quite a bit about neuroplasticity in the past, and part of me wonders if I go full throttle reverse (i.e. adderall, but force myself only to read about happy, positive things!) if that might get rid of some of my fears that I think I've deeply engrained in myself. I'm very sorry to say, though, that I've had a setback. I quit completely early February, and I had a March 22 goal of feeling myself again. We were going to Costa Rica, which I'd been trying to get to for years, and I truly thought that being there would get me over any hump I had left. I was very upset, though, that I was still having that 'experiencing, but not feeling' sensation', so I gave in and took it three days in. I don't necessarily regret that, because it was a spectacular trip, and I'd be really unhappy to have not taken it all in. And, I realize now that I was far too optimistic in the length of my recovery time. However, I have to work a night shift every three months, which the next stint happened to coincide with my return from Costa Rica, so it was all too easy to convince myself that I 'need it' to survive the night shift. Now I'm not sure how to handle this. I want to be DONE with these things. I had glimpses of normalcy...food smelling good, empathy, which had somehow fallen by the wayside, I'd realized, not feeling rushed all the time, not having an impending sense of doom as it wears off. Good things that I desperately want back. So there's good motivation there, despite the air hunger and panic attack tradeoff. But I feel like if I even say 'I wonder if a step-down method would be better for me' that I'm pussing out and justifying the fact that I started again. And if I tell myself I'm going to try again after this three month shift is up, it feels like an excuse. I have stuck to 5-15mg a day, down from 30, and I have absolutely no desire to go back up. I've also not taken it until close to work, so my home time is adderall free, for what that's worth. Has anyone quit cold turkey, failed and then succeeded at a stepdown? Again, thank you all, and I hope you're doing well!

For as long as I can remember, I've suffered with anxiety, OCD and certainly ADD. Like some other posters, I've relied on that last minute rush to get things done, and it's fortunately never failed me. So while ADD never affected my school or career, anxiety/panic/depersonalization attacks, and OCD have been crippling. I've tried everything to feel better, from nutrient therapy to EMDR to acupuncture to medication to Neurofeedback. Absolutely everything. I'd get varying degrees of relief here and there, but nothing ever stuck, and they all had their drawbacks. My anxiety also comes with the added bonus of air hunger, which if you've ever had it, you know how unbearable that can be. I'd also started having regular panic attacks while driving with my kids in the car, so I'd been beyond desperate to find a cure. One day, my brother gave me an adderall, and suddenly I could breathe! No more air hunger, no more panic attacks. Period! It was as if the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders, and I cannot express how liberating it was. As the euphoria wore off, the benefits remained, and I was convinced I'd found the holy grail. I could sense that my 'perception' of the world was different in a rather unexplicable way, but it was a small price to pay to be able to breathe. Then my three year old son got sick. He had a terrible flu that lasted several days, followed by another infection, and when all was said and done, he was a different kid. My formerly happy, enthusiastic, energetic kid was gone. This kid was mean, miserable, developed tics, had no energy, and refused to eat practically anything, and I went out of my mind trying to figure it out. No doctor could explain what had happened, and I was basically told I was crazy by everyone. And I was! I was a crazed maniac trying to figure out what had happened to my son. (Un)fortunately, I have a job that allows me several uninterrupted hours of internet time, and suddenly I found myself in an abyss of medical information. I did nothing else for two years, but read about weird medical conditions that scared the me to death. Ultimately, I discovered the Feingold Diet, and through a lengthy process of elimination, found out he'd developed food intolerances after that illness that were causing his tics and craziness. I cut them out, and thankfully, his is fine now. But I am NOT! I think I did permanent brain damage by reading about all of these rare and scary things for so long...and with such vigor, that I could have graduated with a degree in medicine and nutrition. And then my OCD kicked in with it so I now have to carefully weigh everything I do with my kids...did they get enough calcium, did they get too much, is milk okay, this nutrient prevents absorption of this, so I can't give those together, this product has this additive, which vaccines, how should far apart do I spread them, etc. It's NONSTOP in my mind,and I realize that it is completely abnormal and unhealthy. I'd also, during that time, become so absorbed with my one son, that I was very irritable with my other two kids. I couldn't stand anything taking away from my 'research'! All in all, I've been taking it for four years. Eventually I realized that I can't go on like that, so I decided to quit. At first it was okay. I was feeling totally sluggish, more mentally than physically, but I was staying the course. 6 days in, though, I had a massive panic attack in the car. And then the air hunger came back. So I'm picking up right where I left off, and now I'm so mentally drained on top of it! I realize there's a recovery period, but can someone give me a more specific description of the mental/intelligence issues post-adderall? Is anyone worse off than before they started? I'm specifically worried about memory issues. I feel like I'm experiencing things, but nothing is sticking. I have a hard time remembering what I did the night before or what happened on a show, and I almost feel like all of this medical reading crowded other information in my brain. I'm sure that sounds crazy, but I'm hoping someone can relate, because there are general memories I can't seem to pull out at all...of things that I should remember. Has anyone else had that experience? And from a general intelligence standpoint, I've completely lost it. I used to be a fairly good writer, and my thoughts are so garbled now, I can't write intelligently at all. OH! And I've lost that last minute rush I used to rely on to get things done. I know it's only been a couple of weeks, but it's really making me nervous. I would appreciate anyone's thoughts, and I SO appreciate this website!! P