victoria

I do feel a lot of crushing anxiety on adderall! and i definitely had that feeling where something besides free will is controlling my facial expressions. Sometimes I felt like my thoughts were running away from me, and that's when my chest would knot up with this anxiety that if I didn't figure out how to catch them and write them down ASAP, i would basically fail at life. as someone preparing to quit, it's nice to hear that you're feeling happier and more hopeful!

Thanks for your response! This information is really helpful. I definitely think that I'm ready to quit, I wrote a whole pros/cons list before reading your comment, actually! — if nothing else, I need to quit for my health. Which is actually a thing that has confused me a lot... doctors insist that there's no real harm in taking adderall and that i shouldn't be worried about my heart rate. But it feels really bizarre to, at the age of 33, have a heart that's always thumping out of my chest at 100 beats per minute. It seems like every doctor I've been to either refuses to prescribe adderall to anyone as a rule, just because they don't wanna fuck with the laws around it, or is willing to prescribe it but not receptive to my concerns about its impact on my health. You ask, "If you are so reliant on Adderall to maintain your status at work, what will happen when you have work and the lack of energy/sleep/time that comes with taking care of a child, and you can't take Adderall because your partner forbids it? " Yes, this is a concern! Probably a top concern. But I also feel like I don't really have an option, this can't possibly be healthy. I'd hope that anything wrong with my brain chemistry that could be fixed with a pill must have a treatment option that involves a pill other than adderall? I do think I might be a little delusional right now 'cause I seem to think that the comedown/withdrawal won't impact my work TOO much... I think because I've never had trouble in my life wanting to do work, even before adderall, i was always a straight-A student, etc. So I think I can't fathom what it might look like or feel like to need to take a few weeks off. Maybe it won't really sink in until I'm feeling it.

I've been on Adderall since I was 21, and I'm 33 now. It undoubtedly changed my life for the better and fixed pretty much every work-related problem I had, as well as helping with my chronic fatigue (I have fibromyalgia) and depression. I've always been genius-level smart, but it wasn't until my last two years of college that the fact that I could only spend 20 minutes writing a paper before getting bored and distracted caught up to me. The medication also helped my confidence — I was SO insecure — and anxiety. On Adderall I was finally able to stop using obsessive meal planning and caffeine-guzzling to keep me regimented. I was prescribed 60 mg of Adderall back then, and now have tapered down to around 20-30mg/day. I would feel insane taking 60 mg again. Now I'm the CEO of my own business (an online magazine, events and merchandise for a niche female community), very well-respected in my field, and have a community and workplace that relies on me — this is one of many reasons I've been hesitant to drop the drug, I'm afraid of what a change in work habits could do to my company. But I feel like an imposter. People are always wondering why I am shy to take credit for the company I've built — it's 'cause I feel like I cheated, and was only able to work those 14-hour days to begin with because of drugs. I don't even know if ADD actually exists. But it's really screwing with my health! My resting heart rate is usually around 100 BPM, my blood pressure is high, my teeth seem to be dissolving and drifting away from each other and I'm always grinding my teeth. I'm aging much quicker than I'd hoped. I'm dehydrated and constantly guzzling water. I can't even go on long hikes or play team sports, my heart races, I'm thirsty and light-headed. I feel physically disabled as a result of this mental drug. My company is run remotely with a bunch of people working from home, but whenever we are in the same place, I notice that I feel wired and unable to communicate as effectively as my co-workers, like I genuinely feel like I am on speed whenever social and work collide. I've been very unhealthy in the past. I've always exercised, though lately I've been scared to push myself because of my heart rate, but exercise has been my saving grace to not totally lose control of my body. But there were periods of time where I was taking 80 mg of adderall, taking ambien every night, doing other drugs, drinking and smoking pot every night, eating like shit, sleeping 5-6 hours a night. Now I eat very healthy, quit ambien cold turkey three years ago, I smoke pot medicinally for my chronic pain and insomnia at night, I sleep 8-9 hours, rarely drink, and still exercise regularly. (I still take 40 mg of elavil every night for fibro, as I've been doing for 14 years.) But those negative health effects haven't changed despite other positive lifestyle changes. I want to get married soon and have a baby, and I know I have to be off adderall before I can get pregnant. Last night my partner told me that she's not ready to start making wedding plans or anything until I get off Adderall, because it is negatively impacting my health and isn't what she wants around her children. I think her impression of the drug isn't entirely fair (based on her own family's experience with it), but maybe this is the push I need to finally drop it. I am terrified, but I'm also excited to be healthy again. I don't know where to start — I'm not very well insured, so I don't have a therapist or access to counseling or other things I could take to ease the withdrawal, but I know I'm going to need a lot of support to quit without it messing up my work life or destroying my relationship. How did you do it? Where did you start? Did you manage to do it without taking another medication to help? (I used to take Wellbutrin, and am open to that, but not permanently or during pregnancy) Any experience with dealing with depression or chronic fatigue as well? Any natural or homeopathic solutions? Thank you for any advice or hope you could give me!