Cassie Posted October 27, 2013 Report Share Posted October 27, 2013 I ran into my old Adderall friend the other day. He was the one who used to give me Adderall pills in the days before I got my own prescription. He really has ADHD, but he takes a lot of Adderall, like 60 mg per day, so much that he needs to take sleeping pills every night. He also takes it to party and I've seen him snort it many times. So, to all the doctors that say people that truly have ADHD won't get addicted to stimulants, I say 'you're a moron.' Anyway, I haven't seen this friend since I was on Adderall and I noticed a couple of things I thought I'd share. One, when we were talking he was staring at me so intensely, it was sort of creepy. His gaze was just weird - it was as if he was having a staring contest with someone and his blinking frequency was off. It made me think back to this one day at work when I was on Adderall and was talking to one of my employees, and my employee asked me why I was staring at him. I didn't understand what he was talking about. But now I get it. It was like I was trying so hard to make natural eye contact with people that it came across like I was trying to stare them down in a threatening manner. The other thing I noticed is that my former friend is kind of boring. I never noticed before. This confirms that Adderall does not make you interesting person, and physically it turns you into a robot whose natural movements look stiff, forced and unnatural. I don't know anyone else who takes Adderall, so I'm glad I ran into him and could actually notice these negative quirks, now that I'm sober. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle_Chaos Posted October 27, 2013 Report Share Posted October 27, 2013 I ran into my old Adderall friend the other day. He was the one who used to give me Adderall pills in the days before I got my own prescription. He really has ADHD, but he takes a lot of Adderall, like 60 mg per day, so much that he needs to take sleeping pills every night. He also takes it to party and I've seen him snort it many times. So, to all the doctors that say people that truly have ADHD won't get addicted to stimulants, I say 'you're a moron.' Anyway, I haven't seen this friend since I was on Adderall and I noticed a couple of things I thought I'd share. One, when we were talking he was staring at me so intensely, it was sort of creepy. His gaze was just weird - it was as if he was having a staring contest with someone and his blinking frequency was off. It made me think back to this one day at work when I was on Adderall and was talking to one of my employees, and my employee asked me why I was staring at him. I didn't understand what he was talking about. But now I get it. It was like I was trying so hard to make natural eye contact with people that it came across like I was trying to stare them down in a threatening manner. The other thing I noticed is that my former friend is kind of boring. I never noticed before. This confirms that Adderall does not make you interesting person, and physically it turns you into a robot whose natural movements look stiff, forced and unnatural. I don't know anyone else who takes Adderall, so I'm glad I ran into him and could actually notice these negative quirks, now that I'm sober. Yes, it'll definitely make you boring as all sin. You sit there contemplating on what to say like it's the end of the world ALL the TIME. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zerokewl Posted October 27, 2013 Report Share Posted October 27, 2013 I have ADHD and got addicted to stims. It really did help me focus at first so I thought it was helping. I completely spiralled outta control on it rather quickly. Early in my recovery I was really angry that a doctor and a shrink turned me into a junkie. The best way to deal with ADHD is diet and exercise and some techniques/habits . I think history will remember prescribing amphetamines for ADHD the way history remembers blood letting. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassie Posted October 28, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2013 ZK, I really liked that video, but I think there's a huge elephant in the room he misses - not everyone with ADHD is incredibly smart and talented like him. In fact, probably very few are, because few in the general population are as a whole. I know four people with genuine ADHD. One of them is very smart, talented and creative like this guy, and the other three are dodos. Guess which one of the four has never taken medication? The smart one, because his intelligence and creativity override whatever problems his ADHD give him. So, what do the below average intelligence ADHD people do when they don't have those same capabilities to fall back on? Maybe those are the ones that stimulants are sometimes appropriate for. I think he misses that truth - that people are born with different capabilities. I'd like to propose an alternate theory, that this dude is super smart, creative and successful in spite of his ADHD, not because of it. Maybe if he didn't have ADHD, he'd still be just as brilliant AND he'd be able to hunker down and do his taxes or whatever his biggest issue is. It's like saying cocaine helped Steven King's career because he wrote a bunch of books under the influence of it, when in fact he was a brilliant writer in spite of having the drug problem, not because of it. What do you think? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted October 28, 2013 Report Share Posted October 28, 2013 I don't have any Adderall friends or acquaintances, but I'll bet I could pick one out in a crowd. I remember looking into the mirror and my eyes were like a reptile's eyes staring back at me soullessly. It is believed that addiction lies at the center of the human brain, known as the reptilian brain. It is the most primitive part of the brain. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashley6 Posted October 29, 2013 Report Share Posted October 29, 2013 This reminds me. I look back at pictures of myself while being on adderall, and I can tell just by pictures there's something different about my eyes. Not even just that my pupils used to get huge, but this almost eerie look, like I was trying to be happy and present in the moment, but I just wasn't. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zerokewl Posted October 29, 2013 Report Share Posted October 29, 2013 @ashley@jonUgg I remember those moments staring at your self in the mirror and thinking "I am so fucked up right now" @ashely I couldn't say it better "The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time. Substance abusing writers are just substance abusers -- common garden-variety drunks and druggies, in other words." -Stephen King 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quit-once Posted November 2, 2013 Report Share Posted November 2, 2013 This reminds me. I look back at pictures of myself while being on adderall, and I can tell just by pictures there's something different about my eyes. Not even just that my pupils used to get huge, but this almost eerie look, like I was trying to be happy and present in the moment, but I just wasn't. At the time those pictures were taken, I remember thinking "that was a good picture" big, bright eyes with huge pupils. When I see those pictures now, I see a hollow expression. Like the lights were on but I wasn't present. And I too spent time in front of the mirror thinking "I am soooo fucked up right now". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t'smom Posted December 3, 2013 Report Share Posted December 3, 2013 Anyway, I haven't seen this friend since I was on Adderall and I noticed a couple of things I thought I'd share. One, when we were talking he was staring at me so intensely, it was sort of creepy. His gaze was just weird - it was as if he was having a staring contest with someone and his blinking frequency was off. It made me think back to this one day at work when I was on Adderall and was talking to one of my employees, and my employee asked me why I was staring at him. I didn't understand what he was talking about. But now I get it. It was like I was trying so hard to make natural eye contact with people that it came across like I was trying to stare them down in a threatening manner. I definitely have had this problem. You describe it very well, imho. And I think it definitely creeped people out too. It's one of those little side effects that might only be picked up on "anecdotally" but might me much more common than one would expect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t'smom Posted December 3, 2013 Report Share Posted December 3, 2013 Maybe if he didn't have ADHD, he'd still be just as brilliant AND he'd be able to hunker down and do his taxes or whatever his biggest issue is. Or he pays someone else to do them. Blech. Tax returns.. :-p 1963 a letter written by Leo Mattersdorf (Einstein's tax accountant) as appeared in Time magazine: "One year while I was at his Princeton home preparing his return, Mrs. Einstein, who was then still living, asked me to stay for lunch. During the course of the meal, the professor turned to me and with his inimitable chuckle said: 'The hardest thing in the world to understand is income taxes.' I replied: 'There is one thing more difficult, and that is your theory of relativity.' 'Oh, no,' he replied, 'that is easy.' To which Mrs. Einstein commented, 'Yes, for you.'" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassie Posted December 4, 2013 Author Report Share Posted December 4, 2013 Speaking of this topic, I was hanging out with a friend the other day, and she said that when I took Adderall I used to blink excessively at work all day long. I told her that my eyes and contacts were always so dry on Adderall so that's probably why I blinked a lot. She said it was way more excessive than that, like I had some neurological disorder or something. I'm learning all sorts of things about the drug induced quirks I used to have that I was oblivious to at the time. I must have looked like a real freak to my coworkers and friends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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