Cause of your anxiety?

[Puz]

I have been using Adderall for five years and am only 1 day into my second (hopefully last) attempt to quit. I am better informed this time around thanks to this awesome site and forum! My question:

 

For those of you with anxiety: Do you feel like Adderall has changed something about your brain which is making you anxious, or is the anxiety related to struggling to productive? Or is it something else (explain)?

 

I am seeing a lot of you talking about feeling anxiety, even months after quitting. The first time I quit, I only made it 2.5 weeks, but I didn't necessarily feel any anxiety, at least not as if it were a withdrawal symptom, but my under performance at work and my coworkers' expectations of me gave me a sort of anxiety. My productivity was way down, but as a software developer I can go weeks without anyone asking about my progress on whatever I am working on. When I started to realize I didn't have an excuse for why I was way behind where my boss thought I'd be, I gave into the pressure and relapsed.

 

 

[bluemoon]

I usually experience the anxiety when I am overwhelmed. Either overwhelmed with the amount of things I need to do (I am a lazy turd since quitting), overwhelmed with expectations of others (like you said, you feel pressure to be able to do all the things you were able to do on Adderall. People get used to you being the most productive worker, and suddenly you are the complete opposite. It is hard but you have to do what is best for you!! Screw everyone else). I also get overwhelmed when something goes wrong (I tend to overreact and get crazy anxiety), overwhelmed with having to be social when I don't feel like it (which is pretty much always), overwhelmed when faced with drama (I try to steer clear of this one as much as possible, but there is a lot of drama/fighting/arguing at my workplace. Very toxic environment. Even if I am not involved in the drama, just being around it is extremely draining to me and causes a lot of anxiety). Essentially just anything that would be a minor stressor for the average person is amplified x a million. So basically, life in general is causing my anxiety, and I have anxiety all of the time lol.... However, I do find that if I stick to a routine and trying to keep my life as simple as possible does help and makes the anxiety manageable. Avoiding caffeine is also important for me, as it kicks my anxiety into overdrive. 

 

Hope this helps and I want you to know that you CAN do this!!! If I can do it, you can do it. You just have to really, really want to stop, and imagine the beautiful life ahead of you once you feel better. It's a long, extremely tough road... But there is so much more to life than this addiction. 

[hyper_critical]

I had tremendous anxiety after I quit. I remember with a few months walking into a grocery store for the first time and nearly having a panic attack, overwhelmed by all the stimulus and decisions to be made. I think it was part physiological, and part emotional/psychological. Obviously, post acute withdrawal played a part, but I had to re-learn how to set expectations and deal with my ADD.

 

I'm not going to lie, it's been a struggle, but it's gotten significantly better the longer I've stayed clean.