EricP Posted September 26, 2017 Report Share Posted September 26, 2017 I know I have been posting a lot of my symptoms here and hope it doesn't get old for you all... It seems there just isn't a lot of support "anywhere" but here for this miserable process of getting off of this drug. In any event I have read how "flat" and emotionless many of you feel off of Adderall. What about in extreme events, sports, adrenaline and dopamine rewarding situations? I am a car guy, love fast cars.. A friend of mine just let me drive his 2017 Cadillac CTS-V and I drove the heck out of this car, super fun and fast... But honestly it hardly "moved me" I was as calm getting out of it as on the way in and just in a weird way barely absorbed the whole experience... So weird. Can anyone relate to this? How disappointing 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SleepyStupid Posted September 27, 2017 Report Share Posted September 27, 2017 it's because prolonged adderall use / abuse causes dopamine receptor desensitization. you can google for a more thorough understanding, but essentially what it means is that your receptors are not as sensitive to the neurotransmitter, so the regular level of dopamine your brain produces will not deliver the same sense of reward that it would have pre-adderall. in the first couple of months into recovery, you're actually at lower than baseline levels of dopamine in addition to being desensitized. once your body normalizes the levels of dopamine, you pass the stage of feeling constantly lethargic.. but the next stage of recovery is the most subjective and difficult because despite being able to pull yourself out of bed, you just don't seem to enjoy things as much as you used to. sometimes it will feel like you don't even enjoy things as much as you used to *pre-adderall*, and it may feel like you've permanently broken yourself. what people forget is that for many of us, our adderall abuse spanned most of the formative years in our young adulthood where you're challenged, your goals in life change and you mature into being an adult. your interests will change, you may drop hobbies, etc. the problem is, adderall masks all these changes in your life, so when you finally decide to quit you feel like you're a completely different person and the only thing you can attribute it to is the drug. i struggled a lot the first year with the fact that i no longer loved the things i used to do, and it was a depressive cycle of trying to force myself to write, to play piano and do these things i was so passionate about and not enjoy it. i finally realized, however, that this depression was self-inflicted. i had to let go of the past in order to move forward, forge new experiences that i wouldn't be comparing back to a past level of "happiness". here we are over 2 years later, and i can say that i definitely do enjoy many things in life again, just not all the same things i used to (: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricP Posted September 27, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 27, 2017 Thank you so much for that description. It gives me hope that something more serious isn't wrong with me. I am at 4mo and am still "day by day" on how productive I can be. I am "functioning" however a full day takes a lot out of me and the days that I can, I go home early. Weekends I have big plans in my head and then spend most of my time on the couch. Can you or anyone share your experiences with sleep? I just cannot seem to get a full Deep night of sleep. I can easily take an afternoon nap as well as fall asleep at night however find around 1-2am it being somewhat of a half sleep tossing and turning with some light dreams and any noise can awake me. I am wondering how long this phase lasted for you or others? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SleepyStupid Posted September 27, 2017 Report Share Posted September 27, 2017 i definitely had some sleeping problems within the first few months, racing thoughts and those types of dreams where you're constantly trying to solve problems that don't make any sense. it was kind of on and off though. perhaps you're trying to go to bed too early? i remember early on in recovery i would be pretty exhausted by like 9PM and have no real desire or reason to stay awake, so id just go to bed but that's probably a bit early for healthy sleep every day. the other thing is that a lot of people (myself included) increase their caffeine intake after quitting adderall to stay with it during the day, but this is probably also pretty bad for sleep depending on how much you consume throughout the day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricP Posted September 27, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 27, 2017 Your description is very much like my sleep pretty much nightly, I had a couple good nights last week which were a first in awhile, now back to the restless sleep. I quite coffee so that is not it and my bed time directly affects my wake up time in a weird way... It's something like 3-4 hours of sleep before waking up. I take melatonin on most nights which helps get to sleep so maybe this is when it wears off. I look at it more like "middle of the night anxiety" caused by my subconscious thoughts or something.. My brain starts repeating thoughts and heart has that hard anxiety beat, sometimes feel a little hot and a little sweaty. Just not fun. My next step is to really work to switch my exercise to the mornings rather than after work as well as not drink anything a couple hours before bed. Midnight bathroom breaks are sometimes the first awakening of the sleepless madness. The early exercise is hard as I usually finally begin to get back to a good rest in the 5-7am range which is when I should be at the gym... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyper_critical Posted October 17, 2017 Report Share Posted October 17, 2017 "Anhedonia." It goes away. That and PAWS though can be a real mind-F early on. Life is awesome. Keep after it, and take it easy on yourself. : ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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