I just need some help.

[Matt123]

I am nineteen about to be turning twenty. I am in college going for engineering. A friend gave me adderall one day when i was struggling in one of my classes. It was amazing i was able to ace the next test with flying color because of how good i did. He recomended that i go see my doctor and try to get a script which i promptly did. I was prescribed 30mg vyvanse and suddenly i was able to do great in school. But it didn't take me long to start abusing it.

I loved the high it gave me and it made me feel powerful and in control for the first time in my life.

First i need to give a bit of my own personal background. My dad was in the military for 21 years and we lived in several different places in my life. I lived on military bases until i was in the seventh grade. He had retired and we moved to where my mom grew up so she could take care of my grandma who had just started to really go downhill.

My parents were always very strict on me and my older sister hated me so i was always a bit of a loner, i didn't really have anyone to talk to so i became very introverted.

I am a bit on the small side and i am horrible at sports, i am not at all athletic. So i was a easy target for most bullies.

The school that i started attending after my dad got out of the military is a very small school since it is in a country area, we only had ninety students in our graduating class. And being a small school it was already a tight group when i moved down and i was never accepted by anyone due to me being a bit on the awkward side. So i spent high school being a loner and tried to stay out of the way since i knew i wasn't welcomed.

This led to me developing several insecurities about myself, which played a big part in why i became addicted to my vyvanse.

When i first started taking the medication i found that i was a completely different person, i was able to talk to people easier and i was able to get confidence in myself and it got to the point where i never wanted that to stop. I kept pushing the amount i took but tried to stay reasonable but i went overboard several times.

I was one fifty when i went to college and now i have to struggle to raise my weight higher than 115. For awhile i was 110 and it started to scare me.

I was going days without eating much because my appetite was nonexistent while taking the meds.

I kept telling myself i needed to stop but as school went on the classes kept getting tougher and i kept having to take more and more so i could study and pull alnighters so i could pass. The stress of college was bad but it wasn't the worst part.

I am happy on the pills and before i started taking them i was never happy. I described myself as being content before hand because i didn't really live my life. I stayed at home friday and saturday nights so in my mind i was trying to just stay content. I was scared of human interactions because of years of isolation that i felt.

So even when i have downtime from school and the stress is relieved i still have urges to take my pills when i can't stand the depression that i start to feel.

And this next part i am very ashamed about but in my first semester of college i started to have an affair with a married woman. i lost my virginity to her and i fell in love with her because she was the first woman to ever treat me like i was special. Even though it started as a drunken fling.

I am extremely awkward around women so i don't have very good luck with girls. But with older women i can talk to them normally since before this i never really felt sexual tension towards older women and it came more naturally since i wasn't trying to get with them.

I do feel bad about the fact that i am having an affair but what puts me in a horrible position is i didn't know this lady was depressive before we hooked up. And when i tried to tell her i wanted to stop, even though i still loved her, she wouldn't hear it. She broke out into hysterics when i told her and she told me that she would kill herself if i left her and i just can't live with that fact.

the guilt of what i am doing often sends me to my bottle of pills since i am in my own world when i am on them and i am able to experience a break from reality because of how intensely i get drawn into what ever i am doing when i am speeding on vyvanse.

I tried to slowly back away from the affair but i became impossible because her mother died and she latched onto me so hard it is hard to break free. I am scared for what she would do if i left and i couldn't live with that guilt. I feel so trapped and it is slowly killing me but she won't listen anytime i bring it up.

And she even scares me sometimes. If i accidentally leave my phone in another room for awhile she will leave me thousand texts and phone calls because i won't answer her and the voicemails she leaves always have her crying because she can't reach me.

I don't know what to do.

And all these things pushed me farther and farther into the vyvanse addiction to where it is at the point to where i don't know who i am anymore. I am ashamed of myself and i can't stand what i have become.

The big wake up call came recently when i was so stressed out that without really paying attention i eneded up taking about 200mg of vyvanse within a day since every time i don't stressed or annoyed i popped a pill until i realized i had ran out. I wasn't able to sleep for two days because of that.

I want my old self back but i don't know how to get it. i know if i quit my grades will drop and i won't be able to handle the stress of my life.

I don't know if my story is one anyone here can help me with but i just need someone to talk to who has some experience with adderall or vyvanse because i honestly don't know who else to talk to. Noone i personally know has dealt with this kind of addiction.

There is so much more i could say but i don't know what else to say at this moment. Any help would be greatly appreciated and i am desperate for someone to just talk to me for awhile.

Thanks

[Mike]

Matt,

Two points...

1. End that relationship

Keep reading. Don't start thinking of reasons why you can't. Hear me now if you hear nothing else on this site: YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HER LIFE. To keep her slightly off the edge at the expense of your physical health, your self-esteem, your happiness, and your future is not noble and altruistic...it is tragically naive.

It's completely unrealistic and not at all right on any moral scale. I mean, what if you went the other way? What if you said "OK, I want to stay, but you need to leave your husband and your life for me." I'd bet you anything that she would suddenly change her tune...she would start to try to explain why she can't do that, why you just have to understand her situation. She would not make the same sacrifice that she is expecting you to make.

The only hold on you that she has is your own virtue. She is effectively using your good-naturedness against you. If you weren't a good person who cares about people, you wouldn't be vulnerable to her crazy-fit manipulations. A famous writer, Ayn Rand, called this "white blackmail" --- the tactic of using somebody's own goodness to manipulate them. It is a sickeningly evil thing.

You must break that hold. You have to realize that even if she did kill herself because you left...you would have no right to feel guilty about it. I promise you that you have already gone and beyond what anyone else would have done in your situation.

She's leaning on top of you now with all of her twisted, misdirected emotional weight, like the world on top of Atlas. So shrug, Atlas. Let that stressful world roll off your shoulders. Save yourself and never look back. Find some single gal --- divorced and older if that's your thing --- fall in a love in a more healthy way, have a great marriage of your own, and look back on that crazy chick and say "Man, am I glad I got out of that one!"

2. Never ever let yourself take a pill to escape.

If need to get work done, fine take a pill. If you need to stay awake and cram, fine take a pill. But when you go through emotional stress and your brain says "Hey, we could just pop a pill and numb this pain a little." stop it. Endure the pain. It's much better than the alternative of hardwiring your brain to crave a drug whenever you encounter stress or sadness.

That's how real addiction starts. The kind of people that never get over it, that never break free, that will be addicts their whole life: those are the people who've formed a link in their mind between emotional stress and escape. When they get stressed, they crave their addiction. And they have that craving because they created it years ago by making a simple decision: to escape instead of facing the pain.

You cannot let yourself make that same choice too many times, or the link will become permanent. Catch this as early as you can, and break off that link in your mind as quickly and brutally as possible.

So that's first step: Just work on not taking it for emotional escape, and only taking it for work.

Also, pay closer attention to your dosage. Set a fixed daily maximum, even if it's higher than what you're prescribed at first (because step 1 is owning and freezing your current dose, step 2 is lowering it). Buy one of those little pill containers where you put some pills in the slot for each day of the week and stick to it. If you finish all of your pills for the day, tough shit. Weather the storm until the next day. Do not allow yourself any excuse to take more than what's in that daily slot, or else boundary decay kicks in and you're on a slippery slope to fucked.

3. Once this poisonous relationship is gone from your life and you've got your Vyvanse dose a little more under control (at least so you're not taking it to escape any more, even if you're still taking it for other things), then we can talk about getting you weaned back down to prescribed dose level or maybe a little below.

Hang in there. You're 19. I cannot begin to express how much time you have to change, grow, and attain happinesses you never thought possible.

[LILTEX41]

Matt,

Your reasons for abusing adderall are identical to mine. I have add and social anxiety. I'm also a recovering alcoholic and addict. I've noticed a lot of people on this site may not have actually been addicted to adderall. I thought Mike gave you some really great advice, but I wanted to take it a step further in case you find that you can't control (or lose all willpower) when trying to moderate your intake. For alcoholics/addicts it is said that we have an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to our class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. If you find yourself having a severly hard time controlling your intake please know this may clearly be another issue all together. It is never too early to get help before it consumes you. Best of luck to you and keep posting how you're doing.

Take care!

Erin

[Joanne]

Hang in there Matt. I think Mike is right: You need to get out of this relationship. And you need not feel guilty for that very sane gesture. I would just add: DON'T BE SHY about asking someone you trust for HELP in dealing with this -- whether a counselor, a preacher, a professor or whoever. This lady was very ill and in a great deal of emotional turmoil before she met you. I would guarantee you are not the first man to be on the receiving end of her frantic, possessive attempts to ward off abandonment. If she continues to make threats of suicide, she may have to be hospitalized at least for a few days. You need and deserve some advice and support in breaking this off constructively. Anyone would!

I don't think you need to feel so ashamed. The most one can say is, you did something unwise, and not in line with your core values, when you fell for this woman. That is the nature of sex... it makes a fool out of every one of us at least a few times in life. You're still a good, compassionate person. You can't "save" her by remaining her lover. You'll only get dragged further into her craziness. And breaking up with you won't destroy her. Hopefully she will get the help she needs. But to use a corny analogy, this is one time you need to grab your own oxygen mask before you try and help with hers. Let it go. And stay in touch!