Childhood and Adolescence with Adderall

[Suni]

It all started when I entered 2nd grade. I was a cute little 7 year old girl who had many friends and had a very bubbly personality. My teacher one day gave me a note to give to my parents. I did so. She had scheduled a parent/teacher conference. She informed them I had a bad conduct; C minus. Also, she told them I had been daydreaming frequently in class, was very easily distracted from my classwork, which caused my grades to be very poor, was very disorganized, and that I talked excessively. My parents decided to schedule an appointment with my pediatrician to see what the problem was. Dr. Reddy immediatley diagnosed me with ADD and prescribed the drug, Adderall. I was given the pill any day I had school. My grades were improving, my conduct, and everything else. It was all fixed. Except when I would take the drug, I would have to eat a fairly large breakfast or I would vomit up the pill later. One morning before school, I ate a piece of toast that morning. I went to school and ended up vomiting everything in my stomach up in the middle of class. My parents still continued to give me the drug, despite the side effect. I took it all the way from 2nd grade to 7th grade without having any problems with the drug. The only side effect that my doctor paid close attention to was my low weight. Vitamins took care of that, though. At the beginning of 8th grade, I noticed I was a very "zombie-like" person at school, and that on the weekends I was different. I actually ATE on the weekends and had personality. At school, all I would be focused on was doing school work, and I didn't socialize often, though I had friends. I was basically an unnoticed person in the clique I was in; one of the followers, not the leader. I blamed all of this on my adderall, and to test this "theory", I didn't take it one school morning. I showed up to school and was a completely different person. I was basically Miss Personality. I made everyone laugh, talked a lot, flirted with boys, acted crazy, and was super confident. One thing I did notice is that I had no desire to do any assignments I was given. So to not risk bringing down A's and B's, I cheated off of people. I started to just not take my medicine at all. I loved being the center of attention. I felt like I did when I was a little girl before I started taking the medicine. It felt good. I only took it during exams when I would need it to focus. During the summer after 8th grade, I noticed I had gained 20 lbs from the school year before. What was this reason? Never taking my adderall in 8th grade. I was 130 and only 13. I felt very fat. From the adderall I had saved up in 8th grade, I was taking it occasionally throughout the summer to keep my weight down along with excercising. It worked! I am currently now at the end of my freshman year in high school. I barely took my adderall at the beginning of freshman year. 1st reason: cheerleading. I had to be perky and happy on the sidelines! 2nd reason: I wanted to be ME. As I am writing this, I am in my adderall "zombie-like" state. Why? I was given a very negative wake-up call. My parents were telling me I was a failure at everything because I was not taking this pill and that I was overweight and needed to take control. I suddenly became insecure about everything. So I went back to adderall. I wanted to be in control again, like I used to be. I now take it on the weekends, too. I sometimes take it twice a day. I'm very deeply afraid to be fat and for my grades to drop. I'm currently 110, when I should be 130 or 140. I'm addicted and I'm only 14! It's crazy. I'm always afraid my grades will drop if I don't take it. I have straight A's and want to keep it that way. I like being smart, skinny, and independent. I feel like without it, I will not be able to control my ADD. I want to be perfect and I feel like adderall is doing that. But most of all, I don't want to appear as a failure to my parents. I feel as though they are the reason for this addiction. I want to be my old self again..

[LILTEX41]

Suni,

You are so smart for 14! I'm so happy you found this website. God, you remind me of me. I hate that your parents are doing this to you, but people don't understand adderall. Maybe you should ask them to try one for themselves and see if they think it's fair they are basically forcing you to take a tranquilizer. I'm serious. Be honest with them and tell them what you are feeling. Tell them there are alternatives to treating ADD without medication. For example, I just googled it and here's the first site I found: http://health.msn.com/health-topics/adhd/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100145250. I think most and all parents just want the best for their children and maybe right now they feel they are doing the right thing, but they need to know the pain it is causing you. Maybe you could ask to see a counselor (one who is pro-medication free) and they'd be able to help.

I can't wait for Mike to post on this. He always has incredible advice. Whatever you do, don't give up on you! You sound like such a fun loving person. I'd hate to see someone like you sell your soul to adderall for parental approval. You should watch this video clip on this website by MTV. Let me go find it and I'll post it in sec.

[LILTEX41]

Ok, well that sucks. They took off the video. Anyhow, let me know what happens. You don't have to be on drugs and it sounds like you don't need them b/c you're totally awesome without them!

[Emmylouwhocan]

Your story is basically the same as mine. Well the beginning at least. I started adderall in 2nd grade as well. My teacher had a daughter with ADD and when she saw that I was daydreaming and doing poorly she had a meeting with my parents. My parents took me to the peditrician where I was diagnosised with ADD. Towards the end of my 8th grade year of schooling I also stopped taking my medicine secretly. I started making more friends and felt more free. Then over the summer I realised I had gained a lot of weight. Realising it was the adderal that had kept me skinny I broke into the adderal pills that my mom had put away for schooling and began using them for dieting. This was the start of my addiction. Throughout my 9th grade year of school I started to develope a crutch to the adderall. I felt as I had to take it everyday and even though my mom didnt give it to me on the weekend I had to steal it. Eventualy i got into sports and began to insisted that my mom gave it to me on saturdays for my lacrosse games and etc. Then during my 10th grade year my mom told the doctor that I had been stealing my medicine. The doctor then came up with the solution that I would be on it everyday of the week. This didnt last long though since I stayed a year with family in another state and it was expensive to be mailing it that often. Into my eleventh grade year and even into my senor year (which I am finishing now) I have felt that I need it to get the grades to get into college. i have broken pills open and saved half of them for the weekend, Stolen them occasionally, and lied that my mom didnt give me enough. I like you want to stop my addiction, but I'm so afraid I will flunk out of college if I stop taking my adderall. I know that I am going to need to stop at one point or another and I'm just so scared of what the effects will be on my life since I have beeen on it for so many years. If you have any success please tell me.