catw66

Jon - Congratulations to you! I happen to love Mary Oliver and am grateful you posted that poem. I just started to feel slightly better today after cutting down and I'm going to try things out tomorrow by taking a day off of my 10 mg. that I've cut down to from 20. I feel I am ready to do that and then go down to 5 mg or just quit. I love the poem you posted because the whole Adderall thing and the depression thing for me has come to the point where I really have to get in gear and start finding a way to heal. While my depression gets very severe at times, it also eases up at times and I have to find a way to start weathering the storms a bit better and saving myself. I suspect that healing myself from over three years of Adderall use will be a good start. I rue the day I ever let my doctor put me on that stuff. It suddenly just seems ridiculous but I didnt' know what to do. I certain didn't think it could ever make things worse and yet it did. I believe it allowed me to become complacent and unmotivated rather than more engaged with my own life and that is something I have suffered for greatly and didn't realize it. I was finally able to practice an hour of yoga today and felt for the first time in a while that I might be all right afterall - that things can get better. Do you find that you go up and down at all during all this tapering and then cessation? I get glimpses of pulling out of it and then I sort slump back into a fogged out sleepy energy type crisis where I just shut down and want to stay down. But something in me is surfacing here and there when I most need to and that's what I'm holding on to. I realize that me getting off the Adderall is also about me finally realizing I need to find a way to cope better with my bipolar disorder and resulting depressive mood swings so that I never resort to these dangerous drugs again. However, I am thankful as well that I didn't get hooked on meth or heroine. From what I have heard, you never quite recover all the way from that, but I feel that I will eventually recover from my stint with Adderall and a few other years I was on Ritalin and Concerta off and on. It is possible. Also realizing that my medical MJ use has to go as well since I figured out a way to deal with my headaches via vitamin therapy. I now want to be as clear and present as possible to my mental state and the world. Thank you for posting that Oliver poem again. It really meant a lot to me as I started reading a book today called, "How I Survived When My Brain Was Trying To Kill Me," as I seriously was feeling more suidical than ever just cutting down on Adderall. I realized I need to change my whole approach and not give up hope, as someone else suggested. Brighter and more awake days are ahead for you, Jon. I am sure of that.

I have only cut down from 20 mg to 10 mg though it feels like I might as well not have any in my system. My appetite also feels kind of low and I feel very depressed, which may have something to do with it. But I think the fatigue is the culprit here. I'm just too tired and too mentally disengaged to want to go through the hassles of cooking something and cleaning up after myself. Everything feels like it is going in slow motion and using my hands feels tiring to me.

Hi - I've always had a certain degree of social anxiety and am an introvert, though I find myself talking to the right people at times as an empath - possibly trying to relieve any of their anxiety....very strange. Interesting about how some people think adderall drove them in after a while. I think it did the same to me. I just felt unmotivated as all getout and I attribute that to depression, which has also been really bad the past few years. Wondering if the Adderall dipped my energy over time and then I just kept finding excuses not to go out and engage. Determined myself to go to some Ragtime street fair and take pictures this weekend....even feeling very tired.

Hi - I am in the Macomb area of Michigan (about 40 minutes from Detroit) but can drive wherever within reason to meet with anyone else if they want. Feel free to message me and let me know.

I think I thought my depression was just getting so much worse all by itself (which it can do if unrelieved for a long time) but maybe it's been the Adderall from what I've been reading. I will ask this shrink what he thinks - if maybe I should just wait it out and see if things get better before I try the ECT. I just feel I let this go on so long, I sort of ran out of time and patience with it all. Yoga has been a help but for some reason, during the spring and summer, my depression is always worse and Ashtanga yoga was no longer doing what it did. And during the better months, if I didn't do it for two days, the depression would return. So I will keep up with that at least. Just got too tired to do anything but I think my brain is getting used to 10 mg. now. Also thinking of playing lumosity.com games just to keep my brain activated. I have a subscription to that. Need to get on that one. I am happy that the two of you are on your way to better times and it was not just in my mind that Adderall might have made thigns worse. Thanks again so much!

Oh, as for the BP medications you asked about, I was on them and they didn't help enough but now that I think back on it, I think I was better off on them than I am now. Lithium made me pretty sick. This is why I am thinking ECT to just rest me and then get on a mood stabilizer. ECT is not the worst thing in the world as much as they make it out to be. But we'll see what the neuropsychiatrist says. Going tomorrow to get some results from my latest MRI. Wondering if it will show anything at all related to my stimulant use.

Thank you so much for your caring replies. They mean a lot to me. Woke up feeling slightly better today but totally fatigued. Going to see a new doctor this Friday and see what he says about all this and what to do. I really think my last psychiatrist sort of screwed me over time with the stimulants, wrong anti-depressants, and other bad advice. But I guess he didn't know what else to do. It is interesting because having depression for so long, I always suffered from a sense of futility no matter what I was doing and I noticed it got so much worse on the Adderall. Anyway, thank you so much and I think this probably has a lot to do with the adderall and cutting down on it. I will keep up my yoga practice and just try and keep moving and rest when I need, accepting that all this must be a part of it. I'm just so flat and exhausted anymore. Hugs to both of you and thank you.

I am on my way weaning off of it but I noticed I got a lot more depressed the past few years on it and it took me a while to make the connection. I felt less social, more cut off, and like I ruminated on negative emotions more. Now that I have cut down doing the weaning off thing, amazingly enough, I feel like I can focus better on one thing at a time if I have to. Why is that? I definitely felt severely depressed on it but just dead to the world really on some level though things were still bothering me. I think I was more emotional off of it but the severe depression was its own hell, which I have had enough of over the years anyway. Good luck to you!

I also feel beat up and totally depressed and exhausted as all get out. Wasn't able to get off the couch much today until now in the evening. Kept feeling like I should just be able to snap out of it. What a horrible feeling and I've only cut down from 20 mg to 10 mg. and it seemed to take a week before my brain noticed it was lacking that much and started this hungover dead feeling.

I've been taking 1500 mg in the AM and I don't feel like it does much. It sounds like I can try 1500 mg in the evening too. B-vitamins and magneseum oxide are things I take with it. My neuro told me to take 500 mg mag-oxide and 400 mg B-2 for migraines so I am doing that too as I get migrained. I didn't realize the L-Tyrosine can cause headaches or migraines. Good to know.

My psychiatrist willing gave me more and more until I was almost up to 40 mg. , which may not be a lot for some, but for me it was as I am a small female and other meds as well. I never took the full 40gn but cut down to 20 mg. I wanted the extras as I hate running out and having to go get them and take them in. So sick of that. I finally had my neurologist just write me a script for 10 mg. so I know I am exactly taking ten instead of spilling out about half of a 20 mg. tablet. I think the adderall made things worse for me depression wise and I wonder if I will ever feel like I am alive again at all after three years on it. I did not have such a hard time getting off of ritalin or concerta but this one feels more like it changed something. I plan now to find a shrink to help me get off of it totally and the Cymbalta I've been on. It's all been terrible for me. I would say don't set yourself up either for a relapse if you've gotten this far.

I have only been taking about 20 mg the last couple of months and now down to 10 mg and I feel about as depressed as ever. I really think that this can take a while or longer and there is such a thing as PAWS or post-acute withdrawal syndrome that can linger for a long time. I am slated for ECT treatments as I've been that depressed the last few years (and actually disabled by it) and I just dropped further down, which I didn't think was possible. I am going to also rely on my yoga and supplements. I also got a subscription to Lumosity.com and I feel that will possibly help the neuroplasticity of my brain - to find new ways to re-engage after being so long on not just Adderall, but other harmful psych meds for so many years by now. Hang in there. I think it is not realistic for some people to feel better after just six months.

New here and I am glad to find others. I am on about a week of cutting down from 20 mg to 10mg and I feel absolutely more exhausted and depressed than ever, but I am going to stick this out until I see the ECT doctor this Friday. I have suffered from bipolar depression for many years, with mostly depression that have become more severe over the last few years. When I looked back at what I did differently to start suffering from severe depression headaches, I realized it was when I got to used Adderall in my system. I went from 20 mg to 40 mg and never liked taking 40 mg. so I really didn't. I stayed at 20 mg for a while and then found out I have a heart condition - PFO with an atrial septal aneurysm - and was told by my PCP doc to stop the adderall just in case. Well, I know they say it doesn't cause heart problems (and mine are congenital and somewhat common) but I want off of it anywhere. I've been feeling so dead inside and unenthused and totally out of it for for the last few years and from what I've been reading, I think the Adderall has worsened my depression. I initially was prescribed them due to severe chronic fatigue and the fact that regular antidepressants do not help me and cause me to become manic. I also happen to have ADD. It felt great at first but very quickly, I acclimated to the dose of Adderall and then felt like I couldn't get moving without it. I no longer know what's wrong with me but between the heart problem just disocvered (that I am going to go and get checked out more - waiting for specialist appt.,) the chronic fatigue, and the severe depression that is just getting worse as I cut down on the Adderall, I feel like I will never be the same and have begun to feel suicidal and why bother. My summer is going by again and it's no fun for me once more. It's even less fun nowand I spend a lot of time alone and feel unmotivated and just barely getting by. Sometimes I will get some inspiritation but things are feeling worse since cutting down just by 10mg. Anyway, I have been planning to go see a neuropsychiatrist for ECT treatments. I had them a long time ago when they were stronger and it did help me and I never suffered any real problems - going on to get a masters degree. More than anything, I think all the meds I've taken over the years and then the adderall and severe depression have about shut me down totally from life. I think the only way I am going to get through this withdrawal and get off these energy sucking drugs is to get through the ECT. Otherwise, I'm not sure I"m going to be able to hang on anymore. I have nothing more to lose at this point. Thanks for listening.