LifelongUser

Hey, I just signed up. I've been using Adderall therapeutically for over half my life. Pre-Adderall, I was fat, struggling in school, inattentive, twitchy, introverted, impulsive. I was also only 8 years old when I got put on the meds. For a long time, everything was roses and rainbows and joy. I lost all the excess weight until it looked like I'd just been liberated from a camp circa 1945. Before the Adderall, I was borderline Spec Ed because my ADHD was so severe, and that was as a second grader. After I got on the medication, it was amazing. I was used to being so impaired by my condition (no attention span which led to poor memory, forgetting that I was taking/not being able to concentrate on tests, etc.) that the sudden explosion of productivity was amazing. Without Adderall, I've no doubt that I'd just be a burnt-out, depressed, failure of a person with no future and nothing to look forward to in life. It, along with solid familial support, is why I'm even able to think about being a chemical engineer. But...I feel like I'm missing something. Part of me desperately wants to be normal Me. On the few days I get off from Uni, I avoid the drug, and they're easily the best days for me. I get a touch goofy, my memory goes to shit, I dance for no reason and to no music but the internal song of my soul. It pisses my friends and family off to no end when I do though. They say that I become immature and kind of dumb when I go without, which hurts extra because I have always been introverted, so I've only got 2 friends. Both very close friends, but neither can stand being around me for any length of time without the Adderall. Now that I'm on break for a while, I've had more time to be off the drug, and I've come to realize: I don't know who I am without it. After a day or two without it, of being how nature made me and loving every minute even if it's damn near impossible to carry a conversation more than five minutes, I started to feel anxious (beyond the onset of withdrawal beginning). I've always been one to analyze those feelings to a fault (probably from the depression), and I concluded that not only do I not know how to sit still and concentrate without my Adderall, but also that I don't know how to function without it. I hardly even remember a time when I was not on it. How much of 'my' personality is the drug? Would I, sans ADHD, have turned out like I am currently, had I never needed adderall? I don't know if I can quit. I've lived more than half my life on it. I know for a fact that I can't function on the level I need to in order to pass my classes without it. I tried, and it went intensely poorly. But all the same...I love being off my meds. I don't know what normal is for me though. After all this time, am I normal on it, or off? I've not been able to answer that concretely, and the idea is always at the edge of my mind: who am I, now? Who might I have been? For one of those questions, I don't know. For the other question, I don't think I want to know, but I'm sure that with my family history I'd be hopelessly addicted to something other than Adderall. What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that I just want to be myself for a little while. But I can't. I don't know who I am anymore. I can't even figure out which me "myself" refers to: medicated or unmedicated. I have spent more time by far medicated than not, but...damn internal conflicts. Thanks for letting me rant guys. I couldn't find the support site for existential crises, and I've been flirting with getting off Adderall for months. Seeing the source and that thought...this seemed an appropriate place to post. If...if anyone else has gone through something similar, just not being sure who you are like I am right now, I'd really appreciate some ideas on how to get through it. My psych shat the bed on this one when I tried to talk to her about it. Hopefully the Internet can do better.