Anxiety

(I'm writing this because i need to clam down/tell someone, i'm not an attention whore or anything like that, it really helps me to tell someone)

Went to the doctor after quitting adderall, i asked her if she had any alternatives because the side effects of adderall were affecting my life (terrible panic attacks/anxiety), she pretty much told me to keep taking adderall and see if the side effects go away (her logic was that my body was still getting used to it .. i have been taking adderall for like 4 months ). I decided to follow her advice, because you know she is a doctor. Well, nothing has changed., side effects are stronger than ever, i have been on a 4 weeks-24 hours a day panic attack. Every night i tell myself "this is the last time you take adderall" but when i wake up in the morning the pills hypnotize me and i take them (fucking addiction).

The adderall is giving me energy,keeping awake and alert but at the price of panic/anxiety attacks.

Right now i feel like there is no solution for my problems, like i'm trapped in this hell. If i stop taking the meds i will turn into a zombie with zero social skills and no confidence and fall asleep at work (causing to loose my job), ... if i keep taking the meds i will be living in panic attack world.

This just sucks, i don't know what to do or what steps to take.

adderall probably isn't the only medication out there that you could use (not sure what your condition is though). if she's insisting that you keep taking it even after you are developing distressing symptoms from it, she's 'tarded in the brain. what type of doctor is she? if she's a gp, perhaps you could try a psychiatrist instead? also, try to slowly cut down the amount of adderall you are taking. do not try to quit cold turkey--the withdrawal could be dangerous to your health. imo, it would be sensible to wait and discuss how to take yourself off it with your doctor.

She is a psychiatrist.

My official diagnosis was adult ADHD + chronic fatigue. Every doctor i have been to tells me to treat it with adderall (in my opinion my symptoms are due to shitty diet/lack of exercise, the doctors disagree). I tried to quit adderall multiple times (i remember posting about it here months ago), but for some reason the thing keeps coming back to my life, i went 2 months without it but redbull was not enough to treat my symptoms.

I'm at a point where i no longer trust doctors with my body, they never want to speak to me about alternatives and i feel they don't listen to me.

(Holy shit, writing about this calmed me down, i feel a lot better now. So therapeutic)

i don't think red bull is good for anyone

  On 6/4/2012 at 2:47 AM, tauboo said:

i don't think red bull is good for anyone

I know, but you won't beleive how much it helped me..for a while at least. It kept me awake and gave me enough energy to get thru the day, then i started to build a tolerance i needed more and more, i reached a point where i was taking 2 cans of red bull a day. One day i decided to take a huge can of red bull + expresso .. and you know how that ended.

<p>i dont even have those problems and i decided to give up all caffiene, particularly caffiene mixed with alcohol about two years, it makes me feel shitty as fuck. i did take adderall (well, dexamfetamine) for about 2 months solid, i didnt even realise it was addictive, i just took it because it felt awesome. cold turkeying it just left me asleep for about two days solid

  On 6/4/2012 at 3:10 AM, messiaen said:

<p>i dont even have those problems and i decided to give up all caffiene, particularly caffiene mixed with alcohol about two years, it makes me feel shitty as fuck. i did take adderall (well, dexamfetamine) for about 2 months solid, i didnt even realise it was addictive, i just took it because it felt awesome. cold turkeying it just left me asleep for about two days solid

For fuck sake! everyone i know that takes adderall (most of them don't have a prescription) say the same thing ("took it because it felt awesome"). It makes me angry and jealous, i actually need the medication but makes me feel like shit.

I have been on Lexapro for quite some time now. It killed my anxiety. See a doctor. Anxiety can be severely debilitating. My blood pressure was through the roof, meds leveled it out...among other things.

counselling helps too.

Probably been mentioned, but jumping around everyday does one or two tricks on my anxiety.

  On 6/4/2012 at 3:26 AM, l1fef0rm said:

I have been on Lexapro for quite some time now. It killed my anxiety. See a doctor. Anxiety can be severely debilitating. My blood pressure was through the roof, meds leveled it out...among other things.

 

counselling helps too.

yeah, i was gonna say this. yo303, you mentioned that you think lifestyle changes would help--maybe they would? if you can't get the initiative or energy to try them out, maybe you'd benefit from visiting a psychologist and tackling your condition from a behavioral perspective instead of a medical one.

Man. anxiety attacks fucking suck, i've only ever had one really bad one but i remember feeling so tense that I thought I was gonna collapse and explode.

  On 6/4/2012 at 2:44 AM, YO303 said:

(Holy shit, writing about this calmed me down, i feel a lot better now. So therapeutic)

This speaks volumes. Not sure what it'll do in the context of anxiety attacks, but if something as simple as writing can make you feel better, then godspeed. If it helps, it helps.

Doctors are useless. Don't go see a doctor. Research and figure it out for yourself. Doctors will just take your time and money.

I've struggled with severe anxiety for a very long time... Doctors put it like it's the body doing something to the mind. Your fight-or-flight response has gone wrong, here, take some drugs.

But it's not. It's the mind doing something to the body. Too jittery, out of control. Meditation took it all away. Now I'm calm as a stoner in situations where I usually would have severe panic attacks.

  On 6/5/2012 at 10:15 PM, chimera slot mom said:

I've struggled with severe anxiety for a very long time... Doctors put it like it's the body doing something to the mind. Your fight-or-flight response has gone wrong, here, take some drugs.

 

But it's not. It's the mind doing something to the body. Too jittery, out of control. Meditation took it all away. Now I'm calm as a stoner in situations where I usually would have severe panic attacks.

Interesting. I think there are sooo many factors that can be considered for these types of symptoms. One that I read recently in the quest to help my own personal anxiety issues is that if you are having an overactive immune response via some kind of allergies or chronic sickness that it can do a number on our nervous system. This is one of the cases in which one might want to see a doctor if they think that they are dealing with that possible symptom. For the most part though, my experience with doctors has never been one where they are proactive and also looking for natural cures. They always just prescribe you some shitty drug that will likely do more harm than good.

  On 6/4/2012 at 3:20 AM, YO303 said:

  On 6/4/2012 at 3:10 AM, messiaen said:

<p>i dont even have those problems and i decided to give up all caffiene, particularly caffiene mixed with alcohol about two years, it makes me feel shitty as fuck. i did take adderall (well, dexamfetamine) for about 2 months solid, i didnt even realise it was addictive, i just took it because it felt awesome. cold turkeying it just left me asleep for about two days solid

 

For fuck sake! everyone i know that takes adderall (most of them don't have a prescription) say the same thing ("took it because it felt awesome"). It makes me angry and jealous, i actually need the medication but makes me feel like shit.

I took adderall for a bit and it was great. I could think clearer, focus better, and actually felt smarter. The only issue is that I felt emotionally stifled and I also would get irritable. I obviously need it as concentrating is probably the only thing holding me back in life, but I couldn't accept how unemotional and uninspired I felt. It did feel great though. My favorite thing to do was pop one and then take a nap. It would kick in while I was sleeping and made me feel good the entire time. People around me noticed that I was less enigmatic than before though. It took me about a year after I stopped taking it before I felt totally normal again.

What was your dose?

I think the reason adderall doesn't give me that clarity/motivation etc is because of my chronic fatigue. I am convinced if i start exercising and eating better all the side effects from the adderall would dissapear, the problem is that i don't have the motivation to start exercising/eat better.

Right now my resting heart beat is around 80-85 (my target is 60. To lower the heart beat i have to exercise). Adderal is a stimulant and stimulants increase the heart beat. If you have a shitty resting HB, adderall will make your heart race like a motherfucker and that brings anxiety and panic attacks. If i can only get some motivation to start exercising

----

Today i decided to cut my dose in half to see if my body could handle it better .. it did .. no anxiety, no panic attacks. I was calmer and did not felt tired at all, which is great but i still don't get the adderall focus/motivation (but you know what, i'll take that over panic attacks).

Originally I was taking the normal pills and I would start with 5g but would take just enough to get the euphoric effect similar to drinking a nice coffee in the morning. The most I ever took in one dose was 20g. I took the extended release after a while and would take 10-15g of that at a time. I think my mom takes around 60-90g a day. At the time though I was using a lot of drugs like ecstasy and meth so it is very possible that I could actually take it responsibly now and not have any negative side effects. When I was taking it though I was also drinking like 3 venti lattes a day as well with no heartbeat issues.

I actually think that if you are taking it to the point that you get a euphoric drive and motivation that you are abusing it. The point is to keep you focused not necessarily the other effects people mention. I think that ideally it should effect your brain chemistry in a subtle way.

As far as your heartbeat is concerned. I would make sure to keep your stomach full as stimulants tend to have a much greater effect when you have an empty stomach. Especially the negative effects. Also, make sure you drink enough water. I wouldn't stack any other stimulants with it either. Drugs like this can also cause adrenal fatigue which can in turn lead to a lot of other shitty side effects like chronic fatigue.

A lot of people have to take drugs like lexapro with their ADD meds because of the increased anxiety and panic attacks. You might look into a natural remedy for this as I will never promote taking any kind of drug of that nature. I only kind of make an exception for Adderall because it is basically just a stimulant.

As far as the chronic fatigue is concerned. You should also make sure you are getting enough sleep. I could go on and on about exercise and diet, but I don't wanna be preachy. It sounds like you have a kind of vicious cycle type problem going on. You should look at making small steps and small changes and then eventually you should be better.

Give me strength watmm! right now i'm having another panic attack induced by my inability to control my adderall intake. I obviously can't take adderall responsibly, i have an addiction and i finally admitted (and accepted).

Today i took more adderall than i should of, right now about 5 hours after taking adderall i'm sitting in my room have a horrible panic attack and for my own sake i need to stop taking adderall.

The sad part is that i want to throw all the pills in the toilet and flush but i'm never able to do it (mainly because once the panic attack ends i say to myself "that wasn't that bad, i'm just exaggerating" and then i feel stupid for whining.

I know this is like my 4th "adderall sucks" post and i'm sure its getting annoying and old but i'm truly desperate now, i need to write my thoughts so i can remember to throw the pills once this hell ends.

I just can't have another night like this but i just need the strength to throw the pills, once thats done with i need to figure out how to help my narcolepsy/adhd.

I'm 22 and i've never had a crisis like this, its scary.

any wise words? motivational stories about kicking addiction?

Can you write your way through your panic attack?

I think you should listen to some Lustmord or something. maybe a bit of Merzbow too.

This is why i post these annoying posts bitching about anxiety. I'm really not trying to get sympathy or attention, i just need to distract myself with something.

The problem is that once the panic attack ends any conviction of ending my relationship with adderall goes away, It so idiotic now that i think about the whole thing, all i need to do is either take a low dose or not take it at all, which sounds easy now but my addiction/stupidity takes control at the moment of taking adderall and i take too much.

I bet that in the morning i will forget all of my current thoughts and keep taking adderall .. and that scares the shit out of me (not being able to control my body and mind and not being able to make a decision). Do i need to have a heart attack to finally learn my lesson? i don't want that at all.

Why not just throw it (adderall) out then? or return it to where you got it?

Trust me dude i've tried, the thought is there but when the moment comes (to throw the adderall) i convince myself to keep taking it, like right now, the panic attack is pretty much gone now, i'm in a happy mood (but feel embarrassed and stupid about my last posts).

The thought still there but i'm convincing myself to keep taking it (and now i don't want to throw away), this isnt healthy behaviour, how come i have a strong desire to stop taking adderall but at the same time i want to keep taking it? its insane.

There's no need to be embarrassed about your last posts. Not talking about all the others, of course. :-)

Perhaps a silly thing to say, but I don't think you should be angry at yourself for taking Adderall. But what would be my point of interest is in the events/feeling leading up to taking it. Maybe your anger towards yourself in that moment can block you from seeing the actual issue, which takes place before that moment?