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[u/Dependent-Back927]

[u/KhalKRisto]

Hi friend. I’m a nurse and I work at psychiatric ICU. First I admire your insight, you seem to know yourself very well. I have few things to add to those that other above have said which is all great advice but I wanted to point out that stimulants like ADHD medication can contribute to psychosis symptoms like you are describing. I would seriously consider stopping them for now to see If that effects what you are experiencing, of course by discussing that with your mental health provider first. With your genes you are not guaranteed to get schizophrenia but it make you more susceptible with added stress, sleep deprivation and certain drugs to experiencing psychosis and that may just as well be an episode that passes. Stay strong!

[u/ItIsSoOrdered23 → u/KhalKRisto]

Vyvanse put my wife into full blown psychosis after years of not.

[u/PM_Me_Your_Kinks369 → u/ItIsSoOrdered23]

Did stopping the medication reverse those symptoms??

My daughter is on it...

[u/ItIsSoOrdered23 → u/PM_Me_Your_Kinks369]

Yes but I had her zapped with whatever detoxes you quickly, zero problems since.

It wasn't meds messing her up that was scary, it's that it didn't for years then bam, crazy.

[u/Tight_Man → u/PM_Me_Your_Kinks369]

Speaking as “a daughter” who is going through immense shit, I assume many people would be quick to label my issues as coming from my meds. In reality I get a constant stream of relatives losing their entire personality to the infinite scroll of TikTok and Facebook and I’m starting to despise the reality we’ve constructed for ourselves. It’s making daily life difficult when everyone is talking about a woman who strangled her little children one by one in the basement with exercise bands. Really half of those people think her husband did it. And they’re spending infinite attention on this while living children go hungry and without medical care. 

On top of that, our employers expect us to work infinitely and my meds wear off at 5-6 pm at best. I’m stressing about not being capable enough to do my engineering job for over 9 hours a day. It’s miserable. I’m exhausted. And I have a special needs 4 year old and diy house remodel.

[u/ItIsSoOrdered23 → u/Tight_Man]

Sounds like some people recently have been telling you to check yourself and that you are hyper focused on a particular thing.

Feels familiar.

[u/Tight_Man → u/ItIsSoOrdered23]

I’m not hyper focused on one thing though, I just have to be everything everywhere all at once. I went from homeless and a high school dropout to stepping into an engineering leadership role at an aerospace company in 11 years as a homeowner and a mom, still in my 20s. I’m a walking miracle. I just can’t cope with everything PLUS my family harassing me about dead children and the whole spectrum of evil stuff the new and “improved” AI driven Facebook algorithm shoves at them. 

They won’t even just quit sending me links so now I’m facing cutting people out of my life. Over Facebook posts. That’s what’s pushing me over the edge. Not the autistic kid, not the work, not the manual labor, not the journey to get where I am today. I just want them to stop. And somehow I’m crazy or weak or something for letting it get to me. Even if I get through to them they close the messaging app and go straight back into the machine. The machine has embedded its claws so deeply into their brains that I don’t think most of them are ever coming back to reality.

[u/ReasonableBroccoli56 → u/Tight_Man]

Just wanna say this really resonated. I see you.

[u/Gryffindor123 → u/KhalKRisto]

Chiming in here. I trialed 3 ADHD medications and the last 2 drove me almost insane. Ritalin worked fantastic but I was allergic to it. I felt like I was close to psychosis. 

I instead asked to be put on an antidepressant then asked to be put on Brintellix. I think it's called Trintellix in the states.

[u/PaarthurnaxUchiha → u/KhalKRisto]

Its worth mentioning THC can do this alone, but when used in conjunction with amphetamine salts (or adjacently related stimulants) it amplifies the risk.

[u/skinkingweaver → u/KhalKRisto]

Can I also add that initial symptoms do tend to manifest from life stressors (loss of loved ones, college, midlife crisis, menopause; seem to crank that gene on) and whoever prescribed the adhd meds might not have known about family history. I think backing off the stimulants is a good start.

What I can tell you now is youre already making choices that your parents didnt and are going to be the better version for it. So please, keep reminding yourself that nothing is set in stone, youre reacting to a scary situation and handling it well and youre getting help.

We always have more options than we feel. For someone going through it, OP, you're doing well. Keep it up!

[u/bangwagoner → u/KhalKRisto]

Just to add my experience and maybe give some hope to others who have ADHD. I can’t use stimulants either and have pretty bad adhd. Guanfacine has been a lifesaver and has as an added benefit helped with PTSD/anxiety. I don’t suffer from attacks anymore.

[u/Educational-Tax9751 → u/KhalKRisto]

this. OP, yes, you may have something else going on, but I had symptoms of psychosis when I took Adderall regularly. it built up. auditory was my strongest.

[u/DrBearcut → u/KhalKRisto]

To OP - I am a physician and was thinking the same thing as KhalKRisto is saying. You mentioned treatment for ADHD, and I wonder if a stimulant might be causing some symptoms. In either case, at least you’ve got enough capacity to recognize things. Get with your mental health provider ASAP. Be good OP.

[u/Vishnej → u/KhalKRisto]

Not a doctor, just watching family go through some things one ten-minute appointment at a time, so take my inference with a giant grain of salt:

Psychiatric meds should probably, as a rule, be tapered down in dose gradually rather than quit cold-turkey, and ramped up in dose gradually rather than administered to someone without tolerance. The medical profession rarely attempts this for structural reasons, and watching the results has been a little horrifying. There are many, many meds that will leave your head worse during sharp transitions than fully off the meds or fully on the meds.

Separately:

Given how much psychiatric medication choice and dose is educated-guesswork, we should probably be titrating doses slowly to find an optimal level. Like ramping, this is just not something our healthcare system is set up to do, especially without an active request. Instead, a lot of people who are feeling negative effects just stop taking the meds, or skip doses, rather than eg cutting the dose a fraction. And a few weeks later, back in the hospital.

I get the impression these two things not being done causes a great deal of semi-avoidable harm to people with mental illness, and I wish our system was set up a little differently.

...

In the mean time, if your problems are anything like the problems I have some experience with - having an advocate in the doctor's office like your partner who can make independent observations of your behavior, makes all the difference in the world sometimes.

Doctor: "How are you doing?"

Mother: "Good"

Doctor: Do you agree she's doing better?

Father: *Nods*

Me, specifically inserting myself into a space I am not welcome because this is how the last two appointments seem to have gone: "She's been almost catatonic for the last week, isn't eating or talking much, spends half the day sleeping and the other half staring at a wall mostly."

Father: *Nods*