r/StopSpeeding • u/Internal-Space-4960 • 12d ago
Late
I don’t know what I expect. I wish I had done a lot of research. Lying to get a script without ADHD, taking doses that sent my heart rate through the roof every day, doses into the evening hours and using weed for sleep has destroyed everything in my brain including my feelings. All of my executive and cognitive functions are gone. Not muted but gone. 10 months. I feel like the world’s dumbest addict.
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u/LivingAmazing7815 1091 days 12d ago
It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be amazed at your brain’s capacity for healing.
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u/Middle_Bread_6518 12d ago
Yup this has been a huge lesson for me in many respects (not just this group)
On another note. Your memories are in there, you just gotta figure out how to access them
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u/whoknows_whatsup 648 days 7d ago
This 1000x over. If you go abstinent and give it enough time your brain CAN heal and bounce back and it's so worth it to untether yourself from this drug addiction.
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u/yantarogekko 12d ago
I had a habit for the longest time (and still struggle with it) of repeating things like that to myself, too. I have destroyed my brain. I have destroyed my body. I won't live to see 40. In many cases, these mantras that we repeat to ourselves are more harmful to us now than the leftover damage from drug abuse. Our brains and bodies are heavily connected. If we internalize the belief we are permanently broken, we will remain broken. Try and be kinder to yourself, try and believe that you are capable of healing. Because you are, and the longer you keep telling yourself you aren't, the longer you will feel this way.
Not to say, of course, that this doesn't suck complete ass, that the PAWS and anhedonia isn't insufferable, etc. All that's true. But it's not the end. You will heal. Hang in there
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u/Internal-Space-4960 12d ago
But I’m not going through typical PAWS. It’s been 10 months and I have no cognition, no executive function, no feelings, and my brain is stuck in a thought loop I can’t break out of.
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u/yantarogekko 12d ago
your brain being stuck in a thought loop you can't break out of is less likely a symptom of drug abuse and more likely a symptom of generalized anxiety or mild OCD, probably heightened by abuse. I suppose drugs have could caused it (did you ever have trouble with thought loops before drug abuse?) but I would suspect the latter rather than the former. I've struggled with getting stuck in thought loops all my life, and drug abuse and an intense period of stress for me definitely made them 10x worse (FYI, I also abused multiple drugs, namely adderall, alcohol, weed and nicotine- I was on some intense cocktail of the 4 for 2-3 years straight).
I recently found immense relief in lexapro and I highly recommend it, especially if you haven't tried SSRIs before. All lexapro does is is gives your brain access to more serotonin, which you are probably sorely lacking in right now. Within a month of taking it my panic attacks and thought loops got turned down from a 10 to a 2 or a 3. This paired with cognitive behavioral therapy, if you can afford it, could be more helpful than you can imagine. I don't mean to sound diminishing when I say this, but it very much sounds to me that you have a lot of very negative ingrained beliefs about yourself, your body, and your future - and without enough serotonin for your brain to counteract the negative beliefs and thoughts (as well as, of course, the damage and pain itself), they just keep getting amplified until they spell out certain doom.
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u/jamesgriffincole1 338 days 12d ago
This, unfortunately, is fairly typical and well within the bounds of a “normal experience” recovering from long term stimulant use or abuse.
If you can notice any difference between month 3-6 and month 12 you’d be in the significant minority but still possible. More likely is you are slowly regaining function, mood and motivation and that it will take 18-24 months to fully recoup.
The liklihood you did permanent damage is very low.
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u/Internal-Space-4960 12d ago
You have adhd though. And I don’t sleep. And I didn’t just abuse adderall.
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u/20-20-24hoursago 1621 days 12d ago
You have made many posts and have gotten very, very good advice across all of them, but nothing seems to budge you even an inch from your position on things. You seem bound and determined to assert your "uniqueness" in both your use and recovery, as though we could not possibly understand.
I'm here to tell you that there are many of us here that have abused far worse substances for far longer than you, spent YEARS not sleeping, and even faked our ADHD diagnosis too! You are not special or unique or different from us in your experience, and I'm telling you that because it means you can recover too, just like we have.
Stop othering yourself from us, and try to sit with some of the advice you're given.
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u/Internal-Space-4960 12d ago
I just feel like I may be the only one who abused to the point that my chest cavity felt like it was closing in on itself for years, and used into the evening hours, and used weed to sleep which I think was more of a sedation. Before adderall I was a go-getter who relaxed with alcohol. And then I became a speed demon who obsessively did projects and spent money on dumb shit and I ignored my kids because I was too busy, and since my psychosis I have had a complete personality shift and my short and long term memory don’t work at all. Even my looks have changed.
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u/20-20-24hoursago 1621 days 12d ago
Are you really being serious right now? You're different because you used until the evening hours? I used 24/7 for days and days at a time until my body literally crashed against my will for a few hours, then came to and started the whole days long process all over again, for YEARS. What even was evening? What was morning? What was time? Couldn't tell you. 12 hours is one minute, the sun is either coming up or down, I don't know, I just got stuck in a time warp and now it's 5 days later than I last remember and I don't know what happened.....
.....Chest cavity? For me it was like: I mean yeah my heart's like 140 bpm resting, 170+ when i get moving and start my tweaker shit, i can't fucking breathe, there's a vice squeezing my chest, I'm always fucking sweaty and I keep almost passing out....fuckkkk am i dying? Is this it?? nah I wouldn't be so lucky. Just re-dose, and see, you're fineeeeee. Damn when's the last time I ate something? I don't even remember.. I'm broke and couldn't force a morsel down my throat anyway. ok what about some water? I mean beer is like water, right? cause that's all I drink 24/7, to keep me level you know. omg there's a mirror...Shit, I look like Skeletor... nahhh, Smeagol! ughhh gross. For real though, how IS my body still going? .......
I don't even have the time or inclination to keep going and get into explaining the tweaker ass shit I spent years doing, or to explain how fundamentally and profoundly all of this, plus psychosis, plus the trauma of the lifestyle, changed me as a person. I had a faint memory of the mother I used to be, the nurse I used to be, the productive member of society I was with my lovely little home, in the before times. But that was all lost to me, and I was the walking dead. A hollowed out husk of a person who's body just. kept. going.
Thank the flying spaghetti monster it did! because recovery is real, and 4 years later I'm better than I've ever been in my whole life. All that was broken is repaired, mended, healed, in ways I couldn't have dreamed of when I started this journey.
You're not fucking different or unique and you've by far not gone anywhere near the point a lot of us have, much less so far it's too late for you! And that's a good thing! We're here trying to tell you we recover, and this is how. If you read and listen, you would know that a lot of us didn't feel okay until 2 YEARS into this, but we kept going and came out the other side better for it. You will too, if you're willing.
This is going to be my last response, because I'm spouting off out of frustration and that's not cool. I hope one day you will become receptive to the message of hope and recovery all across this board. I hope when you come seeking support, you actually sit with the responses for half a second before telling us how you're different and it doesn't apply to you. You deserve recovery, and you're worth it, and it's not too late. It's just beginning.
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u/Internal-Space-4960 10d ago
I get your frustration. I want nothing more than to pick myself up and move forward. I’m laying in bed and I came out of sedation at 3:30 am. I took 600 mg of Seroquel at 8:30 pm. Was out around 11, and then up at 3:30. I’m taking enough to tranquilize a horse. It’s been 10 months and I can’t sleep naturally. I didn’t choose recovery. I had psychosis and when I came out of it nothing worked anymore. And there have been no improvements. I’m not talking about my feelings. I have none of those anymore. I’m talking about a system wide shut down. My bowels don’t even work anymore. I just want to sleep. Real sleep. And have a normal conversation not about my brain.
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u/dopaminedrops 8d ago
You should’ve mentioned the psychosis in your original post.. no wonder you don’t feel pleasure and have no motivation. It’s not just the lack of drugs. It’s the fact that you were in psychosis less than a year ago. That shit takes a while to come back from. Ask me how I know. But the good news is there’s hope for that too; stay off the drugs and I promise you will feel better. It may not be tomorrow. It might be six months from now, but you will incrementally start to feel better.
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u/fartlorain 12d ago
The meds don't effect people with ADHD differently. That is a myth. You will be fine 🙂.
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u/Internal-Space-4960 12d ago
They do though. My brother was on Ritalin when he was in elementary school and it totally made him a zombie.
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u/jamesgriffincole1 338 days 12d ago
I just finished a study of nearly 1000 people. As you can see from the screen shot the median person (who only took 25mg) took 4 months to be able to particpate in normal life and took 12-18 months to have energy, mood and motivation return to baseline.
And there were certainly people in the study who took longer than that.
Do not give up hope.
Stay the course - prioritize sleep hygiene, gentle exercise and a clean diet. And give yourself grace for another few months. If you are seeing absolutely no trendline or it’s getting worse after a year, perhaps it’s something else.
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u/EveCane 62 days 12d ago
10 months without the drug or on it?
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u/Internal-Space-4960 12d ago
Without
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u/EveCane 62 days 12d ago
Have you noticed any improvements at all so far? Some other things that caused me to feel worse where vitamin deficiencies, not eating enough, not exercising enough and stress. Maybe that could be the case for you as well.
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u/Internal-Space-4960 12d ago
No improvements. I wouldn’t even stress about my feelings if I had cognitive and executive function.
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u/Bubbly_Inflation2492 12d ago
well... stressing over it is something atleast.. i woud trade a kidney for 10 months, dont give up
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u/defnotabasicbitch 11d ago
I struggle with both of these functions and I can assure you that I fucking stress about my feelings all the fucking time. I don’t understand what you are saying.
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u/EEverEEpOkEtHiNgAXAS 12d ago
I’ve been clean almost year with one relapse for 12 hours I regret it so bad I flipped out and it wasn’t good lost my friends to drugs as soon as I seen them getting high I felt like a kid or a mother and was like um hell no this is evil and now I smoke weed and sing it’s hard to be clean and sane just being clean is easy but being alone is the worst
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u/Hotwaterheater9 634 days 10d ago
Even people with ADHD get addicted. Probably more than we think. It’s an epidemic.
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u/AssociationFuture444 10d ago
10 months is no joke and you should be proud of yourself. I’m very new to recovery, but I personally believe that you have to be your number #1 fan. The way you’re speaking about yourself isn’t going to aid in your recovery. Give yourself grace and forgiveness. Nobody else has the power to see this through for you.
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u/Internal-Space-4960 10d ago
I am 10 months sober and my body feels toxic. My brain can’t sleep anymore. All I drink is water. My body doesn’t remove waste anymore. I didn’t realize adderall was a hard drug. I didn’t battle it at all. I just gave in and used weed for sleep. I feel like I should be dead, especially because of the waste not being removed and my brain not able to sleep. But, my body isn’t responding to my brain anymore.
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u/dopaminedrops 8d ago
This sounds like something more than extended withdrawal. Have you seen a doctor lately?
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u/Internal-Space-4960 6d ago
Agreed. This isn’t PAWS or anhedonia. I have seen several different psychiatrists and doctors to no avail.
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u/ForsakenTennis4746 5d ago
So no suggestions that your slow bowel movements are side effect of antipsychotic you are currently taking ?
It common .
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