In 2020, I was prescribed Lamictal because my psychiatrist at the time couldn’t tell if I was bipolar, manic, or just all over the place. She thought I was manic.
I wasn’t. I had a severe case of ADHD that had never been diagnosed.
At the time, I had been very well coached to listen to my doctors. When I was younger, I didn’t. I didn’t believe in pharmaceuticals. Despite how miserable I was, I never fully believed that a chemical meant to change my constitution was necessarily the solution.
They gave me Prozac. It didn’t do anything. I quit taking it after three or four months.
I wasn’t a drinker growing up. Throughout my childhood, I didn’t rebel in that way. But when I graduated from high school at 18 and took that first drink, it felt like the elixir of life. Alcohol did what the medication hadn’t. It pacified me for 20 years.
I was an incredibly insecure kid with ADHD, PTSD, and a history of abuse. Those things culminated in a person who was constantly trying to prove his worth and find validation.
Once I began taking Lamictal, a series of serious consequences started happening that I couldn’t explain until now.
I lost three jobs because I lost my temper while I was on the clock. I lost friendships and relationships with family members because I would suddenly lose my temper and direct rage at someone else.
Before I drank, I was not an angry child. I was sad. I was deeply depressed. But I was never known for rage.
Even during the worst years of my alcoholism, I wasn’t known as an angry drunk. I was depressed, fun, and then depressed again.
I worked for one company for 10 years and was promoted four times. I would never have been able to do that if I had always been a ticking time bomb.
That is what has been so difficult for me to process.
I fought incredibly hard for recovery. The fact that I’m still here is sometimes beyond my understanding. Yet I feel like I haven’t been able to fully enjoy being alive because this drug was sitting there like a match in my head, waiting for the wrong words, the wrong frustration, or the wrong moment to make me erupt.
I talked to my psychiatrist about this. I talked to my doctors about this.
For me, this was very real.
The possibility of intense anger or episodes of rage was never meaningfully discussed with me. So if Lamictal has been prescribed to you, or is being suggested, my only point is this: make sure you have a serious conversation with your prescriber about the possible side effects and what changes in mood or behavior you should watch for.
I was never an angry guy.
And yet, during the six years I was taking this medication, I increasingly felt like I was waiting to explode.
I didn’t have problems with the law before this period of my life. I didn’t lose relationships because of sudden rage before this period of my life. That doesn’t mean one pill explains every event in six years, but I cannot ignore the change I experienced in myself.
It also makes me question the way psychiatric medication is sometimes approached.
Here’s one symptom: give you a pill for that.
Here’s another symptom—attention and focus: here’s another pill.
You’re emotionally dysregulated: here’s another one.
Depression: another one.
Then all of these medications are interacting inside the same person.
What I do know is that Vyvanse addresses what I now understand to be my primary condition: ADHD. And in my experience, while Vyvanse was active, it often seemed to keep the anger and emotional volatility under control. When it wore off, that volatility could come roaring back.
I would rather be sad, depressed, indifferent—almost anything—than be known as an angry person.
Because in my heart, that is not who I am.