I noticed a few months ago that while I don’t like taking my meds when I don’t have anything to do, I feel the desire to take my meds before going to do things with my family members. It feels like I’m less anxious and frustrated with them when I’m medicated.
I looked into it and it looks like Adderall might weakly act like an SSRI, so it might be kind of like microdosing anxiety meds.
Well, yesterday, for an unrelated reason, I decided to take an extra dose of my meds.
WARNING: DONT DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS UNLESS YOUVE TALKED TO A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL.
Don’t worry I did let my psychiatrist know before hand. This experiment was meant to just make the focus effects last the whole day by starting earlier with my other doeses and then taking two extra half doses spread out in the early evening.
Fun fact, 40mg is the max recommended dose and I ended up taking 45mg. I don’t intend to take that much ever again. It wasn’t horrible but it did feel like I passed the point of it helping me focus.
After taking the first extra half I felt my heart rate go up and I got a slight tension headache, but I felt okay enough to take the other half. I expected it to make me more tense or more jittery, but at what I assume was the peak, I felt the opposite. For the entire peak and rest of the evening, I felt just incredibly calm.
My heart rate was even lower than it typically is on meds (though still high). But the weirdest part was that I just felt calm. My muscles didn’t even feel that tense. I was not able to focus all that well, (which means 45mg is too much Adderall lol) but I was fine with that.
I didn’t feel any high or happiness, honestly I felt bored but I was just like fine with that. I didn’t feel the urge to listen to music or watch something but I also could listen to music or watch something without feeling annoyed like I do when I want some stimulation but nothing is the right stimulation.
I even scrolled on lemmy for a bit but saw it was all more trump and Elon bullshit and instead of doomscrolling compulsively I just put my phone down. I mean it was literally like Nirvana. I had no desires or happiness but honestly I was just fine with that.
Anyway, my best guess is that I took enough adderall that it started acting like anxiety meds. I do have generalized anxiety which I haven’t gotten medicated for because I still have some irrational desire to not take meds, but that’s not the topic of this post. What I want to know is do any of you feel similar calming effects from your meds?
It really seems counterintuitive for stimulants to make you less anxious. And hey Methylphenidate made me wayy more anxious than adderall. Oh, also I don’t feel any high from adderall, (especially at that dose I took last night since I got a slightly annoying stress headache). I don’t feel withdrawal either even when I take a break after a long period of constantly being on my meds. Hell I still have to force myself to take my meds every day, so I guess it’s just not giving any sort of reward to trigger habit formation. Anyway, I say all this because I’m wondering if not getting adrenaline or pleasure from the adderall is correlated with being able to notice a calming effect from it. Anyone feel like their experience supports/weakens that hypothesis?
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Yeah, actually. But weirdly, it also makes me feel way less guilt. Like, the constant self put-downs about not being as “productive” as I should be. That all got way quieter on meds. Even if I’m still not doing what I “should” it feels like a controlled choice instead of inescapable guilt-inducing procrastination.
It’s weird. I’m new to both my diagnosis and the meds, so who knows.
From what I remember about a year ago, Adderall made me feel a little strange, but the worst of it was the urinary retention. Maybe I didn’t take a high enough dose cause I only tried it for a month. I didn’t even finish the bottle. Now, I’m on Focalin after trying Ritalin for a while. It kinda feels like it turns everything down. Noises bother me less, I’m more focused, I’m less worried about what I’m doing or upsetting other people, and I’m more likely to eat. I am more calm going to places. I drive calmer. Without meds, I’m speeding, upset at everyone, can’t handle how people drive. On Focalin, I’m going 5 under wondering why everyone is in a hurry lol. Everything is kinda toned down. I don’t know why they call these things stimulants. They make me even af.
I believe it’s a mild SNRI, with a greater norepinephrine effect than serotonin.
But it’s been a while since I’ve read about it.
Also think of it this way - ADHD is a dysfunction of executive functions, kind of like the conductor for your brain has a bit of narcolepsy. So the orchestra gets chaotic when he lapses; percussion timing gets thrown off, the horns start getting louder, violins keep coming in late.
It would be near impossible to switch to another song when this is going on, and all the players are freaking out trying to stay on track with the current song.
Toss in a medication that seems to keep the conductor from falling asleep, and that chaos abates. All the players now have someone to look to for what to do next, how loudly to play, or to slow things down when the conductor gives them a sign.
When it’s time to change songs, the conductor can now say “ok, everyone, let’s play Hangout With Family”, everyone changes their sheet music and starts playing at that tempo.
The ADHD drives the anxiety in my experience. The way psychs in my area typically do things is step based, let’s treat this symptom that’s the worst, then get this under control. I had uncontrolled extreme anxiety that was causing all kinds of other problems, but I also had undiagnosed adhd into my 30’s.
After fucking around with meds for a few years, I finally found that the thing that made me THE MOST anxious, was the uncontrolled adhd. I would be ok for a while on just anti anxiety meds, but ADHD + crowds/noise/stimulus could eventually lead to a panic attack.
Long story short, I had the epiphany on an international trip. I would not take Adderall during vacations or weekends, but this time I did, and my anxiety was totally controlled while it was in effect.
When I got back to the states, I got on a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor rather than a stimulant type adhd med, cause you build that drug up in your body like an SSRI and it provides is effects consistently. This has made the biggest difference in my ability to interact with the outside world without anxiety.