Good for you! I hope you both are beginning to feel better.
2 Likes
As someone who’s made the mistake of hanging on to responsibilities that were no longer mine as a way of clinging to the past, kudos on moving on. You’ve been through your personal year of hell and now you get to focus on relationships with people who don’t take you for granted. As my hippy sister likes to say, sending you some good vibes 
13 Likes
You can still take me for granted, as long as there is ice cream 
9 Likes
Hmmm, should we start an ice cream company called Forgranted?
12 Likes
Or just rename rocky road?
9 Likes
I know we’re not even half-way through 2016 yet, but…
4 Likes
I reduced my ADHD medication a week ago after some big mood spikes. Now I don’t want to kill myself anymore, but I think my wife wants to kill me (I’ve been completely zoned out and my concentration has been significantly lower since I lowered the dosage - worse than before I started). It’s like I have a choice between being able to tolerate my life and others being able to tolerate me. I have crafted the most boring life possible for myself with healthy food, sleep, supplements, scheduling, exercise, meditation, mindfulness, time outside, no triggers or distractions etc., and it still isn’t working. THIS is why I didn’t want to try medication.
Fortunately my psychiatrist comes back from holiday tomorrow, so I may be able to try something new.
19 Likes
When caught between these two choices, always remember that life insurance pays out when you’re murdered, but seldom the other way around.
On a serious note, good luck.
13 Likes
I stopped my Rx about a year ago because I ran out and didn’t have a doctor anymore. I really need to find a new doctor and go back on because I’ve noticed changes–issues that miraculously disappeared while on my Rx. I do remember that different Rx’s that I took early on either didn’t work or I had adverse effects.
So cheers to you working on this and remember that not everyone responds the same way to every Rx. I think you’ll know you’re on the correct Rx when you feel like yourself, but better because you aren’t thinking about your ADHD at all. 
eta: DAMN IT! I’ve run out of likes.
9 Likes
It may seem like I should have changed the medication earlier, but I don’t think my psychiatrist is very experienced and I find it better to have a really good idea of any comorbidities before talking about other options (especially as people’s response to different treatments can really vary and anti-depressants can make bipolar worse, if that’s what I’ve got).
The dosage I was on before is pretty good on the whole, but raise it slightly or just wait for the right trigger, and I turn into a less intelligent version of John Nash.
My personal philosophy recently has been “don’t believe anything @jsroberts tells you”. It’s been good advice.
10 Likes
There’s a thinner, more proximal line but it usually involves Zyprexa, Remeron and/or lithium. Effective, but not nearly as much fun as us Happy Mutants.
2 Likes
I was about to ask you which med you were taking but having read that incredibly apt and pithy description, I’m about 99.9999999% certain it was either amphetamine or methylphenidate.
If you haven’t tried atomoxetine (Strattera) yet, give it a shot. I found it much more helpful than either of those other two . I just had the bad luck of developing a somewhat rare (<10% incidence in trials) side-effect, otherwise I’m pretty sure I’d still be taking it.
3 Likes
I make it a point not to engage with @jsroberts.
4 Likes
I am on Strattera. It’s supposed to be good, but my side effects aren’t all that rare - for people with bipolar disorder (although it’s great for others on that spectrum). A lot of the last few months have involved identifying the side effects that are new and those which were only triggered by the medication - and this is not the first time I’ve had these “side effects” at all (I wasn’t on any medications before either). On the other hand, I don’t like self-diagnosing or taking excessive medication, so I’ve been reluctant to experiment too much or suggest different issues to my psychiatrist.
Amphetamines put me to sleep. It’s all been very counterintuitive and not what I was told to expect. I can’t make mistakes in my work, so I need to recheck it a lot because I can’t trust my judgement or concentration level on any of this medication.
4 Likes
Huh! Well, I learned something new today. Never would’ve expected Strattera to have that effect but then I’d never given much thought to its potential complications for those with a history of hypomania/mania. Thanks for sharing that. Has this occurred with other noradrenergic medications?
2 Likes
I’m not sure yet, I haven’t tried much else. Apparently these are things that can happen, but it can be worth trawling specific boards to find the people who have these symptoms. Apparently cocaine is also relaxing for some people with ADHD. Strattera doubled my pulse and increased my anxiety, which might explain some of the reactions people have had. Some people have significant personality changes on Strattera, but it can be difficult to get anything solid from all the anecdotes. My wife just described me as acting “like a scared little girl”, while others can get really aggressive (including little girls).
3 Likes
There’s honeybees under the wall furnace in my shop. I’m going to have to completely dismantle the gas furnace and cut a hole in the floor because the clever little queen bee has hidden herself behind structural framing so that there’s no other way to get at her. I refuse to cut through 100+ year old mortise and tenon framing!
On the upside, I’ve scored about a pound of beeswax and two full honeycombs out of the part of the colony that was reachable by cutting through the exterior siding.
25 Likes
My replacement debit card finally arrived (five days late) yesterday after 3-4 extremely unproductive conversations with my credit union. And it wouldn’t let me activate it yesterday so I had to call them today (since the mail comes after banking hours) and ended up having to drive all the way home during work hours (because the bank is 2 miles from my house which is 30 miles from work).
And they promised me it would be fixed today. It’s now 35 minutes after “today” and I still can’t activate it. I have shit piling up that needs my monetary attention and short of pulling out a thousand bucks and buying a pile of prepaid debit cards, I don’t have any reasonable workable way of dealing with the situation. I haven’t slept properly in two weeks due to stress. I’ve had to leave work twice in the past two weeks to deal with the situation and I’m at my wits end.
I’m going to have to call tomorrow, insist on speaking to the branch manager, and then insist that the situation be resolved in the course of that call without another drive out to the bank during business hours.
My social anxiety and general anxiety don’t make any of what I’ve gone through so far even remotely tolerable and makes my “firm but calm” plan for tomorrow all the more terrifying.
I’ve been riding anxiety attacks since last Thursday and nothing else I can say that won’t have people worrying for me too much.
Except I’m crying myself to sleep tonight.
19 Likes
11 Likes
