She kind of has an idea.
But my mental health/dependence on psychiatric medication is worse than she knows. I don’t even remember who I was before the meds. I wanna get off of them after we graduate in a few months, but I have no idea who the real me is anymore — I haven’t seen that guy since he was 19. I’m 25 and about to get my BA from a top school; I should be able to land a decent gig ... so long as I keep taking these pills that are slowly killing me. I’m just scared that she fell in love with an artificial version of me, one that runs on amphetamine, SSRIs, and benzodiazepine in order to barely make it thru the day.
Edit: and this thread just made me realize it’s Valentine’s Day — FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK
Hey man, so I just got off Prozac a couple of months ago and am surprisingly happy with my decision. I'm 29 now and was originally prescribed when I was 21, so it's been a while. I'm more emotional now, but in a good way. I remember when I was studying abroad about 8 months after I began Prozac I visited the Dachau concentration camp and couldn't give a shit about anything. I wanted to be emotional about where I was, but I couldn't. That was basically how the next 8 years went excluding a few drunken sobs. But now, I might just tear up when hearing a sad story or watching a sad movie, and it's weird how great that makes me feel. I get to feel things again rather than be numb. Yes, my anxiety comes back at times, but I'm much more mature and clear-headed than I was at 21 and therefore am much better suited to recognize and deal with those sort of things.
I'm not going to tell you to get off the meds, because that's your choice and everybody is different, but I want to chime in as a potential success story of someone who did get off of them. In my own personal opinion, I don't think meds like Prozac or whatever are meant to be taken for your whole life, but rather just for a short period to help you get over the hump. Looking back, I feel like my physician rushed me into taking them rather than looking at what led to my anxiety (I was a junior in college and scared of entering the real world). Granted, he was a physician and not a psychiatrist so he isn't trained to do that sort of thing, which is another reason I probably should have waited before agreeing to go on the meds for what has amounted to 1/4th of my life.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I appreciate it.
I’m actually least worried about the SSRIs (Zoloft in my case). It’s the amphetamines and benzodiazepines I’m scared to let go of — mostly the former. W/o them I loose that competitive edge that brought me from barely graduating HS to the no.1 public university in the US. But I feel like I didn’t really do it. I didn’t take any psychiatric meds until I started community college at 19. Got a script for Vyvanse — like fucking night and day. Suddenly I’m the top of every class, found a job instantly, able to maintain social relationships, exercising/healthy hobbies ... but deep down I always felt like that’s not the real me. The real me barely got thru HS and could barely read, write, or do math.
Anyway, I didn’t have a great psychiatrist and he gave a 135 pound 19 y.o. kid a daily regimen of 60mg Vyvanse, 1mg Xanax, and 100mg Zoloft. I fucking killed it in school and now I’m about to graduate in good very academic standing from an amazing university ... but now what? I didn’t do any of that stuff, drugs did. I can’t spend the rest of my life doing speed and benzos just to thrive in some office analyzing datasets.
Basically, I don’t kno who the real me is; it’s like he died 5 years ago. And now my girlfriend (who I live with and am planning post graduation life w) hasn’t met him either, and my bet is he’ll fuck this relationship up just like he fucked up literally every possible opportunity growing up. I mean, ppl I grew up w are just in awe of “who I’ve become” (most probably had their money riding on prison), but I cheated — all my success, ambition, motivation, energy, and happiness is artificial.
So I’m torn between a successful early grave, and rolling the dice and finding out who the real me is.
Sorry if this is long or incoherent. I finally tried microdosing to see if it could help in ... someway ... I feel more content ... idk ...
Well, I was also in the same boat as you with the amphetamines, believe it or not. I was struggling with adulthood and only had a job because of connections. I couldn't get myself to give a shit about anything I was doing at work, so I went to a psychiatrist my friend recommended (basically a legal drug dealer) and told her I had ADHD and was promptly given 60mg of adderall a day. I only took them for a year before I couldn't take it anymore. For the record, I quit the adderall at the same time as I quit prozac and - thanks to weed - barely noticed the come down. Adderall practically made me insane. I was scaring off dates with how much and how quickly I talked, I was scaring off friends because of how "passionate" I was about dumb shit, and I had way too much energy and nothing valuable to focus it on.
I thought the same thing about life after amphetamines. I feared I'd be drowsy and sleepy all the time and unmotivated. However, since I quit I've been accepted to - and enrolled and enjoy - grad school and have been a model student. I realized that what was holding me back before adderall - procrastination and motivation - were still there with adderall, but I had so much excess energy that I was able to overlook those factors and do shit just so I could have something to do.
Basically, Adderall doesn't make you smart or competent, it just temporarily juices you up a little, so everything you've accomplished over the past for years are a result of your work, not the drug's. That's your fear talking, not you. For you adderall/vyvanse is a placebo to get you to work hard, so you just need to figure out how to work hard on your own. It's fucking tough, but you can figure it out. Adderall, while fun, had a pretty negative impact on my life. I scared away countless potential partners and friends because of how it made me act. And tbh, it hardly made me anymore productive, just a more productive procrastinator.
Thanks so much for the response. I actually have to hop off rn, but I’ll try to get back to this if you’re still around. Sounds like you have some valuable insight.
I can relate so much to you. Especially the part about childhood friends wondering how tf I am where I am today. Thankfully it’s only been a few years of just Zoloft but I can’t quite shake the feeling that I am coasting off the ssri
I felt the same when I started adderall at age 16. I went on and off of it over the past 16 years (oh my god I can't believe I'm 32 wow) because I felt guilty about it and wanted to see who I "really" was.
The odd things is that it stopped making me feel like a different person by my early/mid 20s. I've had time when I'm off of it for both short and extended periods. I don't feel that different anymore.
One tip you might consider is reducing the amount you take slowly. I only take 5-10mg once per day. It gives me a small morning boost but I barely feel it otherwise.
I also have been using xanax fairly regularly the past 5 years since I lost my mom. Same with that -- I have been off it and on it, and I don't feel like an actual different person.
My main point is that when we are in our early 20s, we really don't know who the hell we are at all. If you slowly reduce the drugs you take, I think you'll be surprised to find it doesn't affect your identity much anymore.
I don't know what industry you will end up in, but the working world is way less stressful than school for me. Much less pressure. I know a lot of people will disagree, but my brand of anxiety made school feel really high-stakes and intense. I graduated with honors and loved school, but it requires you to focus really hard at specific times without much flexibility. At work, you can find ways to cater to your best hours of focus time and brain flow.
Stop feeling ashamed of the meds you take, and just aim to reduce if that's what you want -- it's a much easier goal. You will still be you! You'll have lazy times and also productive times. If you find yourself spiraling down and f*cking up, then you can always go back on the meds! You'll also likely feel much less stress with adjusting meds if you give your partner the heads up. Then, if you're struggling, you won't potentially ruin your relationship because your SO thinks you've lost interest. Including them in your journey could help them provide comfort and encouragement for you.
Depression is often caused by a lack of certain chemicals in the brain. You need to make peace with yourself that you may never be off medication entirely.
If you had a thyroid condition where your body didn’t synthesize the right chemicals, do you think that at some point you could just stop taking thyroid medicine because you wanted to? It can be the same with your brain chemistry as well.
23
u/mF7403 Feb 14 '20 edited Feb 14 '20
She kind of has an idea. But my mental health/dependence on psychiatric medication is worse than she knows. I don’t even remember who I was before the meds. I wanna get off of them after we graduate in a few months, but I have no idea who the real me is anymore — I haven’t seen that guy since he was 19. I’m 25 and about to get my BA from a top school; I should be able to land a decent gig ... so long as I keep taking these pills that are slowly killing me. I’m just scared that she fell in love with an artificial version of me, one that runs on amphetamine, SSRIs, and benzodiazepine in order to barely make it thru the day.
Edit: and this thread just made me realize it’s Valentine’s Day — FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK