I'm 30 years old and have been on and off adderall for too many years to count. I have ADD but I have never taken it with the intention to improve my focus, even though it does help (sometimes, other times it's impossible to finish a task before starting 10 more), essentially I take it to lose weight. I have never been a skinny kid, always full figured (but not technically fat) and downright LOATHED exercising.
The first time I took adderall and stuck to it for weight loss purposes, I lost about 30 lbs in 3 months without exercising dieting (actually increased my soda intake as I would replace meals with it). I thrived off the compliments (even the ones that were negative) and loved my body. I can't remember why but eventually I stopped taking it and hit the gym 3 times a week with little effort and my body actually looked better, for awhile...but then I started dating my husband who actually took me out on dates and I remembered how much I loved food...and before I knew it I was at 160 lbs.
When I got engaged, I immediately went back on it and took up walking and got down to about 145 lbs by the wedding. But here's the catch - during this time, I was an emotional tornado. I had just lost my job of 7 years and started a new, highly stressful one, all while planning the wedding completely by myself. I was crying throughout most the day, every little thing would overwhelm and frustrate me, I would come home from work and rage at my husband about things that weren't actually that big of a deal. I became reclusive, chose not to participate in outings with friends and my husbands family (whom I'm very close with) and the thought of doing anything after work, even going to an ATM machine, was an enormous effort. 3 days before the wedding I stopped taking everything because I was simply done. Just done. And immediately all these things stopped! The entire year this was going on I was attributing these symptoms to the wedding planning, and my dad had convinced me I had a chemical imbalance which runs in the family.
A month after the wedding, some things went down. I won't get into details but basically I ended up being pregnant for 2 months when I was on Depo, so the fetus was dying and had to be evacuated. Twice (botched procedure). Immediately after this I started gaining weight like crazy, and eventually was switched to another new birth control, Nexplanon. Nexplanon has many different effects on many people, and a very common one was weight gain. So now I'm up to 165lbs and thoroughly miserable, and decided to go back on adderall.
Immediately since starting it up a couple of weeks ago, and I mean on the first day, I became enraged and feel as though the walls of life are closing in around me. There are days when I'm so overwhelmed by how hard life is (I REALLY hate my job but can't do anything about it due to my mortgage) that I can look at, say, a lamp and break down in hysterics thinking about how hard it was for that lamp to have been made. I feel like every little thing in life is so, SO hard, and it's already gotten to the point where I'm beyond simply wishing I didn't exist...and now thinking of ways to end it all. I don't want to label it as suicidal, because I don't think I'd ever actually go through with it...but I find myself wishing I weren't alive throughout the majority of the day. I constantly find myself thinking "what's the point of all this?!" and have scared the sh*t out of my husband with this kind of talk. He wants to have kids in a couple of years but lately my thoughts are consumed with "why should we bring kids into the world when it's such a screwed up place and they have to work for a living instead of being with their loved ones?"
I just want to know from someone if these symptoms...this anxiety, helplessness, overwhelmed feelings, are common. I don't remember these being an issue the first time. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm gaining weight even with the adderall and cutting back food intake by more than 90%. Is there a point where adderall no longer helps you lose weight?
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