Ok, so I've had ADHD since I could remember (kindergarten). My mother refused to put me on any medication because she did not believe in medication, even though the teachers told her I had trouble learning at a normal rate as other children. I was held back in 1st grade, going forward to middle/high school I failed or barely passed all classes except English and Art. I was in trouble all the time because in class I could not focus on things that did not interest me, so I doodled and wrote letters to friends. This caused me to fail or barely pass classes. Now at age 28, I recently went to see a Dr. about my "problems" after I lost job after job with the same complaints from employers aka " not being able to multi-task, seeming to get irritated if interrupted, easily "stressed out", forgetting to do simple every day tasks, and the list goes on. Long story short, after consulting with my Dr., he put me on Adderall XR 30 mg, one tab a day. I am not understanding why he opted to start me on such a high dose, because of the fact that I have never been on this medication before. I have been keeping a diary of how it makes me feel. My first day was not that great....my jaws seemed to clench, which made them sore. I was overly talkative which is not normal for me ( I also have social anxiety, so I am not a very talkative person). I am completely alien to being on a medication. I do not know what is normal to experience in the first week or two. I started my medication last Wednesay. Since then it seems to have improved my focus and given me more energy, but I find that I feel this weird "high" feeling, and where some people may like this feeling, unless I have a lot of things I need to get done that day, I DO NOT like it. He told me I needed to take it every day, but I do not see the point of using this when I do not need it. Example: If I have something to do to channel my energy towards, it seems relevant, however...if I do not have any tasks to complete...I feel that it makes me feel extra irritable, anxious, and restless. I also know and understand that this medication makes you have a decreased appetite, and where I could stand to lost some weight, I am not all about starving my body of benefitial nutrients that I need to stay healthy. I know that this is an abused drug...and that people can build a tolerance/addiction to it. That scares me. I know that people abuse this drug, however, that is not my intent. I believe from what I have read that with proper diet, nutrition, exercise, and taking this medication as needed can benefit a person greatly with ADD/ADHD. I realize that a long term solution is not to stay on this medication for a long period of time, however... before I even sought medical treatment, I had already tried the self managing techniques to try to help myself (keeping a planner to remember important appointments, birthdays, bills I needed to get paid on certain days etc, writing myself "to do" lists every day that I had things I needed to get done so that I would not forget and etc), I still found myself having troubles with jobs. Getting on medication was my last resort. I always put it off till I finally felt like I needed help because dealing with this on my own became too much of a battle. I have no insurance....and I was very stressed to find that to stay on this medication, it cost me $143/month. I can not afford this...I don't know what to do. I guess I have no idea why I am even taking the time to post this on a forum discussion board. I guess I am just wondering what other people may think of what I have discussed so far, and be able to maybe give me some good advice that I have not thought of myself.