MyDoorsAreOpen
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2003
- Messages
- 8,549
Beginning this past August, I went on the second month-long Adderall binge of my entire life. To call it a binge may be a stretch, because I have never used more than an amount commonly scripted by doctors: 20mg a day. But by the end of 5 weeks, I no longer got much effect from it, and I quit. The comedown was horrific -- I was anhedonic and unable to get motivated or feel happy about anything for at least a week.
Five weeks later, I felt better. But one day I had a lot to get done, so I ended up taking 15mg of Adderall. This gave me 24 hours of feeling stimulated and strange (but not exactly euphoric), followed by an ever deeper and longer anhedonia than five weeks prior.
It's now been almost 4 weeks since then, and I still don't feel myself again. I feel like a major part of my CNS's pleasure / reward circuitry has been ripped out. I'm motivated to do the same things I used to be motivated to do, to bring myself pleasure. I still laugh at funny jokes and eat and drink and have sex. But I feel the pleasure only in my peripheral nervous system, if that makes sense. It's as if the pleasurable signals never make it all the way to my cortex. The 'really sweet' feeling of a pleasurable stimulus penetrating into the uppermost reaches of my mind is truncated.
I feel flat and calm emotionally. I'm currently doing a medical job that involves seeing patients die and consoling the loved ones of the deceased on a daily basis. I wish I could say that this has taken its toll on me emotionally, but as a matter of fact, I feel practically nothing emotionally when doing this job. I used to be an overly sensitive person who could empathize with others' pain all too readily. Now I feel completely detached from it, like it could never affect me, and like nothing could ever make me cry.
I used to be a person who felt pleasure very intensely. I was diagnosed with ADD at age 5 and some doctors think I may have Asperger's. The upshot is, I have always 'stimmed': I've always been able to generate a pleasurable mood at will just by flapping my hands, the way autistic people do. I can't generate that feeling anymore.
I've felt like this two other times. The first was when I got into Mucuna pruriens, a natural source of L-dopa. The second was after my first use of MDMA in a year this past summer, during which I definitely overheated and didn't drink enough water. Both times, I ended up in a state where pleasure felt 'blunted', like now. I'm not sure whether I gained back any ability to feel deep pleasure after these events, or whether I just adjusted to the new baseline. By the same token, I'm not sure my recent use of adderall has brought back this blunting, or whether it just continued or finished up the damage already done. I'm aware (now) that excess dopamine is neurotoxic due to the free radicals it gets broken down into.
Maybe I'm more 'normal' now. Perhaps it's a blessing that I no longer get a raw dopamine rush from my first few sips of alcohol, and that I can no longer stim. Maybe this is how people born without the mental abnormalities I was born with usually feel. But another part of me wants the old me back.
I've been taught that the dopamine pathways in the human nervous system are among its most resilient, and that any damage gets repaired over time, barring further insults. Do you think it's possible that I've done major damage to my central reward pathways? If so, do you think there's any chance I'll grow these neural pathways back to the way they once were?
I should also note that dissociatives used to completely reset my ability to feel pleasure, after drugs and other stresses diminished them. I've taken DXM now twice since this last bout with adderall, and it hasn't helped.
Five weeks later, I felt better. But one day I had a lot to get done, so I ended up taking 15mg of Adderall. This gave me 24 hours of feeling stimulated and strange (but not exactly euphoric), followed by an ever deeper and longer anhedonia than five weeks prior.
It's now been almost 4 weeks since then, and I still don't feel myself again. I feel like a major part of my CNS's pleasure / reward circuitry has been ripped out. I'm motivated to do the same things I used to be motivated to do, to bring myself pleasure. I still laugh at funny jokes and eat and drink and have sex. But I feel the pleasure only in my peripheral nervous system, if that makes sense. It's as if the pleasurable signals never make it all the way to my cortex. The 'really sweet' feeling of a pleasurable stimulus penetrating into the uppermost reaches of my mind is truncated.
I feel flat and calm emotionally. I'm currently doing a medical job that involves seeing patients die and consoling the loved ones of the deceased on a daily basis. I wish I could say that this has taken its toll on me emotionally, but as a matter of fact, I feel practically nothing emotionally when doing this job. I used to be an overly sensitive person who could empathize with others' pain all too readily. Now I feel completely detached from it, like it could never affect me, and like nothing could ever make me cry.
I used to be a person who felt pleasure very intensely. I was diagnosed with ADD at age 5 and some doctors think I may have Asperger's. The upshot is, I have always 'stimmed': I've always been able to generate a pleasurable mood at will just by flapping my hands, the way autistic people do. I can't generate that feeling anymore.
I've felt like this two other times. The first was when I got into Mucuna pruriens, a natural source of L-dopa. The second was after my first use of MDMA in a year this past summer, during which I definitely overheated and didn't drink enough water. Both times, I ended up in a state where pleasure felt 'blunted', like now. I'm not sure whether I gained back any ability to feel deep pleasure after these events, or whether I just adjusted to the new baseline. By the same token, I'm not sure my recent use of adderall has brought back this blunting, or whether it just continued or finished up the damage already done. I'm aware (now) that excess dopamine is neurotoxic due to the free radicals it gets broken down into.
Maybe I'm more 'normal' now. Perhaps it's a blessing that I no longer get a raw dopamine rush from my first few sips of alcohol, and that I can no longer stim. Maybe this is how people born without the mental abnormalities I was born with usually feel. But another part of me wants the old me back.
I've been taught that the dopamine pathways in the human nervous system are among its most resilient, and that any damage gets repaired over time, barring further insults. Do you think it's possible that I've done major damage to my central reward pathways? If so, do you think there's any chance I'll grow these neural pathways back to the way they once were?
I should also note that dissociatives used to completely reset my ability to feel pleasure, after drugs and other stresses diminished them. I've taken DXM now twice since this last bout with adderall, and it hasn't helped.
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