Has anyone experienced loss of executive functioning after drug/antidepressant use?

[blackchantilly]

I'm just wondering if anyone has noticed a loss of cognitive/executive functioning after drug use, and if so after what type of drugs? Or if anyone has noticed loss of executive functioning while taking antidepressants or after taking them.



If you don't know what executive functioning is:

"Executive function is a set of mental processes that helps connect past experience with present action. People use it to perform activities such as planning, organizing, strategizing, paying attention to and remembering details, and managing time and space."

""What Are the Warning Signs of Executive Function Problems?

A student may have problems with executive function when he or she has trouble:

Planning projects
Comprehending how much time a project will take to complete
Telling stories (verbally or in writing), struggling to communicate details in an organized, sequential manner
Memorizing and retrieving information from memory
Initiating activities or tasks, or generating ideas independently
Retaining information while doing something with it, for example, remembering a phone number while dialing"

Taken from: http://www.ncld.org/types-learning-...function-disorders/what-is-executive-function

I have noticed that after i stopped abusing cocaine (used regularly for 1 1/2 years), ketamine (daily for 3 months), ecstasy (occasionally for 4 years) i was losing things all the time, i'd forget things all the time, i couldn't socialize normally anymore. That seemed to improve a bit over time, but i have taken ssris for 2 1/2 years since and i have noticed that i am finding it increasingly difficult to work, follow instructions, get things done, organize, think. I have lost 2 jobs in the last 2 months because i kept making mistakes and this have never ever happened to me before..
I also smoked pot regularly for 4 years (always became paranoid) , and have drink alcohol regularly (often binging) for 8 years. All the drug use was in my teenage years.

Anyone have any insights or experience with this?

 

[opium]

Yessssssss.

I have been an addict (In recovery now)
i used opiates, and cocaine the most out of all drugs i took. Benzos were a choice as well.

After fully coming into recovery for the second time in my life i notice a lot of what your saying.

I lose things regularly, even moments after putting something down.
I work for a disposal company, i cannot remember routes for the life of me.
When we go out for a route, ill know everywhere were going to stop, still have not the slightest clue how long ill be gone for.

Socially, i dont enjoy anything as much as a i used to, and if i want to tell a story, made up or from memory, my thought process just isnt there. i cant remember most of the events. If someone fell down the stairs and you ask me what happened, all i can say is they fell..im not really sure how, where, when..just that they fell.

Sounds like a lot of this is average of drug abuse, but i think the disorder your describing goes in depth of normal effects of drug use. It Really sucks man to be honest with you..

But i hope the best for you, and how long have you been clean from drugs for? If it was a short amount of time maybe you just need more time to regain all your functions. and are you clean currently from alcohol? or still abuse it? that can also cause problems with brain function.

 

[tackyspiral]

i think most of us posting in TDS have probably experienced this to some degree however it is my opinion that the longer you give your brain to recover the closer it will be to fully functional (your brain pre drugs)
also there have been studies done showing certain drugs such as mdma can be more damaging than others
as for me i am a little worried sometimes that i am not as sharp as i used to be... but i can only go forward...

another important aspect is age... if all the drug use was in your teenage years then you may be young enough to bounce back fully

 

[Foreigner]

I'm a social misfit but always have been. Drug use just showed me why. I tend to form long-term and meaningful friendships with other misfits at this point (whether they do drugs or not). I just find the mainstream really boring and a lot of people don't seem real to me in their interactions. The common course of topics people talk about hold almost no interest to me. I was paranoid that drugs were amplifying my anti-social tendencies, but really not much changed. I've always been sensitive to the masses.

My long term memory is still as sharp as ever, but I owe that to it being photographic. I can remember details from a room I walked into 10 years ago. Short term memory can be a bit of a problem though and that is definitely from years of drug use/abuse.

I've experienced executive function difficulties on SSRIs. It just put my brain in a fog so that it was harder to think clearly, and I was emotionally numb so intuition was harder to listen to.

 

[pillboxskid]

I can relate to a lot of the symptoms you describe.But i was diagnosed at the age of 25 as having residual A D H D .The short term memory effects especially my long term memory is surprisingly good though!!!!

 

[tackyspiral]

^ i guess everyone is diff but antis and abilify put me into a deeper fog i dunno that stuff scares me its wierd

 

[Black Rabbit of Inle]

I found I had this problem before I started taking drugs. My short term memory is fucked, but my long term is perfect. I can't remember directions but if I have walked somewhere before I'll never get lost going there again, but I couldn't tell you how to get there. I put things down only to search for 10mins+ trying to find them a second later. Planning for work goes out the window unless it's written somewhere I'll see it ever 5 mins. I don't do stocktake anymore because I get lost halfway through and forget what I have already counted. Ordering is done by other staff. I pretty much work on muscle memory because I can't forget how to cook the menu, but if you asked me how it's done I couldn't tell you.

 

[chrisalt]

I do not have any insight to your problem but after alot of MDMA use (around 5 pills a week for 4 years) I tried to commit suicide. Which i would never try to do i dont want life the the privilege or satisfaction of me killing myself.

Btw any Anti D i ever tried SSRI or SNRI fucked me up really bad. The 2 that didnt gave me sexual side effects that were not ok lol.

 

[tackyspiral]

sometimes i worry i did permanent damage when i overdosed specifically
i just feel like a retard lately i have like anti attention span... i used to love reading books now i cant focus
i cant even read a post on bluelight if its too long
i am scared i wont be able to finish my final projects this semester

 

[lars90]

Puhh this is a tough one. I dont know if I have ever experinced that before. Thats more of a long term memory damage. I have had only short term memory damge where I coulnt rember what I was thinking or I was just looking at a tv program change dthe channal and right away forgot what I was watching before. Its intresting because now I relize why that happend and what it could have been. The same effkt happens when you go somewhere in your house and you forgot why you went their. Because you brain works a little like a file cabnit. Every room counts as a file and as soon as you leave the room you were in that file is put back into the file cabnit in the file for the next room is taken out. My recall ability must have been damaged. But its all back now.
Sorry for listing that but I though it might have been a intresting thing to think about. Because basicly in some ways is the same you what your talking about is losing the ability to just receave information without thinking about it. What happend to me was losing the abilty to sort it. So I mean I guess its pretty close. Feel free to start an argument if you dissagree