Hey SwampFox, really sorry to hear you're going through all of this, but I'm glad to see that things are starting to turn around for you.
How has your communication with your parents been since the initial post? When I experienced mental issues in the past my tendency was always to withdraw from my family. I would convince myself that by letting them know what I was experiencing, they would somehow make things worse for me. How do you think your family would react if you showed them that original post you wrote?
I haven't withdrawn from my family....completely.
My parents know of the situation entirely. However, there are something they do not know, but they know most of the advanced details as I've shared it with them. Things like the "talking to other people from within myself" they don't know. I don't see any reason to share it with them for a couple reasons. I don't know if this really happened or not, and it would worry them immensely. Since it's not endangering me or someone else (as far as I'm aware anyways) I don't believe it necessary to share
Don't take this the wrong way, but what is the reason for the adderall? I would think that would make someone with bipolar disorder with psychotic symptoms worse. Anyways glad that you're doing better.
Adderall is prescribed for ADHD symptoms, but my lack of motivation, lack of focus, lack of short-term memory, impulsiveness, defiance towards authority is far more severe than anyone with ADHD in my opinion. Most people with ADHD can't motivate themselves to do anything that requires mental activity and when they're forced to (like in school) they can't focus on it, and therefore are literally unable to do it. Dopamine (which exists in much lower quantities all over the brain) has different functions in different places.
While Dopamine is the primary excitatory neurotransmitter in the frontal lobe, it's effects are inhibitory in the cerebellum. The cerebellum is responsible for muscle movement and because the cerebellum is overexcited (by this lack of Dopamine), this causes overstimulation of the muscles which is what results in the hyperactivity seen in ADHD patients. But I'm getting of track here.
My point is, people with ADHD can't perform work that requires you to sit down and direct your focus towards it, however, they can almost always do work that is primarily stimulus-response. Such as playing video games, eating, doing anything they enjoy really. So they can usually get out of bed, and have a life. Granted their symptoms will decrease their quality of life, but they can still have one none-the-less.
I have been unable to have a life for the past couple of years. My motivation is so deficient that it takes me an hour or more to motivate myself to even get out of bed (even though I've woken up). Almost everyone I tell that to says something like "Everyone has that, deal with it, get over it." by this is something that's so severe....I'm sure no one else has the kind of dismotivation I have. To give you an example, I can't even get out of bed to do basic, required, functioning. I've actually peed in my bed before because I've had no motivation to get up and use the bathroom.
And that happens to me
everyday! In fact, for that problem specifically, I have to keep a bottle next to my bed that I can pee in because otherwise - I'll wet my bed.
I'm also unable to even do activities that I enjoy! I literally sit on the floor and stare at my wall until I get the motivation to do something when I get out of bed.
For three years I've been life has been like this! I can't deal with it anymore, I just can't! Thus my Adderall use.
Adderall changed my life, when I was prescribed Adderall,
it gave me my life back! With Adderall I'm actually able to function to some extent. I keep my morning Adderall dose right next to my bed so when I wake up, I can take it and lay there until it kicks in and I can get out of bed. Adderall makes it so; instead of getting out of bed two or more hours after I wake up, I can get up within twenty minutes.
Adderall allows me to do things with my day. I'm actually able to do chores and homework. Hell! I'm actually able to go to school for christ sake! I can't otherwise!
But with all of that being said, Adderall does potentiate my psychotic symptoms. I experience hallucinations and slight delusions no matter what. However, Adderall makes my hallucinations slightly worse, allows me to have worse delusions and makes the possibility of paranoia a problem. I know normally this is a huge red flag and they would stop Adderall immediately if a patient exhibited these symptoms. Adderall does, also, make my mood a bit more unstable. Because of this, I experience more intense depression and anxiety on Adderall.
However, my Lamotrigine is able to stop 60% of these symptoms. Lamotrigine actually tames my hallucinations, on Adderall, to below where they would be if I wasn't on Adderall and only Lamotrigine. Lamotrigine stabilizes my mood a ton and while it can't stop severe anxiety once it's started, it can prevent.....I'd say...80% of it. I also have a huge decrease in paranoia and delusions when taking Lamotrigine and Adderall in combination upon other things.
It's incredibly odd - Lamotrigine potentates Adderall and Adderall potentates Lamotrigine. They do much better in combination than either one alone. On Adderall alone, I can actually experience an increase in symptoms (sometimes) because it can make me obsessive. Therefore, I obsess about what it ever it is and then I get nothing done and then, on top of that, I'm having bad anxiety due to the obsession. However, on Lamotrigine, it stops all of this and makes the focus inducing effects a lot stronger because it eliminates a lot of depression - therefore, I'm much more able to direct my focus into what needs to be done then what I want to do.
Oh I forgot to mention, Adderall increases my ability to function socially. Normally, people find me offensive because I get impulsively angry, have to impulsively interrupt what's going on, and I impulsively point out all the flaws of everyone around me. Upon that, I'm incredibly defiant towards authority. I will argue with people for the sake of arguing with people. About things that have no point either, just because I want to be right. While Adderall doesn't change the fact I want to be right, I won't interrupt things, I won't be rude for no reason, and I'll rarely fight with authority. Adderall can increase my impulsiveness (not really on Lamotrigine) but it amazingly decreases my
social impulsiveness.
I'm able to function way better with....well....everyone! I have a way better relationship with my parents because of Adderall, I have a way better relationship with my siblings because of Adderall, and I'm actually able to make and keep friends. I still have no friends I can ask to hang out, but at least it makes it so there are people at school that I can sorta hang-out with at school.
Adderall does have it's side-effects, however, Lamotrigine decreases a lot of it and I believe for the time being, the positives are outweighing the negatives. I can either be on Adderall and have some increased psychotic symptoms but be able to function in my life, or not take Adderall and not function in life at all and still have psychotic symptoms.
I can't make heads or tails of this but something seems 'off'. You're describing the symptoms of schizophrenia to a T and you're describing life the way someone with schizophrenia would... except your executive function (at least from what I can gauge through your posts) seems fine.
For a year or a bit more I thought for sure I has Schizophrenia because I had all the emotional issues of it, but very few of the cognitive issues. However, when I meant three people with Schizophrenia when I was forced into inpatient treatment, I changed my mind. These people were.....crazy (no offense to anyone who's Schizophrenic).
I'm not crazy, at least I don't think so entirely. I'm still able to think logically and I recognize pretty well what's normal and what isn't. I've still held my grasp on reality....somehow. I don't how, but I've done it. I'll also mention that I'm one of the most logical thinkers I know. In fact, I don't think in the same way other people do.....which is one of the signs of a psychotic illness, but what I mean by this is; I think in a very different way than other people. I over analyze situations and events...to an extreme extent - which is both a curse and a gift. This allows me to think "out of the box."
For some reason, I can think on the fly in an amazing way. I can do something I've never seen someone else with. I can almost literally see things in slow motion. I can see things happen before they do...
I just realized how delusional that sounds which kind of worries me, but let me explain a bit better. This "slowing down of time" allows me to assess a situation in full depths and I can very accurately interpret how situations will turn out. I guess it's not literally seeing the future, but I can almost always predict what's going to happen because I can realize all the possibilities of the situation and determine which one is most likely to happen. And I can do this in milliseconds.
I think this is what causes a ton of my anxiety now that I think about it. Since I can see what's going to happen, I can see very early into a situation if it's going to turn out bad or not. If it is, I can see that and worry about it because I know it's going to happen.
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On a side note, I read an incredibly interesting compilation of studies by the famous Oliver Sachs. He's literally an expert on Parkinsons Disease.
I display a lot of symptoms of Parkinson's disease. My muscles shake all the time and I can't control how shaky the get sometimes. Actually...wow.....I have nearly all the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease....
I have tremors, depression, apathy, anxiety, decreased movement, a state of indifference (a ton of the time), impulse control problems... Also, without Adderall I've always had horrible daytime daytime drowsiness. In fact it's so bad that one of my previous psychiatrists thought, for sure that I had Narcolepsy. I've had a lot of issues in REM sleep (sleep paralysis, intense vivid dreams, etc...) and awful insomnia.
Holy crap.......I also have incredibly oily skin all the time and I'm constantly sweating. My skin gets so oily, in fact, that I can taste it and it gets EVERYWHERE. I have to wear plastic gloves sometimes so my computer peripherals don't become covered in grease. I also get spouts of bad nystagmus and vertigo.
I have prominent symptoms of Psychotic symptoms—hallucinations or delusions (as said above in detail). My eyes are always dry and they get so dry sometimes that I have to close them or it gets intensely painful. I've had blurry vision forever. I have bad bowel issues, I'm either constipated all the time or have diarrhea. It alternates between weeks. But my stool is never not diarrhea or not small balls because of constipation. this gives me awful stomach pain most days that isn't fixed with antacids and is only slightly helped by H2 antagonists.
Anyways, I have 99% of them. This was an eye opener for me. I wonder a couple things now.
To explain the information about Oliver Sachs; I was going to explain it more detail, but this post already got incredibly long and I highly doubt anyone will read this anyways. But, I read an incredibly interesting phenomena in one of his most recent books about people who have Parkinson's disease and display psychotic symptoms identical to that of Schizoid diseases, but have only limited cognitive functional issues. This phenomena, he noted, is incredibly rare, but it was observed in a couple patients he treated.
Because I have nearly all the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, maybe this could be an explanation? It would explain why Adderall decreases my muscle tremors and stops my extremely bad fibromyalgia (neuropathic pain) issues. I would also explain why I get such awful restless legs and why Adderall decreases that so well.
I wonder if I should get tested for parkinsons....at least if it comes up negative, I can rule that out. This also makes me wonder if I should be on L-DOPA (I wonder if that would help better).
There can also be other dangers of Parkinsons if I remember correctly. I should probably get an MRI now that I think about it. There is obviously something going on with my brain that isn't understood.
It sounds like you've developed light schizophrenia. All I can say is get off prescribed meds completely, I know too many people who are prescribed to bullshit, including adderal and have lost touch of reality. May the God in you help your well being.
I don't think so.
I cannot function off of my prescribed meds. I have a feeling you would say "this is caused because your meds made it so you can function without them"; well no. I've had all my symptoms since I was a small child and never took any medication (except my Asthma inhaler) for years. I only started my intense medication therapy a year or two ago.
Getting off my meds isn't an option. Adderall
is not the issue, even though the media loves to place the blame on it. In fact, stimulant drugs are THE MOST WELL TOLERATED DRUGS ON THE MARKET! I'm dead serious about that. Stimulants have the highest success rate of any drugs out there (with a success rate near 70%) and rarely produce such negative symptoms.
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TL;DR - Acknowledging that my executive functioning isn't impaired in terms of reality control. Possible delusions of superpowers, however. Explanation of stimulant use and acknowledgment of side-effects, but positive effects that I believe to outweigh the negative. Acknowledging the possibility of psychotic Parkinson's Disease since I have so many symptoms of it.
I know the post is long and I'm really sorry about that. Please read some of it at least to better understand what's going on. I'd really love input on everything I said, but since the post is so long I bet that'll scare most people away...
