Posted by zarathustra on August 3, 2010, at 22:01:10
This just may be the most important question of my many years involved with psychotropics, diagnoses, psychiatrists, and despair!
I will attempt to compress the history as best as I can. I am addicted to Dexedrine and have been for years, it was originally prescribed for ADD. In the last six months I have been trying to address the addiction and get help: treatment and counselling, cocaine anonymous. The biggest road block to my recovery has been the paradoxical fact that the only time I am motivated and focused enough to deal with the problem is when I am taking Dexedrine. When I am not on it I miss appointments, dont goto meetings, cant return telephone calls or even see I have a problem, I despair that I need Dexedrine to function "normally". When I take it I am on the ball with recovery, writing out my thoughts and feelings, reading, planning. I have always asked profs am I addicted to Dexedrine? Or the way it positively treats my ADD? and its been tough because how am I supposed to find motivation to quit a drug I am addicted to and abuse which has so many positive impacts in my life?
Then today the answer HIT ME! I was also diagnosed with social-anxiety-disorder years ago: I think the Dexedrine is masking the SAD and THAT accounts for my inability to want to stop taking it. And its NOT as I believed, treating ADD.PLEASE fellow babblers, give me input and feedback on my epiphany today!
The reason I have persisted in abusing it and resisted stopping for years was that I was so convinced that it was medicating ADD, and addicted to the productivity it provided.Today I realized that the focus, concentration, anticipation of success, and motivation to leave the house and complete tasks were not resulting from treated ADD symptoms: they were resulting from a greatly lessened fear of rejection and social anxiety!
It may even be the case that I dont have ADD and never have, as I have always gauged the accuracy of the diagnoses of my response to the medication, which perhaps has been merely masking SAD the whole time.I hope I have conveyed my thoughts correctly enough for you to understand. If not please ask for more details. If I am right this changes a hell of alot, and many years of misery.
Is it common for stimulants to mask symptoms of SAD, while totally misleading the user into believing the response is their ADD is being treated?
poster:zarathustra
thread:957131
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100731/msgs/957131.html