testingpurposes
01-28-09, 03:25 PM
(Before I end up mucking this all up with pointless details and long partially related stories I'll give you the main jist.)
Adderall, decreases the amount of random thought introduction in my mind 10 fold, but makes me too socially, and emotionally inhibited unless it's thoughts centered around anxiety or worry. To use an analogy my mental car drives FAST in a straight line as opposed to swerving randomly. However the direction of travel is not up to me.
Dose: 15mg twice a day (have tried 5 and 10)
Have Co-Administered: L-Tyrosine and DLPA
At Night: 250mg of Magnesium Asparatate, 1-2g EPA DHA fish oil, B complex, C, and Zinc.
Co-Morbid Conditions: Social Anxiety, Depression, and Possibly OCD... I say possibly because I'm a perfectionist, I outline words and numbers on paper all day, have to touch things, and sometimes have to straighten the oddest items into lines etc. Basically, I'm all messed up.
Another thing you should know is that I smoke marijuana fairly regularly (once a night... Although I recently cut back to just weekends.) Small amounts enhance my focus/mood, and large quantities bring my hyperfocus to a level above the ability complete relatively simple tasks. The big picture vanishes completely and I enter a state similar to ritalin. All of the above conditions were present before I started (1.5 years ago) with the additions of generalized anxiety and panic attacks.
I take my blood pressure, and have noted that marijuana even in small amounts raises diastolic 10-15 points, as well as heart rate 20-50 bpm. This is exagerated further when combined with amphetamines, which alone at dosage levels raise BP 10 points across the board. In other words, I do not combine the two.
Prior to trying adderall I was using Methylphenidate (rit) which made me not want to think, prefering to sit still and pre-ocupy my empty head with simplistic visual and auditory stimulus.
Effects I've noted:
The best and only way I've measured adderall's positive effects have been with video games (which I do not play on my own, or frequently). My friends often have matches of Halo 3. Without adderall I am frequently useless after the first match. After my mind has "captured" the idea of the game it reverts to internal thoughts and I just run around in straight lines without a plan getting picked off to the irritation of my friends. With adderall I am actively involved for hours and perform much better. I haven't really noticed this with work.
Focus: Before I get into all the negatives, let me state that my mind on adderall is a calm ocean.. a clear perfectly even slate of glass. This is totally different from my Frantic nature of having 10,000 thoughts at once and no outlet for any. With snowboarding this focus seems to turn to overreaction to my
Inhibition - This is the biggest double edged sword... Absolutely... Which is why I fear I may be untreatable. On adderall if something is visually available (like an internet tab open on another monitor that's still more interesting) I'll be less likely to click.. but if I do I'll latch onto that instead of my current task. If this option is not visually available It won't get in my head to start... Clear headedness is almost confusing to me.
Multi-tasking - The second biggest issue. In essence my brain just seems to grab everything and tries to follow down the path. When I'm not on Adderall I multi-task like crazy. This can be frustrating when the number of ideas I'm trying to see through to fruition exceeds the available working memory. My overall productivity may be low but I get a little bit done in many areas. Adderall seems to make me unable to multi-task. I'll start a project and just LATCH onto it. Road bumps become wall climbs that I waste way too much time on. Normally if I get stuck I switch topics quickly.. far too quickly. This issue is exagerated because of my anti-social nature when on adderall. I simply will not go to the source to ask for help.
Humor - Much less... I don't laugh at the little things, and can't seem to find the "funny" anymore. This is exagerated by the introduction of DLPA and L-Tyrosine.
Socialization - Haha.. Well there's the humor. Unless I'm under the influence of the very short lived euphoric effects I do not want to talk to anyone verbally. This may be due to the next effect.
Language - My sentences become short and unpleasent when spoken, and take forever to complete when written. I'm not sure if this is because of anxiety or what, but they never look right and require 2, 3, 4 revisions that seem to make it worse. It's as if the normal vast vocabulary is wittled down significantly. Substitutions such as tale and tail become more frequent.
Ugh... I don't even know if this is accurate. Like I was saying I have a really hard time self evaluating. I wish there was a form available to measure the effectiveness, as the potential categories seem endless, and each one is divided into infinitesmally small details... Just trying to determine how well or poorly adderall is working stresses me out.
God I hope nobody reads this whole things... Looks like adderall is disabling my "terminate idea" algorithm again.
Adderall, decreases the amount of random thought introduction in my mind 10 fold, but makes me too socially, and emotionally inhibited unless it's thoughts centered around anxiety or worry. To use an analogy my mental car drives FAST in a straight line as opposed to swerving randomly. However the direction of travel is not up to me.
Dose: 15mg twice a day (have tried 5 and 10)
Have Co-Administered: L-Tyrosine and DLPA
At Night: 250mg of Magnesium Asparatate, 1-2g EPA DHA fish oil, B complex, C, and Zinc.
Co-Morbid Conditions: Social Anxiety, Depression, and Possibly OCD... I say possibly because I'm a perfectionist, I outline words and numbers on paper all day, have to touch things, and sometimes have to straighten the oddest items into lines etc. Basically, I'm all messed up.
Another thing you should know is that I smoke marijuana fairly regularly (once a night... Although I recently cut back to just weekends.) Small amounts enhance my focus/mood, and large quantities bring my hyperfocus to a level above the ability complete relatively simple tasks. The big picture vanishes completely and I enter a state similar to ritalin. All of the above conditions were present before I started (1.5 years ago) with the additions of generalized anxiety and panic attacks.
I take my blood pressure, and have noted that marijuana even in small amounts raises diastolic 10-15 points, as well as heart rate 20-50 bpm. This is exagerated further when combined with amphetamines, which alone at dosage levels raise BP 10 points across the board. In other words, I do not combine the two.
Prior to trying adderall I was using Methylphenidate (rit) which made me not want to think, prefering to sit still and pre-ocupy my empty head with simplistic visual and auditory stimulus.
Effects I've noted:
The best and only way I've measured adderall's positive effects have been with video games (which I do not play on my own, or frequently). My friends often have matches of Halo 3. Without adderall I am frequently useless after the first match. After my mind has "captured" the idea of the game it reverts to internal thoughts and I just run around in straight lines without a plan getting picked off to the irritation of my friends. With adderall I am actively involved for hours and perform much better. I haven't really noticed this with work.
Focus: Before I get into all the negatives, let me state that my mind on adderall is a calm ocean.. a clear perfectly even slate of glass. This is totally different from my Frantic nature of having 10,000 thoughts at once and no outlet for any. With snowboarding this focus seems to turn to overreaction to my
Inhibition - This is the biggest double edged sword... Absolutely... Which is why I fear I may be untreatable. On adderall if something is visually available (like an internet tab open on another monitor that's still more interesting) I'll be less likely to click.. but if I do I'll latch onto that instead of my current task. If this option is not visually available It won't get in my head to start... Clear headedness is almost confusing to me.
Multi-tasking - The second biggest issue. In essence my brain just seems to grab everything and tries to follow down the path. When I'm not on Adderall I multi-task like crazy. This can be frustrating when the number of ideas I'm trying to see through to fruition exceeds the available working memory. My overall productivity may be low but I get a little bit done in many areas. Adderall seems to make me unable to multi-task. I'll start a project and just LATCH onto it. Road bumps become wall climbs that I waste way too much time on. Normally if I get stuck I switch topics quickly.. far too quickly. This issue is exagerated because of my anti-social nature when on adderall. I simply will not go to the source to ask for help.
Humor - Much less... I don't laugh at the little things, and can't seem to find the "funny" anymore. This is exagerated by the introduction of DLPA and L-Tyrosine.
Socialization - Haha.. Well there's the humor. Unless I'm under the influence of the very short lived euphoric effects I do not want to talk to anyone verbally. This may be due to the next effect.
Language - My sentences become short and unpleasent when spoken, and take forever to complete when written. I'm not sure if this is because of anxiety or what, but they never look right and require 2, 3, 4 revisions that seem to make it worse. It's as if the normal vast vocabulary is wittled down significantly. Substitutions such as tale and tail become more frequent.
Ugh... I don't even know if this is accurate. Like I was saying I have a really hard time self evaluating. I wish there was a form available to measure the effectiveness, as the potential categories seem endless, and each one is divided into infinitesmally small details... Just trying to determine how well or poorly adderall is working stresses me out.
God I hope nobody reads this whole things... Looks like adderall is disabling my "terminate idea" algorithm again.