Do y’all ever feel anxious about taking medication and just stop for prolonged periods of time?
I’ve stopped my meds for 6 months for reasons I’m struggling to discern… And I also have a tendency to skip doses and save my pills in a stash I never touch. I’m not even sure if most of them are useable because they’re so old… For some context, I’ve been using Adderall XR 20mg for 10 years now so I have a pretty good idea of how it affects me.
I finally took one of the newer pills today and I feel unbearably anxious about it, even before doing so. And it’s not like I’m anti-medication or anything, I’ve encouraged others to get tested and medicated because it substantially increases quality of life but there’s something about it that personally is causing distress.
Just looking for some insight with others that have felt the same.
You’re probably thinking of Guanfacine, it’s used off-label for ADHD because it seems to help some people but the mechanism is unknown.
If you’re in Australia like me, they recently passed a law that makes it so your GP can finally prescribe ADHD medication… So it might be worth asking again. Just a guess though because not many places are this brutal for diagnosing or treating our condition.
Also I had similar pill anxiety. I didn’t like how the meds affected my heart or mood, it felt like I was slowly dying. In my case even though I stopped the meds, I’ve had a taste of what being “normal” is like, and can feel the shape of ADHD and how to adjust for it if that makes sense. I also found a job which is more suited to my condition and less reliant on memory and task management.