Hello everyone, I have had this reddit account for some time now, and since not so long I realised this is one way to help people, and to get your own voice heard.
So now, hiding this story from many of my friends and most details to my parents, I hope I can help someone get trough a hard time with my story
So I was ten years old, I was always this uninterested kid in class, my grades were a bit below average in middle school, mainly because I just didn't care to pay attention, it was boring. Soon I had to go to the doctors and they claimed I had ADD. My parents not knowing any better, got me some ritalin.
I got more quiet, less sociable, got less hungry and paid more attention in class. My writing changed and my grades got quite good.
I think this was around the time I got into high school. I was quite bad meeting new people, I was quiet, didn't care much about myself, and I was extremely bad at meeting people... whilst under the effects of ritalin. [I didn't know this at the time, but I learned it later on.]
People bullied me because I was little, smaller, and an easier target. I would people just let them walk over me, bully me, make me feel bad, they would ruin my day and I wouldn't do a thing about it. [The reason I'm telling this will come later on]
Somewhere during the summer holidays, were we got 2 months off, I got a little bit sick. Let me describe it to you, I had these weird thoughts, I just kept thinking about super negative things like dying and leaving everyone I loved behind... all the time. These thoughts made me have panic attacks, which causes me to hyperventilate very often. My mother phoned my doctor (who prescribed the Ritalin), all he said about me was
don't worry, it's all just puberty m'am, it will pass. When kids go into puberty, they either feel extremely good or extremely bad.
At the time, I did not have to knowledge to fully interpret/understand what he meant about feeling bad. But so, this was the start of my little "hell".
This is the part where I woke up and my voice went from being all girly to a grown man's voice.
From time to time, I had weird thoughts about dying, having cancer, etc. But somehow they passed whenever I took the ritalin again.
I went on a holiday to the USA, during my spring break/Easter break, - I didn't take the ritalin during holidays, yes, any holiday -, and what I noticed was... I wasn't really feeling alive. When I arrived in the usa, it all felt like everything was a dream. Imagine watching a movie extremely concentrated, then someone interrupting you or suddenly getting up. The feeling you get when you get up after being so concentrated, that's what it felt like that needed to happen, but just couldn't happen. If you don't know what I'm talking about, remember that feeling when you are dreaming and realise IN YOUR DREAM that you are dreaming? It's a bit like that. It just felt like I was dreaming all the time.
Another thing I noticed, was that I was getting more and more attached to the ritalin. I got into a new high school, and the people in my class weren't especially nice. They didn't like me very much because I was different, I was quiet. I just walked with them like the loner you remember from your class with no friends, yes, that's me. This is the moment where the addiction started to kick in, after a good 5 years I think.
There were moments where I was emptying every pocket of my jacket and backpack, multiple times, just to find a little bit of ritalin. If I didn't take it, I didn't feel good, happy nor safe.
Just after I became 16 years old, and still taking the drugs, I started experiencing suicidal thoughts. I thought something was wrong with me. Maybe I had a mental illness? Maybe I do but I just don't know about it? Still to this day, I blame the ritalin.
These thoughts really started to be overwhelming, for a about a month straight, I experienced those thoughts. Walking past a bus is really hard when your mind tells you to step on the road. This passed a month later, thanks to a some parties I went to. It sort of shook up my rythm, ... I think, I haven't really got an answer why it suddenly stopped. I still took my ritalin regularly though. And that year, I experienced every side effect I mentioned above. Whenever I went to do things that I felt uncomfortable with, like travelling for example, I'd have this derealization effect which I described above, together with my fantastic panic attacks, weird thoughts, and to add to that, I was certain I had a specific type of head tumor.
From time to time, I experienced all these side effects listed above. As a teenager, I couldn't really stand up to myself, just because I genuinely didn't care. But, whenever I was not on ritalin, oh boy, I was even scared of myself. I didn't know I had it in me to stand up for myself. It sounds strange, but I really did stand up for myself. And people were often asking theirselves;
what's that guy thinking? What's that guy taken? What's that guy gotten himself into?
Normally he is not this verbally agressive, what happened?
Well... ritalin didn't happen.
Somewhere in october, I started experiencing harder and harder side effects and anxiety issues.
I started thinking extremely negative, I didn't dare to talk to anyone because I was afraid they would think I was insane. Going to the doctor was not an option, I didn't feel like he could help me, plus I was conviced I was completely crazy, so he would certainly think the same about me (I thought).
I developed a habit whenever I got up, it took me more than 3 years to get past that habit. I would wake up, and think about extremely negative things, like dying, cancer, being alone, feeling unhappy, suicide, etc...
Everyday I would get up, thinking about one of these things, automatically. It took me 3 years to "destroy" this habit.
- Age 18, the year I quit, and the consequences of quitting.
That was the year I got to univerisity, doctors said I couldn't make it without the ritalin, I did it anyway after my third try of my first year... and now it's all going good.
During the year I quit, which was also my first year in university, I literally abused the ritalin, I took it at 8 pm, 10pm, 7pm, there was no structure anymore.
During these times, I experienced all these side effects mentioned above, ALL TOGETHER.
Eventually, googling about Ritalin's side effects, it was clear this came from the Ritalin. So I decided to quit.
The day I quit, 19th December 2013, I thought I was fine. But... nope nope nope nope nope, this was not the case at all. 3 days after I quit, I started experiencing the derealisation effect again, but this time without a panic attack. Later on, I started having continuous panic attacks, and with continuous I mean from the moment I got up, until the moment I fell asleep from being exhausted by these panic attacks.
Next to that, I even got an even harder dose of suicidal thoughts, with a nearly suicidal attempt. I'm saying nearly because it was "bad" enough to be called suicide, but too safe to be called a suicide. Anyway, added to that, the derealisation effect started getting stronger and stronger. I even got psychoses, I think it was called. I heard stuff that wasn't there, and yet I was certain that the stuff I didn't hear, was there. But it actually wasn't if that makes any sense.
All these side effects/withdrawal effects lasted until somewhere april, if I think of some more side effects I will post them. But those were the main ones.
I went to psychologists, neurological doctors and non that could help me. One of those doctors even prescribed me another new dose of ritalin...
I got to feel a little bit better by exercise, really hard exhausting exercise.
My best advice would be, work out has hard as you can, try to lose as much energy as possible, so your body can't take any more energy to fuel those panic attacks.
Oh, and sleep well, try to sleep as much as possible.
If I missed anything, or wrote mistakes, I will correct them later on, I actually now just want to get my story out there. Maybe there are people going trough what I'm going trough, maybe it helps them to know I nearly killed myself, but eventually didn't.
I'm sorry for the long post, I'm not even going to add a TLDR version of it.
I hope you all have a nice day.
PS: My life is back in order, I have become the complete opposite of the person I described to be.
I'm sociable, I'm daring, you can not walk over me again or you will have some trouble with me.
I have become a racing instructor, love doing out of comfort zone stuff, still didn't have a girlfriend though, but hey, I'm glad my life is back in order. And also, if you took the time to write this, I really really appreciate it. Thank you very much miss or mister.
If there are any questions, feel free to post them!
Eliassos
EDIT1: there are many more things I probably missed, I will add them in tomorrow if there is anyone interested in everything. For now, I'm going to bed since it's 2.31 AM, and I have been writing this article/topic since 1 am.
EDIT 2: as for personality changes, when I was on ritalin, people could just walk over me, in other words; they could take my wallet, light it on fire, and i'd still like " oh... okay :( "
I was quiet, people didn't like me, I didn't have an opinion, all I did was sit, watch and observe. I was just a ghost.
This day today, I would passionately kick you in the balls, or attack you very hard verbally. If you wanted to bully me, you would have a problem with me now.
I developed a sense of humor, apparently I was funny and I had it in me to make jokes, I didn't know that about myself. And best trait of all, I WAS SOCIABLE.
These are the main things that changed, but really trust me when I say this, I had to rediscover myself when I quit Ritalin. People have an idea who they are around college, or atleast a teeny tiny bit, I just had no clue. I was stunned of myself by some small things I did like being sociable, and not letting people run me over, there were moment where I came home and thought " > you've got to be kidding me if this is from the ritalin? "
Apparently, yes.
I'll add some more things if I can think of them. Have a nice day!
EDIT 3: the ritalin doses were 40mg daily, at the time I weighed 55 kg, and sometimes I even went to 60 mg... needless to say it was a quite a bit high for a thin guy like me.
EDIT4; As I'm now into the university, I've embraced my low attention span, If I can make someone happy with my study methods,
I try to work in 25 minutes FULL FOCUS, and 5 minutes break (Sometimes more), but I've also tried doing more fun stuff this year. And I have to say my motivation is pretty high, as is the willpower to study a decent amount too.
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