#and the single best thing any psych drug has done for me was adhd meds making me slightly less scattered. with the downside of extra stomac

[craycraybluejay]

saw this video and it made me think about quitting vaping again. probably won't be for a good while but does anyone have any advice for a high 24/7 nic intake without smoking or vaping? like do i just use a bunch of patches or a bunch of gum or what? quitting will be hard enough as is without a psychotic break and i don't really intend to ever fully quit *nicotine*, just smoking. i don't really care about dying early but painful and unfixable chronic illness i do care about. so yeah if anyone has any advice that'd be sweet.

also, as an aside, i love this video. it IS scary but it's not guilt-trippy or judgemental. it doesn't fully cover the positives of smoking but it does gloss over them which is more than i can say for most anti smoking resources. and you know? this is the first time something like that has really gotten me thinking about quitting.

anyway yeah advice pls because as some of you who have been following me know, nicotine is an essential antipsychotic for me as well as an anxiety/stress reliever. also withdrawal was awful for me when i tried to quit i might've offed myself if i didnt stop. cuz on top of withdrawal (which for me comes with appetite issues, bad headaches/migraines, physical weakness, cold/flu like symptoms, excessive coughing, and an overarching feeling of absolute doom like the world is going to end or someone is about to murder me), i pretty much immediately entered a transient quasi-psychotic state which only enhanced the doom feeling with paranoia, hallucinations, thought loops, and other.

so yeah basically when i do decide to quit; how do i stay medicated sans ruining my lungs?

[neurunique]

rant

aimed at my parents/some people i know in my family/some friends i have. not aimed at anyone on tumblr, but, i guess it’d be cool if anyone can relate.

topic: ADD drugs issue: people stating that a) because they feel good when they take add drugs, they are therefore add. b) because they can “do things better that one time they took a dexie”, they have ADD (note, dexies = adderall)

My rant is as follows.

So I have been diagnosed with ADHD 2 years ago at aged 19. And recently it is coming to light that a more specific diagnoses is autism spectrum disorder, and my psychiatrist has referred me on to a specialist to diagnose this. However in the presence of this potential diagnoses, nothing will change treatment wise, however I may be able to take additional therapies for speech and socialisation of sorts.

 Back to my rant, I have met many people who believe that because they took dexies and things went well, they are therefore “add”

But do you even know what add is? It isn’t even about drugs. Its about the inability to focus for longer than 5 minutes and its the inability to carry on a conversation and in my case where I’m possibly ASD, its severe social issues, and excelling academics but then the inability to carry out focus on such. ADD, is the inability to get ANYTHING done through out the day without the assistance of SOMETHING, and if you really had ADD, you wouldn’t just say “because I took this I have it”, you’d consider getting help from a doctor, you’d consider talking out these specific traits, and you would try to address them as best as possible. For example:

“I have attention issues, and I would like to resolve this.”

Possible recommendations from a doctor, without the serious diagnoses of ADD, is therapy, Cognitive or Dialectical, and even counselling. Because typically, attention deficiency doesn’t spark from no where, at least most of the time - if it’s come up more in late adulthood, you are more than likely encountering stress and need to get help for it (of course it will affect your attention span, but the presence of drugs just to help you get through a stressful time is never a good idea). 

The one time I took an illicit dexie, I was just 18, and it made me fall asleep in a night club. That kinda made me wonder, but I never did anything about it. I’ve always had a hyperactive brain, but, in a more HF-asd type of way. So, in the absence of medication, I am quite frantic, not emotional but rather I’m uncontrollable in terms of what I can and can’t do. Infact, even on meds, I’m STILL like that, its just i’m a lot more calmer. Its a stimulant, and for non-add brains, it will stimulate you. Just like it does to people who say “I can do an assignment in 6 hours when I’m on adderall” or “I can stay up all night” etc. Butfor people with the opposite brains, it will do the opposite. It will send you to sleep (I’ve considered using it as a sleep tablet at times). It wont work like it does on people who socially use it. So the conclusion that you are “add and need drugs” is false, because, you took it a few times along with however many other drugs in your life, and it had a certain effect, maybe you liked that effect, and now you’d like to use this title as an excuse to get drugs off of me, drugs that I pay $300 a psych apointment for, drugs that I go into hospital for in association with my ASD issues, drugs that I wait for 28 days to get in the chemist, spend 1 hour waiting for, spend a lot of money on... And you would like them for free, for fun, for leisure, to “get things done”. And yeah it might help you but that doesn’t mean you have ADD so don’t even joke about having it.

Its different with ASD, because while dexies are one of the treatments, you can’t say “I have asd, give me those dexies you have”. So, hopefully, when I do get that formal diagnosis, perhaps my family will stop hassling me for drugs and saying they have “Add”. because they don’t, they have lives, high functioning jobs, I’ve seen them work and they get things done. And I never could and I still can’t and sometimes the drugs help but its mainly therapy thats helped the most.

You wouldn’t ask a diabetic for their insulin if you’re not diabetic. So don’t ask me for neuro-stabilising (idk what that word means kek) meds, if you don’t even have any kind of diagnosis, or furthermore, if you’re not prepared to get the specific help for your hypochondriac diagnosis.

(Of course, I am guilty of self diagnosing in the past. I’ve had my moments but that was in high times of stress. I would never insult someone with an official diagnoses , say, for severe anxiety, which I used to have, and ask for their Xanax -- an unlikely situation these days, but still. I wouldn’t ask my best friend for his Lyrica or schizophrenia medication for fun, I know its not for fun, but its the same principle... I respect people and I respect their diagnoses and the revelations of medicine, its why I study it. ITs why I aim to be a doctor. And the excuses we use to get what we want and the labels we put on ourselves in a joking manner is actually quite an insult, some times people say “im pretty autistic lol” and its like but are you? Have you faced discrimination for it every single day? Been fired for things you don’t even know are a problem? Had therapists leave you because you have severe inadequacies socially and developmentally? some people are autistic and its good that they can maybe recognise it, but its one of those disorders where, unless its pointed out to you, its unlikely you’ll just self-diagnose... I don’t even want the diagnoses, but 10+ people have told me, people close to me, for years, that they always think i had it. Self diagnosis is good for validation, but it isn’t who you are, and it isn’t a reason to manipulate friends or doctors into giving you drugs. Its no way to live and it ruins it for the people in the world that have real disorders and need real help for it and just feeds into the stigma.)