Adderal & its effects?

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plantingourpennies
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by plantingourpennies »

TopHatFox wrote:
Thu Dec 13, 2018 9:50 pm
who is this Olaz you speak of? Heresy!

Sensing work, like TPS reports, tax forms, and such.
@tophatfox The trick to white collar work is to preserve your soul while doing it. When you're done with the office job you'll have plenty of money...just make sure you don't lose yourself along the way.

When I was in a high-stress sales job I was having difficulty focusing on the more mundane aspects-grinding out spreadsheets, hours of reading technical papers, etc.

A friend gave me a pill of adderal or similar, and I had an incredibly productive day. After asking around I found that adderall was incredibly common on the sales floor; everybody between 25 and 32 who was any good seemed to be taking it.

I went to a psychiatrist and explained the issue. She asked me if I had trouble concentrating when I was young (no), and if I had trouble studying in college (again, no), and if I was currently stressed out (yes). She diagnosed me with depression and said that the concentration issues were symptoms.

When I switched jobs at the end of the year my symptoms went away and I regained my ability to concentrate for long periods of time.

TL;DR Adult onset of ADHD was just stress and depression. Changing jobs fixed the issue, and was a healthier option for me.

daylen
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by daylen »

ADHD, ADD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, and so forth all appear to be different expressions of disharmony between the inner and outer world. Nature wires us to respond to our environment/culture/nurture in certain ways. If the environment/culture/nurture does not lend itself to our predisposed strategy, then it makes sense for our biology to program mechanisms that make us uncomfortable. This discomfort forces us to migrate to a different environment/culture/nurture where our strategy is more likely to replicate itself. If migration is not an option, then we may try to change our environment/culture/nurture with politics.

These predefined strategies can be approximated with personality-type classifications that factor in our responses to many different situations. Human strategies tend to distribute into clusters, because each cluster represents a local optimum of fitness.
Last edited by daylen on Fri Jan 04, 2019 12:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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C40
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by C40 »

jennypenny wrote:
Thu Dec 13, 2018 4:15 pm
You’ve asked about this before and I gave some advice ... viewtopic.php?f=24&t=9560&p=158527#p158527

Twice actually... viewtopic.php?f=24&t=6593&p=96593#p96593


Based on that, I’d guess yes, you have ADHD. :D
Jennypenny is genius. She had you figured out four years ago. And now she can remember (and FIND) the posts from back then. Pure genius.

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Jean
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by Jean »

daylen wrote:
Fri Jan 04, 2019 12:27 pm
Human strategies tend to distribute into clusters, because each cluster represents a local optimum of fitness.
I like the entire post, but I'm impressed by how good of a summary this sentence is. Bravo if the Idea is yours!

daylen
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by daylen »

Added note: In many cases the disorders I listed are controllable by altering the immediate environment/culture/nurture. Hence the success that Jordan Peterson and other psychiatrist have had telling people to put their household in order. Sometimes this does not work, because some people are not well adapted to add value to the current system. It is hard to feel like you are making a difference in a system this large and interconnected. Purposeful behavior may need to be found elsewhere (ideally originating from self-generated memes/culture).
Last edited by daylen on Fri Jan 04, 2019 12:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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C40
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by C40 »

And, the short answer on adderal is: no way.

Adderal is sorrrt of like meth. (similar effects). Regular users develop dependence and addiction.

Among drugs, these are some of the main ones you should not mess with:
- Cocaine (and crack)
- Opiods
- Meth (and similar amphetamines, adderal, strong stimulants, etc.)
- Heroin

Most of the above can be useful for their short term effects. Opiods can make very good pain relievers. Amphetamines can improve perception and reaction time. And so on. But any regular and ongoing use of these drugs is a horrible idea. Don't do it.

If you really want to try using drugs to help with your problems, try mushrooms, lsd, ayahuasca, etc. It's probably better to solve problems though prioritizing, improving one's life, meditation, changing mindset and expectations, therapy, etc. Yes, chemical imbalances do exist, and I have basically zero understanding/expertise of them - but we can all be pretty sure none of us are borne with a shortage of opiates or some strong stimulant in our body, right?
Last edited by C40 on Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

daylen
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by daylen »

@Jean It is hard to figure out where one idea begins and another ends. I tend to gather a bunch of ideas and integrate them in the simplest way possible. Often I will read a similar description in a different context, then I just generalize it by replacing the specialized language with more common language.

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Jean
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by Jean »

Many people here tend to do the same, you just did it particularly well. It's akin to what I would have said if I was into skateboarding, and I just saw you landing some particularly nice trick.

Laura Ingalls
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by Laura Ingalls »

@plantingyour pennies

I had a similar experience when my dad was dying. An awful commute, plus grief, plus a fairly demanding job= an ability to attend on par with the average three year old. I would be curious is stimulant medication would have helped.

I found myself making lots of bargains with myself. First, You finish X and then I will buy you Arby’s. If you finish Y you can take a 5 minute walk. If you finish Z you can go home. Almost no capacity to get in anything resembling flow. I haven’t done similar work in 4 1/2 years. I wonder how my less depressed self would do in the same job now?

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Jean
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by Jean »

I have a lot of trouble staying focused. When I was studying for my first degree, I needed to be annoying my colleagues to study. Now that I'm back to school, but know that It might hinder there focus, I have a really hard time focusing on the course material. Listening to classes while doing something else that dosn't require focus (like playing minecraft) kinda works, but I still need to study written material.

classical_Liberal
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by classical_Liberal »

Healthcare literature regarding the adverse cardiovascular effects of ADHD Rx amphetamines, on otherwise healthy adults, is on the rise. I would suggest an EXTREMELY cautious approach. Sample research https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4992783/

Scott 2
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by Scott 2 »

Someone I know was prescribed adderal for a medical condition. They cautiously started with partial pills and ultimately decided not to use the medicine.

The increase in focus and energy came at a cost - borrowing from tomorrow's reserves. Digging a deep hole was very easy, because the drug overrides normal regulatory mechanisms.

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Seppia
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by Seppia »

I've always been fascinated with America's attitude towards medicine.
In Europe advertisement is prohibited + the general attitude is to only take medication as a real last resort (ie if one feels drowsy the usual recommendation is "drink something hot, stay hydrated and stay in bed till you recover"), and even if I lived in the USA for five years I never really changed my euro approach.

TL;DR if you're asking yourself the question "should I take medication" the answer is probably not in my opinion. When you really need to take it you are so miserable you don't ask the question

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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by jacob »

@Seppia - 70% of Americans are on at least one prescription drug. Half take more than two. And 20% take more than five. And that's just prescription drugs not counting various allergy meds, headache pills, etc.

There's really a very different attitude towards better living through chemistry across the pond.

Much of it probably comes from TV advertising like "if you have these symptoms, ask your doctor about Prescription X" ... and on the back-end "if you've ever taken prescription Y and have these side-effects, you may be entitled to money. Call the law offices of Shyster&Shyster..." but it also seems innate to how many Americans think about "health": Symptom -> Pill to remove symptom. If you have a headache, you'll be offered a pill in the same way that someone pulling out a cigarette will be offered a light. It's the polite thing to do.

Similarly, Americans will go to the doctor for annual checkups---some insurance companies will even offer a discount if and only if you do it. Try that in Europe (maybe overly generalizing here) and the doctor will ask you why you're wasting their time if there's nothing wrong with you.

Noting that US life expectancy is in the bottom third of OECD.

The Old Man
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by The Old Man »

@Jacob: Remember that across the pond - in the USA - health insurance is not universal. Many people have never seen a doctor in their entire lives. The first time they will see a doctor will be in the emergency room.

The fact that US life expectancy is in the bottom third of the OECD speaks volumes about the quality of health care available to the average person.

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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by jacob »

@Augustus - It's the average US life expectancy that's in the bottom third, but, yes, looking at the data on the county level, the range is wide. There are blue zones like Loma Linda or Marin county with top of the world life expectancies (cf. Japan), but at the other end there are counties in the US where life expectancy is on par with Bangladesh (~57 yo). This brings the total average down.

Stahlmann
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by Stahlmann »

Seppia wrote:
Sat Jan 05, 2019 4:04 pm
TL;DR if you're asking yourself the question "should I take medication" the answer is probably not in my opinion. When you really need to take it you are so miserable you don't ask the question
This boggles my head recently. If you're (for example) malnourished - can you even see the idea that you have problem? Probably not.

dranudin
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by dranudin »

I got a diagnose for mild ADHD when I was about 17 (the diagnose is basically based on you filling out a questionaire). I took an adderal-like drug (I live in europe ) for some time when I went to school. It would give me more concentration for some time but then I would 'crash' and have much less concentration for a longer period. Plus it made me feel weird. So all-in-all it did more harm then good.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Tangentially related, but I suggest the book "Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche." It gets into the history of mental illness and how America exported several mental illnesses to other countries. The first example is anorexia in China, and how the disorder was extremely rare there until China started to consume US media. It's very applicable for things like ADHD/depression/etc.

I've never had ADHD nor taken ADHD medication, so I can't speak from personal experience.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Adderal & its effects?

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

My point is more that psychiatric conditions/"disorders" of the mind/not being neurotypical are clusters of symptoms with risk factors. Unlike infectious illness, where you can prove a single agent as the cause, we don't 100% know what causes psychiatric disorders. Things like ADHD are diagnosed based on the symptoms, but there's not an "objective" way to diagnosis it like you could when someone has an infection and you prove the existence of the pathogen.

Which isn't to say ADHD et al aren't real, obviously they are and people with them can have profound struggles, but treating them is an imperfect science. Knowing to use medication or not is a much harder question to answer than knowing to use an antibiotic or not.

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