The Adderall Shortage Saved My Life

I started taking ADHD meds when I was 17.

First it was 5mg. Then 10. Then 20. Then 30. And so on.

My body would routinely build up a tolerance to each dose, so my doctor would routinely prescribe me the next highest one.

By the time I was 29, I was being prescribed the highest daily dosage of a combination of two different meds — 70mg of Vyvanse in the morning, 20 mg of adderall in the afternoon.

This was also about the same time I was prescribed an antidepressant. (Which probably should’ve been my first clue to the events that would unfold over the next few years.)

And to be completely honest, most of it’s still a blur.

I turned 29. I started a business. I took my meds. I worked 12 hour days. I made six figures. I hired my sister. I took my meds. I worked 15 hour days. I turned 30. I took my meds. I worked every weekend. I worked every holiday. I felt burnt out. I took my meds. I developed heart problems. I stopped eating. I lost 35 pounds. I turned 31. I became a shell of myself. I took my meds. I cried. I became suicidal. I looked up in-patient facilities for depression. I ruined relationships. I lost people. And I almost lost myself.

I went from being a 29 year old, chasing a dopamine high I’d never actually felt before because I was on such a potent blend of medication that was forcing my brain into believing this way of living and working and surviving was normal. To a 31 year old whose brain had literally been wiped of its own natural ability to produce any sort of happiness.

Because my brain had become so addicted to existing in a way that my brain was never really meant to exist in.

And if it weren’t for the actual inability to find that ADHD medication earlier this year I genuinely don’t know if I’d be around right now to talk about it.

Because after four weeks of not taking those meds everyday, I realized just how much they were destroying me from the inside out.

And after four weeks of not taking those meds everyday, I didn’t want to die anymore.

And after four weeks of not taking those meds everyday, I didn't fear where my mind would wander to at night as I came down off the high from the pills that forced my brain into an unfamiliar and exhausting setting all day.

Because those meds had completely re-wired my brain to become reliant on them.

The adderall shortage saved my life — because it was that very medication that almost made me end it.

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Now I'm not saying that this is everyone's experience.

I'm not saying that ADHD meds cause everyone with ADHD to sink into a deep desperate depression.

I'm not saying what to do with your own body and your own struggles and your own medication regimen.

I’m not saying that this is everyone’s story.

But it IS mine.

It’s the story of how I was never told by any doctors of the intense correlation between ADHD meds and depression.

It’s the story of how I feel betrayed by a medical field that never gave me any other option.

It’s the story of how I’ve had to mourn the past three years of a "so-called life" I’ll never get back.

And it’s the story of how, at almost 32 years old, I’m re-learning how to use my brain again. How to get through the day again. How to feel successful again. How to run my business again. How to live my life again.

So as I re-teach myself how to do all these things without the meds I’ve been relying on for almost half my life, I welcome anyone who wants to stick around for that.

It’ll be messy and scary and hard and overwhelming and confusing and maybe even impossible.

But it’ll also be worth it…

Because I’ll still be here to experience it.