I was diagnosed with adult ADHD 4 years ago and was prescribed compounds like adderall (dexedrine to be specific) and Vyvanse (lisdexamfetamine) to combat the effects and help me work more productively. But what is it really worth it in the end? What were the long term side effects like? Do I think ANYONE should take these drugs? This is my story.
Just over two years ago around the same time that i decided to systematically destroy this channel i posted a video called prescribed amphetamines at 30 is it worth it and i think two years later now that i’m no longer taking amphetamines i can finally give you guys an accurate and for the most part honest overview of whether or not it was or is worth it at least
Speaking for my own personal experience because this is my swim channel where i just share my own personal insights or ideas and how is that any different from psych substance i don’t know beats me man now the first thing i’d like to point out is just visually how different i look two years later now being off in fetta means let’s do a little split-screen here’s
When i made the is it worth it to be a prescribed in feta means video i’m pretty sure that i look a lot better now and i don’t mean for the fact that i’m working out again i also mean just my skin do you see this interesting glossy look that my skin has the amphetamines would cause my skin to kind of retain a lot of water and to also have this general shine we’re
Not talking about a desirable shine like a shiny pokemon we’re talking that i look bloated skinny fat and ugly if you ask me if me looking a lot better now isn’t evidence enough that it was not worth it to be on amphetamines then get ready for my story of just how shitty they actually were and it’s funny in that video i mentioned that i was i was afraid that it
Would get to the point where i thought i needed them to work well they 100% got me to that point probably around the same time as i made the video i wasn’t able to work without them i mean like i could sit down with a video in my editor you know just ready to go but i would feel like there was this actual wall in front of me that i could not penetrate but i could
Not move my hand to the touchpad to start editing it was very strange but as soon as i take the in feta mean then it got easier but that soon became the new normal you have to take the drug just to reach what was initially normal for you now granted there is more variance to that then you know it sounds for instance the first maybe hour to of taking the compound
Once addiction sets in intolerance sets in was a little more boosted than say my normal everyday self before taking it but after two hours once you have that tolerance you really do level out into this zone where it’s like you are now worse off than before you tried it good example is that you have an 8 our work day and say normally when you’re not on em feta mean
Even even if you have adhd say that fro those entire eight hours you’re working relatively well what the adhd drugs what i’m feta means do is they make it so that’s safe for four out of the eight hours you’re working fantastic but for the final four hours you’re working maybe at half of your original speed which for me just means i’m not gonna be working at all
And this is a cumulative effect for instance in the beginning i might have got eight plus hours of really intense solid work from them but then as i started using them and as the tolerance builds more and more it depleted to the point where like i’m saying i might have got maybe two or three hours of good work and then i would just be at the point where i’d have
Such a harsh crash and come down on the condoms do get worse by the way where it was like i was better off if i just didn’t take anything but when you are addicted to something you’re actually not better off without it because your brain is no longer producing as much dopamine as it normally does so without it you’re actually in a huge deficit compared to just
Before you started taking the drug me and you now need to consume it just to be able to work at all which gets you in this interesting merry-go-round and you can’t get out of the loop because you’re if you do and you’re if you don’t so you just kind of end up taking them anyway but else you’re gonna do you probably neglected friends and family because you’ve
Gotten just so crazy focused and when you were doing that without work you have nothing you’ve lost a lot of the things that you thought you cared about and that’s my next point taking the amphetamines made me so focused on productivity to the point where i stopped really caring about spending time with my family and now without it it’s like night and day i enjoy
Spending time with my family i actually look forward to it versus when i was taking those drugs it was like it became an annoyance it’s like oh man family time i’d rather be downstairs working and then you know you get in this cycle where it’s it’s so cliche but you convince yourself that you’re working to support the family so what you’re actually doing is sometimes
More important than spending time with them and we all know that’s you think someone who’s had enough lsd experiences we’re able to make it through that fog but it got so dense for me due to the drugs and due to just the negative self-talk that propelled from them where i did get stuck in some very classic cliche ruts that i could not get out without discontinuing
My use of the compound i like to point out that not everybody who takes these drugs is going to have effects as severely debilitating as i did there are apparently those freaks of nature who can consume their amphetamines and who actually do perform and enjoy life more with them or at least they think that they can for the first three years of use before they hit
The point where i hit where it’s like me sideways i should never have taken it um yeah a lot of the people who do rant and rave about the positive effects including myself are still in their honeymoon phase with them and they haven’t yet realized that the highs are soon going to be exchanged for deeper and deeper lows to the point where it’s no longer gonna be
Worth taking them whatsoever if you value your i don’t know life in some instances because it really can push you into states of severe depression so no prescribed amphetamines at 30 to backtrack to that question it’s not worth it now it’s not all negative there were some positives i do find now without the in feta means i’m able to better access states of flow
It’s kind of like the amphetamine gave me such a laser-focus ability where i was able to speak really quickly and in a sense it does put you in a flow state especially when you’re making videos i found that my thoughts and ideas would just come so much more naturally without having to dig so deep through the hard dirt to get to the good gold ideas that i might have
Had buried and you know inside the fluff whereas now it’s almost like without the in feta means i’ve got a electric drill bit and i’m just like blue and i can fly right down to those good ideas and s cavae tom as if i was on the amphetamine but without needing to go through the debilitating crashes that came with it as you can tell i’m talking relatively quickly
Right now and i’m not on anyone feta mean whatsoever it’s almost like i’ve maintained the ability to talk fast i’m starting to glitch a little bit here and fumble over my words because i’m trying to show off and showing off and ever seems to work well for me it kinda just makes me look like a goddamn idiot yeah so i have maintained some of the positive aspects
But i would like to point out that this ability to access that amphetamine like speed talk flow was not privileged to me right out of the gates initially upon discontinuing my use i was targeted with a lot of negative effects i felt like i was a mess of a person i was not able to work what’s ever i went through some belts a very severe depression it was pretty
Miserable no july it was difficult to crawl out of that pit but thanks to micro dosing mushrooms and thanks to some very intense psychedelic trips that got me to get back in that loop of thinking i had quit only to start taking them again after and i think i quit to start taking them again after after that whole cycle i can now say that i no longer feel the need
To consume them to get work done which is a point i never thought that i would get to ever it’s crazy to actually be here it’s also crazy that i was only using them for about four years and during that four years i started off taking them maybe one or two times a week to within two years i was taking them steadily three or four times a week and then the final i
Don’t know one to two years i was almost taking it daily and it got to the point where initially i was taking 20 milligrams i bumped that quickly up to 50 with the 10 milligram booster of dextra yeah dexedrine also known as dextroamphetamine and then near the end of it i was taking 50 to 70 milligrams of vyvanse with at least like almost always i was taking two
Booster doses so the total of 20 more milligrams of dexedrine followed by maybe half half of the time so occasionally another ten milligrams of dexedrine putting my overall you know usage at 70 1,800 milligrams a day granted lizz deck some feta mean has a heavy as more a molecular weight so it’s about half as potent as just pure dexedrine because you gotta make up
For that lysing molecule being latched on to it that your body cleaves off to give you the slow release is so if you cut that in half then i was around 35 40 50 60 64 65 or 75 milligrams of pure dextroamphetamine well not pure you know what i mean eventually it was becoming dextroamphetamine surging through my goddamn circuits every single day now you got to think
That’s gonna take quite the toll on someone which is why now that i’ve been off it i have been focusing on micro doses which i do believe have helped to rebuild some of that damaged neural network in my mind and it’s caused me to come full circle and now i don’t feel like i am at any type of detriment from my use in fact i feel like i’m stronger because of it that’s
Not to say that i think all of you out there should start taking amphetamines so you can go through this whole cycle of abuse just to come back healed and better now i’m just trying to give hope to all you who are still in that cycle and i do want to pinpoint and kind of illuminate the fact that it even myself i made it look like it was easy to quit i made it
Look like in a video is called the trip that killed me i just one day had the series of six or seven lsd trips and then i realized the folly of my ways and i quit and feta means cold turkey but after that video that videos actually alive because after that video i did start using him feta means again yeah i’m full of don’t trust a word that i say never trust a
Drug addict so it’s like after that video i started taking them again but it wasn’t as heavy as initially so with all that the acid trips really did was get me to lower my dose from say maybe seventy or fifty milligrams of events a day i dropped it to like thirty or in some days i would take you know five to twenty milligrams of dexedrine instead of the vyvanse
Which you know essentially the same thing dexuchan is just more instant release because i was chew those not take them as intended but anyway after that video was another solid seven or eight months of slowly ramping the use down and substituting for micro dosing to till i got to the point where i no longer needed it so it was really in essence a very slow taper
To get off the emphatic means to get to the point where i’m at now where i don’t need to take them at all i’m not saying that i don’t take any compounds like i said i still microdose i’m not completely healed it’s not like i’m own a chiral over here there’s still some chemicals that i consume to help me get work done i would love to be completely natural but i
Don’t know if it’s in the cards for me or i don’t know if it’s something that i actually want to do because i enjoy the effects of these things and they do work as great tools as aids to help you stay proficient and getting done if you know to use them wisely and safely and if you’re using the right compounds and i would definitely say that i’m feta mean or all
The derivatives probably methylphenidate as well i would say that they are not worth taking they’re worth taking if you can keep your dose down to maybe five to ten milligrams of amphetamine be it adderall which is seventy five to thirty five mix of dextro and level em fed amine or just pure dexedrine or if you can take the equivalent of say twenty to twenty-five
Milligrams of vyvanse i’m not quite sure of ritalin methylphenidate or consider what the dose equivalency is but you want to keep your doses low and i don’t believe in dosing every single day because that’s going to build a chemical dependence meaning when you’re not on it your brains not going to release the same amount of dope i mean and you’re gonna be so
As to not be even if you have adhd i don’t think you need that dog i didn’t need that you don’t need that none of us need that i’m so much better now and i would largely attribute feeling better to the micro dosing which has been proven to cause neurogenesis so your brain generates new brain cells who would have thought that could be possible and i would
Attribute it to daily meditation and working out essentially i have contracted discipline oh i’m conducting a disease of discipline where i’ve got this coronavirus sphere and here i am getting discipline that has helped me significantly more than taking drugs which you get what you give out in other words you think that you’re taking this drug and it’s giving you
This great high and making you more productive in the day but really you’re paying for it somewhere else and eventually in the long term it really does have a negative cumulative effect where the lows get worse and worse and worse and it gets to the point where you probably are just so far into the addiction you don’t remember that you were way better off without
It now if you do want to get on the train of quitting just be prepared for it to be a long battle it’s not just for a lot of us it’s not just gonna be like a quick fight cold turkey that jump off i’m done it’s gonna be a long psychological battle and it sucks but hey you got yourself in this hole and now when you climb out of it you’re gonna have the new muscles
That you built and the new resilience from making it free and you’re going to feel so much better like i do and now i gotta go on my daily walks because i’m healthy as peace out guys these drugs it wasn’t worth it but it kind of was because i’m stronger now take it as you will and that’s my video bye
Transcribed from video
Results of 4 Years Amphetamine Use | “What Is Truly Worth It?” By SWIM