jadedwench [they/them]

My understanding though (US) is the DEA limits the raw ingredient supply with no regard to the demand by patients. The drug manufacturers get what they get whenever the DEA decides they are allowed to have it.

It sucks having the government decide whether I get my medication each month. It sucks having to submit to drug tests to prove I am taking my meds and not hoarding/selling them. I have a giant stack of paperwork from formal testing I had, which I had to pay for out of pocket because insurance doesn’t cover it. It was something like 600-800 dollars. That is enough dammit. I shouldn’t have to live in fear that my medication will be taken away or refilled late because I can’t even request my refill until the last minute.

My nails are too thin to get long enough to bite consistently, but I would wrap my hand around my wrist and squeeze when anxious. I would have finger bruises on my wrists. Nail polish I just sit there and peel off. Fake nails will be ripped off in 2-3 days, no matter how much it damages my nails, and I also play(ed) string instruments. I still squeeze my wrists sometimes, but I have to be really really stressed out.

As someone on Adderall instead, is it really like that? There is one generic manufacturer, Activis, that I refuse to accept from the pharmacy as I feel like I am tweaking out the entire day and falling apart. Only time I ever refused to finish the bottle and begged the pharmacy to replace it, which they were unable to do.

I tried to make them work, but having pill bottles in one place and then the organizer separate just made it too stressful. I am not home every day, so having one little bag with it all just helps. The organizer got a little beat up in my backpack. I do have a little metal keychain pill holder that I put 2-3 days of pills in sometimes.

I also have a couple meds that are “as needed” or for emergencies. The big one is needing to keep an eye on the date and exact counts of how much Adderall is left. I just went through the unfortunate experience of not having meds for 3-4 days and I was a mess. It wasn’t even my fault…

Open; iiii>!!<e

I have all of my medicine bottles in a bright red makeup bag. I would be hopeless otherwise. Makeup bags are nice because they are very wide and deep. The growing pile of pill bottles fit nicely. I am talking about the more boxy shaped ones without anything inside them. Mine is around 8cm wide, 13cm high, and 20cm long. Really rough measurements.

When I was formally tested, I gave a similar analogy to the psychiatrist/ADHD specialist. He immediately told me he was stealing it as it was a really great way to explain it to others. It really does kind of explain the whole executive dysfunction part to others.

I get really frustrated trying to do math, “in my head”. I didn’t realize for a long time that the way I was trying to do it isn’t what everyone does. I can only do math on paper, so I am literally drawing on imaginary paper in the air while desperately trying to keep track of things to only have it slip away like sand and then starting over. I still do subtraction/addition like I was taught in elementary where you cross out the number and write the remainder or whatever above it.

Trying to do that on imaginary paper and keep track of the slashes and tiny numbers is torture. Especially when the damn paper keeps moving, colors fading out, and I can’t just make the number appear. No. I have to mentally draw the strokes of each digit like I am using a pencil. Oh, and my handwriting sucks, so I write numbers really slow. Have I randomly mentioned I fucking hate white boards? Now I have. I have nothing to leverage my hand or arm on.

Basically, trying to keep all of the noise out my head or at least on a similar task is really hard at times. It is like being in a crowded restaurant and each sound gets the same amount of attention. Every step, clink, swish, creak, conversation, air movement, cars outside, all gets an equal amount of attention. Imagine a flat equalizer in a sense.Your brain is supposed to be able to filter that shit out so you can talk to the person in front of you. We don’t get that luxury. Medication is a damn miracle. It isn’t perfect, but having even a fraction of peace in my head is enough.

That was the basic Aetna scam university health insurance if you didn’t have any. It was “required” to have something. The health center was great for the most part, but it was basically one psychiatrist for the entire school. He prescribed meds, that was it. If you wanted to see him for more than 5 minutes, you had to go to his private practice. If you wanted to talk to someone, you had to go to the counseling center next door. That visit really didn’t go well. I wanted to see the male counselor, but he was overbooked. Strangely enough, he ended up being my best friend’s father in law.

The next year, they doubled the price of the “insurance” and I couldn’t afford it. Thankfully, it wasn’t enforced. Health wise, they were more worried about vaccinations and international students. Today, I have corpo insurance provided by the American machine.

Same! That one did not end well for me at all. I got hallucinations and random blackouts too. Told the crazy lady that was a no go. These days I am on low dose mirtazapine to help me sleep. Low dose propranolol for anxiety, which also kind of evens out the BP spike from the Adderall. Throw in some lamotrigine to make the bipolar disorder bearable…

It could be worse. Like the time they gave me celexa at university, which pushed me into a constant state of mania, for months. Nobody explained what mania was and nobody bothered to check in with me. Just prescribe meds, see you never. I didn’t learn until many years later that things like celexa and bipolar do not mix.

This hits a little too close to home. Still working on the anxiety and depression as an adult, but burnout has been a something I have done my best to put my foot down on, especially after my last job gave me panic attacks.

I almost failed 1st grade because I didn’t understand the concept of homework. I had a huge pile of it stuffed in my desk. Eventually, they called my dad and I was given a chance to do the weeks of assignments and catch up. I didn’t do them because I was bored and spent most of the time in my own mental world. I finished the whole stack in a weekend. I got the dreaded “GT” designation in elementary and was accepted in this “pre-AP” program in middle school. Most people would view this as a mistake, but due to my specific circumstances, the alternative would have been worse.

The burnout bordered on abuse. I had less homework in the actual Highschool AP classes. Hell, I had less homework in University. Apparently, the parents threw a big fit as their kids were staying up until midnight finishing homework several nights a week. The solution was to the lower the requirements to stay in the program. We were fucking 12! My hair was falling out by the end of the year. The first 2-3 weeks of summer I did nothing but sleep as I was exhausted. I have no idea how I managed to force myself through that for 3 years straight, while going through puberty, rapidly declining mental health, and still failing to find the right kind of stimulation.

When I got the diagnosis as an adult, I went through a mourning period at all of the things I could have done better. Once the plastic in your brain settles, doing things as an adult is significantly harder. It is what it is though, and I still have done amazing things with my life.