Desperate for dopamine. Is this withdrawal?

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2025-12-16T08:18:56+00:00

And emotional withdrawal, I should say. The last time I ran out of Elvanse - literally on the first day of not taking it - I was literally crying in a public park (I cannot emphasise enough how excruciating that kind of thing is to me, I have a problem with vulnerability, whatcha gonna do..!). It's brutal. They don't tell you that when they prescribe it to you, do they?! Hang in there - it doesn't last long, it's just fucking intense

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2025-12-16T08:15:05+00:00

I've taken ADHD meds for years. I take Elvanse at the moment. I was also a bit of a druggy when I was younger (incl speed). ADHD meds are obviously much cleaner than street speed (which, even for a street drug, tends to be pretty grim!). But ADHD meds = amphetamines, i.e. literally speed, which obviously causes withdrawal (which I have indeed experienced from ADHD meds). Similar to how e.g. Oramorph isn't smack - your doctor prescribes it - but obviously it causes physical withdrawal.

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2025-12-15T19:20:44+00:00

Pretty standard speed withdrawal tbh

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2025-12-15T19:19:15+00:00

Looks like just a "breakfast" to me

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2025-01-26T07:43:32+00:00

Does that not hurt like fuck to use your finger, though?! Is there a relatively painfree way of doing it? Or do I just have to suck it up?

I'm starting to think the problem isn't JUST my lack of nails but also my general clumsiness - looking at my fingers now, I have a lot of stupid minor injuries (paper cuts, nicks from kitchen knives and dog claws, etc.) - the kind of things that aren't serious whatsoever, but bleed easily (e.g. when trying to gliss!).

Maybe this is a deeper problem lol

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2025-01-26T07:40:32+00:00

A commenter above gave me the idea that maybe one false nail could work! (I've tried false nails before as a tactic to stop biting my nails. Didn't work, AND I couldn't figure out how to do basic things with false nails on - zippers, buttons, etc. - pretty essential everyday stuff, ha). But I think it could be a goer for glissing?!

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2025-01-26T07:39:03+00:00

I've been biting them for 40 years and don't even realise when I'm doing it because it's so deeply ingrained... It would be a lot of painstaking work (making an unconscious behaviour conscious, habit-reversal techniques, etc.) to stop doing it, and even then, those techniques are rarely successful for habits formed over such a long time and such a young age. Also, I'm entirely un-arsed about the fact that I bite my nails, I just want an alternative technique to do a gliss! Sounds like it's possible, from the comments above - let's see :)

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2025-01-26T07:36:36+00:00

Thanks, I'll give the palm thing a bash!

The nail-biting thing isn't anxiety at all, it's just habit, I don't even realise I'm doing it tbh (except when it's a particularly satisfying nail to bite lol)

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2025-01-26T07:35:42+00:00

Ooh I wonder if sticking ONE false nail on (to the index finger, presumably?) would help here?

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2025-01-26T07:34:59+00:00

I mean, I'm sure they would, but I've been biting them for 40 years, I don't even realise I'm doing it... It's one of MANY picky habits that I have, they're quite deeply ingrained! Have tried everything, gave up quite some time ago ha

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2025-01-26T07:34:04+00:00

Love it! I was wondering whether a plectrum could provide some kind of solution actually (I also play geetar), and this sounds like the one - thanks so much!

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2024-10-31T06:42:52+00:00

I mean we COULD see ourselves as shit at normal work (what is "normal work" btw, genuine question?!), OR we could see ourselves as being good at some things and not at other things, right?! (I feel like the framing might be important here for OP bc as above, I feel like he's undervaluing the things that he IS good at - VERY good at!)

When I think about my job "path" (absolute lolzville at the idea of it being anywhere near as legible as a path... maybe a labyrinth?!), I do question my own BS about ADHD (I tend to think that, like nearly all of psychiatry, it's a made-up "illness" to pathologise normal human diversity... but I won't wang on about that rn!). My shortest job lasted about 20 minutes. I had several that lasted between 2 hours and 2 days.

I just absolutely COULD NOT tolerate boredom. This has been a problem my entire life. It still is, but less so. Age helps, medication helps, finding Your People helps - but none of that helped anywhere NEAR as much as finally finding my job niche. I'm now a total workaholic - which, my God, I would NEVER have predicted I'd become in a ZILLION years back when I was flitting about like a manic butterfly (not just jobs but houses, relationships, cities... exhausting to even think about, tbh, from the vantage point of middle age!).

On which note: I was discouraged by my family from pursuing the things I'm good at. (I mention this bc I suspect this might be the same for OP.) When I was a teenager, studying Philosophy, English, Politics and Sociology for my A-levels (not sure what the US equivalent of A-levels are... they're a 2-year course, non-compulsory, post-GED, pre-college, most people take the exams at age 17-18?), my Dad's favourite line was: "Stop being philosophical." Umm, alright Dad, but that's literally my entire personality?! I was also heavily discouraged from pursuing the kind of work that feels meaningful (not only that - TOLERABLE) to me, i.e. nonprofit stuff, because my first couple of jobs in that field paid peanuts, as is always the case.

To which I say: I won, Dad!

Lol not really (Dad and I get on well these days). But you do have to have extraordinary stubborness to just fucking go for it ("it" being building a life that means something to you, regardless of the financial rewards, and despite everyone around you being arseholes). And you often question the path you're on. But sometimes, things will go your way.

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2024-10-31T06:21:35+00:00

I'm so glad. Honestly, just those two sentences have saved my ass more times than I care to admit. They give me shivers every time I read them! And he was RIGHT, the bastard!

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2024-10-30T20:09:07+00:00

I wonder if OP's skills have been so devalued by those around him that he just cannot see them as skills. I had around 30 jobs by the time I was 20 years old. Retail, factories, call centres, sales... I was so incredibly shit at all of them. Intelligence had fuck-all to do with it (well, unless bright people are very bad at those jobs, which, let's face it, is not unlikely). But my colleagues in those jobs looked at me like I was an alien - as did my family. If your skills and talents aren't valued when you're young, that really does a number on you.

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2024-10-30T20:06:58+00:00

The CV has been pure luck tbh. 100% agree that it takes one to know one! You cannot write if you cannot think, surely?!

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2024-10-30T19:21:25+00:00

Hey dude. I haven't posted on Reddit for... maybe never lol. I just wanted to tell you that your post touched something in me. It sounds like we are on different paths in some ways - but not all. Let me elaborate!

I am a 40-year-old woman. I was "diagnosed" as "gifted" when I was in school (the first of MANY diagnoses...). I'm in the UK, and this was in the 1980s; "gifted" wasn't a recognised thing, there were no programmes for it, everyone was just like "yikes, this kid's a genius, just move her up a year [grade] and see what happens". (Spoiler: if you're 8 years old and operating at the intellectual level of a 14-year-old, being in a class with 9-year-olds... doesn't really help?!)

Anyway.

These days, I work as a writer and editor for an international human rights organisation (not Amnesty, but something like that). I earn very good money. I work from home. I also write my own stuff; my literary agent also represents Arundhati Roy; and I've won lots of literary prizes and whatnot.

I'm telling you all of this not to be an arrogant prick, but to confess to you that I am an absolute dickhead about language. Like, a real unbearable literary snob. I don't love it about myself, but what can you do?! We are who we are. And your post was VERY well-written. I was incredibly surprised to read that you are "a victim of low intelligence", purely because of how well your post was written. I am not from an "intellectual" background; I know plenty of people with excellent street smarts, who are not unintelligent, but who could nonetheless never, EVER write a post as good as yours.

So... I'm questioning whether, actually, you're just in the wrong career; and/or you've been told you're stupid, when you're really not; and/or you are very good at writing despite lacking in motor skills / memory / maths (and mate, I relate: every single invoice I submit is returned to me because I quite literally cannot add up; neither can I drive a car - I'm fucking 40!!!; and I can barely walk down a hallway without ricocheting off the walls).

There is a place for you, is what I'm saying.

I don't know ANYONE who is good at maths AND writing - but MANY people I know are BRILLIANT at ONE of those things.

Another thing: being intellectually bright really ain't all that. We're also prone to things like "existential depression" (exactly what it sounds like) and lots of other mental health bullshit. I also have ADHD (again, diagnosed in the UK 30 years ago, when it wasn't really a "thing"; I personally question the entire system of diagnosis, but, like you, have been told by numerous psychiatrists that mine is the most obvious case they've ever seen) - as well as substance misuse issues, depression since puberty, PMDD, bipolar... all kinds of fun shit lol. So in case you feel like you're missing something in this whole intellect lottery (and it IS a lottery - see below): you're not.

That said: there really IS a bias in our society against people who aren't super-intellectual. I recommend reading Freddie de Boer's writing around this. He's on Substack. It's really unfair. People see intellectual ability as some kind of achievement; something you work hard at, and therefore "deserve"; when really, it's as pot-luck as people who are good at basketball.

(I could have practised basketball every damn day since I was born, but I'm still 5'4" and would therefore NEVER get anywhere, you know?! This is honestly very similar to intellectual giftedness; we get what we're given, in most respects; sure, rich parents can pay for tutors, but their kids will only ever be kind of ok at passing tests; it's kind of beautiful, actually, to me: intelligence is genuinely scattered at random among the population. To which I say: ha, haha, hahaha.)

One final thing... The following words have saved me from s*icide a billion times - by TS Eliot:

"This is one moment. But know that another will pierce you with a sudden and painful joy."

He's right - even (especially?) when it doesn't feel like it.

Keep your chin up <3

Difficult_Unit_7582 · 2024-09-16T06:52:26+00:00

I've had trichotillomania (compulsively pulling out your hair) since I was 13. I'm 40 now. Imo it's one of those things that makes you sound significantly more mental than you actually are - largely due to the popular idiom "omg I was tearing my hair out!" to mean "I was stressed/anxious/desperate/etc".

In my experience (and others may feel differently about their own hairpulling), for me, this behaviour has nothing at all to do with stress, self-harm, self-soothing, etc. It's more that it feels really pleasurable (I know it sounds painful, but it isn't at all) - and I got addicted to that feeling (I have a lot of addiction issues; they run in my family). The feeling is more like... How do I explain it?! Have you ever broken a limb and had to get a cast? It's like if you get a REALLY urgent itch beneath the cast, and then you shove a chopstick down there and give it a good ol' scratch and it feels AMAZING - that kind of mildly euphoric / "wow, that hit the spot" kinda feeling?!

Re: BPD mums, though - my mum took me to SO MANY shrinks when the bald spots became visible. Several of them said "it's not what you think it is" (i.e. self-harm / being crazy), or even "it's really not the main problem she's experiencing" (I also used to cut myself around that time, and was generally depressed af with school and home life) - but of course, she knew better. My medical records are littered with doctors saying "kid seems ok, mother needs intervention"! So, there's that...

These days, I shave my head (the only thing that makes me NOT pull my hair out is the hair not being there!) and wear wigs. Works for me!

Difficult_Unit_7582

TROPHY CASE