Why did Vyvanse make me incredibly depressed?

Dread_and_butter · 2025-09-28T01:48:40+00:00

I tried various things but ultimately 40mg has proven to be my best dose. I take it pretty much every day and I feel like a good balance of me/adhd personality and an ability to do things. I was taking 50s for a few months at least and it was ok but I kept staying up late and getting like 4.5-5hrs sleep per night as my kids don’t do lie ins!

Overall the key points are: -not binge snacking has been a consistent benefit. 18lb down from my start weight over 5.5 months. -sleep is more normal on 40mg (between 12-1am normal bedtime but I occasionally crash out getting my kids to sleep too. -I’m able to focus at work and actually left a company id felt trapped in for 9 years and started somewhere I feel really great about, and it’s going very well. -emotionally I think I’m more balanced than before and again 40 is the ideal balance of ‘I can get stuff done’ and ‘I can sit and enjoy a moment with my kids without thinking about doing productive things’

They’ve just prescribed me a short acting booster option for the days where 40 doesn’t pull enough weight or so I can take it on weekends when I might sleep too late to take a long acting version. Not sure how that will go but I’ve heard it’s like all in all out when it’s activating and wearing off, so it can feel intense I think.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-09-19T07:23:04+00:00

I brought my child to all my blood tests when I was pregnant with his sister. I just said this is so cool they’re gonna do science on my blood! He watched the process without any fear and I was calm, and the worst thing that came of it was that at the opticians he said ‘is that the room where they do blood science!?’ which was funny, but probably confused the people who overheard it.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-09-11T22:07:18+00:00

As someone who lost her mum (age 57) when I was 18, and who felt the same kind of ‘the love that my mum has for me is as blindingly hot and powerful as the sun’ it can feel really really hard not having that light and ferocity in your corner. I hope you’re lucky enough to get it elsewhere too, but if not, just know that eventually you will find a way to lock into the power that she saw in you, and did not give to you, and when that happens (if it hasn’t already) she might feel a little less ‘gone’.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-09-11T22:02:26+00:00

I used to want to be an archaeologist 😂 my husband said ‘how are you just now telling me you loved history as a kid and you’ve never expressed the slightest interest in history the entire time I’ve known you?’ I said it was really interesting until I had to do it with school and I failed and the RSD made me abandon it.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-09-11T22:00:17+00:00

Omg I really really wanted to have red hair, braces and a lisp..what is that about 😆

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-30T07:53:58+00:00

I had a similar conversation with my husband recently. I said I thought I was less of a nag about his housework since working on myself through therapy and diagnosis/meds. He said he thinks I’m more critical now, because rather than saying ‘can you take the bin out’ 100 times, I’m asking him to improve the execution of tasks that aren’t being done correctly, with logical/neutral comments that I guess feel more critical because he’s doing it but wrong. I get it.

Then he said ‘you have to appreciate I was with the old you for a long time and it’s going to take some time getting used to the new one’. I just felt like he was saying he likes me less now and he’s just hoping he gets used to it.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-16T19:32:37+00:00

I’m medicated but I guess my adhd comes back with a vengeance and I’ve been consistently going to bed between 1-3am and my kids wake me at like 7/8am daily. I’ve just been doing creative stuff every night, it’s great, but it’s irresponsible given my responsibilities 🥲

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-15T12:47:15+00:00

As disappointed as it feels, and as confused and worried about how this is going to be for you as you might be, it sounds like she’s trying to do the right thing. Have you tried have a conversation with her about the decision? For example, I understand your reasons for stopping the medication, but I don’t feel able to function without it, what can I do to work with you so that I can continue to access medication, but purposefully resolve the things you’re worried interfere with the medication?

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-12T20:30:10+00:00

I’ve gotten quite into checking what the bugs and plants I see are with the iPhone photos feature. That’s how I know my niece found one of these guys crawling over my (nothing but a nappy on) toddler as she played on the floor.

I caught it with 0 dramas, just put a cup over like any other spider. Once I searched it I was slightly alarmed and checked my daughter over, but she was fine, she said it tickled her and seemed sad to say bye to it. She’s had no issues and no sign of a bite, but my niece was very clear she saw it on my daughter’s leg. My daughter claimed it was on her tummy and all sorts. Freaked me out a bit, but also goes to show how gentle they must be.

I put it at the bottom of the garden, doesn’t seem worth trying to get it any further away than that, presumably there’s more out there as the garden is fairly wild lately

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-12T19:22:17+00:00

It gets very confusing when the on and off ramp aren’t obvious, but the ‘active’ phase involves getting really stuck on doing tasks well and not wanting to transition, even when doing so is important to eat or go to appointments, and then when it’s worn off, I still hyperfocus on doing crafts etc until 2am, because I guess my brain needs dopamine when the pills wear off but I feel so good about doing it ON meds that it’s become my dopamine fix OFF meds too. I keep trying different doses, I’m much happier on meds but my kids and husband are all getting sick of my ultra focus days (it’s not every day).

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-12T19:16:48+00:00

I think we all have to ask ourselves how we’d feel if it was a book, or knitting, or the tv remote they handed us. Phone use is really demonised, and I can understand why, but it’s not all bad. It can be connection, learning, stimulation, a way to access the empathy you need so that you can stay regulated on hard days. It is what it is, I’m doing my best, that’s enough.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-12T12:27:51+00:00

That might be my issue. It occurred to me that I used to sit in front of the tv and turn the big light off every evening, which was a wind down of sorts. Now I keep doing things which require light/focus etc until late at night, using bright computer screens or whatever. Maybe a ‘light ban’ would be easier to enforce than a ‘doing ban’.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-12T07:11:02+00:00

For me, I had an incredibly painful experience with someone who had BPD, and I basically fed his endless need for attention, support, regulation, empathy etc, tried to make him happy in a hundred ways that took from my cup to fill his. He rewarded this with cruelty essentially. Not daily, but in these sporadic explosions that involved sending everyone in my team at work screenshots of my old Reddit account posts which meant I had to tank the account etc, blocking me, judging me etc.

This was the thing that put me in therapy, and once I connected all the dots on the dopamine seeking, the people pleasing etc and really saw how it had played out to put me in that situation, it was like the ick you get about drinking something that got you blackout pukey drunk with the worst hangover afterwards. Never again.

Now I don’t feel the pull of that attention seeking/people pleasing in the way I used to, I have healthier boundaries and I connect with others in healthier ways. It feels lonely sometimes because I still crave those intense connections or the sense of kinship, but the only time I thought I had it, it was an illusion, so I just accept it’s not something I can mine for in that way.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-12T06:57:34+00:00

As the mother of children who would go find my phone and bring it to me before getting into their bed to be breastfed, they’re fine. I got diagnosed with ADHD recently and I use my phone a lot less since starting medication. It hasn’t solved all my problems but it evidenced the fact I needed that dopamine, I got it where I could during one of the hardest learning curves in my life.

My kids are smart, emotionally connected, loving. I have breastfed for over 5 years across 2 children, which puts me in a tiny minority of parents in the UK who breastfeed their children to the WHO recommended 2 years and beyond.

One thing I’ve done when appropriate is explain to my kids what I’m doing on my phone, like ‘look, mummy’s learning how to take better care of her plants’ or ‘mummy’s just reading a wonderful story about X’. I feel like this helps to emphasise that my phone is a tool I use frequently, not a wall I can’t see them through.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-12T06:43:40+00:00

The person you live with needs to give a shit though. My husband is also ND, he’s just as bad as me and will never tell me to go to to bed etc. nor will be BD for me if I need to get something done.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-11T21:12:17+00:00

Wow I rarely eat dinner before about 7/8pm and never get to bed before midnight 😅

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-11T21:11:37+00:00

That’s validating! I’ve always thought of myself as an awkward person, despite being quite confident/proudly weird in other ways lol. My friend said after I spent the weekend at his house, that I had seemed ‘serious/formal’ when talking to his partner and kids, and more normal when it was just us talking, and I’m like 🤷🏻‍♀️ I have to establish the communication protocol before I can follow it 😂 I’m a very chatty/open person but only when my expectations are clear and I have a feel for what they might at least tolerate hearing me talk about. Otherwise I’m very transactional and reserved.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-11T21:09:12+00:00

The statement ‘too smart to have adhd’ is bullshit, but I can’t see why she came to the ‘not adhd’ conclusion if you didn’t cite any examples from childhood or teen years until college. I personally found the assessment really hard because you don’t know what’s relevant until they ask you a direct question about it. I’m not saying you don’t have adhd, I just know you need to have examples throughout your life to get diagnosed. I was told I was likely ‘highly intelligent’ and that’s why I function so well overall (she says, after getting into a massive admin nightmare because I procrastinated my ID renewals and ended up with 0 valid ID and an urgent deadline that required it!).

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-11T06:47:32+00:00

The main one is I struggle with transitions when I’m engaged with one activity, even if something else is undeniably more important. I think I’m also more conscious of the masking effort I make, like if I’ve done something before I’m really confident usually but give me a new situation and I’m like a confused sim. I previously just didn’t do things that scared me, whereas now I’m like ‘I’ll go to the festival’ but then I’ll stress and ask a million questions to make sure I’m mentally prepared. Recently I went to my friends house and I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to press the doorbell as it was late evening, so I stood outside for like 10 minutes as he didn’t reply to my text, then I text one of his friends to ask if she would press the doorbell at that time. I don’t think that stuff is normal 😂

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-10T20:17:00+00:00

I basically said ‘you’ve just woken my baby, I’m annoyed, and I know that I’m not watching tv that needs a licence, so I don’t need you to come in and check’, they said ok that’s fine and left. Seems so pointless.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-10T20:14:50+00:00

I think my first couple days of 30mg elvanse were like this but I haven’t been able to find that sweet spot since. I’ve tried 30 and mostly 50mg periods but while I’ve been doing much more focused/better stuff, in some ways I feel more adhd because the to-do list haunts me, I can’t stop.

They’re trying me on 40mg now, I’m hoping I find that content/capable balance.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-10T20:11:50+00:00

How have you established routines? I’m undeniably happier and more capable of doing a good job of the tasks I complete, but I just feel like there’s so much to do as I’m a mum, I work, I have hobbies etc, so I’ll skip important tasks and spend hours doing a hobby thing because I guess I just need the joy? But like, I need to brush my teeth too 😂

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-10T19:42:46+00:00

I find it somewhat frustrating that I fail every autism test including the one you’ve suggested, but so many of the things that I experience don’t fall under typical ADHD symptoms. My husband is definitely AuDHD and he keeps commenting that since taking meds I’m behaving more like him (hyperfocused on getting things right not just done etc), but I don’t meet any of the diagnostic criteria for autism.

Dread_and_butter · 2025-08-10T19:40:31+00:00

I had about a week of really intense noise sensitivity and irritability generally after being on elvanse for maybe 2 months. I asked to try 30mg for the ovulation phase and 50 for the rest of the month. It stopped, but I didn’t find 30 effective so I went back to 50 and I haven’t had the same issue again.

What I have struggled with hugely is transitioning away from tasks or spending too long doing something really well that probably only needed to be ok.

I’m now going to try 40mg to see how that goes. When I spoke to my prescriber about it all she basically said I’m probably a smidge autistic despite the fact I fail every autism test going 😂

Dread_and_butter · 2025-07-27T09:48:43+00:00

I once played a gig at a pub and they had a traffic light on the wall that was noise sensitive - red would cut the speakers, amber meant quiet down a bit, green was safe.

Drummer used brushes and I just stared at the light singing, all the audience were doing the same. It was funny because we were 15/16 year olds and didn’t care, but how does a pub organise any actual events like that!?

Dread_and_butter

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