Posted by Survivor on August 5, 2001, at 3:50:51
In reply to Re: questions-borderline personality disorder, posted by Else on July 27, 2001, at 6:26:38
> > > If stimulant medications make me feel better, does that suggest ADD?
> >
> > Not necessarily. Stimulants have antidepressant effects in some people, for example; see early research on what is now known as atypical depression. The lines between these categories can be quite blurred, of course.
> >
> > I think that euphoria is seldom a side effect when people start taking them for ADD, for example: the doses used are simply too low. And anyway, not everyone finds stimulants euphoric or even pleasant.
> >
>
> Maybe not everyone, but a lot of people do, that's why they are controlled substances. They do directly stimulate the "pleasure" center in the brain. Even at low doses, they would help almost anyone concentrate, not just people with ADD. < <I was initially diagnosed at age 9 as "hyperactive" and extensively retested at age 40 and given a diagnosis of extreme ADHD. Stimulants were prescribed for me this time and there was *no high*, no elation or euphoria when I began taking them, even at very high doses. More appropriately, they calmed me down, put me to sleep, made me able to sit still and shut up, sometimes for minutes on end < g >.
This reaction is the goal in stimulant use. A true ADD or ADHD person will find stimulants sedating, an inverse response to the one a non-ADD/ADHD person will experience. Non-ADD people ought to be able to *fly* on the level of stimulants it takes to give me improved cognitive performance and greater (any) impulse control. Sleep problems, appetite suppression, feeling high, and other "standard" stimulant responses just never happen to me. Instead, they produce a measure of calm and quiet in my over-amped brain that no other medication can.
FWIW, I also take an antidepressant medication considered highly sedating. Before getting the right treatment for my ADHD, that highly sedating drug had me operating like a manic in overdrive, even as it helped my depression.
Comorbid conditions make the garden we grow in an unmangeable tangle; just keep hacking away at each new
weed that springs up and hope that some sunshine will eventually break through. It probably won't, but what else do you have to do that's more important than trying to get some light and warmth into your life?
poster:Survivor
thread:71466
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010804/msgs/73638.html