Posted by University on January 20, 2005, at 22:58:22
Hi all,
It has been a long time. But no news has been good news; I've been well. That is, I've not been depressed, per se, for many years.
However, I've been on methylphenidate 20mg TID for years now, and, because I HATE my job and its soul-draining, mind-dumbing, and life-denying properties, it has come to the point where I take Ritalin just to *do* something. This scares me. I AM looking for new employment, but it's as if I have fallen into this dysthymia where I can't seem to do anything without a boost from 20mg of Ritalin.
I'm sure that changing my diet--avoiding so much sugar--and getting some kind of exercise would help, but, and I hate how pampered and lame this sounds, I can't seem to do even the easy things--much less the harder ones, like these.
I suppose I'm not so much looking for a response as I am expressing. I feel as if I'll meet the zenith of frustration with my job and life and its dullness-like a midlife crisis type of situation. And Ritalin and coffee are the only things that "make" me feel somewhat alive. But I don't really fear that I have a "problem"--a drug problem, anyway. That is, I recognize that I'm using the drug, perhaps, "inappropriately," in that I really do take it to get the coressponding energy, motivation, slight euphoria, and focusing that comes. I know, however, that if I had a job I loved--or at least a job where I felt what I did for 8+ hours a day was *meaningful* in some way--this would go a LONG way in curbing my desire for the "artificial" motivation that I find in Ritalin.
I can't imagine that it is uncommon for people on stimulants to take advantage of them in this way when circumstances make doing so tempting; anyone?
FYI, I was originally Rxd Ritalin (after a stint with modafinil) for the apathy and excessive sleepiness my many years on Prozac ostensibly causes. Kind of a long story.
TIA,
University
poster:University
thread:444971
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050119/msgs/444971.html