There is a prominent meme in the online mental health communities that states, “if you can’t make your own serotonin/neurotransmitters, store-bought is fine”.
I am a big believer in this ideology. I definitely have a little funky junk in the monkey-clapping-symbols I call a brain. As such I have been on antidepressants for over a year now and the change has been positive and substantial.
But today I want to talk about something that I haven’t really experienced in the last year.
What happens when the ADHD clashes with taking medication?
Let me explain. Last week was rather stressful. There was a special event in the family that took up all of my mental capacity. Now, I don’t resent this in the slightest, it was a great time had by all, but there’s no denying the build-up had been weighing on me and I’m very glad to get back to some sense of normality.
That being said, For the last five or six days I have not been in a good way. I hadn’t had any idea what was going on, but I felt awful. I figured maybe my diet might have been affecting me as I’ve been eating rubbish. Or maybe some lasting stress effects, or the flu. But then on night two I woke up from a horrendous nightmare, unable to and unwilling to go back to sleep.
That was just the start of my day. I was up from 04:30 till 08:30, in that time my vision was blurry, I kept having dizzy spells, I couldn’t regulate my temperature running hot and cold over and over, and then I went back to sleep… till 18:00.
I naturally assumed I was ill, it had to be flu or something right? And then I realised. For the last 3 days I hadn’t remembered to take my medication.
I was going through withdrawal. Naturally I’m back on my meds, however it’s taken a few days for me to settle back in, in that time I have been suffering from the withdrawal symptoms and sleep deprivation coupled with anxiety attacks with a just little sprinkling of guilt for having to call in sick to work due to my own forgetfulness.
One more day of bed-rest and hopefully I’ll be back up to full strength.