Me & My Meds
Its easier to tell people Im on prescription drugs for anxiety than ADHD.
I was always a worrier, even as a little kid.
It was kind of a joke in my family they called me a worrywart.
It was really destructive; there was a lot of self-blame.
That persisted in university as well.
Whenever I had time-pressured tests, I would feel myself sweating.
I’ve got to speed up!'
Everyone struggles with tests, but I was to a whole other level.
It really peaked at the end of my first year of undergrad.
When I’d go to the library to study, I would start crying uncontrollably.
I’d keep reading the same sentence, but I wasn’t processing anything.
It’s like I was preventing myself from studying because I was so nervous.
I talked to one of my good friends whos a year older than me.
I really look up to her.
She told me she started taking an SSRI Cipralex for her anxiety, and it was life-changing for her.
I had been kind of skeptical about medication up to that point.
I didn’t believe it was going to help me that much.
He had me do some questionnaires, and then he started me on the medication.
When it started to work, I at first didn’t notice because my life was coming together.
I wasn’t having such anxious, ruminating thoughts anymore.
I wasn’t catastrophizing all the time.
I was just more able to cope with my life and not just cope with it but also thrive.
I felt like I was able to be myself.
When I started my master’s program, it became really apparent.
A lot of my classes were three hours, and I could not focus for the whole class.
I’d always end up having five different tabs open on my laptop and be doing three different things.
I’d still be listening, kind of, but I’d zone out so easily.
I thought, I don’t belong here.
Something’s wrong with me.
I was also losing things a lot.
I mean, everyone loses things, but it was getting really bad.
I never knew where anything was.
It just started to take over my life.
I started off on one medication called Concerta, but I didn’t really like it.
I felt like it made me really irritable and angry.
I take Vyvanse now, and when I started taking it, I decreased my Cipralex dose.
I guess some of my symptoms that I thought were anxiety were also ADHD symptoms.
I’m more nervous telling people about the Vyvanse.
With ADHD medications, especially in college, people use them a lot to cram for tests.
There’s a market of people selling them, and they’re kind of seen as a performance-enhancing drug.
There’s this perception that you have an advantage over everyone else because you have them.
I wish I had a prescription for those.
No wonder you did so well on the midterm.
