Sharing the vulnerable story of my journey with Adderall... because transparency is the antidote to shame.
I’ve been writing this blog — which I named “Transparent Tuesdays” — for nearly a decade, and in that time I’ve written about some incredibly personal stuff. The kind of thing that most people definitely wouldn’t want published on the internet, because I believe in the transformational healing power of story-telling.
In our culture, so many normal and common parts of the human experience are stigmatized, shamed (think: body image, emotions, sex and mental health, just to name a few), and that leaves a lot of us feeling isolated, weird, broken, and bad about ourselves.
I decided a long time ago that if I ever have a story with the power to heal, empower, validate, or liberate other people, I will share it. Even if (and perhaps, especially if) it feels cringy, vulnerable, embarrassing, or uncomfortable to do so.
This is why the opening line of my 2017 TEDx talk was “the first time I was sexually assaulted, I was seven years old.” It’s why I’ve written openly about the details of my sex life, from trauma to liberation; from g-spot orgasms to bisexuality and non-monogamy. It’s why I came out as non-binary and transgender on the internet first, before I had even come out to my family. And it’s why I talk about the ongoing process of acknowledging, exploring, and dismantling my own implicit oppressive biases and beliefs, even when it makes me look bad.
My friends used to joke that I would “throw myself under any bus” in my writing if I thought it might help someone, and they’re absolutely right.
I struggle with shame and insecurity at times like everyone else, but I’m incredibly solid in who I am and where my worth and value come from, and I’m ok with the fact that some people will judge me or think less of me. Because those same stories will help some people judge themselves less, or think more highly of themselves… and I care more about that than anything else in the world.
Also, because the purpose of my vulnerability is to help people feel less alone, rather than as a marketing tool, I tend to share my struggles “from the middle,” instead of waiting until I’ve successfully overcome something and can wrap my story up in a pretty bow and be all like “if I can do it, you can too!” or “steal my 3 secrets for overcoming!”
So yes, I share a lot of personal stuff on the internet, and some of it makes me look bad, and that’s ok with me. To me, transparency is about human connection, and I believe each of us has the power to heal, liberate, and affirm each other by sharing our own stories with honesty and vulnerability. To that end, I want to share a personal story today, from the middle, or perhaps even from the beginning, as it’s very new.
This is a story of addiction.
Now, I know addiction is a topic heavily fraught with stigma and shame in our culture, so be mindful about whether this is a story you have space to hear right now, and take care of yourself.
And for the record, I’m still playing with the words “addiction” and “addict” in my own mind around this. I’m still trying them out, and seeing how they feel and fit. I’m a big believer in the power of choosing our labels consciously and mindfully, only using the ones that serve us while they serve us, and letting them go if/when they don’t.
Right now as I write this, it feels true and important to call myself an “addict,” both because it accurately represents my experience, and because I’ve noticed that my desire to not use the word is rooted in the cultural shame and stigma surrounding addiction, and I refuse to let that shit have power. So I’m choosing to use the word “addiction” here, and I reserve the right to let go of it in the future if/when it no longer feels right or serves me.
So here we go. *deep breath*
I’m Jessi, and I’m addicted to Adderall.
I started taking it shortly after I got my book deal, to help me focus and write. I was surprised to discover that I didn’t have to lie at all to get diagnosed with ADHD and get a prescription, and for a long time I clung to the idea that I couldn’t be addicted if it was being freely prescribed, but of course that’s not the case.
Adderall, like plenty of other prescription medications, can be addictive. Everyone responds differently to different medications and dosages, and all a provider can do is rely on their patient’s feedback regarding a medication’s effectiveness and side effects. And I simply didn’t give my provider all the information.
If I’d told my provider about how my appetite was being so impacted that I sometimes went multiple days without eating solid food, or that my immune system was shutting down and I was having joint-inflammation symptoms reminiscent of arthritis, she probably would have decreased my dose, or insisted we try a different medication.
But I didn’t tell her those things. They sort of just slipped my mind every time we spoke.
In fairness, it’s not exactly like I was lying to her. I was working really hard to convince myself that those symptoms weren’t related to the Adderall, and performing some truly Olympic-level mental gymnastics to explain them away to myself. It wasn’t a fully conscious thing, but looking back I can see that the addiction had already taken hold, and addiction is sneaky like that. It lies to us, dressing up as anything but addiction, and contorting itself into whatever logic pretzel helps justify the behavior. So it’s not surprising that I blamed anything and everything but Adderall for my symptoms.
I’m just getting old! I need to dial in my self-care! Maybe I have an auto-immune disease!
At one point I even thought I was developing an eating disorder, because I could barely eat and was losing weight so quickly. Given the incredibly neutral relationship I have to my body, this didn’t really make sense, but I really really really didn’t want it to be the Adderall, because I simply wasn’t willing to stop. And if my problem could be explained by some kind of bizarre and spontaneous eating disorder, then I wouldn’t have to.
Now I will say I consciously flagged my relationship to Adderall as “unhealthy” a long time ago, when I cut way back on the high dosage I’d been taking, and then tried to stop, only to start back up again, multiple times. I knew that was weird, but I kept trying (and failing) to take it moderately or sporadically, in the hopes that I would never have to give it up completely.
It just made me too good to give up, I thought. Too focused and productive and energized. Too curious and alive. Too happy. How could that be a bad thing??
Then, about a month ago, I decided to take some time off again, just to sort of reset and refuel. This is something I’ve now done many times, so I was prepared for a few days of fatigue, brain-fog, headaches, and depression.
I wasn’t, however, prepared to spend the better part of a week violently sick.
It was… alarming. Scary, even. I would have thought I’d come down with the flu or something, if it weren’t for the fact that all I could think about was Adderall. I felt its presence in my desk drawer like a vivid somatic pull, practically calling out my name and promising to make it all go away— to make me feel better and solve all my problems— with just one teeny tiny little pill.
More than the horrible symptoms of physical detox, it was that obsessive desire for more that finally got me to name it for what it is. I’m addicted to Adderall.
Like all of us, I have plenty of unhealthy coping mechanisms and patterns, but none of them have ever had this much power. Maybe I drink too much sometimes, or numb out with screens more than I’d like, but I’ve never felt alcohol or social media calling to me from across the house, whispering sweet lies, and promising me instant relief and pleasure.
I’ve never watched my brain desperately scramble to make me do something, coming up with increasingly bizarre reasons why it would be ok to take just a little, just this one time, just to get the ground back underneath me so I could recommit to stopping. The addiction was begging me to take more; pleading with me; insisting that I shouldn’t tell anyone because nobody needed to know.
It was… fascinating. Frightening, and humbling. I knew my relationship to Adderall wasn’t healthy, but I didn’t know how dependent on it I had become, or how much of a foothold it had gotten over me.
People in twelve step programs like AA always talk about taking sobriety “day by day,” but honestly even that was too much at first. For days on end I was white-knuckling my way through sobriety, bargaining with my addiction voice, saying that I wasn’t going to take Adderall right now, but I could take it in an hour if I still wanted it. Then I repeated the process an hour later, (when I still very definitely wanted it), until it was evening and I told myself it was too late to take it today, but that I could take it tomorrow if I still wanted it.
Rinse and repeat; over and over.
I don’t have to be done forever, I promised myself, I’m just not going to take it right now. As the physical detox symptoms eased up over the course of a week, that obsessive desire quieted down a bit too, and my resolve strengthened. I’ve shifted from “I’m not taking Adderall right now” to “I can’t take Adderall anymore because I can’t afford to go through that again,” but even as I write this I have resistance to saying I’ll never take it again.
I feel very sure that I can’t have a moderate relationship to Adderall, but the thought of never getting to take it again makes me feel so heartbroken that I simply cannot fathom it.
And that’s ok; that’s just where I’m at right now. I’m grieving, and grief is an important part of recovery. I’m grieving the loss of something I loved preciously and dearly, and which I can no longer safely participate in, and I’m grieving the version of myself that Adderall helped me be.
That said, it hasn’t all been hard and sad, because sobriety has offered many gifts and lessons and benefits too, and I’m incredibly grateful for them. It feels amazing to be able to properly fuel and nourish my body with food again. My aches and pains are gone, I feel a lot more grounded and present, and I’ve been absolutely crushing my workouts the last couple of weeks, and I love that. I’ve also had to restructure my habits to radically prioritize self-care (now that I can’t just take a pill to be instantly focused, energized, or happy) and it’s pretty empowering to see my new habits paying off.
So… that’s my story. I’m an addict exploring true “sobriety” from Adderall for the first time in years, and I’m learning and healing and grieving all at once.
As soon as I heard the addiction-voice in my brain insist that I should keep this story a secret, I immediately knew I wanted to write about it. Secrecy gives shame power, and transparency takes that power away, both for the person sharing their story, and for the people who hear it.
And that, my friend, is what this series is all about.
For what it’s worth, if you caught yourself judging me or thinking less of me as I told my story, please know that that’s ok and I don’t mind. This story simply wasn’t for you! If, on the other hand, reading it made you feel even a little bit lighter, freer, more empowered, or less alone, then I wrote it for you… and I love you.
Big hug from the middle,
Jessi
Comments