So after significantly maturing and understanding my brain I have realize I have been subjected both intentionally and unintentionally to many intense mind altering drugs over my lifetime in order to manage my mental illnesses and they had a bad affect on my mental health. I am uncomfortable with my current mental state and decide to go on the internet to figure out how to properly supplement/medicate/fix my brain.
I know that I was born with ADHD and I believe that my bipolar disorder is legitimate too as I have family history and it emerged at a common time following only Ritalin use. Any anxiety I have experienced I believe is related to illegal substance use and is no longer present or relevant and I control with Valium when necessary.
I need help and advice on supplements. My sleep schedule is awful, I am overwhelmed by school work, I am having racing thoughts, bad memory/learning/concentration, impulsivity, mood cycling, etc. I know I need change in my life in order to recover my cognition, not drop out of school with enormous economic consequences, and save my relationships with my friends and fiance. I know that if I manage my illness successfully I can achieve anything I set my mind to.
I would be forever in anyone's debt who helps me figure out how to properly use nootropics alongside prescription medications.
Anyone who does not care to understand my extensive lifetime history as I can best recollect easily with legal and illegal drugs in an attempt to regulate my mental illness can skip the following section and go straight to my current needs and mental state from the last week. However, if you are familiar with legal/illegal drug use this will definitely help put my mind into perspective.
Lets start from the beginning (start the tl;dr;)
Year 1: Others noticed I was "busier" than other children.
2nd Grade: Teacher mentioned the definite possibility of ADHD to my parents (my mom is a psychiatrist) and my parents tried different stimulants, eventually settling on on 94mg of methylphenidate (Ritalin/Concerta) a day for almost a decade. As of right now I do not take nearly that much.
8th Grade: Manic Depression sets in. I am still taking stimulants. Here is where the huge quantities of prescription medications come in. Seroquel, Depakote, Welbutrin, potentially others. Depakote dosages way past 1000mg, Seroquel far past 400mg (maybe even past 800mg, if kind souls try to help I can get detailed medication history for my entire life) in order to calm me down and get me functional in society. Relationship with ex gf destroyed as illness emerges. These meds would give me headaches, change my sex drive, affect my mental state, make me cloudy at times, sometimes make me feel like I'm tripping, etc. Typical medication side effects, especially when used in such high dosages.
11th Grade: I've gotten slightly functional, but begin to dip into the abyss. Extended release Seroquel cut up into pieces would fuck me up so bad in the mornings when it was shotgunned into my system. I missed insane amounts of class, was extremely disoriented, obviously mentally unstable, and ended up hospitalized in a mental facility. Turns out out I had severe thyroid problems which were radically shifting my sleep schedule (amongst other things). I get placed on thyroid supplements, my meds are completely revamped, I survive insane mental issues following rapid medication changes, and I get back into life.
12th grade: terrible influence of a different ex gf gets me into smoking hookah. Being mentally unstable, being worried about the effects of drugs on my processing speed, and being on prescription meds I had refused all prior substance use outside of prescription meds and I had been "sober" up to this point. The prescription medications are still onboard when my non-prescription substance history begins at the end of my senior year of high school. I noticed a very bad feeling the first time I smoked hookah but got into it regardless. I observed my ADHD was slightly worse but not in a very relevant way and it tended to recover with sleep/abstinence.
Summer following 12th grade: Start drinking a little (still on meds). I have my first powerful drug experience, a hit of spice (synthetic cannabinoid blend, damn you crazy ex's). It rocks me like a hurricane. I feel like I will never be the same, as my first real drug experience was a powerful, intense, insane body load trip while on tons of prescription medications that freaks me and literally changes how I view reality when I wake up. I try weed 2 days later after feeling the need to help my brain or figure out what I actually wanted to do or discover "what getting high actually was". I LOVE it. I start out slowly consuming (while still on an antidepressant, anti-psychotic, mood stabilizer, stimulant, and levothyroxine) but my medications make marijuana so intense I cannot smoke tons and have no desire to do so. I also believe Welbutrin helped with my addictive tendencies.
Freshman year of College: I have just started smoking and I have the best grades of my entire life. I'm manic but I barely notice it. Parents freak out when they discover my substance use, but I reassure them its ok and mention my grades. On weekends I don't take meds and smoke marijuana instead for fun and because I am doing so well in school. Part of this was due to my massive prerequisite knowledge of the courses I was taking, but I really think I was in a good place mentally. I also started smoking spice more than occasionally, but not the type that freaked me out the first time I got high but rather a milder but still trippy than cannabis variant that is a synthetic cannabinoid. One factor that might have affected my ability to do so well was my willingness to take caffeine and Ritalin and focus on studying for extensive amounts of time. I miss that mental state so much. If I stayed there I could have accomplished anything in life. My GPA was almost a 4.0.
Summer before Sophmore year: start consuming CRAZY amounts of thc and Acquire crazy medical strains that were very "trippy". This is where the bad juju begins once again.
Sophmore year: My grades start to slip. I realize my self-medication is starting to fuck me (along with other things). I get into Adderall for a little while as I love the party/energy/better than ritalin I'm desensitized to/superior mental function. I am forced to sober up at the end of the year. I feel shitty but manage to finish the semester.
Summer before Junior Year: I decide to sober up completely (I had stopped weed but was still drinking) due to concentration/functioning issues. I smoke Salvia on tons of prescription meds right before I decide to quit everything "just to wrap things up before I go sober". This fucks up my motor coordination/brain for months.
First Semester Junior Year: On medication and fully sober, I experience my worst semester of college to date. I drop out of school with anxiety attacks when I try to do final exams after having good grades most of the semester.
Second Semester Junior year: I skip a semester due to mental health, concentration, and motivational issues. I am hospitalized a second time, and rebuilding my brain is significantly more difficult and intense. This might have been drugs but I am not sure as my life is very complicated. I am very sober but very mentally unstable and unhappy. I finally make it back to school despite anxiety/confidence issues.
First Semester Senior year: Things are going well and I'm returning to 100%. I need Valium to function in high stress exam situations but I feel good about my potential to do schoolwork. I notice that I cannot take tons of caffeine/Ritalin and stay up for days like I used to when I studied. I decide to get back into pot due to peer pressure and impulsivity while drunk trying to socialize better. TERRIBLE mistake. I hate it at first, then start to like it again.
Second Semester Senior Year: I am addicted to bud, barely salvaging grades, my cannabis consumption on the rise, and medication use has started to get inconsistent. I get back to the "smoke weed all day every day" phase and stop in time for final exams which I barely survive.
Summer before current school year: I start to eat healthier and at first that really seems to help me but obviously is not relevant. I start to smoke heavy amounts of weed like the last lethal summer (summer before sophmore year). I do LSD twice and ketamine once because "drugs aren't as bad I realized" given my perceived/actual cannabis recovery, I'm manic and addicted, its in front of me, etc. At the end of the summer I acquire wax (one of the most powerful cannabis concentrates). I start to see myself going downhill and I'm on/off all medications inconsistently. I have forgotten my past somehow (damn you mania) and I'm trying to function and failing.
Present Final school year: I smoked a ton of marijuana and wax the first few weeks of school and the wax speeds up my memory/learning/etc degradation stemming from stereotypical negative cannabis side effects. I detect that my mood has shifted from mania to depression, I get paranoid and I have the classic "you smoke too much pot" mindstate. I have barely been doing school work or go to class as I'm a fucking mess.
END OF TL;DR; for the lazy
Here is most important mental/substance analysis:
As of last week: I am 2 days sober after ratcheting down thc/cbd consumption from various forms of cannabis (edibles, concentrates, traditional flowers, etc) comfortably over a period of 5 days to help smooth the transition and prevent further mental shifts. I have started doing daily exercise and I am attempting to try harder to focus when I perform intellectually competitive activities (poker, magic the gathering, counter-strike, etc).
I restarted Depakote, Lithium, Ritalin, Valium, and my thyroid supplements. I have recognized that I have taken both illegal and legal meds improperly both due to my own and others actions and have rarely had proper control of my illness. I finally think that I understand my own condition enough to fix myself after hundreds of thousands of dollars of psychiatric care, massive internet research, and tons of legal and illegal drug use that aided in the understanding of my mental state and illness over the course of almost 15 years.
AND HERE WE ARE TODAY!
Right now my goals for medications/supplements are as follows:
Morning: Ritalin 36mg, Thyroid Supplement, 500mg depakote,
Potential Supplements: KB220Z, best omega3 blend available, and potentially recommendations from reddit/longecity
When needed: Additional ritalin, 5mg valium
Evening: 1000mg depakote, 300mg Lithium as they still rock me as I have not adjusted to taking them daily consistently.
Explanation for choices: I am prescribed depakote and lithium. I should be taking more lithium but I hear its good for neurogenesis in low doses and dangerous in high doses and I'm trying to not rock the boat too hard right now. I need something to control ADHD, currently Ritalin, but I am open to suggestions as it doesn't work as well as it used and has very intense physical sensations associated with it currently. I need thyroid supplements as they aren't harmful and I know I have thyroid problems. Once I take my thyroid medication, lithium, and depakote regularly I will get my medication levels checked. I talk to my psychiatrist on Saturday about all of this.
I'm considering Omega3 to recover my brain and KB220z to help with withdrawal/stabilize my brain. This is where I need the most help as I know very little of what supplements I should be taking and I know you guys would know better than I what I should start out taking.
Any and all thoughts would be appreciated before I continue to further alter my mental state. I intend to place orders for supplements tonight or tomorrow.
Edited by Subtle Desensitizer, 22 September 2014 - 10:10 PM.
