I come from a upper middle class family, I had a pretty traumatic childhood but I have mostly moved on, especially from the period of self-medicating and deliberate self-harm.
So why in the world would I make a conscious decision to become an Addict?
Well, the short answer is I’m not, the long answer is because my doctor prescribed it to me. Dexamphetamine
The doctors answer to my severe brain fog from the Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome or POTS for short. It is a common co-morbidity of my hEDS (Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome) and it has been present and wreaking havoc on my life for 18 years culminating in my current predicament.
Let’s go back a step. EDS means that my collagen is defective, as the majority of the body is made up of collagen it means that the underlying structure of every organ/part of the body is defective, or in my case stretchy. POTS means that when I change posture or in laymans terms stand up my blood pressure doesn’t adjust, which means my brain doesn’t get blood. The brain doesn’t like this so it forces the body to give it blood by making me fall to the ground, or faint.
The fun bit is all the times in between, when the brain has enough blood (it actually wants the oxygen) to function on a basic level, think breathing, but not enough for all the “complex” functions such as complex reasoning (do I want to eat a banana or apple counts some days 😜 ), talking, then vision.
This means many things in my life. I cannot be left at home alone. I cannot “go to work” anymore (I work remotely part-time in a much more junior position). I cannot shower by myself. I struggle to cook, clean, garden, repair, do anything meaningful around the house. I have had to stop all of my hobbies from Hockey and skiing, to bushwalking and camping. I have stopped dreaming of travelling the world and instead dream of being able to drive to the city.
So how does this relate to me deciding to take amphetamines everyday for what I’m told would be the rest of my life?
Well the reason people take them is to stay alert, so in theory they will result in me getting my “brain” back part time and making it so I can function a little bit better in the world by passing out less as well.
I know that it has been used and tested for years on kids with ADHD (Ritalin) and Narcolepsy but knowing my families addictive personality type and the fact I have always had a unbreakable rule of no narcotics, it does make me nervous as I always am when they add yet another medication to my drug cocktail!
So I have submitted the paperwork to the government to request access to Dexamphetamine, as it is a Schedule 8 medication and my doctor is using it “off script”, then I can go get my script filled in two weeks unless I hear from the specialist that my request was denied.
What do you think, are amphetamines safe to use? Does an addiction to medication make someone an addict, or is it the drug seeking behaviour and the need for larger, better “highs” that keep the blurry line between medicated and addicted two separate states?
Till Next Time
All images are CC0 - Joshua Coleman, Freestocks and Wokandapix