Growing Up High

Amphetamines (Dexedrine)

Citation: Jen. "Growing Up High: An Experience with Amphetamines (Dexedrine) (exp67797)". Erowid.org . Feb 4, 2009. erowid.org/exp/67797

DOSE:

10 mg oral Amphetamines (daily)

BODY WEIGHT: 130 lb

I'm writing this at five in the morning because I can't sleep again. Of course, I've struggled with insomnia since I was eight years old. I always attributed it to being hyper or 'not being able to shut my brain off'. It took me eleven years of taking Dexedrine to understand that almost all of my 'mental' issues are caused, not solved, by the pill that rules and ruins my life.First of all, Dexedrine is a god-send during finals. I'm an honors student, and I always have been as long as I am drugged up. Just two weeks ago, I popped two 10 mg spansules about four hours before I had a paper to write (spansules take an hour or two to kick on, unlike other forms or doing a line), and wrote eleven pages of a very complicated Philosophy paper in about three hours.When it first kicks in, it's like nothing else. I wake up every morning in a great mood, still high from the leftover amphetamines in my system, and brew a huge pot of coffee and take my meds. I actually have to take Zoloft every day as well, because of depression. I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression when I was eight, but I'm convinced it was a misdiagnosis due to family issues occurring at the same time. Nevertheless, I have to take Zoloft with my Dexedrine, or I won't eat and I'll feel like just dying when the high wears off.Because I take the spansules, I'm always high. There really isn't a period of ups and downs if I don't forget to take the pills and fill my prescription on time. However, when I'm on them, I intensely dislike small talk. I love to hear myself talk, but I have no patience for other people. I'll interrupt conversations all the time, convinced that whatever I have to say is more important than what anyone else has to say. I have no creative ability whatsoever. I can do menial tasks like clean my room extremely efficiently, but I have no desire whatsoever to listen to music, read, write, or even have sex. Dexedrine turns me into a robot.The euphoria is intense. I'm known as a detached and aggressive person by all my friends, not because of any personality traits, but because of this drug. I've watched my brother get hauled away by a police officer for arson without shedding a tear. I've wished death upon a professor for collecting homework after I forgot to do it. I'll get so mad over my roommate not doing the dishes that I'll punch a wall until my hand is mangled. Another side affect is that I can't feel pain like normal people do. One of my 'ticks' is that I like to shove pins in my feet when I'm bored because I can hardly feel them. I can't do this unless I'm high, and I have no desire to anyway when 'sober'.Sometimes, I forget that I've already taken a pill and I take two or three more. Many times, I do this on purpose in order to clean my room. Since I'm already high on residual Dexedrine in my system, the increased dosage usually slowly creeps up on me. I feel like Superwoman! Even if I'm incredibly out of shape, I can run a mile and beat anyone at basketball. If I wanted to, I could rule the entire world. My day goes from good to GREAT over the course of a couple of hours. I can't sit still, my hands shake, and I don't eat for twelve or more hours. I'm hyper-aware of everything around me, while filled with distain for everyone else and curiously detached. If I lie on my bed and close my eyes, I get the most magnificent light shows. I like to do this often, because if I'm taking my Dexedrine, I usually don't dream. I deduce that this is because I never sleep enough to dream anyways. On any given day, even weekends, I usually sleep no more than six hours a day, and it's usually more like three hours. I immediately wake up from a dead slumber incredibly aware of what I have to do for the rest of the day.I binge constantly when I'm on Dexedrine. If I take the pill when I should, I eat no more than 1200 or so calories a day because I have no desire for food. Actually, when high, I hate food and the act of eating. I hate anything that isn't 'productive'. If my dosage slips or wanes, I eat over a thousand calories in one sitting because of sudden onset of extreme hunger. Because of my messed up eating habits, I'm about ten pounds over-weight. Using Dexedrine for weight management, like some people say you can, doesn't work so well.If I forget to take my pill, I get extremely depressed. I enter episodes where I want to kill myself, but not before taking out my family and everyone else I hate. I'll spontaneously start crying, stop and stare into space or curl up in a ball and rock back and forth on my bed for hours. Sometimes, I get really sad and start laughing and I can't stop until I throw up. Behind it all, my brain is moving super fast, and I'm contemplating the meaning of life and other deep questions. I feel completely out of control, like my body is separate from my mind and I'm just observing it go through motions by itself.I'll usually consume anything and everything at this time. I've been known to break strict vegan diets or whatever fad diet the Dexedrine brings on and order an entire extra-large pizza and a whole fried chicken and eat them both. I won't go to class, and my stomach is usually so upset from the extra food after eating so little or so long that I have symptoms rivaling a stomach flu. I'll get intense headaches and fainting episodes. I feel like my head is floating.After the withdrawal stage has passed, which usually takes anywhere from a week to a month, I'm back to what I now know is the 'real me'. I hate work, my room is a mess, and I have no trouble going to sleep and eating like normal people do. My sex drive returns, and with it, my ability to be creative again. I have no concentration for menial tasks, and my desire to pick at my nails and hair, or stick pins in my feet completely disappears. I'll revel in my new-found sense of self, and then finals or cruch-time will roll around and the cycle starts again. I'll get back on the pills, and then start abusing them when I build up a tolerance or have to get something really unpleasant done.I'm completely addicted to Dexedrine, and because I started on them so early (thanks Mom and Dad!) I have little to no idea of who I am without the drugs. I don't even know if I really have Clinical Depression or ADHD. I do know that subsequent tests that have shown that I have Oppositional Deviant Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Paranoia, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder are not because I am all of the above, but that Dexedrine causes those behaviors.I need to cut myself off, but I always chicken out of telling the doctors about my side effects when it comes time to renew my prescription because I think about how my good grades will disappear without Dexedrine. It's funny how we're fighting a war against something as benign as marijuana while medicating our kids into automatons.