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Post by probioticgirl on Oct 23, 2014 18:36:14 GMT
Hi, I'm on 80mg Strattera daily and have noticed it has the effect of a mild mood stabiliser on me. Not that I was bi-polar, but I used to get excitable like a puppy and irritable/moody like a man (joke). Since starting Strattera, I no longer feel the joys of puppy-like excitement anymore, nor the immediate stresses I used to.
My dear Dad passed away (I saw him die and was at his bedside for 20 hours) 2 weeks ago. I felt grief for the first 4 days, then it seemed to dissipate and I started to feel calm and my Dad's passing seemed like 6 months ago. I felt grossly tired for a solid week after he died - a somatic/psychological response to his loss. His death was uncomplicated and we did get to discuss his passing with him beforehand over the months and he was ready to move on. I am sure this process helped things.
This, for me, isn't normal. It isn't how I've grieved in the past. I was very close with my Dad and loved him dearly and am missing him. So......how come I'm feeling calm? We had his funeral today and it alarmed me how not quite in the emotion I was. It's causing me great guilt.
I'm after your thoughts, as fellow ADHDers who have tried Strattera, or not, and who have experienced grief from the loss of someone close.
I don't know if my mind has thrown me some odd coping mechanism by making me feel all emotionally shut down, or......could it be possible that the Strattera is dampening the depths of my emotions as I highlighted above??
I know you don't know me and you're not doctors, but I thought i'd throw the question out here anyway. I'm in a quandary and thought I'd share with my fellow ADHDers.
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Post by contrarymary on Oct 23, 2014 22:12:16 GMT
hey probioticgirl i'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your Dad. my condolences to you. i wonder, if the medication has caused your emotions to be less extreme (as in, losing the ends of the extremes of the emotions), whether that might also be the case for this, deeper, emotion. i'm sorry you are feeling guilty for not being "in the emotion". i wonder whether any of your feelings are as they were in the past. it sounds as tho perhaps not? you are no longer totally ruled by emotions in the way that we (mostly) are when without any treatment. it sounds as tho you were able to spend time with him and discuss thoughts and feelings, and being on medication were able to focus and concentrate and even process the emotions, really being present in the moment, rather than that hyper-concentration and missing lots of things that is the unmedicated status of ADHDers. i am unmedicated. it is about 15 months since i came across ADHD (again) and 9 months since i was diagnosed. I'm currently on an nhs waiting list and have chosen not to take medication for now. but i am not untreated - i have been using mindfulness, meditation and yoga, diet and exercise, pacing and sleep. and i feel very different. it is perhaps not the more dramatic, stable change that comes from medication, but it is different nonetheless. i know that i now process things differently, even without medication, and emotions feel different. things still happen but i am not always cast up and down by every strong feeling like a leaf in the wind. altho i still feel very deeply (perhaps more so because i am more aware of the emotions rather than being so controlled by them) and sometimes i am subsumed with emotion, it doesn't knock me down, and it passes. and i find myself more conscious of processing feelings , both in my mind and in my body. i don't know if this helps at all. hopefully some other lovely people will be along and able to say something about emotions on medication too. xxx
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Post by Wavey75 on Oct 24, 2014 0:03:54 GMT
Hi Pgirl,
I'm sorry for your loss.
It was my first experience with loss and grieve in March this year, and I broke down when I heard the news and then at the funeral (I was a coffin bearer).
Unlike your situation my experience was sudden, from hospital admission to hearing the news was only 5 days.
I can only suggest that perhaps the medication has equipped you with the ability to better handle your emotions, compared to your previous experience with grieve when you didn't have Strattera?
It's also worth mentioning that you are not the same age you were and this may be a factor.
I asked for help here when I was struggling and I got it.
I hope this helps you somehow, somewhere.
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Post by probioticgirl on Oct 24, 2014 9:40:47 GMT
Thank you both.
Today is a different day. I didn't take my Strattera yesterday with a view to stopping taking it as I'm sad about not feeling what I believe I should. This morning I read a note I wrote to hospital staff the day after Dad died and it brought me right back in touch with my emotions. Crying and sobbing as I feel I 'should'. I know each grief process is different for a variety of reasons. I have been feeling somehow 'robbed' of my grief - it sounds weird written down or said out loud, but that's how I've been feeling.
I want to cry and feel his loss. It's not a masochistic thing, it's that I want to feel what I consider to be the right and proper loss in my heart of the man who meant so much to me. Today, I have that.
<3
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2014 12:26:38 GMT
Sorry for your loss probioticgirl, just noticed this thread. Sincere apologies for that. I'm not medicated so wouldn't like to comment and have no experience of drugs/meds on the grieving process. But would just like to wish you well moving forward. :/
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Post by blaze on Oct 25, 2014 7:37:35 GMT
I havnt lost anybody on my yrs on and off medication, but have been through alot.of other things like therapy for ptsd and its never dented my extreem emotions.
I was much more emotional when off meds, but I was off them due to (high risk stressful) pregnancy and bf, and since iv stopped nursing my.girls and went back on strattera I get jst as upset, emotional as usual, jst less stressed. Have you spoke to psych about this? They maybe able to tell you if this is a result of strattera or not.
Sorry about your dadx
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2014 0:09:55 GMT
The reference to Strattera caught my eye. (Sorry, OP, to muscle in on your thread - I'm sorry you've had such a hard time recently.)
I've just started transitioning to Strattera. I'm titration up very slowly - week 2, and I'm on 18mg, shored up with a slightly reduced dose of my usual Elvanse (dex).
I had found the Elvanse wasn't quite so effective as 'straight' dex, in that my moods weren't quite so steady, and I still had a strong tendency to hyperfocus/distractibility. My psych (I like him a lot) talked me into trialling the Strattera.
So far, Strattera feels a bit more like Ritalin was, for me, in that I'm definitely feeling more 'nervy' and emotional at the moment. Unfortunately, it's hard to know whether this is the meds, or all the other shit going on in my life at the moment - I was sacked (again) recently, partly due (again) to my ADHD symptoms, and I'm finding it difficult, this time, to get a new job. I'm also coming up for a painful anniversary next weekend. But I would say that the Strattera certainly doesn't seem to be reducing the range of my emotional response. If anything, I've been getting increasingly weepy over the past fortnight.
I'll ditch it if things don't improve once I'm on the 'full' dose, whatever that might be, but I'm going to keep going for now, as it's way too early to decide it's not working for me.
Rambling on, a bit, I've been having counselling for a while (I've been suffering from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder) and as part of this, have learned to use 'tapping' - Emotional Freedom Technique - to help me cope when I feel overwhelmed by difficult emotions. It might look like snake oil, but honestly - it works.
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Post by probioticgirl on Nov 1, 2014 19:39:01 GMT
oooshiny, I tried EFT once and was amazed how it made me feel. It defo does something, however odd it may seem.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2014 10:15:05 GMT
oooshiny, I tried EFT once and was amazed how it made me feel. It defo does something, however odd it may seem. Indeed. I was told by a friend whose partner is being treated with it that there is some science behind it, but haven't researched it personally. What my therapist tells me is that I need to use it fairly regularly, and use some accompanying thinking, to gain maximum benefit; I think she's right on that. If you want really amazing, though...I've also been treated for my C-PTSD using EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitisation and Reporocessing) therapy. Again, it sounds like snake oil - you think about a traumatic incident while your therapist directs you to move your eyes from side to side (or sometimes use other types of bilateral stimulation, such as tapping on alternate hands or knees) - but my experience is that is is extraordinarily effective. I have worked on two specific traumatic incidents that still caused me extreme distress to recall in adulthood - one involving my early childhood, and one in adulthood, but dating back twenty years; and latterly, on a third, more generalised and recent traumatic experience. In all three instances, my perception of the memories as 'acutely' distressing has been greatly reduced. In other words, I don't burst into tears when I think about them, now. The memories are still there, but have been assimilated into my past experience alongside the rest of my life, so that I am able to recall the experiences objectively, as 'memories', where before, I would re-live the incidents, and the emotions I was feeling at the time, in glorious technicolor. I'd have dismissed it as a fluke, or wishful thinking on my part, if it had only been one - but it has been consistent, and the support it has given me in relation to the third experience has been particularly welcome. Wkipedia has a decent summary, together with an outline of the main supporting (and challenging) research. The idea is that the use of bilateral stimulation causes your brain to re-file the memory of a traumatic incident into its long-term memory store, rather than retaining it in your more 'conscious' part of the brain - so that when you recall the memory of the incident, it is retrieved as a memory, rather than an active experience - your brain no longer reacts as though the incident was actually happening in real time, and you don't get all the associated emotional responses. 'Re-living' experiences is a feature of PTSD, and it's important, for recovery, to find a way to get 'released' from the emotional tyranny of such flashbacks. The same person I mentioned earlier is also receiving EMDR therapy on the NHS, in relation to the after-effects of a serious road accident. I think it's a fantastic therapy - however, as with all these somewhat 'alternative' things, I'd be willing to bet that there are plenty of poorly-trained therapists and downright charlatans out there, who could potentially do damage rather than support healing. So if you're interested, just be careful to check the depth and quality of a prospective therapist's credentials, experience and reputation before letting them loose on your tender psyche!
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