Why non-adhd persons who use drugs like amphetamine get super energetic, while people with adhd seem to get really chill and mellow when using it. Like exactly the opposite effect to non-adhd users.
Why non-adhd persons who use drugs like amphetamine get super energetic, while people with adhd seem to get really chill and mellow when using it. Like exactly the opposite effect to non-adhd users.
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Without getting too deep into chemistry and biology, because the meds help our brains function properly by providing the chemicals needed to operate the way a non-adhd person brain operates. The non-adhd already has the right chemicals in the right places, so amphetamines are just extra on top. But for us, we don’t, so the meds are kind of filling in the gaps.
This is a gross simplification.
Amphetamines increase focus in most people, and can give an appearance of calm diligency in both populations.
Hyperactivity isn’t even a feature of both forms of ADHD, and not everyone under a hyperactive variant needs feature hyperactivity to be diagnosed as such.
ADHD people don’t have enough of the right chemicals we need to properly function. These meds make up for that, but in “normal” people they just increase the already correct amounts of chemicals, resulting in an increase of energy and anxiety.
It’s not that simple
Your assumption is dead wrong. A person with ADHD taking uppers will not experience downer effects.
Even different ADHD medicine could be overstimulating.
So. As an adult with adhd.
Any form of meth, and cocaine.
I am what you describe. Calmer. Less overtly hyper(seemingly)
However, the drugs are drugs and just take longer to show the usual characteristics.
Really ELI5 simplified version:
With ADHD the executive centers aren’t doing enough, so you treat them with a stimulant to make them do more.
For folks that are already doing enough, the stimulant just acts like you’d expect a strong stimulant to, it hypes them up.
I’m old so we didn’t classify people like that back then. When I was young my friends got in to cocaine. It didn’t have any effect on me. As much as I tried it did absolutely nothing. I was addicted to coffee because without it I didn’t feel like I could function. I’ve grown and learned to use coffee in small doses at certain times. I am very glad I never got prescribed drugs for being who I am.
Would people with ADHD that use amphetamine to calm down also calm down from using methamphetamine?
So, some activities that someone does, are going to be stimulating on their own – like playing video games, reading, eating, sex, etc. But other activities are NOT going to be stimulating, like watching a lecture, taking notes for school, studying, doing homework on a boring subject, etc.
A neurotypical person will do the former just fine and enjoy them, while they’ll do the latter and not enjoy them per se, but they can at least do them and not be so bored to tears that they’re not able to muster any energy to do them.
For someone with ADHD, they don’t have that baseline energy to do boring tasks. Their frontal lobe’s ability to regulate is compromised so they can’t make themselves do them without wanting to go to sleep, and it takes too much energy from them to regulate their behavior. So stimulant medication basically adds the “line noise” of energy that allows them to tolerate boring unstimulating tasks, regulate their behavior, and focus. That brings them up to the baseline of being chill and mellow. Their brain is not starving for stimulation that will ramp up their brain chemicals which makes them seem high energy. It’s not that they’re actually high energy, it’s that their brain is desperate for stimulation and puts the energy into finding that stimulation.
A neurotypical person already has this level of line noise, so the drug amps them up even further which makes them super energetic.
I’ll answer as best i can as someone who has adhd
Basically the chemicals in our brain are not the same as someone who’s “normal”
So when a normal person does drugs that has a “normal” brain it does not do the same thing
I’ll use my medication for example I take aderall as prescribed by my Dr when I take this medication it calms me down, makes it easier to focus, makes me relaxed, helps with my behavior
But if i were to give it to someone that doesn’t need it the effects may very well be the complete opposite and its all to do with the brain
When an adhd person takes it, the chemical balance in the brain is brought to a “normal” lvl when someone who doesn’t need it and is already at a “normal” lvl it elevates dopamine and norepinephrine lvl to an above normal lvl and that’s why you see the hyper activity or “high” state
Have you ever used amp at therapeutic doses?
I think this is total bullshit. Feeling calm or energetic is pretty subjective.
You take a stimulant and it will stimulate you. Everyone gets this result. Some people might “feel” like it makes them calm, but it’s really stimulating their brain with dopamine and norepinephrine. That boosts alertness, attention, motivation, and energy.
Coke never worked for me. Weed doesn’t get me high. All my friends would pass out from smoking, and I’d be the only one fully functional.
Those with adhd and other conditions have dysfunction in their dopaminergic circuits. Amphetamine and its derivatives appear to restore function through its mechanism of action.
For those without adhd, amphetamine causes a sharp increase in dopaminergic activity. Because dopamine is used as a reward currency in the reward center of the brain (mesolimbic reward pathway), it causes inappropriate increases and leads to addiction.
Easy answer.
For us ADHD suffers, uppers are downers and downers are uppers.
My friends and I took pills in a club about ten years ago, when it kicked in all I wanted to do was sit down. My tone was weirdly calm (I remember being confused by this) and when I spoke and had thoughts, I didn’t have this energy burst inside propelling all conversations or movements.
I remember gracefully walking to the corner of the room to sit down (I am not graceful, I knock into everything). My friends said I was like an alien and couldn’t understand what was happening and questioned me. They were bouncing around running amuck from the pills.
I felt sooo content just sitting down in the corner and peacefully listened to the tunes.
Years later discover I have ADHD and it was a stimulant. That was the first time my brain felt what “calm” is lol.
Someone explained it to me like this: People with ADHD brains’ aren’t stimulated enough naturally without medication, so they can get fidgety and can’t focus on certain tasks, etc. When they take medication like amphetamines (which are stimulants), that provides stimulation to their brain to get them to a “normal” level so they can focus and dont need to go looking for stimulation elsewhere and seem “chill”.
People who don’t have ADHD’s brains are normally sufficiently stimulated, so when they take stimulants, they get over-stimulated (hyper).
Whenever I do stimulants like meth and addys I chill out and am able to focus on things more easily, and my thoughts slow down.
So if you do a decent therapeutic kind of dose and don’t go buckwild; your energy is evened out.
If you go nuts, yeah you’re going to be considerably geared to the gills.
This is a great question and it certainly can seem counter intuitive. I’m a pharmacy intern (aka soon-to-be pharmacist) and the way I like to explain this to patients is that the ADHD brain seeks stimulus from whatever it can in the environment around it. This is why it can be hard to focus on individual tasks, remembering to do things, being patient, avoid procrastinating etc. It has all this extra energy and it wants to use it. Now there’s subtypes of symptoms like impulsivity, hyperactivity, inattention etc. but in general those might be some common symptoms.
ADHD medications like methylphenidate or amphetamines are stimulants, and they provide the desired stimulus the ADHD brain craves so it isn’t so easily distracted and it can focus on the things it needs to.
Those without ADHD have the opposite response to taking stimulants. When they do, their brain almost becomes overstimulated, and the body responds by engaging in a hyperactive state, possibly to try and work with this excess energy.
To explain this same concept in another way you can consider energy” and “stimulus” as two parameters or resources. Neurotypical brains have a balanced amount of energy to spend on stimuli in their environment. ADHD brains have excess “energy,” so it artificially creates or seeks out stimulus (resulting in ADHD symptoms). Stimulant medications bring this back in balance. Neurotypical brains that take stimulants disrupt their natural balance by providing an excess stimulus, and the body compensates with excess energy (with likely an accompanying energy “crash” later!)
Like other comments in this thread this is absolutely an extreme simplification (and the use of non-scientific language is intentional), but it gets the idea across.
ADHD person explaining here:
Normal brain goes brum brum brum brum
ADHD brain goes brah vrel bruh vurul
Normal brain with drugs goes brim tucun lorrt caracar
ADHD brain with drugs goes brum brum brum brum
We can get high on stimulants, but it takes a lot to do so, and the after effects make it not worthy