Hi all!

My name is Michelle, I'm 26 years old, and I have been a diagnosed major depressive with a borderline personality for 15 years now. It was a very early diagnosis, I know, but I'm afraid that it was wrong. I started seeing a psych when my parents caught me cutting myself (started at 9, was busted doing it at 11), and I have been in and out of psych offices many times since. I have always been an exceptional student (grade-wise), and always been overweight (to the point that my weight is severely out of control as an adult).

It wasn't until the past couple of years that I began suspecting AD/HD as a possible cause, mainly because I already had a diagnosis, and because I attributed alot of my problems to my negative self image and weight (read: self loathing...I blamed myself for everything). Now, I am a senior in college, and I realize that my lifetime of not doing homework, or not studying and still being able to do well wasn't serving me very well. Now, I find that I can't concentrate on studying, and I have alot of trouble retaining things that I study. I have tried adderall and vyvanse (without a prescription, I know, Im not proud of it either), and they seem to help, though they don't seem to send me soaring through the roof like they do my friends who abuse it for fun. I realize that self-medication is a bad thing, and I am not an advocate for it (my mother has a long history of drug abuse, and I've seen how bad it can be. I have no interest in that for myself).

I have always been a daydreamer. Im bad about spacing out or drifting away from lectures, and I find that I am only able to listen if I am taking overly meticulous notes or even drawing while sitting in class. This hasn't always gone over well. There were periods of my life in all grades where I didn't do homework at all, which alternated with me doing homework to simply avoid getting in trouble. It took me forever to grasp math (which I promptly forgot after getting through my required courses), and now that Im taking a foreign language, I find that I forget basic grammar and vocab stuff that I thought I knew very well.

Im bad about misplacing things (which my hubby gets irritated at lol), and forgetting appointments and assignments (had to drop a course this semester because I missed a major assignment because I just plain forgot. And it was a big one!) I also have a short fuse, and I can get irritated at the littlest things. I've flown into rages and not realized it until Ive said something that I couldnt take back.

I recently saw a psych again to address these issues and because of my previous diagnosis, she prescribed prozac for mood stablization and welbutrin. It made my spacing out worse and my insomnia worse. My talking speed increased (friends accused me of being on speed lol) and my tendency toward anxiety as well. I took myself off of them and havent been back. Now Im looking for a psych who can test me for ad/hd.

Should I go to a new psych with a clean slate and not transfer my records and just start from scratch? I'm not looking for medicinal intervention, just treatment options that will help me to function better. Its making me crazy, to feel this out of control. Any advice, oh good people of Psych Central?

Thanks for reading.

Michelle