Stimulants' effects on thinking

I'm still not 1000% sure I have ADHD (I was diagnosed PI, though the testing wasn't super thorough). But I was thinking about things, in case I do end up giving stims a try sometime.

I noticed during a short trial of stimulants a while back (prescribed for severe depression at the time), that a lot of the time I'd have a lot less actual thoughts in my head while on stimulants. Now, I guess of course that kind of makes sense, since clearing the mind would be a desired effect of meds. But it just felt strange and foreign. It almost felt like I should have been thinking more, and I still don't know whether that was because the feeling of a clear mind was just new to me and I was used to too many thoughts, or whether they were actually... clearing my mind too much?

I think I remember thinking at the time that part of it was probably a reduction in anxious thinking, but I can't tell whether it was a normal, healthy reduction or whether I was actually thinking and worrying too little. It's like, I can't tell whether my anxiety's just trying to keep me anxious and fight the healthy decrease in anxiety, or whether stimulants really just make me too... I don't know.

I know I'm overthinking things, but does anyone have any input?

My experience with stimulants is that they don’t do anything for anxiety, per se, but my anxiety is reduced when using them because I’m actually getting things done. Life isn’t a constant uphill struggle where I’m feeling like I’m fighting myself as much as my circumstances, when I’m on my meds.

My experience with stimulants is that they increase anxiety.

However, when I'm taking them, my brain feels almost eerily silent. Like I'm so used to this constant static in my brain of a million thoughts at once. The medication allows me to be able to pull a conscious thought into my head and hold it there. It was really weird at first but the medication really does help when I have to do stuff that requires sustained mental attention.

I took Ritalin. It made me want to sit and ruminate a lot. My mind felt very awake and activated, but not in a way that was practical. I wasn't really getting more done. Just doing a lot of thinking that served no particular purpose.

Also, I had to take a pretty low dosage because higher amounts made me anxious. I would feel a lot of tension in my face that went away when I stopoed the Ritalin for two days.

But it was effective at helping me wake up in the morning. Also, it was a strong appetite suppressant for me.

I've read that it can affect the mind similar to methamphetamine.

I have been self medicating my adhd on/off for awhile with street meth (Desoxyn is meth amphetamine and Adderall is also mixed amphetamine salts). I swear in small doses it drastically improves my quality of life but the stigma is insufferable and my relationship status is officially undateable aka dealbreaker #1. The biggest problem is that this is called dual diagnosis and it’s practically impossible to convince a clinician what I know without a doubt that I’ve demonstrated adhd symptoms since 2nd grade but it wasn’t heard of back then. Now I’m told when wishing to step down from the potentially toxic lethal & illegal substance to a manageable one which I believe will stop the relapse cycles from continuing as I don’t want to be a meth addict but I can’t get anything I intend to do done and feel like my life is passing me by while I sit idle until I can’t take it anymore and wish to be productive towards my life goals and relapse.

There’s too long of a traditional thought that addicts seek drugs and although they’re willing to use harm reduction to save lives in the opiate addiction, I’m told that it’s too risky of a liability for any doctor which I believe is not apart of their oath. It’s very sad. There are others like me (all whom you would never even suspect..) who do not display irrational behavior nor dysfunctional thoughts or anxiety from it but instead of being funny adhd, or touchy feels ecstasy ravers (also MA ~ MDMA), we are labeled and discriminated against as if we’re scum of the earth the minute we trust someone as safe to disclose our secret. It’s a nightmare and certainly has ruined my life but not in the way predicted and in fact because of the nasty stereotype in the faces of meth campaign. This gives me anxiety!

I don't think you're overthinking it. Stimulants reduce my anxiety a good bit.
To me, ADD almost seems like a type of anxiety anyway.

One thing worth mentioning is that people don't have to have ADD to benefit from stimulants. You already mentioned that you had taken it for depression, which fits into the theme about how other psychotropic medications are used.