Adderall inducing psychosis in BPD patients...

I've been taking adderall since about 2008 when I began my bachelor's degree program. I have had symptoms of BPD from one degree to another since I hit puberty. I'm 33 now with a Master's degree (which I can thank my adderall for) and I do have four kids and a husband to whom I have been married since 2001. In the last year I have made some very destructive decisions in my personal life. Nothing has particularly affected my work ability but the consequences of everything I did has the potential to come crashing down on me at any given moment. I have effectively dissociated myself from the details, according to my therapist, which explains why I have no complete memories of the majority of the events that took place. I believe I know the overview of what I did (I was caught by my 11 year old daughter once, so my husband and my family know some of what I did and are still struggling to forgive me) and I know that I have scars on my arms that are still healing from a point when I suddenly started cutting myself. I have no memory of actually cutting myself, though, if that makes any sense. But if people knew everything...I would lose all I have worked for. I'm not making excuses but I began to see a therapist at the insistence of my husband and after she diagnosed me, I started to read study after study in medical journals. I started to understand that psychosis isn't necessarily confined to bizarre hallucinations. I read that misperceptions of reality constitute psychosis and I read that of patients with BPD given amphetamines, fifty percent experienced psychosis. Fifty percent! I've been on this more often than not for seven years. I've tried other things such as Topamax, SSRI's, Wellbutrin, etc. The adderall calms me down, helps me focus, helps me make decisions (I am a CEO, I answer to a board and have 24 employees) and in all honesty, I am phenomenal at my job when I'm on adderall. But I'm not nurturing to my kids, I can't get out of my own head, I feel invincible, I manipulate people because I'm bored, I view social situations like social science experiments, I engage in risky behaviors, I have no remorse when caught and I am disappointing to my husband because I don't engage in sex with him for the purposes of feeling close. It's only to feel good, to meet a need, and I don't like kissing or having his head anywhere near mine. In fact, he irritates me all the time. He talks to me when I try to read, he wants a kiss while I'm working on stuff and sticks his giant head in my face and pisses me off. He is so damn needy and I cannot respond to him in the way he wants when I'm on this medicine. As an experiment, I went off of it. I could barely function. I wasn't high strung because I didn't even have the drive to be high strung. Didn't go to work and when I did it was futile. I had panic attacks that he would leave me or that my kids would leave me. I cried all the time. I talked to no one. I didn't want to leave my house. When I was forced to attend something people could tell I wasn't myself. I could not even pretend to be anything but what I was- a failure. I felt suicidal. I felt condemned. I felt like my kids and husband were better off without me and that someone else would give them the life they deserved. I felt badly for my husband all the time and thought of him and his feelings often which made me more miserable and feel more inept.
Anyway, I am back on the adderall for now because I absolutely must function at work. I must. I have to pay my bills, buy food for my kids, and I need to lose weight so that I can fit into the clothes I had bought back when I was working out every day. Yeah...the entire year I went and did all this horrible stuff I was working out daily and back down to 135 pounds. I don't care now how I look but I do care about my pants fitting because I don't want to go buy new ones. If I start shopping I won't stop. And I can't afford to do that.
Has anyone taken adderall and can anyone provide any insight into all this? Thanks so much...

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Hi indeep I just wanted to let you know that I have no personal experience with adderal so unfortunately I haven't got anything to say about the med but I hope you get the answers that you seek soon because as you say this is a need that you have been on since 2008.

I certainly have heard of BPD patients who have experienced psychosis but as I have no medical background I have no idea what causes this.

Hopefully a BPD member on this forum can explain the effect of adderal or explain their personal experience with psychosis.

May you find the answers that you seek so that you may have peace of mind.

Take care

I would say go to psychiatric meds part of this forum and add your post to that section.

I experienced hallucinations while taking adderall. I thought it was the wellbutrin but maybe not..

I just wanted to add that what you describe as being your social behavior on Adderall sounds more like Narcissistic Personality Disorder than BPD.

Does anyone know if Wellbutrin causes psychosis/hallucinations in people who have a disease that doesn't normally involve psychosis?

I'm bipolar but my pdoc thinks I might have schizoaffective disorder because I've been hallucinating outside of a mood episode for like 6 weeks, but I'm also on wellbutrin right now, so I don't know if the meds are causing it or if my head really is messed up. I do hallucinate during extreme mood episodes but that's' par for the course in bipolar territory.

Someone prescribed you Adderall for BPD in 2008 and you've been using it steadily ever since. Adderall is an amphetamine: speed, 'diet pills', a powerful drug administered to kamikaze pilots, panzer troops and modern American aircrew to perform at elevated proficiency for prolonged periods under stress... very occasionally, not indefinitely. Perhaps the rough spots in your relationship and personality can be ascribed to amphetamine dependency. Just because you can be prescribed adderall for everything from irritability to lapses of attention doesn't mean it isn't potentially life-altering and dangerous.

You may need to go to rehab. What sort of doses are you taking?

Shoot, I've had issues with too much caffeine when I've been worn thin, having relational problems, depressed, and not getting enough sleep. In other words, when I've been on the brink, so to speak. And that tends to be when I consume loads and loads of it--beyond my even-too-much normal amount per day. I've not had hallucinations, but I've had sleep paralysis. Which is freaky as hell.

You can have psychotic episodes secondary to stimulant use. Stimulant psychosis is definitely a thing.

While stimulant psychosis is definitely a thing. Sleep paralysis is not part of psychosis. I'd been getting sleep paralysis since I was a kid and didn't develop any psychotic symptoms until early adulthood.

I didn't say it was part of psychosis, hence the statement "I've not had hallucinations [psychosis], but I've had sleep paralysis [not psychosis]."

I'm very sensitive to stimulants so I can't handle more than the lowest dose- 10mg of the adderall xr

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My bad. I misread.

Only taking adderall xr 10mg once a day. I can't tolerate more than that.

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No problem, I wasn't very clear so it was easy to do.

Sleep paralysis IS freaky as hell! And I tend to have that happen when I'm in the same state as you describe. Been happening since my teens. Scary *****!

I abused adderall a LOT when I was younger but I had problems long before I started using it. No psychosis, though. My husband suffers from psychosis and he had been on ritalin his entire young life. Don't know if there's a connection or not. I hope you can figure it out somewhere & let us know. You mentioned Wellbutrin...that stuff made me extremely violent & hostile. I ended up in a mental hospital on that stuff. I don't recommend it to anyone. Ever. I'll keep following this thread to see what you/anyone finds out/has to say. Best wishes!

Sleep paralysis freaks me out when it happens but it's happened so many times I get over it as soon as I can move again. I'm just like " wow my brain is acting weird right now that's interesting"