Thinspo ritalin

Soooooo hello y'all.
I was showing a DRAWING of my tattoo design to a bunch of friends/collegaues, where I had drawn the location it'd be on (I'll add it as a imgur link) but didn't really shade it much so it could remain blanc so that when the tattoo artist prints it, it doesn't have the unnecessary "background" making my design/drawing look "weird".
So I showed it to a colleague during lunch break and he said *title*. Then he continued saying that I was already too skinny so it wouldn't be a good idea or that I'd look *too* anorexic or something along those lines but my brain stopped listening. I honestly wanted to just throw my food away and never eat anything ever again until I look sick enough to "deserve"/"be worthy" of this ED.
Either way, after lowkey confronting him about it, he apologised and all but I still can't stop thinking about it and thinking about not looking sick enough.
I AM underweight (barely but the BMI says so so I'm proud), and when I wear tanktops, my collar bones always poke through the way you see in thinspo but I was wearing a high-collar shirt that showed none of that (as it's winter) and now I keep feeling like I absolutely have to prove that I'm "s k i n n y" and that I have disordered behaviour, otherwise I'm just... nothing. I'm a fake. It's been like 2 days already and I'm still obsessing about it and I told him that he shouldn't stay stuff like that even if he didn't mean anything bad by them because people might take it... not so well. He feels guilty, i know, I'm not mad or offended anymore, I just feel hurt, invalidated, like I've just made this disorder up for the past 10 years. Like I've just been doing it for attention even tho I never told anyone (so attention from whom? Ghosts that can read minds????). My body is permanently fucked up from all the ED behaviour i engaged in or still engage in but apparently, unless I'm VERY underweight, no one would ever take me seriously.
Everyone glamorizes being skinny, skinny = beautiful, anorexic-skinny people are seen as the standard and yes, some people like saying "oHhHh i LiKe SoMeThiNG tO gRab OnTo" but in reality, that's like 2/100 people and the thing they wanna grab onto is boobs/ass. I mean, apparently, to be attractive, you have to be either curvy in the right way, or stick skinny (ribs poking out, collar bones so sharp they can give a papercut to whoever walks past you, hip bones stabbing unsuspecting passers by, etc.). There's literally no in between. And if you ARE physically in between, no one ever takes you seriously. Like you have a conventionally attractive body type at a low enough BMI so ED people think you're just looking for attention, other people think you can't possibly have an ED because "I thought that was just anorexia, you know, throwing up".... yeah, right. I mean...
This turned into a rant and I'm sorry but I needed to share this with someone who I know would understand. Unless you've felt the same way, there's no way to imagine how that feels. You have half the people wishing they were "as skinny" as you and half the people thinking you're attention-seeking. Just kill me now, it'd be easier. I'm so tired. I'm so tired of restricting and being weary of what i eat or trying to stop abusing Ritalin but seeing that I'm losing a tiny itsy bitsy weight and justifying the abuse. I'm just tired. I wish I could just get "fixed", i wish I wouldn't have to starve myself to "afford" (not financially but calorie-wise) a burger. This disorder has taken so much from me and I keep letting it take more and more. I'm just tired, dude. I really wish someone would kill me so I wouldn't have to kms. And this isn't even the "main" mental health issue I"m trying to handle.
I'll post the image link here as for some reason I can't put it as like a link when you click on the word "image": https://imgur.com/a/XUrX0Zi

SOME TRIGGECONTEXT WARNINGS IF YOU WISH: naming of mental illnesses and drugs/substances by name, description of multiple drug use/abuse cycle, familial & domestic abuse, incest, child abuse, homelessness, eating disordebody dysmorphia, gun violence/witnessing death
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This is a long story that starts before I was born and I am now 33. It’s ultimately about my recent realization that I have an unmanageable addiction and need help. But it’s also a short autobiography about diagnoses, attempts at getting help, genetics, brain misfirings, traumas, early “benign” addictions that all pointed to where I have ended up - all the tiny stones I stepped on that led me to this terrible, dark cave of addiction. I think it’s important to look at addiction holistically, which includes the environments, choices, and inevitabilities that led us here. I’ve started by being open about my diagnoses and various traumas, then it’s basically an excessively long chronology of the progression of my addictive personality. Ending with my realization last week that I need some fucking help getting off of this roller coaster that is going to kill me and ruin the ones I love.
Soooo…buckle up? You’re a champ if you read all of this personal bullshit.
A glimpse of little me: I was a happy, gifted, fiercely intelligent child. Learning was the reason for life to me. I had too much empathy and emotion for my own good. Everyone was owed kindness and respect. I had 70 dreams and fully intended to fulfill them all. I was an optimist, and people were basically good and deserving of fifth chances. Through all the trauma, I remained this way until I was 19 years old.
With that “before” picture out of the way, here are my professional diagnoses & family history. I have PTSD (CPTSD if it existed in the DSM yet), MDD, GAD, panic disorder, ADHD, and OSFED. Diagnosed with acute (passing) psychosis twice. Two suicide attempts with subsequent hospitalization. My mother is an addict and has ADHD, PTSD, and bipolar 1. My bio dad is an addict and has MDD, PTSD, and severe anger issues. My brother is an addict and has MDD, GAD, and BPD. One grandmother has severe GAD. I have a schizophrenic cousin, but I haven’t seen signs in myself yet b”H.
Major traumas: I experienced severe sexual abuse/incest and neglect for the first 6 years of my life, then verbal/emotional abuse/neglect from 11-17. I also became homeless during that latter time due to my bio dad’s drug/alcohol use, and experienced another incident of incest. I had a 4 year long emotionally/verbally abusive relationship through college. In 2019, a woman was shot directly in front of my house and I was the first on the scene. I held her hand, talked to her, and maintained eye contact as she died before the ambulance arrived.
What I’m doing about it: I’ve been in therapy weekly since I was six, and have been doing EMDR (an effective PTSD treatment) for 3 years now. I have journaled daily my whole life, read (scientifically-backed) self help books, connect with others with similar experiences, and I have seen a psychiatrist for 10 years (I am on 7 medications and still haven’t found the right ones/combo). I am getting the results of a gene test for psych meds back soon, and considering physican-administered TMS/ketamine therapy. Currently just lurking in addiction subs/forums and on addiction TikTok, but today I am choosing to tell the truth and tomorrow I’ll be attending my first meeting.
So, that’s the context of my baseline mental health without addiction in the picture. Let’s dive into that hellhole now.
I come from a family of addicts in generations of abject poverty. I don’t mean just my parents and brother - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, both maternal and paternal. The vast majority of the generations older than my parents are/were alcoholics primarily, excepting my grandma who preferred barbiturates. My only uncle is opportunistic and will do whatever, but prefers psychedelics. Weed for everyone, when opportunity presents itself.
My parents were a slightly different story. Bio dad’s DOCs are alcohol (24 bottles a day + liquor), weed, cocaine, shrooms, meth here and there. Mom’s DOCs were (she’s in recovery) weed, crack, cocaine. She tried meth but hated it. They both dabbled here and there with other things, but those were the big addictions and those were the things that ruined our entire family’s lives.
From Kindergarten, I was acutely aware of the difference between my sober family and my intoxicated family. Between my family and my friends’ families. It was uncomfortable, dysphoric, I didn’t like it. I resented that their addictions caused me to be responsible for not only my own schoolwork, but also the housework, pets, dinners and breakfasts, and solely parenting my brother 4 years younger than me. I told myself early in life that I would never touch a substance like that - I would never want to look or act the way my family did. It was embarrassing and undignified and I made it my mission to distance myself from the culture of my family.
Fast forward a bit, and I am 12. I wear baggy clothes, but they never hide my abnormally large-for-my-age breasts (D cup at that point) or obviously female hips. It’s 2001, so all the popular girls and the ones in the media have flat chests and stomachs, pencil-thin arms and legs. No muffin tops or bra overflow if they tried. No back rolls. I didn’t understand why I didn’t look like that. I cried every time I saw myself in the mirror or got dressed.
Around that time, I had a Xanga blog that I used as a diary to share with my friends. Millennials around my age with body image issues - I know you know where this is going lol. One fateful day, I discovered something called thinspo. I had never been so envious in my life, I didn’t know it was possible to be that thin. These women were absolutely flawless to me. It didn’t take long before I was active in the pro-ana/mia communities and writing down lists of tips and tricks in my journal.
One poster said that since food is used for energy, and you feel tired when you restrict, you should drink a strong coffee each time you feel hunger. My bio dad was a heavy coffee drinker, so that one was doable. Within weeks, I was brewing myself a full pot with three times the grounds called for, dumping it into two large travel mugs, and carrying them to school. I spent all day every day sipping espresso-level black coffee. When lunch came around and I was forced to eat to keep up appearances, I would pick the foods I craved the most and eat them voraciously. Then I’d guzzle water and excuse myself to the bathroom, etc etc. I saw The Devil Wears Prada and heard that one line from Emily and followed it religiously - “If I feel like I may pass out, I simply eat a cube of cheese.” That still pops into my head sometimes. It got to the point where if I skipped coffee, I had blinding migraines two hours later. I drank that much until 2013, after I left a Starbucks job. Managed to cut down to 3 a day, then 2. At this point I only have one if I need an afternoon pick me up.
In hindsight - my first addiction was caffeine. My second was the control and power of an eating disorder.
Fast forward again. In high school, the most I ever did was get drunk with friends 2 or 3 times. I decided I hated the way it made me feel, and still don’t ever have more than one social drink tops. Dodged that particular bullet, however much that’s worth.
Jump to the week after I graduate high school. Senior year, I had fallen in love with a very manipulative, cruel girl that I was convinced was the one. She ended up destroying my sense of self, reality, and autonomy - but that’s a separate story for a separate sub. She let me move in with her at her parents house as soon as school finished. The relationship was disgusting from the start, but I didn’t know better and I was afraid to be alone. She was a year younger than me, so she still had to go to high school during the week.
This is when my third addiction began - TV and the internet. I didn’t get into the only college I could afford to apply to, so I lost almost a year and a half laying in my girlfriend’s bed with the blinds closed, mindlessly watching garbage television for about 15 hours a day. I stopped showering. I started overeating and gained a truly astonished amount of weight in just a few months - because I was eating massive amounts of trash and not moving for days at a time. When I did leave the house, I thought about the shows I was watching the whole time. It was bad. Luckily, when my girlfriend graduated and I finally got into the school I wanted (the same one she was attending), we decided to move the 1.5 hours away together.
In our new apartment, I quickly fell into a depression. In hindsight, it was a trauma thing - not only was I in my own peaceful space that I had control over, but also my asshole girlfriend was ruining the glow of it. I’d somehow made it those 19 years without mental health symptoms, so that episode knocked me on my ass. I’d never felt so low and hopeless and heavy.
We’d have friends over most weekends and they’d all smoke some weed and then goof around and play games. I always sat with them, and for the first time it looked kind of fun and happy rather than the resentful, neglected association I had with it. I was offered a hit. I thought about my parents. About how I hated that they ignored me when they were high. And then I thought about the deep pit in my chest telling me to kill myself, versus how happy and child-like all my friends seemed. I grabbed the bowl and it was immediate, passionate love. My girlfriend was thrilled I liked it so we started buying our own. Within four months I had failed out of college. I was unemployed with no experience. I stopped reading, writing, singing, painting, studying French - all my passions previously. I spent my days either high as balls on a dirty futon watching Jackass movies on a loop, or high as balls laying in a dark room with my eyes closed and music up attempting to astrally project. All while ignoring the moldy pile of dishes in my sink and the family of mice in my closet.
I was 19 when that happened. I did not go one day without being high - at least at night, but frequently all day - until I spent a week in Mexico THIS February. I spent my 23rd year in a shed behind my best friend’s house hitting GBs like we were in the 19th grade. We’d go to coinstar for money to re-up. All this time I thought it was a medicine that was helping me with all sorts of things, when it’s become apparent (after a week of absolute mental stability and decent sleep away from it) that was no longer the case. It’s making my conditions worse and affecting my ability to eat without it. Fourth addiction - cannabis.
Fifth addiction - benzodiazepines. In that 19-25 window, I developed severe panic attacks. I’ve had anxiety my whole life - my body essentially exists in flight or freeze mode - but it had never hit me that hard. A friend gave me one of her Klonopin and that was that - I experienced existing without anxiety for the first time in my ENTIRE life. I was on top of the world, convinced it was a miracle drug. I got a prescription from my psych and took it as prescribed for a year or so - it allowed me to socialize, sit still with my thoughts, be spontaneous, avoid obsessive thought loops. I honestly was thriving for a moment there. And then…how the story goes…I hit tolerance. My doc refused to increase the dose but I was so constantly anxious I was considering suicide again. So, I upped the dose myself. When that first high dose kicked in, I remember thinking, “Oh fuck yeah, thank you.” The script was 30 PRN per month, and I ended up going weeks without from dosing higher. Then anxiety would rebound. Then I filled the script again. Etc etc for nearly 3 years. At my worst, I was at 9mg Klonopin a day for a week at a time. I did the dumbest possible thing after reading about benzo withdrawal syndrome and flushed all my meds, and told my doc I’d been feeling better so we could skip filling the next one (didn’t mention the abuse, of course). I don’t know what noble I did in a past life or whatever, but I somehow did not have a seizure, tremors, aggression, or psychosis. I fully recognize how lucky I am and what an anomaly that was. I just told my psych my anxiety was worse again and asked for a non benzo so I wouldn’t be tired, and Prozac did the trick for a bit.
Fast forward again! My therapist one day notes to me that I can never stop fidgeting during our sessions, which she assumed was anxiety. But she also started to notice me losing my train of thought mid sentence, becoming obsessively focused on hobbies or interests or people, and regularly forgetting appointments despite being on my calendar and having reminder emails/alarms. She suggested I get tested for ADHD. Saw a psychologist for 5 hours straight two days in a row. She determined I have severe ADHD, PTSD, and OSFED, but she believed the depression and anxiety stemmed from untreated ADHD.
I meet with my psych a week later and send her the report. She glances over it and says, “Sounds good! Do you want to try Adderall or Ritalin first? They’re basically the same.” I was a bit taken aback by the choice, but arbitrarily said Adderall because I knew nothing about stimulants. She started me on 10 IR in the morning, and when I felt nothing bumped me straight to 20 IR twice a day.
When I tell you I sobbed for hours the first day I took those…my physical and mental anxiety disappeared. My body relaxed. My mood went from “wanna die but don’t wanna hurt wife” to “I am capable of getting my life in control and being a good person who does good things.” My depression dissipated. My thoughts slowed down, and I was able to follow one at a time without a thousand others shouting to be loudest. I felt like I had just been born, like this is how I was always meant to be. I started really throwing myself into being creative and proactive at work (I’m a nanny, so that means expending tons of energy + fun cleanup). Cleaning/organizing the shit out of my house (my wife was starting to resent my inability to get over the executive dysfunction. Taking my dog on hour-long walks when I got home. Joining a women’s choir. Reaching out to old friends to reconnect, and actually going to see them. Got really into hobbies again - painting & illustration, poetry, reading, guitar, hikes, friends & family. Even applied to my local community college to start finishing my degree. I was on top of the world, I felt better than ever, and I felt that I had finally unlocked the secret to being a functional adult.
Well. I don’t have to explain what happened next, you guys know how it goes. As soon as the initial euphoria faded, I was redosing. When that stopped working, I increased the dose. First it was a month’s worth in 3 weeks, then 2, then 1.
Then my psych left unexpectedly. The practice assigned me to someone else - graduated less than a year ago from a nursing degree mill and also practices real estate. It’s her first job. She decides she dislikes that I have my medical cannabis card and that I’m on too many meds (7 not counting the controlled ones, on which I’d been stable for YEARS). She takes one away, drops the doses on three, and changes the formulation for one. Oh, and adds trazodone even though I told her my most debilitating symptom is fatigue/lethargy. I left that appointment and immediately made one with a different practice. That was two months away, and I was about to leave for a week in Mexico.
When I was on vacation in Mexico and didn’t have either Adderall or Klonopin, I was shocked at how okay I was. I think it was mostly being in an exciting beautiful place away from my problems, but a few days in and I was like “I got this.. I’ll quit.” Two days before we headed home, I started to panic about both the plane rides without Klonopin and returning to work without Adderall. Klonopin is prescription only in that country, and they don’t sell Adderall period. I did some internet digging and ended up buying two boxes of pregabalin to replace one, and four boxes of Modafinil & Armodafinil to replace the other. Smuggled that shit through five airports like a damn idiot.
I took that pregabalin for a week. Decided it was shit, got rid of it. The modafinil lasted about a month. No euphoria or mood/focus improvement, but it kept me awake enough to actually function and not look like a zombie. I ordered more online “just as backup for when I’ve slept badly”. Keep in mind, I wasn’t taking a higher than suggested dose - just using it for unhealthy reasons.
I see my new psych, the one I found after dumping the real estate agent. In our first appointment I told her I wasn’t doing well and she said, “Let’s get you back on those stimulants, huh?” It was as if something took over the controls in my brain and my mouth moved without my consent - “Yes, please. I function better than I have in my adult life when my ADHD is treated.”
That happened on 3/18/22. As of today, 4/8/22, I have one Adderall left. Between then and now, I have spent two days up followed by 15 hours sleeping then repeat, ignored/avoided everyone who has tried to contact me, called out of work five times, have had countless panic attacks, clenched my jaw so hard I can’t relax it and I chipped a tooth, followed obsessive/jealous/hypochondriac thought loops for hours and hours, dissociated on the sofa for big parts of many days, became delusional and started running/hiding from everyone in my house but my wife, thought my wife was cheating but didn’t say anything about it b”H, forgot to drink anything for 3 days and got a salivary gland infection, got multiple canker sores and peeling lips, and felt truly suicidal for the first time in many years. I take days off of Adderall and always cave and take an AModafinil because I don’t feel I can withstand the exhaustion.
I’m set to pick up an early script this Monday because it’s a brand that works better for me. My psych asked if I was okay with that decision and I fucking said “Yeah, thanks for solving the problem!” I told her I’d flush the rest of the “bad” script. I know I need to, but I haven’t yet.
I know I need to tell her what’s happening, but I haven’t yet. I know I need to tell my therapist, but I haven’t yet. I know I need to tell my wife, mother, step father, brother, rabbi, friends. But I haven’t yet.
I know that feeling I got during the honeymoon will never come back. Why is my brain lying to me and saying it will be there? I know I need to stop before I literally kill myself. Why is my brain saying I have the willpower to take it as prescribed only? I know I need to fess up to my doctors. Why am I afraid of never being trusted again, or having access to medical cannabis (which I need to quit for a while anyway)? I know I need to tell my empathetic, intelligent, compassionate wife. Why I am I DEATHLY afraid of causing her - a grown woman - disappointment?
I know all the things I need to do, rationally. Something hijacks my brain each month and tells me horrible lies and I fucking listen to it like a naive asshole. If I’m being fully honest, I don’t want to stop. Or I’m just afraid to stop because I was useless before I took them. But again, I know they don’t work anymore. I know I am about three feet away from a bad psychotic episode. I need to fucking stop and I don’t know what to do. I don’t have anyone to talk to. Not even my addict friends will listen because I’ve ignored them for months.
If you’ve gotten to the end, I commend your attention span. Thank you so much for hearing my story. I’ve told some people little bits and pieces, but I’ve never laid it all out together like this. Writing this was really cathartic. Any encouragement, empathy, or advice is most welcome <3

Growing up, we were always close but super competitive. She's always been perfectly slim, and I was rounder. She's always been a fussy/picky eater since childhood and she was my thinspo. I've had this Ed for 5 years and recently it's spiralled out of control. I'm so underweight I feel I could be snapped in half like a toothpick. My cousin is a healthy weight for her size, but still tiny. She said to me "I still think I'm skinnier than you, you can see my ribs more, look!" and showed me, when I was talking about my eating disorder. This pissed me off because its not a competition, and an awful thing for her to say. I pointed out that her bmi was healthy and that her jeans I borrowed were too big for me, yet tight on her. Then I realised how stupid this was. I eat about 700 calories a week. I don't feel hunger. I go days without eating (thanks ritalin!) and I have started fainting. I realised I'll be dead within the year. I can't get my degree if I'm dead. On Sunday I ended up in the hospital. And now I have an appointment to discuss further treatment, which may include inpatient. But I'm okay with that. My uni said they'll support me. And I am going to get better. I don't want this. I don't want to die. I want to fucking live. And I will.

I'm a gay male and my mom has anorexia, but I've never starved. My life is falling apart right now. My family is dysfunctional. I missed a deadline for a college paper and realized I will not pass the class. I had stayed up since yesterday on Ritalin and coffee trying to focus on the paper, but I was too depressed/ ADHD to do anything. I was so focused on self hatred for my failure to focus on that paper that I didn't even realize I forgot to eat all day until now. By the time I got home from school after a disappointing day at college, something changed. I realised that I'm hungrier than I've been in a long time. I'm starving and my stomach is growling in pain. But it was numbing the emotional pain. I started to research into people who starve. I've been on thinspo for hours and haven't thought about the paper at all solely because I'm completely distracted my my phone and stomach. I'm hungry, and that's all I can think of, not my failure at college and life. I've never starved myself, but all of a sudden I feel like I'm finally able to discipline myself and my body for being a waste. Honestly something is wrong. This isn't normal, even for me. I have a growing desire to find out what it feels like to black out from hunger.... Maybe if i skipped eating for the next week, id be so hungry I wouldn't feel anything at all. Why do I feel like this? I need a serious intervention....