u/Ambitious-Present-57

Completely ruined my life. It worked great for six weeks and then never again and they kept me on it for years, because it's usually a miracle drug that fixes everything for everybody and nobody believed that it wasn't doing *anything.* Instead I became anhedonic and apathetic, became unable to work and got on disability, and worst of all, my first novel got positive attention but I got years-long writer's block because I just couldn't come up with any ideas I cared about. I couldn't "hear the music" anymore either - basically, when you do creative writing, your sentences have a sense of prosody that you sort of instinctually "hear", it's not like talking or writing a post on Reddit - so when I sat down and forced myself to write, which was like pulling teeth, everything was a dry emotionless husk with prose that flowed like a brick. So I lost my window to write a follow-up. Killed both my ability to have a real job and my ability to have a career in the arts. I also became an alcoholic just to try and squeeze some pleasure out of life and get a reprieve from how much of an annoying drag it is to be alive. All this time nobody really suspected the lamotrigine because it's just such a good little drug for every other person who takes it.

I'm done tapering off it as of yesterday - my seizures haven't returned and neither have my bipolar mood episodes, it was seriously doing nothing for me - and I hope I can reclaim my life. I would really like to quit drinking, I managed a stretch of almost four months sober and absolutely nothing changed. Still no energy for things, still no pleasure in anything, still no inspiration, still in a low-key bad mood all day. That isn't what the wellness influencers told me would happen. :( It's also annoying because I'm trying to get help and therapists keep telling me, okay, next time you want to drink, let's redirect you to an activity you enjoy and I just...dude, I do not enjoy *anything.* I could be playing with a kitten or enjoying the world's best video game or moving boxes at an Amazon warehouse and it would all be the exact same level of stressful drudgery. The only thing that feels even a little good is exercise and that's not going to work very well as a distraction because I'm already doing so much of it a day, including rucking or hiking or just walking on the road for hours, and there's just a limit. (I could maybe work on moving my workout to the late afternoon when I usually start drinking, but one of the only things I actually like is spending the first couple hours of the morning doing outdoor exercise. Ugh, I don't know, I'll figure something out.)

Anyway. Yeah, this drug sucked. I hope the changes weren't permanent and if they are I hope I find some better way to cope with them.

Also, if anyone responds to this post saying "oh well for me lamotrigine saved my life", I'm sending an ape to your house. An angry one that needs to shit.

I mean, most of the plants on my property look normal, but some are just more purple than I would have anticipated. I planted a red maple, its leaves are dark purple. (My neighbor's red maple has the same coloration.) I planted red roses, the blossoms are dark purple. I'm not sure it's something I have to *fix*, exactly (I'd sort of prefer the red, but I'd prefer a healthy plant above that - although if it's a problem that might impact the happiness of the plant, I should try to fix it), it's just I'm really curious about what might be going on.

I was diagnosed at a young age, so I'm pretty sure I do have autism and not something like ADHD. It's just I don't deal with overstimulation much (I have a couple of textures and that's about it - it's a very dramatic thing to say, but I still have nightmares about the corduroy pants I had to wear as a very young child). Understimulation is a *huge* issue though, and I regret that I hadn't taken my autism more seriously and addressed my sensory needs early on. It's only now that I started figuring out what kind of stims I like and trying to use them to improve my quality of life. (Visual stimming is big with me, so I've been building up a collection of things to help with that, and taste is also a big stim so I got this sour powder I can add to water or another low calorie drink so I'm not trying to eat everything in sight to get my needs met.) (...please do not ask how much weight I gained before I addressed the root cause of my disordered eating. 😔 Fortunately, I also found physical stimming helps a lot, which I can do through things like hiking or rucking, and now that I've started exercising enthusiastically, I've lost 20 pounds over the last six months without really thinking about it. I also finalized my decision to switch career paths to wildlife management, which will have me moving around outdoors quite a bit. I really dislike being inside.)

In general, my life has improved quite a bit and I wish I had taken care of this part of myself earlier. Not really sure what kind of response I'm after, just wondering if anyone can relate to that experience. Would also welcome recommendations for visual stims, taste stims, and physical stims.