What drug could most benefit my trouble with commitment?

What you describe is not any type of disorder which can be treated with psychoactive drugs. It is a maladaptive behavior which can be treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy. Any attempt to try to avoid the work associated with therapy is doomed to failure. Sorry.

What is your diagnosis? I know that depression can really interfere with your ability to get things done. I know that meds can help with depression (together with therapy), although often it takes a long time to figure out the right ones. But if you are depressed and you deal with the depression, you will find it much easier to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

I don’t think medication is the answer here, but I’m no doctor. It sounds like a behavioural issue that needs to be addressed. Perhaps, more closely the issues that have given rise to this behaviour/unwillingness/inability to commit to any one project. If the core issues are looked at gently, perhaps things will unfold and you’ll discover more about yourself. I think there’s a need for drugs on occassion, but in my opinion this isn’t the case here. Good luck with the new shrink tonight.

Real confidence doesn’t come in a pill or a bottle! Experience is the one true way to gain confidence in what you need to do in life and if you don’t even try you will never get that experience.

I realize how simplistic this sounds, but it seems like fear of success to me. It’s more common than you might think. Change is hard, and requires real work. Many people will stick with the misery they know and are comfortable with rather than take a chance they might change and fail, thus possibly ending up more unhappy.

Stick with the therapy – there’s where you’ll find your answer.

I agree with what others have said: this is an issue for talk therapy. Work on exploring with your therapist why you can’t enjoy the new project.

What in your past has caused you to “start preparing for the (relative) worst which is that I will stop caring for whatever I decided to do…. and go fly to “greener pastures”?

If there were such a thing as commitment in a pill we wouldn’t have the horrendous divorce rates that we do and there would be some devastated divorce lawyers begging in the streets.

You saying that your shrink doesn’t understand you makes me wonder what that shrink had to say about your commitment issues. Are you switching because she told you there was no quick fix and that only working through it would “cure” you?

If so, you may be practicing just the wrong thing by switching therapists at this point in the game. In other words, your first commitment may have to be to one therapist instead of shopping around for one who will tell you what you want to hear instead of what you need to hear.

I have to rush, but I want to clarify that it’s my psychologist that sent me to a psychiatrist. We’ve been sort of dissecating my psyche and got to a point where the psychologist suspects there may be something more to it and sent me to the psychiatrist.

So I’m not dropping a therapist for another, just adding a new vector.

To give you further information I have diagnosis of ADHD and Borderline… been on many psychologists and psychiatrists which is even more baffling for my current psychologist.

One thing I really like about my current psychologist is that (this is the first time) she does a lot of schemes and diagrams on paper etc… I like the way she works me. But my neurology seems to give a lot of fight…

Anyway, more later. Thanks everyone!

ADHD? That can easily give you have trouble with commitment. Often, folks with ADHD get scattered and can’t focus on any one thing for very long. They may not know clearly where they are headed, and may be unable to see the steps to get there.

I always make a half-serious joke about folks with ADHD. I think they need is to hang out with someone with bipolar disorder. Folks with bipolar can’t do a lick of work, but they can definitely understand what needs to be done to get something done. I think Bipolar and ADD folk make a great team. Although it confuses me greatly when someone has both diagnoses.

Yeah. If they give you meds to handle your ADHD, it should help, but as everyone says, it’ll only get you partway there unless you learn coping skills. Therapists are supposed to help you do that kind of thing.

And if you have BPD (I don’t know if that’s what you meant by “Borderline….”)—that also adds an additional layer of complexity. Again, if depression or some kind of mania plays into this, all those things can keep you from accomplishing much.

I can think of a few drugs that will get you real committed. To taking the drugs, anyway.

Do you really need drugs? It seems like it should be a last resort to add another dependence onto our lives. Are you looking for therapy, or enhancement? I think it’s best to get to the point where you can manage without any unusual dependencies, then build from there. I don’t like the idea of needing drugs to cope, but I guess if I got desperate enough and I thought it would help.

Borderline Personality Disorder is preferably treated by Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, as taught by Marsha Linehan. That is the protocol which has been shown empirically to have value in a number of peer-reviewed studies.

@dpworkin Would you say that you lean much more towards the treatment of mental illness relying much more on therapeutic techniques instead of meds when compared to me? That’s my impression. If so, would you say your bias is more towards more reliance on therapy (as opposed to meds) than the average therapist? I know you can’t know what other therapists think, on average, but I’m just curious as to your sense. In any case, if the latter is true, why do you think that is? Oh fuck! I might as well ask a question.

@wundayatta It’s strictly situational. I take meds myself. There are some mental illnesses which respond better to a different sort of intervention, Borderline being one of them. I think, for example, that Major Depressive Episode should be medicated, and if somebody with Bipolar Disorder wants to function well, medication cannot be done without.

Thank you. I’m not familiar with BPD. Why is that you think BPD is better treated through therapy?

Studies have been done which demonstrate empirically which treatment has worked best, and so far only DBT has been proven to work.

smoke or eat a little marijuana and meditate for 2 hours in deep thought you will find your answer

:) thanks for all the input!

I’m 27 and have been trying with meds since 21. And illegals since 18. And dangerous legals (alcohol and tobacco) since my teen years.

Ritalin, Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Paxil, Risperidone, Topamax, ... Ritalin is of some use, energizer, helps with determination, but blocks a sort of spontaneity and gets me a little too stiff… Wellbutrin was great to reverse anorgasmia from Zoloft, to make me quit smoking for good, and some help with energy and concentration… Paxil and Zoloft diminished my erections and took away my orgasms. Risperidone made me feel like a robot with no appreciation for music etc, Topamax I think it made me want to drink a little less but I was never a problem drinker anyway.

These days: two molecules

Stablon (Tianeptine)
Modafinil

Stablon is French and has never reached the USA but it’s an awesome molecule — started taking it yesterday and it helped me actually have one of the best days ever. Much accomplished, pleased with what I accomplished, etc… usually my problem is that I don’t get much satisfaction from accomplishing things anyway — Stablon seems to help!

Modafinil is good for taking sleep away. And I tend to get really sleepy with mundane tasks that have to be done anyway. So Modafinil helps me keep sharp as if I had just woken up.

This combo Stablon + Modafinil seems to be really good for me.

I am volunteering in two different places and have freelance work being awarded to me these days — again — and this time I think I’m not gonna drop it like I did in my past.

Seems like Stablon makes things have more relevance to me. If it’s not so good, it sucks more. If it’s better, it feels really different for the better.

I have for long time complained of a stable emotional state… where things don’t make much of a dent on me. But I reason that for me to commit to things I have to be able to withstand and feel a wider range of emotions.

Just a few hours ago I was talking about this with a friend. And it’s a great thing to feel that (worse or better) I would be able to mentally survive an earthquake aftermath without meds supply… if you know what I mean.

I’m not at all against taking whatever one wants. I always wish it’s for the best, that it brings a measurable addition to a person’s life quality and arsenal of tools.

Thanks for your feedback.

It looks like you’ve had a number of diagnoses in your life. I can see how this combination might both treat your underlying condition as well as your need for stimulation to get you out of bed and doing things. Sounds like your psychiatrist may have made a good catch. I hope it continues to work for you.

I’m not sure why you feel you would be able to survive without meds. For conditions like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and depression and ADHD, it can be necessary to maintain a drug regimen for the rest of one’s life. Far too often, people will take meds, feel better, and decide they don’t need them any more, and then have really bad episodes.

When playing with our brains, it’s not a good idea to get cocky, I don’t think. Not that I haven’t done it.

@wundayatta psych drugs are a modern thing. DaVinci and many others said to have been ADHD certainly took no Ritalin… and I value the idea of adaptive schools instead of adaptive students. That is rarely the case though.

Well, I didn’t take anything as a teen… or child… fact is my IQ is 133, I topped aptitude tests on my 9th grade class, but my grades were just to pass. You know what I had better grades overall? Geography. And I think the main reason was the teacher. He was different. He knew how to stimulate and break paradigms.

But yeah I’ve been on drugs, off drugs, on drugs, off drugs… now on again. And I hope this time I cut the BS and remain on them. My subjective experience without them always returns to a not terrible, but indeed quite mediocre level.

And with the duo I’m taking now, Stablon and Modafinil, I feel great in a natural way. Least side effects of all I’ve taken so far.

And now I’m going out to buy a fan! 27º...

@rexpresso Cars are a modern thing. People used to walk everywhere. I value the idea of people adapting to the environment, rather that people controlling the environment.

See the analogy? Drugs are a tool. There were a few famous people with mental illness who made good. So what? Yeah, it’s possible, but why would you handicap yourself voluntarily? And if you do handicap yourself voluntarily, why with your mental health and not with woodworking or communication or transportation? Why would we give up using tools because it’s possible to live without them?

Some people do that—back to the land, live off the grid types. And Christian Scientists don’t use medicine. People believe a lot of stuff. I don’t really understand why they are willing to do so, though.

Having said that, I totally agree that schools should adapt. The current system is particularly anti-male. Boys tend to be more active with or without ADD. Far too many teachers just want all the kids to sit quietly at their desks and listen quietly, never mind what the child’s learning style is.

@wundayatta yeah I agree that the system is anti-male and I can see how that has serious repercussions in the quality of the growing up males. For some reason women are so disillusioned about men these days. And we don’t seem to have any type of clear initiation rituals either do we? Well I guess that depends on the person… but it seems like becoming an adult these days is not so easy, in a sense. In more “roots” societies it seems to be much clearer when one is an adult: one is made one through a clear process. Anyway… just thoughts.

I think women have the right to be disillusioned about men. Thirty years ago. The excesses of male chauvinism though, are long gone. There are still male chauvinists, but not nearly so many.

The problem is that women do not realize that the problem is now going the other way. It is now men who do not have education of jobs, compared to women, on average. Women make up a significant majority of the students in higher education and in professional education. The higher up you go, the larger the female majority.

There may still be a glass ceiling at work, but it will be smashed and ground down into sand soon. Businesses will have nowhere else to go for leadership.

There will certainly be professions dominated by males and where men make a lot of money—such as the oil drilling profession. However, unless boys are accommodated better in elementary school, we’ll be seeing a men’s lib movement fifty years from now.