u/Connect_Trifle1816

Sorry for the rant in advance I’m pretty sure I’m still tweaking so hopefully it’s not all over the place. Anyways long story short I take my vyvanse 70mg as prescribed 90% of the time and find it very helpful most of the time, but every few months when I’m dealing with something (could be a big deal like my last breakup or sometimes just literally the smallest inconvenience) it’s like I get possessed or something and basically descend into madness for a couple weeks and end up taking up to 5x my daily dose (my tolerance is very very high and I spread the doses over the whole day) at least 3 or 4 times a week until I deplete every last bit of my dopamine I had and feel extremely low for days. Now usually when I find myself in this situation I handle it with weed which helps me get to sleep esp if I took my last dose earlier than like 4-5pm, but not only am a I out of weed atm but when I take higher doses like today the only thing that seems to help me get some sleep is benzos, to be precise bromazepam since it’s the easiest I have access to but it’s very hit-and-miss. So for example the last time I abused my vyvanse about a week ago I took 12mg spread through the night as I was coming down and was out like a light by 1am. But now it’s 6am and I’m on 18mg (again taken gradually between 7pm and 1am and only redosing when I felt like I wasn’t getting nowhere near tired enough, so maybe the mistake was not taking all at once) which helped a lot with the comedown like I’m definitely feeling less anxious about having a sleepless night and I’m quite relaxed overall when I usually feel like complete crap when I can’t sleep on just vyvanse. And despite definitely feeling the anxiolytic benefits and having a way smoother comedown than when not using landing gear, I’m also fully aware that I’m probably gonna have a horrid day tomorrow and over the next few days which is the first thing I was hoping to get advice from here. The reasons I’m more worried about the next days this time around is first because I have work tomorrow morning and I really can’t afford to be a complete zombie. So since I’m doomed to get 2-3h sleep if I’m extremely lucky (looks like it will be closer to 0) I’m not sure how to best manage work tomorrow and I narrowed it out to these options:

1- take one of my prescribed dose of vyvanse to not look like i’m on the verge of dying (like i’m not exaggerating sleep is the most important thing to me) so I feel like I will be at least semi functional at work and then maybe add a quarter or half a pill of the bromazepam to keep the anxiety at a minimum
2- just the bromazepam (and caffeine) since i’m really done with vyvanse and want to take a break for a month at least after this until i teach myself self control again, only to start abusing my script when the inner demom in my head decides it’s time to destroy my whole life once again
3- switching to a diff benzo (might be able to get my hands on xanax) since bromazepam will either work me sleep almost too well to the point where i’m lethargic for the next few days nor not at tall
4- opiods instead? tbh i’m not sure if they’re even helpful for stims comedowns and I only have tramadol so quite a smooth one but I had it before and felt great

Now that I explained everything about the immediate clusterfuck I’m gonna have to deal with tomorrow, let’s get to the second issue which is how to handle the 5-7 days of extreme anhedonia and sadness that I know are about to follow. And I’m not only dealing with completely depleted dopamine reserves but also going to have to go for at least a month without my prescribed dose which helps me immensely (yes the eternal optimist in me is still hoping to find a way to stick to my prescribed dose and for good this time) and I really need help on how to make that first week seem more bearable before I get back to semi-normal. Especially because I have a staycation booked this weekend with my family and would rather not spend it crying in my room and instead use it as a reset. But when I raw dog my comedown I usually end up seeking alcohol or weed or falling back into vyvanse use after like 2 days because the constant sadness and hopelessness is just too much to endure. So basically I’m thinking of using the benzos as a way to cope in the short term but I also don’t want to fall into another common trap of taking a higher dose than supposed to and then ending up with a benzo hangover and lethargy which you guessed it will make me grab the vyvanse again. So now I’m hoping to find people who have also used benzos to successfully alleviate their worst moments during a brutal comedown and not fall into zombie mode, and if that’s anyone’s experience here I’d love to hear more about how to work around their dosage and over how many doays. And if not benzos does anything else really work for you? I’m aware there’s a bunch of supplements I can take also so feel free to recommend any you find helpful also but with the extent to which I’ve fried my brain I feel like I can’t get over it without some benzos.

I also know this gets mentioned a lot on these posts so just PSA I’m fully aware of the abuse potential of benzos and opioids and I’ve thankfully had them enough times in the past recreationally to know there’s at least 2 substances I miraculously don’t seem prone to abusing but the benzo hangover is still not something I’d wish on my worst enemy, yet neither is the vyvanse withdrawal so I have to pick the lesser evil in my case, and again I’m looking for the least harmful way to use them and only for a limited amount of time when the withdrawals are the worst. Also I’ve tried z drugs to sleep and although they’re very effective I get extremely irritable and emotional the next day so unfortunately don’t know if they are a good idea for me.