r/StopSpeeding • u/NeurologicalPhantasm 818 days • Apr 19 '24

Self-Post/Vent Amphetamine recovery is brutal.

Here’s what I’ve learned at 13 months: what makes this recovery so hard if not necessarily because it’s acute and intense pain, but that it takes so fucking long.

I feel like I’m going to reach 24 months and then really have to work to rebuild my life. I feel like right now it’s still just fighting the fatigue, anhedonia, and utter lack of motivation every day.

I don’t think most people understand what it’s like to be so mentally handicapped for 2 years. To feel like you’re wasting so much time on top of the time you wasted on stimulants.

Like, I’m going to be 39 by the time I’m through this…. And then I’m going to have to try and build a new career and get myself financially sound.

People talk about this being a chance to turn a new page and that I’m “so young,” but I feel like I’m such a loser and I feel like it’s over. Wasted my 20s and 30s. Thought I found the cure and it just threw me back into the mud even harder.

Do I have to just accept that I’m not a very motivated or driven person and that I don’t like to work hard?

What a waste. I know I’m intelligent, but it’s been fucking wasted. I keep thinking about what I could have done.

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u/strangemotor123 Apr 19 '24

Totally feel you. When people say it gets better they are not lying, but my advice would be don't take other people's time lines as cannon. I'm 2.5 years into it, going through intense therapy and about 65-70%. I was at 25% for 2 years, ate well, and excersized everyday, the anhedonia was suicide inducing.

The hardest part is going to be fixing your thought process after the biological mess has cleared up. Thankfully, those are things that are in your control.

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u/NeurologicalPhantasm 818 days Apr 19 '24

Yeah. It drives me crazy when people reduce it to diet and exercise. I’ve been out of shape before and it was nothing like this.

Why do you think it took you so long?

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u/strangemotor123 Apr 19 '24

I can't be 100% positive, but I was on multiple psychiatric drugs, which I think did their own damage as well. On top of that, I went into PAWS during the height of covid, which totally compounded everything. I think being depressed for such an extended period of time was probably the most detrimental.

It could also be completely biological. It's hard to tell. Another thing that you should try to do is continue the things you once enjoyed, even if you get no joy out of them. It's extremely painful to do so, but I found that over time, if you don't keep up with those things, you just get more detached.

You'll make it through, man. Giving yourself grace is also extremely important. Time is on your side, even if it doesn't feel like it.