14 months. Help!

[Madd]

Hi. 

I've been clean 14 months from heavy dexamphetamine use which I was on for ten years. Can't say I'm feeling very positive about life. Constant depression and anxiety and some very serious apathy. I cannot be bothered doing anything and it's not getting any better? I have no social life whatsoever and really can't see much point in anything. Everything seems pointless. There is no pleasure in anything.  This is not well. Is this still me recovering or is this a seperate issue do you think? I really want to avoid prescription meds but I'm really struggling with how things are going? Any advice would be great! 

[SleepyStupid]

hi @Madd

first of all, congratulations on 14 months! that's no easy feat, especially after a decade of use!

On 3/30/2019 at 0:47 AM, Madd said:

Is this still me recovering or is this a seperate issue do you think?

that's a hard question to answer, but given your length of use, i'd say you're still in "active" recovery. it would be fair to say that "still recovering" will be the cause of general apathy and depression within the first 2 years or so. but that doesn't mean you won't have good days - it just means that you may have more bad days than good days for a while.

brain chemistry aside, i also believe that one of the lingering effects of Adderall is that it makes us "expect" relief or happiness to just happen all of a sudden so that we can move on with our lives. in fact, it seems that the opposite is true - you need to force yourself to move on in order to earn happiness. (easier said than done - right, i know.)

here's another way i've tried to think of it: constantly checking whether you "feel better" is self-defeating because feeling better could simply be a result of doing things to distract you from feeling shitty. eventually you distract yourself with enough things to forget about being in recovery, at which point you're recovered! (: