I don’t know why they call amphetamines ‘speed’.

There are many ways people slow down and the chronic use of speed is one of them.

People slow down when they can’t sleep anymore, one of the first side-effects of chronic use of speed, along with increased irritability, emotional instability, a delusional feeling of invincibility and equally the flat emotional ‘deadness’ of dysphoria, panic attacks and eventually paranoia.

After the sleep deprivation associated with chronic amphetamine use, the user can’t think straight, can’t regulate their emotions, their work becomes rushed, shabby, they can’t think in depth when their mind is racing, then fragmented from lack of sleep. OK, so they’re taking it to stay in work, to get out of bed, to make that money, to buy those things to win the loyalty of materialistic children; whatever, but in the process, their children lose progressively them and they don’t even notice because they now feel ‘they’re achieving so much’.

That’s the delusion speed gives but the facts are its a shortcut to application, motivation, getting real help, a workable plan, reasonable and achievable self expectations and building some real self love.
Snappy, irritable, delusional people can start to lose their connection not just to reality and selfhood but ultimately anyone outside of their progressively narrow scene; their dealers. Having wild flighty ideals isn’t the same as ‘just being yourself’. Before long its been a long time since they’ve been there in the company of their real self and not long before they completely forget who that ever was. Then all the ‘I’m doing it for you’, ‘I’m doing this for us’ doesn’t matter a damn. There is no ‘us’ when one side of that ‘us’ left themselves by the side of the road miles back. Everyone else notices they’ve changed and misses them even if they can’t remember anymore who that person was.
As the chronic use of speed fries the receptors of messages in the brain it increases racing thinking but cohesive processing becomes progressively shot. So whilst it may keep you awake and make you work faster, intellectually, you’re slowly burning your chances of having the mental equipment to think coherently enough to dig yourself out of a hole, when and if you realise or accept you’re even in one (and the false confidence speed provides means you’re not likely to think you’re failing except when you’re ‘coming down’ until the next deal.

So with speed so widely used in its many forms, it may be time to slow down before speed itself slows you down. The psychiatric hospitals are full of people there from speed-induced psychosis because some people feel one can never get too much of a good thing. As a Taoist, I believe in balance and any Taoist knows, too much of any good thing leads to imbalance.

I’m wildly driven. I have wild mood swings of the kind seen in Rapid Cycling Bipolar. Unlike many who have depression, I have extreme sudden but short-lived depressive troughs but mostly I manage and baby-sit daily Hypomania, a pretty chronic distractibility and impulsiveness and occassional full blown manic states with a tiny amount of mood levellers. So maybe I’m lucky. Seems I have built in amphetamines. That works for me as an artist but I’m lucky I don’t need to by drugs for it, I need prescription drugs to slow it down, level it out.

But some people have far more depression, unable to get up in the morning or sleep till late, struggling to motivate themselves to brush their teeth let alone get to work and live with feelings so flat they wonder why they’re even alive. Some have such fragile emotions that the death of a goldfish sends them suicidal. I can understand the appeal of something like speed, a desire to get that motivation, fixation, euphoria of hypomania or the creativity which can come of it.

Correctly prescribed, preferably low doses of appropriate prescription medication may address emotional flatness and perk people up without the need for amphetamines. It may level out wild people without the need for alcohol, heroin or dope. It may help innattentive, distracted, impulsive people slow down till they can think, focus and achieve. But if we need labels (which set ourselves apart from the group, lowers ourselves on the social ladder) to get access to those things then its no wonder so many undiagnosed people have to half kill themselves and mess up their lives self-medicating with street drugs before they finally get help at the end of the road when they hit rock bottom or get buried trying.

Labels are becoming cooler. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe then the users will be clearly distinguished from the potential addicts without pressure or judgement to hide their addictions. The makeup of addicts is different to users and the same rules don’t apply to both groups yet the users get tetchy if anyone suggest their drug is also addictive. ‘They can handle it’, ‘they’re not an addict’ so therefore apparently all users are the same. But I’ve watched the users who became addicts.

Its time to sort the wheat from the barley, without judgement, threat or social exclusion. The game of ‘fitting in’, or self-medicating and hiding one’s real underlying challenges isn’t worth playing. Eventually it ends badly. Those born to alcoholics and addicts and brought up with denial, co-dependency and excuse making may be already primed for addiction both chemically and psychologically. Those self-medicating with street drugs who have undiagnosed mood disorders, anxiety disorders, autism spectrum conditions, learning differences and attention deficits need to come out of the closet, with or without the labels and stop hiding in the flock, pretending drug use is only use until, for many of them, it is inevitably addiction.

Sometimes, the only way to win is not to play the game. They may never be ‘like most people’. Hopefully they’ll realise they are splendidly wonderful just the way they are. It’s those without these issues who take street drugs ‘to be interesting’. They have the privelege they’re already pretty different already. Difference is nothing to hide. In our progressively bland and blander society, difference is a refreshing reminder of a once natural social diversity.

… Donna Williams

http://www.donnawilliams.net