Some information and signs that can reduce likelyhood of amphetamine psychosis, or prevent a full blown episode.

Edit: there is no rule for when pre-psychotic warning signs will intensify and become an emergency. Some can remain with slight intrusive senses for years and not break from reality, some will sink in quickly, some it may take trauma, massive overdose/polydrug combo or big life stresses to kick off.

Edit 2: The following may be symptoms you are experiencing and may be shocking. Psychosis is a common symptom and can be extreme or mild. Panic isn't the answer, calm reflection is.

Long as fuck with lots of examples. Tried formatting but it didn't work. Sorry

• Psychosis is a full disconnection from reality in which a user believes unfounded delusions which are sometimes paired wity reinforcing hallucinations. It is a medical emergency, as the individual is not predictable and prepared to act out of the truly believed fear for their wellbeing and can be dangerous to themselves and others

• Amphetamine psychosis can happen to anyone, but genetics play a big role. In a study of people who experienced it users who had a family member with a psychiatric psychotic illness were 6 times more likely to have this reaction to amphetamines

• Although the chance of developing psychosis does increase with dose and consecutive days of use, it has been shown to occur in doses as low as 5mg, and can happen even from taking a first dose though very unlikely. It's important to recognize that not everybody will respond to amphetamine the same way

• When a psychotic episode is induced it can begin during the comeup or the withdrawal period, and varies in intensity. Most resolve gradually during withdrawal, but some episodes can persist for longer than six months

• Amphetamine psychosis is bound to the addictive effect of the drug on reward pathways. This causes a kindling effect- and each time an episode is triggered, returning to the psychotic state becomes easier, and the delusions become more entrenched in the users mind. Despite typically being negative scary or demeaning, users begin to crave the experience due to it's tie to the drug.

• Psychotic symptoms usually begin during a pre-psychosis period where the user is much more likely to feel different or notice strange things. It's important for both the user and the people they interact with to be wary of behaviors and changes as intervention before an episode kicks off is most successful in delaying or preventing psychosis.

• Everybody is capable of becoming stuck in a delusional state. The brain will make the experience feel identical to reality, and seek information to support the delusion while ignoring evidence to the contrary. No amount of intelligence or grounding can overcome the state at a certain point because the user populates it with beliefs and hallucinations it's vulnerable to.

• Shared delusions are a staple of amphetamine psychosis. Users experience delusions drawn on subconcious fears of their addiction. Sometimes it's because these small fears like scary bodily changes or feeling dirty are common when using a street drug, but these concepts can also be socially SEEDED. When several users share a delusion, it then reinforces the validity and is dangerously entrenching.

• Although there is no way to garuntee psychotic symptoms won't develop, awareness of these factors will reduce vulnerability:

Sleep deprivation alone is the number one risk factor

Poor nutrition from avoiding food and vitamins

Poor hygiene and disheveled appearance can seed an episode from body changes, and increase negative self-worth from deteriorated appearance

Hydration and ELECTROLYTES are critical to best brain function. Water is not enough, you need minerals that will hold it in the body. A scoop of table salt and or sugar in a glass of water is recommended or sports drinks

Life circumstances play a role, if you're adding stress from drug use on areas like home, work, finances, social group, or medical issues this will put strain on the mind and make it vulnerable. If use is negatively impacting these areas ADJUST YOUR HABIT or stop.

Mental health issues of any kind can deteriorate from drug use if not done responsibly

Just how neglect of any of these areas increases the risk of psychosis, developing psychotic symptoms increases the chance and severity of neglecting ones life. It is a cyclical self strengthening system

• Not all syptoms are a like, but here are some common seeds and pre-psychotic signs to be aware of. Keep in mind, these seeds tend to be vague or unclear in this stage. When psychosis erupts into an episode, these hallucinations and beliefs tend to become hyperspecific and unique to the individuals as well as overwhelming to the point they can't easily be ignored. Keep in mind that many of these things can be normal. Judgement dictates when they become problematic:

Social withdrawal and deterioration of routine and normal life is a sign something is not right. As heavy use progresses the user losing interest in emotional connections or empathetic gestures, they may even foster distrust. Isolation and distrust accelerates psychosis because it increases the users reliance on only their point of view which is distorting, as there are less conversations and interactions to observe strange behavior, and the user is less likely to feel safe being vulnerable about their beliefs as they likely will be struggling to understand their bizarre nature as well. Psychological distress or unhealthy obsession takes over all thought and actions in their daily life which can reveal themselves when they are subject to disciplinary action or fired from jobs, straining house hold responsibilities, disinterested in lifelong hobbies and comforts, and unusually poor hygiene/appearance upkeep. It is important as a user to keep lanes of trust open, and maintain relationships with people outside of the drug culture.

Hyperfixation on drug quality. This often is a seed for delusions of ingesting poison or evil. This stems from a subconcious disgust of the drug, or fear of adulterants. Meth is a street drug and poor synthesis, cross contaminates, intentional cutting, and unknown research chemicals are always a risk. Obsession over blemishes or debris in a bowl or on a crystal can spiral out of control, and be repetitively analyzed until confirmation bias sets in. No amount of obsession beyond an acetone wash will help, and a user must accept the risk of buying black market drugs or consider tossing the bag, reasonable testing, or stopping.

The most common are slight suspicion of persucatory delusions or delusions of reference. Typically these will seed from already present anxieties like jealousy/suspecting a spouse or partner is being unfaithful. Feeling eyes on them or being watched, feeling that people are making fun of insecurities and whispering about them, tying coincidences or mistaken commonalities together to sense that people are plotting against them. When people talk in front of them, noticing signs that they're using some sort of code or inside joke to mock them. Noticing comments on the internet that seem to be written to communicate with or make fun of them. Noticing symbols or media like video games and music seems to be speaking directly to their circumstances. Deja-vu and amnesia from losing sleep can make this feel remarkably real. Typically this is directly linked to the drug, such as being outed for using, made fun of, or tracked by law enforcement/crime groups. Some describe the meth high as enhancing their thinking of perception allowing them to notice these patterns and stop some danger.

Heightened and even hallucinated senses from sleep deprivation stress and the drug can seed psychosis. Muffled, whispered, or inaudible voices may be heard in ambient white noise. Small sounds that never were noticed can become irritating or unbearable like someone else eating, water drops or metal clanking(user may project their oversensitive hearing and be nervous of someone hearing their lighter or other soft noise from unlikely distances). A new sense of 'feeling' ones brain, thoughts, organs or blood flow. Becoming startled by peripheral illusions, and suddenly seeing faces or people in inanimate objects or landscapes. Changes in taste like suddenly disliking foods that were enjoyed before, or tasting the ingredients of a meal seperately but not as a whole. Smells that are typically foul and exaggerated or imagined, oftentimes the users may attach their smells from sweat to the smell of their drugs which 'haunts' them in a sense. Finally insects buzzing/flying crawling on skin, and biting or stinging can occur

Changes in mood, like inappropriate excitability, sudden lack of emotional expression and feeling a lack of emotions, new irritability and nervousness, anger and increased risk taking as well as increased interest in violence

Changes in personality and speech. Psychosis often evokes a good and evil dichotomy and spiritual themes, a user who rarely speaks in spirital concepts suddenly doing so is common. A user obsessing over a vague search for universal mysteries, knowledge, technology, 'truths', or suddenly elated by a sense of purpose or duty ESPECIALLY WHEN THESE ARE LINKED TO METH USE is a massive red flag. New interest in geometry, math, politics, patterns, symbolism and technology also is a warning. Any sort of strange recognition of patterns or existential understanding of life

Changes in perception, like having a distorted sense of time, distorted sense of depth like things feeling too far or too close- a fisheye lens, changes in seeing colors, lighting, familiarity(familiar people appearing different, strangers appearing familiar) and even changes to nosalgia and memories. A user talking about patterns, describing perception in unusual ways, or even remarking on the world feeling different, seeing the world in a differently way, understand the bigger picture, or getting closer to the answers. Dissociation like not feeling body parts are attached correctly, are wrong or foreign, and movements "delayed". Feeling like they are perceiving the world as a third person, watching their life pass but not controlling it, or detached from their body and feel like a mind in a robotic machine

Overwhelmingly a feature used to deflect considering that quitting the drug or reducing useage pattern involves talking about or viewing amphetamine as a lense or portal into another dimension, universe, timeline, or astral plane typically Hell like or revolving around demonic themes of punishment, Satanism or existential evil. It may also be described as a sense of being posessed which hijacks dissosiation of perception, implying that they aren't in control of their compulsive need to use the drug despite it causing traumatic distress

Sensing family members and pets who have passed, often sensing their shame or disappointment. Sensing a presence, or all seeing surveillance that may be supernatural or technological

Finally thought disorder which can only be noticed from interaction with a user experiencing it. Suddenly thinking in one or more new voices, or losing a narrative voice. Intrusive violent or sexual thoughts which disgust and frighten. Stream of thoughts and chatter that is crippling or agitating. Feeling like the physical brain is stretching or distorting, or that thoughts are literally bouncing around or heavy in the skull. Feeling like the loudness of their thought may escape and be heard by others. Feeling like foreign thoughts are being downloaded or pushed into their head by someone else. Thinking in strange languages, dialects, rhythms, melodies, or inflection. Trouble remembering words, how to communicate sentences and stumbling over speech. This all will manifest by changes in the way a user speaks, how they portray themselves, and their effectiveness at communicating without sounding surreal or nonsensical.

Extreme changes in sexuality, aggression, agitation, irritability, comfort or interest in violence, morality, and values. Lying or frusteration are common ways to cover up drug use or handle concerned peers without disclosing delusional thoughts. Because it isn't possible to know what a delusional person may believe and what degree, changes in how they treat people around them must be scrutinized! Sudden strange pleasure in manipulating, bullying, emotionally abusing, or scaring a spouse for example could indicate a delusional person believes their spouse is some enemy plotting against them or a demonic spirit.

Delusions typically require an inflated self importance, that secret knowledge or spiritual insights are being bestowed on them or that government agencies and gangs are targeting them specifically. Groups of peers somehow recognize the secret drug abuse and are attempting to gaslight or psychologically torment a user. Of course the critical flaw in this thinking is that recovered users know that there is no insight or spiritual aspect of meth use, and that delusions of persecution were all in their minds. Furthermore, what makes this user the unlikely person to experience these impossible or logistically bizarre targeting? It always makes the user assume they are far more unlucky or unique than they are. Look for signs of this kind of thinking, including inflated sense of intellect.

A user will reinforce delusions with coincidental or misunderstood evidence, and entrench themselves. They will resort to confirmation bias, and seek only signs which can be rationalized into the deluded belief system, and ignore overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Shared delusions are particularly dangerous for this reason, as users can rationalize their beliefs more when others are experiencing them too. Morgellons and Denodex mites is a body-horror delusion and a twist off of various impossible senses of full crystalized meth expelled from skin or orifices or nanobots/insects beneath skin. It describes foreign worms or fabrics growing out of skin, moving around, and causing painful sores which don't heal, a convenient seeding point from finding exceptionally common small filliments, dust, hairs, or tiny particles on the skin and developing sores and blisters from poor hygiene, subconcious skin nose or ear picking, or cuts and burns. That it has a name and a single study where a person believing they had Morgellons actually had a bacterial infection to suggest its existence is enough to cement a users belief without question or skepticism. In fact overwhelmingly medical experts recognize the disease as meth psychosis along with Demodex mites, an always present microscopic skin mite on every human being on Earth.

The miscontrued belief that these mites absorb stimulant medicine from the skin and speeds up their reproductive cycle (that's not how 'speed' works, meth can't work on creatures without conciousness and brains of vertebrae, and ecosystems only can support a specific population) is used as evidence and impossible to convey to a deluded user. Gangstalking in recent years has developed communities that reinforce each others psychosis. And finally BAD FAITH TROLLS AND NARCISSISTS will gaslight or joke in support of a delusion either for sadistic amusement or control.

A psychotic episode is extraordinarily traumatizing. Because the brain will construct the delusions perfectly to feel indistinguishable from reality, features and hallucinations may weakly persist even when sober. It is important not to alarm yourself if some perceptual distortions remain after withdrawal, ignore them and the brain will recognize them as imagined soon enough

Part 2 is How to Help Yourself or a Friend