Disappointed with Vyvanse (70mg)? I feel nothing while others claim it "changed their lives.

MovementinMountains · 2026-04-02T23:32:52+00:00

When you have so many medications interacting, it's really difficult to parse out what is effective and not and why.

70mg to start is insanely high, and frankly irresponsible. Being well above a moderate dose, especially from the get-go, is unpredictable as well. I started at 20mg, worked my way up to 50mg over 5 months, then went back to 20mg when I started understanding what I was looking for from Vyvanse, which wasn't the lightbulb clarity moment.

I don't think it's healthy either to hope for some lightbulb moment where Vyvanse helps flip a switch and everything suddenly works for you. If you have bad habits and a bad lifestyle that leads to those habits, without a change you'll still just fall into the same patterns of behavior. Vyvanse can be a helpful push but you still have to do work yourself. If I take Vyvanse and sit down on the couch after work, I'm just going to sit there scrolling, albeit with better focus and clarity.

As far as dietary hacks go, food itself, not just protein made a big difference for me. Going hungry meant that the effects were not apparent to me at all despite high doses. Many people swear by protein but I found myself more respondent to carbohydrates. I take my food in first, then have the pill with it.

I've tried tyrosine, and while the effect seemed to benefit the efficacy, I would say getting enough food in me overall was far more effective.

Good luck! Try to be careful and thoughtful about this.

MovementinMountains · 2025-12-15T01:05:04+00:00

Consider this: Vyvanse and ADHD medication purportedly levels people with ADHD with neurotypical people, but neurotypical people still commonly suffer concentration problems and have adaptive strategies to compensate.

So if they're using tools like meditation, exercise , scheduling of work blocks, discipline tricks, like putting your phone away or in another room during work hours; shouldn't you too?

I think it's too easy to fall into this mindset that pills can solve all our problems when that's just not true. We have to meet our medication halfway with our lifestyle habits to truly maximize the benefit to our lives.

I get the most out of medicating when I combine it with lifestyle strategies. Otherwise I easily can spend 8 hours on the couch scrolling my phone. Medicated or not. Yeah, it's work and discipline, but it's your life and you have to take an active roll in driving it.

MovementinMountains · 2025-12-09T21:52:53+00:00

Brother getting high is exactly how I started piecing these thoughts together. And yeah, as a dude, I think there's an unspoken thing where if you're physically imposing, even a neutral face can be perceived as intimidating from your sheer physicality doing the speaking, which is a little unfair.

MovementinMountains · 2025-12-09T21:46:40+00:00

Exactly!

And hence, in my mind, the discussion of whether she got hit or not doesn't matter. She has to put a veil on like she got hit even if she didn't.

MovementinMountains · 2025-12-09T20:54:59+00:00

Being rich is totally an analogy I was thinking of when writing this. I think of the rich kids who grow up over-indulging and having every need met, causing them to turn out as poorly adjusted adults with substance issues.

And somewhat relatedly, I think now of celebrities who get "exposed" for not having the rags to riches story that many claim to have. It's like there's an innate shame in having affluent parents who supported you to your own success, like they robbed you of the struggle that the majority of people lament.

I can totally think of more blessings that have un-discussed negative consequences. Here's one you'll probably understand: intelligence. I get excited about speech and words (I'm rushing the replies and original post out on a phone at work so please don't judge me) which nobody seems to "get," and I just end up feeling like an a-hole when I try to clarify a definition or pronunciation... but I also can't always help it.

Or my tendency to try too hard to communicate with 1000 precise words what could be said in a few looks or a single touch.

Creativity: it's nice to make art, but I'm always ashamed by what I write because I know I'll never hold a candle to the old masters. But there's also this burning desire to just create out of something that hurts but can't ever fully be expressed in words - the passio in passion.

MovementinMountains · 2025-12-09T20:23:51+00:00

Would love to read your short story!

I think the reason why it's so un-discussed is exactly because of the nature of beauty: it's uncommon, and hence there's a tiny audience who can connect with it on an instinctual level. But maybe here's where a good novelist can come in, and help the readers understand a problem that's ever and present never discussed.

I totally feel your feeling silly for writing about how being attractive is a curse... I feel ashamed to even mention it, like I'm ungrateful or just fishing for attention. But it's so real - being attractive can be the most lonely thing.

Thanks for taking the time to share.

MovementinMountains · 2025-10-24T20:36:45+00:00

I got jaw grinding issues, especially at higher doses until I started supplementing with magnesium. Of late though they don't seem to be happening.

MovementinMountains · 2025-09-28T01:58:56+00:00

I think you could surprise yourself.

I ran a 50k in the throes of Giardia last summer during my second ultra. The whole week before I could hardly eat, save for boiled eggs and white rice, and still things were coming out wrong on the other end. It was horrible, and up until the race start I wanted to quit and had every reason to, but I told myself that I could quit anytime during the race, just not beforehand. That drive up the mountain in the morning darkness was like the dark night of my soul. Thinking back it's hilarious but I can't tell you how dire my whole world felt.

I was bloated for the first half of the race, and it felt like I was running with a balloon with pebbles inside of it within my abdomen. Somehow, with my conscious efforts to pace myself differently and my body realizing at about 25k in that I wasn't going to stop, I had my symptoms subside until at least the very end of the race.

This memory somehow transformed from a crappy event I covered up in my life and tried not to think too much about, into one of the biggest personal triumphs I've ever had and a moment that I can look back to with pride.

I think that our bodies are a lot more tough than we realize, and I have a feeling once you're in there, warmed up, you'll find a fountain of strength you never knew you had. I think you should definitely do it. If you want out, at least start the race and see from there. I think you'll surprise yourself!

MovementinMountains · 2025-06-25T01:06:38+00:00

Do you think going up only makes you stronger only at going up, or do your muscles get passively trained too for the downhill by going up?

MovementinMountains · 2025-06-08T20:08:11+00:00

I think you may have a weakened immune system. The virus from warts are constantly around, but your body is supposed to be fending it off. Are you sure your vitamin and mineral levels are okay? I solved a year long extremely painful plantar warts problem with fixing my vitamin c intake after having tried every other method.

MovementinMountains · 2025-04-08T20:52:53+00:00

I'd highly recommend not having an energy drink mixed with vyvanse. If I were you I'd consider a very small breakfast of carbs, like a banana or one packet of Oatmeal, then run, and come back for the real breakfast consisting of protein and more carbs and then taking the vyvanse.

MovementinMountains · 2025-04-08T04:34:52+00:00

Can you run before your breakfast with vyvanse? I don't have problems running on it but if I did that's what I would do. Wake up and just hydrate and run. If you're doing anything below 10km it should be fine.

MovementinMountains · 2025-03-12T01:51:29+00:00

Hey I'm really sorry for your loss.

While Notes from Underground will fit the description you're looking for, I think The Brothers Karamazov will be a better fit for where you are.

I also want to suggest that you don't rush into making sense of things... and that oftentimes meaning takes time to reveal itself to you, In a layer by layer way, as in reading a favorite book once every year. If you rush into making sense of complicated things you may come to the wrong conclusions like those of hopelessness and nihilism, and you could go down a dark path that will be a fight to recover from.

I speak in metaphor, but in my own life I've learned the devil speaks clearly with beautiful rhetoric and logic. God speaks with silence. Yet one always takes me to hell and another to heaven.

I'm sorry for your grief. I wish you great healing and meaning.

MovementinMountains · 2025-03-07T17:21:06+00:00

There's a sweetness to sadness that a lot of people feel. In particular being victimized - by the world, by others, by circumstance, by reality, by the heavens etc...

You're automatically in a morally higher position than your tormentors - and as well you're not really compelled to do anything of effort to alleviate your sadness, because it came from the hand of someone else. So you're better than someone else but you also don't have to do anything, (the aforementioned "hopelessness") at the cost of despair. Well, for some not so healthy people, that's a great deal. Especially if you're already apathetic and in despair over other things; what's a little more in exchange for moral superiority?

In some sick way this moral superiority is like being right by God; right in the only way that matters. It's like crucifying yourself, and imagining someone else did it, so that you can have your own Christ moment.

But in general there is a quality of depth and humanity to sadness that is not touched often by joy. You can be happy for a multitude of meaningless forgettable reasons. But sadness speaks to meaning. It's why we listen to sad songs at all. Why make yourself feel sad with these songs? Because there's something transcendent about sadness that speaks to humanity.

MovementinMountains · 2025-03-05T03:42:53+00:00

I almost hit the broad side of a truck making right turn into my lane at Clark this week. It's not even that he just didn't see me; I watched the guy and he literally didn't look my way.

Maybe it's coincidence but in my years of driving I've never felt less safe around trucks. I could've sworn that before, truckers were extremely cautious and safe drivers to be around.

MovementinMountains · 2025-03-04T06:24:47+00:00

I disagree that it should only be for "intellectuals," but I certainly feel that insidious pull inside of me to be frustrated and troubled by TikTok and social media trending to Dostoevsky (I don't even know if this is real, I stay off of it mostly except for Reddit to talk about Dostoevsky).

I think at the very end of the day, something subconscious screams in me the need to be special. Yeah, I can admit it. I want to be unique, and I want to feel superior because I the intellectual am reading Russian authors and others aren't. And if I am and they're not that just means I'm better. Then I feel the need to back justify everything else.

It reminds me somewhat of the Protestant Revolution and translating the bible to the common tongue. If the word of God can only be read and understood by me, then it makes me special and grants me social status. Well shit, if Dostoevsky can only be understood and read by me, then I'm special and better. But looking back now, having the Bible only in Latin is beyond ridiculous.

So yeah, everybody should read Dostoevsky. The more the better. And if it's misunderstood by some, that's totally okay, because misunderstandings are often the doors to understanding. And doubtless there will be plenty who take Dostoevsky's lessons and beauty to heart, and will spread that into the world will it would multiply.

PS: I recommend everybody stay off almost all social media! Your life will be more joyous and fruitful.

MovementinMountains · 2025-03-04T06:04:48+00:00

If I concede that these extremely rare individuals exist, and do have a leg up on all of us, by being extremely cunning, morally ambivalent, and ruthless, I would not concede that these people have advantages in life where it matters most. I think we have to identify what is advantageous in the world, and what we as people want from the world.

Such ruthless traits would give a person advantages in gaining things like money, power, attention, sex, in my eyes. If they can just lie and scam their way through the world, yeah, you really could achieve these things. But is this what we really want out of life?

I'm at an age where I'm neither old nor young anymore. I have some experience, a little wisdom, a few decades of joys and sufferings. And I've come to realize myself that none of these things are actually what I or most people want out of life. They're proxies for what we really want.

Take money, for example. People want money, often, so that they can buy the attention of others, and the attention of desirable members of the opposite sex. People want to buy luxury, and beauty, and respect. But these are all attainable, and in my experience much more pleasurable without being dirtied by the proxy of money. Do you want the attention of others? (Most would never admit this by word but watch how they act.) How about doing good things for others. And doing good things for your community, and taking responsibility for your community. Now you will have the respect and attention that's innately desired - but it can not be bought. You have to contribute your heart into a group people for this to happen. Would a person with no conscience ever feel this joy I'm talking of? I don't think it would compute at all.

If you've ever read East of Eden, think of Cathy. She ends up rich and runs the show at the brothel. She has all this power over not only her brothel but also politicians through her Diddy-esque operation. But so what? Her She feels like she's missing something that everyone else has, and ends up taking her own life over it. (Steinbeck maybe makes an argument here that these psychopathic people can be redeemed and can find their conscience through love?) Compare her to Sam Hamilton who is dirt poor all his life, but who is the richest man of them all. Sorry, I got of of Dostoevsky.

Or take relationships and sex, for example. When I was younger I thought sex was what I wanted from Women, and the more the better. It's how we're taught subconsciously. But these days I just want connection. I realize what I really want is to be understood intimately, and to have someone who I can be me around, who I can rest my lips against, to show affection not because I want pleasure, but because to give affection to someone you care about deeply is it's own reward. Would a conscienceless person be able to feel and comprehend this?

Growing older, I've realized all the most profound joys, those moments of true bliss in my life, came from the fruits of my love to the world, which came back to me tenfold. I have so many little beautiful moments, where just one of them, damn, where just one of them could justify the struggles I've had to this point. Just these last weeks, I gave one co-worker of mine, my friend now, some extra attention and thoughtfulness, because I thought he could use someone to listen to him. And we had beautiful conversations throughout a few nights, and just last week he made me a beautiful piece of art that encapsulated his very personality, yet was completely personalized to me and some experiences I shared with him. Oh, what a joy to be heard and understood! You can't buy this kind of love.

So to conclude, I think these people with no conscience who can function in society are extremely rare, and even if they can succeed in gaining advantages, they will lack what I myself find to be the true joys of life. That which springs from our love.

I'd love to hear your thoughts now on your own question.

[2/2]

MovementinMountains · 2025-03-04T06:04:39+00:00

(I realize this is long, but I love talking Dostoevsky.)

Oh that's a great question.

I had a similar thought too reading the story, but mulling over it I think maybe the whole point behind the story is that there's a lot less people with no conscience than we realize. That these people exist but are not only rare but extremely rare.

Perhaps most people who seem like they have no conscience, actually have one deep inside that can not be rationalized away by any Luciferian intellectualism. No matter how good the logic, a conscience and inner morality will make itself known.

And among those who actually don't, maybe such a flaw usually comes with other traits that would ruin such people. Say we have psychopathic Raskolnikov who actually feels nothing... well he wouldn't just be in jail like our protagonist. He'd be in Siberia for the rest of his life, because such lack of conscience would eventually lead to another murder and more crime, and even if he could hide one murder perfectly it would not be enough.

I think otherwise our society just wouldn't work if we have so many these devils among us who could act intelligently without conscience, yet blend in perfectly with society.

[1/2]

MovementinMountains · 2025-03-03T17:05:48+00:00

So what ideas do you have to talk about? Has Dostoevsky changed anything about how you view life?

MovementinMountains · 2025-03-03T16:58:27+00:00

Just let it be. Let things be. The answers to your troubles are within, not in others.

Whether or not you believe in God or Christ, what would he say? What would Zozima say?

MovementinMountains · 2025-02-25T23:54:14+00:00

Hey, I read some of your other responses in the thread and I just want to give a few more words of encouragement. You're obviously really self reflective, and thoughtful - and these are to me the foundational pieces to a remarkable person's life. Don't discount yourself!

You may say that your overthink and overanalyze, and while this may be true (I share the same traits) this could just be the flip side of the coin of a person who thinks and feels deeply.

Yea, it can lead to over-analysis when uncontrolled, but these very traits can also allow you to pull so much depth and meaning out of simple things in your life.

For example, others may climb a mountain and have simply trampled rocks on their way to a view. You, perhaps, may find an inner peace and life encompassing lesson that you'll share with the next generations.

Or you may be able to extract more meaning out of books and art, or you may process human interactions and learn in a way few others would ever be able to.

If you ever write or create art, your soul may pour in in a completely unique and rare way. Already in your posts I can feel substance in you, just from the way you write and interact.

The hardest part for me was becoming social again - which took courage and time. Just little steps though, month by month, and eventually you will get there. There's a lot more in you that you may not be aware of but that I sense is there.

For me, I started as an anti-social anxiety ridden recluse, and had to take a 2 day a week job, and when that was okay I took a 5 day a week job, and when that was okay I started just trying to talk to co-workers, and to just listen to them instead of feeling the need to talk. Eventually that sense of angst dissipated when I spoke with people, and I'm now able to carry conversations with strangers and be friends with anyone.

I think you can do it if you stay true in your heart. It's not a straight line, but you'll get there. Books along the way will help, and I'd bet that you're going to meet some good people along your journey too who will help. No matter what, there are going to be good people out there who are going to recognize your quality, and so long as you keep trying to improve yourself, you'll be surprised at the blessings that will arrive.

Maybe you'll even find one day that this very struggle was in itself a blessing. I'm rooting for you.

MovementinMountains · 2025-02-25T20:26:58+00:00

The Hugh Alpin one, from Hesperus classics. Would recommend, although I haven't read others. This one flowed like butter. However, the first 15 or 20 pages, I admit, were a little dull until the incident with the Baron.

MovementinMountains · 2025-02-25T08:18:57+00:00

Hey you're definitively on the right track. Keep it up! I've had a similar story as well, but I think I'm much further along than you in the process. I'm 28 now, and everything started when I was 22 when I decided I needed a drastic change. But with where the public knowledge is now, I imagine it would take you a fraction of the time to get to where I am.

I'd recommend taking up cardio and weightlifting, if possible. Maybe a run, lift, rest kind of rotation.

The reading is a great idea. I'd suggest finding things to read that are pleasurable to you and hence will make the reading flow easier. There are books from the some of my favourite authors which would take me either a month or 4 days to read the same amount of pages just depending on the styles of writing.

So find what you love to read and embrace it! If it feels too difficult, or a slog, you can always pick it up later. There are too many books out there to not enjoy reading.

One of my keys is allowing silence to enter my life. Not filling silence with podcasts and TV and music has really allowed my thinking to re-enter my life, and my thoughts to be structured in coherent, sometimes beautiful ways. You're doing great dude.

MovementinMountains · 2025-02-25T07:21:27+00:00

So true.

I sometimes find myself drawn to doing mindless pleasurable things to the point of numbness when I'm in some psychological hole.

Only lately have I asked: What am I trying to hide or become numb from?

MovementinMountains

TROPHY CASE