Hop on Enclomiphene

Brother, I'll give you the honest picture rather than false reassurance, because you're a year out with a stalled recovery and you deserve straight talk over forum optimism.
First, the most important thing: this is past the point where a forum should be your primary resource. You need a reproductive endocrinologist or an andrologist, and you need one soon. I'll explain the protocol landscape below so you understand your options, but a year of failed natural recovery after a 4-year continuous cycle is a clinical situation that warrants real medical management, not a self-run PCT. The reason isn't bureaucratic caution it's that the workup needed to know whether you CAN recover requires tests and clinical judgment a forum can't provide. More on that below.
The realistic picture for your specific situation:
A 4-year continuous cycle is a long, hard suppression. The HPG axis can recover from that, but the recovery is dose-and-duration dependent, and 4 years continuous is at the heavy end. A year off with LH still flat and testosterone still below range is a genuinely stalled recovery, not just slow. That doesn't mean permanent, but it means spontaneous recovery isn't happening on its own and probably won't without intervention at this point. The fact that LH specifically is still suppressed is the key finding it tells you the problem is at the level of the brain's signaling (hypothalamus/pituitary not sending the signal), not just the testes being slow to respond.
On your specific questions:
The PCT question and why your framing needs adjusting: You're asking whether a standard SERM protocol or a power-PCT would make a difference "this far out." Here's the issue: PCT protocols are designed to be run in the weeks immediately after stopping a cycle, to restart the axis during the window when it's primed to recover. Running a SERM protocol a full year after cessation, with an already-stalled axis, is a different scenario than textbook PCT and it's exactly the kind of off-label, individualized intervention that should be done under an endocrinologist's supervision with bloodwork tracking, not self-administered from a forum protocol. A SERM (clomiphene/enclomiphene or tamoxifen) might help by stimulating LH/FSH output, and clomiphene/enclomiphene in particular is sometimes used clinically as a longer-term restart agent for secondary hypogonadism but whether it'll work for you, at what dose, for how long, depends on your specific workup. This is the thing to bring to the endocrinologist, not to run on your own a year out.
The HCG point important: In a stalled recovery this far out, HCG is often where restart protocols start, because it directly stimulates the testes (mimics LH) and can "wake up" Leydig cells that have been dormant, sometimes restoring testicular responsiveness before a SERM is added to restart the upstream signaling. Many clinical restart protocols use HCG first to restore testicular function, then transition to a SERM to restart the natural LH/FSH axis. But HCG dosing and the sequencing matter, and this is again an endocrinologist-supervised intervention, not a guess.
The timeline question: Honestly variable, and your case is hard to predict without the workup. Some men recover over many months once an appropriate restart protocol is started; some take a year or more of active intervention; some don't fully recover. A year of failed SPONTANEOUS recovery doesn't tell you how you'll respond to an ACTIVE restart protocol you haven't tried the intervention yet, you've only tried waiting. That's actually a hopeful distinction: "spontaneous recovery stalled" isn't the same as "restart protocol failed," because you haven't run a proper supervised restart. So you're not out of options you're at the point where the passive approach has failed and the active approach hasn't been tried.
The TRT-realism question: The honest answer is that this decision should be made with an endocrinologist after a proper restart attempt has been tried and assessed, not preemptively. You're right to want to exhaust the restart options before committing to lifelong TRT that's a reasonable goal, especially if fertility matters to you (TRT suppresses fertility; a successful natural restart preserves it). But the sequence is: get the workup, try a supervised restart protocol, and if that genuinely fails after an adequate trial, THEN the TRT decision is made on solid ground. You're not there yet because you haven't done the supervised restart.
The workup you actually need (bring this to the endocrinologist):
The reason this needs a doctor is that "stalled recovery" has multiple possible causes that need distinguishing, and the right intervention depends on which it is:
LH, FSH, total and free testosterone, estradiol, SHBG, prolactin the full hormonal panel to characterize exactly where the axis is broken
Prolactin specifically and a pituitary MRI because persistently low LH/testosterone can occasionally have a cause beyond just AAS suppression (a pituitary issue), and 4 years of suppression plus a year of non-recovery warrants ruling that out rather than assuming it's purely AAS-related
Sometimes a GnRH stimulation test or HCG stimulation test to determine whether your testes can still respond (HCG stim) and whether your pituitary can still respond (GnRH stim). This distinguishes "the testes are dormant but functional" from "the testes have lost function," which completely changes the prognosis and the protocol. This test is the thing that actually answers your "is it permanent" question, and it's why you need the clinic you literally cannot answer your core anxiety question without it.
On the anxiety:
I hear that you're scared this is permanent, and that fear is making the waiting worse. Here's the honest reassurance I can offer: a year of failed spontaneous recovery is genuinely concerning, but it is NOT the same as a confirmed permanent shutdown, because you haven't yet tried a supervised active restart, and the stimulation tests that would tell you whether recovery is still possible haven't been done. You're anxious about an unanswered question that is actually answerable the HCG/GnRH stimulation testing exists precisely to tell you whether your axis can still be restarted. So the path out of the anxiety isn't more waiting and more forum reading; it's getting the workup that answers the question. The uncertainty is the worst part, and the workup resolves the uncertainty.
The bottom line:
You ran a 4-year continuous cycle, you're a year off with a stalled recovery, and your LH and testosterone are still suppressed. This is a real clinical situation that needs a reproductive endocrinologist or andrologist, not a forum PCT. The good news buried in your situation: you've only tried passive recovery (waiting), not active recovery (a supervised restart protocol with HCG and/or a SERM), so you genuinely have options left that you haven't exhausted. The stimulation tests can tell you whether restart is still possible, which directly answers the question keeping you up at night.
Find a doctor who works with this specifically — a reproductive endocrinologist, an andrologist, or a men's health clinic that handles AAS-induced hypogonadism (this is a recognized condition and good clinics see it regularly). Be fully honest about the 4-year history; they can't help you if you minimize it, and they've seen it before. Bring the request for the full hormonal panel, the prolactin/pituitary check, and the stimulation testing. Then you'll know what you're actually dealing with and what your real odds of restart are instead of guessing and waiting and getting more anxious.
You're not necessarily looking at permanent shutdown. You're looking at a stalled recovery that hasn't had a proper supervised restart attempt yet. That's a meaningfully more hopeful position than where your anxiety has you. Get the workup, try the restart under supervision, and make the TRT decision only if and when the restart genuinely fails. Don't accept "permanent" until the stimulation tests and a real restart protocol have actually told you that because right now, nobody including you actually knows, and that's an answerable question.
Good luck brother. This is frightening but it's not hopeless, and the next step is clear: get to a reproductive endocrinologist and get the workup that turns your unanswered question into an answer.