That was quite a mouthful!
The glutaminergic properties of tianeptine is what perhaps makes it different than other opioids. It certainly can have a shine to it and a stimulation that separates it from traditional opioids. It also lacks much of the respiratory depression of typical opioids and rarely causes fatal overdoses (if it did it would have been made a controlled substance years ago).
I had some enjoyable times on tianeptine. And unlike many other opioids, tianeptine doesn't impair my musical ability (specifically in a creative sense).
Simultaneously, I'd say it is horrible stuff and should be avoided. Eventually it leads to misery.
I didn't encounter respiratory depression at any point during my sixteen month run, no matter how much I took. I don't remember that it signaled anything like nausea or any other indicator to give me notice that I was taking too much. I think the only thing that limited my use was taking more than necessary to get the effect I was after would have been a waste of money. . . me being a thrifty sort. I think most if not all drugs (fenatyl perhaps being an exception? No experience with it personally.) signal in some way an overdose threshold if only vomiting, but tia, if it has one, didn't signal anything. It didn't take much and didn't last all that long but boy, it made me feel really alive. A little pinch in a shot glass of warm water was my method of use. The damage it did with me, the edema and whatever else, was from the long term use.
It seems logical that tia contributed in some way to my hallucinatory episode, but I had never experienced anything similar at any point in my use of it. The little pinch of phenibut was the only deviation from my normal routine and phenibut doesn't have a reputation for such an effect - plus I'd taken only a tiny amount since I was a stranger to it - so the whole thing is still truly a mystery. Somehow I turned into a human capacitor. Upon arrival, while lying in a side room with a drip in me and while they were assigning me a ward and running a urine test, I had visual access to the desks where staff people sat at monitors. Staring at a monitor I saw it fail. A tech crew came down and did whatever they did to fix it, then left. Staring at it again, the monitor again went blank. Did I somehow cause that? I turned my attention to another monitor and after about 30 seconds, it too went blank. I then went one by one, putting my attention on each monitor within my range of vision and one by one they went blank. After they'd fixed the first monitor and after staring at it after they left and after it again went blank, I had the question in my mind "Did I cause that?" After about fifteen minutes of failing monitors the whole desk staff moved to another part of the large receiving area and used other machines, thinking I suppose they had a localized system failure in their normal work area. I was able to kill every monitor within my range of vision.
After a couple days and in my darkened, lead-lined room I had gained enough energy to walk to the bathroom on the ward. Coming out of the bathroom I stared at the monitor behind the desk at the nurse's station. It took about ten seconds of deliberate concentration and the monitor went TU just like the earlier ones. I had super powers! There was a uniformed security type person on this ward when this happened - watching me of course - and he hot footed it from where he had been standing to the other side of the office area. Did he see what I'd done to the monitor? He definitely saw
something that alarmed him. This super power had faded by the time they let me out after three and a half days. Friends picked me up.
There were other phenomena, all having to do in some way with electricity, that went on during that period. What I attributed to the consequence of having strange chemicals in my body became something more, once I noticed how I could kill computer monitors. These experiences went from being explanable by drugs to something more in the category of the paranormal. Some of what I experienced, such as my property vegetation vested with little lights, was clearly hallucinatory - or, I had ventured into an alternate state of perception that perhaps is always there but inaccessable unless certain conditions are met. There were other things though that were truly not hallucinatory. I could repeatedly and with willful intent kill the monitors once I'd noticed that my unintentional focus upon that first one had such an effect. I started doing it deliberately just to confirm that I actually could cause them to fail. Sounds psycho I know. I don't - in fact have never - had anything like this happen in my life. There were other things, all associated in some way with electrically, that went on during this experience. Tia obviously contributed if only with its effect to disrupt my electrolytes to an almost fatal extent, but there was more to the experience than I've mentioned. Quite a bit more, but more description would take this thread from the subject of tia to a thread on the paranormal with tia only in an ancillary role . . . so I'll leave the rest of it for another day. The experience was so drastically different from anything I'd ever experienced that I attempted for many months afterwords to gain a more comprehensive understanding of it. I've pretty much just let the experience recede into that category of events that will never have a good explanation. I no longer . . or very rarely . . . give it any thought until I came across this thread and started remembering and thinking about it. It would be wonderful to come across someone who had had anything similar happen and who might know more. I'd still very much like to get a rational understanding of it. It was far more mysterious than anything I've ever experienced with any drug. Maybe the tropanes could cause or contribute to something like this. This was a Castenada category experience, but I've never taken tropanes so can't compare . . . but the bizarre nature of it all certainly fit within that category. It's still the most inexplicable state of mind and series of experiences I've ever had. I'll always be on the lookout for the possibility of understanding more about what happened to me.
. If ordering it by the jar or larger quantities from chemical companies in China, 12.5 mg. seems ridiculous. I was into gram-sized doses within days and within weeks was taking 10 grams a day, probably more. The sodium, not the sulfate. I did order some sulfate but for whatever reason didn't find it at all satisfying compared to the sodium I'd become used to. 