Depression like cluster headaches?

[Flickering]

When I take LSD, I feel tired and utterly devoid of emotion the next day, but for about five days following that, I feel great. 'Great' for me is probably normal for most people, because I usually spend a whole lot of time feeling tired for no reason, uncomfortable in my own skin, generally anxious and unhappy, and unable to properly enjoy most of the things I really should enjoy.

LSD, and psilocybin, are also known to provide relief to people who suffer from cluster headaches.

Sometimes, depression feels like a kind of emotional headache - a grinding in my brain. In the afterglow of LSD, the grinding goes away for a while.

I don't take anti-depressants; I have stubbornly refused to for about seven years. But I've found the idea of taking LSD or magic mushrooms once a week tempting. It needn't be enough to trip. A quarter tab, or a half gram. Not sure if such a small dose would have much of a lasting effect, but maybe. That's all it needs to interrupt cluster headaches, and as I say, depression feels kind of like having a constant headache. I've resisted so far, because I don't want to end up building tolerance to LSD and having crappy little trips when I take full doses. And also because I'm still kind of irrationally resistant to the idea of anti-depressant chemical substances. What do you think?

 

[wayab]

my new hope for battling this type of problem is getting (somehow) a isolation tank

 

[Flickering]

I've used one four times, I'm afraid it hasn't helped much. Funnily enough though, this weekend or next, I plan to use an isolation tank while on acid. The peak always hits me hard so I'll need to do it around the +9 hour mark to avoid suspicion, but that should still be enough for an interesting experience.

 

[Jesusgreen]

Tripping every week does lead to quite a bit of tolerance and reduced trips. One week works fine when you're doing it once in a while, but once it becomes regular it takes the magic away. Unlike drugs like MDMA etc where the magic disappears for a long time or possibly even permanently, with psychedelics it just takes a month or two break, but I find spacing it out more is more worthwhile in general.

I prefer to space my trips out by a month or more aside from special occasions - when trips are properly spaced out and treated with respect a single trip can be so insightful and special that the afterglow can last the entire month anyway :D

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

I don't take anti-depressants; I have stubbornly refused to for about seven years.

Why? Just 'cause they're not without issue doesn't mean shit, self-medicating with illicit or otherwise unconventional drugs has its issues as well. Control obsession, or know-it-all-ness or whatever the hell it is that makes drug users loathe to listen to those society grants an Rx pad?

If you have an issue, you're shooting yourself in the foot if you fail to take advantage of the great amount of resources organized medicine has placed at your disposal.*

Also, once a week tripping is going to make you lose the magic and isn't really viable (maybe there are a couple of exceptions, but those persons would be in a small minority). And your comparing entirely unrelated medical phenomena is just you rationalizing. All that being said, if you have to take something once a week, you might as well give psychs a try, they're not going to do you physical harm.

*Note: I am a hypocrite for saying this. Haha, I probably need psychiatric help and some meds, but prefer to do things my way due to idiotic neuroses.

 

[Flickering]

I'm pretty sure tripping once a week would make it less special in my case. But I'm more curious about taking very small doses once a week, and large doses around once a month, the latter of which I'm currently doing. Would it increase tolerance too? Is it likely to have the same anti-depressive effects, and has anyone tried it?

It occurs to me that mushrooms would be better, because I'm unable to sleep for countless hours after even half a tab of acid.

Why don't I pop pills? Because I'm aware that even though this depression is a chemical imbalance, an irrational pattern of sorts, it has a psychological basis, and I am determined to fix it at the psychological root. This is very difficult, though, and I'm not sure how to go about it, or whether it's time to just give up. But I feel that anaesthetising it will distort the issue, make it harder to correct, and basically it won't actually make me happy, just less tired and less unhappy. Sometimes life is beautiful... and I don't like the idea of smothering that. Also, a lot of antidepressants are very bad for you, and most of them don't work on the human body a thousandth as well as they work for the pockets of pharmaceuticals.

I was going to take a flood dose of ibogaine and see if it helped. Maybe I still will.

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

I see, I think of those drugs like crutches. Damned inconvenient and to be rid of as soon as possible, but if you're leg is fucking broken, sometimes you need to use them so you can be healed. Seeing a professional and expressing your distaste for psychiatric medications and they will work with you to use them minimally if it all. There are also plenty of non-drug therapies available.

I say this because I spent 3 years of my life in a state of constant clinical depression, and the coping mechanisms I developed were horribly maladaptive, I spent another three years improving but got sort of stuck due to anxiety issues and have since existed in a cycle of moods and drug induced limbo (actually this deadbeat phase has been for 3 years now too, a rather reductionist version of the last 9 years of my life, but from a mental health standpoint not untrue). So my issue is more anxiety and maladapted methods of coping with stress than depression, and the former did exist prior to the latter, but those other issues were made much worse by that experience (the source of my nihilistic and fatalistic streak, as well as tendency towards bitterness and resentment rather than a more mild misanthropy).


Anyway, not sure about alternating low and higher doses like that, keep a journal of it for a while, then make a thread here detailing the results of your regimen. It would be useful information for us to have, and a detailed report of someone's experience a better locus for future discussion and sharing of persons experiences than a merely inquisitive post such as this.

 

[pofacedhoe]

the best antidepressant i ever took was tramadol

 

[Jesusgreen]

I don't really think micro-dosing with psychedelics is the answer, especially in the case of depression or other psychological issues. I tried regular small doses, I tried regular big doses, and sure in the afterglow I felt slightly better about life - but as already mentioned, that just makes it a crutch, what you need to be looking for is a cure not a band-aid/plaster!

In my case the cure for my depression and anxiety did come from psychedelics, but it came from a single trip in an appropriate setting with one of my best friends, and we talked through my problems. It was like traditional therapy only on 16x fast forward, and that single night was enough to beat it for me.

I can't recommend the same for you or anyone else because everyone is individual, and what worked for me might show no signs of helping someone else. However I can say I think a controlled session, ideally with a therapist, but failing that simply with a friend you trust - is likely to be much more healing than regular micro-dosing.

I think really though the first step should be to consider seeing an actual therapist. A good therapist and a real desire to help yourself can do a world more than medication can, and while psychedelics can treat the problem it requires the perfect setting and your trip partner has to know what to say to get you through it - while therapists are trained in this art, and although it might take longer, it's a reliable way to deal with your problems.

 

[Flickering]

Mm, I've seen three therapists, and they each helped in their own ways. The first time I took mescaline, it was worth fifty therapy sessions, all condensed into one eighteen-hour experience. The pieces fell into place and I understood the source of my negative mindset. There was still not much I could do about it, though. Each time I trip, I get a new angle on my problems, so perhaps it's just a slower road for me, step by step. Certainly I'm better than I was a couple of years ago, before I started using psychedelics.

 

[Splitz]

I too suffer from depression, have done since I was 13 and I'm now 22. I had a chip on my shoulder about medication for years because being prescribed fluoxetine at 13 was definitely the worst decision made by a medical professional in my life. However in more recent years I've been willing to try different meds, because I can't know if they may be beneficial until I try them. I am on mirtazapine now (literally just said this in another thread, feel like a parrot ) and it works well for me. I'd like to reach a point one day where I can cast them aside. When it comes to psychedelics, I can definitely say they have helped too. I'm a lot happier nowadays, and I can see the root of a change to more positive thinking in trips I've had. My medication helps me along on a day to day basis.

You shouldn't necessarily write off traditional medications, and it seems a bit daft to, if you're willing to use other drugs in their place :/

 

[Jesusgreen]

Mm, I've seen three therapists, and they each helped in their own ways. The first time I took mescaline, it was worth fifty therapy sessions, all condensed into one eighteen-hour experience. The pieces fell into place and I understood the source of my negative mindset. There was still not much I could do about it, though. Each time I trip, I get a new angle on my problems, so perhaps it's just a slower road for me, step by step. Certainly I'm better than I was a couple of years ago, before I started using psychedelics.

This is exactly the problem I had beating my anxiety, and it seems your view of the situation is the same as mine was, so it's possible you're missing the same piece of the puzzle I was.

You said: The pieces fell into place and I understood the source of my negative mindset.

What was it? What did you decide in that trip you should do to deal with it?

Have you done that now?

Really?

If the answer's no, no amount of further tripping will help you. Get it done first

---

In my case, trips showed me that I really needed to force myself to go out and meet people, but I didn't feel strong enough, and I thought "Okay, the trip has shown me this, next week when I trip it might give me the motivation to go out and do it" - the truth I discovered in the end, was that they could show me the path, but they couldn't walk it for me - I had to face my fear and go out and meet people. Once I did it, my anxiety dissipated