Low-dose DCK as a social anxiety/BPD treatment

[dopamimetic]

I'm still trying to find an answer about whether this can work or is just an illusion which makes you feel comfortable but skew perception. Tried like half a pharmacy of psychopharms and nothing worked remotely as good as low doses of dissociatives, specially deschloroketamine, can do - as long as I manage to keep the dosage low, sleep regularly etc. I tend to think it could and should be used therapeutically as sort of catalyst to facilitate anxiety exposition therapy, this is much more useful when done in public and without the need to overcome the anxiety in the same situation. Maybe when used rightly and at the least dosage possible, together with attempts to integrate things into my personality, it could do what therapy failed so far. Just that in past I failed with really integrating things as I didn't care much and just continued to dose daily and sometimes holed at night. As long as I used the energy and euphoria to do real life things, it remained effective but when seeing the euphoria as the sole purpose and using to escape, tolerance increased quickly and things went bad.

Currently unable to acquire some but will be soon. Need to decide whether I should try it again, or accept that nothing works and go to rehab or whatever instead. I for myself believe from experiences that it can and does work, but everybody tells me it's not real. Also maybe the effect only works for a few days and then fades away, I don't think it was so bad but if it is so, then it would require more planning.

Anybody having experiences with repeated low-dose use of dissociatives not (primarily) against depression but to deal with anxiety, inner tension, avoidance etc.? It will require to dose more often than against depression but maybe even lower doses.
Did you get depressive or anti-depressive after effects? What compound and dosages used? What ROA, single or multiple doses per day?

Thanks!

 

[Snafu in the Void]

I haven't used any dissos for this purpose in a few years (I just get high by myself with them in large doses now or use them in lower doses to add to other highs), however when MXE was popular I did. I found it quite effective to eliminate social anxiety. Oddly, I only have social anxiety in specific situations, usually around large groups of people such as a party or a sports game. I have mild/moderate agoraphobia. It was quite effective for that.

For anxiety/agoraphobia I would dose ~15-20mg MXE (if I remember correctly), snorted, repeated after 1-3 hours if needed. I also get strong temporary anti-depressive effects from them, but only at normal/high doses.

I don't really do it anymore because I avoid large parties and don't go to many events now. My life is boring, lol.

 

[Vastness]

as long as I manage to keep the dosage low, sleep regularly etc

This is the key point I think. For me I'm kind of jaded about the therapeutic power of dissociatives, at least with the currently available ones, but part of that I have no doubt is simply that they are just too abusable... at least for me. I think that using a substance both recreationally AND therapeutically is always going to be a tricky line to walk.

Dissociatives are also delusion inducing, consistently, in a way that seems to be impossible to get used to. I can't count the number of times I've been deep in a dissociative trip and thought "wow, I'm never going to be the same after this!" but of course once reality rematerialises that turns out to be just a temporary ego-delusion and is quickly replaced by rebound anxiety, depression, and depending on circumstances an additional helping of regret and a feeling of foolishness at having been fooled yet again.

I know that's more relevant with recreational use, which wasn't your question, but, the delusional effects of dissociatives I have a hard time believing don't leak into even the lower dose realm. I won't say that the therapeutic effect is not real, I think it is real, but I think that dissociatives' usefulness as therapeutic drugs is seriously limited by the other pitfalls. I think that, probably, with proper guidance from some kind of mental health professional, and a prescribed usage pattern based on evidence and studies which do not yet exist, and adhered to very strictly, and monitored, with adjustments made in dosage or other psychiatric treatment depending on one's individual ability to stick to a prescribed dose... then they could probably be very helpful.

In the absence of this kind of societal framework or any real body of research into the therapeutic benefits of these drugs, I'm personally starting to think that most people are just not capable of properly regulating their usage of these substances in a way that would actually be therapeutic, and isn't just symptom-masking or low level recreational use, no matter how well intentioned or disciplined that person might be, or believe themselves to be.

As evidence also I would point to the fact that despite dissociatives, at least the older ones, having a very long history of recreational use - and a fairly substantial amount of time of people trying to use them to self-medicate psychiatric symptoms - we generally do not see any long term success stories reported. At least not that I'm aware of. This is in contrast to other substances which one might argue are at least equally abusable, with dubious therapeutic benefits, ie, opiates, definitely kratom but even harder opiates, despite the substantial quantity of horror stories there are a good chunk of people who claim to have used for years, kept their usage in check for the most part and be none the worse for wear. On the other hand my perception is that dissociatives are a class that most users - those who don't develop serious health or addiction problems - eventually just give up on the therapeutic benefits, concluding there are just too many negatives. Maybe I'm projecting since this has been my own experience but, if someone can point me a to a single anecdotal report of someone who self-medicated successfully with dissociatives, leading to long term improvements in their mental health... as, I guess, you are asking for in this thread, in fact... then I would be surprised, sadly.

All that said, I don't think it's impossible - just I haven't personally seen it done. I would love for someone to show that it can be done.

I tend to think it could and should be used therapeutically as sort of catalyst to facilitate anxiety exposition therapy, this is much more useful when done in public and without the need to overcome the anxiety in the same situation. Maybe when used rightly and at the least dosage possible, together with attempts to integrate things into my personality, it could do what therapy failed so far.

Would not disagree in the slightest about your thoughts about using it as a catalyst to facilitate exposure therapy. And for sure, usually lowest effective dose is best with this sort of thing. Integration is tricky though. But if therapy failed and you're confident in your ability to keep a level head I wouldn't want my pessimism which is largely oriented around my own failures to discourage you.

I would say though that meticulous planning is probably needed, write out your objectives, dosage plan, targets, stick with this for a few weeks, or whatever pre-decided time period, record results daily, and re-evaluate your dosage patterns and other practices at pre-decided set points (and do incorporate other therapeutic practices, even if they haven't worked previously on their own).

I think that another big reason that there are so few long term success stories is that people are generally very muddled with their approach, don't plan things, don't write anything down, just basically wing it while telling themselves they're using "therapeutically", which is a recipe for gaining nothing except a minor substance habit over the long term, IMO.

If you do decide to go ahead also I would personally be very interested to read the details of your plan if you feel like sharing them, as would many others, I'm sure!