Yeah, ketalogues will make it better acutely but cause a worse rebound which lasts longer than the effects did before, unfortunately and benzos are the opposite of the same medallion, BZD withdrawal is not the same but also not too far away from glutamatergic excitotoxicity. Note that our brains are complex enough for to have several layers of protection, e.g. there are specific proteins which are released on overheating of a cell, or take tolerance against excessive agonism, and we have much more brain cells than we need to function - it's not single cells failing, for to be sp wacky out natural AI is way too sophisticated. It's when many cells fail at the same time, and when they fail to recover within their 'designed' measures. So, yeah there is toxicity happening, and probably will drugging cost us some of them but this doesn't mean we get (measurably) dumber because of that. The primary point is that one doesn't feel good when there's something toxic going on (see ethanol - it's not it itself but metabolites causing most damage -> rebound). Ketamine is bad in that it hits fast and hard, and dissociates fast again when glutamate is most vulnerable from acute tachyphylaxis. Long-acting ones like DCK had way less rebound for me and DCK was even usable when I didn't tolerate others anymore. But then again I theorize that NMDA is just a secondary target of DCK or one of the primary but not the only. Just what the heck it then does, I have no clue at all. It's the most cuddly fluffy drug by far and I've sampled a fair share of them.
Repeated, maybe just maybe might selank be for you. It felt pretty GABAergic to me and seems not to upregulate things too bad.
What sort of effects do you get from (I assume threshold?) doses of amanita? Been curious about it for longer but all the guys telling how deadly it is, and knowledge about how bad delirant trips can go, did make me stay away from it so far but a GABAergic hallucinogen would be an interesting primer.
I would suggest to continue on a low dose of benzodiazepine and titrate it very, awfully slow when such excitotoxic feelings come up. But memantine might be the better choice, if it helds its promise of not upregulating more. At least it has a multiple day long half life which means titration built in a la Prozac, I couldn't confirm that weird theory of it only catching excessive activity but would rather label it as a full-on dissociative but it's true that I got less adverse effects from it, there is no physical irritation, and comparatively little hangover - just notice that you won't be able to sleep at first for possibly more than just one day. Has an antidepressant effect though, to stay up overnight.
Pregabalin failed for me, or better said it turned out to be biphasic - lower doses are primarily GABAergic, this saturates somewhere around 900-1200mg and more begins to become increasingly glutamatergic. So if your tolerance is low, pregabalin might help too. It worsened my acoustic hallucinations though while they were worst - the primary, easily identifiable symptom I got from excitotoxicity. Not voices but something close to hearing some, but clearly coming from within ones own mind. And of course much of what you described too. Nothing visual though, and I'd rather trade for visual hallucinations but anyways, it's subsiding.
Weirdly can stims even help with glutamatergic toxicity, it's pure guesswork but I read that dopamine also acts as a safety net against too much glutamate, which makes some sense - also part of the dopaminergic receptors (the D3 kind if I'm correct) is actually inhibitive. Stim rebound might be dreadful though but with a little dose it might be worth trying. I'm talking about homeopathic dosages here! Or better go for pramipexole - at first 0.75mg of that sent me straight into the realm of dreams and it felt beneficial, yet not for what I intended to use it, for morphine withdrawal.
