Suggestions please

I have been reading a lot about psychedelics as a way to help with anxiety and depression and was wondering if any one has any experience with this. If you do I would love to hear suggestions on where I should start. I have smoked pot a handful of times but have never experimented with anything else.

Any help you could offer would be appreciated.
Thank you.

 

Some people microdose psychedelics and effectively treat them like glorified smart drugs. I don't have much experience with this approach, but if you're using them to self medicate, that might be the route you want to go to try and help alleviate anxiety and depression.

I am more of a psychonaut and find deep exploration of the mind fascinating, usually taking fairly substantial doses. At higher doses, psychedelics can certainly provide insight on how to help one cope or better understand anxiety and depression but they are not tools that I would rely on to do so. What they excel at is being able to help one approach thoughts, emotions, and consciousness in general from radically novel perspectives and in doing so you may realize patterns, behaviors, etc. that tend to trigger your symptoms. But you would still have to integrate the lessons from the trip into your normal state of consciousness for them to be beneficial.

Basically what I'm saying is go into the trip with an open mind rather than attempting to tailor it to self-therapy.


LSD is the epitome of psychedelics, I would recommend 2 hits.


Mushrooms are a bit more earthy and provide some with a piece of mind being natural, 3 grams.


MDMA tends to be least mind bending with a heavy emotional signature, 175 mgs


I think any of these are worthwhile to start if you only have access to any given one at a time. The drawback of the synthetics, MDMA in particular, is that they can be cut with other drugs, it's less of a problem with LSD because the dose is so potent, although it's not unheard of.

The general notable risks from the effects I would say is that with LSD and Mushrooms you can have a bad trip or destabilizing experience which might provoke some of your symptoms as where MDMA tends to be more streamlined in it's peak effects but it also tends to cause a crash after the experience which provokes depression in people who are not even necessarily clinically depressed, as where the others might just make you feel a bit scatter brained, so that might be something to be wary about without proper professional supervision. They all can create wonderful afterglows as well however, so I just mention those things to provide info.


If you have access to all of them, I would recommend Mushrooms to start. They have a wonderful organic feel to them and generally are a bit more relaxed than the others.

 

I wouldn't recommend using mdma to treat depression. Yeah for 5 hours you're gonna be awesome, then you might end up with 2-5 days of depression or as in my last case, I was empty for 10 days man and as much as I want to hit some pills now, I won't, cause I don't wanna have to go through that again just yet. But it's not always like that, but I'd expect at least a day of emptiness feeling.

 

Are you sure "epitome" is the right word? Don't understand the sentence. But I think I disagree. Neither would I recommend mdma.

Mushrooms.

 

Thank you this helps a lot, but now I have to figure out how to get some, probably leaning toward the mushrooms like you said.

 

I'm worried about feeling more depressed I think I might just go with the mushrooms like the others said, but thanks for the feedback.

 

I just don't like the idea of mushrooms because they grow in poop. I'd rather take..... Whatever mdma even is than trust somebody with poop food.

 

Yes, by epitome I'm saying LSD is the best representation of the meaning psychedelic.

 

Not ALL shrooms grow in poop!
A particular type does.

 

People grow them on rice cakes or something and they can also grow on wood chips naturally.

 

The psilocybes I eat feed off decaying grass roots.

 

Ah yeah. Brain glitch.

 

Lol, so noted but I grow my garden with organic fertilizer which is basically poop too so I'm ok with it

 

Or just in fields.
Dependent on type.

 

Isn't that great? Mushrooms grow on cow turds. I love that!
I think that's why you giggle the first hour.
Its growing on cow turds!
Heaven is in a cows butt!

-Bill Hicks

 

I would eat a mushroom that Drifty gives me.

But I would not want to eat anybody else's mushrooms.

 

My mushrooms win! Yey

 

You asked specifically about psychedelics to treat anxiety and depression, so apologies if this is off-topic. I'd recommend acupuncture and traditional Chinese herbal medicine as your first stop. The first post in this thread has some more information.
Treating Depression and Anxiety

I haven't updated that thread in a long time, so there might be a few things that should be updated. There's also some new info that I should add about finding affordable treatment (teaching clinics and community clinics), so if you are interested in acupuncture and herbal medicine I can say more about these.

There may be a tendency among marijuana and psychedelic drug enthusiasts to promote these as panaceas. They're not. Imho, the best treatment will at least be safe, and also be supported by some level of scientific evidence that it works. Ketamine is the only rec. drug that I know of that has been given serious consideration as an anti-depressant, but even that is experimental. Benzo's get prescribed for anxiety a lot, and make work great in the short-term, but are addictive as hell.

I think in principle any kind of intense experience could lead to some kind of realization or change, so I think it's at least plausible that a psychedelic could lift someone from depression if their depression is rooted in the need for change or realization. I've heard of people saying psychedelics lifted them out of depression, but I've also heard people say later that is was short-lived. There's also reason to think that some people's mental health problems may get worse with psychedelics, especially if there is heavy, prolonged use.

Personally, I think that acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, along with dietary changes, and energy practices like yoga and qi gong are the safest, and long-term, the most effective treatments for anxiety and depression.

 

Set and setting. I would MORE than recommend you have an experienced person to be with you if you do some LSD. I have seen people get lost and start to have a bad or even a terrifying trip. It's then that a person with experience can remind you ---you're on acid. Remarkable how that works, but I have been a part of that a few times and that will (should) snap a mind traveler right out of going to a bad or confusing place. I have no idea how one gets real acid these days and of course , have no idea what fuckheads will add to it or sell as the real thing. Obviously, this is not 1967. I was 28 when I first took it in '67 and it did me a world of good. I have seen folks get screwed up on it also. What will come out of you---is already in there--but you will, most likely, see many areas/aspects of your life and life in general in different ways and for me --it was like opening a door, stepping through it and having the door disappear never to be seen again. Good luck with your choice and however you choose to employ a life changing experience. Mind you, I'm not recommending you do this---but if you do, pay attention to my second sentence above.