Hello y'all

I've been going through a difficult time lately due to somebody very close to me being in a very bad moment of a severe depression. I've been trying to help but it is very hard and I need some feedback from the community.

This person does not want to start taking pharmaceutical antidepressants. I've talked to her to try alternative methods but if it doesn't work out we'll go to a doctor that will likely give her antidepressants. This thread is not about medical advice, we're not denying medical help nor suggesting others deny it, but we are looking for all the methods that can be used before a doctor, but if eventually nothing works, she will go.

Depression is generally a multi-faceted condition so we're trying to work from all sorts of angles. Exercise, sun, good food, etc are all a part of the plan. Unfortunately one of the contextual problems is a difficult financial situation I cant help with either since I'm on a very tight budget myself, but I can help with most other things, one of them being psychedelics.

I know psychedelics have been shown to have anti-depressant effects, but I'd like to know if you guys have experience with using psychedelics for anti-depressant effects. Specifically: Which psychedelics, what dosage, what regularity, and any other tips or suggestions? Or if other tips in general regarding depression, and personal experiences, feel free to share.

This person has tried psychedelics a handful of times over the years, and has generally had positive experiences and while they helped a bit, they didn't cure her of her long-lasting depression. They were never taken with any regularity nor specific plan for depression.

Any thoughts on this issue are welcome, this is very important to me. Thanks a lot!

Hey Endlessness,

I'd like to help in anyway I can. I presently use psychedelics to manage depression, so here's how it goes for me.

Mushrooms and DMT have been the ones to help me the most. Currently, I am focusing on DMT in conjunction with my depression.

Before continuing, do you know what kind of depression your friend is currently dealing with? Knowing this is important to know what to expect relative to treatment length and type. As an example, I have both persistent depressive disorder and major depressive disorder. Major depression doesn't often last too long when treated, versus persistent depression which can be lifelong even with treatment.

With DMT, I will often low dose or perform a subbreakthrough when the intent is to manage my depression. I find that this puts some aspects of depression in a viewer to be observed. This state of observing translates into my everyday life, allowing me to mitigate potential depressive reactions and triggers in the moments they occur. Breakthrough doses can be valuable too, but more precarious, as the depressive wave of the moment can overtake an individual, leaving one to feel victim to the experience. I'd recommend keeping it light.

A key element to this however, is a willingness to face depressive symptoms head-on in order to understand them and program better reactions to them. If we avoid the issue in the experience, it generally gets us nowhere and only serves as an escape, which seems to be important to be mindful of, being that it is antithetical to the goal.

Being serotenergic, it also seems to serve as a reset which helps ameliorate feelings and symtoms brought on by depression.

I find you to be very eloquent, balanced, and forward thinking. If possible, help your friend with talk therapy after an experience, and in general.

As for frequency with DMT, for me it depends on the time of year. My depressive symptoms heighten during the spring and summer (reverse season affective disorder). That said, there are some weeks that I take the medicine daily, and other weeks where I engage with it every few days. Doses are normally pretty low, not much more than 15mg freebase, or one or two hits of changa.

It's not all rainbows and sunshine either, but each time I experience growth and better depressive management. We have to learn how our depression behaves and how in turn that affects out behaviors.

A main symptom of depression is loss of general interest, so building healthy habits is important since one may be disinterested anyway. That said encourage her to be consistent with some of the basics you guys are already focusing on (exercise, diet, nature, meditation (this one can be huge, because we can condition ourselves to be with our depression with acceptance, paradoxically, allowing us to move on despite it), etc).

Finding outlets is also important. Things that are cathartic. Deadlifting 315lbs+ is highly cathartic for me lol. So is making music. We need an output for the depressive input.

Make sure to take care of yourself too Endlessness. Helping others with this can wear one down and cause burnout.

I find acupuncture and massage to be helpful in managing symptoms as well.

With mushrooms, things can be relatively the same as with DMT except talking can be done during the microdose experience. Microdosing every 3 days worked really well for me. I would advise against daily microdosing of mushrooms, as it seems to have a minimizing effect thereafter (probably due to tolerance). I have not noticed anything similar with DMT.

I hope some of this helps. Sorry for it being all over the place. I am in the middle of some stuff, but wanted to help if I could. I'm passionate about helping manage mental health.

One love

Also, with talking things out, try to have her be as descriptive as possible. Depression tends to make one feel without putting any words to the feelings. A discursive engagement can help pull them away from how they feel by changing focus to how to describe it. It can also help one see that they don't have to identify with these thoughts and feelings though they are experiencing them. Journaling can aid in similar ways.

Is she spiritual in anyway? Focusing on defining and understanding this for oneself can also be helpful.

One love

I can only share my own experience... I have had a long history of severe depression going as far back as when I was 10/11. I cannot tolerate any anti depressants, most have crazy side effects (difficulty peeing, pains in bladder and testicles, diarrhea, foggy mind, feeling zoned out and dead etc.). The ones that I can tolerate, do not work! I have gone through several different anti depressants, the only ones that did "work" were anti psychotic pills which helped with suicidal tendencies but at the cost of making me emotionally dead... anyways, I haven't taken any meds for about a year and a half now.

My experiences with psychedelics have also been rather difficult. I had a few good and a few traumatizing acid experiences. Acid and mushrooms generally demand a great deal of work, which makes me feel exhausted afterwards, and a depressed person feels exhausted all the time anyways so... it gets difficult!

DMT was the big turning point for me, a single 6 min experience changed everything. I experienced such sheer beauty and love, I cried and it felt so good to cry... I hadn't cried in years. I experienced feelings and emotions for the first time in a long time. I became obsessed with it and learned all I could about it and started making my own. At this point I would say, I am probably cured of my depression, but it is probably not just because of the substance itself. The extraction process is a good hobby, not too difficult, not too easy, sufficiently time consuming etc. The passion I found in myself for it helped me do something simply because I wanted to and not because I had to. This is perhaps the problem, hobbies and activities which are taken up out of necessity aren't the same as those taken up out of sheer passion. The interest must come first and then the hobby, but depression takes away all the passions! So, the solution DMT offered was to shock me with something so incredible that it kick started a passion without having me go through the whole "oh I should have hobbies and interests" chain of thought. Over the next few months things further changed, I started growing phalaris, and then some passiflora, a few cactii, some coriander, tomatoes, strawberries, currently trying to germinate some mulberry seeds... so, gardening became another hobby but here again, the interest came first and by itself.

However, there is still one more key factor which, perhaps didn't directly help me, but offered my the right conditions for recovery. One of my biggest problems was financial insecurity. Working shitty minimum wage jobs which suck the life out of you... and then managing my studies on the side, feeling exhausted and lethargic all the time and on top of that, feeling socially isolated because I had no time to socialize. Fortunately however, I got a student loan... not the best thing in the world perhaps, but at least I don't have to do 20 hours of physical labor... I can simply focus on my studies and everything else in life. The student loan didn't cure my depression though, but it allowed me to develop other interests and hobbies. At some point I will have to work again... will see how things go then!

As for your friend... financial worries are a big problem. A solution to that may be of great help! If possible, reduce expenses! Time is the most valuable asset. I would rather work as little as possible, use my time with more important things like music and other hobbies, and reduce my expenses as much as possible. Two meals a day, a place to sleep and a little garden, that's all I need! I don't think I can offer any "truly" valuable advice in this regard though...

As for dosage and frequency of use, I started off with twice a month. Now I do it on every weekend, but I plan to reduce it back to twice a month. With e-mesh method, I kept doing 15-20mg doses, but I have grown more resistant to DMT and now have to take around 30-50mg harmalas sublingually with 20-25mg DMT. For therapeutic use, DMT is great! it is so overwhelming that one has no time to bother with any thoughts. It is a very "thoughtless" experience. Acid and mushrooms are a bit more difficult, one needs more practice for those. I think one must learn to be as comfortable as possible in one's headspace. A good place to start would be cannabis, but with a more meditative focus. Smoke up, lie down, close your eyes and spend all the time you can in your headspace and with your thoughts. Weed is probably the best first step in the journey within, but one must dive in and explore one's own mind.

Does your friend employ the help from a professional therapist in a professional setting? My therapist doesn't ever offer me drugs and is a very good listener who gives very good advice. For the past year I have been using DMT at a low dose followed by a high dose every 3 weeks. I meditate for 30 minutes before vaping and about an hour after. It's usually pretty obvious how I feel these sessions. I write about my feelings and perceptions and think about it a bit more and talk about it with my therapist which I also happen to see every three weeks.

I'm interested in micro-dosing psilocybin mushrooms because I know a few people who get positive results doing so. Once my cubensis are harvested I will be begin doing this periodically unless more research comes out regarding neuronal atrophy or valvular heart disease .

I hope your friend makes it through this. Everyone deserves to be happy.

I'd like to add that during depressive times your mind is focused on the big things, like will my life ever be good or have I accomplished anything etc. These are questions you probably can't resolve no matter how much you think. It's much more productive to focus on the small things. What little things I could do to feel a little better?

Psychedelics have been helpful for me in finding what are the things I do have control over.

Check out Christopher Solomon and his Pentapipe method with salvia. It appears like a grounded and workable practice of healing with efficacy. In short, with a message that salvia is not the crazy breakthrough we all know it by, the method titrates the experience with up to five small doses. Feeling safe in the body, deep meditation and guidance, and a regulation of mood are part of the outcomes.

Christopher Solomon explains his approach here

https://youtu.be/w5MPhe6xke0

He actually does guided journeys, including via zoom which he says he was against atfirst, but the pandemic forced him to do it this way and he saw that it works.

Thank you all for your posts



Not sure, probably persistent depression but would need to have a doctor diagnose it properly.




Interesting, for some reason I always thought the short duration and "randomness" of some of the experiences would not be too suitable for anti-depressant effects, versus something like ayahuasca , but a couple of answers including yours seem to point to an important antidepressant effect ...



Makes sense!



Thanks, my plan is def to help the preparation and integration of the experience.



Thanks for sharing your dosing regimen and ideas!



Indeed, that's one key i've been trying strongly to help her with



That's one of the contextual issues that make it hard. Music is her passion, but she cannot find any success with her singing, which fuels her negative self-worth feelings.. I think she is a fantastic singer and song writer, but the music world is very tough if you aren't spending hours on social media selling yourself or have the right connections or pure luck, but her depression just makes her feel it's her fault and that she should quit. And not singing means not expressing her feelings which further fuels her depression.

I've been trying to hammer the idea that she should just sing for the passion of singing, without expecting results, and she understands what I mean but it comes back in cycles and she feels worthless again.



Thanks for caring, I'm trying to keep myself very grounded and in a good mindset to help but you're right it can be hard sometimes specially when one is sensitive/empathic, I'll try to keep it in mind to not overdo myself.






You think even a non-professional massage can help? Money is an issue but I can offer my own hands, suppose it can't hurt..



Unfortunately the depression turns into existential depression, she starts doubting anything has meaning and that it's all randomness and suffering. But in the moments when she picks herself up, she definitely entertains the ideas of universal love and all of that.



Thank you very much, very appreciated!




Sounds powerful, thanks for sharing!




This fits right in with her situation, as I described above re: music. Thanks for the food for thought.



Yes.. It's a very complicated situation, she'd need big luck to come out of it financially... I'm trying as much as possible to get some extra income to help, but it's not been easy. Hopefully it works itself out. Thanks for the ideas on managing time and focusing on essentials.

And thanks for the tips on dosing regimen, timing etc!




Not a possibility unfortunately...



Thanks for sharing your dosing regimen ,and for the good wishes!



Thanks for this perspective, will try to share this idea with her!



Will check it out, thanks!

How often does she feel she is completely without symptoms of depression? If she experiences more than two months without depressive symptoms, it may be recurring major depression (based off my understanding).



I find intention to be key as well as a trust in the medicine (in this case DMT). With low level and subbreakthroughs, it can be easier to eliminate some of the randomness. However, when the randomness and more divergent (from the intent) aspects crop up, I trust that the medicine saw it fit to remove said focus from my mind. Often, when that occurs, it shows that what is being fraught over isn't worth it. I find this helpful for persistent depression because it's persistent. Higher level journeys can have deeply healing effects, but there's usually so much more to process and integrate that it's not seen as a good idea to go back so soon. With lower levels, higher frequencies of use are safer (ime).



There are two things I'd like to share here. First, the idea of intrusive thoughts, and intrusive thinking. We all deal with this, but those with depression deal with it in a magnified manner. Ya know, those random thoughts, that you may not even consider yours, that often fall by the way side. A great deal of obsessive behavior and thinking patterns relative to depression can be traced to intrusive thoughts. Depression also holds them in the spotlight for longer periods of time. Help her learn to identify them so as to learn not to identify with them. At which point, she'll also be able to see where their nature stems from. And it takes practice!

Next, and you'll want to word this different then how I will, but how has her focus on being successful served her? It's not, unfortunately. She may be better doing what she loves because she loves it and for no other core reason. Depression brainwashes individuals into thinking that success is measured by the merits of the greater societal framework, but that's false. It's a terrible metric that keeps people spinning in place instead of moving forward. It's hard, especially in music. I wonder how many other great musical talents would be well known if not for the marketing necessity of pandering to others for their attention and potential acclaim stemming from this attention. I find many types of "success" a matter of luck; what context you were born into, what influenced and propelled and individual, who they met and know, etc. The actual fastest runner in the world could very well be an individual living on the African Savannah. The most versatile instrumentalist may be unknown because they don't care about social media, or want to put the effort out there to get noticed. There's just so many factors. The amount to which societies look up to individuals in different fields is often a byproduct of not realizing the plethora of factors that got them to where they are, and such bolstering of person is unnecessary. It's by no means a level playing field.

Encourage recognizing when the cycle is about to start over, and revisit the above. Reconditioning takes monstrous repetition.

That said, I want to hear her singing

Yes! A non-professional massage can definitely help. Especially if there's a strong rapport. We hold psychological tension in our bodies which massage helps release. Then, on the tactile side, we are social creatures, and we thrive off varying amounts of physical contact with another.



Whoo! That hits home because I know it all too well. I go about this in a battery of ways. First there's a paradox to explore; meaning in meaninglessness. Second, if we want to entertain the idea there is no meaning, then aren't we ultimately free? Third, even without meaning, I can't deny feeling. Desired feelings should be fostered. Fourth, having some stoicism about it and accepting that there is a great deal of suffering, and while undesirable, it's okay. Once we can be okay with it, we can move about despite it. That said, life's hard, but we can choose the kind of hard, eg, would we rather have a hard life due to dissatisfaction with ourselves, or hard because we put so much work into ourselves and what we love? These are just a few that I use for this particular conundrum, please let me know if you'd like more.

My apologies if I sounded preachy at all.

One love

This!!! I play a traditional afghan string instrument, I used to crave recognition and praise, and couldn't really feel connected to the music. I was always too critical of myself and it was really hard to like what I was playing. Now I just sit down every day and play just for myself. The good thing is... there is no fixed and rigid structure in this type of music. I can do whatever I want with the mere 7 notes of the raaga. I can spend hours exploring the tunes which come from within and do not have to worry about playing "like this or that". This has helped me, it has turned music into a truly spiritual practice.
Yet... money is again the problem! one possible solution could be not using something as beautiful as music as a means to earn money. If possible, perhaps finding another source of income would be better, it would perhaps free her from all the unnecessary pressure and let her pursue music purely out of passion.



I have been a nihilist for quite a while now, and I still am to a great extent. I still see existence as a great tragedy, yet... I have come to see beauty in all this tragedy. I had an entire series of trips which were focused on exactly this point. I was told to remember everything, I was told that this terrible play has been going on for billions of years, or perhaps even eternity. I was shown how countless beings have lived out their lives, have found joys and pleasures and pains and sufferings of unimaginable magnitude. Yet... there was some strange sense of beauty in it all. Perhaps, a sense of beauty, which we find, when we read about such tragic tales. A sense of beauty which one may find in the works of Hommer or Shakespeare etc. There is beauty in sorrow, and music and poetry can express it quite well. There are symphonies of such sheer melancholy, that they can make you weep and cry, and yet... they can be immensely beautiful!
There is no rational way of tackling the existential issues... these are not the issues which can be solved by logical syllogisms. Psychedelics have only enabled me to perceive this underlaying beauty which helped me gain a sense of contentment.

Sorry for getting in on this so late, and as a caveat, im not recommending this, but ill share my experience, because i feel a strong possibility of the eventual shift from microdosing to maxidosing.. so i wasnt trying to cure depression, wasnt even aware i had severe depression cause ive been worse off before. I also was unaware that psychidellics were being considered as a treatment for depression. I just loved spice and i felt like it kinda re grounded me on the rare occasion i got my hands on some..then i got tired of waiting forever for opportunities to use it, and i did an extraction and had a pile of it. I used it like it was the day after halloween and nobody could tell me how much candy i can eat. In a short amount of time i just became happy and productive, and able to brush off all that little crap that we dwell on all the time. I suddenly realized that i had been depressed, crippled, for many years. I didnt even remember what it felt like to shine.

My depression has existed for my entire life as far back as I can remember. Even as a child I remember wishing to be dead. I never felt love from my parents or siblings. I never had friends. I was always alone growing up. Even if I am in a room full of people, I feel alone and isolated. Depression has persisted no matter what I have tried over the years.

Psychedelics can help for sure with depression. I would have to say that psychedelics did not cure my depression as I still have bouts from time to time. I have significantly reduced my wanting to die all the time through my psychedelic usage. I think it allowed me to see myself suffering from the outside. I could see all the things in my life that made me suffer and look at myself with compassion and love. This perspective was impossible with my sober mind. It gave me a glimpse of how to love myself. Little by little I am becoming more comfortable in my skin I guess, it feels like it's two steps forward, one step back all the time. There is progression, it just is slow. My psychedelic experiences pop into my mind when I am at my lowest now. The voice that wants to die is met by the voice who loves me. Both are the same voice is what I am discovering.

Love=Fear and Fear=Love. They are the same thing to differing degrees. It is ok to be depressed. No one showed me the way out of this. I have had to claw my way into a way of thinking that at least allows me to get out of bed and go do life. The debilitating depression I had for many years is no so debilitating any more with my efforts over the years. I am still depressed to be honest. Not sure if it's permanent damage from thinking so poorly about myself over the years. So like others have voiced, it's not a cure, it's just a tool. The hammer doesn't build a house, you do with the hammer. I think many here, including yourself, understand this completely.

To become whole the fear within must be loved and accepted. I am beginning to learn this. It is the first step in finding a foothold back into the beauty of life. Your friendship is hopefully something this person sees and will be a light in the dark to guide her out. She has to feel her way out and find you and herself.

Heck have her come in and read this stuff. She is not alone in how she is feeling at all. Misery loves company in that she may feel better knowing others have suffered as she has and found a way out to some degree or another. I myself am definitely a work in progress so maybe my advice is crap.
I think we often attempt to teach what we need to learn. I just don't want to sugarcoat anything and talk about this raw. Depression is raw.

A fish will always feel worthless if it judges itself by it's ability to climb a tree.

Thank you so much for taking time to write these posts, guys! i'm on my phone and it's a pain to type but this weekend I'll come back and answer individually

In my experience, psychedelics do indeed have a great capacity for healing.
But i don't think it ever realy works if you just sit and wait, and simply expect healing to manifest.

Such an attitude towards psychedelics would even be counterproductive, i fear.

No, i think you got to have some sort of goal, something to work on.
Something very discrete and real.

If the root cause of your suffering is that you find it hard appreciating the good things in life, then that is what you have to practice. For instance through mindfullness, or by keeping a diary.
If you find that you lack the strength to endure pain, then you could practice that. By running or by taking cold showers, or by practicing meditation.
If your problem is that you have low self esteem, then you should find an activity that helps you build it.

Psychedelics can only be an addition. The icing on the cake. Not the main course.

Just set yourself a realistic goal and work at it.

This method will not be seen as good or safe from everybody but it worked for me.
1) Take psychadelics with other people who are experienced with them to learn in a save enviroment what they can do and how to interact with them.
2) Get realy high with them, alone, on a prefered place and move your observation inwards with the intention to work on your "problems".
3)Listen to them and remeber the information they gave you and get physical about them.
That means, they can change your mind but not your souroundings. You are not just your mind but everything else to so you have to interact with the world.
Always helped me, but will likely not helpe everyone.
Maybe not for unexperienced users.
over and out

I GOTTA touch upon the aspect regarding psychidellics just being a tool, and weather or not to expect results unless you put much effort into processing your issues.. this is just a suspicion based upon my personal experience, but i believe there may be many facets to the healing potential of this medicine. I believe that on one side, it allows you to conciously explore and make adjustments to your perspective. this is the part we are all focusing on in this thread, but i also believe that there may actually be another quality of the medicine that facillitates healing without doing any work. something to do with seratonin and how our bodies and minds regulate it, produce it, and recieve it.

Thank you for your post, def you don't seem preachy, just sharing your experience !

She def does have intrusive thoughts, and I've been trying to bring her attention to it. She realizes it when she's out of the rut, but during the worst moments it is very hard to bring rationality to the table. I've been trying to get her to focus on remembering "this too shall pass" during the bad moments, and having the rational discussion later.

And the success aspect, I totally agree, but again this is easier said than done. I try to tell her that the satisfaction should come from within, that external validation is a trap, and she sort of gets it, but can't help but feel down when she's rejected in some or other way.

Anyway, this is all a process, I just wish her to get out of it.. She also constantly feels guilty for adding difficulty to my life, and guilty that she doesn't feel thankful when she should considering she's not hungry or living in war or something, but I just want her to focus on herself and stop comparing herself to some ideal.



Thanks for your words! Indeed instruments can be wonderful. I've been pushing her to try and sing and compose regardless of the results she expects, and she did write a new song which I think its wonderful.. Hopefully she keeps going and working on those non-rational parts of herself which need healing.




Thanks for your dosing ideas, and I agree I think psychedelics do have a physical healing part too. Hopefully it can help her.



Thanks for your post! Interesting regarding the two-sided voice.. I hope she can find the voice that cancels out her negative voice in the worst moments. Good luck with your own depression struggles!




Agreed, psychedelics can't be the only solution, we are definitely trying other things together. Thanks for the ideas, I'll suggest mindfulness/meditation to her.




Thanks for sharing your method!

This is a tough one. I believe we all need external validation, but very often we seek it from wrong sources and run into trouble. I believe it's especially tough among artists and in other competitive arts.

I think it's wisdom to recognize the people who really deserve our respect and pay attention to the feedback they give. Children are wonderful in this respect. If you love them, they will love you back. If you let them down, they will tell you.

When you have the right people to give you the validation you need, your need to seek the validation in everything you do vanes. That is good place to be, but it's difficult to get there alone.

Yeah... in the moment is always the toughest. By focusing on a few different identifiers, one gets better with practice when noticing it in the moment. From my experience, depression comes on in waves, and sometimes it's always turbulent waters where one finds themselves in overwhelming waves always, just having bigger ones hit on occasion.

It's a hard issue to reprogram. I know I am still working on it. But in doing so, I stop wasting time on things that aren't part of my path in actuality and focus on things that are. And while I agree with Tomtegubbe about some level of external validation being necessary and valuable at times, I think we generally as people put too much stake in it. I've been, and sometimes still am, guilty of it.

One thing that may help is to have a list of persistent depressive symptoms around so she can reflect on them and when under its influence, identify which symptom she's exhibiting. In this case, overwrought guilt is a symptom of depression. And instead of feeling guilty about not being thankful, encourage her to just start being thankful and practice gratitude. It has a way easing one into a new perspective.

I'ma keep helping however I can. Depression management is a long winding road.

One love