I'm talking to everybody, not you specifically.

I was depressed for almost a year in high school and in that time I was a social outcast somewhat. I smoked weed heavily in the few months before it started and slowed down a few months after it ended. My first time ever doing salvia was extremely positive and I think it helped to ease the depression greatly.

But as far as medication for depression, you have to take the right things from your experiences with psychedelics and use them as a tool not so much recreationally. My salvia trip helped me see life outside a human perspective and that basically showed me that this life doesn't matter as much as we make it out too. The depression goes away after you change your thought processes and improve your self-image and psychedelics can help with that if used correctly.

I'm going to say this again. The best way to fight depression is with positive mental activity. Also positive social activity, and physical exercise can really help as well.

Anti-depressants are euphorients, that's all. They don’t cure depression. They just make you feel good.

I think it’s best to pull yourself out of depression without the aid of drugs. They don’t really help solve the depression, they just hide it. They don’t get at the root of the problem.

If the problem is truly caused by bad thought patterns (such as thinking about a son who was killed in a car accident or some other bad thing that happened) then I highly recommend not taking anti-depressants.

If the problem is actually caused by chemical imbalance in the brain (which I have a hard time believing is real) then I can see how taking anti-depressants or something similar to fix it might be justified.

But be very careful about this. Just thinking bad thoughts causes a chemical imbalance in the brain leading to depression. How can you be sure a person is not thinking themselves into depression? You cannot read their mind. How can a doctor know a condition of depression a patient has is actually a physical chemical imbalance? The patient may not be honest with their doctor and not tell them all the bad things they are thinking in their head which are causing the depression.

Until we can read people’s minds, we will never know if there are actually chemical imbalances that can cause depression in people who have nothing to be depressed about.

Like I said before, I’ve never met someone with depression who didn’t think about bad things all the time.

Have any of you ever seen a person who was depressed who thought only positive things?

I think most people suffering from depression are suffering because of bad mental programming, and do not actually have a “chemical imbalance”.

The pharmaceutical companies would all love us to believe that we all suffer from “chemical imbalance” and have us all taking their damn drugs. There’s too much money involved in it.

If you suffer depression and you honestly are not causing it yourself by thinking bad thoughts, then for you taking an anti-depressant is maybe a good thing. But for the rest of you who are actually thinking bad thoughts and causing your depression and not being honest about it to your doctors so you can get these anti-depressants so you can continue with your bad mental behavior, SHAME ON YOU. Get some real help. Don’t be such a baby. Step up and solve your problem yourself. Don’t rely on anyone else to do it for you, and especially don’t rely on drugs to change your bad mental behaviour.

I know people who suffer from depression because they think bad things all the time. Instead of them trying to change what they think about, they chose to use drugs to hide the damage they are causing to their mind and body. It pisses me off to see this. What’s worse is that the doctors help these people get these drugs to worsen their situation instead of telling them to get real help which involves changing the thoughts they create in their mind.

Only YOU can change what you think in your mind. Thoughts alone have the power to make people happy, sad, mad, depressed, aroused, blissful, etc. Thoughts have this power. Until you realize this, God help you. You are not ever going to get out of your depression. You’ll be taking anti-depressants drugs until you die.

Oh guys ! I find quite fun to read what seems negative opinions about peeple addicted to their pills... from other people snuffing, eating or smoking strong and efficient chemicals

Cheech you are the best. I was not sure if your post was ironical or not (is it ?). My point is that suffering is stupid if you can avoid it. Oh yeah, I know the usual rambling "blah blah blah, examine your life, blah blah blah you will learn from your pain etc..". Sorry that's just Christian shit thinking IMO.
Or that's thoughts from young people not yet knowing what 'suffering' means.

69ron,



And then ? What's wrong with feeling good.



I thought the same... 15 years ago. The 'real' life learned me that things are not that black and white. And you may be right for some people, in some cases. But many people do not have serious 'root' problems and suffer anyway. That's life.
SSRI can help, benzos can help, sleeping pills can help... It's up to every one to check if theses chemicals help or not, for a short time or for life. I know people suffering hell on life (sorry for that Christians analogy ) and not wanting to take a pill while they recognize that when they tried, it helped.
Why do they do not want that possible help ? Because of beliefs like "I think it’s best to pull yourself out of depression without the aid of drugs". Who said that words "it's best' ? God appeared and said that ? Hmm I missed that event... That belief is a mystery, but a strong mystery, shared by many people it seems even here on a drug forum !




Yeah, that's true indeed, but if you would suffer from that kind of thoughts, you would know that 'positive thinking' is just impossible when you are in that loop. It's like a bad trip without the metabolization of the molecule (natural end of the trip). It's a endless bad trip.
That's where pills can help, because pills 'smooth' the emotions. Less 'bad emotions' leads to less bad thinking and in the end you can stop the pills. Well, that's the theory In practice you may indeed becomes addict especially if your doctor is not good. That's less harsh than beeing depressed tough.

To lead on from ron69's view:

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns

It's about cognitive therapy, i.e. changing the way you think by recognising negative thoughts etc. This book is for real, and is the only 'self-help' book I would ever recommend to anyone. It's been proven to get people out of depression without meds. I borrowed it off a friend and started recommending it and everyone who reads it finds it really useful. I asked a psychologist about it and he approved of it. EVERYONE should have a copy

If you make a concerted effort with this book and it doesn't work, then maybe it's time for meds. I'd been prone to meloncholic episodes since adolescence, but since reading this book a year ago I haven't got stuck in a sizeable rut since.

That's the type of self help that is scientifically proven to cure depression in many people.

The only people I know that suffered from depression and were cured did it through cognitive therapy.

The others I know who took anti-depressent drugs instead are still taking drugs.

Salvia, cactus, ayahuasca and philosophy also helped jolt SWIM out of the negative mindset he had developed over the years... though not sure if those things are a good idea during a depressive phase, maybe better when feeling a bit more grounded.

I was always against prozac etc for myself, even though it's been suggested. And I really didn't need it, all I needed was to read that book and follow up with and a little entheogen therapy. Happy days ever since.

Psychologists would love to be able to use LSD again. It was a wonderful tool for changing behavioral problems.

Cognitive therapy + LSD is an extremely powerful combination and is very useful in curing depression, not hiding it, actually curing it. Unfortunately, LSD is not legal for that kind of use and can be dangerous in the wrong hands. I don’t recommend it unless you know what you are doing. With the proper guidance, it works really well. But done wrong, it can mess someone up even more.

People suffering from depression don’t usually like LSD. LSD tends to bring all their depressing thoughts to surface, making them feel worse. But with a professional psychologist trained in LSD assisted cognitive therapy, this behavior problem can be solved in just a few sessions in some cases.

We live in an age where rather than fixing depression, which requires real work, we take the easy way out and get high with "anti-depressants". That is so sad.

Do a search on google for LSD and "cure depression". You'll see a lot of people cured their depression using LSD and some form of cognitive therapy. This is not something I thought up. It is real. It actually works. Even HBWR seeds can be used for this purpose, but they are not as effective as LSD is.

I just want to mention also that Ayahuasca sessions are regularly used to CURE depression in several countries in South America. I’ve not seen much scientific studies on this, but from what I hear it works very well.

I personally wouldn't recommend LSD for depression... the potential confusion can be a bit of a mindfuck.

Oh yeah, the philosophy that was helpful was Postmodernism, Nietszche and Foucault, though read Feeling Good first. Icon Books have one for each in their 'Introducing...' series, which is like a comic strip so you don't get bored!

As well as being caused by negative thinking, depression can also be caused by exterior things that are not your fault (which can then lead to negative thinking etc). Like society. I honestly believe my depressive episodes were entirely cultural, caused by my disappointment with the world, with how badly people act and the needless suffering in life, things which I had little control over or responsibility for. Kicking materialism is a good first step, but it's only a first step, and the most obvious one at that. In our culture everyone's programmed to strive for more, for perfection- we don't accept that it's natural to feel shitty sometimes. Whenever we don't feel ourselves we immediately want a quick fix to achieve a 'normal' state again. Meloncholy spells used to be considered part of life, even noble learning experiences. I mean, surveys in the 50s/60s were showing that 50% of people had a mental disorder of some type- talk about over-diagnosis! And many of the things that get us down are just because of desires that society has forced upon us. Once you acknowledge that you're only feeling this way because of faults in society, not faults inherent within you, then you free yourself of the 'guilt' or responsibility for feeling down. And that in itself is uplifting, to know it's not something wrong with YOU. Then you can alter your mindset to not get upset by these exterior pressures in the knowledge that they are invasive and wrong. Nietsche taught me to get rid of guilt. Foucault taught me that if society calls you abnormal, that does not mean that you are- it is society which is imposing its view of normalcy upon you... oppressing you if you will. And never underestimate the power of the mind once you're stuck in an erroneous outlook, it's amazing how powerful the mind can be. You can make yourself sick just by believing you are.

To come back to healing entheogens, I would say that Peruvian Torch is the best best, starting off with small amounts and increasing to find your comfort zone. It gives you a happy buzz, but will still bring feelings to the surface, but with a lot less violence than Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca has destroyed SWIM before, whereas Torch just gives him friendly nudges in the right direction.

For those interested in ayahuasca and depression you might want to read this article in National Geographic:

http://www.nationalgeogr...0603/features/peru2.html

Here's a clip from that article:

Dude I love your post.

depression caused by brain chemistry can only be fixed with drugs. unless you learn to pretend you're happy but really feel like a miserable lump of shit on the inside and not gain any positive experiances out of life or feel any pleasure.

theres no pulling yourself out.

yes brain chemistry is the problem sometimes (i was in it for 4 years.)


remember theres a huge difference between depression and being depressed about something.

Thanx for the link ron,very interesting article

there is a place i've seen on a documentary on and read about in a book called "the jaguar that roams the mind" it's called Takawasi and it's in peru. They treat deppression and addiction through aya,purging ceremonies and all sorts of unconventional therapy.

Here is a link to the documentary if your interested (i even went to there website $700 a month and it's generally a 7 month program,try going to rehab for $700 a month).

Here's the link http://dailymotion.alice.it/swf/3gJRxGpoSwjFTn47i

On a slightly different yet related subject.I have noticed that if swim isnt in the right state of mind and might be thinking negatively...as said before LSD and psilo can amplify those negative thoughts and can potentiate a BAD TRIP (been there).

Yet that hasnt happened to swim w/ spice.Even if swim has been in a little bit of a funk and he smokes spice,he hasnt yet experienced a bad trip...mabey a little overwhelming but not bad,infact the afterglow is extremely euphoric.

So, i came up w/ a theory and i want to see what some of the more experienced members think.

When your on LSD or shrooms...yes perception is altered and depending on the size of the dose you can capture glimpses into different realms but the ego still has the ability to take controll of the steering wheal and can steer the trip down some ugly roads of bad thought and cause a bad trip.

It seems to me that with spice the ego isnt invited to that party.So long as you can "let go" and surrender to the molecule and let it take you where it wants to take you,your ego wont controll the experience,although if you fight the experience i can see how things can turn real ugly but so long as you let go your ego cant take the steering wheel.

Maybe swim has more learning to do and actually experience a bad dmt trip but it hasnt happened,even when he's not in the best frame of mind and i believe its because the ego has no controll over the experience.

Great, great thread guys!

I link people to this all the time!

Thanks to everybody who contributed!

Wow, there is some heated discussion going on here.



No, they don't even do that...no euphoria at all comes from them, only damaged receptors.

I wanted to also add MACA ROOT as another herbal helper. Raises energy, gives a nice energy buzz without any jitters or comedown, and is pretty cheap if you find the right vendor.

I might also add that when I was about 12-16 I had serious depression/suicidal thoughts and even an attempt or two. The thing that worked for me (after many, many bouts with head shrinkers and bottles upon bottles of worthless pills that did nothing for me but cause sexual side effects) was Cannabis. It numbed me up enough to be able to deal with what was going on in my life at the time. It gave me the extra boost to make it through the day and I am grateful to that herb for doing so much for me.

Rhodiola rosea was very very effect at treating my depression.

Caapi, Passion Flower and St.John's Wort are good natural MAOI anti-depressants and Sceletium tortuosum "Kanna" is a VERY effective natural SSRI botanical anti-depressant.

Theobroma cacao extract, Kava and Cannabis are also effective combatants of mild depression, and work extremely well for some people. Theobroma cacao is known to be a mild MAOI.

I urge anybody taking synthetic man-made anti-depressant drugs to give the above botanicals a try after a 1 month (31+ days) break from all drugs.

I think a couple entheogenic experiences are better than taking anything daily, including botanicals.

I think the goal for anybody with depression should be to find things that interst them and live a happy life without daily drug intake.

ahh yes weed is a great thing to help...it really does put things out of your mind...makes you unable to really think about them...it is sort of a quick fix...but it does help a lot to get you out of a funk...

and Maca is WONDERFUL...it is so wonderful...when i take it..usually in the morning..in a shake with wheatgrass powder...i am absolutely sooo happy and excited about the day...it makes me feel GREAT...i usually have to dance for an hour after i do it..because it just feels wonderful...

maca also helps with sleep i might add...it allows you to USE your energy during the day...so that when night time comes..you really do need the rest...instead of going through the day half awake and not really getting anything done

for the longest time my mother was fighting insomnia..and NOTHING worked...except pills...except she became dependent on them...which then caused bad side effects...she started using Maca..and within a few days she started sleeping better..