Comment on I wish I could be unemployed
TheBluePillock@lemmy.world 18 hours agoTMS and ketamine work by increasing neuroplasticity. Your provider should tell you: the day of and after treatment, avoid things that are stressful and upsetting. Stay off social media, or make sure the media you do use is a carefully curated feed with positivity and things like cute animal pictures. Unfortunately, in my experience, many providers are not great about giving you this information. They lead you to believe you can just go get drugged up or zapped with magnets and magically get better. It doesn’t work like that. It makes your brain more flexible so you can break old thought patterns and develop new ones. If you just feed yourself stress and ragebait during the most critical periods, it is far less likely to help.
Shrooms are different. The mechanisms are less well understood because political fuckery has set research back over half a century, but neuroplasticity is likely only a fraction of it. They also break down barriers, create new associations, suppress the ego, and enhance social connections. It is … an unforgettable experience. I can’t say it’s for everybody because mindset is so important. But for anyone who is really ready to take control of their depression, I think shrooms make ketamine seem like a complete waste of time and money.
MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 15 hours ago
So, like… everything? I’ve read that one needs to be in the right frame of mind for things like this to work properly. I am not at all confident that I’m in that frame of mind. I’m on borrowed time for housing. Hate it here but have nowhere else to go, nor the means to pay for it. I can easily imagine coming “home” after treatment and just being obliterated by the tension and negativity.
In any case, I do appreciate the insight. When I discussed all of this with my doctors, shrooms were the option that seemed to make the most sense to me. TMS and ECT (ECT especially) feel like pseudoscience. It may all be a waste of time, but this is all Hail Mary territory anyway.
TheBluePillock@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I get it. I’ve been down that road within the last couple years after decades of “treatment resistant depression”. The treatments aren’t pseudoscience, but it might make more sense when you realize it doesn’t do anything that can’t be done without them. It just accelerates what you can already do with therapy and positive lifestyle changes - provided you do those things. It can also help people with lingering depression whose circumstances have changed for the better. I’m not saying it’s impossible for them to help you and anything is worth a shot, but I would emphasize that you get what you put in and if your circumstances are a big contributor (like they are for many of us) it’s going to be an uphill battle.
Shrooms have high potential and they’re honestly easier to get. But mindset is still important. For some people, it’s a one and done cure. For many, they need to re dose every few months. For very few, they convince themselves they’ve messed it up and make things worse. They hold the potential for radical shifts in perspective like you never imagined, but only if you’re ready.