SSRI Decline effects of psychedelic drugs -Can i reverse it?

[Meduzz]

I know it, but i don't know how to solve my problems by myself.
I am interested in bouddhism, but don't know if it could help me.

get sober, quit the drugs (for a while at least).
when you're sober, just live, you'll adapt very easily

if you're interested in buddhism, i know a very good book, it also helps to solve a lot of problems.

it's called "siddharta" writer: Herman Hesse
it's a must read!!!!!! (and if you're not into reading that much, don't worry it's a very short book, i read it in 2 days)

read, educate yourself, relax, enjoy,...
self-devellopement is crucial!!

 

[rafael1000]

I know it, but i don't know how to solve my problems by myself.
I am interested in bouddhism, but don't know if it could help me.

get sober, quit the drugs (for a while at least).
when you're sober, just live, you'll adapt very easily

if you're interested in buddhism, i know a very good book, it also helps to solve a lot of problems.

it's called "siddharta" writer: Herman Hesse
it's a must read!!!!!! (and if you're not into reading that much, don't worry it's a very short book, i read it in 2 days)

read, educate yourself, relax, enjoy,...
self-devellopement is crucial!!

If it's a book in english, i will have problems to read it... (I am french).
I think medications and drugs could be an help to resolving my problems by a psychotherapy, because they could help me to have more self confidence.

Without drugs, I think I am a totally big shit.

 

[Forkbender]

Know thyself. You are the solution to your problem. Drugs aren't.

I know it, but i don't know how to solve my problems by myself.
I am interested in bouddhism, but don't know if it could help me.
Drugs are the more easy and fast solution to forgot my problems.

The first step is to see how every problem is related to every other problem. To see it as 1 problem. Then ask yourself why that problem came about. Where does it come from and how do you sustain it by your habits (drugs-related or otherwise)? Embrace your problem. Get to know it. Love it. If you love your problem and know you do, it will dissolve before your eyes. Face your fear with loving kindness and it will become your strength. Let out that great being that is inside. Don't keep it in, it is not rewarding.

 

[Forkbender]

If it's a book in english, i will have problems to read it... (I am french).
I think medications and drugs could be an help to resolving my problems by a psychotherapy, because they could help me to have more self confidence.

Without drugs, I think I am a totally big shit.

It's originally German, but translated in a lot of languages.

Self-confidence is not the same as drug-confidence.

If you think you are nothing without drugs, you are nothing without drugs. If you think you are everything, then it doesn't matter if you take drugs or not.

 

[Meduzz]

If it's a book in english, i will have problems to read it... (I am french).

It's originally German, but translated in a lot of languages.

sure it is, the author has won the nobel price for literature with this book...
such a good book that is!!

 

[Thanatos]

But CYP2D6 is necessary to have effets with psychedelic drugs such as LSD, MDMA, BZP, Magic mushrooms, codein, opiates... because there metabolism is mainly through the enzymes CYP2D6 !

Here you misunderstand something. Cytochrome P450 enzymes indeed metabolize these drugs and your medicines, but the mental effects don’t come from that.
LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, SSRIs are broken down by these enzymes, but they act at the serotonin receptor (directly or indirectly).

So inhibiting CYP2D6 might indeed help, but it will poison you. I don’t know if there is a medicin that does this anyway.

Quitting your medicines for one night won’t help. It will take weeks to undo the effects and it will take weeks to get effects again. This is not an option.

I am not a professional, but I’ve had the same kind of problems as you Rafael. You will be able to create your artificial paradise, but you have to work hard. And it will take time. But you are still young, and able to change your life.
In addition to Forkbender and Meduzz, my advice will be:
May be these medicines will help get you trough a rough period, but I would quit with them. They don’t solve your problem. You don’t want to be on these medicines for the rest of your life, do you? Once you have to quit them anyway. I know from people that in long run you will get serious side-effects. Those pharmaceutical companies don’t want to help, they only want to make money.
I have the feeling that the drugs are causing you more trouble then solving them, maybe they are THE cause. So stay of drugs for a while: you can always get back to them in the future, don’t think you have to quit forever. They work only for the time you’re stoned. After that they will kick you back in depression again and again, and you will be slowly spiraling downhill.
I would not touch psychedelics also, you can get a nightmare of an experience in this condition. Here in the Netherlands we have a warning on all magic mushrooms: do not take them when you have psychological problems.
Live sober for a while, after a few months you will feel better. Let all the shit come over you, it is part of the process. With increasing time and age, you will heal yourself. The darkness of the depression has in it the light to its own solution, try to find that (think about the symbol of yin-yang). Every depression looks like it is not going to end, realize there will be a time when light will shine again in the darkness.
You have a serious problem: feel positive about solving it, see it as an adventure. You will learn a lot, and come out stronger than your fellow humans. Confucius said: ‘In order to make stronger, you have to brake down first’.
You look like a smart person to me here and you talk very honest about yourself. Take it from that, develop this further. You can do it.

 

[rafael1000]

Know thyself. You are the solution to your problem. Drugs aren't.

I know it, but i don't know how to solve my problems by myself.
I am interested in bouddhism, but don't know if it could help me.
Drugs are the more easy and fast solution to forgot my problems.

The first step is to see how every problem is related to every other problem. To see it as 1 problem. Then ask yourself why that problem came about. Where does it come from and how do you sustain it by your habits (drugs-related or otherwise)? Embrace your problem. Get to know it. Love it. If you love your problem and know you do, it will dissolve before your eyes. Face your fear with loving kindness and it will become your strength. Let out that great being that is inside. Don't keep it in, it is not rewarding.

I am constantly forgotten my problems, and now i have so much problems that if i face my problems I feel soooo bad that i want to kill myself or sleep for eternity, or take drugs to forgot. Like when what happens with mushrooms or MDMA, you can be incredibly high and happy, and when a problem arrive, there is totally adverse effects, you cry, you want to kill yourself or destroy everything around you. So what is better? Drugs or death?

 

[Maru]

So what is better? Drugs or death?

Slow down guy. As Budha said (I guess), the truth is on the middle path (or something like that :wink.
Maybe you can imagine a life with friends, a job, a girfriend and some drugs *from time to time*

Your life HAS a meaning even if in your current state you are no able to be aware of it. You will need some patience to discover it but you can not be patient if you are dead :? Patience and life are going together.

En français :
Ta vie A un sens même si dans ton état actuel cela n'est pas apparent. Mais il faut de la patience pour le découvrir et on ne peut pas être patient quand on est mort, patience et vie vont ensemble.

 

[Thanatos]

I am constantly forgotten my problems, and now i have so much problems that if i face my problems I feel soooo bad that i want to kill myself or sleep for eternity, or take drugs to forgot.

You have to snap out of this state of mind dude. Just face your problems for a while, don't post-pone it. It will get better.

"Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light but making the darkness conscious"
--Carl Jung

You can be soooo enlighted...

 

[rafael1000]

Thank you all for your points of views which are very smart, I think you are right, I must stop ALL drugs, but I don't know if I can... And if I persist in my addictions, it will be worse and worse.
But the advantage of drugs is that they are the easiest way to be fine.
I may start by stopping a few drugs and beginning facing my problems.
But i don't know what to stop and when to stop it, actually I take everyday 150 mg venlafaxine, 10mg escitalopram ( will totally stop it progressively in 7 days), 50mg amisulpride (to improve dopaminergic transmission), 2 mg clonazepam and 1,5 mg alprazolam. And also cannabis (1 to 6 joints a day), cafein (5 coffee a day) and nicotin (30 cigarettes a day). And to my computer, 4 to 18 hours a day)

When I was on HP (psychiatry), they gaved me neuroleptics/antipsychotics and humor regulators, but I have stopped all this.

I don't know what meds are the best for me to be fine and also to be lucid and can permet introspecting me to progressively stop all drugs. I don't know what can i be capable to do...

I have millions things to say but in english i'm limited so I can totally understand you but I can't totally say all i have to say and be clearer... In french i could say tons and tons of things, problems...

PS: Do you know that website?
http://www.sntp.net/main.htm "Say no to psychiatry" of the "foundation for truth in reality".
This website that made me quit definitively neuroleptics is very interesting... It made me think about on psychiatric drugs.
What do you think about this website?

 

[rafael1000]

This is an exemple of what i can call "artificial paradise" for Social Phobia :

http://www.socialfear.com/

The drugs that I take actually appear to be quite effective according this website...

This could help me during a little months to confront my phobias and lost my inhibitions, and raise my psychanalise.

I precise that I totally left psychiatry, my GP prescribe me these drugs.

I also think I could be bepolar, and SSRI made me on a manic phase, i cannot focus on a thing or a task (when i'm looking at a movie I must return back all 2 minutes ago because my mind cannot stopping thinking and thinking on a millions of things, I want to do millions of things... but i don't understand many things about me...

Yes, stopping drugs would made me like before since I became addict to drugs - especially cannabis (Many people said that in 2 years I had many changes, they said before i was more happy, more intelligent, more speeder, more humoristic...). It could be a good thing. The question is : "how can i stop taking drugs?" It will be very, very difficult...

 

[Forkbender]

Stopping with drugs is only possible if you really want to.
Convince yourself that you can do it without. I know you can. I know anybody can do that. You are stronger than your fears, because you created them and you can live through them. Stop identifying with the feelings you have and start to feel them for a change. Right now it seems you do not feel, because you think you feel bad, while in fact your body is giving you the signal that you should treat it with more respect.

Go for it, you can do it!

 

[rafael1000]

I want to, but I have the feeling that by body need drugs to feel fine.
Today I'll see a girl for the first time, I will face my fear. But I took benzodiazepines to help me stay calm and deshinibited.
I must do a withadrawl of drugs but don't know what to stop first and what drugs are the most dangerous for me...
I have really the sensation that with drugs I progressively lost all emotions, nothing made me laught now...
I started venlafaxine 3 days ago and now I sleep 3 hours and i'm not tired, it's amazing for it's stimulant properties but i don't know if i must stop it before became addicted to it...

 

[Forkbender]

It's better to feel bad than to feel nothing.
And your body is an organism, made during millions of years of evolution, to feel everything that you encounter. Don't pretend you can avoid bad feelings by altering your body-chemistry. Your body will either hit you in the face or die. Bad feelings are there. Accept them. Embrace them. Once you do this, you can see that feeling bad isn't so bad.
Your body has a natural way to balance its hormones. Don't try to change it. Follow your bliss!

 

[rafael1000]

You are right, and i have loss of memory since taking antidepressors.
So what can i do? Leave all my medications to the garbage? Or starting to leave antidepressors with the help of benzodiazepines?
I don't know what I must stop first. Cigarettes? Antidepressors? Benzodiazepines? Cannabis?
I want to feel all emotions of life, enjoy life... But before I started taking drugs, i was already bad.
I think putting down all my boxes of antidepressors is a good idea, because if i keep it I am sure i will take them again and again.
Don't know what to do, i constantly change my decisions, I am very, very impulsive.

 

[Forkbender]

Just slow down, find help from a person (professional or otherwise) to help you make this decision. Just tell him or her that you want to totally quit all medication and drugs and let them help you. I don't know which drugs do what, so I can't decide which to stop first. It is probably a good idea to not stop immediately, but to take smaller and smaller doses until you decide to quit. Take 5 joints for a week, then 4, then 3, then 2, then 1, then 1 every two days, then 1 a week, then 0 for a month. Stopping with anti-depressants can be really harsh, so take it extra slow on that one. Just be sure that you are safe without them and that there is always someone who is willing to help (even if it may not seem so). Maybe it is a good idea to do a detox-programme, to get rid of all the toxins in your body, and to help you see how it feels to be totally clear of any drug (feels great, btw). Make a plan and stick to it. Impulsiveness can be a good thing, but it can work against you as well.
Peace and good luck!
Fork.

 

[ararat]

If it's a book in english, i will have problems to read it... (I am french).

It's originally German, but translated in a lot of languages.

sure it is, the author has won the nobel price for literature with this book...
such a good book that is!!

hermann hesse is one of the best. and I can read the books in the original language, which is way cool
a must read. I think I'll read it one more time, as I have holidays now

I think I once heard that Hesse was a fellow psychonaut too . at least the way he described steppenwolf's way into hell seemed psychedelic to me. not too sure about that, too long ago
man I should read more...

I am constantly forgotten my problems, and now i have so much problems that if i face my problems I feel soooo bad that i want to kill myself or sleep for eternity, or take drugs to forgot.

what problems do you have exactly? maybe there are solutions. is it only the sociophobia and so on? or are there any further factors?
I totally agree with forkbender, feeling bad is better than feeling nothing. very wise

it all happens in your head. you have to stop thinking (or, believing) that your body needs drugs to be fine. generally, pessimism won't help you out.
if you think that you won't be able to do something, you sure won't be able to (ok, the exception proves the rule).

accepting your depression is one crucial step to a better life. taking drugs is no solution in the long term

 

[random]

Rafael, stop asking yourself questions, and stop 2nd thoughting about things (those things that make you feel bad). I mean... anything that had happened to you, I mean anything, well.. it already happened didnt it? So what's the point of remember it or constantly giving a 2nd thought to them? Accept them, embrace them, and love them... because they are part of you, of your history... And man... Those things , whatever they are, happened for some reason, believe it! See them as something to Make YOU Strong. Wisdom come from experiences in your lifetime, so the more, the better! And one thing... and this is Pure Truth. If you think negative (without love), things in your life Will be negative... If you think Positive (Love everywhere) everything will be beautifull, and even if it is not that beautifull... you Unconsiously will embrace it as a Beautifull thing, full of love and learning...

Think about your life as a Ethernal Instant (THE NOW) , that's the Only thing that really exists... Focus in the present, embrace everything you are... try to think about good things in Life... Meditate, Dream and love them... Give it a try... And man... you tried so many Drugs, and YOU KNOW they dont work, for that purpose (of forgetting problems and shit like that). Just Be sober and Try 24/7 to love every single thing in Life... And don't think about death... that's the most certain thing you will get in life, so don't need to rush that....

Life is a wonderfull adventure, even with all the problems in the world, and with Ourselfs... It's beautifull anyway..

Follow your intuition.. and do things you like to do, whatever you like... and if you don't like to do anything, start doing something... create music, drawings, poems, storys, anything that comes from your deepes feelings... and embrace it!

Anyway man, you are the closest thing that you can call God... isn't it? We all have our ups and downs... some people just take them to seriously, and feel down... And we don't whant to feel down all the time do we? So get up, look at the deepest corners of your self, your feelings and love them.. And then Rise and Climb the hill till you some day Die and leave this Thing that we are all in with a Smile in Your Soul. Life is a HUGE TRIP..


Hey, read this... it's very beautifull and wise:

http://sarvalap.blogspot.com/2007/12/vast-expanse.html

Best Regards...

 

[rafael1000]

If it's a book in english, i will have problems to read it... (I am french).

It's originally German, but translated in a lot of languages.

sure it is, the author has won the nobel price for literature with this book...
such a good book that is!!

hermann hesse is one of the best. and I can read the books in the original language, which is way cool
a must read. I think I'll read it one more time, as I have holidays now

I think I once heard that Hesse was a fellow psychonaut too . at least the way he described steppenwolf's way into hell seemed psychedelic to me. not too sure about that, too long ago
man I should read more...

I am constantly forgotten my problems, and now i have so much problems that if i face my problems I feel soooo bad that i want to kill myself or sleep for eternity, or take drugs to forgot.

what problems do you have exactly? maybe there are solutions. is it only the sociophobia and so on? or are there any further factors?
I totally agree with forkbender, feeling bad is better than feeling nothing. very wise

it all happens in your head. you have to stop thinking (or, believing) that your body needs drugs to be fine. generally, pessimism won't help you out.
if you think that you won't be able to do something, you sure won't be able to (ok, the exception proves the rule).

accepting your depression is one crucial step to a better life. taking drugs is no solution in the long term

I don't know what are exactly my problems, i think social phobia, paranoia, bi polar, manic, schizoid, in fact it depends on the drugs and events that happens in my life.
I had many problems before taking drugs, paranoia, social phobia, don't know, i'm totally lost.
The only thing that i am sure about is that i am totally manipulable and not sure of me, and naif.

If i take the decision to reduce the dosage, I know there are enormly risks that I finally abuse these drugs.

Actually I smoke a little of cannabis but i reduced my consuption while on benzodiazepines. I'm impulsive so maybe tomorrow or tonight I will take all my benzodiazepines, or all my antidepressors, my mental condition change all the time...

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

There's no happiness to be gained from studying Buddhism, only a vaguely defined tranquility. The aspired goal is to dissolve into nothingness. It's basically nihilism cloaked in an appealing cultural dress.

Study all religions simultaneously, get yourself in physical and mental shape, and learn all you can about psychology and psychedelics. There's so much to learn and share with others, there's really no reason to remain depressed. Start seeing your problems as challenges, and start playing the game!

“Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit.