Comment by codeshaman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by codeshaman | Hacker News Reader

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It might sound outrageous, but you're in a good spot in life right now.

I've been there a couple of times, I've even had a suicide attempt at 17 and ended up spending 2 months in the hospital with kidney failure. But each time depression crept it on me again, I was better and better equipped to deal with it. The last time I was depressed towards suicidal (about 2 years ago), two things helped me: This book: http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-The-Mood-Therapy/dp/03808... And a low-dose hit of LSD, which practically sucked me out of depression in one night (for the reasons outlined below). This was my way, you might need to take a different path, but speaking from experience, it is possible to get yourself out of this and then good things start to happen.

It will get better, just hold on.

The reason you're feeling like nothing works, is because you've forgotten what you've came here for. What this life is about. It's not about how well you write code, it's not about how many friends you have or how much money you make or what car/phone you have. What is it about then ?

That's for you to find out. That's how the hit of LSD or psilocybin (mushrooms) might help, but you need to know what and how you're doing it.

The other reason is the way you interpret reality and what you say to yourself every day. Details about this are in the book.

And some other ideas:

Stop everything, take a vacation and go on a trip. It's summer, go to a festival in the mountains or south to the sea, visit Paris or Barcelona or go to India. Do something you've always wanted to, but never had the time or resources to accomplish.

> That's how the hit of LSD or psilocybin (mushrooms) might help, but you need to know what and how you're doing it.

I figured out your LSD therapy was a form of self-help, but as someone who is under constant, long-term care of a psychiatrist, I have been told more than once that in the case of depression drugs and habitual alcohol intake are a no-go. LSD is especially dangerous. Please don't advise suicidal and mentally ill people to solve their problems with drugs.

And finally, depressed people don't need advice, they need patience, understanding and someone who is able to listen to them.

Magic mushrooms' psychedelic ingredient could help treat people with severe depression

Drugs derived from magic mushrooms could help treat people with severe depression. Scientists believe the chemical psilocybin, the psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms, can turn down parts of the brain that are overactive in severely depressive patients. The drug appears to stop patients dwelling on themselves and their own perceived inadequacies.

However, a bid by British scientists to carry out trials of psilocybin on patients in order to assess its full medical potential has been blocked by red tape relating to Britain's strict drugs laws. Professor David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, will tell a conference today that because magic mushrooms are rated as a class-A drug, their active chemical ingredient cannot be manufactured unless a special licence is granted.

"We haven't started the study because finding companies that could manufacture the drug and who are prepared to go through the regulatory hoops to get the licence is proving very difficult," said Nutt. "The whole field is so bedevilled by primitive old-fashioned attitudes. Even if you have a good idea, you may never get it into the clinic, it seems."

And here is some info about the history of Shrooms: http://www.growmagicmushroom.com/2013/07/the-magic-mushroom-...

Your psychiatrist might be uninformed or maybe what he means is not to indulge in drugs as a way to escape reality (which I agree with).

Psychedelics, when taken in a safe setting and with the right goals (eg. as a therapy aid, not recreationally) can be extremely efficient for treating depression and all sorts of emotional issues.

There's a lot of literature and articles on the subject, for instance: http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2014/03/12/using-psilocybin-mag...

As as a side note, consider that psychiatrists are not gods and they know what they learned. In fact, I bet it would be detrimental for the whole industry if you could treat your mental issues in one or two settings and not use expensive psychiatric drugs for years.

> Your psychiatrist might be uninformed or maybe what he means

I think I am able to judge the competence of the doctor I am using, and, as their patient, determine the value their opinion better than a person on HN that happens to read a lot on the Internet and quotes an article with gaps in logic and no scientific proof that mushrooms actually help cure mental illness in people.

> In fact, I bet it would be detrimental for the whole industry if you could treat your mental issues in one or two settings and not use expensive psychiatric drugs for years.

Yeah, I bet it's the same with diabetes and cancer.

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