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I Tried Ketamine to Treat My Depression. It Was Terrifying

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Re: I Tried Ketamine to Treat My Depression. It Was Terrifying

#11

Post by ethanbond »

subjectsigma wrote: post #6
elecush wrote: post #3

Mindset and Setting are so important to have right. If you are not in the right mindset, go do something else. It reads like the dosage was also a bit too high for the first time, and while I appreciate medical purity levels in things the doc can give you, injecting everything is just ew. You can get plenty of that active ingredient ingesting it like a normal savage through your face like God intended. Anyway, ketami…

Did you seriously just suggest that people should ignore treatment suggestions by real doctors and go to a rave? And then have the gall to call the author irresponsible? This is one of the many reasons why normal people are disgusted by rave culture.

I don’t agree with the advice but it’s a little silly to act like the institutions that have been ignoring life-saving and life-bettering treatments due to their phenomenological effects have some immediate monopoly on the right way to use those treatments.

Re: I Tried Ketamine to Treat My Depression. It Was Terrifying

#12

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

Invictus0 wrote: post #4

I have taken LSD but not ketamine. It seems crazy to me to take a psychedelic while in any remotely depressed mental state. Even though the author knew it helps to have a positive mindset, I imagine her mindset was not really that positive at all, having been depressed for many years. I don't think we should treat these drugs as panacea, and I don't think our understanding of depression is strong enough to definitely…

> It seems crazy to me to take a psychedelic while in any remotely depressed mental state.

I don't think we can apply the same broad stipulations to every psychotropic. I expect we'll eventually become very skilled at treatment and when we do, each substance would require a unique set patient preparation and prequalifications.

Re: I Tried Ketamine to Treat My Depression. It Was Terrifying

#13

Post by im3w1l »

subjectsigma wrote: post #6
elecush wrote: post #3

Mindset and Setting are so important to have right. If you are not in the right mindset, go do something else. It reads like the dosage was also a bit too high for the first time, and while I appreciate medical purity levels in things the doc can give you, injecting everything is just ew. You can get plenty of that active ingredient ingesting it like a normal savage through your face like God intended. Anyway, ketami…

Did you seriously just suggest that people should ignore treatment suggestions by real doctors and go to a rave? And then have the gall to call the author irresponsible? This is one of the many reasons why normal people are disgusted by rave culture.

Maybe she would have had a better experience spooning some handsome gentleman himself out of his mind on mdma than holding the hand of someone writing in a journal with the other hand and telling her to do breathing exercises? Or maybe not.

These are basically religious experiences and there is a human and emotional element to consider. It's highly non-obvious.

Re: I Tried Ketamine to Treat My Depression. It Was Terrifying

#14

Post by emodendroket »

NotPavlovsDog wrote: post #7

Anecdotes and auto-biographies are the easiest to write, as they require the least research and one is already so familiar with the protagonist. It will be nice to see ketamine and psychedelics as part of a toolbox professionals can use for treatment. Many current antidepressants cause strong suicidal and homicidal urges. Look at the widely prescribed citalopram disclaimer. Here's an anecdote: close person to me was…

I don't think "this is a possible result of this treatment, as observed one time" is an illegitimate subject of inquiry because it's not a table of statistics.

Re: I Tried Ketamine to Treat My Depression. It Was Terrifying

#15

Post by electric_mayhem »

Can’t possibly discount the possibility that this is FUD put out by the pharmaceutical industry to counterweight the increased openness to psychedelics, in part from Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind book and Netflix series.

My experience has been that with proper set and setting, I got months of relief from a good psychedelic experience. Shrooms. My first mushroom trip I had tears streaming down my face for something like two hours- but there was such profound relief along with it, like I was feeling and letting go of decades of the sorts of things that get a person a complex trauma diagnosis.

I’ve tried LSD; it was more cerebral whereas shrooms had a more emotional component. LSD didn’t provide that sort of relief. But the visuals were stunning (which, while newt to experience, isn’t what I was hoping for).

Also tried ketamine sessions at my primary care dr’s office. Did not like it; during the trip, which seemed to have a duration of eternity, I was a disembodied consciousness considering my life. I could genuinely see this as being somewhere between disconcerting and alarming as hell to a first -timer. Also, it wasn’t particularly cathartic and the clinical setting was an unwelcome distraction.

Re: I Tried Ketamine to Treat My Depression. It Was Terrifying

#16

Post by emodendroket »

ethanbond wrote: post #11
subjectsigma wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you seriously just suggest that people should ignore treatment suggestions by real doctors and go to a rave? And then have the gall to call the author irresponsible? This is one of the many reasons why normal people are disgusted by rave culture.

I don’t agree with the advice but it’s a little silly to act like the institutions that have been ignoring life-saving and life-bettering treatments due to their phenomenological effects have some immediate monopoly on the right way to use those treatments.

No but that's an altogether different suggestion from advising depressed people go get high at a rave.

Re: I Tried Ketamine to Treat My Depression. It Was Terrifying

#17

Post by emodendroket »

electric_mayhem wrote: post #15

Can’t possibly discount the possibility that this is FUD put out by the pharmaceutical industry to counterweight the increased openness to psychedelics, in part from Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind book and Netflix series. My experience has been that with proper set and setting, I got months of relief from a good psychedelic experience. Shrooms. My first mushroom trip I had tears streaming down my face for something…

I'm sure you could find some unhappy trip experiences on erowid if you believe it is literally impossible that anyone could have a negative experience.

Re: I Tried Ketamine to Treat My Depression. It Was Terrifying

#18

Post by jungledeuce »

voisin wrote: post #10
subjectsigma wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you seriously just suggest that people should ignore treatment suggestions by real doctors and go to a rave? And then have the gall to call the author irresponsible? This is one of the many reasons why normal people are disgusted by rave culture.

> one of the many reasons why normal people are disgusted by rave culture I’ve never been to a rave but I’ve also never met anyone in my life who has expressed disgust by rave culture. Is this a thing?

You don’t know enough white suburban conservative Christian seniors. I agree it’s not exactly a huge group, but in my experience in the Midwest that’s where you might find disgust.

Everywhere else? I agree, normal people are not in general “disgusted” by kids at parties dancing all night dressed in neon or whatever the kids these days do.

Re: I Tried Ketamine to Treat My Depression. It Was Terrifying

#19

Post by Mattasher »

emodendroket wrote: post #14
NotPavlovsDog wrote: post #7

Anecdotes and auto-biographies are the easiest to write, as they require the least research and one is already so familiar with the protagonist. It will be nice to see ketamine and psychedelics as part of a toolbox professionals can use for treatment. Many current antidepressants cause strong suicidal and homicidal urges. Look at the widely prescribed citalopram disclaimer. Here's an anecdote: close person to me was…

I don't think "this is a possible result of this treatment, as observed one time" is an illegitimate subject of inquiry because it's not a table of statistics.

It's also worth considering that this one person's experience may represent the reactions of many. Over two-decades ago the Chicago Reader published one of the most fascinating "drug memoirs" I've ever read, and the author also had a terrible reaction to Ketamine, albeit under very bad circumstances:

https://chicagoreader.com/news-politics/me-and-my-monkey/

Re: I Tried Ketamine to Treat My Depression. It Was Terrifying

#20

Post by jerry1979 »

Ketamine treatment seems to induce mania in some people. A friend sent me a picture he took of a notice posted on the wall of a ketamine clinic. It read as a rambling screed about the virtues of ketamine. I really wish I could find that picture. After receiving treatment, my friend became manic, and then he crashed and killed himself.

There seems to be some literature that discusses mania from ketamine: https://www.psychiatrist.com/pcc/bipolar/ketamine-induced-ma...

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