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Yeah, I mean, I mentioned meds, and sleep meds were a part of that. I managed to get around to seeing a therapist halfway through last year, which I stopped seeing a couple weeks ago because the entire process is just more inconvenient and stressful than not bothering, and someone at the facility helped me get approved for whatever my state’s free insurance is, idk. It’s pretty mediocre but it pays for a couple things.

I’ve been through a few meds since mid-november-ish, ranging from anxiety/depression to sleep meds, and yeah, no positive results from those. A few negative ones, which is my luck. Insurance straight up won’t approve most sleep meds, so the ones they’ve been having me try have pretty much just made me feel tired, which doesn’t help with the issue of waking up after an hour or two and being unable to fall back asleep. Huge bummer.

Googling about sleep studies shows the average price is anywhere from $600 to 5k a night, usually averaging 1-2k. Exactly 0% chance my insurance covers that even on the low end, and I am not saving up multiple months of pay to pay something like that out of pocket when there’s every chance it won’t even help, or it’d take more than one night. Asking for money is also not something I’m comfortable with, and even if it were, I unironically don’t know a single person with money. Nobody in my family has money, everybody up through my remaining grandparents are broke and either don’t work, or work near minimum wage, and my friends are in the same way. No reason to bug them with it.

I will reply to the rest of what you wrote uhhh tomorrow probably. I’m off then. I caught an hour and a half of z’s sometime after work last night and my landlord has been doing construction on the deck all morning, which is when I’m usually going to sleep lmao. If I pass out now work is gonna suck even harder, so w/e. I usually crash 12 or whatever hours on the off days, when I don’t have to wake up until 7 or 8 in the evening, so I’ll be gucci by then 😎

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5 hours ago, Enny said:

and I am not saving up multiple months of pay to pay something like that out of pocket

 

Why not? I can almost guarantee nothing else you're spending extra money on matters more. Well, I'm only mostly sure a sleep study is incredibly helpful, it's how my brother ended up getting a CPAP and feeling a lot better because of it anyway. And yes, the $600-$2000 price range sounds about right. Be the best frickin' thousand dollars you ever spend, although obviously actually falling asleep during the study can be hard. My brother couldn't fall asleep the first time and they had to reschedule, unsure of if that costed more money or not

 

But yeah, only mostly sure. Maybe just finding a professional opinion would be the best value.. not seeing a regular doctor because they'll know nothing about such a weird disorder, but some kind of sleep professional I guess? Without some kind of diagnosis I think you'll find it harder to be approved for just about anything, and I only think a sleep study is the best way to get that "diagnosis", but you should probably just look into this. Have I mentioned getting no real sleep and feeling awful 24/7 is like, #1 priority after eating/shelter and should come before anything else? Man..

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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when I started making the TTRPG I first asked myself 2 questions: "what do I want the players to do?" and "what are my core design principles?". to those questions I answered "solve mysteries and get into tactical high stakes combat" and "raise the depth to complexity ratio as high as possible, and make players make hard choices"

 

I used the answer to the first question to figure out what things I have to design for (things that you might do while solving mysteries and getting into tactical high stakes combat), and the answer to the second question to figure out how to design those things

I have a tulpa named Miela who I love very much.

 

 
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4 hours ago, Luminesce said:

 

Why not? I can almost guarantee nothing else you're spending extra money on matters more.


Ehhh. I mean rationally, maybe. But like, it just takes too long to save up that kinda money. It’s like, put myself out of pretty much everything that gives me minor joy in life for half a year or more just to afford something that might not help me. I haven’t slept anywhere that wasn’t my own bed in pretty much my whole life. When I went down to Dallas a few years back for a convention, I caught about 7 hours sleeping on the floor over the entire weekend, and that was after being up for something like 36 hours before the end of the first night, shit sucked. I just don’t ever feel comfy.

I sincerely don’t think I could manage falling asleep while being monitored. And if I did, I run the risk of sleeping just fucking fine, which does manage to vaguely happen once every couple months.

But yeah, like, the last year’s savings have been going to Babscon this upcoming April, where I’m gonna spend the weekend with my two absolute best friends, one of whom is flying down from West Virginia and doesn’t even care about horsefuckery, the other who I’ve known for the last eight years and never actually met in person. We’re ending the weekend with a Carly Rae Jepsen concert, which is gonna be hype. Priorities sound fucked on this, but that’s way way way more important to me than seeing anybody about the sleep. I’m used to it, I manage to get more than a few hours every few nights, it’s whatever. 

Like, honestly speaking, I really, really don’t plan on living until I’m fuckin’ eighty or anything my guy, so what’s some more bad sleep until then? What’s it gonna do, kill me? It’s not even like, ugh I hate living I wanna die, it’s just that there’s nothing going on. Even if I got my sleep figured out, this is absolutely gonna be my life. I was dumb as actual fuck long before the major sleep problems arose a few years back, not even ADD meds help with my lack of focus and ability to grasp basic learning, so what, keep washing dishes until I’m sixty? Move onto some other minimum wage or labor job I find equally unfulfilling until I’m dead? Bunch of lame.

 

Idk, shit’s wack. I don’t wanna do anything anymore.  When I was a young teen, I felt like I had a clear vision of some of the things I wanted to do, and I just really don’t anymore, no passions or aspirations. 

Yeah, this is just me having a pity party now, ugh. What else did you even say in this post lmao, gimme a second

Right, regular sleep specialist person. Uhh, yeah, maybe. I’ll look into it and see what’s what. I would think I would have already been referred to one given that the two physicians I’ve seen so far were made aware that sleep is my biggest issue, but maybe they just don’t know anybody. I’ll ask at my next appointment.

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I was talking as little as... two more years, let alone 60. Everyone I've heard that had bad sleep apnea/etc. who got a CPAP/etc. has reported just feeling better overall, clearer mind, better mood afterwards. I'd say that's worth it even just to live better for a couple years, let alone the rest of your life

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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Idk if it's sleep apnea tbh. Or if it is, it's weird that it doesn't affect me at all if I go to sleep after a certain hour in the morning. I slept 14 hours today because I went to bed early in the morning lmao. Wearing one of those masks sounds fucking awful too, but yeah, besides the point.

I've always wondered if moving somewhere else would help with it. Like, maybe my body is just super used to being a fuck where I currently am, but could be taught not to be if I were to start sleeping in a different bed, in a different environment. Might manage to move somewhere else with one of my buddies one of these days, but it won't happen on my dime alone so I'll see how it goes in the future.

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Anybody ever fuck with microdosing?

I've been through the whole meds and therapy thing over the last year or so and am over it, so I'm kinda just onto the next thing in this neverending cycle of feeling fucking awful lmao

 

I've been experimenting with psychedelics a bit over the last few months in general, lsd a couple times and mushrooms twice, at varying doses, and have had good experiences. I mean, they dont affect me whatsoever after the trip is over, but my first mushroom trip had me feeling the best I've ever felt in my entire life at times, bar none. Second trip was generally great too, but I tripped with friends which is ill advised apparently, because that kinda made it weird at times.

 

I started a .3 g microdose as of yesterday and am interested to see the long-term effects. I felt very present and in control of my mind for a lot of the day, and even when I'd obviously come down I still felt a similar way, though not as strong. I'm wondering if as I continue to do them my mind will just become a certain way over reinforcement, or if I'll only ever feel that way after dosing.

 

Today I felt a bit more energetic in the first half of the day, which could have been attributed to the drugs, but who knows. Second half and I'm exhausted, which, again, could be the drugs, could be my ever persistent lack of sleep.

 

I'm able to get them really cheap either way, much cheaper than prescription drugs at my current dosage, so I figured I might as well try.

 

If these don't do anything for my head long term then I've got a small savings account going and a solid plan to move across the country mid next year, so hopefully that does me good.

 

 

But yeah, genuinely interested to hear if anyone has experience with this.

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Sorry no one replied Enny, that's probably just a no from the current active members.

 

Happy 4th of July

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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(edited)
On 2/14/2020 at 12:32 PM, Enny said:

Yeah, I mean, I mentioned meds, and sleep meds were a part of that. I managed to get around to seeing a therapist halfway through last year, which I stopped seeing a couple weeks ago because the entire process is just more inconvenient and stressful than not bothering, and someone at the facility helped me get approved for whatever my state’s free insurance is, idk. It’s pretty mediocre but it pays for a couple things.

I’ve been through a few meds since mid-november-ish, ranging from anxiety/depression to sleep meds, and yeah, no positive results from those. A few negative ones, which is my luck. Insurance straight up won’t approve most sleep meds, so the ones they’ve been having me try have pretty much just made me feel tired, which doesn’t help with the issue of waking up after an hour or two and being unable to fall back asleep. Huge bummer.

Googling about sleep studies shows the average price is anywhere from $600 to 5k a night, usually averaging 1-2k. Exactly 0% chance my insurance covers that even on the low end, and I am not saving up multiple months of pay to pay something like that out of pocket when there’s every chance it won’t even help, or it’d take more than one night. Asking for money is also not something I’m comfortable with, and even if it were, I unironically don’t know a single person with money. Nobody in my family has money, everybody up through my remaining grandparents are broke

I’ve had a very similar experience “getting help” (professional help) for depressive symptoms and had a worse outcome that the symptoms I was trying to treat in the first place, as well as knowing others who have had intolerable side effects. When it comes to psychiatric drugs, I’m the first to talk about the numbers of people that benefit from it and it turns a lot of people’s lives around, and usually when you’re at that point it makes sense for people to feel desperate enough to want to try anything.

But on the other hand these drugs don’t work for s significant number of people and actually make their problems worse. The efficacy simply isn’t satisfactory when the odds are similar to a coin-flip. And many substances that have had not only a long history of safe use, even at high doses, but a *significantly* lower remission rate for said symptoms than anything else on the market - are all illegal, almost universally, and the ones that have been decriminalized are subject to restrictions and insane price barriers that wouldn’t exist naturally.

 

It doesn’t help that two people could have the exact same depressive symptoms but their brains could look completely different and respond completely differently to the same drug.

 

There’s a larger issue with western medicine that doesn’t see a human element to the process and looks exclusively to the objective instead of hearing the individual’s problems. Most of the time the people making money off of giving out drugs don’t have enough time to uncover why the person needs drugs in the first place. It’s like there’s not an emphasis to solve problems at the root.

 

I love and still believe in western medicine but I still have certain criticisms with it, like the fact, for example, that I can chop my toe off and get pain meds by tonight, and yet I have to be out on a six-month waiting list to get looked at - much less treated - for a potentially life-threatening depressive episode. My toe hurts so I can get that taken care of but my debilitating psychic pain will just have to wait! But basically in a nutshell I can say the idea of “personalized medicine” seems very counter to this western perspective. But it may be more effective than what’s currently available, for a lot of people.

 

Johann Hari is an individual I recommend everyone listen to (he has long talks on the internet about the subject) and he’s documented depression and its factors arising in a variety of environments, and I feel he has many crucial insights about it that aren’t commonly understood. So some of these ideas are derivative from him.

But he told a story about how an African tribe’s idea of therapy was “taking them out into the sunshine, playing music to get their blood pumping, singing and dancing, and getting the whole tribe to come together to ‘exorcise their demon’” and find them a new role in society that would ‘cure them’ of whatever issues were plaguing them.

 

For me personally, I already have learned to love myself and have someone I trust to talk to sometimes, and so talk therapy for me just ended up being an extremely expensive waste of my time. I can see how perhaps this would help people with other issues but for me all ‘getting help’ did was waste my time and money and make me feel even guiltier and insane than I did before I went into it. And the drugs I took gave me horrible side effects even though they were literally first-like treatments and at sub-therapeutic levels. So they weren’t even at dosages that were supposed to work, but even that had me literally feeling violent and ready to rip my skin off. I’ve drank bottles of cough syrup in the past but no drugs I’ve taken have ever given me as severe side effects as the legal ones at even less than the proper dosage. So that’s pretty incredible to me, considering that after trying a handful of ones I still hadn’t even experienced relief yet. And all the ones that have worked for me are all illegal so basically society’s laws criminalize me for trying to successfully treat myself, which further increases my societal resentment and exacerbates my depressive symptoms, which is just a vicious cycle.

 

So I exercise and eat healthy and sleep more and do everything else I can do and eventually I can see how one becomes bitter about the prospect of an additional self-care routine to be any more effective that the rest of everything else I’m already doing to make myself feel better. The most obnoxious is when people who don’t understand assume you haven’t tried even the most basic of self-care things, like “going for a walk and looking at the trees” (which was a literal suggestion from my relative when I opened up to her about my suicidal struggles in the past) as if A: I were too stupid to have thought of that and tried it by now and B: my issues were so simple that they could be solved by something like that in the first place. But yeah I could go on but my point is that I used to think there was no one else like me but I’ve realized there are a lot of people that struggle with similar shit. I’ve realized that society kinda labels people as sick so it can avoid solving its own problems, to a larger extent than it’s willing to admit. To me the characteristic of depression is like “the only available options are unacceptable, and the only acceptable options are unavailable.” I see it as an individual symptom or expression of a societal issue.

On 2/14/2020 at 10:59 PM, Enny said:


Ehhh. I mean rationally, maybe. But like, it just takes too long to save up that kinda money. It’s like, put myself out of pretty much everything that gives me minor joy in life for half a year or more just to afford something that might not help me.

...
But yeah, like, the last year’s savings have been going to Babscon this upcoming April, where I’m gonna spend the weekend with my two absolute best friends, one of whom is flying down from West Virginia and doesn’t even care about horsefuckery, the other who I’ve known for the last eight years and never actually met in person. We’re ending the weekend with a Carly Rae Jepsen concert, which is gonna be hype. Priorities sound fucked on this, but that’s way way way more important to me than seeing anybody about the sleep. I’m used to it, I manage to get more than a few hours every few nights, it’s whatever. 

Like, honestly speaking, I really, really don’t plan on living until I’m fuckin’ eighty or anything my guy, so what’s some more bad sleep until then? What’s it gonna do, kill me? It’s not even like, ugh I hate living I wanna die, it’s just that there’s nothing going on. Even if I got my sleep figured out, this is absolutely gonna be my life. I was dumb as actual fuck long before the major sleep problems arose a few years back, not even ADD meds help with my lack of focus and ability to grasp basic learning, so what, keep washing dishes until I’m sixty? Move onto some other minimum wage or labor job I find equally unfulfilling until I’m dead? Bunch of lame.

 

Idk, shit’s wack. I don’t wanna do anything anymore.  When I was a young teen, I felt like I had a clear vision of some of the things I wanted to do, and I just really don’t anymore, no passions or aspirations. 

Yeah, this is just me having a pity party now, ugh. What else did you even say in this post lmao, gimme a second

Depression also made me stupid as fuck, no lie, with a magnitude that years of pot smoking couldn’t touch. Man, everybody told me that pot made people’s memory bad but I didn’t experience real memory loss until I started having depressive episodes. Then over years of dealing with that it kinda changes my brain and makes it way less efficient. Chronic stress literally causes brain damage over time, and on days that I’m really down I literally can’t even remember if I had breakfast or not.

Another issue with ‘getting help’ to me is finding someone who even wants to listen to hear you talk about this in the first place. I remember once even someone I trusted told me ‘look man this is a little much for me, I just don't want to hear it.’ Which I can’t blame everyone else for not being licensed professionals ready to deal with other people’s psychiatric issues, but at the same time it makes me wonder how we’re supposed to grow closer as a culture if that’s our attitude about hardship. But I have found people to talk to that understand and they are out there, even if there aren’t many or they take a long time to find.

Yeah I struggled with chronic anhedonia for many years and I’ve finally started to make a comeback and not only have feelings again but actually get some of my goals done and get excited about things. I’m still at an anti-work mentality and I think the west overemphasizes working at its own detriment. I love working, just not working until I’m a zombie who can’t work at all. Rest and recovery is so important even for productivity, and I don’t feel like many take it as seriously as it is important.

I also used to kinda turn my nose up at particular forms of hedonism but now that too gives me something to live for.

On 7/2/2020 at 9:02 PM, Enny said:

Anybody ever fuck with microdosing?

I've been through the whole meds and therapy thing over the last year or so and am over it, so I'm kinda just onto the next thing in this neverending cycle of feeling fucking awful lmao

 

I've been experimenting with psychedelics a bit over the last few months in general, lsd a couple times and mushrooms twice, at varying doses, and have had good experiences. I mean, they dont affect me whatsoever after the trip is over, but my first mushroom trip had me feeling the best I've ever felt in my entire life at times, bar none. Second trip was generally great too, but I tripped with friends which is ill advised apparently, because that kinda made it weird at times.

 

I started a .3 g microdose as of yesterday and am interested to see the long-term effects. I felt very present and in control of my mind for a lot of the day, and even when I'd obviously come down I still felt a similar way, though not as strong. I'm wondering if as I continue to do them my mind will just become a certain way over reinforcement, or if I'll only ever feel that way after dosing.

 

Today I felt a bit more energetic in the first half of the day, which could have been attributed to the drugs, but who knows. Second half and I'm exhausted, which, again, could be the drugs, could be my ever persistent lack of sleep.

 

I'm able to get them really cheap either way, much cheaper than prescription drugs at my current dosage, so I figured I might as well try.

 

If these don't do anything for my head long term then I've got a small savings account going and a solid plan to move across the country mid next year, so hopefully that does me good.

 

 

But yeah, genuinely interested to hear if anyone has experience with this.

Literally the only time I’ve ever felt normal since I’ve gone into this tunnel of depression was any time I was microdosing psilocybin mushrooms. They can be very powerful and I don’t recommend them to be taken carelessly, in any sense. Large doses can have a ‘resetting’ effect which can be helpful with a therapeutic mindset, but personally my micro doses were so effective that that’s basically my dream med now, it was good enough for me, but I don’t have any kind of reliable access so it sucks to live without. I’d take a couple small pieces every two or three days or so and that was the closest I’ve felt to normal in a long time. I felt like I had emotions again and a vigor for life and one of the best parts was no side effects at all. They are extremely safe and have some of the least toxic loads of any of the psychoactive substances. The worst things that could happen are getting caught with them or picking the wrong ones. Again, a decriminalized structure would be ideal for this because then you could ensure a therapeutic environment to consume them in, as well as safety of sourcing.

 

Some of these substances are fun with friends or socially, but personally I liked taking large doses of them alone, and kinda digging into myself and trying to get to know myself and find solutions to my problems. It’s kinda different because for me whatever I focused on was what the trip would be consumed by. Meaning if I listened to music the whole time then the whole trip would be about the music I listened to. If I had friends around then it was about us. But if I tripped alone in a place I trusted, in a dark room in silence, then the only place to go was inward. And that was when it was the most profound and life-changing to me, personally. A trip about itself!

 

Btw I think I used even less than .3g. The goal for me wasn’t even to feel anything or feel consciously affected, but just enough to where it affected me slightly in a subtle way. If someone had slipped it in my cornflakes without my knowledge as I say, I wouldn’t even know it was there. But I would definitely feel like I had a better day that day, for some reason.

Edited by Couguhl
Slight word changes for accuracy/clarity (‘higher’ to ‘lower’). Again, not advocating any of these substances considering many are illegal in most places, I’m just advocating their decriminalization and sharing my personal experiences.

Tulpa: Sierra

Forcing since July 2012

Couguhl’s Progress Report

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I don't have the brain to process fuck all of what you wrote, but you bring up microdosing in the last paragraph so that's cool there. Yeah, days two and three didn't do anything for me, unfortunately. Like, at all, it was dumb. If I'm gonna do it I've probably gotta up the regular dose to .45 or something, idk. I wound up just taking the rest of what I had yesterday (knowing that it wouldn't hit me too hard since I'd microdosed the day before) and actually had a kind of bad trip lmao, so that's cool. Was something like 1.8g's and I just felt really self-loathing and sad for about four hours. Wasn't in the territory of like, full on hallucinating and oh god this is awful but I've got five more hours before the hell ends, but yeah, just left me in a sad mood. I'm gonna take a couple months off of them and try it again then, idk. I can get my hands on about anything right now, so I'll maybe fuck around with small doses of some other stuff. LSD has typically been a lot more manageable so I could dissolve 100ug in some vodka and microdose that, see how it does.

Or fuck, I hear ketamine has super lasting effects on a lot of people's depression, so maybe I'll look into that. Just gotta play it safe and make sure I can source it safely, do the right doses, etc.

Yeah, sorry for just not replying to 99% of what you said, way too much for me.

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