I'd say psilocybin (magic mushrooms). It doesn't cure depression by itself, it just punches you in the face and shows your reality and then you can decide if you want to change something, everything or nothing. It's cheap, it's natural (not that it makes it good, but it's nice that nature provides and it's accessible), it's been proven very safe for the majority of the people (not to be taken with antidepressants or if suffering serious mental issues such as schizophrenia) and it's been used for ages for many purposes and science has been considering it as a very valid treatment for depression for some time now and I can vouch for it.
There are places in the world where this is legal, and you can do it with doctors if so you wish. I didn't go through the official medical route since like many other people, I wasn't entirely convinced that taking pills covering the problem (if anything, I don't buy the "chemical imbalance" theory - I do believe there's one, but that's just the end of the chain and not the cause) combined with several years of therapies was going to be a good idea in my specific case.
Luckily HN is a quite open community and this has been discussed several times so please use the search to read more about it. The book "How to Change Your Mind" by Michael Pollan is a must read if you want to convince yourself and give it a try. I can also recommend r/microdosing and r/psychonauts.
Please do a lot of research before you decide to take this route as the process can be tough but then if you happen to be very deep into depression it's worth looking into.
I think this is becoming popular advice in HN and adjacent communities. I don't agree or disagree, and absolutely loved Pollan's book, but having a psychedelic experience can be a very different thing for someone in doldrums vs. serious clinical or chronic depression. Having dealt with both and invested a huge amount of effort into escaping and avoiding the latter category at all costs, I think there's not a lot of actionable advice that applies to a person in that state, other than try to take care of yourself and hold on for dear life.
That being said, I've pursued this in the past and didn't really know heads from tails about where to get these substances or how to know they were safe, how to properly measure dosage etc. And I still don't. But I did learn that it is actually pretty easy to grow your own psylocibin mushrooms. I have had some interesting experiences with them, a novel break from ordinary life and mind. But in my experience, not a novel break from or treatment for depression; I would be ambivalent about having those experiences, especially a powerful one, in the midst of very dire emotional states.
If you are going to go the psychedelic route, I highly encourage you to do post session integration work with a therapist. I have been dealing with depression for most of my adult life (I'm 51). Psilocybin is a really wonderful medicine, and you may well find breakthroughs on your own, however, having somebody to help you unpack the volume of material that can arise while sifting through the chaff for the wheat, is very helpful. Psychedelics accelerate and amplify the therapeutic process. By taking the ego out of the way, they enable a LOT of material to arise.
My first psychedelic experience was almost two years ago with MM and it was beautiful. It didn't move the needle a ton, however. I've gone on to do a guided MDMA session which was really amazing, as well as a 12 day ayahuasca and mescaline retreat in Ecuador. Everything has been improved by the post-trip integration work I've done with either my therapist or in small group integration sessions (check Meetup for relevant interest groups in your area).
If you do trip on your own, pay very special attention to (mind)set and setting; they are key. Having a trip sitter is also a good idea, at least until you are a little familiar with the terrain. And dancesafe.org sells test kits to help you test for purity and safety.
It depends on where in the world you live. In the US, MAPS.org are currently conducting Phase III trials on MDMA for PTSD, primarily using veterans as subjects, I believe. Johns Hopkins (I think) is doing trials with Psilocybin. No idea about Dancesafe. ANY website could be a honeypot. There's nothing illegal about buying Fentanyl test strips and reagents.
Nope, not always. I had a bad psychedelic trip with complete ego loss, and it gave me a boatload of issues that I still haven't completely recovered from. I'm more afraid of death then I was before, and I've been dealing with a higher level of generalized anxiety as well. Psychedelics and ego loss aren't always a panacea.
Are they? I thought they’d be more of a wrong interpretation of the reality, wrong as in unecessarily negative; or a chemical imbalance or a bad situation in life, or suppressed emotions, or lack of agency or... there could be so many reasons. It doesn’t help that too many things are fit under the label of depression either.
And a reason for a higher prevalence of depression in the western hemisphere is in my opinion how we choose to live our lives.
Would you please not post in the flamewar style to HN, as you did here and downthread? It's not kind, it's not what this site is for, and it leads to worse. Above all, it makes discussions tedious extremely quickly, because curiosity is the first thing that gets dropped when people start attacking and defending.
That’s one narrative they form about the story of their life. In order to be free from that (often) faulty narrative, dissolving the ego is necessary. Either through psilocybin or other methods.
I've no ill will towards psychedelics, I just intensely dislike when pseudo-spirituality gets pushed as a solution to very real and very hard problems that ruin people's lives and the lives of those around them.
Your comment has so many levels of ignorance I don’t know where to begin. One does not “self-medicate” with psychedelics, as the experience can be intense and often unpleasant. Judging from your comments, you’re crippling your ability to think clearly with your anger. I really do hope you find the help you need.
There are places in the world where this is legal, and you can do it with doctors if so you wish. I didn't go through the official medical route since like many other people, I wasn't entirely convinced that taking pills covering the problem (if anything, I don't buy the "chemical imbalance" theory - I do believe there's one, but that's just the end of the chain and not the cause) combined with several years of therapies was going to be a good idea in my specific case.
Luckily HN is a quite open community and this has been discussed several times so please use the search to read more about it. The book "How to Change Your Mind" by Michael Pollan is a must read if you want to convince yourself and give it a try. I can also recommend r/microdosing and r/psychonauts.
Please do a lot of research before you decide to take this route as the process can be tough but then if you happen to be very deep into depression it's worth looking into.