After attempting to solve (or end) my mental health issues through

>>18248537
Oh shit, wikihow be deep sometimes.

Please keep an open mind about this, but have you ever tried psychedelics? I grew up with huge social anxiety and timidness. With lsd, i feel less and less social anxiety and feel really good about myself.

Some depressed people go to South America for Ayahuasca and they all said that their issues doesnt seem like issues anymore. Read the recent studies released about it

>>18248656
>substances

Sorry, i didnt see that :x

There's meditation.

Read "Happiness" by Matthieu Ricard.

>>18248656
I haven't done psychedelics because my grip on reality is tenuous at best and I've heard that they can awaken latent schizophrenia

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>>18248658
I forgot to list meditation. I've done that, yoga, etc.

>>18248537
The annoying thing is that it only gets better with repetition. So keep doing it, fail, do it again, fail, do it some more, fail etc.

>>18248537
get a dog

>>18248662
You've tried meditation? What did you do, exactly? How much time per day? For how long?

>>18248663
It feels like it's only getting worse, and my mind is rotting more and more each time
>>18248670
Tried it. Had to give the dog to my parents because it was getting anxious because it could tell I'm fucked up

>>18248660
I've read that too. Damn, sorry about that.

Definitely read into ayahuasca though. I've once read of how they called a depressed, manic bipolar child just couldn't be healed. His family thought he would have to be instituted for life. But then, he was taken under the wing of a Shaman. After a few months, his depression was gone.

When you take ayahuasca, you'll be guided by a Shaman throughout your whole trip, ensuring you have a very good experience.

Id hate to make you think about about now, but what kind of things do you think about that gets you depressed?

>>18248673
When I was in the mental hospital, there was an indian nurse there that would take us through an hour of meditation every other morning besides the weekends. She would walk us through breathing exercises, thought suppression (idk a better way to describe it) and would end each session with a weird indian proverb.

>>18248677
In addition, Tim Ferris said taking ayahuasca [fixed 90% of his long term anger issues], though idk how he can measure 90% of his anger on a metaphorical type of scale lol

>>18248677
I'll read about it. But it sounds like more voodoo mumbo jumbo garbage, it never works, at least for me.

It's not really thoughts that get me depressed, it's just there's really no reason to get up in the morning. I do it anyway because I've tried laying in bed all the time and it didn't help, but I still am just going through the motions. I take no pleasure in anything. Everything is dull at best and painful at the worst

>>18248703
>never works
But anon, there's tons of positive feedback. While i don't believe humans can throw fireballs, i strongly believe in subtle magic. While our senses might not feel the mental world, it definitely exists and interacts with the physical world. Think about the connection of mentalism and the christian phrase "the kingdom of god is within you".

>never works, for me at least
Can't knock it til you try, thats my motto. Only then, you will have the right to disregard and rightfully talk bad about it, my friend

Feel better bro

>>18248680
Look, the reason I asked was because you can't exactly "try" meditation, it's not something that will make you better in a few months (or maybe even years). Every neurological study made on meditation showed that there are significant differences between the brains of people who meditated for a long time and people who didn't. But those differences appear only after years of practice.

Lacking a better analogy I'll say that meditating is like fitness for your brain. If you want to see significant results you have to do it regularly, for a long time and you have to change some of your habits for it. But meditation takes even longer to show results because you first need to understand your own mind before you can start to work on changing it.

Breathing exercises and "thought suppression" won't cure depression on their own, they can only temporary relax and calm you and give you a better understanding of your mind. Which is very important, but not your end goal.

I will note that you should never try to actually suppress your thoughts. You will have thoughts no matter what. One of the meditation practices is similar to this, but you actually have to acknowledge your thoughts and let them pass, without constructing other thoughts based on them. Not try to suppress all thinking.

There is a lot of mysticism surrounding meditation and a lot of "experts" have no idea what they're doing. If you're going to meditate you should first understand what you're doing. First of all, if you're going to meditate you have to do it daily. I don't care if you're feeling bad, if you're in a vacation, if you're having an important project at work, find some time and do it. When you start do it for at least 15 minutes. You can do it for longer, but not less than 15 minutes.

(cont)

>>18248770
Then as you get comfortable with it add more time, preferably until you reach an hour a day. Don't rush it, this is supposed to take a long time. Don't try to meditate for an hour every day from the get-go, you'll most likely start to hate it and give up on it. It will take time. You should get to meditating an hour every day after a year or two.

There are many forms of meditations. For the first months I recommend you do this: sit in a chair or in a half lotus position with your back against a wall. For the first ~5 minutes focus on your body parts, one at a time. Start with your feet, then lower legs, then upper legs, pelvic region, stomach region, chest, shoulders, arms, head. Don't do anything, just focus on them, feel them, be aware of them. Then, for the rest of the time focus on your breath. Don't try to control it, don't "judge" it, don't think about how long or short they are, just be aware of inhaling and exhaling. You can try to think "up" when you're inhaling and "down" when you're exhaling. You will inevitably get lost in thoughts. Whenever you realize that it happened go back to focusing on the breath. This is probably what you were referring to as "thought suppression". But again, you're not actually suppressing you're thoughts, you're just not getting lost in them.

The main reason you're doing this is to improve your concentration and patience and, most important to start getting a feel about your thought processes. The longer you do this the more aware of your thoughts and emotions you will become.

(cont)

>>18248656
I have serious psychological issues, and I'm planning to do iboga before ayahuasca. Having read a ton of testimonials, I feel like I'm a better candidate for iboga.

>>18248774
Right now you're probably aware of that voice in your head, that's always "talking" about something. Remembering things, making plans, worrying about the future, thinking about sex, all of that. Basically, what you're doing with this kind of meditation is you observe that voice. After enough practice you will start "hearing" a voice that comes from deeper within you, that guides your emotions, cravings, desires and actions without you being aware of it. I know it sounds like some mystical bullshit, but I have no better way of putting it into words. You won't actually start hearing voices, you'll just be more aware of your thoughts and emotions. Again, for the lack of a better analogy it's like looking at the layers of an onion. You start with the outermost one, that being the voice you hear all the time in this analogy then work your way to the center.

We don't understand why we think most of the things we think, why we want most of the things we want and why we have certain beliefs and emotions, even if we think we do. This is what meditation does, it allows you to understand these things and then to change them.

Look, I can go on forever with this. Read that book I recommended, it will be more insightful than my comments. And also you may want to read "10% Happier" before it, it's an introduction to meditation for a hardcore skeptic, it's a pretty interesting book and it shows the experiences of a normal Joe with this practice. But yeah, the one by Matthieu Ricards does an amazing job at explaining how and why meditation works, from both a buddhist and a scientific point of view.

You may still think this is all mumbly-jumbly voodoo magic, but, again there are many studies that show there is something to meditation and, frankly, you might as well devote yourself to it, since you seem to have exhausted any "reasonable" alternative, even suicide.

>>18248770
>>18248774
>>18248790
It feels shitty to not write a super long response since you put all of that effort into writing this, but I really don't have the mental stamina to give you the response you deserve. Just know that I've read what you've written and I am giving it all some thought. I will consider putting some effort into meditation if I can drum any motivation and energy up. Thanks

>>18248816
Start by reading those books. This is the first effort you should put into it.