[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

doctors = been there done that got the irreversible side effects.

done the diary. tried med after med. read about the faked test results for ssri's, met the blank stares of nhs staff. different member of staff talks to me, recommends X med based on my symptoms, later that day another member of staff recommends Y after i say the same thing. this goes on endlessly. fuck them and their bad science

right, so you never got a proper diagnosis? i get that there is a lot of guessing and trial and error, but i always took meds in the context of therapy which helped frame and focus things… it wasn't purely a roulette. i also was lucky that had good doctors with a sense of humor, not mere bots… last prescription i got was from some cold bitch that wanted me out of there fast so i didn't use the prescription… i'm not a set of symptoms, i'm a person, and she didn't understand me enough to prescribe me anything.

i have my own story with SSRIs, even a few visionary dreams, but that's too long to tell.

anyway, in the sense that you're being abandoned by the medical system, becoming your own doctor might be your last resort. but if you already have a diagnosis it might be a good starting point. i didn't say keep a diary of your meds, but rather a diary of your cigarette habit-- what it does to you, and how you feel about it from purchase to use to withdrawal to next purchase. if you want to kill the habit, you have to stalk it first. know it inside and out, in concrete details not generalizations.

then and only then can you device hacks for each reward and find self-medication alternatives. does buying something you can easily afford give you pleasure where you're otherwise poor? find something else cheap and thrilling to buy. does smoking satisfy you orally? put something else in your mouth. does puffing help your anxiety? find a different treatment for your anxiety. does the nicotine help with concentration? does it help with depression? you could try things as varied as meditation or tweaking your soylent nutrient profile (e.g. extra tyrosine or phenylalanine which are dopamine precursors). maybe you need extra magnesium so you can sleep well. maybe you need more sunlight, or vitamin d, or omega 3, or something else. maybe you need different people around you. staying healthy in a toxic and artificial environment is not an easy thing to do. a fish in a poisoned pond doesn't need "vitamins", it needs a clean fucking pond. and yes you can't get from here to there instantly but you need to break it down into actionable steps and hammer at each one and sometimes it's like a whackamole as you take 2 steps forward and 1 step back but that's life-- a bitch. still, i like to keep punching, because to stop hurts worse.