Hi folks,
I am Giardap, a relative newcomer explorer to DMT but experienced with a number of psychedelics such as LSD, Psilocybin, Ketamine, 2c-b, MDMA (and I want to say high dose oral cannabis, but some wont agree with the classification I guess!). I have had an interesting journey with psychedelics to arrive here today...
Originally I started out, as a kid trying to escape my reality, for many reasons... by using LSD and Mushrooms (and Truffles), MDMA and 2c-b. Then, into my late 20's I decided to move away and focus on 'health' as defined by our typical western society. Unfortunately, a big piece of health that matters, headspace, suffered greatly over time as the decades rolled by, due to the reality I had mentioned wanting to escape from, but also various events and subsequent issues that came up over the years. Those events culminated in a hospital stay, due to depression, PTSD, and a particular disorder that happens to be pretty serious it turns out... so, you can start to form a picture of what things were like then.
Well, sitting on a hospital bed, knowing I had limited time to solve my situation, I began to lean back on my old academic skills in research as well as my general interest in STEM...
On to Pubmed I went, with my mission being to compartmentalise each issue I had and focus on resolving them where possible. Afterall, depression medication, mood stabilisers and anti-pychotics did not work for me. I just fall into the population of people that they do not work for. And with this particular disorder, in my humble opinion, any reasonable level of intelligence can become pathological.
What I discovered almost made me spill my bedpan! Studies out of the Imperial College London, on psilocybin for depression in treatment resistant depressed cancer patients. I was astounded. 'I KNOW THESE THINGS', I thought. I read aggressively, searching out confirmation, discovering Fadmian's work and presentation of his big uncontrolled study. I really went down the rabbit hole.
Anyhow, I weighed up the risk of getting it wrong, balanced it with my experiences to date, my constitution for such things, the research evidence, and committed to exploring this alternative. I accessed truffles, created a protocol that mixed Fadiman's approach with the Imperial College approach, but at a threshold limit that ensured psychological safety, and overnight... literally overnight....
I cured my depression.
There are no words, that can convey how profound that is. None.
But to the now... well, I am on a mission, one that encompasses mental health, wellness, one that is now starting to touch on spirituality. DMT is a part of this, as are other psychedelics. MAPS' recent studies on MDMA for PTSD give me hope I can shed the last residue of my PTSD. Covid has stopped a trial on Ketamine for Borderline, so I continue to research that space. And then DMT... well apart from having my mind blown, from having been pleasantly shocked by it... I feel it may have a therapeutic effect and I wish to explore that.
So, here I am. Happy to be here, hoping to meet you all and to learn and hey, share if I ever can.
Pseudo Citizen Scientist,
Giardap!