My parters mother has endured a life of endless emotional despair and physical abuse,
she has, from my point of view, a fearful disposition to trust herself.

Completely taken in by a world of advertisement she has an addiction to material, not in a flashy egotistical way. In a sense she uses the next "cheap deal" to reserve her existence.
She has and extreme affliction with the notion of sleep and will sometimes go days without sleep,
she finds that the need to sleep will be there, however, when it comes to lying down in bed she is subjected to a cinema of past experiences, not visually, just looping thoughts. After, perhaps 1-3 hours of these thoughts/memories she can find herself in floods of tears.

She is currently prescribed sleeping pills and anti-depressant pills, I have noticed her method of consumption to be "strange" in the way that she will cut and chop pills saving bits for later. as though she were a teenager experimenting with ecstasy.


After all types of pills and all manner of speculative theories of reasons, she has asked me if I know of any "alternative" therapies.

Only knowing the small amount of information about natural anti-depression medicines/herbs, I have asked her to hold on for a while while i gather al of the information i can ( in fear of recommending the opposite of what could possibly benefit her)

What i did "try" to express was the importance of consciousness, awareness of the unconscious, conscious breathing, meditation and personal freedom

If anybody could recommend any specific replacements for anti-depressant medication (i will find out her specific medication tomorrow)

I am familiar with Kanna - Sceletium tortuosum

Also any alternatives to sleeping pills?

Aside from that any helpful advice, personal experience or any thoughts.

All are welcome !

Many thanks

Possibly Marijuana for an anti-depressant replacement, but I would be cautious as it could be counterproductive with the bad thoughts/memories. Also with higher indigo strands, it can help with sleep. Another good natural sleep supplement would be Valerian Root. I've suggested it to a number of different people before and have heard mixed reactions. I find it helps get me to that real tired feeling, but won't knock me out cold like Tylenol PM would, so it may seem mild in comparison to sleeping pills but worth a shot nevertheless. I hope everything works out well for her!

It is good that she has asked you for alternative therapies.

There is one that I can highly recommend, and that is Iboga.

It is serious stuff. A person who undergoes Iboga treatment should really get their heart examined, as well as an EKG interpreted before ingesting the stuff. There is a lot of information to learn about, but IMHO this is probably the best route to go down.

If she cannot afford a clinic, you can effectively administer it to her if you research and take the necessary precautions. I effectively dosed myself, for example.

People use Iboga to get people off of drugs and through withdrawal symptoms, giving them a clean slate if done properly. All the information you need can be found here http://eboka.info/ and we also have an Iboga subforum on the DMT-Nexus.


Other people will have different recommendations, but this is mine. Take care and let us know how she progresses.



P.s. If she has PTSD from the abuse, it might take more than Iboga. She should probably consult a professional in this field who deals with helping people who have had abuse if she hasn't already. Sometimes it takes more than psychedelics and meditation, it takes actual clinical therapy, over long periods of time, to get a person through the past.

Peace

Thank you very much i will do all the research i can on Iboga.

With regards the the professional help, she has tried many.
Also, she used to work in the psychological field and sees through a lot of it.

Pan man,

Thanks for the suggestion, i had mentioned cannabis to her. Only problem being, i think this could potentiate the problem.
Perhaps with her mind open wide and heart full of love i definitely would recommend cannabis :-)

Anyway thank you very much

I will keep you posted

i would ask you to get her iboga therapy

you could then advice here to take cannabis after that , cannabis is also a healer but as you say this can be problematic now so go for iboga and then make sure she is off all synthetic medicines of any kind ,

cannabis can help her later once she has recovered from synthetic sleeping pills after the iboga therapy

I think its really good she came to you for advice on alternative therapy. For natural sleep aids I second valerian. Also, chamomile and passionflower(although this is a mild MAOI and idk if it would interact with her medication). Down the road, and when she becomes better at letting herself fall asleep, then I would recommend her practicing Lucid Dreaming. Although I'm relatively new to it, if she does at some point seem interested I can give my advice and some resources on the subject. There is potential for healing one's self through dreams....but this might be a more viable option later on.
My strong personal recommendation would be introducing her to yoga. It is very good for releasing stored emotions and helping to clear the mind from thought loops that get stored in the body. Strengthening the mind-body connection at a loving and accepting yoga school in your area could do her a lot of good. As far as anti-depressant replacement goes, maybe she could try Kava. It always seems good for grounding me and making me more present, and ive read it has anti-depressant qualities. Idk the legality or how it would be for her, but salvia has reported antidepressant qualities. And I know once I come back, i always feel ALOT better. But again, I cant say how it would work for her. And my final recommendation is maybe try getting her a djembe. Drumming can be very healing and helpful in releasing stored emotions. I wish her my best.

Yoga! Try a few different classes until one feels right, as not all teachers/styles will suite. One a week at the very least!

Thanks englishmelting,

I have explained briefly to her the positive effect of dreaming, even on a scale of something to look forward to.

I taught myself to become positive about sleeping, to me it used to be " you lie down in a bed for a few hours and then get up, whats the fu*king point"

Through experimenting with lucid dreaming i managed to conquer my fear of heights (although it is creeping back slowly)

I will recommend the yoga to her, i had not thought of this thank you.

What i am hoping to do is compile the information and offer her a couple of "packages" so to speak, feel like a dirty car salesman saying that!

But what i want to do is offer HER the choice, rather than say here take this do this get better. Moreover i want her to feel the change as she is very quick to circumnavigate herself away from things and then denounce them completely.

With that in mind the iboga/ibogaine seems to be very promising as she really will feel the effects, meanwhile i could aid her in reaching deeper into meditation and effectively deeper into herself and thus deeper into all that exist.

A question in regards to valerian root, she has tried this before however after taking excessive amounts of prescription sleeping pills she denounced them,

I am wondering if this was due to the prescription medication or the possibly crappy pills i.e low quality, old material....

Although salvia for me possesses some anti-depressant qualities, she is worried about tripping in any sense ( she seems to be fairly open minded recently so hopefully she may feel more comfortable to try more visionary entheogens)

The general feel is that breathing, meditation and yoga are elementary.

Thanks for the help everybody

Peace

Personally I Would focus more on real life, rather than dreaming, but that is just me.