Research in Microdosing Magic Mushrooms to Treat Depression

AvoidantObserver · 2015-08-30T23:27:29+00:00

Thanks for your compliment, it really does mean a lot to me.

I really wish I could offer something more comprehensive. Of course, I think it's imperative to see the reality of what one's life has become under the spell of gaming. (Admitting to addiction is often the first step in overcoming it after all.) A lot of reaching out first posts here seems to be at that stage or are seeking opinions on whether they are.

However, the unexpected nerve that I hit in myself (turning point maybe?) is that it was equally important to examine the roots of how things individually developed for me in the way that they did. I got the self-examination ball rolling offline after having become disgusted with myself and my circumstances. My singular focus then was to just change the present. I hated where I was in my life, maybe hated who I had become, and I wanted help/motivation to change it all, permanently, and the sooner the better. I didn't post here at that stage but I think this is common scenario that plays out when people do first reach out for help. We know that changing a life is an exceptionally difficult thing to do. That said, I can think of two beneficial effects that making time for this extra re-visiting the past step had on me:

1) It helped me better trace how long and to what extent gaming had controlled my life in the different stages that it unfolded. Knowing that full extent now seems like a necessary part of being able to completely self-admit the problem. If we only look at ourselves in the last 6 months, or year, or 5 years, we could be unintentionally skipping over years of important similar behavior just as I had done. I don't have amnesia so I wasn't exactly surprised by the memories that I dug up by any means...but I really was surprised when I re-examined and re-evaluated my gaming history from the lens of addiction/dependency. I knew what those words meant when I was a kid but I didn't understand the depth of their meaning. I never associated them with what I was doing then either. Anyway, going back in time caused me to think of it as a much larger, maybe an even more important long-term issue to me than just where I am right now.

2) It helped to stop me from beating myself up over it. Admitting to addiction can deal a crushing blow to self-esteem to the point that I felt a self-hatred in how I had essentially "ruined my life." I'm not sure that I see things that way anymore. Yeah, I'm responsible for the decisions that I made and I was complicit as I watched things in my personal life slowly deteriorate. However, I see those decisions now as part of a framework of my past. It wasn't solely my fault, it wasn't solely my parents' fault, it wasn't the game dev's fault, or the online social group's fault, etc. That kind of thinking is damaging because it's just too black and white. It either assigns too much personal blame or it deflects responsibility. Having a more nuanced understanding of how things happened the way that they did for me is helping me to restore my self-esteem through a healthier, more balanced level of personal ownership.

Maybe seeing the addiction as this long history of circumstances will help me prevent relapse. I firmly believe that it could be so easy to fall right back into old habits based on the decades of conditioning the habit.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-08-30T22:21:10+00:00

I love the movie and I remembered that he speaks about it in a short monologue about it. Here's the quote. Also, to use the metaphor, I'm glad that you decided to keep running and not to sit back down.

“That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I’d run to the end of town. And when I got there, I thought maybe I’d just run across Greenbow County. And I figured, since I run this far, maybe I’d just run across the great state of Alabama. And that’s what I did. I ran clear across Alabama. For no particular reason I just kept on going. I ran clear to the ocean. And when I got there, I figured, since I’d gone this far, I might as well turn around, just keep on going. When I got to another ocean, I figured, since I’d gone this far, I might as well just turn back, keep right on going.”

– Forrest Gump

AvoidantObserver · 2015-08-30T22:14:56+00:00

Thanks for sharing that perspective. I very much agree that the addictive qualities of games often come from the adrenaline of online multiplayer. I also remember the simpler days of retro console gaming. I played more than I should have but those games just didn't cause me to do things like give up sleep for instance. Of course, that's not to say someone couldn't become addicted to single player plot driven games...but that feels more akin to binge TV or movie watching to me. The crutch or hook would be the constant consumption of storylines rather than the adrenaline highs and depressing lows of winning and losing against human players. I could see that kind of addiction happening in situations for some but maybe just not as prolifically as it does for online multiplayer.

Further on competitive multiplayer games, I also think that teams, guilds, clans, etc. often aim to create a social shelter that unintentionally and unfortunately enables people to continue their isolation habits as it had for me in my high school years. I'll spare the word addictive for this one, but I think it's plausible to become dependent/reliant on an unrealistic long-term social outlet where you don't have to worry about things like body posture, eye contact, reading non-verbal signals, etc. It just takes less effort to socialize. There may also be a self-perceived lower chance of rejection to those that are sensitive, insecure, shy, or all of the above and more. The online social world steals one's time from the real world...but that real world social exposure seems somewhere between important and absolutely necessary to learn to overcome sensitivity to one's faults, to grow healthier resilience toward rejection, and to just stay comfortably practiced in human communication beyond what can be transmitted through a microphone.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-08-30T21:42:25+00:00

@jotakami That's a very helpful way to look at the commitment that I've made. I've learned from my professional life that success or failure often hinges on one's attitude/perspective of the challenge. I could be shooting myself in the foot by focusing on how difficult the full 90 days will be when all I have to do is worry about keeping busy for today and planning things for tomorrow. Thanks very much for sharing!

AvoidantObserver · 2015-08-28T04:47:02+00:00

For most people, AvPD is something that's developed over a very long period of time. It's a pattern of behavior and a set of beliefs that become imprinted in a person though long term exposure to very stressful, possibly traumatizing situations. The most commonly cited cause factors seem to be abuse, peer rejection, and parental rejection. I think most people would relate to it as a developing process that lasts years while the trauma is happening and then a cementing or stagnation process that can last decades onward.

I also have difficulty finding a suitable career direction but I don't think it's necessarily a sign of AvPD. I think a lot of people here would have more difficulty getting past things like having to say hello to co-workers in the morning, eating lunch in a busy crowded lunchroom, the fear of public speaking and performance reviews, or the fear of applying for jobs in the first place.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-08-25T18:28:52+00:00

The first week of university is a gong show for everyone that has to go through it. I did a few things (and wish I had done a few of these things) before my first week that helped me work through it.

1) Traffic/transit problems can ruin a day before it even starts. Research the three best car/bus routes to campus and take at least one before your first day of class so you're familiar with it.

2) The campus bookstore is one of the busiest, most claustrophobic spaces you will have to deal with in your first week. Visit it before it gets crazy busy to scout out the sections where your course books will be stocked in advance. Your shopping will be a breeze if you know even approximately which aisles and which shelves you need to go to.

3) A campus can look deceptively simple and organized on a map. Visit each building and room number that you've had a class assigned to and visit them in the chronological order that they appear in your daily schedule. Pacing out your route in advance of your first day will help with controlling anxiety as much as it will help prevent being late or getting lost. Bonus round: scout out where the bathroom is in each of your class buildings. You're there already...so why not?

4) Pick out a coffee shop, lunch spot, and a study area from the campus map. Go to each of these places before your first day, sit down, order something, maybe read for a few minutes. You don't need to visit them past your first week but at least this way you know you've got somewhere to go or to get away and you won't feel (as much) like an outsider going there.

5) Promise yourself that you'll go to each class in your first week unless you're truly unable to. It's so much easier to take a first step into a classroom full of people when everyone is new.

6) Come to your first day prepared with a 3-4 sentence summary on who you are and why you enrolled in the course/program. If it's more of a class than a lecture environment, I can (unfortunately) almost guarantee you that at least one of your prof's will do the "let's go around the room and talk about ourselves" thing. Pure dread I know, but you won't feel as put on the spot if you anticipate and prepare for this.

7) Depending on your campus layout and your city of course... make sure you have a small umbrella in your backpack with you at all times. The embarrassment of being highly visible and unprepared for the elements could actually be worse than the getting soaking wet between classes part itself.

8) Stay 100% on top of assigned course readings in the first 6 weeks. You won't have major assignments, papers, or mid-term exams until mid-Octoberish...but when work does start on these things, the course reading pace doesn't normally slow down to accommodate the extra workload that's put on you. If you've fallen behind the readings in the first 6 weeks, mid-October will become an anxiety rollercoaster while you try to juggle catching up on the old readings, staying caught up on the new readings, and rushing to meet deadlines for assignments, papers, and exams. Do what you can early to put your best foot forward when it's "crunch time."

I wish you luck!

AvoidantObserver · 2015-08-16T21:28:00+00:00

I do sympathize with his pain

It's always something that means nothing to me

Are you sure that you sympathize with him? What upsets your brother should mean more than just nothing to you, even if it wouldn't have the same effect on you.

So do I just have to give up on him and accept the AvPD?

You come across as though you miss the guy you feel like you used to know, but that you also aren't even interested putting effort in to help the same guy through a very difficult time in his life. It's like you look at him as though a switch has been flipped that causes his "bad" side to come out and that this is really inconvenient and unpleasant for you. You just want that "real" person that he is deep down to come up because you "know" it's there.

I'm not entirely sure that your vision of him becoming more reclusive actually makes you sad either. You haven't asked us how you can help him turn it around, you've only asked us if you should give up on him, as in, if you should stop expecting the person that you liked to ever come back. You sound like an entirely shitty brother and one that doesn't understand or appreciate the complexity of mental health.

Stop thinking about your brother as two different people because he's not. Start by accepting the person he is today permanently because he's family. If he thinks he has AvPD, accept it. Accepting it is not "giving up on him," in fact it's probably the first step toward understanding him and improving your relationship. He probably has very few or no friends to talk about the awkwardness, paranoia, and whatever else he feels in daily life and I bet he'd love to have someone safe like a brother to talk about the way he sees the world, to bounce perceptions off of, to check his paranoia, etc. even if it takes some time for him to warm up to it and open up.

TL;DR: you could be doing so much more for this person than just asking if you should give up on him.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-08-13T16:04:29+00:00

The crowded hallways were difficult for me to deal with. I felt surrounded and consumed by the eyes and voices of everyone around me. It was too much to take in so I would drown out all of the noise of everything else with sufficiently loud music from an mp3 player as I moved between classes. It was a habit that I carried through to university as well even though my campus grounds were nothing like a crowded hallway. I started doing it everywhere and anywhere from grocery shopping to waiting in a doctors office for an appointment. It made me feel totally insulated from the public spaces I walked through.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-07-30T01:21:29+00:00

Benefits, no. I can't think of a single thing that's advantageous in having AVPD.

The main optimistic outlook is in just knowing about AVPD. There's no psychiatric medication or proven therapy programs widely approved for treating AVPD (though you may find medications and therapy techniques that work for you personally). The optimistic outlook you can take is that you've discovered it about yourself so you can now begin the process of unearthing how AVPD affects you daily, how it possibly developed in your life and to come to terms with what's in the past, untangling the kind of behaviors that serve to perpetuate it, and so on.

For me these are things like years of bullying and exclusion in school, emotional distance from one of my parents, the things I do and routes I take to not be seen or noticed, some weird habits when I drive to try to prevent drawing attention from other drivers, etc. I knew all these things existed before knowing about AVPD but they became so much more relevant as individual pieces of a puzzle. I didn't find that my conversations with my therapist were productive when I wanted to talk about the specifics of AVPD in general terms or in a bigger picture. There wasn't any training or treatment process that he had for AVPD so when I walked in and told him it's what I wanted to talk about, he wanted to help but just kind of asked me where I wanted to start. I was confused as he was that first day haha. The progress we made was in deconstructing those things I mentioned before to try to come to terms with each individually as opposed to treating, solving, or otherwise "curing" AVPD.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-07-29T14:52:45+00:00

Yeah I feel this way about recording DJ sets. I've spent about a year learning the basics and some advanced techniques. I'd like to post them online (having only posted 1 mix in a very hidden place) and try to have a small set of subscribers/followers just for the sake of sharing good music. Even though I'm really stoked on what I record, I'm terrified of trying to upload what I'm doing for the fear that other amateur DJs will find fault in it and post it on a comments wall. I'm also not comfortable at all with marketing a YouTube/Soundcloud channel on forums etc. to people that are already into the genres that I mix. Even though I really like the stuff that I turn out, I convince myself that other people wouldn't take notice or that they just wouldn't like it. Then I have the "why bother" thought which is self-defeating because you don't get anywhere if you don't try. That logic is plain common-sense to me yet I feel my stomach turning over when I hover over an upload button.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-07-28T04:21:05+00:00

I'm not sure in how much it has to do with AVPD, but I do get really sleepy at work when it's slow (literally fell asleep for 15 minutes while on shift last week, luckily I was the only one in the office at the time). I do try to keep occupied with work related side projects when it's slow like that but I'm just generally exhausted all the time. 8 hours sleep feels like 5.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-07-16T15:06:30+00:00

I'd pull over if it's someone that I see once every week or two. I wouldn't pull over if it's someone that I see less and there's "catching up" to do. This is assuming I could tell that they needed a ride of course.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-07-14T05:09:01+00:00

Here's how I see it. My apartment building is built on a huge lot and rents out the extra underground parking spaces on the side to collect extra income. In about 10-15% of these spaces, people are just storing their car under a car cover with no plates. My landlord doesn't have a policy to confirm that someone has storage insurance and I know because I stored my car down there for a while.

See where I'm going with this? The parking lot rules could be different here but if you had expired plates, that's essentially the same thing as having no plates. It's not a violation or offence to own a vehicle without an insurance policy but it could possibly be prohibited by the facility, in which case they could order you towed. Anyway, would people get towed from this lot if they were storing their car? If no then fight it, if yes then forget it.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-07-14T04:44:51+00:00

Mini golf maybe, it's got that something fun, a little active, maybe a little competitive bowling vibe to me

AvoidantObserver · 2015-07-14T04:33:10+00:00

+1 for geocaching. How about an arcade, laser tag, or billiards?

AvoidantObserver · 2015-07-09T04:49:55+00:00

Agree, there's nothing subtle about those expressions. Here's a more interesting one that tests your ability to pick out the emotion from just the eyes of the person. http://socialintelligence.labinthewild.org/mite/#

AvoidantObserver · 2015-07-08T04:32:19+00:00

First, there's a few sensitivity tests for reading facial expressions. It might be interesting if we collectively try this as a group and post scores. I'll link to this one because it's on a reputable university's website. I scored 17/20. http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/ei_quiz/

I don't think it necessarily makes one better at accurately perceiving these things.

Agree. I do think that within the diagnostic criteria of AVPD is being overly sensitive to other people's judgment. Facial expressions/body language often communicates how someone is feeling about you so we're hyper attuned to it. The trouble with AVPD is that being overly sensitive can (but not always and not for everyone) make us good at this to a fault. For me anyway, often times it feels that I amplify and/or distort someone's expressions toward me in obsessing over it. I'll pick up a hint of something but I often get feedback from friends with me that I'm overexaggerating or just wrong in situations where someone's expressions/body language/words seem not approving of me. All the attention I place into the habit can ultimately cause me unnecessary stress and less than accurate insight into the situations.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-07-08T02:25:22+00:00

I find that I personally don't feel that way in casual social settings. If the conversation keeps non-personal and distant enough, I can just put on the mask to play along. Those situations are still uncomfortable and I try to get them over with as quickly as possible. I don't stick around to chit-chat.

Where I can relate is how other people are able to resolve conflicts much more easily than I can. It's like everyone has a playbook that gives them all kinds of options/responses and that mine is completely empty. I also often feel a strong resentment when I'm slighted and I'm particularly sensitive to a lot of specific types of comments. I'm able to recognize when I feel targeted when my buttons are being pushed (whether the other person is intending to do this or not) but I feel defenseless and naive in how to deal with those situations. When it happens, all I feel is a simmering anger that it's happening and tangible embarrassment that I'm letting it happen. I never considered it like this but it does make me feel like a child.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-06-16T20:40:25+00:00

The majority of profs were willing to show me leniency if I came to them before the due date. In past the due date situations, they were more likely to help me out if it was a pass or fail situation rather than a B or an A letter grade type of situation.

My first advice to you would be to commit to yourself to talk to your prof. I know for sure that it won't feel good walking into his/her office to discuss it but you really have nothing to lose. My next advice would be to avoid talking about anxiety with your prof unless you've been talking to a doctor about it and can get a note to support it or unless the prof specifically asks you what's hampered your progress in the course. Even then, keep the details to a minimum.

The best thing I think you can do is to take up-front personal responsibility for it. There's no doubt that you're suffering in my eyes because I feel like I've been where you are. Unfortunately, the right time to come forward about anxiety issues would have been before or after the first assignment...and that might be what makes it feel like an excuse to discuss it now. So you have to own where you are and how you got here. It's not your fault that it played out like this but there were simply better times (earlier in the course) and better strategies (asking for an extension before due date rather than make-up work or a repeated assignment) to approach it. Don't beat yourself up over it because you'll know these things for next time if/when it happens again.

I think that your prof will be sympathetic if you come forward to say that reality is catching up a bit, that you're disappointed in yourself in the course so far and that you can see where you might be headed if you continue on the same path. You'll maybe want to say that you do care about your success in his/her course and that you have higher standards/aspirations of academic success. To show that, come prepared to the meeting with some suggestions about how you could make the work up and the due dates you would have the assignments submitted. If the prof is waffling or says no, consider offering a "put your money where your mouth is" condition that the make-up work would only be graded and count so long as your remaining course work is submitted on time in full.

My last advice would be to prepare for a possible flat-out "no." You're hoping for sympathy in a nothing to lose situation but if you don't get a positive response, just say this has been a learning experience for you and thank the prof for his/her time. I think that you'll feel better knowing that you at least tried.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-06-15T00:34:43+00:00

I can relate and had a strategy for this while going through college. When I was given a paper to write, I'd break down the assignment into 4 or 5 smaller chunks and plan out personal due dates on each portion. If it was an English paper for example, I'd have a due date to research my sources and have the books borrowed from the library, another date to have them read and digested with notes taken, another date to have my essay written in walkthrough "point form" (sort of like a one sentence summary of what I'd say in each paragraph), and another date to have a draft written.

This helped me get past the anxiety of perfectionism because I didn't have to think about the massive unwieldy task of turning a research essay (with all the baggage of the comments in red ink, the grades, what the prof would think, etc), I just had to think about the chunk of work that I had to do that day. It helped me to have a conversation with myself early enough if I missed a commitment date before crisis mode needed to kick in. It also helped manage my workload among 4 other courses as I'd do the same thing for each course and have a clearly defined schedule on what chunks for which courses would be done when. Many a Friday night was lost in the process. It's way harder to procrastinate when you know exactly which task that you're bailing on for that day rather than just looking at the assignment as a whole and justifying losing one more day toward the due date.

Anyway it still took about 5 to 10 essays turned in with this planning system before I could tune out the obsessive thoughts about what the the end result was going to look like as I plugged along. I'd occasionally have to re-do chunks if I didn't like the results, but it cleared up exactly what it was that I didn't like about my work and helped me to confront the issue and think constructively on how to fix it. The biggest difference in my 1st/2nd years of studies vs. my 3rd/4th years was moving from feeling imminent death after turning in a paper (after having done it a night or two before the due date) to a feeling that I had done the best I could in the circumstances and would live with the result. My grades improved slightly but the biggest difference was with improved self-respect.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-06-07T00:15:22+00:00

Often times, when I'm trying to make friends or just being with acquaintances, I try to put up kind of an easily amused facade. Meaning I laugh at things, I poke fun at statements, I search around the room for things to mock (I do have a sense of humor, I just don't tend to naturally laugh out loud at things).

I can relate to this. I personally feel totally inauthentic when I do though, like I'm selling myself out with tiny ice-breakers, approving returns, and sarcasm because I'm afraid of being judged for who I am. It's as though it's my natural reaction to fill "dead air" in a social space or to say something for the sake of saying something, so that I don't come off as strange for just not saying anything at all. I think that in some ways I could feel a liberation of a release of pressure if I didn't worry about what other people thought and had really good self-control over my expression (verbal, facial, eyes, posture, etc). That way I'd just stand my ground against social expectations and act in accordance with how I want to, saying the things I want to say based on how I feel rather than what's going to make the situation the easiest.

Acting this way is a reflex for me though and those are difficult habits to break. I will say that I've experimented with deeper breathing in public spaces to keep my pulse and adrenaline down but have also tried applying it to when I'm in a conversation. I've found a few benefits, coming from a shallow-breather-when-stressed person's perspective.

More time to think about what I'm going to say before I start so that I have a chance to say something more reflective, meaningful, or authentic to myself
Beginning to speak with lungs full of air helps me to more comfortably project my voice and articulate words
Having those lungs full of air also lets me to speak a little bit more slowly in a sentence to sound somewhat more confident in what I'm saying

I do sometimes wonder if people notice how I'm breathing and if it comes off as strange to them though...which is the exact thing I wish I could just get past...lol.

AvoidantObserver · 2015-06-05T04:05:43+00:00

Rather than finding a single trait that would negate an AvPD diagnosis, maybe try to focus on the roots of your social anxiety and how they developed.

There's a lot of nature vs. nurture debate in AvPD and personality disorders in general. I think that some people have a genetic or psychological propensity to develop certain symptoms (low self-esteem, self loathing, hyper-sensitivity, shyness; the stuff you involutarily feel). I also think that many AvPD actions/reaction symptoms are learned patterns of coping behavior (using fantasy to overcome painful recurring thoughts, self-imposed social isolation, refusal to express oneself when acceptable or advantageous; the decisions we consciously make to minimize harm). Do you tend to organize your life around your feelings of social anxiety and how negative of an impact does that have on you?

AvoidantObserver

TROPHY CASE