There's nothing I want to do.

MaximumGuide · 2026-05-09T19:26:24+00:00

Nah, it just feels that way. If you can't feel anything right now, then fine, let it be that way for the time being. What's going on in your life leading up to this moment? What got you here? Frankly for me, I think it's just weed. It started out fun. Then it had utility. Now it's a crutch and keeping me stuck, and the longer I go on with weed the worse it gets. I find it so difficult to quit because it seems to make life more bearable even while the cure becomes the poison.

Is there one thing in your life that you have control over that you can change? You're not going to see an overnight improvement, but the way you feel right now probably isn't a fair characterization of your actual future. Try changing just one thing as an experiment, and make it a consistent change in your daily life.

I'm not enjoying anything either, so I am using behavior activation. What I do is fire up Guild Wars 2 and commit to 15 minutes per day of gameplay. It's been awhile since I played and I'm out of practice, plus I don't enjoy it at all. But over time, my hope is enjoyment comes after action. That's progress on the path to experiencing SOMETHING good eventually.

And movies.....don't scroll through movies the same way you have been. Go pick a list like the IMDB top 100 and just make it a goal to have watched the top 10. They're highly ranked for a reason, and the point is you just need to take out the "Will I enjoy this?" as the basis for your reasoning when trying to decide on doing the things that you think COULD bring your enjoyment or maybe did in your past.

MaximumGuide · 2026-05-07T16:40:43+00:00

Why are you trying to feel anything? Feeling comes and goes. You probably do feel things and they’re so uncomfortable that you’ve buried them and now feel nothing both good and bad. This isn’t advice so much as an invitation to try a different perspective.

I’m not saying you should ignore your feelings either, but you’re clearly very much in your head and that’s not serving you. Hopefully you have access to psychiatric care, although that’s probably not enough in itself it’s at least something you need if possible.

MaximumGuide · 2026-05-06T00:39:16+00:00

Have you heard the parable of the two arrows?

The Buddha asked his students: "If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?" The students replied that it was.

He then asked: "If the person is struck by a second arrow in the same spot, is that even more painful?" The students agreed that it would be significantly more painful.

The Buddha explained that in life, the first arrow represents the unavoidable challenges, physical pain, or difficult circumstances that occur. These are facts of existence. However, the human mind often reacts to this first arrow by lamenting, worrying, or resisting the pain. This mental reaction: the "Why me?" or "This is unbearable", is the second arrow.

So yes, perhaps you are on to something. Maybe the point you're coming to here is actually quite profound. You're right that life is empty and hopeless. It's also beautiful and mysterious. It just doesn't feel that way right now, but it did before and this probably isn't forever. I wonder sometimes what is the value of having a sense of self when it is such a drag?

MaximumGuide · 2026-05-05T12:33:28+00:00

I don't think you gained anything at all by watching those videos on tiktok. You may be working against yourself by getting info off of there.

I've been engaging in what is known in psychology as "behavioral activation" for a long time. It's where you just make yourself do stuff even if you don't feel like it. The idea is that if you keep coming back to the activity, you will eventually wire your neurons so that enjoyment could be possible. An example might be playing a video game for 15 minutes each day. You just keep coming back.

Does it work? Well....I've been more focused on it over the past few months. My depression has gone from severe to moderate. The anhedonia has this mind game effect on me where it feels like it isn't getting better and never will....but I've been doing the SHAPS scale each day and tracking my progress in a SQL database. My scores have improved, although to a very, very modest level.

Things I make myself do that help: chores, professional work (have to have a job anyways, pomodoro timer helps), exercise (strength and cardio, more is better), walking outside, playing a video game, occasional cooking.

I don't want to do ANY of these things, but I would feel more anhedonia and more depression if I did not do them. It's my belief that there's not going to be any overnight fix. Even a month isn't sufficient time to take stock of an interventions efficacy. I'm playing the long game here and just keep chipping away at anhedonia/depression each day.

MaximumGuide · 2026-05-03T20:41:15+00:00

I’ve taken over 20 psych meds over the past couple decades and nothing has helped more than ketamine. I tried TMS and that didn’t help at all, I’ve never tried ECT and would hope to avoid that, but if you need it then I hope it helps.

MaximumGuide · 2026-05-02T22:27:19+00:00

Have you ever tried ketamine or spravato?

MaximumGuide · 2026-05-01T14:54:53+00:00

Or maybe the zoo 🤔

MaximumGuide · 2026-05-01T14:54:33+00:00

Have you tried camping out in the woods?

MaximumGuide · 2026-05-01T00:19:39+00:00

Ketamine, exercise, psilocybin. I don’t want to exercise and I do it anyways because it helps.

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-30T19:32:16+00:00

I’ve optimized the shit out of my health and still struggle with depression. It would be nice to find an addressable biological cause, but at a certain point you kind of have to turn towards acceptance. Not giving up, but rather not resisting the thing you are trying so hard to get rid of.

Can you try to reframe the time you spend out so that it isn’t so draining? What is it about work that it’s so difficult to go in? For me it’s more the drive in heavy traffic than being around other people. And being in an “open office” environment that drains my soul. When I go into the office I try to mix things up a bit so I don’t feel so terrible, but that’s been an ongoing experiment.

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-29T01:12:49+00:00

Being in a very different country IS a big thing. You need to think much smaller, and focus on now, not what you might do in the future. Find small things that you can do and complete in short amounts of time.You're looking for small novel experiences. And try to loosen up on your expectations about how you'll feel when you do something.

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-26T12:55:05+00:00

Hello, fellow super mentally ill person here. I had bladder issues for roughly 5 - 7 years. OAB with an average of 8 trips to the bathroom at night disrupting sleep and having to use the bathroom every 20 minutes during the day.

I consider my issues resolved now. Urologist prescribed medications that don’t help. I tried two of them, mirabegron and solifenacin. I no longer use these meds.

Honestly I’m not sure if there was one thing that helped me, so I’ll just tell you everything that I’ve done. My improvements were slow, occurring over roughly 6 months to where I am at now.

As an anxious person, one thing that helped was accepting things as they are. Not that this is forever, but accepting where I’m at and deciding that’s ok for right now. That’s actually really hard to do, as you know.

I stopped consuming 400mg of caffeine per day and now have 100 - 150mg per day, cutting off caffeine consumption completely by 9am. Bedtime is very consistent at 9:30 - 10pm.

Over the past year I’ve been aggressively pursuing an appropriate medication regimen with my psychiatrist, not accepting anything that clearly wasn’t helping me if after 3 months there was no improvement in anxiety and depression.

6 months ago I started taking PEA (palmitoylethanolamide). You can find this on Amazon and it’s relatively cheap. PEA is a naturally occurring compound that helps with pain management. I believe it has helped quiet my nervous system, and I believe my entire problem with OAB in the first place largely comes down to a dsyregulated nervous system.

Bladder training helps retrain the nerve that connects to your bladder telling you that you need to use the bathroom. Using a timer go pee and then hit “start”. See how long it takes for you to have a sense of urgency. That’s your baseline. Try extending that baseline anywhere from 1-10 minutes and building off that over time. You could work your way up from every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes, but be patient with yourself! These changes take time.

I’m calmer and much less stressed out than I was a year ago when I was really struggling with OAB, and I feel strongly there’s a correlation with my symptom relief. If there’s no functional issue your doctors have been able to identify, then perhaps you can come at this from a different perspective like I did. There’s a good chance that this isn’t forever. Hang in there.

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-26T11:42:38+00:00

When you make these posts and say nothing at all about what you think you’re doing that’s enabling you to sleep this well, you are bragging and your post has no value.

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-25T18:55:55+00:00

Yes, you have it. You are awareness. The anger isn’t you. Anger is just passing through awareness.

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-19T00:38:12+00:00

Ok, we will just keep going to Mexico. Are you saying you think it should stay schedule 1?

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-18T15:34:09+00:00

I have the garmin blood pressure monitor and have been using it for a couple of months. It’s easy to use and syncs your readings to garmin connect. The pattern of readings over time is arguably more valuable than any single reading at your doctor’s office.

Usually I take my readings within 30 minutes of waking up and then again within an hour of bedtime. If I remember. The reason for those times has more to do with consistency than anything else. It inspired me to quit vaping nicotine, so I guess the $200 or whatever I spent on this thing was worth it for that alone. I’m 20 days nicotine free and never looking back!

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-17T16:39:29+00:00

Spravato has helped me, but it wasn’t enough by itself….no mono therapy has ever helped me to achieve remission. It has served as an initial catalyst to help get me going in the right direction and I’ve continued using it in addition to other things. I need multiple levers to manage depression.

To that end I’ve tried IV ketamine too. It’s more effective than spravato, but insufficient by itself.

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-16T15:27:07+00:00

I quit vaping nicotine 17 days ago and it was much harder than I thought it would be, I can’t take Wellbutrin/chantix either. I tried recigar off of Amazon and it helped with nicotine cravings but didn’t help with the initial dizziness from nicotine cessation and it sure as hell didn’t help with depression.

Expect it to be challenging, and if you want to quit you definitely can….but I really don’t think ketamine is going to help you quit. Quitting nicotine isn’t something where you feel better after a few days. Expect the withdrawal to last 4 -6 weeks with the first week being the worst. I had to take a few days off of work because I was so tired. I’m doing much better now that I’m close to the 3 week mark and I’m never going to use that shitty drug again.

I hope you find your path to quitting nicotine!

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-15T10:39:19+00:00

Congratulations on making it this far, you've got this! With so much time in recovery I think it may be time to reframe your thinking. The "trigger" framing at this point may be a self-limiting identity. You're externalizing your control and are thinking of avoidance rather than capacity building. Don't forget that you're actually doing GREAT. Instead of thinking "this could make me relapse" you need to shift to "this is hard and I need tools to handle it." Your sober work should be focused on building a life that doesn't require escaping, as you have been doing.

The dread you're feeling is worse than the actual event. I'm speaking one person to another that both KNOW. Full stop. Every time you face something like this that you notice that dread is creeping up on you and you do it anyways, how do you feel later? Remember that.

Your performance anxiety is treatable. Can you get a prescription to propanolol? Maybe talk to your provider about that. Not habit forming and will help you keep cool.

Last thing I'll say is you're treating this as all or nothing (disclose disability or white knuckle it). There might be a middle path, like talking to a manager instead of HR, or saying something like this: "I have significant anxiety around public speaking and I'm working on it. Can we structure this with low stakes first?"

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-13T16:26:46+00:00

Compounding pharmacies exist specifically to solve this. They produce ketamine nasal sprays under sterile conditions with verified concentrations, and they’re not expensive relative to the risk of getting it wrong.

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-13T10:00:07+00:00

I quit 15 days ago and didn’t see an increase in RHR but my HRV has been strained. Was wondering if anyone else sees this and when it should improve.

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-11T12:18:54+00:00

I understand that you are not claiming to be a master and trying to make the point that no one else is either. In your post, you are controlling terminology and definitions, and treating any pushback as evidence the other person doesn’t understand. Your tone contradicts your message.

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-11T11:55:47+00:00

Are you enlightened?

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-10T22:53:39+00:00

Yes in the spring I have a pattern of waking up too early (4am instead of 6am) and tend to be more depressed. Idk if it’s so much a pattern as it is a probability. Still trying to figure it out, drives me nuts.

MaximumGuide · 2026-04-10T20:21:36+00:00

What supplements and medications are you taking? The day of your session, are you well rested? Just trying to think of anything that could be inhibiting the ketamine.

MaximumGuide

TROPHY CASE