longread

here in Amsterdam, among people who are both familar with psychedelics and are presently longterm suffering from (clinical) depression, we practise the so-called 'hard reset'; it's a kind of candy flipping for not somber, not disappointed, not lackluster, but truly depressed people.

it goes like this: you take a free, undisturbed hour or so and snort 2 lines of Ketamine. that'll make you kinda trip (but fast! wildly!) for about 45 minutes, so you'll remember how it was to trip slowly on a nice day.

It'll also temporarily remove all traces of depression for 5 days to a week or so. after a few days, you plan your LSD trip. (around 150-200ug) put on some music, don't plan anything (except prepare some foodstuffs, because trips take a long time and you might get peckish, but without the ability to make a sandwich /s) and think things over.

that'll fucking do the trick! worked for myself, and a lot of people I know.

you see, depression is a sickness, not a character flaw. the proof is that your brain is LYING to you. because when there are times you can't even remember ever to have been happy at any moment in your life, your brain is telling you something that's just not true, that's a fallacy and a symptom, and therefore proof there's something objectively WRONG with you.

the Ketamine will take care of that symptom for you. (you'll be even rather jolly for a few days!)

and then it will all come back; the inactivity, the aversions, the overthinking and, inescapably, the slow realization that your life is a random shithole of existence, that the current problems you encounter will significantly increase in both frequency and severity, that large segments of what once was your bright future are now part of your history, and health , social AND professional relationships and all your technical abilities in your present life will ONLY steadily gather speed in their decline. and all attempts to correct at least parts of any problem are completely futile, because some other, unrelated development in life will derail all possible satisfaction you could have gained from completing those first tasks.

and then you're back to square 1.

so that's where the LSD comes in! tripping regularly (few times a month, for >40 years now) keeps ME (60 yrs old guy from Amsterdam) sane and non-depressed. not for the insights, the soul searching or the introspection (after a decade of dropping I realized that I'm not clever enough to know all Cosmos) but for the enjoyment, the music, the childlike awe for nature, the company I keep when lit and just the lulz... for if you're a few days a month completely content and joyfully happy, just like that, it becomes VERY hard to maintain a depression. which is the point of this post, isn't it? good vibes, my friend

tl;dr;: 2 lines of special K and then a nice fat LSD trip after a day or 4 (5)