The short version of my issue is that I began my first NSI 189 cycle 10 days ago at 40 mg/day using a product purchased from science.bio. I have not experienced any effects that I can confidently decipher from placebo. I began to experience my typical depression symptoms (stuck in a rut/low mood/very irritable)--symptoms that I was hoping to treat with NSI-189. I've read in some places that NSI can take roughly a month to take effect. I've read in other places that you should be able to feel NSI "work its magic" within the first week. Should I continue dosing?
---
Long version: I've been experiencing depression symptoms for as long as I can remember, and as long as I can remember, I've tried to escape those symptoms using various psychoactive substances. I used to blame myself for my drug use but I can now see that there has always been a reason for it. I thought that I was filling a hole (an unmet need) with the drug use and worked hard to make sure that my life is complete. I am in a loving, caring relationship, have an active social life, a meaningful career that fills me with purpose, meaningful goals, and daily, vigorous exercise. Yet, my happiest moments are the moments leading up to and right before I try a potential new psychoactive. Or researching potential "life-enhancing" supplements. Is taking drugs my hobby? Maybe--I'm sure many can relate to that. If it was, I'd be OK with that. But I think it's more plausible that those moments are so happy because they are filled with hope that there really is something out there that can relieve the cognitive symptoms that plague my life.
The symptoms:
- Irrational irritability (Why am I so frustrated with my girlfriend/dad/etc? He/she hasn't done anything wrong...)
- Sense that life is a tedious routine
- Feeling like I'm stuck in a rut
- Desire to escape (I have healthy and unhealthy escape habits)
- General malaise/anxiety (it feels relatively constant)
- ADHD-PI diagnosis (I was 5 so who knows)
Though the general anxiety seems constant, it's tolerable until I get to a point in the month where my life feels like one tedious routine. That is when the irritability kicks in and when I like to stay in bed in a dark room.
What helps:
- socializing
- exercise
- maintaining healthy contact with loved ones
- a healthy diet
- hiking
- going outside in general
- kratom (I know it has a bad rap on here but it really does help me to a certain extent and I'm grateful to have it in my life. I use it daily at about 5 grams/day)
- talk therapy (weekly--sometimes twice a week--for the past 3 years)
On the topic of therapy, I was physically abused growing up by my dad. Nothing too out of the ordinary, after a few years of therapy, I can confidently say that it was traumatic enough to scar me. I've been untangling my drug use, my history of abuse, my struggles with my personal relationships, etc and I've made a lot of progress. I think I'm at the point where I'm understanding that I shouldn't have to suffer through these symptoms for the rest of my life. Something is not entirely right with my psychological disposition and I'm hoping that I can get it fixed without a commercial, pharmaceutical depression drug like an SSRI because my impression is that they often make things more complicated and worse.
I have lithium orotate from Amazon arriving this week that I feel fairly optimistic about. However, I don't want to mix that with the NSI because, if symptoms start to improve, I want to know what exactly is helping.
Thanks for reading. I know all the information might not be necessary, but it felt good to have a chance to write it all out and hopefully it gives you a better understanding of the changes I want to make in my life.
