Yeah, I know none of this is recommended - but I finally feel like myself again after 3 years of depression and flattened emotions. People are telling me that my affect looks much brighter, and I look happier, and I feel like I am thinking more clearly and quickly and more focused. I'm going to lay off the psychadelics now. That is unnecessary risk for sure, but like I said, my relationship with those drugs is a complicated and convoluted one. I have some unfinished business with altered states and I will not be able to put it behind me until I work through it. It's been weighing on me since I was a teenager, and keeps resurfacing in different ways. I can't easily explain it, but it is critical that I figure this out if I am ever going to beat depression.

I am looking after patients, but I was on vacation at Burning Man, and I had a few days off this weekend, so I wasn't around any patients. My ability to care for patients is not impaired, in some ways it's actually better. I know I am being generally noncompliant, but it feels really right, and I could not go on with things the way they were, not for another winter, I couldn't stand it. I don't want to trash my career though, so I'm going to tone it down.

Someone in this thread said it's like I am a moth to a flame, and that is absolutely true. I don't know why, but I've always been this way. If I can figure this out I will really be OK, and I think I can do it if I have trust in my own experiences, and not just follow the rules out of fear. There is only one go at life, and I don't want to waste mine. It's not a high I am chasing, it's answers to existential and spiritual questions. I'm not quite sure, but some kind of truth and pattern.

Plus I took a Saphris last week because I had ongoing insomnia and I wanted to sleep. I wasn't used to it anymore, and it totally snowed me. I was stuck in a semiconscious state, with terrible akithesia, but too snowed to move my limbs around voluntarily to deal with it. So I just lay there for I don't know how long, and it was absolutely terrible. I have no idea how I took that drug everyday and functioned, it is SO strong! No wonder I felt like I wasn't as smart as I used to be. It's like trying to think through mud. I think it helped me for a while when things were really intense, but in recent months it was really bad for me. I'm not anti-med, but I am anti-overmedication. I need to stay sharp.

Also, you are right that nobody can find out about this. I have told a couple people, a psych nurse friend and a psych social worker friend, which is mainly to have objective people to talk to and make sure I seem Ok. So far they both say I seem a lot better. I am careful to keep things quiet though. Posting here is helpful because it is anonymous. But saying that, your post has made me nervous that I shouldn't post about noncompliance here in case it somehow gets traced back to me. I need to think about that, but I might stay quiet on here now after this post, just in case. I hate having to live a double life. It's awful. Do you think it's dangerous for me to post about this here? Should I erase the posts?