What did you do to see it off, brother? Was it just hitting CD's protocol, or did you use allo/5a-DHP? The 5a-DHP seems to have helped take the edge off the fight or flight firing and improved sleep but still feeling crushing depression and total anhedonia still, suicidal at points.
WORK! CONSUME! DIE!
The protocol for a few months (I did 8, you can do less) then hitting the prohormone cycles. I’m on my 4th one, but the anxiety, panic, inability to handle stress, general malaise was gone after my 1st one.
The depression/anhedonia, in my experience, is a bit trickier as I still deal with that and it’s my largest complaint now, but this week is my 2nd week on cycle and I’m beginning to feel emotions flicker on and off, like the feeling of dopamine or serotonin actually being utilized, this happened my last cycle as well. Can’t say for sure how long it will take to come back online for good, but I know from experience that this is the correct route, based on how I’ve felt the past 2 years and everything I did/tried to get here. And it just feels stronger and more pronounced this go-around.
Last edited by Turnover25; 07-30-2021 at 11:49 AM.
Some thoughts about neurotransmitter testing. It will never be completely accurate as you can’t test levels in the brain directly, leaving you with guesswork as to why tests show up as they do. Second, low gaba / allo etc is not exclusive to PFS as people going through an anxiety disorder will experience the same lowered levels. Honestly the test might be worthless to you as the result will most likely just confirm how you are feeling, which is bad.
Overloading yourself with information will just add to the chronic thoughts about what is going on with you and what to do to fix it.
I do want to add a supplement here that is never really mentioned. I started taking Saffron half a year ago and since then I’ve gotten this subtle improvement of feeling I am more in control of what is going on and it’s no longer a constant nightmare. It will not directly lower your anxiety but it left me feeling I had more confidence to tackle it without going insane.
It is the supplement that has helped me the most when combined with mental work to find stable ground.
If you want tips about dealing with anxiety:
- meditation and breath work
- pattern breaking: if you feel you are getting overwhelmed by negative thoughts and stress, break up what you are doing currently and do chores or go out for a walk.
- practice mindfulness during daily activities: just notice stuff around you. Focus on sounds and objects to be in the moment for a few seconds.
- celebrate good thoughts and feelings: don’t brush them of as temporary or fake. It is easy to fool yourself into thinking negativity is the base norm. I did the same thing. Good episodes might be short, but they are how you should be feeling, not the other way around.
- listen yo binaural tracks (easy to find playlists on spotify)
- do something creative like play music, write poetry or something.
I went to therapy for a while and made good progress. I was taught to stop using the prefrontal cortex when it comes to anxiety. That part of the brain is used to solve clear issues, like danger or hunger. It is not designed to solve longterm stress with no easy solution. It will overload and leave you stuck in a prolonged fight or flight. Use your prefrontal cortex to observe and then pass that information to the back of your mind to let that deal with reprogramming. If you feel bad and fearful, just observe and leave it at that. Let the back of your brain know that there is no immediate danger and it will reprogram it over time to no longer recognize the doubt and fear you are experiencing as a life threatening event, lowering anxiety and boosting resilience.
Last edited by Mojo; 08-03-2021 at 01:31 AM.
Although it's not completely representative of what's in the brain, a lot of what's in the body does cross the brain barrier, hence the oral and topical prohormones used on here. Otherwise it would be pointless. And just because those markers aren't just associated with just PFS doesn't mean they can't help indicate problems to fix. I ran those tests and they were some of the most important tests I had done throughout all of this. I supplemented appropriately and had benefits. Some of you on here have your way of going about things blindly aiming at targets in the dark and that's fine. But to completely toss out diagnostic tests because of some underlying hatred of medicine (understandably so) is just weird. PFS'ers do indeed have consistent altered neurotransmitter levels explaining many of the symptoms. So much so that researchers are now investigating our levels more in depth and causations. I've seen dozens of them. And ZRT breaks down the results in Laymans terms then make easy to understand recommendations of supplements to use that in the protocol here to boost those levels. It's not some useless thing to do. Just a benefit for those that want to know themselves a bit better.
Did you start cycling while still dealing with the anxiety? I'm struggling with bad anxiety at the moment, hadn't had any bad anxiety fir over a year till this hit. I think it was caused by elemental diet and kratom. Anyway. I want to start cycling as I've been on protocol for a long while, but I'm a little afraid to start in this significant downswing.