Hello everyone,
This is my first post, and I'm sorry if I've posted in the wrong section. I came across this site after much Googling about racetams. It seemed every question I had brought me to a thread on here, but often times I would end up with even more questions.
A bit of history about me: I am a sixteen year old male, weighing approximately 120 lbs. at 5'9", with no history of eating disorders. I have experimented with recreational drugs including alcohol, weed, 2C-E (a phenylthylamine), Vicodin, diphenhydramine, and DXM. When I was approximately ten years old, my therapist (psychologist?) diagnosed me with bipolar disorder, however he said "this is not exactly a true diagnosis, in that we typically don't like to diagnose bipolar disorder until patients are at least eighteen years of age. This will allows us to prescribe you a medication (Trileptal). We may change our diagnosis in the future."
At the time I had some crazy things going on... I would purposefully make situations in my life bad (purposefully act badly to lose privileges) so I could feel sorry for myself, mainly at home and with my family. I also had this issue in school until I entered middle school. At middle school I still had issues, but it was more of being too hyperactive, and this resulted in my not having a ton of friends as I was a bit annoying. I stopped taking Trileptal only a year or two after having been prescribed it, and the issues that I mentioned (purposefully acting bad, and getting extremely hyper) actually seemed to stop. I was happy as I don't generally like man-made medications, especially if they must be acquired through a prescription. They are a pain, I don't trust prescriptions, etc. I was also on Seroquil for a while, both as a mood stabilizer (like Trileptal) and to help my trouble sleeping, but did not like the grogginess I felt in the morning.
As I went into high school, I became much more quiet, and stuck to myself more. I had been using computers and programming as my hobby since elementary school, and was still doing this, however I began to become more interested in writing. In ninth grade I also began to have a social life outside of school.
In tenth grade I switched high schools, and was generally pretty positive. I made many friends and had a good time.
In eleventh grade, a friend of mine died, and my depression started to get very bad again. I started seeing a therapist again, and ended up in the psych hospital twice in the past two months. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety (the bipolar disorder diagnosis was, by omission, withdrawn.) Each time I came out, thinking things were better (and prescribed with Zoloft, 50mg the first time, 100mg the second time), and things got worse afterwards. I will say that the 100mg Zoloft did seem to help a lot, but as I mentioned before, I don't really trust prescriptions (I'd post links to the news stories of drug companies paying off doctors, but I can't post links as my account is too new.)
However, I did have some issues with the Zoloft, in terms of side-effects: I could not get sexually aroused as easily, and sexual stimulation did not feel as good. I also played with 2C-E a bit, both before the 100mg prescription, and after, and I did not like that Zoloft did not allow me to experience the trippy effects of it (however I did still get the great serotonin benefts, and feel terrific, and view everything beautifully... the downside of which is that I would crash hard the next day. I did it three times in one week at one point, and this is how I ended up in the psych hospital the second time: the third crash was so bad, I was extremely suicidal.) I did stop taking 2C-E, but shrooms and LSD are on my bucket list of things I hope to experience before I die. With Zoloft, I can not experience these properly. Additionally, I smoked weed three times, and each time had major panic attacks: I believed the marijuana had been laced, I got a nosebleed, I started shaking and freaking out, etc.
Upon Googling these symptoms, I saw many people experienced these on Zoloft. In addition, my appetite had decreased and I had lost approximately 10 lbs. in a week. This one is a little bit odd as anti-depressants usually increase weight, but Zoloft did the opposite in my case.
I stopped taking Zoloft as my prescription had run out, and my parents had not refilled it, and was hit with an even worse depression, likely do to the SSRI disruption effect (again, I'd link to Wikipedia, but I can not post links yet.) This was the final straw for me, as I could not bear this feeling. It has pretty much passed now, but it was honestly the worst: I was irritable, crying over very little things, freaking out and wanting to scream for no reason, and my social anxiety got much, much worse.
So, I'm supposed to have an appointment with the doctor again soon to be prescribed something else... the problem is, they will likely try to put me on another SSRI (perhaps Prozac) or Lithium. Again, I do not like SSRIs, and I know of people who are either on, or are close to people who are on, Lithium, and say that it is a very harsh drug. Additionally, research into it does not make me too interested in taking it.
A friend of mine online mentioned taking piracetam (without choline supplements), and that he was greatly enjoying the cognitive benefits, and that it had helped a lot with his own depression. I began to look into it, and it seemed very interesting. I then became to look at other racetams (namely aniracetam and oxiracetam), and found that aniracetam seems to be the most often recommended for help with depression. I also recently found out St. John's Wort could be beneficial.
So I know (most of) you aren't doctors, but I was wondering if you might be able to offer suggestions on what you think might be beneficial. Again, I am looking for relief from my depression and anxiety symptoms, although some of the effects that some racetams offer would be very nice too (such as the cognitive benefits of piracetam, the musical appreciation from oxiracetam, and the reported "vivid colors" from aniracetam. I've also heard a lot of people have had some good success with lucid dreaming on some racetams.)
Thanks for any information you might be able to offer.
EDIT - I would also like to clarify... I know many people like to point out teenagers are at a confusing point in their life and such, and that can be grouped into "depression." I had a month where absolutely nothing felt fun, or good to me anymore. This is why I began taking 2C-E (and took it five times, within a two week period, despite my previous resolution to only take LSD as far as synthesized drugs came, and despite the fact that more than once a month can be very harmful in terms of inducing serotonin syndrome, and other complications.) It was the only thing that made me feel good for any period of time. I also recently had to quit smoking marijuana due to my mother insisting on drug testing me, and began drinking a bit, which left me happy for a bit, but with a headache afterwards, and feeling like shit about some things I did while on it.
I'm also in DBT (dialectal behavioral therapy), but don't find this to be very beneficial. I am someone who does not mind talking about emotions and such, and often do to many friends. The biggest factor in my recent bout of depression likely stems from the fact that I've felt very isolated from all the people I was previous close to.
Edited by LeftForLiving, 25 July 2012 - 08:52 PM.
