I've met several Americans who are into self-medicating like this.
One guy was talking about his 500k USD salary at Facebook, so clearly successful, while obsessing about where to source drugs, so clearly struggling.
Have you considered that there may be permanent changes to your brain, that you're not able to perceive, similar to the radical shift in personality we've observed in Elon Musk?
I've accepted and embraced all the permanent changes for one very simple reason: it's better to be alive than depressed and/or dead and/or being in vegetative state. Note that I was dealing with extreme circumstances - life and death on a daily basis. I had stress that was so intense that all of my teeth were in pain, every day two weeks straight.
I am happy I was able to exchange it for the "permanent changes" that made me back alive. I won't hesitate to do it again (have to admit I don't need it know, I'm in peace).
> obsessing about where to source drugs
It's one of the things I avoid, because sourcing is dangerous. Everything is contam now, even weed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehvIkZCZmzA. So "sourcing" and "drugs" are not the words from my vocabulary.
1000-year-old medicine I call it, that nature provides, ideally unprocessed (see /r/herbalism for safe-for-work examples).
Also, try to read the book I mentioned if you have time, it's in the very beginning (first 10% of it will answer most/all of your questions).
That they lace with fentanyl is really scary, but obviously financially lucrative, and on-brand with the mindset of the industry.
I'm sorry to hear about your stress. It's disappointing that we've never been wealthier and more productive, but that ruthless exploitation is still going strong.
> Have you considered that there may be permanent changes to your brain, that you're not able to perceive, similar to the radical shift in personality we've observed in Elon Musk?
I think people undergo permanent changes to their brain that they can't perceive, all the time. Hacker News and other social media definitely change your brain. So does having more wealth than you can conceivably spend in lifetime. I suspect the latter is more directly responsible for Elon Musk's trash personality than microdosing.
While I am a strong advocate for legalizing hallucinogens and empathogens, and am certain there are clinical uses for at least some of them which we are in the early days of understanding, I'm not as convinced by the science on microdosing (which specifically refers to sub-perceptual doses). But with so many people who seem to benefit from it, I support people who find it helpful doing so, even if it's just placebo effect.
Have you considered that there may be permanent changes to your brain, that you're not able to perceive, similar to the radical shift in personality we've observed in Elon Musk?