Puking your guts out on Ayahuasca doesn't do shit for ADHD or Bipolar or Schizophrenia. People have real problems and deserve treatments that stand up to scientific rigor. I know it's very fashionable to treat indigenous medical practices as being efficacious but many of them simply are not. Medical science has a lot of very real problems but when it works it works, and we can figure out why and how, and if it doesn't work you can use that to investigate other possibilities in a systematic way. Rejecting science in favor of untested entheogens is extremely reactionary. You don't get the results you want and so you reject the entire process of science in favor of a perceived authentic tradition. it's the very essence of reactionary thought and it drives quackery from homeopathy to TCM to bogus cancer cures. It's an extremely, extremely profitable industry and it causes real and severe harm.

Psych medicine fucking sucks. Many psych problems don't respond to treatment, or the treatment has undesirable side effects. I know, I've lived with Bipolar for decades and I've never found a drug or treatment that works. But my frustration and bad experiences doesn't change that a majority of people find real and lasting relief from intense suffering from prozac, the most basic bitch of all psych meds. It works for most people with depression and when it works it tends to work really well. Does it address the material conditions that escalates the severity of depressive symptoms? No. But that's not on the table anywhere right now. Your doctor cannot write you a check for rent and childcare and groceries. Prozac is what they've got. The best short term individual solution to massive, systemic problems.

Psych professionals have high suicide rates because they are dealing with the most traumatized people every single day and they often cannot help those people. I mean jesus christ dude. I don't want some fucking neurotypical diagnosing me. I want someone who understands what suicidal ideation and intrusive thoughts and mania are from personal experience. Books don't cut it a lot of the time. But that takes a horrible psychic toll. Every psych professional I've ever met is in therapy themselves because what they do is grinding and terrible. They've all lost many patients to suicide. They've watched many people go through endless cycles of self destruction. They deal with people in immense pain. Are there assholes who are only in it for the money? Of course, we live under the tyranny of capitalism. But there are also people who genuinely care and are doing the best they can in a deeply flawed system.

The mental health system in America, and the West generally, is fucked. Even where you have insurance and single payer the quality of care varies wildly. But of the treatments we have many of them work, reliably, repeatably, predictably. Prozac saves lives and alleviates suffering. Lithium saves lives and alleviates suffering. Thorazine, as much as it has been misused by the psych profession, saves lives and alleviates suffering. Turning away from that to magical practices won't alleviate real, biomedical problems. If you go to an ayahausca ceremony and feel like you gain something valuable from it then cool, that's great, but it sure as shit isn't going to stabilize a bipolar person undergoing sever mania.

I have a serious. Fucking. Problem. with quackery and untested "cures" and magic and religious healing practices. Some of them, some of them, can be valuable in tandem with biomedical practices, but many of them cause real harm. People die because Evangelicals try to cast out demons instead of getting medical treatment. People die because they take quack cancer cures. People die because they take fucking Ivermectin. It's all of a type; A rejection of the cold, unsatisfying reality that medical treatments are impersonal and wracked with problems. But problems in the profession don't mean that "traditional" or "authentic" or "spiritual" practices will produce results. Homeopathy, bleach cures, Yoga, TCM, they're all chock full of practices that can't be tested and falsified. But they're widespread because of reactionary distrust of biomedicine, and because they are extremely fucking profitable. For every authentic ayahausca ceremony there are dozens of cranks and charlatans that will lead you through an "authentic" ceremony for no other reason than it brings in cold, hard cash. Homeopathy is a TWENTY BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY.

I can rant on and on, but the simple cold truth is that 1.) we're stuck with capitalism 2.) evidence based medicine is the best thing we've got and 3.) reactionary rejection of biomedicine kills.

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Tribes can be more tribal but if ur not in one you can just bolster ur community, do mutual aid, be a community of free peoples.