I also experienced a significant positive turn in my mental health and work/social anxiety when I introduced significant levels of THC into my life. :D

The funny thing is, the mechanisms and results were totally different. I have an MBA and past project/people management experience and I am pretty sure I intend to stay an individual contributor for my entire career. I work on embedded systems and it is low stress and often interesting.

But your story made me realize that the “don’t be afraid to fall flat on your face” thing applies absolutely perfectly to my own recent progress. There are absolutely examples at work, but even moreso at home.

My big hobby is having a koi pond, and I have been doing a massive upgrade this year. Other than the impossible-to-overstate physical benefits of doing hundreds of hours of manual labor outside in the fresh air with my animals, my mental appearance was completely different from my usual.

I am the type to naturally ask people in my family (including my dad who is an outdoors + pond guy) for advice on design decisions, or what they thought about X and Y. I think that was not just a lack of confidence, but an ADHD-related technique for putting off work. Then of course I would invite people over to help work on it (people like parents who enjoy visiting and helping) which would get me off my ass for that entire day.

So this year for the past few months, I have been kindly listening to anything people suggest and of course researching things on my own. And I have been sending updates that they love! But when it comes to the actual work, I do everything with my own two hands. The design behind that work is a game-time decision that only I make, solely based on my preferences and a kind of first-principals approach to “what are the goals I really care about here?” Sometimes those goals center around healthy fish and I confidently go against misinformed advice. Sometimes those goals center around accessibility with a particular joyful young man in mind. I find both of these efforts pleasing and fulfilling.

Getting your mind to act the way you want requires practice and training, just like the rest of your body. I know it is so god damn annoying to hear when you’re in a dark place, but it seems so obvious once you’re more healthy, but it’s true. To be more confident and decisive in your decisions, try making more decisive decisions. To more easily handle social situations, try getting into more social situations. To more easily lift rocks, try lifting even larger rocks on a regular basis. To have a calm mind, try being calm. The monk-like platitudes full of circular logic are all true!

Hell, fun example: I got my first tattoo yesterday and I got some comments about how I was a trooper and took it like a champ. And I smiled and said something fun, but in my head I’m thinking “I get IVs or blood draws about two dozen times a year, and I have had kidney stones multiple times motherfucker! Not that any of that holds a candle to the emotional pain I’ve gone through like many years of infertility and even an adoption falling through, while being unmedicated for the ADHD/anxiety/depression that I have on top of the even worse neurological shit that requires those IVs!” So basically, when you’ve been through some shit you can handle some shit.

And speaking of unmedicated: get medicated! Taking care of yourself is a marathon, and it might be possible to run a marathon with a broken leg but it fucking sucks. The fact that I know the cocktail of drugs (multiple prescriptions in addition to a sprinkle of certain sativa strains) that makes existence not hurt is PART of my mental health process, not a replacement for it.

Sorry for the random extreme length reply! BSing about our shared and differing experiences on Lemmy is some excellent therapy IMO, so I figured I was going to finish writing this damn reply if even one person might read through it.