If your emotional distress is related to inflammation then even ibuprofen can give you some relief.

As for solutions outside of pills, exercise has always been the most effective thing for me in improving my happiness.

D3 with K2 supplement can help.

If you want something that’s legal (but probably shouldn’t be) I recommend kratom. Look for something that says Super Green. The less you take the more energy and vitality it gives you, the more you take the more it feels like an opiate.

Medicine is drugs.

Try 5-HTP as a supplement if you believe you have low serotonin levels for some reason. It’s a precursor to Serotonin so if there is a chemical reason your body is producing insufficient amounts then it can help, alongside L-Tyrosine which is the same thing but for dopamine. CBD supplements, if actually legitimately containing CBD can have some anxiolytic properties.

Otherwise everything else is illegal.

Sorry honey, but under capitalism you’re supposed to buy worthless shit to stave off the alienation and misery and uhh like drugs are bad m’kay. Go get into K-Pop or “Gadgets” instead, heard there’s some hot spicy influencer drama in these! Lotta ads to watch! And remember: Don’t think, just buy product and get excited for the next product.

You might consider an MDMA, DMT or LSD trip to figure out why you’re unhappy.

Do not buy drugs on the street, they are shit quality for shitty prices, you will get ripped off. Don’t buy from DNMs overseas, customs do not fuck around. In UK/West EU order to home as normal, in US order to non-home mailboxes, in East EU order to dead drops. Make sure to research how to stay safe, what markets to use, how to get Monero and how to use PGP and maybe Tails depending on OpSec risk appetite, I think Dread (ddg it with tor!) has a few guides for this.

Go for lower dosages and make sure to get powder for MDMA, it should be light brown in colour. Test it! MDMA is part stim, part empathogen.

For DMT: get a proper high end vape tank DMT vape with a 510 off a respected seller on a DNM and buy a proper mod - don’t buy the crappy eGO style tanks/“carts”. DMT is a pure psych, very shroom-esque but without the shroom common side effects like diarrhea and uncontrollable vomiting and lasts only 15 mins.

For LSD make sure to take some time off work or do it when you won’t be disturbed in general, preferably for at least 48 hours, as a trip can last 12-16. I’d go for 100ug - tabs are often under dosed so go if brave go for 120ug, don’t buy tabs with overly elaborate art as that can be a sign that more effort went into the marketing than anything else, but make sure to get a test kit to make sure it’s not NBOME, that drug is nice as well but it’s not LSD and vendors don’t dose it properly which can kill you.

Other than psychs: Amphetamine and/or nicotine will make you happy generally, but unless you have ADHD the effect may be too negligible to be worth it.

If your source of unhappiness is anxiety then you can take an anxiolytic like a benzodiazepine. Do not do that.

There’s also Alcohol and Opioids but these barely do anything honestly when it comes to actual happiness. I would not do THC in an unhappy state, it’s like 75% anxiety and hunger.

Or you can try therapy, but that shit never worked for me, turns out the world is just shit and my life was shit as a result, taking drugs helped/helps me cope with that and I try to improve my material circumstances as much as possible, I’ve never really had mental health issues though I just had shit mental health due to my material conditions so YMMV and GL, the first step to fixing an issue is identifying there is an issue. Try to identify what the issue is next.

There are lots of medicines that can help, but none of them should be taken without working with professionals.

Please be careful pf taking any medical advice from strangers on the internet that isn’t “you need to talk with a licensed professional.”

Even suggesting diet and exercise and vitamin D can be harmful advice under the wrong circumstances.

The line between medicine and drug is largely arbitrary.

Start with the basics of diet, exercise, water, sleep, social interaction. They’re consistent and have very low harm potential. It’s also shocking how much each of them contributed to a sense of well being, or how much a lack of any one of them can cause a downward spiral.

Supplements and vitamins also aren’t super risky, although they aren’t well regulated and many do nothing in their pill form. One or some of the vitamin Bs seem important for me personally, although I’m not 100% certain and I don’t know which one(s) and to what degree. But I’ll drink a monster energy regularly because they have 200-400% dv. Omegas from fish oils may also be good. L-tyrosine and things like it are commonly discussed in nootropics boards, I can’t vouch for them personally.

As far as medications, it’s unlikely you’ll find an easy and risk-free solution, unfortunately. Even well-studied prescription medications aren’t guaranteed to work for your specific needs and have potential to make things worse, which is why in an ideal world everyone would have access to a medical professional that can oversee their use. And often the ones that work aren’t immediately obvious, but demonstrate marginal improvement over the longer term. In fact euphoria and hypomania (which in the moment feel like “oh my god this drug is working”) may be signs the drug isn’t a good fit. Very difficult to gauge on your own.

Online prescription mills are fairly painless if you have a good idea that a specific medication might work for you. I used them to get on a specific antidepressant after doing my own research.

Kanna and St John’s wort both have SSRI compounds I believe. Be careful, just because something’s a legal plant doesn’t mean it can’t interact negatively or have harmful effects. But these are probably the closest to what you’re asking.

Kratom is legal and can boost mood but has high addictive potential. In my experience not worth it except to get off more addictive substances.

Dex/dxm/dextromethorphan is an active ingredient in some cough suppressants that has antidepressive potential. Can be purchased with no additives at some pharmacies and online. Tripping on this isn’t fun at all in my opinion, I’d rather do salvia, but small doses seem to have some mood improving effects that last a few days

Stay away from diphenhydramine (I mention it because it’s often spoken of in the same context as Dex). Its use has been linked to dementia.

Psychedelics can help deconstruct old assumptions and mental structures that may be contributing to your depression. I’d describe the experience as rediscovering the magic of existence. Many of them also have antidepressant qualities-- a sort of afterglow that may last a week or a month. Microdosing is said to tap into the afterglow without tripping. LSD and shrooms are fairly well-studied. Mescaline acts similarly and may be easier to find. Morning glory seeds are legal and contain LSA which is similar to LSD. Salvia acts differently than any of these, often leading to bad trips, but is generally legal. None of these are addictive, but may be risky for people with certain mental illnesses.

There are a variety of legal and grey market stims that can improve mood, but they may have harmful effects and addictive potential. You’ll find a bunch of them if you browse nootropics boards, but keep in mind anonymous comments are not scientific and may undersell risk and negative effects. Nootropics boards will also discuss other supposedly cognitive enhancing substances. Lions mane is a common one. Some are natural supplements or things your body already produces (though this doesn’t guarantee they’re safe or pure). Many are addictive, many are probably snake oil. Search a drug/supplement on pubmed before trying it.

Adjacent to nootropics and more dangerous is research chemicals. Half of them are attempts to make “legal” but identical/similar analogues to illegal drugs. Some are novel. Almost none of them have been studied and purity is never guaranteed. I Honestly don’t recommend unless you’re at a point where it doesn’t matter. At one point for me it was “find a happy chemical or commit suicide” and I think that’s the only level this kind of experimentation is truly justified. But well-studied psychedelics are preferable.

I don’t know about that kind of medicine, but resolve your repressed anger and depression will disappear.

Medicine would be drugs. Unless you mean in the broad sense of the term.

For me I require a reason behind my happiness, maybe it’s my autism I’m not sure, however without a foundation leading to smiles the smiles are lackluster. Just forcing myself to go outside, sit in a nice park, etc. helps place me into opportunities where I can notice things that make me happy bit by bit.
These little things add up. Being at a small time gig, of a band I haven’t heard of, being around people who like the same things helps a lot.

I’ve wanted to see my favourite musicians, and I managed to through perseverance (Corey Taylor is an amazing human being, his outlook definitely rubbed off on me). I wanted to go to Europe, and everyone I knew kept saying “one day”, so I decided that “one day” for me was going to be the next. Packed some things and went that weekend to Amsterdam, by myself, and met 3-4 people and we all hung out together for four days and we had such a connection we enjoyed ourselves so much.

If you have an inkling of places or things that would make you happy, perhaps try forcing the first step into it. It’s easier said than done, though good luck man.

In terms of mental health, drugs that give any kind of relief should be treated as a shelter from the storm so you can rebuild. This means if you’re not rebuilding while you’re in shelter, your happiness is only going to last as long as your shelter is standing. Drugs wear off, and it is very easy to just want to keep putting your shelter up ad infinitum. This is where the second problem of drugs for relief comes in. The shelter is sub-standard compared to doing the things to build a lasting happiness. You can get stoned as shit, but if you and your life is still in shambles there’s only so much that can do.

All the above being said cannabis can help when you need a break. Psychedelics can help as well and microdosing incurs minimal risk. Neither of these will fix any of your problems, but they can enable you to work on your problems yourself when it was too difficult to before.

Alternatively, if you want to avoid drugs altogether meditation can be an option in some circumstances. This is barely a recommendation because meditation is a skill that you have to practice in optimal form consistently before you’ll get anything at all from it. It’s impossible to actually know whether you’re doing it right until you start to feel relief from it and so many things can make practicing mediation as a beginner almost impossible if you’re in crisis. If you attempt mediation with absolutely no expectations other than that you will fail at it until you happen to approach it in a way that works you may eventually get some relief from it. If you get it working consistently, it is far stronger than anything you can get legally without a prescription in terms of providing relief. I can give you some guidance if you’re interested in this path. Secondarily, Kava can help a little in that it dulls the pain.

Vallerian root, kanna, ashwaganda, etc. might work if you believe strongly that they’re working. Avoid depressants like alcohol because although they provide temporary relief they also make things worse when they wear off which can be a terrible cycle.

All the people saying exercise… I swear that has to vary across people. I went to the gym thrice a week for two years and hated every gd second of it.

St Johns Wort can help. It’s not as effective as prescription medication, but can help deal with mild ‘low mood’ type symptoms. It’s comparable to the effect of a compression bandage on a joint. It will help with the equivalent of a pulled tendon, but will do next to nothing against the equivalent of a shattered elbow.

It is worth noting that there are 2 sorts of depression. Feeling sad, while unpleasant, is a lot easier to treat. It’s generally caused by external stimulus. While this is harder to treat with drugs, it responds a LOT better to lifestyle changes. Basically, you need to figure out 2 things. What is making you sad, and how do you remove that effect. Implementing it can be an absolute bitch, but it’s worth the effort.

The other sort of depression is proper “clinical depression”. This is a chemical imbalance in the brain. It can be brought on by external stimulus, but it’s not dependent on them. With this, your brain starts losing the ability to care. Motivation becomes a lot harder, and so the cost to payoff with positive activities gets worse. Internally, it’s like having the chroma on a TV turned down. Everything gets muted and dull. Nothing is worth the effort required to do it. This sort of depression does need proper treatment. It’s far more insidious and will grind you down. To beat it you need to change your very brain wiring. This can be done, but generally requires significant external support. If you could beat it alone, you likely wouldn’t have become trapped within it.

I’ve experienced both. Neither are pleasant. Just keep in mind, both distort your thinking. Often, you can’t fully trust your own thinking. Situations that seem impossible to cope with will just crumble when actually attacked. However, without enough motivation, you often won’t even try.

An just to note, if you get to the point of intrusive, self destructive thoughts, that’s when you need to seriously reach out to external help. Even if you think you can cope with them, they can send your mind spiraling downwards.

You could try sam-e if you are in a country that isn’t prescription only (many don’t require one).

Imo meds alone won’t do a ton of good, if you’re battling depression or constant blahness you should also be trying to steadily make improvements in your habits and life situation. When you are not feeling too down try to make a list of things that might make daily life more pleasant and try to work some of that stuff into life. Things like sitting in the sun or watching the sky aren’t too trivial. If nothing sounds pleasant (because depression) imo you have to go the regimented route where you add things to your life that you think would improve anyone’s situation like eating healthy, exercising regularly, and picking up a new hobby.

I used to take 5-htp after molly because it is supposed to help rapidly build back up serotonin levels, and is said to help with depression, sleep disorders and other health issues

Albizzia julibrissin flower tea, once per day to nourish the heart and the spirit.

I dunno about drugs, if you’re in the UK I can maybe signpost to some affordable counselling options. Relationships are a good place to get happy chemicals

Medicine won’t really help if you’re feeling depressed due to external factors. People who feel depressed because of their life situation typically benefit more from therapy both to learn how to cope more effectively and for guidance/support on making life changes. Look for sliding scales or low/no-cost therapy options in your area