Anyone else using the nootropics rabbit hole itself as avoidance? Lost my dad in February and I think I'm hiding in protocols

I think I've been chasing "optimization" as a way to avoid grieving my dad.

He passed in February. Since then I've built out probably the most aggressive stack of my life. Semax, selank, NSI-189 for a bit, lion's mane, a bunch of stuff cycling in and out. I told myself it was because I was falling behind at work and needed the cognitive edge back. That was partly true. My performance reviews were slipping and my manager had a "gentle" conversation with me in March.

But I was sitting on the couch last night with my girlfriend, and she asked me why I never actually talk about him, and I couldn't answer. And then this morning I opened my laptop and my browser had like nine tabs open, half of them were PeptiPrices comparing suppliers for something I don't even remember researching, and I just closed the laptop and sat there for a while.

I think I've been using this hobby to stay in problem-solving mode 24/7 so I never have to sit still long enough to feel anything. Every time a wave of it comes up, I go read another study, order another thing, tweak another dose. It genuinely feels productive. It feels like I'm doing something. But I'm not sure it's doing anything except keeping me numb in a more expensive way than alcohol would.

The tricky part is I'm not sure I'm wrong to do it. Like, is it actually bad to have a coping mechanism that also (probably) helps my brain? A therapist would say yes, avoidance is avoidance. But I've had months where the only reason i got out of bed was because I wanted to see if the new protocol was working. That's not nothing.

I don't know. I guess I'm asking if anyone else has caught themselves doing this. Not "I take nootropics for depression" which is normal and fine, but specifically using the research rabbit hole itself as the avoidance behavior. The reading, the sourcing, the tinkering. The feeling of always having a next thing to try.

Is it a real coping tool or am I just kidding myself.