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Dealing with the fear of being afraid

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Kajlian

Kajlian

Rising Star
Hi!

I had a pretty bad trip recently, and I'm scared that I'll never be able to trip again, even though I want to. It feels like my anxiety about having a bad trip is going to cause the hostile entities from my last bad trip to instantly come back and I think this fear is gonna create a bad trip. Is there anyway I can trip again without having a bad experience? Should I just wait for a while and then go for it? Should I try to trip while on a low dose of anxiety reducing drugs such as benzos? Basically I'm wondering if anyone has any good ways to deal with the fear of being afraid.
 
Kajlian said:
Hi!

I had a pretty bad trip recently, and I'm scared that I'll never be able to trip again, even though I want to. It feels like my anxiety about having a bad trip is going to cause the hostile entities from my last bad trip to instantly come back and I think this fear is gonna create a bad trip. Is there anyway I can trip again without having a bad experience? Should I just wait for a while and then go for it? Should I try to trip while on a low dose of anxiety reducing drugs such as benzos? Basically I'm wondering if anyone has any good ways to deal with the fear of being afraid.
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Do a lot of meditating, yoga and get a lot of exercise. These three things will substantially mitigate anxiety quite well.

Lay off or reduce any stimulants you may be consuming if you need to.

Benzos might seem like a solution, and they certainly take away anxiety for a short time while they are in effect within your body, but they will increase your overall anxiety after they wear off. That's the big bummer/catch 22 with pharmaceutical anti-anxiety meds.

Best of luck to you!
 
Doc Buxin said:
Kajlian said:
Hi!

I had a pretty bad trip recently, and I'm scared that I'll never be able to trip again, even though I want to. It feels like my anxiety about having a bad trip is going to cause the hostile entities from my last bad trip to instantly come back and I think this fear is gonna create a bad trip. Is there anyway I can trip again without having a bad experience? Should I just wait for a while and then go for it? Should I try to trip while on a low dose of anxiety reducing drugs such as benzos? Basically I'm wondering if anyone has any good ways to deal with the fear of being afraid.
Click to expand...


Do a lot of meditating, yoga and get a lot of exercise. These three things will substantially mitigate anxiety quite well.

Lay off or reduce any stimulants you may be consuming if you need to.

Benzos might seem like a solution, and they certainly take away anxiety for a short time while they are in effect within your body, but they will increase your overall anxiety after they wear off. That's the big bummer/catch 22 with pharmaceutical anti-anxiety meds.

Best of luck to you!
Click to expand...

The thing is, it almost feels like a lost a part of myself somewhere in that trip, and I've felt really weird since it. I have a strong urge to go back there just because I think having a good trip will sort of "ground" me and I'll be able to feel normal then afterwards. I'm afraid that going back there will only make it worse though. I don't know. I feel like the trip shattered me and I just want to feel normal again.

That's why I thought tripping at the same time as I'm on benzos might give me a light, but good, experience and then I'll finally feel like myself again.
 
Kajlian said:
The thing is, it almost feels like a lost a part of myself somewhere in that trip, and I've felt really weird since it. I have a strong urge to go back there just because I think having a good trip will sort of "ground" me and I'll be able to feel normal then afterwards. I'm afraid that going back there will only make it worse though. I don't know. I feel like the trip shattered me and I just want to feel normal again.

That's why I thought tripping at the same time as I'm on benzos might give me a light, but good, experience and then I'll finally feel like myself again.
Click to expand...

You are alright.

Many of us have been there, integrate this experience with its feelings, don't try to forget it. It is part of you(r experience). Allow it(yourself) to be, allow you to feel all of it, to let go of it. Remember and come back to the now.

You are alright.

Forget the idea of normal, be now.

You are alright.

If you want to go back, do it, if not, not.

Allow yourself to feel all of it and let go. Be now.

Forget the benzos.

Welcome to the nexus and keep smiling, tseuq 😁

[edit]Like Doc Buxin wrote, mediation can be a valuable practice in terms of "letting go" (anxiety reduction).
 
tseuq said:
Kajlian said:
The thing is, it almost feels like a lost a part of myself somewhere in that trip, and I've felt really weird since it. I have a strong urge to go back there just because I think having a good trip will sort of "ground" me and I'll be able to feel normal then afterwards. I'm afraid that going back there will only make it worse though. I don't know. I feel like the trip shattered me and I just want to feel normal again.

That's why I thought tripping at the same time as I'm on benzos might give me a light, but good, experience and then I'll finally feel like myself again.
Click to expand...

You are alright.

Many of us have been there, integrate this experience with its feelings, don't try to forget it. It is part of you(r experience). Allow it(you) to be, allow you to feel all of it, to let go of it. Remember and come back to the now.

You are alright.

Forget the idea of normal, be now.

You are alright.

If you want to back, do it, if not, not.

Allow yourself to feel all of it and let go. Be now.

Forget the benzos.

Welcome to the nexus and don't forget to smile, tseuq 😁
Click to expand...

There was one part of the trip where I saw my body melting and I was morphing into weird shapes and ust colours and I heard people saying things like "he's too far gone now it's too late" or "such a shame he had so much potential" and this sort of stuck with me I think and now I have this constant feeling of not being normal, like I went to far and now I can never fully come back. Thanks for telling me I'm alright but I just can't get myself to believe it, it's like a part of me is still stuck there wondering what the fuck I am and everything just feels so "off". I just feel like I'm an empty body and my "self" is still partly somewhere else and it's scaring me like crazy. I know if this goes on it's going to tear me apart mentally and I just really hope it'll sort itself out or else I don't know what to do.
 
Sorry to hear you had a difficult experience Kajlian, I've been there more than once.

For me the greatest healer has always been time. Over time we are able to reflect, inflect and process the experiences. After all, we only look into the mirror when we use psychedelics. It doesn't show us things that aren't true, but not everything that is true is necessarily as it appears either. It might be 2 weeks later and then suddenly you'll wake up at 4 in the morning yelling "I understand now!". I've been there too. :lol:

Be kind and gentle with yourself, integration is as much of a healing process as it is a learning one. It takes time. Explore the experience for what it is and let your fear go. Acceptance will come.

Oh yeah, and forget the benzos.

Welcome to the nexus. :thumb_up:
 
Kajlian said:
... things like "he's too far gone now it's too late" or "such a shame he had so much potential" and this sort of stuck with me I think and now I have this constant feeling of not being normal, like I went to far and now I can never fully come back. Thanks for telling me I'm alright but I just can't get myself to believe it, it's like a part of me is still stuck there wondering what the fuck I am and everything just feels so "off". I just feel like I'm an empty body and my "self" is still partly somewhere else and it's scaring me like crazy. I know if this goes on it's going to tear me apart mentally and I just really hope it'll sort itself out or else I don't know what to do.
Click to expand...

Allow you to feel it and let go, this is (you are) all believe.

Remember it "What a shattering experience, freaking f**** wow!!!! I am still astonished and feel totally weird", let go it and go on. "Chop wood and carry water."

Love is all... (you) shines! :lol:

Northerner said:
Be kind and gentle with yourself, integration is as much of a healing process as it is a learning one. It takes time. Explore the experience for what it is and let your fear go. Acceptance will come.
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:thumb_up:

tseuq
 
Northerner said:
Sorry to hear you had a difficult experience Kajlian, I've been there more than once.

For me the greatest healer has always been time. Over time we are able to reflect, inflect and process the experiences. After all, we only look into the mirror when we use psychedelics. It doesn't show us things that aren't true, but not everything that is true is necessarily as it appears either. It might be 2 weeks later and then suddenly you'll wake up at 4 in the morning yelling "I understand now!". I've been there too. :lol:

Be kind and gentle with yourself, integration is as much of a healing process as it is a learning one. It takes time. Explore the experience for what it is and let your fear go. Acceptance will come.

Oh yeah, and forget the benzos.

Welcome to the nexus. :thumb_up:
Click to expand...

I've been having a hard time remembering parts of the trip but I remember more the more I think about it but I also feel more and more lost, it's like I experienced so much that the rabbit hole never ends, I still can't remember all of it, and I'm not sure I want to. Do you think I should keep exploring the trip even if it makes me much worse? Do you think maybe I'll come out the other end and feel good about it or should I just try to forget. It feels like my brain is trying to shield me from trauma by not showing me everything but maybe thinking more about it and trying to remember is what I need to do.
 
I used a lot of a stimulant called 3-FEA last week, last day I used was just over 2 days ago. I think maybe everything seems slightly worse today, sort of like a "suicide tuesday" thing you get on MDMA. 3-FEA is very much like MDMA, very serotonergic so I'm pretty sure a lot of the negative emotions and derealization I'm feeling now is due to a depletion of serotonin and it'll get easier in a few days. I got so stuck thinking about the trip I actualy only realised my stimulant use also might have something to do with it like 10 minutes ago. I hope I'm right and I hope I'll better be able to process the trip in a few days when I feel better in general. Probably was not a good time to start delving deeper into it.
 
Kajliam, when you say trauma are you referring to trauma directly from the trip, or trauma that was already inside you, but hidden, and that your trip brought up, and now is trying to hide again but this time with more difficulties and stress because it came to the surface if only briefly?

Psychedelics can bring up past trauma and (at some early or later point) help accept it. There is info on the web about this, have you seen some talks and heard the podcasts about this subject? At the end the process can be a good thing, because once you accept that part of yourself, your brain can stop spending energy and stress keeping it locked up. Professional psychiatrist also do this same work and can help if the situation is unbearable (apparently you can even find folks that combine psychiatry and psychedelics).

I had a bad trip once. It disturbed me and I felt different after. I though about it a lot and realized it was from a very early traumatic event. It was nothing malicious, it was a medical issue in my jaw area. The trip showed be the fear and pain I felt as an infant which I had forgotten (or locked up). After realizing what it was I felt better. I was a terrified infant and the event shook me to my core, and that is OK with me now. What else was I supposed to do? I think people around me told me to be brave, there intentions were good but I don't think that helped and instead pushed me to lock the memory up. Now I tell my kids that it is OK to be scared and cry and that those feelings are natural and part of being sick or hurt and part of life.

And welcome to the Nexus.
 
Loveall said:
Kajliam, when you say trauma are you referring to trauma directly from the trip, or trauma that was already inside you, but hidden, and that your trip brought up, and now is trying to hide again but this time with more difficulties and stress because it came to the surface if only briefly?

Psychedelics can bring up past trauma and (at some early or later point) help accept it. There is info on the web about this, have you seen some talks and heard the podcasts about this subject? At the end the process can be a good thing, because once you accept that part of yourself, your brain can stop spending energy and stress keeping it locked up. Professional psychiatrist also do this same work and can help if the situation is unbearable (apparently you can even find folks that combine psychiatry and psychedelics).

I had a bad trip once. It disturbed me and I felt different after. I though about it a lot and realized it was from a very early traumatic event. It was nothing malicious, it was a medical issue in my jaw area. The trip showed be the fear and pain I felt as an infant which I had forgotten (or locked up). After realizing what it was I felt better. I was a terrified infant and the event shook me to my core, and that is OK with me now. What else was I supposed to do? I think people around me told me to be brave, there intentions were good but I don't think that helped and instead pushed me to lock the memory up. Now I tell my kids that it is OK to be scared and cry and that those feelings are natural and part of being sick or hurt and part of life.

And welcome to the Nexus.
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There were a lot of scary parts that felt good afterwards, felt like clearing up unfinished business and facing conflicts and fears from my childhood. This scary part I see as something good now afterwards, and I'm happy and grateful towards the substance for showing me this.

What really got to me was another part of the trip, an earlier part of the trip that took place right before the ego death, once my sense of "self" was gone nothing felt that scary, even the fears etc I had to face. Before I finally "broke through" I had a really bad trip that didn't teach me anything, just scared me. It was just me being afraid of letting go I think. I saw everything that could go wrong. I think this was because I used an RC (4-HO-DPT), not a classical psychedelic, and I did a really huge dose of 210mg. I felt like I would either go insane or die in real life and never be myself again. This was the part that I feel really bad about now afterwards. Once I started to think like this the visuals also turned really sinister and disturbing and I have some pictures in my head that are hard to forget. There were a lot of really menacing entities in the trip. I think once I finally managed to let go I actually did have a very positive experience, but most of the parts I remember are from the first, more sinister part of the trip.

So yeah, the trauma I'm talking about is definitely from the trip itself and not things I actually needed to see, just a lot of disturbing shit I wish I could unsee. There was also A LOT of (physical and mental) pain and suffering, and time felt like it took forever so at one point I felt stuck in an eternal hell of suffering and nightmares.
 
The experience did end with ego death, acceptance, and feeling like all the pain was worth it, but it's only now several weeks later that it's starting to get to me. I think it's because I started to process a lot of it at the same time that I was coming down from a serotonin-heavy stimulant, and I didn't realise some of the anxiety I was feeling was due to the comedown.
 
Hey Kajlian.

Stop the RC's man! :!:

Goddammit don't be a freaking lab rat!

I've seen more than one good person run aground dabbling with these things. The safety profile is unknown, quite often they are proved to be dangerous and destructive, if anyone ever bothers to research them that far.

I naively assumed that you had been using a classical psychedelic when you started this thread.

If the visions produced were nightmarish by all terms of reference it's fine just to let them go. You know what you need. Looking into a pool of drug induced horrors is not a path to enlightenment, it's just a path to more pain. Accepting the memories of these experiences is part of the integration experience though. There's no getting past that one. But you don't have to force yourself to relive it over and over again hoping to find something from it if there is really nothing there. People who have used strong deliriants (and even dmt) have also had to come to terms with these sorts of realities, or unrealities. It just is man. Grow, heal, accept... but don't dwell. This reality we see here around us is the working reality we live in. It may just be a paradigm but it is our current basis. So treat it as your primary reality and focus on that being the main building block.

It's okay to get proper scrambled on occasion, just look around you though. You can use your new found experience to temper your spirit, be a stronger and better person. If you can live through that and come out the other side a-okay you're probably stronger than most of the people you know.
 
These (interpretations of) experiences are not primarily limited to the chemical but to yourself. I guess it can happen with any psychedelic with a decent dose. It is your mind which brings up the idea: "Hö.. something is wrong." and the rest follows (weird feelings, shift in perception, threatening thoughts..). Going out far is pretty adventurous, let the unimaginable happen, keep breathing, be focused and still.

@Northerner; Good posts!

Northerner said:
If you can live through that and come out the other side a-okay you're probably stronger than most of the people you know.
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This is what I thought in the beginning.. "Kajlians story sounds like an intense experience, with a big potential for growth!" :thumb_up:

Get some tea, sit out in the sun, feel it all and enjoy being alive.

Forever thankful. ;)

tseuq
 
All excellent talk, I'd definitely heed the advice of what was said above, couldn't have said it any better.


Kajlian said:
it's like I experienced so much that the rabbit hole never ends.
Click to expand...

A beautiful thing. Respect it!

It's all you ∞
 
Northerner said:
Hey Kajlian.

Stop the RC's man! :!:

Goddammit don't be a freaking lab rat!

I've seen more than one good person run aground dabbling with these things. The safety profile is unknown, quite often they are proved to be dangerous and destructive, if anyone ever bothers to research them that far.

I naively assumed that you had been using a classical psychedelic when you started this thread.

If the visions produced were nightmarish by all terms of reference it's fine just to let them go. You know what you need. Looking into a pool of drug induced horrors is not a path to enlightenment, it's just a path to more pain. Accepting the memories of these experiences is part of the integration experience though. There's no getting past that one. But you don't have to force yourself to relive it over and over again hoping to find something from it if there is really nothing there. People who have used strong deliriants (and even dmt) have also had to come to terms with these sorts of realities, or unrealities. It just is man. Grow, heal, accept... but don't dwell. This reality we see here around us is the working reality we live in. It may just be a paradigm but it is our current basis. So treat it as your primary reality and focus on that being the main building block.

It's okay to get proper scrambled on occasion, just look around you though. You can use your new found experience to temper your spirit, be a stronger and better person. If you can live through that and come out the other side a-okay you're probably stronger than most of the people you know.
Click to expand...

I don't think the chemical itself was the problem but rather me being slightly doubtful towards it.
 
tatt said:
All excellent talk, I'd definitely heed the advice of what was said above, couldn't have said it any better.


Kajlian said:
it's like I experienced so much that the rabbit hole never ends.
Click to expand...

A beautiful thing. Respect it!

It's all you ∞
Click to expand...
Seconded. Nexus in action.

OP, it sounds as if you have been able to work through most of what was confounding you.

Other than reiterating the above advice, I'd suggest that if you don't want to stay completely sober, that laying off anything more powerful than weed for awhile would probably be beneficial. Let your brain come back to homeostasis for a bit, while continuing to integrate your experience. Keep talking and breathing.

Fear goes deeper than any of us really have any idea, until we really drive down in there and face it. It motivates every failure, feeds every pain, clouds every truth. It's the barking dog, distracting you from infinity.

Every thing they say is true, and most of it is lies, this universe and this reality is far stranger than you have even seen so far. Keep unpeeling it, but tread carefully and don't let it unpeel you too fast.
 
If u feel unconfortable befor trip maybe is tike to take a break.U can check ur blood presion atleast me sometimes heppend to have hi blood presion due nervious.I am a middle age man.
 
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