Hi everyone,
This is my first time writing on this site. Please bare with me if this may be a long story. I've actually never expressed what I'm going through in a public forum before but I think it's about time I should. I'm currently going through a similar experience.
I don't really know where to start so I'll just start at the beginning. I'll try to keep background story brief. The first time I've ever tried psychedelics was when I was a freshmen in college. Up until my Sophomore year, I haven't taken more than 2 tabs at ounce. It wasn't until Summer of 2011 that I really started to enjoy tripping. I during that Summer, me a bunch of close friends from my school decided to go to Summercamp Music Festival for the first time. To be brief, it was by far the greatest experience of my life. Throughout that weekend I pushed my limits on psychedelics (taking as much as 12 tabs in a day on top of many others including molly, shrooms for breakfast, lunch and dinner all in the same day). (In my mind I was in the best place on Earth, surrounded by music and beautiful, loving people). I literally spent most of my time with three very attractive ladies. (One was a close and the other we just met by our camp site, which we found out later had tons of mutual friends). The entire experience is probably too much to tell. Some of my favorite highlights include: smoking to, from, and after shows; holding hands (which sounds a bit cheesy but at the time felt soooooo good); laughing together; dancing together; laying down next to each other in the tents. Everything was just magical and so perfect. The four of us were so lovey and comfortable with each other. You get the idea.
This experience did many great things for me. It allowed me to experience something I thought wasn't even possible (like a complete fullness of good intentions). For the next few weeks I was a completely different person. I saw everything in a brighter more positive light. All my problems seemed to lifted away. Not that there weren't any but that all my problems were so much easier to managed. I was thinking so clearly and the little things no longer bothered me. I was more social and friendlier than ever. Just felt like a better me.
Everything changed when I decided on experimenting with DMT. A few weeks after Summercamp I went to North Coast Music Festival. I met these kids selling doses and I instantly became friends with them. They're were great group of kids. Everyone was extremely friendly (even invited me to hang out at the hotel they were staying at). It was at the hotel that I tried DMT for the first time (I told them I had never tired it and they eagerly gave me hits from their stash, didn't really 'trip' or at least didn't felt I did, but all in all a great night; just chilling and smoking some trees). The final day of North Coast I met up with them again. I felt like we definitely bonded from the day before. When the night fell Bassnectar went on. This would be the start of my horror. By this time I've taken 6 tabs, most of which were gifts from that group on top of some k I ate earlier that day. At some point in the show I was passed a piece from one of the guys from that group and thinking it was just hash on top of trees I took a huge rip. I didn't notice it was DMT until about my 3rd or 4th huge rip (I held every hit in thinking it was some good hash). After realizing what it was, I was actually trying to enjoy it at first thinking it's no big deal and that it would eventually wear off. I remember I kept looking at my watch, counting down when it would wear off. After the 30 min mark I started to get worried and that's when my entire reality started to crumble. I felt like everything was happening in a loop. I kept doing the same motions and experiencing constant deja vu. I began hearing whispers with a almost malicious undertone. Like I was being watched and everyone was messing with me. I don't remember exactly what they were saying but it sounded something like "man, how hard is this kid tripping?" "is he ever going to get back to normal" "someone needs to buy this kid a drink" "how long has he been like this??" "duuuudeeeee" "maaaaan" "this guyyyy" "wow wow, he is fucked up" "did you guys just break his brain" "what if he never gets back to normal". All of which freaked me out more and more especially when I would turn around and see everyone smiling at me when I looked at them. I drifted into the deepest depths of fear. At one point I tried calling my roommate to come find me, but I no longer knew how to use my phone. I was so scared of everything. I was almost convinced that I had fell into a comma and everything was just part my imagination. My only option at the time was to find the paramedics but was debating it (I really didn't want to end up in a mental institution). As I was looking for the med tent, out of no where my roommate and his girlfriend just appeared in front of me. They told me that I ran into them as I was wondering (something I still have doubts about). Seriously! I was trying to call him and he suddenly appears?! How am I supposed to believe that? I have this theory that I was probably carry or taken to them in a frantic state and this is just the story the came up with so that I would not recall what actually happened. I don't know the limits to DMT so this could just be my wild imagination filling in for such an absurd coincidence. For the rest of the music festival I fought with myself on whether or not I was in comma or not. After we all got together after the Bassnectar show, I was also toying with the thought that everyone was not who the actually were. (that everything from then on was part of my endless trip, continually messing with my sense of reality).
This last part is the most mentally challenging for me to put into words. I can't completely explain what was going through my head at this point but all I knew was, I needed to get OUT!. I just remember seeing the same street pass us over and over. I was sitting closest to the door. I remembered a distinct click as I pulled the handle. I was prepared to fall out and hopefully that would snap me out of this nightmare. I don't remember what stopped me. This is as far as I'll go with this. And I'll the story here.
Sorry if this was difficult to read. I didn't put much effort into revising what I was writing. Just putting this into words brought back some scary feelings. I just thought I just type and whatever comes to me.
It's been over a year since my bad trip and ever since I've been suffering through a lot anxiety issues, social anxiety, and depression. I took 150ml Bupopion XL along with Fluoxetine 20gm for a few months but stopped. It felt like it worked a little at first but ultimately made things worse.
Crazyhorse said:
You've gotten some good advice here, I hope it helps you to work through this.
I really don't feel qualified to tell you what you should do, since I'm still trying to recover from something similar myself. Although I feel I CAN tell you what I think you should NOT do, which is what I did for a very long time (nothing). I just wanted you to know that I totally understand how you feel, and that in my opinion, this is something you will eventually need to confront and take some kind of action to get past. Professional help is a good idea, but it should be someone familiar with this particular kind of problem who can treat it as something similar to PTSD (which it is). A typical shrink will probably just focus on your "drug abuse" problem, then give you OTHER (approved) drugs to "fix" you.
Based only on my own experience, if the trauma is really deep, once the imprint has been made just laying off psychedelics alone won't undo it. I tried that route for 20 years without success or improvement. In fact the more time that goes by, the more it can become a part of you, until you can't really even remember feeling any other way. Prescription meds (paxil) helped for the short term but in the long run only seemed to make it worse.
At least, that's how it's been for me. We're all different people with our own experiences, and it sounds like some of these guys have gotten over their bad trips fairly easily. So I hope your damage isn't as deep as mine was and that you're able to get back to the way you felt before, sooner rather than later. If you weren't in any actual physical danger at the time, and the "bad trip" was all just an experience in your head, a relatively quick recovery seems to be more likely. But if you're having a bad trip, AND someone is actually trying to hurt or kill you in real life (for example), I think it all goes much deeper into your subconscious than either would on it's own.
Maybe it would help some if you were able to put the experience into words here? It might help you understand it better, or help those who have been in a similar place offer more specific advice.
Crazyhorse, would you consider my story a near death situation?
Please if anyone has any suggestions for me, help. I feel like not myself anymore. I would really like to get back to the "better me" from before my bad trip. From time to time, I still sometimes feel like I'm tripping. I feel like the world is out to get me. It's no long full of good intentions in the world but the exact opposite. That somehow something is going to go wrong. Like my mind is still playing malicious tricks on me. I feel like I've been keeping my guard up for something to go wrong. Like it's my reality plotting something. Do I sound crazy? If I read this, I would think I was crazy too.
