# My Story - Marijuana, Mushrooms, and the Aftermath



## justsomeguy21 (Feb 25, 2008)

Hi everyone,

I just found this forum by accident today and was amazed to see that many people have had and recovered from the same kind of experience that I've been struggling with for over a year. I've been fortunate enough to largely overcome the feelings of anxiety and terror which plagued me for months after my horrible DR experience without the intervention of drugs or therapy, but I still have panic attacks and get extremely paranoid and anxious from time to time. I wanted to share my own story with you.

*My DR Story - Background*

Despite not being a religious person, I'm a very spiritual person. I think a lot about reality, existence, human emotion, et cetera. You all know the drill, I'm sure. It seems like most of the people on these boards ran into trouble because they shared the same types of similar thoughts and combined them with drug use.

I had never experimented with drugs very much until I got to college. My parents were very adamant about not using drugs and I think that that, in part, helped keep me away from them. In high school I had smoked the occasional joint or gotten high with friends at a party, but not with any frequency or pattern. I was always curious about slightly rarer and more dangerous drugs like ecstasy, LSD, and magic mushrooms, but I never had the opportunity or courage to actually try them. This trend continued until my sophomore year of college, when a friend of mine started inviting me to come hang out with him and smoke marijuana on a regular basis. It was a lot of fun, and we always had good times listening to music and laughing together in his room, or making stoned trips to the nearby burger joint.

Over the next two years, I became increasingly interested and engaged in regular marijuana use. What started as something I would only do with people who offered eventually evolved into me buying it for myself. Then, I started keeping pipes and lighters in my apartment. Over time, I ended up buying more and better quality marijuana. All of this contributed to a very cavalier and dismissive attitude towards drugs. I figured, "What the hell-- I can handle it."

Despite this feeling, a very common occurrence for me while smoking was getting stuck in a "thought-loop" as I called it. My friends always thought it was really strange when I explained it to them, but it was immensely distressing and scary when it happened to me. I would start thinking about something, which would lead me to a different thought, which would lead me back to the first thought, and so on. I would often be aware of it and be unable to do anything about it. When it started happening, I could usually feel it coming on and would precede it by thinking something like, "Oh god! I'm going to be stuck in a thought loop! And we just started smoking... the next few hours are going to suck, bad." At first, I thought it was novel, but eventually, I just hated it. It didn't make me want to stop smoking, though.

Many of my friends were also avid marijuana users, and several of them advocated "magic mushrooms" as another really fun thing to try. This was one of the drugs I had always been curious about. I had heard that it was virtually harmless, quite fun, and that even if you had a bad trip it didn't really "hurt" you. I did a bunch of research online at the various "established" drug sites (Erowid, etc) before being satisfied that those reports were largely true. It's too bad I didn't put enough weight on the psychological damage of having a bad trip.

The first and only time I experimented with mushrooms was when I had my DR experience.

*My DR Experience*

The whole experience was a bad idea to begin with. It was supposed to happen in the afternoon, but the girl who was getting the mushrooms was late and we didn't get started until hours later. It was my first time ever taking them, my girlfriend was mad at me for doing it, I felt guilty that I was doing it anyway, it was a dark night outside, and my friend had brought some guy I had never met before over to do them with us. In short, it was a terrible setting for taking them, based on everything I had read, but we took them anyway. She had brought an eighth for each of us, and I foolishly ate my whole bag right off the bat instead of taking it slowly and checking my reaction.

I'm not going to recount the step by step experience of being on mushrooms because I know that _I_ wouldn't want to hear someone else talk about it (it makes me very anxious and uncomfortable to hear people describe what I was going through that night), but suffice it to say that the mushrooms kicked in _hard_. I was fine for a while, but then we decided to leave the apartment and go down by a river. On the way back, I started panicking. Everything seemed foreign and strange. I just held my girlfriend's hand, and kept focusing on her. I kept thinking, "Stay with her, you'll get home safely. She's the anchor, stay with her."

When we finally got home, I felt much better-- for a little while. But then I started getting really anxious again, in my own apartment. The experience was so different than anything I had ever felt before. I consider myself to be pretty smart and rely on my intelligence, but the weirdest thing about taking the mushrooms was that it shaped my thought patterns in such a way that my intellect was useless. It's hard to explain. My thoughts that whole night centered on how it's impossible to really know _anything_ except through direct experience.

When I started getting anxious, I started getting sick. My stomach was having convulsions and I couldn't think straight. I remember wondering, in all seriousness, if I was a rabbit who was imagining that he was a human, and thinking that that was as likely a scenario as any other. I retreated to the bedroom, away from the people who were in my apartment, and I wouldn't let anyone but my girlfriend come in. I also frantically tried to keep her there. Every time she would try to leave the room to check on the others, it seemed to suddenly be getting darker and I would be hit by a panic attack. The worst part of the whole experience was that I couldn't explain the immediate gravity of the situation to her. We talked about it later. For her, it seemed like I was just high and being silly. For me, it was a life or death, mortal fear of losing my life and sanity kind of thing if she didn't stay in the room.

Eventually, she got my friends (none of whom were as gone as I was) to leave, and I moved to the bathroom. For a seeming eternity, I sat at my toilet bowl and tried to throw up in the vain hope that all of this would stop. I couldn't, and it didn't. As I sat there in my bathroom, I hit the lowest and worst point of my evening. I kept thinking that I had forgotten to breathe and was taking huge breaths every few seconds when I remembered. I was terrified that if I forgot, I would die. I kept repeating to myself, "Remember to breathe, remember to breathe, what was I supposed to remember? Breathe!" and I would take a big breath. I sat there at the toilet bowl and literally thought that this must be like what dying feels like. Everything felt slow and far away. I thought about how I had done so much research about how harmless these were, but that no one can really know what your body will do and that it looks like I was one of the unlucky .0001% of people who die in a freak accident. I sat there thinking about how the concept of time is meaningless, and how I could just as easily be here in this state for 10,000 years as an hour, from my perspective. I thought about how pointless and stupid it was that here I was, dying at 22, on my bathroom floor, and how angry I was at myself for throwing my life away because I wanted to have a good time. That's just a taste of what went through my head that night. I felt like I was hanging onto my sanity by a string.

*The Aftermath*

Of course, I got better. I wasn't dying-- I was just having a bad trip. The experience is something I'm still dealing with, though. The next day and for the months that followed, I was in a constant state of panic. I didn't know what was real, wasn't sure I was real, didn't believe in reality. I was depressed and fatalistic. I didn't see the point in anything. I felt like I had been exposed to ideas that I was completely and totally unequipped to handle. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

After a few months and after chats with a number of people about the experience, I started feeling better. Not about the ideas themselves, but I just started thinking about them less. These days, when I get really drunk or smoke marijuana (as I have on a few occasions, just to see what happens), I can feel the familiar panic creeping in on the corners of my mind. If I fall into a thought-loop, it often centers on the same ideas I had while I was high on the mushrooms. It's extra panic-inducing, and it's like revisiting that night. As you can imagine, I don't smoke very much any more. I have existential crises from time to time, and I often feel like my vision isn't as good as it used to be. I have trouble focusing on things (literally). I don't know if it's related or not.

I feel like I am getting better, but I'm nowhere near fully recovered. I'm glad I found this board and I'm looking forward to reading more people's stories.

Comments are welcome. Thanks for reading.


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## Islander1 (Mar 25, 2008)

Intresting story, i can relate to you fully.

i was diagnosed with GAD and SAD and DPD which was caused by a mushrooms/XTC/marijuana etc

shrooms was the main culprit, one thing in my life i regret doing.

i had a bad trip and now im fighting to get my old self back.

What medication are you currantly on? im actualy on natural meds and wont go near prescription meds.


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## Helpinuout (Mar 26, 2009)

Hey there,

Interesting story, sounds like a terrifying experience. If you haven't realized by now, shrooms can be really fun or really terrible or anywhere in between. This is cause it just pulls and picks the stuff that's in your own brain and helps you realize that. I've had similar existential crises that cause me to be a lazy ass bum and feel unproductive in my professional and personal life.

One day I was in a goofy crisis such as your own, a slave to my own senses and to my own desire to seek out new experiences. I was feeling terrible...walking along the beautiful East River in New York City at sunrise, I couldn't figure out what I wanted. I thought to myself... what do I really want? WHAT DO I REALLY WANT? I was trying to use the current experience to help me figure out my life mission.

Then I realized, WHAT DO I WANT? I dunno, I could go for some ice cream. I got some ice cream. I realized, hey, I really like a certain song... let me listen to that song... hey, I really wanna stretch... stretching makes me feel good... and etc.

You've gotta do stuff that makes you happy. Take it step by step. Life is a mission. A mission to procreate, to sleep, to eat and to enjoy! Do what you want on a moment-to-moment basis. Think about what's REALLY frustrating you, then go ahead, realize and achieve your goals one by one.

For me, I used to swim competitively all my life until college. Then I stopped, got lazy and got a little pudgy. Feeling pudgy was terrible for me as I was used to being in the best shape ever. So, I realized that feeling bad about my body image was the root of a lot of my frustration... and I motivated myself to do what makes me feel good about myself... exercise. So now I exercise regularly and feel mad good.

My example about exercise is very personal. If you feel unfulfilled about any personal relationships, confront those people and tell them how you feel about them. TAKE THAT EXTRA STEP TO DO GOOD FOR OTHERS. IT WILL MAKE U FEEL GOOD. I dunno, you just gotta do what you wanna do, when you have time to do it. Be responsible and be mature. Fulfill your responsibilities and then enjoy yourself. How else can u live your life? If you can't make yourself happy, you sure as hell aren't gonna make anyone else happy around you.

Hey man we all live and breathe and bug out sometimes... stress is natural but when u ignore the root of its problems it explodes in your head and makes you feel like a schizo.

Man think about your health, think about the millions of people out there less fortunate than you. Swallow your pride. Mushrooms are sacred to some tribes in the world because it opens their mind up to the beautiful connection between everyone and everything. Enjoy that connection between yourself and the world we share.

Most importantly, take things as they come along. I already respect you because the experience of shrooms can be overwhelming... peace and love. Listen to the song Johnny Be Goode by Peter Tosh. All the way through. It's a sick song I just discovered it and it's really made my week.

Enjoy.


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## daisymae (Oct 3, 2009)

:mrgreen:


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## pzh12345 (Nov 29, 2009)

hi,

i had completely the same experience as you apart from mine being in Thailand. I have been feeling this way for nearly three months and feel as though something has substantially changed. Have you tried taking any medication? I have been recommended (+heard others being recommended) Lamotrigine + SSRI, which I heard has had significant efficacy.

Have you considered this?


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## annemary100 (Apr 6, 2009)

thanks for postings


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## Stabs (Dec 8, 2009)

I had the same kind of trip, man! Exactly the same!

Like you, I'm more of a spiritual person and after reading "DMT: The spirit molecule", I decided to eat a quarter of mushrooms on an empty stomach in an attempt to have an out of body experience. I was with my girlfriend in an unfamiliar place and before I knew it, I was hit with MASSIVE anxiety. Anxiety that I never knew existed before that moment. That lasted a while and then my mind was racing all not long. To this day, I'm still fucked up... and my trip happened 2 years ago.


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## FoXS (Nov 4, 2009)

justsomeguy21 said:


> I just held my girlfriend's hand, and kept focusing on her. I kept thinking, "Stay with her, you'll get home safely. She's the anchor, stay with her."


I will tell you something which i have told nobody. the same thing happened to me too, being on drugs. 
and you know what? 
in this moment, i forgot...
...who my girlfriend was. 
i could not remember her name and just asked: whoa?! who's that, why's she so close?! 
i was told later that i had been lying on the floor, crying and screaming. 
it was as if i had thrown my brain out of the window, lost myself and my memories, did not know who i was, where i was and who my girlfriend was.  
looking back to that, it seems like the sadest moment in my life.
i feel very guilty


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## Borisus (Nov 13, 2009)

Yeah, I can really relate to this. Mine started the same way basically. I'll have to write mine up as well.. But anyways. Really appreciate you posting this. It was very well written.


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