5 ms·

My biggest regret is tripping on mushrooms. It permanently ruined aspects of my mind.

by quasque 14y ago

hiker 14y ago
Maybe you can share some more details to inspire/discourage the new generation of programming youth.
- quasque 14y ago
  It was mushrooms in a hotel room in Amsterdam several years ago. I took them with my then-girlfriend - her trip was okay but mine was awful. The visuals, the thoughts, the emotions all felt terrible and when it really hit me I couldn't stop panicking. At the time, I thought that was it: a bad trip but glad it was over. But over the following months I developed a chronic anxiety triggered by all sorts of things. First time I noticed it was next time I was in a hotel room; I had a panic attack and had to call an ambulance as I didn't know what the fuck was going on with my head. Then, other things became triggers. If I happened to be thinking of either of the hotel room incidents and felt anxious, then whatever else was present at the time would become a trigger for the anxiety. This included internal thought-triggers and external visual and situational ones. Over the next couple of years I had panic attacks in all sorts of places, sometimes seemingly apropos of nothing. Anyway after a couple of years I managed to get it somewhat under control using a combination of anti-depressant medication and cognitive behavioural therapy. But even now there are some situational triggers that will make me exceedingly anxious, and earlier this month - after several years 'clean' of attacks - I couldn't hold off the anxiety and had another really large attack. Though I was very stressed about something else so I suppose my background levels of anxiety were high anyway. Before all this happened, I was a pretty relaxed and chilled out kind of guy. It makes me sad that I'm never going to get back to that state of mind. When I look back at recordings or writings of the pre-mushrooms me, he seems almost like a stranger. It's very odd. This of course is not necessarily a typical experience on mushrooms, and I suppose I was predisposed to this somehow, but it was a very unpleasant way to find this out.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    To give your misery some company, even without drugs it is common enough that people come upon "broken" mental states chronic recurring severe anxiety that are triggered by otherwise mundane reminders (such as a creepy icon of a video game). These conditions can be initiated by using books or movies to reach dark ideas, or even aimless or subconscious thinking (too much thinking time or idleness).
    - quasque 14y ago
      That is very interesting. Do you have any pointers as to where one can read more about the psychogenesis of such things?
  - Alex3917 14y ago
    "At the time, I thought that was it: a bad trip but glad it was over. But over the following months I developed a chronic anxiety triggered by all sorts of things." That is just a bad trip. The problem is that if it brings up a lot of issues and you can't properly integrate them then you will have chronic anxiety issues, and any resulting physical brain changes would be from the chronic anxiety rather than from the psilocybin itself. The normal advice when this happens is to do the drug again and to try to resolve whatever issues came up. But if you're on anti-depressants right now then that's not really an option, and you also probably wouldn't want to do that without a more experience guide.
    - quasque 14y ago
      Nice to know that several years of chronic anxiety problems and panic attacks was "just" a bad trip. I'm not on anti-depressants and haven't been for years, but your advice seems completely bizarre. Why on earth would I risk taking the mushrooms again after it fucked me up so much the first time? There's no way I'm ever touching them again.
      - Alex3917 14y ago
        "Nice to know that several years of chronic anxiety problems and panic attacks was 'just' a bad trip." It's roughly analogous to if you get PTSD after getting raped. That doesn't mean that rape causes chronic anxiety per se, even though it's a common outcome. I'm not trying to say that mushrooms didn't have an adverse effect on your life, only that it wasn't due to psilocybin directly altering your brain. "I'm not on anti-depressants and haven't been for years, but your advice seems completely bizarre." That advice wasn't for you specifically, I'm just saying that it's the standard advice. But it normally applies for people who have had a bad trip a week or two ago, not several years ago. The idea is that the only way to come out of it is to follow whatever you were going through until you get to the logical conclusion. Here are a few guides in general to dealing with 'bad trips': http://vimeo.com/16702478 http://vimeo.com/16702478 http://www.maps.org/videos/source4/video9.html http://www.maps.org/videos/source4/video9.html http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/faqs/psychedelic_crisis_faq.shtml http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/faqs/psychedelic_crisis_...

My biggest regret is tripping on mushrooms. It permanently ruined aspects of my mind.

by quasque 14y ago

My biggest regret is tripping on mushrooms. It permanently ruined aspects of my mind.

hiker 14y ago

Maybe you can share some more details to inspire/discourage the new generation of programming youth.

quasque 14y ago
It was mushrooms in a hotel room in Amsterdam several years ago. I took them with my then-girlfriend - her trip was okay but mine was awful. The visuals, the thoughts, the emotions all felt terrible and when it really hit me I couldn't stop panicking. At the time, I thought that was it: a bad trip but glad it was over. But over the following months I developed a chronic anxiety triggered by all sorts of things. First time I noticed it was next time I was in a hotel room; I had a panic attack and had to call an ambulance as I didn't know what the fuck was going on with my head. Then, other things became triggers. If I happened to be thinking of either of the hotel room incidents and felt anxious, then whatever else was present at the time would become a trigger for the anxiety. This included internal thought-triggers and external visual and situational ones. Over the next couple of years I had panic attacks in all sorts of places, sometimes seemingly apropos of nothing. Anyway after a couple of years I managed to get it somewhat under control using a combination of anti-depressant medication and cognitive behavioural therapy. But even now there are some situational triggers that will make me exceedingly anxious, and earlier this month - after several years 'clean' of attacks - I couldn't hold off the anxiety and had another really large attack. Though I was very stressed about something else so I suppose my background levels of anxiety were high anyway. Before all this happened, I was a pretty relaxed and chilled out kind of guy. It makes me sad that I'm never going to get back to that state of mind. When I look back at recordings or writings of the pre-mushrooms me, he seems almost like a stranger. It's very odd. This of course is not necessarily a typical experience on mushrooms, and I suppose I was predisposed to this somehow, but it was a very unpleasant way to find this out.
- Evbn 14y ago
  To give your misery some company, even without drugs it is common enough that people come upon "broken" mental states chronic recurring severe anxiety that are triggered by otherwise mundane reminders (such as a creepy icon of a video game). These conditions can be initiated by using books or movies to reach dark ideas, or even aimless or subconscious thinking (too much thinking time or idleness).
  - quasque 14y ago
    That is very interesting. Do you have any pointers as to where one can read more about the psychogenesis of such things?
- Alex3917 14y ago
  "At the time, I thought that was it: a bad trip but glad it was over. But over the following months I developed a chronic anxiety triggered by all sorts of things." That is just a bad trip. The problem is that if it brings up a lot of issues and you can't properly integrate them then you will have chronic anxiety issues, and any resulting physical brain changes would be from the chronic anxiety rather than from the psilocybin itself. The normal advice when this happens is to do the drug again and to try to resolve whatever issues came up. But if you're on anti-depressants right now then that's not really an option, and you also probably wouldn't want to do that without a more experience guide.
  - quasque 14y ago
    Nice to know that several years of chronic anxiety problems and panic attacks was "just" a bad trip. I'm not on anti-depressants and haven't been for years, but your advice seems completely bizarre. Why on earth would I risk taking the mushrooms again after it fucked me up so much the first time? There's no way I'm ever touching them again.
    - Alex3917 14y ago
      "Nice to know that several years of chronic anxiety problems and panic attacks was 'just' a bad trip." It's roughly analogous to if you get PTSD after getting raped. That doesn't mean that rape causes chronic anxiety per se, even though it's a common outcome. I'm not trying to say that mushrooms didn't have an adverse effect on your life, only that it wasn't due to psilocybin directly altering your brain. "I'm not on anti-depressants and haven't been for years, but your advice seems completely bizarre." That advice wasn't for you specifically, I'm just saying that it's the standard advice. But it normally applies for people who have had a bad trip a week or two ago, not several years ago. The idea is that the only way to come out of it is to follow whatever you were going through until you get to the logical conclusion. Here are a few guides in general to dealing with 'bad trips': http://vimeo.com/16702478 http://vimeo.com/16702478 http://www.maps.org/videos/source4/video9.html http://www.maps.org/videos/source4/video9.html http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/faqs/psychedelic_crisis_faq.shtml http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/faqs/psychedelic_crisis_...