Well I haven't been on here in a while, but I figured I'd poke my head in to update this thread.

It's been three weeks now and the "panic attacks," as they're commonly known, have let up considerably. The things that trigger them become fewer and fewer and it takes me shorter and shorter periods of time to get a handle on them. The "attacks" themselves are pale shadows of what they were in the first week I was getting them. No comparison at all really.

What happened is actually much deeper than the surface symptom of the panic attacks. It's been a confrontation that's been coming my whole life, and it would have happened at some point anyway, if it hadn't happened now. I don't doubt that taking psychedelics had a hand in forcing me to face these things. Don't get me wrong, I'm not regretful at all. How could I be? I'm extremely thankful and humbled beyond anything that words can express.

It's been a deep, thorough questioning of literally everything I ever took for granted in my entire life. Every action I made became a momentous thing, every thought became like a weight dragging me down. I was suddenly made aware of what I've been calling "myself" my entire life, and forced to look at that very closely in a very uncomfortable manner. Probably the toughest period I've ever experienced.

I don't know if I can properly articulate exactly what's happened to my awareness, but I think "awakened" is the right word. I'm conscious of life/the world/reality as a "thing," as if from the outside. It's taken a while to get to the point where I can begin to sit in that newfound awareness without freaking out. Mostly it's just taken time to see that life keeps going on in spite of my freak-outs.

In the process of this whole ordeal I've made some powerful discoveries. First of all, I've found that I can stop my thoughts and experience life without them. Then all the garbage that's clogging my head up drifts away, and there's just life. I just live it, and that's that. The drama and the horrible weightiness of it all just vanishes.

Second of all, I've finally faced down fear and discovered what to do with it. For the first time in my life I can say with confidence that I am not afraid of death in the least. This is not because my beliefs about death have changed or any such thing, not at all. It's that I've learned deeply about fear itself. There isn't fear of this, fear of that, as language and culture lead us to suppose, there's just fear. Fear is not a quality inherent in anything; no thought, no idea, no thing is fearful in and of itself. Fear is just a feeling. When you realize that, it suddenly shrivels up like a leaf in the fire. It can hold awful power over us if we let it, that I know all too well. I wouldn't wish a life ruled by fear on my worst enemy.

Lastly, and most importantly, I've learned about something very hard for me to put into words. You might say this is the spiritual part of the whole thing. At a certain point I gave up, completely and totally, for the first time in my life. Not because a chemical made me do it, that was the key thing. My "ego" finally gave up the ghost of its own volition. I just broke down and said, alright universe, do with me what you will, I've struggled enough. And I lay down on my bed and fell into a deep, deep place that I can only call "Love." This is the thing. I know that this is what people must have been writing and singing and shouting about for so many centuries. There's a quote attributed to Jesus that says that "only as children shall we enter the Kingdom of Heaven," or something like that. I see now that when we let go of everything, absolutely everything, becoming innocent and light as children, we find ourselves floating in supreme and all-consuming Love.

For that, and that alone, I will face the "darkness" as many times as necessary, even until my dying day if it must be. I enjoy the simple things of life, the beautiful faces, smells, tastes, textures. It's all music for me to dance to.

Once again, I'm so thankful to everyone in this thread for helping me to get through a very tough time.

Yours truly,
Beelzebozo

hey Beelzebozo , glad to hear you've been confronting your fears and these panic attacks have subsided , you must know fear is a sign of you being alive and aware , its a good sign ,

fear is a sign that you're a healthy fuctioning human being with optimal brain functioning ,

i am happy that you've confronted it , and yes you have "awakened"

we as human beings have to experience a lot of joy , peace , love , anger , fear , frustration and so much more , but everything has a place and none is more important than the other and we need to confront all of it and experience

glad you're awake

I just wanted to say that this thread was an amazing read. I'm currently in a similar state that you described initially, Beelzebozo. Not as much panic-attacks but still very uncomfortable, painful and frightening. Seeing these posts has already made me feel better about myself and my situation. I will take all these words to heart and hopefully soon I can say the same things you said in your last post.

I know this isn't my thread and I don't want to steal it away, but if I may I would like to say thanks to everyone who contributed to this discussion. Even though I didn't start this I was still greatly moved by all the wonderful words.

Wow, reading through this topic is a trip in and of itself.

Just recently I remembered when I wrote this here and decided to post a follow up, for anyone out there who may be going through anything similar.

So, hm, what to say?

In retrospect, I'd say those panic attacks were like the death throes of a lot of what I'd previously considered to be "me." Panic attack is really just a label, what was actually going on was quite different, it was sort of a purge of my entire way of relating to reality. Terrifying. But wow, it's hard to believe that I used to see the world like I did.

"Awakening" is definitely an applicable word, I think.

Although it's not really documented in this thread, at one point I was so tormented by this physical/spiritual/emotional meltdown that I pretty much stopped eating and hardly ever left my room for a period of several weeks. I was terrified of being alive and terrified of dying. Eventually, it broke me down to the point where I couldn't take any more. I literally felt as if I was going to be sucked out of existence at any moment, that's how intense the physical sensations and mental turbulence were.

At that point I lay down on my bed and, from the core of my being, just sort of let go. As in, "I'm alive, I'm going to die, I don't know anything, there's nothing I can do." I offered myself up to the universe, like, "If you're going to take me away, then fine, take me away. Do your worst."

At that point I suddenly saw that this was what my entire life had been leading up to, that all of the suffering was actually a great gift. Because, somehow, stripped of the last defenses of my being, this ENORMOUS love just exploded out.

The symptoms of the panic attacks didn't go away immediately after that, but they did peter out until they stopped altogether.

Now, my experience of life is very different. Much more intense. I would say I've been stripped of the idea that I exist anywhere else but this "moment" (now or whatever you want to call it). So I've lost the greater portion of my self-consciousness (or ego), which has been a tremendous relief. I would say my experience of life has been vastly improved.