Hey Nexus! How's everyone doing?

Just wanted to start a little topic about anxiety and tripping. Whether it be on DMT, mushrooms, LSD, DXM, or anything at all!

I've been diagnosed with minor anxiety, nothing too serious but I have some benzo's lying around for it.

People always say that people with anxiety shouldn't take psychedelics, but I love them too much to let my anxiety stand in the way of my spiritual journeys, I cherish them way too much for that.

Basically anyone that has any experience with bad trips, anxiety, irrational thoughts, etc should give their opinion on the matter. I have had many experiences where anxiety has come out whilst using psychedelics, but also many experiences that are beyond incredible and always keep me coming back!

Does anyone here on the nexus have anxiety issues but still use psychedelics? And if so, how do they effect your trips and do you use any techniques to help keep it at a minimal level?

Thanks and safe travels~

Search "anxiety" in the headers/headlines of this forum...

Anxiety(especially mild) is very common for many people at some point in their lives. I don't think it's something one should take medicine for.

Pre-smoking/pre-flight anxiety before DMT is very usual.

Anxiety isn't something that IMO should prevent one from tripping. It can even cure the anxiety to some point for some people.

I've suffered with depression for the last 10 years on and off, and have always been drawn to psychedelics when I reach rock bottom.

For me psychedelics let you dig deep inside and discover the roots of your problems.

I'm currently taking 10mg of citalopram daily, its only a small dose but it hasn't stopped me from tripping. I always feel very calm when tripping and have never had a bad trip. I don't even get the slightest bit of anxiety before taking dmt, maybe its the meds but I feel its more to do with being able to control my own feelings and thoughts as I've got older.

Obviously being on an ssri means its unwise to use a maoi so Im sticking to freebase for now.

In short psychedelics have done much more for my depression than any meds have.

Wasn't talking so much about pre-flight anxiety, which I do agree is completely normal and common. Was talking more about anxiety during trips or other heightened states of consciousness.

When I take mushrooms/acid, I'll often have some xanax on standby in case things go way south and beyond my ability to handle. Now I know this is just bound to spark some controversy with regards to how "bad trips are some of the most important ones to learn from and such." I do agree, and so the xanax is a safeguard. It is reserved for those rare situations where I'm hopelessly freaking out, and quite frankly after too many mushroom trips gone way too sour, I now feel much more comfortable traveling with my safeguard. For one, it reassures me that if I absolutely need it, I can have it, and this tends to stave off negative energy as well. Allow me to put it in a little perspective. I've had the same two bars of xanax for well over a year now. I don't use them for other purposes, and I'm rarely even brought to use them in this situations while tripping. I'll put it in the pocket, and the vast majority of the time, I won't touch it, and it'll be stored till next time. Even in the craziest of freakouts, I find that all would need is half a bar and it completely chills me out, and I'm still tripping for the most part. It can sometimes lose a little bit of trippiness, but I've had to use it early on one time and still ended up tripping for another 9 hours or so (I seem to trip for longer than most people with whatever).

Benzos are occasionaly usefull but tend to induce dependance and dull the intellect( take them to often and the withdrawal is a real bitch). Best to just face your fears without them.DMT has it's own way with you anyway, one day there is intense anxiety during the trip, another time none at all, just bliss.
Like Global just said, keep them on hand incase it really goes pear shaped for you.

I have general anxiety and I have found that the techniques I've learned for dealing with the everyday anxiety has helped a lot, I have only just started to get back into psychedelics after my long, arduous, terrible in many ways but in the end a significant learning experience stint with DRUGS.

Nonetheless so far my state when on 25-30mg sub-breakthrough DMT doses has gone from 'OMFG THIS IS TOO PROFOUND, IT IS TOO UNREAL" to "*breathe....... breathe.... I am here to observer and learn..... breathe" and believe me, I tried to relax before but it still ended up like those caps.

I've done a couple shroom trips only 2g each and the same techniques made the comedown much lighter for sure.

I know that was I able to remain calm and not panic on a very strong pharmahuasca it would have been great instead of horrific. Instead as it peaked I was pacing back and forth, the room morphing wildly as I rambled "NOTHING WORKS, NOTHING IS WORKING, NOTHING WORKS" and eventually collapsed on my bed in terrifying mind loops and a feeling that I killed myself.


So I guess what you should know is that familiarity with your anxious tenancies and how to deal with them (for me benzos being the last resort, thats just me though) and not going too high on the dose can keep things calm and cool.
Also don't underestimate the power of a sitter, even if they are doing their own thing just having them know you are on something and you knowing they are there to ground you and help you if needed is probably more valuable than having a stock of benzos just in case in my opinion.

None of this applies to weed for me though, that shit fucks me up and makes me feel like I'm dying and gives me toxic thought loops everytime.

I wont repeat whats already been said except to say that I have had a real bad experience once upon a time, it hasnt happened in a long time consisting of many voyages, DMT, LSD, and Psilocybin. I have the potential, therefore I do have a few benzos just in case. Its amazing the calming effect they have just knowing that they are available.

Absolutely Ice House, the fact that you know they're available can really help.

I suffer from fairly severe anxiety and had a full blown panic attack while coming up on my first spice journey. There is no greater terror.

What I did take from this was that fear can't really hurt you. I experienced consummate anxiety and once I reached its apex, I realised that it was nothing but a primitive animal reaction.

It didn't help much with my problem, but at least I now see it for what it is...

Yeah I understood that, but I also noted pre-flight anxiety.

I've noticed that the best way on shrooms to avoid anxiety is to avoid analytical thinking. As thoughts are often what causes anxiety on shrooms. One should try to go with the flow and let thoughts flow as well if/when they come.
Anxiety on psychedelics can often be panick anxiety... Thoughts such as "I took too much" and "oh no I'm gonna die" etc. etc. are the usual triggers for anxiety on psychedelics. Which one should try to understand beforehand.
Another anxiety trigger is of course public places, which I recommend avoiding. Strangers on psychedelics can definately induce anxiety for some people.

True

Sometimes anxiety is just anxiety in and of itself. Psychedelics have the capability for inducing irrational emotion. In much the same way that DMT can unexpectedly and for no particular reason illicit large amounts of euphoria that may or may not even correlate with visions or set, it can also illicit anxiety. These substances are capable of controlling emotions in purely chemical ways.

So any tips on beating the anxiety in any ways? I have done loads of psychedelics and am very aware that they cannot hurt you but irrational thoughts/analyzing just occurs naturally to me at one point of the trip, whether it be for only 5 minutes or (only once) the whole time.

Basically the best way is to learn to notice when anxious thoughts are coming. Automatic-Negative-Thoughts or ANTs and the feeling they cause are the biggest part of anxiety in any form, generalized, social, PTSD.

It can take a while to start noticing them for what they are because though MOST of the ANTs are irrational, some are only vaguely irrational, some are just exaggerated and some are just pessimistic but actually rational.
That is why they are called Negative thoughts, not irrational thoughts. It is that feeling in the pit of your stomach that happens, it is the STREAM of doubt and worry then depression and hopelessness that follows them.
Before that happens, as soon as you notice the negativity the best thing to do is distract yourself with something unrelated to the anxiety. Something simple and mechanical, a walk, tossing a ball from hand to hand. In addition, or instead anything musical works as a great distraction, something to do with the side dealing with music conflicting with anxious thinking. So humming, whistling, singing (even softly under your breath).

That is the first method of many techniques taught it this audiobook series but THIS IS NOT A QUICK FIX. These methods need to be done for a minimum of 45-50 days consistently to make any perminant change. Distractions are okay quick-fixes but they are not supposed to be the END-GAME. The series works to comprehensively change your anxious thoughts to rational thoughts with lots and lots of work. Lots of information.

Personally I have found it the hardest to keep doing the daily exercises. It has taken me like 5 or 6 months to get through 5 weeks of it but motivation has always been a problem for me...

Thank you so much for the information man very useful stuff, I find that the more I do psychedelics the easier it becomes to notice these thoughts that would lead to a dead end and prevent them before they occur. I guess more familiarity really does help to an extent too!

About a year and a half ago, maby a bit more now, my girlfriend of 3 years broke up with me,and then i found out she was with this really scummy guy who was previously a dealer of mine. due to a restricave tennancy, i was forced to live with her for another 15 months or so after the breakup. Having been with her for so long, and being a fairly jelous person by nature, you can imagine what this started to do to my trips. i reguly take lsd, and fairly often smoke changa. for a few months i stopped taking anything, trying to let my mind calm and my depression subside, and eventualy desided to take a fairly small dose (maby 100 mic or so). I had the first real "bad trip" in wich alot of anger came to the surface and i was not able to take control of the trips direction. i lef it again for a few months before dosing again, and when i whent back to acid, i actualy found higher doses kept me alot safer from harm. i have found that a low dose, in a rather dull environment (such as a party playing music im not so into) gives me too much time to think about things like my recent past, regrets, ect ect, were as high doses in exciting situations (like high tech dark psy in amazing forests) allows no time to think about dull past experiences and allows only for astonishment, insperation, and looking forward.

Im not saying this could work for everyone, or evan anyone! but for me- 180mic+ and interesting places/people assures me a great time, with no threat of getting over intraspective (not that i avoid intraspectivity, but certain subjects have no resolution, especialy not on good acid)

Wow I have never considered higher dosing to help as a possibility! This I must try. Last weekend I took about a gram of shrooms (easily enough to trip due to extremely low tripping tolerance) and can definitely relate with the having lots of time to think about things! I was in an apartment for some time and definitely felt bad vibes there, went to the woods where things were a lot more enjoyable, still a little bit of anxiety but very easily beaten, thanks for the input!

no worries man, when you're in space who cares about small scale earth problems

I totally agree with stalepixel. As much as you might think (over-analyze) that you would be more anxious at a public place because that is the usual tendancy and since psychedelics make you more anxious then ... 1 + 1 = 2x more anxious. But it doesn't, not necessarily.

I've yet to try this with anything but shrooms but I had an absolute blast on 2g of shrooms at a friend's party knowing about 1/3 of the people there, ZERO anxiety, tons of energy and we chatted through the comedown.
I did a "control" to compare recently with 2g of shrooms alone and it was about less than 25% as enjoyable and I didn't "get anything out of it"

I don't know if it would be the same with LSD or Mescaline or 2c-e but phenethylamine react oddly to me anyway (or vice-versa)