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. 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.
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 would get flash backs(initiated from deja vu or just being in an odd sitiution). When that happens I feel as though I may be still tripping from that night. All the fears and thought from that night would also start rushing to me. Then 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.

Please start from here:

https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m..._trips_.2F_Dark_entities

and here:

https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m...h_and_Safety#Integration

first of all, I know you don't know me, but i wanna send big hugs and lots of love over your way. it was quite moving for me reading that experience as I have had a few quite traumatic experiences with acid that in many ways changed me forever... and I can relate to the way your feeling right now. my testing and ultimately life-changing (in both positive and negative aspects) trips took place in the latter of my experiences after a long stream of blissful and eternally moving experiences involving much self discovery, love, and awe inspiring sensory ecstasy (especially dancing to good quality psytrance out in the bush around such a strong concentration of beautiful people)... to be honest, i dunno if i could say i've ever had to endure such a non stop scary acid trip as the one you described...my roughest experience happened on the come down from a very powerful trip which we took late the night before. It was my 19th birthday.. not my best birthday that one.

for the most part of this experience, I was being torn between enjoyable and frightening sensations until the next day in which those feelings catapulted to the latter for what seemed damagingly too long, making me feel pretty mentally fried for a while afterwards...I felt alone, scared to express my feelings, scared to connect with people and look them in the eyes... i felt completely lost from myself. scared to go to work again (for reasons which I will begin to describe in a sec) - as you can figure I was in a really scary place in myself. Anyways my friend started going to bad places early on in the trip so the whole trip already had a kinda uneasy tone to it.. it was very powerful acid and after an hour we were already going unusually out of body and experiencing quite confronting sensations. the trip continued along very uneasily for the remainder of the night. It was not hellish or anything.. just out of my comfort zone-and I CERTAINLY did not anticipate, or in any way feel comfortable about going to a shift the next morning in a very busy supermarket-working at the checkout for 8 hours.

I didn't realise the night before that I had a shift the next day. We got really drunk over at a friends as it was the eve of my birthday. When we got home, we mutually agreed that it would be a good idea to take some acid... this was around 1am.. my shift was around 10am the next day, and when i found out about it I rung in sick, but they needed me. It was a very busy saturday and they gave the impression I would not have a job to come back to if I didnt come in... which is what i did. From the moment I walked in there I was panicking..and the rest of the shift, continued in a state of panic. I knew it was a terrible idea to be tripping on acid at work and the more I thought about it, the more anxiety ridden about being amongst the situation I became.
When serving the first customer came to, I felt a cold awkwardness surge through my body. I was not ready in this trip to be talking to a complete stranger in a really busy place.. the first bag I packed for them broke, and the acid as usual seemed to magnify my embarrassment times a thousand.. this was of course laden over the top of the already existing panic about the speedily unfolding situation still rearing its ugly head. The customer got quite angry with me.. she was in a rush, and I was not in my right mind to logically process her frustration.. i just got more uncomfortable... and continued to dig myself deeper into a long grueling experience for the remainder of the shift. when left and started walking home, I felt broken. I burst into tears.

I don't want to go on for too long... but I guess you get the idea about how I may have felt afterwards. I felt like the most brittle object. I had been smashed to bits by the experience, and thought I would never feel love or happiness again. I felt completely alone, even from those closest to me such as my family and friends. I don't feel this way anymore anywhere near what i felt... there are some lingering issues. anxieties that I need to work through and conquer, but I don't regret the experience at all. You can feel pretty shellshocked for a while and wish you didn't have the experience, but I suspect in due time you will gain a positive perspective on it, as I have learnt to. Where I am at now, where these journeys have brought me... I am so glad I had that checkout trip that day. Its left me more fragile in many ways, though it has shown me a lot about myself, which I must say I didn't quite understand how to nurture with such clarity until dmt came into my life.

I just want to remind you.. and i'm sorry if I annoy people getting all esoterical and wishwashy as these are just my thoughts ... that you will always be you... nothing will ever break that essence . you are not your thoughts or anxieties.... you are a divine being on a journey to perfection.. and the ball is always in your court. think of these as lessons which are being put fourth to you..

good luck mate... stay positive and remember you are not alone and many people have these experiences. many people share the same feelings afterwards too. you are not doomed into being somebody who you don't feel is you.. thoughts can sometimes give that illusion

Hi CalvinCarl,

it sounds like quite the harrowing experience there! First off I wish you the best for your recovery and am sending positive thoughts your way.

I find that just like with any kind of physical injury - they can happen in an instant but can take months to heal - so it can be with psychological and spiritual injuries (I still don't know where psychological ends and spiritual begins so I group them together for now). Sometimes it makes a lot of sense to view a terrifying trip as an injury and thus treat it that way as well. That is - if it were a broken arm for example, you would favor the arm, maybe have it in a cast, maybe eat suppliments that helped the bone healing process, etc.. So with an injured mind/soul try to stay out of the way from other stressful experiences for a while (as much as is possible), eat good food, focus on the idea of healing, but don't keep prodding to see if it's better yet. And be patient. Do things that calm you down, rather than excite you for a while - e.g. read a book rather than watch an action movie. Try to stay away from mind altering substances maybe including alcohol for a bit.

Once you are back in a state where you feel you might want to try psychedelics again please remember that these things are powerful and can end up hurting you. Be conscious of what you are getting into; this way you can minimize the risk to yourself.

Just some suggestions. I really do hope you feel better soon.
Take care of yourself.

I don't think you're crazy. Anxiety can be pretty nasty but it isn't something that can't be dealt with. Just talking about the problem can be very helpful. You might want to consider therapy for starters or just talking about this with someone you trust. As time goes by you will learn how to tackle these things and hopefully you will walk away a better, stronger person.

I can somewhat relate to your story except for me it was mushrooms and not DMT that triggered my breakdown. I ended up with an extreme case of anxiety called "depersonalization disorder". At the heights of the afterglow, my whole reality was shattered before me. I felt disconnected from my body, detached from my own thoughts and emotions, I experienced dysphoria, panic attacks, flashbacks, mild hallucinations, out of body experiences and a constant fear that I was losing control of my own physical actions. My biggest fear was that perhaps I was going insane and that I would be stuck in this endless cycle of fear and darkness for the rest of my life. It took me months to recover but this experience also taught me a lot about myself along the way.

I wish you all the best. Just stay strong and you will get through this.

I've learned not to go too ham with psychedelics at a festival and to know what I'm hitting when the pipe is passed..

You'll be fine in time!

I would try to reflect on what you learned that night. Take it as a tough lesson you had to go through and be happy for the experience, because without it you would not know any better. Now you have gone through it, survived, and it scarred you...but scars heal and take advice from the others i'm sure you'll feel great in no time.

On a side note, I've been going to North Coast every year. I always find great Lsd there and I also hear/see a lot of people going crazy with the amounts of medicine they eat....and DMT, well I don't think I need to tell you that it's not for smoking during shows/festivals. Just doesn't fit in too well in my experience. Maybe some people have good trips doing it this way, but it definitely has more potential for something bad to happen.

Hope you feel better Bro! Music Festivals are really magical aren't they

You"re not alone and you"re not crazy. Sounds to me like you were over enthusiastically honeymooning. That new feeling where you think "wow i want to feel like this FOREVER" is familiar.
Caning bucketloads of psyches combined with lack of sleep followed by anxiety, coupled with the effects of being open to the suggestion of anxiety topped off with over analysing can lead you into a hole that can take years to get out. I have experienced this to an extent and seen it in my friends to greater and lesser degrees.
I am not sure that more psychedelics are the solution. But ask yourself this, am i that interesting and important that the world has decided to conspire against me? For me the answer was probably not. The sooner you learn that nothing matters the better. Its all bollocks , for want of a better word. Try and learn the mantra what doesn"t kill me makes me stronger.
You will get over this, it may take time, you write well so i guess you are quite intelligent, intelligent people think a lot and sometimes go down dark alleys with these thoughts.
Try and take pleasure from the small things in life, making a nice meal, stroking a cat or even having a dump. It helps. In fact i am off to make sausage and mash.....lovely
YOU ARE NOT ALONE

Hi CalvinCarl,

First, I want to thank you for taking the time to write that out - I know it wasn't easy for you.

Second, I want to say I'm so sorry this happened to you, especially with your friends and at Festival, especially after you wrote about how attending a festi originally was the path that opened you up to some of the wonders that psychedelics can offer.

Okay, now on to the heart of the matter: Perhaps you could tell from the content and tone of the replies thus far that Nexians really resonate personally with your experience. Many of us, at sometime in our lives, have had something similar happen (what should have been a great day/trip turn into a harrowing rough ride). I personally have had one really bad acid trip that almost wound me in the hands of authorities (police/hospital) another one that gave me voices in my head (opened that up - it was already in me) for a good six months and a number of ovaries to the walls, screaming for my sitter, DMT trips. Explored the deep nooks and crannies of my mind, all the dark muck and slime for what felt like eternities in synaesthetic glory. It is literally a bit "sobering" to think of. I don't get the fear currently that you described, but I suspect I am a bit older and more experienced than you.

Which brings me to: You have GOT to be careful at festivals bro! It is SO easy to overdo it and loose track of yourself and your fun trip. Especially with taking large doses, big combos, lots of hits and drugs from strangers, etc. Generally things are safe and fun, but you have GOT to remember that even at festivals things can go pear shaped (wrong/bad).

Now, regarding "getting over" all of this. Well, first and foremost, please defer from taking more drugs (street) until you feel a bit more healed would be my recommendation. Any prescriptions you choose to pursue of course are between you and your doc. Also, I would recommend avoiding alcohol/booze during this time.

Infundibulum linked you to the Integration section of our Health & Safety area. Please take some time to read this - it's very helpful. As you can see Nexians have been there.

Time and work are your allies here. I understand it's been a year. It may take longer. It may take two years, it may take five, . . . . in MY case it took 19. I certainly hope in YOUR case it does NOT take 19. What is essential in my opinion is DOING THE WORK. Taking a look as you did here by writing this down at what happened to you, what your thoughts were, what your feelings were, how things like the voices or thought you were in a coma might come up. I mean maybe start with, "What if it were true?" Pretty cool that you are having such a rich and illustrated experience in a coma eh? Or, pretty terrifying to think I may NEVER wake up and reconnect with the real world, my real friends, . . . . etc.

I cannot do the work for you, nor can anyone else here. It's up to you. You have been brave enough to start by writing this down and opening it up to everything from criticisms, to comments to folks saying they know precisely what you went through. Keep doing the work. Keep talking, thinking, analyzing.

Be kind to yourself. Make sure you eat good nutritious food, get a bit of exercise, get laid or jerk off, get regular sleep, etc. All of these things on a fairly regular basis and a regular routine as can be generated by good attendance to the contents of things like school and/or work can be helpful to. . . in my opinion.

Welcome to the Nexus bro. It's not always peace and love and light, but hey that's why people like me use psychedelics - they are unpredictable. You are in a community that cares and has similar experiences. Please treat this as an ongoing resource.

I hope you find the peace and answers you seek. Best case scenario: You will feel okay about this whether or not you come back to psychedelics, just accept it as part of the whole that informs who you are and use it as a catalyst for a delightful level of personal growth.

Time.

I've had a harrowing DMT trip once that left me shaken for months. It was a massive overdose and I wasn't "right" for a long time after that. After that experience I actually swore off spice, I felt it damaged me that much!

Long story short, after some time passed I was able to integrate the experience more and more, and I have since jumped back into the world of intradimenensional () travel.

In the future it is just terrible important to remember two things: set and setting are of the utmost importance. The second thing, and not everyone will agree with me, is that you should weigh every dose of spice you take rather than just dosing eyeballed piles.

Not trying to derail what is a very important thread but . . . .

OMG how many times have various Nexians SWORN OFF for EVER that they would use spice again? For me it's at least three - I mean I SWORE NEVER ever AGAIN! I mean I was GLAD I NEVER had to do DMT again.

It did indeed fade with time and a type of growth resulted. But wow, how many of us have sworn off the molecule. . . ?

Moved from another thread:



It doesn't sound like you were in real physical danger, but reading your experience does sound very very familiar. The paranoia, the intense deja-vu, the sense of looping and passing the same places over and over... very much like what I went through. I didn't get into the mental aspect of it much but there's some details of my bad experience here. Even in completely different situations than the one I was in originally, I still get those exact same feelings when I take psychs. At least with LSD, mushrooms, or DMT plus MAOI. And to a lesser degree cannabis, or even when I haven't had anything at all. DMT by itself has been good so far.

However, I've been working on it for the last year or so and I DO think I'm slowly starting to get over it, and can usually ride out those feelings now without taking them so seriously and completely flipping out. The method I've been using for this is taking low doses on a semi-regular basis (say like 1-2g of mushrooms once a month), and very occasional medium-high doses (3-4 grams shrooms, or a sub-breakthrough dose of DMT, once every 2-3 months), and doing my best to work through whatever paranoid fantasy comes up in my mind. Like for example if I'm convinced the cops are about to kick in the door, instead of rushing to try to hide all my shit and peeking out the window, I try to just say fine, if that's what's going to happen, that's what's going to happen...but for now I'm going to try to not worry about it and just enjoy this while I can. If I think the gods (or whoever) are making fun of me, whispering upsetting things to/about me, I try to just let them have their fun and not take it so hard. And whenever I catch myself thinking about the past, or anything negative, I try to forcefully switch tracks, and work on building a positive fantasy about my future instead.

The idea is that my subconscious has been accidentally programmed to associate the feeling of tripping, with absolute terror. With the repeated low doses, I slowly teach my mind that it's ok, I can have these experiences and still come back safe and sound. The feeling of tripping doesn't have to mean my impending doom... it can be something else, like it was before. So every time I go out a little ways and come back, that lesson goes a little bit deeper, and I'm a little bit less scared the next time around. I don't know if any of this would be helpful for you at all, and I think you should try other options first. I seem to be a pretty extreme case, and I tried everything. But for me, nothing ever did much good. Going back the way I came is a last resort, and I'm being extremely cautious about it.

But at this point I wish someone had been around to tell me to try this 20 years ago. I've been dealing with intense paranoia/anxiety/social problems ever since, time did NOT just make it fade away like it apparently does for some people. The way that Acacian describes it as feeling "brittle" seems very appropriate. I did (and still do) feel very fragile, for lack of a better word. Like I'm always on the verge of breaking down, and only my strength of will holds me together (most of the time). I STILL can't even write about this stuff without crying. This is no way for anyone to live. So eventually, when all else had failed, I decided I had to take action. And basically, that's why I'm here. This place is like my support group.

I do have mixed feelings about weighing doses, while it would be nice to know exactly how much you consume, proper vaporization technique will take you much further than knowing how much is in there. 20mg can feel like 45mg if used correctly.. And massive doses can still have little effect if burned too quickly. IME, If you vape well it doesn't matter how much is in there but how many times you rip it.

I suffered years of paranoia brought on by an acid trip I didn't know how to integrate. What finally worked for me was letting go, allowing the universe to be what it is, myself included, without this obsessive drive to define everything. I know it's cliche and probably something you've heard a thousand times. And I know, from personal experience, that it can be really really hard to just let go.

Some things to ponder...

From what I gather from what you wrote and my own experiences, you're trying to get back to the 'old you'. The person you remember being happy, good, not paranoid. You see yourself as this other you, fearful, scared, etc. In the end though neither of these are the truth of you. They're just two different ways you've looked at and defined yourself.

Our brains are difference engines, they're literally programmed for black and white thinking and it sounds like you've gotten stuck in a very black and white mindset. Inspite of how our brains are wired the universe isn't black and white. I think perhaps man's biggest struggle on the path of inner peace is having to reconcile the programming of our large brains with the actual nature of reality.

In the end you just have to let go and allow the universe to be what it is, yourself included. If it's helpful, realize that you're not your thoughts. Your thoughts are simply part of you but you don't need to identify with them anymore then you need to identify with your big toe. Yes they're both a part of you but they're not the whole story.

I wish you luck

I just want to let everyone know that I took my time and to every single reply. I like personally like to thank everyone for the input. Each and every reply moved me deeply. For all those who are still suffering through this, I hope for all the best for you guys as well. I'm really sorry to hear that some of you are experiencing the same thing.

I would like to share a bit about whats been going on with my life. I feel like the past few weeks have been extremely overwhelming for me. So, I was diagnosed with ADHD since I was in the fifth grade. From fifth grade to about the time I was a Sophomore in high school, I was required to take a high dosage of Concerta (72mg) 5 days a week. I stopped taking my medication mid Sophomore year of college due to the loss of out health insurance.

This is about 2 years since I was last prescribed medication but I still take ADHD meds (vyvanse 50mg) I've gotten from friends who are also diagnosed with ADHD. My thought is just "oh well I know I need to take them too so why not?". But it not like I'm taking them for fun. I use them so I can catch up on school work.

So the past feel days the Vyvanse have starting to really take a toll on me. I been getting very minimal sleep at night. I've been lying on my bed since I did my original post at 6am. My mind feels like it's in a state of crisis so I must stay alert. This was trigger for me to start analyzing my bad trip. I started to think that all my current problems are somehow linked to my bad trip. The lack of sleep has caused me to start seeing things move on the corner of my eyes and I keep thinking I'm tripping again. Like something is trying to mess with me again.

I'm still a casual smoker (cannabis and tobacco) but I think I'm going to lay off for a while. Smoking around my friends and other people used to bring me joy and good times (something I really miss). Now I feel like smoking around people just makes me extremely anxious and socially awkward.

I was only out having a few drinks and smoking with my friends last night because it's actually my birthday today. We watch this movie called Insidious. I enjoyed it for the most part since I'm a huge horror movie fanatic. It's was honestly a terrifying movie, which I loved. Walking home made me felt like I was tripping again. I got home around 4am that's when I found out about this site. Since I wasn't going to sleep anyways I just stayed on this site reading through some similar experience and finally writing about my own.

Everything leads to what I am about to say right now. Please tell me you guys can relate to this. Every once in a while I would be in some weird situation (example: hearing about a friend being admitted to a mental hospital; hearing about other people having mental breakdowns; noticing odd patterns; having deja vu) All of which are making think that I might actually STILL in a coma. And that all the things I'm noticing are hints from brain telling me I'm still in a hospital bed. It's almost outrageous to think the my mind have constructed a years worth of experiences (since my bad DMT trip) but the little patterns still freak me out. (example: on my way home last night, I started noticing a lot of odd patterns. once the idea of "maybe all this is still the same day, maybe I'm still at that festival right now" really scared me. this really didn't help when I suddenly realized that the entire time going home, I was listening to a lot of tracks by Bassnectar, the same artist that was playin during my bad trip. All of which were playing off shuffle mode).

Can someone tell me how I can shake this feeling? It's really scares me. (I've saw a story about it kid blowing his brains out with a gun from tripping too hard from "bath salts". In an extreme situation I feel like that could almost happen to me).

I turned 23 today. Thinking that this could possibly take me years to get over is very depressing. I've spent most of this day on this site. I already missed my morning class today and I don't even know if I can leave the house right now (I'm suppose to attend a family dinner in a few house and all my friends are blowing up my phone, telling me to go out and celebrate my birthday). The constant building of anxiety is crippling me from being social (feeling extremely irritable from the lack of control) (also I'm easily startled). I don't want my irritability to rub off onto my friends. It's already been happening a lot since I've living back at home, resulting a lot of arguments with my parents (over little things).

What do I do? Am I stuck to suffer from this for another few years??? I don't know if I can handle that. I feel like it's getting worse every day.

This changes things a bit. If you are having suicidal thoughts then you MUST get in touch with some counseling. There is plenty of free counseling available from social services, or independent aid groups, for people who are facing these types of feelings. There are people who DEAL with exactly this problem every day, and they can HELP. They know HOW to help, and they have many RESOURCES that an internet forum can never have.

And now that you mention your meds, I begin to wonder whether
1) Their presence could have promoted or exacerbated your bad experience.
2) Any on-again off-again psych med regimen can sometimes cause JUST THE PROBLEMS you're experiencing.

Again, med issues can be addressed by the appropriate people. I heartily (and with lots of love) recommend that you seek out some expert counseling on this stuff. There are people near you who would really like to help, if you will give them a chance.

Stay well. I'll be hoping for the best for you.

Funnily enough (well it was for me at the time) i was in a real coma about 7 years ago. Long story short,i came round and recovered. However there were many times when i wondered to myself did i make it? I saw some weird shit as i came round from my coma and at later times i thought i was still there or even dead and the real world was carrying on without me. It didn"t really bother me as i was quite happy as i was. And i guess this is my point and i think Pandora made it earlier. Of what context you take your experiences.
You may have thought oh i am still in that day at the festival as you walked home but in material terms did it matter?? You still have your mental abilities you still see your friends and family. You could very well be in this coma ( but i personally find it very unlikely ) Enjoy it! Easy for me to say when someone elses world is crashing in on them i know. You"ve tripped some switches which would have been better left in the off position. Now you have to contextualise your thoughts. In other words if you think you are still in this coma/festival experience at times, is anything bad happening to you at the time or are you just imploding with worry about this. If its doing you no physical tangible harm ride the fucker out maybe even try and enjoy the bizarreness of it.
Also you don"t have to go out if you don£t want to , cry off say you are ill if you do not feel like attending dinner. After all its your birthday. You can do anything you want!

First and foremost, please quit taking prescription medication that has not been prescribed for you. This is not a good idea. Those drugs are scheduled because they are powerful and have very powerful side effects. Many of them require ongoing monitoring (blood tests, etc.) by a doctor.

Second (this should have been first but it was a coin toss for me) HAPPY 23rd BIRTHDAY man! I don't want to sound patronizing because I know you are really suffering but it's most likely gonna improve for you (your situation) if you just watch your substance consumption and take good care of yourself.

Real growth is hard and it fricken hurts. I used to (as a growing child) wake up in the middle of the night screaming. My mother would come in and I would tell her how my joints were hurting. As time passed and there were more incidents she started to notice these striated bands of scar tissue up my legs, hips and buttocks - my bones and other internal parts were growing so fast and hard at that time that my skin could not keep up. I have those scars today - look like a severe abuse victim and those are not marks of abuse. Anyway, the point being, growth is NOT easy, not fast (yes my particular growth was rapid but the process itself was not fast - it lasted years) and frequently more than a bit painful.

If it's any reassurance at all, I'm riddled with pain at times due to medical issues and age. This IS real. This is reality we are living and posting in on the Nexus. It does not get any more real than this. And no way does anyone in a coma construct a fantasy so detailed that they can read each and every word of one of my ranting posts. No fricken way!


Okay, moving on . . . you know, it's okay to reach out for some help. I'm talking about counseling here. So many folks see counseling as some sort of horrible thing or stigma or declaration of a state of mental health (or lack thereof) or . . . when in fact it is a HUGE opportunity. If there's any way you can access some counseling via school, church, anything, it's okay to reach out for help. You may even want to ask your parents for help. You do not have to tell them drugs were involved. Just that you are having all these feelings and issues. I mean who can blame a 20-something person in 2012 for feeling anxiety, etc.


You know what, it's okay to turn your telephone ringer OFF! You can call your friends back tomorrow or next week. Tell them you wanted to enjoy your birthday in privacy. You appreciated their wanting to take you out and party but a man only has one 23rd birthday and he must follow his heart, right?


I'm not sure how to shake your unreal feelings. The only suggestion I can come up with is to continually ground yourself in reality and maybe exhaust yourself a bit. But do it in a good and healthy way. Get involved with intense exercise, martial arts, volunteer work. Throw yourself into your work, school or both. Become obsessed with healthy eating - pursue fresh fruits and veggies and other ingredients whenever possible. Go out to events that interest you. Don't worry about who you used to be. Find out who you are now. Be yourself. You might meet a nice girl . . .ground yourself in reality, embrace it, make love to it, sweat through it, then work it some more. Start doing art.

I don't know. I just brainstormed some stuff. I bet you can come up with more.

Know that the Nexus does care and feel for you.

People that you do not know read your posts and spend their time wanting to help you. So basically you are receiving a fair amount altruistic affection and this alone means that hey, things are really not getting worse, they are actually getting better.

It is always a very important step if you reach for help (as you do now) and a small victory that you are already getting support. You're definitely doing better.

I tried to kill myself when I was 22 or 23 and have sometimes had the thought, maybe I died, maybe I'm in purgatory now, etc. etc.

I think it's a pretty common question, asking yourself if you're still stuck in some past moment, and if everything you're experiencing is just a reflection of that, especially for people that have traumatic experiences in their lives.

In my non-professional opinion, your symptoms sound like they're being triggered by stress and insomnia which is in turn triggering some PTSD from your bad trip. My honest advice at this point is the same as Pandora's, lay off the ADHD pills. Even if it is prescribed for a psychological condition it's still speed and sleeplessness is a major side effect/benefit of this class of drugs.

Beyond that get some sleep

When you're well rested look at it all again, try to get some perspective on things. It sounds like you still have some issues from your bad trip and it's good that you're wanting to address them but it's hard to be objective with yourself to begin with and it's even harder when you add lack of sleep into the equation.

*edit* I skimmed Pandora's post >.>

So wanted to say that I agree with the counseling thing as well. I'm going to be starting myself here very soon, just got the intake evaluation papers in the mail today actually. It's another means of asking for help and getting an impartial opinion on things. Even if you don't have insurance most places (in the U.S. anyway) have county mental health centers and will charge you on a sliding scale.