And so. After an insanely beneficial few years of personal growth after bringing psychedelics firmly into my life, it may be time for me to move on and upwards.
I knew this in my bones before the events of last week, but my latest run in with lucy has all but confirmed that its time for me to go it alone.
First, a little background.
I came to psychedelics a broken man. I had suffered from depression pretty much my whole adult life, and it had crippled me. While it lingered like a cloud of self-hatred during my teens thanks to a turbulent start on the planet, it really started getting its hooks in when my best friend died at the age of 18.
Since then, the wounds piled up. There was more death. There were women who left me unable to love. I graduated in the middle of the recession, and enjoyed financial hobbling that made my student life seem like the stuff of billionaire dreams. The same recession robbed me of a girl who finally let me love again, and I experienced a pain I never knew possible when someone is ripped from you for no other reason that the greed of others in a country far, far away. I was sexually assaulted by a gay man, and unable to respond in any manner due to my position (I empathise with women who have been raped, but at least you have people you can turn to. Try that when you are a big, strong, 6'6 man. You get laughed out of the police station). All the stuff from my childhood (physical abuse, a bi-polar mother off the leash, abandonment stuff, and a lifetime of poverty) all still lingered. And there were a few minor wounds as well that I can't even be arsed to go in to.
This all came to a head when a small glimmer of hope, a shitty underpaid job in journalism for a company no-one ever heard of and would never get me any respect, got extinguished and threw me back into the refuse pile of the recently redundant.
It was at this point that the thoughts of suicide that always lingered began to gain steam. What's the sodding point? I tried, and tried, and tried, and got nowhere. All I endured was more loss and more wounds. The only thing that kept me going was a shit load of Jameson, weed, and cocaine. I had convinced myself that I was unliked, doomed to failure, and would remain alone until I finally tied a noose. The only thing that prevented me from doing so was my own depression which prevented me from getting out of bed at a regular time, let alone getting a rope thick enough to take the weight of my massive bulk.
It was at this point that an article I'd written on mushrooms came to mind, and how they can help with depression. Not able to get mushrooms in time before a complete and utter mental collapse, I instead acquired san pedro cactus instead. Once it came, I cleared my schedule, and paid no attention to how to make it or how much you should use. I ended up with two pints of the worst tasting smoothie known to man, which I now estimate to be around 80-85g of cactus and a ton of innocent smoothie.
I necked both (I say necked, I had to spoon the stuff out), and had an experience which would ultimately change my entire perspective on life. I even ended up shaving my head to mark the occasion, the moment in which my tide changed.
Since then, I've had a number of trips which have enriched me as a person. I've seen into infinity. I've ended up paying to talk to a red light lady in Amsterdam about life. I've shared the experience with others, and had them tell me of similar changes in their outlook thanks to my input. I've learned to love myself (in a non-egotistical way). I've started to become the man I've always wanted to be. I've made massive progress with beating my addictions. I now respect my life, and try to take the most I can from it. I've both felt like I'm at a Jimi Hendrix gig and become the very music of Jimi Hendrix itself. But, most importantly, I've had my depression torn up in front of me, and been given the opportunity to lead the life I want to lead.
Nowdays, I have a job I love which I can do from home yet travel the world with. I live with a gorgeous girl who loves me dearly. The pains of the past no longer hold onto me. And in less than a month, I get to return to my spiritual home down south and be surrounded by all my old university friends.
While this isn't all due to psychedelics, they have been a catalyst, along with my woman, my cycling, and my renewed passion for life. They are a major piece of the puzzle in the major personality sculpting I've put myself through.
I knew all this before doing 400ug of LSD the other week. I knew it would be my last trip for a while. I also knew other trips dealt with my past or learning to appreciate the present. This one would be about the future.
What I wasn't prepared for was the turmoil that a future trip would deliver. The uncertainty of the future played out in my head over and over. The beauty and potential of the future met with the despair and pain it could also bring. At the height of the trip, it was like two people inhabited the space I did - the future self that psychedelics were helping me to become, and the projection of myself crippled by fear. And f**k me, did they wrestle. They wrestled hard all over my psyche.
The whole thing left me very unsettled. I couldn't stay comfortable. All my usual tricks to batter back negativity failed. I was chucked aside while these two concepts battled, my ability to keep it in hand trampled underfoot. There were moments of indescribable joy clashing with abject fear. At one point, I was completely taken with Beethoven to the point where I tried to project myself into his head to understand the raw emotion he felt when writing his music, and it was beautiful. At others, even my favourite music made me feel distant and removed from life.
But as the battle raged, it became clear the good side would always win. There were rallies as the fear came back as the trip intensified, and then battled again, but it would always be slain. At the very height, I could see in my minds' eye the me in 5 years time flicker in the space I was walking in, one held his head high and was in shape, the other was a mess. I could actually see these concepts of me inhabiting the same space as me. It was some weird ass s**t.
Eventually, the trip started to subside. I felt I was over the peak, and instantly reached for the valium as the long decline of acid, which I normally relish, was definitely not what I needed after experiencing such turmoil. I proceeded to spend the next six hours trying to put what I experienced to my trip-buddy over facebook, and staying away from the darker corners of the flat.
Despite all that, I wouldn't say it was a bad trip. It was, in fact, exactly what I wanted. I'd gone in expecting something a little different, and boy, did I get it. One lapse I'd had recently was the cocaine. I could feel that disaster in powder form corroding my thoughts, and demanding that I give it the due care and attention it thought it would deserve. This trip removed the addiction by the root. There was nothing pleasant about it, it got torn up with a JCB digger, along with all the mental rot it had been causing.
I also wanted to ask myself about my motivation in a bid to kill off my last remaining hurdle to happiness - my overwhelming laziness. I'm not sure we're there yet (I'm still processing the trip), but after being taken for several rounds by my future self demanding I create the future he felt I deserved, I think we're a lot closer.
However, after all the turbulence, my suspicion that it would be my last trip was pretty much confirmed. I'm not ruling out trips entirely from my future, but my days of going mentally diving in the deep end with acid are over, and the same with DMT. I can see some mild mescaline at some point in the future, but not until I get the quickening and try and resist it for as long as I can.
So, this is my goodbye note to psychedelics for now. I'll still be knocking about the forums, and will always regard them positively. Psychedelics have helped massively change my life for the better, and I'll always remember these sort of experiences as the most beautiful, empowering, and awe-inspiring moments of my life. Psychedelics are the fulcrum on which I've been able to elevate my entire self.
And while I now have a greater appreciation for my future, I can also see that Lucy? You are just too wild for me now
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!โ
โ Hunter S. Thompson