Trapped in my mind.

I've eaten shrooms 4 or 5 times and had a blast every time. Every time I'd eaten them, it had been in nature, warm weather, or just a generally pleasent place. However, when I ate them last night (after a 3 year hiatus), I had a very, very bad trip, and determined that shrooms are not a drug for me.

It was me, my girlfriend, and a close friend in my apartment. We ate about 2g's each with pizza. They kicked in after about an hour, really happy feeling, everything was hilarious, and my mind started going like crazy, thinking about everything. I'm generally a very anal retentive person (like if a chair is crooked in my living room, I'll get up and straighten it, etc). But when the shrooms started kicking in after about an hour, I couldn't sit still. They were just chilling and laughing, but I was pacing back and forth, moving shit, restless.

A short bit later, we turned on the Xbox 360 and loaded up "Tarkus" by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, with the visualizer on our 52" LCD. Holy shit. We listened to it all the way through maybe three times (it's a 20 minute song). It was almost as if there were speakers all over the room, encompassing it. The sound was powerful and coming from everywhere, and Greg Lake (the singer) was almost COMMANDING me, his voice echoed and resonated throughout the walls and my body. All I really knew at that point, was that Tarkus was the truth, and everything else was meaningless. I was one with Tarkus, and I was very happy my friends were there experiencing this total and complete, commanding truth with me.

We all tried to turn off Tarkus but none of us could do it, we were just sititng there letting it loop. I tried turning the volume down, but couldn't decide on a good volume so it kept going up and down, which I think bothered me.

Then the inklings of a the bad trip started. I thought to myself, "man, why can't I just decide on a damn volume, why is it so hard for us to make a descision??" and I was sort of bothered by it. I was also a bit annoyed by the fact that I couldn't seem to form sentences, I literally was going "MAN, I was thinking..................... I got this idea.........................wait..............................listen to this............................"  .....and never being able to finish. I knew what I wanted to say, it was like a little sober part of myself was locked away in the back right corner of my brain, watching and listening to everything the "shroomed out" me was doing and saying, disappointed in myself.

I started to get cold so I grabbed a shirt and only threw it over my shoulders. I was convinced that this shirt was my warm, fur pelt, perhaps of an animal, and that I was a caveman trying to keep warm. Obviously I knew this wasn't reality, but the thought of it and the sensation of the warm pelt kept me going with that thought. I put on a jacket and went outside to keep my friend company when he smoked a cigarette. I was worried about leaving my girlfriend behind (even though it was only 10 steps outside), since she had never shroomed before. Once outside, I sat on the steps and was not cold at all, even though it was about 20 degrees outside. I was just sitting there, talking with my friend, enjoying the fresh air and being outside. Then I got worried about her and ran back in to see how she was, turned off Tarkus (it was still playing), and we all talked for a bit.

We decided to bust out the blunt we'd rolled earlier. I think this was my big mistake.

We went into the kitchen where the lights were off except for the light over the sink. I sat on the floor with my pelt on my shoulders, and got the other two to sit down there with me. I was pretending that was were all cavemen around a fire at night, puffing on this blunt, practicing an ancient human ritual. I could tell my friend and girlfriend were kind of humoring me, or were they enjoying it? They were kind of giving me a hard time like "let's get off the floor", but I insisted we stayed so they did. I started feeling bad, like I was dominating the activites of our trip, making them sit on the floor, do things they didn't want to do, and I started feeling bad about myself. As I said, I am kind of anal retentive, so my girlfriend was taken aback when she saw me ashing the blunt on the floor. In good fun and laughing, she said something like "man, look at Mr. OCD ashing on the floor!" I don't wanna say it was her fault, since it was all in my mind, but at this point I completely lost touch with myself and started judging myself hardcore. Mentally punishing myself for being so weird, being ashamed for doing stupid shit like acting like a caveman, being upset that I'm so indescisive.

Finally, in my funk onset, we got up and went back into the living toom. Then, everything my friend and girlfriend were doing and saying was severely bothering me. Whenever she laughed, I freaked out. Whenever I looked over at him eating some chips, I became upset. Not angry, just upset for no reason. Suddenly, as we were all watching family guy, I said out loud "man..... I am having a VERY BAD trip."

She looked up at me and looked so sad, so worried, and scared, like she wanted to help me. My friend just said "chill out bro, relax". I stared worrying if they were having bad trips and it made me feel worse. Then some weird shit happened.

I just wanted to be held, nurtured by my girlfriend. I wanted my body to press up agaisnt hers, one and the same, warm and safe. But I felt like I couldn't because my friend was there alone, and I couldn't disrespect him. I felt embarassed because I usually don't display affection prominently in front of friends since I think it can be kind of lame and rude, so I started really freaking out. She held me anyway and started stroking me, saying it'll all be ok. This helped, but the fact that our buddy was there witnessing this made me very embarassed. I went to the bathroom and continued going down the spiral into the dark, insecure sections of my mind. One thing led to another, and about an hour later, I said I really had to lie down and go to sleep. She came with me, and I felt bad for leaving our friend "out there, alone". I felt like I had abandoned him and let him down, ruined his time. At this point I was still in a bad trip, but I could almost feel myself stumbling for the finish line, about to break free from myself at last.

As my girlfriend and I were lying there in bed, still tripping balls, I came to a revelation.  This was it for me. No more drugs, aside from weed, which I will drastically cut down on. No more insecurity, no more self loathing. I felt like it was obvious that I have some little nagging mental issues that I need to take care of, and maybe a counselor would be nice to tak to, just to get a dialog going and maybe understand myself a little better, subjectively.

I also realized that life is a very fragile thing, and death is a complete and utter uncertainty, and the only thing that we really have all throughout our lives or ouselves, or friends, and our families. Those are the only certainties in life.  Friends, family, yourself.  Still tripping, I proposed to my girlfiend. I said we'll take care of all the details, the ring, everything tomorrow (which is today), once we were back to normal.  Just the look on her face alone I think sobered me up. I realized how much I loved her and how I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I woke up this morning completely sober, 100% sober, and thought the same thing.

So in conclusion, what a terrible, terrible trip! But at least it had a happy ending!