Tripthought-Autistic First Trip

Background info: I tried to write this in the style of tripthought. I am a homeless person with a mental condition that is kind of like mushrooms anyway (I can already see the walls breathing sometimes.) I ate about half a gram dried, with chocolate, in the dorms at the local college where I have a lot of friends. Also I smoked about 1/3 joint as I was starting to peak. It kind of reminded me of what happened when I was 15 and this is a sobering reminder to me how close I am to that state of breakdown.

Long as hell. Just a warning.

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Stands in the gender neutral bathroom of a building, looks in the mirror. Hair matted in back; dreading up. In front, like a gust of wind. One sleeve rolled up, the other long. Filthy and needing to repair clothes, holes everywhere. Homeless, hasn?t been dry since the rain started. Known to the local police as homeless, probably now as crazy also. Laughs; it?s almost like three years ago, a trip into the past. The therapist was right; this life is like mushrooms.
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?Aren?t you afraid you?ll get stuck?? Sitting on the big furniture in the therapist?s office. Looking at all the glass things arranged around the room as decoration; never making eye contact with therapists.

?Yes.? Knowing that certain types of people sometimes get stuck on mushrooms.

Still the bag is waiting. Knowing it is waiting, in someone?s dorm, waiting full of energy and power and mystery.
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Standing in the doorway, not knowing whether or not to say it out right. Here for the mushrooms. The mushrooms. Finally. Ever since DARE, wanted to try psychedelics.

?Hey, you got something for me?? Acting shady on purpose. Acting like drugs.

The black box comes out of the closet. From the box, a bag.

Takes the bag in hand. Little mushrooms inside. Gray-white. Bad looking.

So excited.
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Sleeps in a semi-abandoned space. Garbage everywhere. Hallucinating people sneaking up from the sides, evil spirits. Maybe mushrooms are a bad idea. Hides the bag under some bricks. Sleeps on a cardboard box. 1 in the morning, rain. Waking up, wandering for a new spot to sleep. Too tired. Tired and frustrated. Sleeps in a storage closet behind a fortress of mattresses. Mushrooms in pocket, getting crushed until 6am.
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Work in the hot sun. Work and homelessness, a bad combination. Work: stability and schedule. Homelessness: unreliable lifestyle, unpredictable sleep.

Planting corn. So hot. Humid. Wanting to cry, heat frustration, pushing the furrow. Up and down. Mist from the sprinkler: relief.

Going back to town to eat mushrooms.
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So excited. Chocolate bar. Little gray mushrooms. Like spider legs. Chewing, swallowing. Burning with excitement. Running in the halls, proud as hell. In the dorms with the college students.

Soaking wet rain. Homeless people don?t have dry clothes. Will sleep wet tonight. First, will trip.

The feeling starts. Unbearable pressure. Behind jaw muscles, abdominal muscles, all muscles. Twitching. Twitching in the halls. Feels like a seizure brewing. All that energy building. Twitching. Hand movements. Rocking. Relief? Relief? Scary seizure energy. Too much seizure energy! Running down the stairs. Wanting to be with a friend, someone. Walks to R?s room.

Sitting in a chair. R is busy online. Beginning to move. Releases social anxiety. Moves, breathes, yawns. Begins to ground self. The seizure energy was disharmony. So that?s what it?s been all along! Relief comes with grounding. Moving head backwards, as if a spirit is holding it. Relax face muscles. So much disharmony, tension! The synaesthetic colors of motion turn from jagged yellows and greens, to deep blues and reds and purples. Okay.

R needs to go. Moving on, moving on. Upstairs to W?s room. Where N is. Lots of people. Quest for weed. N gets some weed. Smoking, smoking. Waiting to hallucinate.

No need to move. Sits, hands still. No nervous energy; grounded. At peace.

Words begin to disappear. Sentences fade out. All things are general impressions: Warm. Soft. Friend. Safe. Autistic. People ask how it is. ?No words,? nervous laughter. No desire to interact with people. Watching only; interacting needs words, words need filters. Mind-filters, melting away with every moment on mushrooms.

Remembers this feeling from being younger. Remembers the doctor?s office, where mother was on the endless quest to diagnose the child. Child is strange! Doesn?t act normal. What age? Three? Six? Maybe eight? Looking out, things make different sense. Fascinated by the world, studying everything, remembering little of it, not finding explanations but only impressions. Bricks. Green chair. Baby brother. Adults speaking a strange language. Distant. Not part of adult conversation. They speak code about the strange child. Magazines.

Closing eyes. Tunnels, shapes. 3 dimensions, tunnels with patterns on the walls, moving fast like snakes. Used to seeing evil faces, insects, with closed eyes. Fear is evil faces. Soft is a baby face. Realization: needing to face the ugly faces. Not trying to make them go away.

Hides face in blanket to see better. ?Are you ok?? Nodding. ?Tunnels.? No words.
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Pistachios. N has pistachios. ?Can I have one?? Getting some words back.

Takes the pistachio. Smells it. Puts shell in mouth, tastes, feels texture. Licks out the salt, eats the nut. Smells bag of weed, eats a small piece. Bad texture.

People talking. Watching people.
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Age 15. Sitting in the big room with the other teenagers. Not speaking. Repetitive hand motions, motor tics. No words. People: a mystery. Studying them, trying to understand. Watching, not remembering. Not understanding. Not learning. Just staring.

Lost in the autistic worlds. Obsessed by imaginary people. The psychiatrist wants to prescribe more drugs.

Never speaks. When trying to speak, meaning cannot be unraveled. Strings of metaphors, self-interruption, confusion. Therapist asks: ?can you explain that again??

Age 18. Sitting in the dorm room with other college students. On mushrooms. Feeling the same way, remembering.
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Studying the people. Feeling lucid. Watching them focus on each other, pairing up. Watching emotions. Watching movements. Watching the point of focus, changing.

Watching pupils, when someone has food. People look at face, then food, then face. All but one, who forgot to eat all day, has no interest in food. All are stoned.

Filters in the brain are gone. No more walls. The brain feels open, bounded only by the soft, warm walls of a vagina.
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Standing in the dark stairwell, wrapped in a blanket. No more tunnels. Now, faces. Knowing the time will come to face them. Those evil creatures. Cannot be ignored.
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Trying to talk to people. The looks on their faces so familiar: the confused reaction to incoherence.

?Am I making sense??

?No, and it?s beautiful.? Blank stare. ?I?m just kidding. I got to mess with you, because you?re on mushrooms.?

?Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.? Laughing. This is how normal people react. Spinning around.

?No, I understand you. I?ve done mushrooms.?

Similar conversation some time later:

?I know you, and I?ve done mushrooms. That?s why I understand you.? Almost reassuring. Feeling cut off and psychotic, not knowing what isn?t making sense. Frustrated but not panicked.
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Interior calm. None of the wild, nervous energy. Energy cycles have changed, not caught up in endless filters and walls that create nervous inner chatter. The ability to breathe deeply and watch.
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D lends the key to the student union. Bedtime. Wandering up the stairs, looking out for securities. Letting self into the correct room, standing in the dark.

For the first time in days: privacy. Whispering to self. Thinking about the trip; mostly down. Laying on the floor under a thin blanket. Still wet, hoping to dry overnight. Hears murmuring voices getting a little louder over time. Feels afraid; adjusts blanket to cover feet. The voices stop. Starts trying to fall asleep again; the voices return.

Realizing that the voices must also be faced. Adjusts blanket one more time to feel fully safe, but now the voices do not come back. They will be faced later.
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Waking from 8 hours of sleep, first time in days. Not wanting to go to work. Wanting to think about the trip.

Getting on the bike, riding 3 miles in the rain. Getting drenched; too cold.
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All day, not making sense. People laugh, give looks. Confused, doesn?t feel disordered at all. Stuck, maybe?

Give it a few days.
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Riding home. The rain is over. Hurrying to the library. Stops in a bathroom on the way; on a whim looks in the mirror.