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Tehbearz

Registered: 11/04/13
Posts: 88
Last seen: 10 months, 15 days
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Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State?
#19294633 - 12/18/13 06:41 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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I grew up being teased for being fat and I can talk about my life a lot more in depth, but the point is that I have social anxiety and whenever I communicate with people it's like everything that comes out of me is filtered through my head, I'm not in the moment, so to speak. (my social anxiety is self diagnosed, but it's pretty clear that I've never been able to feel close to people)
One time when I took 7g of mushrooms, I felt like I couldn't talk unless I was destined to. So at one point the trip was really intense and a friend of mine arrived, and he seemed a very positive-energy person to me whilst tripping. When he talked to me, then I was able to speak, but the words that came out of me I had no time to think of saying them. It was extremely bizarre, there was zero thought of the words as I was saying them, but they seemed to come out from my heart directly and I liked what I was saying. I was genuinely interested in the person I was talking to, I was engaged in the conversation, I feel like the mushrooms cured my social anxiety and I was able to have a conversation for the first time.
Another time I took 2 tabs of acid (my friend ran off into the forest and was arrested after taking too many mushrooms, I had to wait until I was sober enough to drive home 70 miles), and while hiking alone I just had this intense feeling of just peace and at-oneness
Anyone have experience with these feelings, especially the overcoming of social anxiety? It's driving me a little crazy in my stoned, day-to-day life that I can't live how I'm supposed to (which is in my mind, perfectly serene and in the moment, such as during the trips)
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,534
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: Tehbearz]
#19294930 - 12/18/13 07:53 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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When I am stoned I usually find that time seems slowed down, and that my thoughts, speech and action are all in concert, as opposed to in a series of fragments.
As long as I am not too stoned this can make for increased social ease.
to learn from that I would suggest that if not stoned, you can just be more patient (let time be slow) and let your presence be all together.
Maybe that is vague, but it follows the example of the stoned self when sober, and I think it could lead to some satisfaction
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gman7104

Registered: 09/11/11
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: redgreenvines]
#19306457 - 12/21/13 05:09 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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this is the perfect way to describe what happens to me. I just wish I could always speak openly without any trying to filter what I say, i'm only capable of doing it when my anxiety is absent, which is usually only on drugs.
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Aopocetx
Writer



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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: gman7104]
#19306665 - 12/21/13 07:12 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Yeah man I have social anxiety too. Acid has helped me greatly with that - I experienced the same thing you said - but sadly that effect goes away after a while. It really, really sucks. I know it's a product of the ego but I don't know how to overcome it. I got picked on really badly up until about 8th grade and it completely fucked me up mentally. Plus I came to the US from Lithuania when I was 10 years old and it was a shock but that's another story.
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GreySatyr
Pagan-Psyche


Registered: 06/20/13
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Loc: North Carolina
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: Aopocetx]
#19306723 - 12/21/13 07:37 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Yes. I'm not terribly bad when it comes to social anxiety but LSD turns me into the most confident person you've ever seen around anybody. Maybe a little too confident, I approach any situation without any shame or fear of being judged..
-------------------- ...also, go to hell, huh?
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MightyMustache
Limburgian

Registered: 08/10/10
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: Aopocetx]
#19306893 - 12/21/13 08:34 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Another "sufferer" here... all though not to the extent you describe. I could get kinda shy wallflower-ish in certain situations when i was younger.
But yes, tripping can def open you up socially. And the intense feeling of peace and at-oneness you described is pretty normal. Hell, its one of my favorite effects.
For the overcoming of social anxiety: I dont believe psychedelic drugs can cure anything. Yes they sure can help, change your perspective and let you learn about yourself. And it can give you (at least me) the simple realization that there is just no need for feeling anxious. Very much like what Greymorph said, i could worry about the smallest things but when im tripping its "bring it on bitches" and i pretty much have zero anxiety.
Now i never had any severe anxiety and things kinda ebbed away on their own over the years, but if it is hindering you a lot try breaching the subject with a trusted friend or relative. Just getting things out there and off your back can help tremendously.
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Aopocetx
Writer



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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: MightyMustache]
#19307798 - 12/21/13 12:20 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
MightyMustache said: Another "sufferer" here... all though not to the extent you describe. I could get kinda shy wallflower-ish in certain situations when i was younger.
But yes, tripping can def open you up socially. And the intense feeling of peace and at-oneness you described is pretty normal. Hell, its one of my favorite effects.
For the overcoming of social anxiety: I dont believe psychedelic drugs can cure anything. Yes they sure can help, change your perspective and let you learn about yourself. And it can give you (at least me) the simple realization that there is just no need for feeling anxious. Very much like what Greymorph said, i could worry about the smallest things but when im tripping its "bring it on bitches" and i pretty much have zero anxiety.
Now i never had any severe anxiety and things kinda ebbed away on their own over the years, but if it is hindering you a lot try breaching the subject with a trusted friend or relative. Just getting things out there and off your back can help tremendously.
I get the same "bring it on bitches" feeling while I'm actually tripping too.
My anxiety has changed over the years. Before, if I knew I was going to go meet new people or something like that, I would get knots in my stomach, the shits, etc.
I don't seem to get that anymore. I'm okay meeting new people. The thing is after a while I just start to feel "closed off" from them and it's hard to participate in their conversations.
I've talked about it to a few people and I suppose it's helped somewhat. I don't get stomachaches like I did before.
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Agentchewy
Pantheism.


Registered: 12/12/12
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: Aopocetx]
#19308313 - 12/21/13 02:44 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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I never had Social anxiety but I did have an awkwardness where I was enitrely too insecure of what judgements would be laid upon me,
When I first tried cannabis I became immune to this as I started to truly love myself.
I used to have very bad anxiety issues as a young child and cannabis cured it to an extent. only at times like now where I'm abstaining from cannabis due to probation do I notice the old anxiety I was used to getting.
I want to learn how to treat it without masking it though..
--------------------
If I knew the way, I would take you home.
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gman7104

Registered: 09/11/11
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: Agentchewy]
#19309482 - 12/21/13 08:44 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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it is unfortunately temporary, and a lot of times it gets worse after taking a drug that makes it better.
I still don't know how to convince myself that my anxiety is created by my own mind. I tell myself over and over when im by myself but as soon as I get in the moment, I naturally start thinking about what i'm saying and my anxiety causes me to sound "distant" to others. Only when im on certain drugs do I know that I have the confidence. It happens unvoluntarily, I just feel the barriers removed and I sound like a normal person.
I wish I could figure out the key to it all, I'm hoping that by continually facing it I will eventually discover the antidote.
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Tehbearz

Registered: 11/04/13
Posts: 88
Last seen: 10 months, 15 days
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: Aopocetx]
#19314104 - 12/22/13 11:02 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Aopocetx said: I know it's a product of the ego but I don't know how to overcome it.
It's absolutely a product of the ego, I've done a lot of thinking about this kind of stuff and have come to a number of conclusions.
I think the social anxiety comes a lot from not experiencing empathy. I had a very interesting experience when I took acid with my friend (who ended up freaking out and running away into the forest), including experiencing telepathy... I realized that I was more like everybody else than I could possibly imagine. I realized all these weird thought habits, perverted desires, mental inconsistencies, and feelings of being somehow different than everyone else are all experienced by every lucid-minded person out there. It would make me a freak to not have any of these traits, not feeling insane sometimes is the most insane.
I am who I think you think I am, I found that to be the theme of my trip. I thought to myself at many points, "Why are some people just cool? And why are some people nice to be around? How come I don't feel like everyone else?" I realized that you are who you decide to be... and in that statement I realized that there are two me's, my ego and me.(I now notice the similarity between this and the question Eckhart Tolle proposed to himself on his night of depression before he found 'transcendence'. Most of my theories are paralleled by Tolle, I need to read his books)
Being present in the moment and letting genuine emotions and thoughts flow during a conversation requires an interest in the other person, and I realized that I'm the problem with my social anxiety. I wouldn't approach someone and talk to them if they acted like I do, I always hold the idea that I'm smarter than everyone else in my head, I don't show them emotion, etc....
I could continue this post literally forever (and I won't, I'm sure my train of thought is not a train but rather a trainwreck), but I think the essence of what I'm discovering is we have to understand just how like other people we are. What we say is no less interesting and no less comfortable than what anyone else says. We as humans, at the end of the day, just want to love everybody else and be loved back, if we keep this in mind it's hard not to be able to forgive everybody at the end of the day and understand that they want to love you whether they know it or not.
Experience is worth so much more than simple thought or information, I think by simply trying different things in social situations instead of just thinking about the social situations, we'd make a lot more progress. To me, in practical terms, this means the first step of my 'social recovery' should be an exercise in simply giving affection first. At school I keep in my mind my ideals about people and I focus on my breathing to help relax and simply be comfortable with the strangers around me who I'd like to get to know and who'd like to know me. I then make sure I keep my focus on who I genuinely am. (people talk about wanting to be able to keep the revelations they felt when they are tripping in their head while sober, which should theoretically be living without ego. I've found certain kinds of meta-cognitive thought, such as this, help me loosen the ego-grip)
Again, I can continue to extrapolate infinitely. At the end of the day we have to act if we wish to make progress, the only piece of practical advice I could give would be that I recommend tripping with 1 other person at least once. Being alone with my friend while both taking 'heroic doses' and experiencing that 1 on 1 social interaction in the context of a trip was very productive in terms of reconciling my social problems.
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Tripsurfer
Bring Back Asante!



Registered: 08/01/12
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: Tehbearz]
#19314481 - 12/23/13 02:19 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Take some MDMA and watch that anxiety fly out the window instantly
-------------------- Ach en wee ben ik de klos, met mijn boog schoot ik een albatros... A philosopher is a person who knows less and less about more and more, until he knows nothing about everything.

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justaplant
Stranger

Registered: 12/23/13
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: Tripsurfer]
#19314504 - 12/23/13 02:31 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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I don't have social anxiety but I am not someone who just expresses myself freely. I find myself observing and keeping my feelings inside most of the time but when on acid I was able to just express myself with friends and not really care, ever since I have been a bit more open as well which feels good! I also felt at peace at the time.
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healing
Strangest



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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: justaplant]
#19314561 - 12/23/13 02:58 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Why are there always threads on TPE where people discuss the ego without knowing what the ego is? Just because the word egotistical has the word ego in it, doesn't mean the word ego means self-centeredness. The ego is the interface between the id and the superego. You are your ego. Your ego is your personality. It is who you are at your most basic level.
-------------------- Open mind, open heart, open book.
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justaplant
Stranger

Registered: 12/23/13
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: healing]
#19314588 - 12/23/13 03:12 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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While I agree that ego does not mean self-centered-ness, I don't think the ego is your personality because it is the part of your mind that conditions itself to the external world and allows you to fit in with society. Your personality would define the things YOU feel as opposed to your ego right? I would think that your personality is more defined by the urges from your own personal id. As a person grows in their childhood they develop more of an ego to fit in, which in most people I think masks their true personality after a while. So the id would be a person at their most basic level right?
While not ego-death, I would say psych's will allow you to step out from your ego and be yourself more but that is just my opinion.
Edited by justaplant (12/23/13 03:13 AM)
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healing
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: justaplant]
#19314600 - 12/23/13 03:19 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
justaplant said: While I agree that ego does not mean self-centered-ness, I don't think the ego is your personality because it is the part of your mind that conditions itself to the external world and allows you to fit in with society. Your personality would define the things YOU feel as opposed to your ego right? I would think that your personality is more defined by the urges from your own personal id. As a person grows in their childhood they develop more of an ego to fit in, which in most people I think masks their true personality after a while. So the id would be a person at their most basic level right?
While not ego-death, I would say psych's will allow you to step out from your ego and be yourself more but that is just my opinion.
Sorry, but that's incorrect. Your personality is your ego. Your ego is your personality. The id is like your desires. Your id is what you want to do. Your superego is like your conscience. Your superego is what you think you should do. Your ego is you. It is what you think and do based on your desires, your id, and your morals, your superego.
Simple as that.
-------------------- Open mind, open heart, open book.
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gman7104

Registered: 09/11/11
Posts: 820
Last seen: 7 years, 2 months
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: Tripsurfer]
#19314617 - 12/23/13 03:28 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Tripsurfer said: Take some MDMA and watch that anxiety fly out the window instantly
MDMA was the first substance that made my actually experience a removal of my social anxiety. Unfortunately MDMA does not help social anxiety, it makes it many times worse and can induce it in people who don't have it.
Yes an experience can teach you that you can sound normal to others, but soon after youl find yourself a one hundred fold increase in anxiety, depression, loss of memory and cognition. Thats because the parts of your brain that are responsible for mood, memory, confidence, self esteem, and empathy are overstimulated by MDMA and in return left damaged and understimulated.
I don't care what anyone says, MDMA is one of the most damaging drugs out there. I thought pure MDMA wasn't damaging, I thought that the damage was solely due to other stimulants mixed with MDMA in crap molly and rolls, but after 2 years of complete abstinence I tried some molly that was tested pure in front of my eyes, there was much less side effects than that of rolls and cut molly but I still felt a loss of cognition, motivation, and an extreme increase in my anxiety.
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Aopocetx
Writer



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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: Tehbearz]
#19315021 - 12/23/13 07:08 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Tehbearz said:
Again, I can continue to extrapolate infinitely. At the end of the day we have to act if we wish to make progress, the only piece of practical advice I could give would be that I recommend tripping with 1 other person at least once. Being alone with my friend while both taking 'heroic doses' and experiencing that 1 on 1 social interaction in the context of a trip was very productive in terms of reconciling my social problems.
Tehbearz, thanks for trying to shed some light on this. Here's the thing though. It seems to me that my anxiety is not something that is controlled by any conscious thoughts I have. No matter how much I don't care about people's responses or whatnot, it STILL happens. I'll give you an example. Last night I met up an ex-coworker of mine for some molly. We started talking and whatnot, and I felt completely comfortable with him honestly. But there was one thing I tried to say where I actually almost stuttered? It feels like my mind has 5 different responses to the man's question and they all try to come out at once and the sentence I'm trying to say got jumbled. There was a slight pause in the middle before I finished it (probably unnoticeable to anyone listening). It's weird. No matter how relaxed I am, sometimes I can't seem to get my words out correctly. This post made me think. Could that be something besides anxiety? Because I know I had anxiety before. It's where you get butterflies in your stomach, sweaty palms, etc. But now I don't get the restlessness it seems like, it's more in my thoughts.
I appreciate you taking the time to try to help me.
You said to trip with 1 person someday. Well it's not so bad that I can't talk to friends normally. This problem I'm talking about usually only happens if I'm talking to either people I just met or people that I haven't talked to much. It trips me out though because I feel COMFORTABLE but OBVIOUSLY subconsciously I'm not comfortable. And I've tripped with a group of 5-6 of my friends and it was fine.
I'm sorry man, I know this must be really confusing so I don't blame you if you don't understand what I'm saying. I can barely understand it myself.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,534
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: Aopocetx]
#19315249 - 12/23/13 08:44 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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A train that does not pull together is a wreck A wreck that pulls together becomes a train
I really like i-ching, and used to throw coins, not so much to divine anything about the future, but to look at the poetry of roles and personas.
My interpretation of each person (the father, the regent, the daughter, the teacher, etc.) in the text of the i-ching is representative of a part of our own personality. As such each part of our being is like a car in that train or in that wreck.
--------------------
_ 🧠_
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Tehbearz

Registered: 11/04/13
Posts: 88
Last seen: 10 months, 15 days
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Re: Being In My Most Natural, Most Perfect State? [Re: Aopocetx]
#19320410 - 12/24/13 10:14 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Aopocetx said: Here's the thing though. It seems to me that my anxiety is not something that is controlled by any conscious thoughts I have. No matter how much I don't care about people's responses or whatnot, it STILL happens.
You said to trip with 1 person someday. Well it's not so bad that I can't talk to friends normally. This problem I'm talking about usually only happens if I'm talking to either people I just met or people that I haven't talked to much. It trips me out though because I feel COMFORTABLE but OBVIOUSLY subconsciously I'm not comfortable. And I've tripped with a group of 5-6 of my friends and it was fine.
As for the first part where you say you were comfortable, but then stuttered around a friend, I think that isn't necessarily social anxiety. It's not like it's weird to stutter, you sure you weren't just excited to be around this person to take molly? And like I said, social problems are something you can think and think and think about but you'll only get theories. From my personal experience, something as simple as one heart-to-heart conversation can be more productive than all the thought on the ego I've ever had, in regard to becoming more 'open'.
For taking a trip with a single person, it doesn't matter if you can communicate while sober or not. The point is to analyze the 2-person relationship and possibly come to some revelations about yourself and your social habits.
You might feel comfortable talking with people, but you say subconsciously it does not feel comfortable. I think what you mean is that the words flow easily, it's not difficult to keep up a conversation. But it isn't YOU having the conversation, that's the 'un-comfortable' part. I think it's your ego talking. There are two you's (and this coincides well with what Eckhart Tolle preaches. Which is encouraging since I came up with the concept of there being 2 conflicting us's in ourselves, our natural self and the mental gatekeeper we need in order to function in this society) your ego and yourself. Your ego is the you that acts because of other people, the YOU is what acts because of you. The means are the end when you're You, because each thing you do is then perfectly You. I think that's sort of the holy grail, to be perfectly You, every moment for your life. This is the feeling that I describe in my original post, when I felt it I knew that's what I was supposed to be.
Also, I should probably say I never had hardcore, clinical social anxiety. When I was young I was certainly shy, but not like social ANXIETY. But now as an 18 year old I see that my entire life I haven't been close to people and I don't enjoy people's company as much as I enjoy my own, and this is purely because of anger inside of me.
This kind of thing I can't help anyone with through the forums, these are only words. Words mean nothing, you'll understand what I say but at the end of the day you'll be at a computer, after work, reading this post and then begin thinking cyclically about yourself and the idea of the ego and what your specific problems are... etc. Peace of mind and being present in the moment are mutually inclusive when being yourself.
Just remember, there is something more YOU than your thoughts, those aren't you.
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