Hi all, this was supposed to be a short intro and description of my first trip. It's turned into a novel/stream of consciousness recollections.
I hope its an interesting read and perhaps gives you something to relate to. It’s been cathartic to write.
It's good to be back on the shroomery after about an 8-year gap. I had a different account back in the day but I had it on some bogus email that I lost track of.
The first time I visited the site I ended up getting some great advice and followed the pf tek to grow some wonderful B+ cubbies.
Due to timing issues that first grow, we ended up harvesting what we could from the pins and I guess what you would call truffles? The coral looking growths with no head.
Anyhow, we ended up with about 11 grams of pins each and had some fun with it. Actually it was such a wonderful transformative experience that I've felt the benefits to this day. It was an experience that I love to share and honestly hope to be able to build on in the near future.
To preface, some background on myself:
In general, I feel it’s safe to say that I maintain a positive outlook on life, and the few times I feel depressed (it runs in the family) I still feel I am able to recognize the symptoms and course correct through lifestyle and habit changes.
The one challenge I have faced since childhood is panic attacks. It was so bad up until the age of, I want to say 13, I could not be out of sight from another human being without experiencing an earth-shattering panic attack. Ever seen the movie I Am Legend? I still can’t tell you why but that is how I would experience it. If there wasn’t another human sole around (I did not even need to know or like them) I started panicking with the feeling that I was the last human on Earth and that was terrifying.
Due to the nature of panic attacks, they don’t really need to make logical sense, yet still, we try to rationalize them. For me, the thought processes accompanying the fear had to do with not feeling confident in my ability to survive on my own, and even if I could there was fear that I didn’t know what life would be like without human interaction.
Through work with therapists and a little bit of desensitization in the form of exposure, I was been able to get past the debilitating attacks and get it down to low-level anxiety with a few spikes most often when feeling otherwise stressed or tired.
Throughout high school, I tried smoking weed, really not for me. Often times it felt ok at best and anxiety-provoking at worst ( I would get into a negative feedback loop listening to my heartbeat), most of the time it just felt mildly annoying and waiting for the effects to wear off so I didn’t feel like a mental midget. Also I get super congested, it’s weird. The only time it felt good was when I made an everyday habit of it and got used to the effects and that didn’t seem right to me.
Next, I tried coke. As I’m sure anyone who’s tried it knows it feels great, especially at first. Interestingly I didn’t feel any anxiety, felt productive, energetic, and generally euphoric. Best of all, in my opinion, was that the affects were short-lived, so I felt that I could meter my experience. Only did it for about a month, but that was enough, I quickly overdid it and found myself possibly overdosing? Hard to say I did an 8-ball in ten minutes and was getting cotton mouth like a mfer. Anxiety kicked in big time and I thought I was going to die. I got through the night by talking to a friend on the phone all night (still can’t thank them enough, we ended up dating for a while after). After that, I was sure that the stuff had been much stronger than anything I’d had before. But I digress, the important part is that I swore off anything mind-altering and especially anything I couldn’t verify the contents of myself.
About nine years ago I decided that mushrooms were something I wanted to try. I had never tried psychedelics before and had heard great things (and terrible things) from friends about them. Mushrooms were particularly interesting because I felt that by growing them myself I could control the inputs and feel relatively good about what I would be putting into my body. Sure there are things as an amateur growing random fungi from a syringe you hope has the right stuff is a risk but really with all the information that the shroomery provided, I was comfortable. So I got to it! Honestly, the process of researching and cultivating was fulfilling in and of itself.
By this time my anxiety was down to levels that allowed me to live alone and function normally in society. I felt comfortable being alone in familiar settings such as home, however, I still found myself going to great lengths to avoid being alone in unfamiliar places.
My friend and I harvested the pins we could from the cakes the night before we had to leave town and I gobbled them up, washing them down with some OJ.
I was nervous, last time I had taken anything I had been convinced I was going to die and was worried about having a psychedelic friggin anxiety attack for several hours.
What resulted was…. Nothing for quite a while. I will admit, from what I have come to understand 11g of fresh pins should be about equivalent to 1.1g so it wouldn’t be very much at all. Having given up on the trip I decided to hit the computer and browse through the shroomery, ended up getting onto couchsurfing.org, (its a wonderful site, or at least it was back when I used it) to talk to people that would be hosting me during my travels. That’s when I noticed my fingers were growing right the f out of my peripherals lol.
I had been so anxious about the come up and so used to how disoriented I feel on weed that I didn’t even notice. Honestly the visuals were so mild that I can’t even be 100% sure they were there or if it was the placebo effect. They were sort of there, but I could see through them at the same time? It felt like I could observe and enjoy them if I wanted but dismiss them at will.
Does that sound common for a low dose trip or does that sound more like wishful thinking/placebo?
Anyhow the real revelation came when I decided to go out for a walk by myself. I walked out onto the street at night, looking down the road at the street lamps was trippy, ended up looking like I was sandwiched between two mirrors looking at reflections of the world. The streetlights looked like they continued onto infinity in both directions. After walking for a few minutes I realized something incredible, I wasn’t anxious, not even a little. What I had previously thought was anxiety-free didn’t even come close to how calm and blissful I felt at that time. I spent rest of the night trying to subject myself to my usual triggers (I don’t know why I thought that was such a great idea but I’m glad I did it) only to find that it was impossible for me to experience anxiety from them. Don’t get me wrong I wasn’t ready to do something dumb like the jump of a bridge to see if I could fly, but it was a very liberating feeling.
I think the noetic quality came in at this point because I had a realization, I don’t have to be scared in these situations. I know that seems incredibly straight forward, yet when you experience panic attacks logic ain’t exactly up to the task of calming you down ( actually breathing exercises work better than anything I’ve encountered FYI). I had long before coming to the conclusion that my fears were not reasonable but I would have a panic reaction anyhow.
Now I’m not going to say that I took a low dose of mushrooms once and was cured of all that ailed me. I will, however, say that after that trip my anxiety attacks were decreased by about 80% in frequency and intensity and that holds to this day.
During the trip, I also had the feeling that I could brush away the judgments I perceived from other people in my life and focus on what mattered to me. My ego was very much intact, but I was able to prioritize my life and felt incredibly uplifted and positive about my new outlook. It leads me to some wonderful experiences and I felt I was able to really commit to my new goals because they felt beneficial to myself and those around me.
This brings me to the present day.
Now my anxiety is in check, for the most part. I hardly notice it unless I’m anxious about getting lost somewhere unfamiliar or the real pain in my ass, a phobia of elevators (only if I’m alone in the tin box) again I don’t know why, but it is what it is. More importantly, the pressures of work-life etc are starting to weigh in on me. I don’t think it’s a symptom of my physical environment so much as my mind. I’ve been listening to books like “Change Your Mind” and generally trying to get my life in order, organized, quit procrastinating (that parts not working yet by the way). It’s got me interested in trying to do more self-work with mushrooms.
I’m already well into a grow but along with procuring my supplies for this pf tek grow with GT and B+. I already have mushies donated by the friend that helped me get my setup going, but I’ve been hesitating to trip. For one I don’t want to treat them like some magic pill that will do all the self-work for me (doubt that’s gonna happen a second time). Second I want to reduce my stress so I’m not anxious about being able to take the time and energy needed to work through what I need to. Mostly I’m still worried about going “too far” on this next trip so I’ve been hming and hawing about what dose to go with.
My plan, for now, is to try and get my to-do list checked off and section off a weekend for self-work. It’s been nice to get this all down somewhere. If you have any comments, suggestions, or relatable stories please share, I’d love to hear it.
-RH
Edited by RyeHumor (04/08/20 01:44 AM)
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