DOSE:	17.5 g	oral	Mushrooms
		vaporized	Cannabis	(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

190 lb

[Erowid Note: The dose described in this report is very high, potentially beyond Erowid's 'heavy' range, and could pose serious health risks or result in unwanted, extreme effects. Sometimes extremely high doses reported are errors rather than actual doses used.]
Devastating Mushroom Trip

I took 17.5 grams of mushrooms two years ago. I was at university and I had a roommate at the time.

About halfway in, I took a few hits of a weed pen that he offered me. I was watching YouTube and having a great time. Then at one point he started being rude and getting really close to me, asking me where shit was and what I was doing, I hardly even remember. I was just wincing, waiting for him to go away. When he did this, I was on Soundcloud trying make a playlist. After that, I lost control.

I was staring at my keyboard and the buttons were making less and less sense to me. To give you a sense of how quickly I lost my bearings, I saw the return key on my macbook and for a moment I thought that if I pressed it I could go back to how I was feeling before; then I realized what the return key meant; then I realized how incredibly stupid that thought was. By that point I was gone.

My roommate eventually left and I laid in bed, rolling around and wishing for everything to stop, just getting pummelled by anxiety and thoughts of self-doubt and how people would think I'm weird for being in this highly altered state of consciousness and shit like that. It was like my social anxiety morphed into a mouth and just kept screaming and screaming at me in my head. And I still hear the echoes, loud and clear.

At my lowest, I knew with 100% certainty that I wanted to die. Not out of some sadomasochistic fascination with death and gore - I simply wanted to be released from the burden of existence. I kept thinking about Buddhism and how it begins from the premise that life is suffering, and I felt so connected to that idea. I felt it in my body. Completely un-describable. I just knew it was true.

The people who lived next to me had this window that opened all the way out. It didn't have the normal safety measures where it would just open like 10 inches outwards. My plan was to knock on their door, run to the window, and jump. I lived on the 20th floor.

My hand was on my doorknob, and I kept turning it and stopping. Then I realized I had been there for a while, and if my roommate walked in he would be weirded out. I suddenly felt like I had to make the decision, then and there. And the only thing stopping me from opening that door was the prospect of life after death. I didn't want to die and then discover that I have to continue living. Despite this life being unbearably awful, more life seemed infinitely worse.

But here's the thing: it was completely dark in my room. I turned around and walked to bed, and I couldn't exactly tell whether or not I was still tripping. When I let go of the doorknob and went back to bed, I felt clear-headed. I still didn't want to be alive, but for the moment I thought I was finally sober. I didn't turn the lights back on and I laid in bed for the next few hours.

I woke up the next morning still not sure whether I was sober when I had that suicidal urge, but I still wanted to die. I went home shortly afterwards because it was Christmas break, and fuck, man, I remember looking at my mom in the face (we have a great relationship) and something was stopping me from being present and connecting with her in that moment. The only way I can describe it is, I felt like my actual self just slightly behind the face that she was seeing. I was perceiving myself perceiving her, and I thought she was aware that this was happening, but of course I wasn't going to bring it up. Although I suppose it's only a minor trauma, that was when I realized a side-effect of my bad trip: looking people in the eye. It still gives me anxiety.

I have never forgotten that moment of apparent clarity when I turned away from the doorknob. It scared me that perhaps it wasn't the drug which compelled me to suicide. Still, today, I have moments (sometimes days at a time) when I feel like an inadequate person, when the effort of maintaining a personality, maintaining friends, being excited about life and my future, it all feels too difficult. It feels like everything in my life is happening in the wake of that bad trip.

I'm going to admit something here that I would never tell anyone in my life, because I don't want pity and I don't want the people I love to be scared for me.

It has been almost two years since that bad trip, and while I have recovered to some degree, I feel certain that I will kill myself one day - that my life is on a path to inevitable suicide. I don't know if this thought originates from the person I am, or if it is a lingering after-effect of the mushrooms. And out of everything I've said, above all, what scares me the most is that I find great comfort in suicide. Sometimes I'll be going about my day doing the most random ordinary shit, and I think about dying. And it's a nice thought.

What the fuck? I was never like this. Only after the terrible experience I had with mushrooms.

The good thing is, I am finding my footing in life, and it feels as if the likelihood of ending it decreases which each passing day. I am generally a happy person and I have good relationships. Granted, I still have intrusive social anxiety which sometimes prevents me from maintaining friendships, and it's still awkward for me to look people in the eye, but I deal with it. I just keep moving forward. I endure the bad and rejoice the good.

And I don't do drugs anymore.

Exp Year: 2019	ExpID: 115998
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jan 21, 2022	Views: 545
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Mushrooms (39) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Post Trip Problems (8), Bad Trips (6), Combinations (3)