LemonzLinez
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2016
- Messages
- 4
Hi, all. I will try to make this brief.
I have a serious case of advanced Lyme disease. Currently, I am recovering pretty well but for many years there was no explanation for what was happening to me and as my health was declining to the point of disability, I was absolutely hopeless. In a desperate act, after about 18 months of researching ayahuasca, I tried it. I did this because I felt like I was probably going to die (from the then-unknown illness that took my ability to function and often even to think), and I had read that ayahuasca had proven beneficial for anxiety and depression.
Well, it changed my life. It took time for me to incorporate what I experienced (no visuals) into my life experience, but despite the difficulty of a couple of ayahuasca experiences, the whole thing was overwhelmingly positive and life affirming. I believe it actually set me on a path of hope and healing that ultimately led me to a diagnosis and treatment for Lyme, as well, so that's an undeniable benefit.
However, my father had a major surgery a couple of months ago and I was really, really worried about his ability to come through. Prior to my first ayahuasca experience, I had never been a spiritual person--but although I couldn't define exactly what it was, ayahuasca made me feel connected to "the other side" or another side. So before my dad had his surgery a couple of months ago, I took ayahuasca to help cope with the real possibility that he might not make it and to try to find solace and come to peace with it. Obviously, my "set" was anxious, and I am sure this colored the experience.
Unlike years ago when I was sure I was in a slow dying process and had accepted it, I now have absolutely no wish to die. I want to live.
Well, this most recent ayahuasca experience kicked my ass to say the very least. It was...well, hell. And death. I had never before in my life had open-eyed hallucinations. What I saw was visually and mentally overwhelming to a degree that still gives me anxiety to think about. I knew I shouldn't resist what was coming on, but I did and it was the fight of my life. During the experience of that night, I lost the fight. I am tempted to write "I thought I died," but I actually still carry the experience with me and I feel like I did, in fact, die. It was horrific. The sensory overload of the experience was too much to handle and it pounded me for what seemed like an unending amount of time. I was absolutely devastated when I realized that I was dying and that I had no power to ward it off. I was given a clear message: sorry, game over. It wasn't nefarious, just matter of fact: You messed up. That happens. There's no turning back. All I could think of was my family finding me dead of some kind of drug overdose and that part was torture. I couldn't let go. I begged for what felt like weeks or months and then eventually I accepted that I had died and would not return, and I absolutely hated myself for it. I got so much information about the nature of existence in a very cold, cut-and-dry way that was devoid of any emotion--that was totally contrary to all my previous experiences with ayahuasca. Those felt like I was under the care of a nurturing mother figure; this felt like an emotionless masculine force showing me, against my will, things that I have asked to know all my life. Before I reached the point of encountering "him," which I would equate with an omniscient being, there were really terrifying visions and feelings coming at me at breakneck pace. The only way I can describe it that makes sense to me is black magic or voodoo. I just kept thinking oh no, oh no, oh no, I've fallen for something truly evil and I'm lost forever.
NONE of this way of thinking is anything that was within my conscious mind prior to this experience. I had no religious faith of any sort, and certainly no fear of demons or black magic or anything like that. None at all.
Well, you cannot imagine my disbelief when I woke up the next morning. My first thought was that it was a cruel joke--a "flashback" to when I was alive. But I had no choice other than to go with it and hope it wasn't. I went to work and wondered as I walked there whether other people could see me. I wondered if I was in some sort of a computer program. At a certain point during the day I confessed all this to a coworker-friend who assured me that, yes, I am alive and I had a bad trip.
OK, I can accept that that is what happened, even though it was SO real.
My life has changed remarkably, mostly for the better since that time. But that was two months ago and I still feel a recurring panic that it might all fall away from under my feet for me to discover that I am not really here, or that the world is simulated or something. I feel like a fool for writing any of this. And I am terrified to know that I feel this way. It's a literally psychotic feeling, not knowing what is real and what is not real, and it scares me. I really don't know what to do.
I have moments at home when I am alone, and even in my office on occasion, during which I feel like I am about to leave my body and it sends me into a panic. I suppose it's some kind of post-traumatic stress flashback from the experience. Besides being just plain scary, it's also so disappointing because my previous experiences with ayahuasca were all comforting even though they were difficult. This one has me terrified both of being alive and terrified to die, which isn't really anything I ever experienced before.
I've gotten a lot of positive lessons out of it: I have a fierce will to live, which was waning for a long time. That will to live came from my first few ayahuasca experiences, but since I am now terrified to die and be back in that place of absolute darkness and information overload, I'm also highly motivated to be alive. I do appreciate day to day life a lot more. Every moment, actually. I even appreciate and love being grounded by gravity now, which again isn't even something that ever would have occurred to me.
But is there anything I can do? I am pretty sure I will never take another mind-altering substance because the anxiety from this one still reverberates through me. I'm on edge all the time and I feel like I may have set myself up for a really bad life.
Any advice? Will I ever get over this, or did I royally f*** up my mind and lose it to this thing?
I have a serious case of advanced Lyme disease. Currently, I am recovering pretty well but for many years there was no explanation for what was happening to me and as my health was declining to the point of disability, I was absolutely hopeless. In a desperate act, after about 18 months of researching ayahuasca, I tried it. I did this because I felt like I was probably going to die (from the then-unknown illness that took my ability to function and often even to think), and I had read that ayahuasca had proven beneficial for anxiety and depression.
Well, it changed my life. It took time for me to incorporate what I experienced (no visuals) into my life experience, but despite the difficulty of a couple of ayahuasca experiences, the whole thing was overwhelmingly positive and life affirming. I believe it actually set me on a path of hope and healing that ultimately led me to a diagnosis and treatment for Lyme, as well, so that's an undeniable benefit.
However, my father had a major surgery a couple of months ago and I was really, really worried about his ability to come through. Prior to my first ayahuasca experience, I had never been a spiritual person--but although I couldn't define exactly what it was, ayahuasca made me feel connected to "the other side" or another side. So before my dad had his surgery a couple of months ago, I took ayahuasca to help cope with the real possibility that he might not make it and to try to find solace and come to peace with it. Obviously, my "set" was anxious, and I am sure this colored the experience.
Unlike years ago when I was sure I was in a slow dying process and had accepted it, I now have absolutely no wish to die. I want to live.
Well, this most recent ayahuasca experience kicked my ass to say the very least. It was...well, hell. And death. I had never before in my life had open-eyed hallucinations. What I saw was visually and mentally overwhelming to a degree that still gives me anxiety to think about. I knew I shouldn't resist what was coming on, but I did and it was the fight of my life. During the experience of that night, I lost the fight. I am tempted to write "I thought I died," but I actually still carry the experience with me and I feel like I did, in fact, die. It was horrific. The sensory overload of the experience was too much to handle and it pounded me for what seemed like an unending amount of time. I was absolutely devastated when I realized that I was dying and that I had no power to ward it off. I was given a clear message: sorry, game over. It wasn't nefarious, just matter of fact: You messed up. That happens. There's no turning back. All I could think of was my family finding me dead of some kind of drug overdose and that part was torture. I couldn't let go. I begged for what felt like weeks or months and then eventually I accepted that I had died and would not return, and I absolutely hated myself for it. I got so much information about the nature of existence in a very cold, cut-and-dry way that was devoid of any emotion--that was totally contrary to all my previous experiences with ayahuasca. Those felt like I was under the care of a nurturing mother figure; this felt like an emotionless masculine force showing me, against my will, things that I have asked to know all my life. Before I reached the point of encountering "him," which I would equate with an omniscient being, there were really terrifying visions and feelings coming at me at breakneck pace. The only way I can describe it that makes sense to me is black magic or voodoo. I just kept thinking oh no, oh no, oh no, I've fallen for something truly evil and I'm lost forever.
NONE of this way of thinking is anything that was within my conscious mind prior to this experience. I had no religious faith of any sort, and certainly no fear of demons or black magic or anything like that. None at all.
Well, you cannot imagine my disbelief when I woke up the next morning. My first thought was that it was a cruel joke--a "flashback" to when I was alive. But I had no choice other than to go with it and hope it wasn't. I went to work and wondered as I walked there whether other people could see me. I wondered if I was in some sort of a computer program. At a certain point during the day I confessed all this to a coworker-friend who assured me that, yes, I am alive and I had a bad trip.
OK, I can accept that that is what happened, even though it was SO real.
My life has changed remarkably, mostly for the better since that time. But that was two months ago and I still feel a recurring panic that it might all fall away from under my feet for me to discover that I am not really here, or that the world is simulated or something. I feel like a fool for writing any of this. And I am terrified to know that I feel this way. It's a literally psychotic feeling, not knowing what is real and what is not real, and it scares me. I really don't know what to do.
I have moments at home when I am alone, and even in my office on occasion, during which I feel like I am about to leave my body and it sends me into a panic. I suppose it's some kind of post-traumatic stress flashback from the experience. Besides being just plain scary, it's also so disappointing because my previous experiences with ayahuasca were all comforting even though they were difficult. This one has me terrified both of being alive and terrified to die, which isn't really anything I ever experienced before.
I've gotten a lot of positive lessons out of it: I have a fierce will to live, which was waning for a long time. That will to live came from my first few ayahuasca experiences, but since I am now terrified to die and be back in that place of absolute darkness and information overload, I'm also highly motivated to be alive. I do appreciate day to day life a lot more. Every moment, actually. I even appreciate and love being grounded by gravity now, which again isn't even something that ever would have occurred to me.
But is there anything I can do? I am pretty sure I will never take another mind-altering substance because the anxiety from this one still reverberates through me. I'm on edge all the time and I feel like I may have set myself up for a really bad life.
Any advice? Will I ever get over this, or did I royally f*** up my mind and lose it to this thing?
