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Tripping the older you get.

chrispche

chrispche

Bluelighter
Joined
Feb 16, 2016
Messages
113
Just a quick observation and something I wanna put out there. I'm almost forty one. My question is this. Does tripping become harder as you age? What I mean is when I was in my late teens early twenties tripping was fun. Now if I trip out, it gets all very introspective, I start to dwell on past failures and fear the future. Now, two things could be going on here. First I have been diagnosed with bipolar cyclothymia and take meds for that. Particularly, Lamotrigine, Aripiprazole and Mirtazapine with Diazepam as needed.

However what I think is more likely is that the older you get the more life experience you have and with that responsibility. I have kids, been divorced and find work hard and stressful. Leading to anxiety and self doubt and depression. As well as a good dose hypomania from time to time. Due to this I don't trip anymore. The only exception to that would be, a bucket list item of wanting to try smoked DMT before I move on from this world.

All that aside, do others find tripping harder the older you get? Or is this just me?
 
After a hiatus of 20+ years I tripped a few times on ALD/ 1P-LSD and AL-LAD.

Back then a 1/2 to a 1/4 of LSD blotter was very intense. Now these were of unknown dosage they could have been super high. The recent 100 mcg and 200mcg trips were easy going and handable. Somehow I seem more tolerant as in my youth. But I have been unemployed since my kids got born and divorced. So my biggest stressor'sis that I must push myself to do thing's or risk doing nothing.

Getting kids is a lifechanging experience imo. Could non psychedelic event's have influence on trip's you think Chrispche? I have a feeling they do in a way.
 
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set and setting my friend,when you have things going on in ur life(as you stated) it can have a negative impact on the trip.Tripping makes you feel very sensitive and instrospective, probably when you were in your teens/20's you didn't have much to worry about but since u've been through a divorce, have kids,stress,etc. that's y you feel the trip differently. And as time goes by all of the drugs i've noticed feel different. Just my 0.02 cents.
 
emkee_reinvented said:
Getting kids is a lifechanging experience imo. Could non psychedelic event's have influence on trip's you think Chrispche? I have a feeling they do in a way.
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Yes, you might be on to something there. Maybe life changing events do effect the quality of psychedelic use.
 
nznity said:
set and setting my friend,when you have things going on in ur life(as you stated) it can have a negative impact on the trip.Tripping makes you feel very sensitive and instrospective, probably when you were in your teens/20's you didn't have much to worry about but since u've been through a divorce, have kids,stress,etc. that's y you feel the trip differently. And as time goes by all of the drugs i've noticed feel different. Just my 0.02 cents.
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And a good. 0.02 percent contribution it is. Your confirming my musing on this.
 
I'm 53, have young kids but sill tripping 2/3 times a year. It's a big ballon of oxygen for me. It helps me cop with everyday life. Sure the trip is not the same than when I was younger, maybe better because it's a special moment and I know how to make it great.
 
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chrispche said:
Yes, you might be on to something there. Maybe life changing events do effect the quality of psychedelic use.
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The med's you are on also effect the experience, diazepam being the minor but the other 3 could have significant effect. You could check for interaction's.

But your experience differ's that much of my own, mine feelin' more recreative. While your's are getting introspective. Not a bad thing persee imo.

nznity said:
set and setting my friend,when you have things going on in ur life(as you stated) it can have a negative impact on the trip.Tripping makes you feel very sensitive and instrospective, probably when you were in your teens/20's you didn't have much to worry about but since u've been through a divorce, have kids,stress,etc. that's y you feel the trip differently. And as time goes by all of the drugs i've noticed feel different. Just my 0.02 cents.
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My trips were instead of getting harder with more responseability's, more on the easy side of the scale.
 
@ chrispche - You're probably experiencing the beginnings of a mid-life crisis. Many people -- probably most -- go through this at some point in their 40's and the experience can last years. For me, the most intense part was between the ages of 45 and 48. I'm now in my early 50's and things are fine.

Typical mid-life crisis themes include questioning and re-evaluating one's purpose in life, ambitions, values, beliefs, relationships (intimate or not) and work. A sense of mortality can become pressing (or even oppressive), especially if one feels unfulfilled. At this time, people often lose others due to aging or disease (e.g. family members, older friends, heroes) -- the odds of experiencing loss and bereavement increase as we age. One's sexual drive tends to somewhat diminish; being skilled at expressing intimacy in non-sexual ways becomes more important. And so on...

It's normal for psychedelic experiences to have a more introspective and emotional character during this period of one's life. Such experiences can be difficult, but they can also be particularly instructive.

In your case, things are potentially even harder, because you have cyclothymia and take several medications to treat it. While cyclothymia isn't as debilitating as most other mental disorders, it will still impact the character of a trip, usually negatively. This is especially true if psychotropic medications are involved.
 
It could... Doesn't mean it will.
It more depends on how long the individual stays away from tripping or the psychedelic experience.

No matter what age You are.
 
I believe it all has to do with how you are living your life and if your truly happy with it. As I get older my trips have actually become more euphoric while simultaneously being more enlightening as well.

When your young your full of dreams that you can change the world, if you follow in those dreams you’ll have nothing but happiness and joy when the mirror gets shoved in your face.

I have to ask OP, did you see yourself working the job you do as a young boy/man? Did you accomplish things in your life you dreamed of in the early years?

-GC
 
@ G_Chem - Life throws all kinds of things at you -- good and bad -- when you least expect it. Sometimes, the bad can be traumatic enough to prevent a fulfilled and well-adjusted person from seeing "nothing but happiness and joy" for quite some time. People that suppress or can't feel distress have underlying problems that they are unwilling or unable to face.
 
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For LSD when your younger you have more energy to be able to stay up for over 24 hours as you get older takes longer to get back to full energy after such a long trip which is why i ended up liking short acting psychedelics these days.
 
chrispche said:
Now if I trip out, it gets all very introspective, I start to dwell on past failures and fear the future.
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I know what you mean, the last trip I did was smooking N,N-DMT & the 2nd pipe it hit me just like that. All that was going round my head was how truly small I am in the universe, all the stuff I had messed up etc. I really think it is your brain showing you where you have gone "wrong" in life & showing you the mistakes so you don't make them again.

Some of the trips I have had that most would call "bad" were the most helpful in a way, it shows you where you have made mistakes in life so you can move on from them (imo)

After a really stupid dose of 4-MeO-PCP one day I learned how badly I had treated my mom as a teenager, the next day I got her some flowers, gave her a hug & said sorry to her, she cried (not sure if that is good or bad though)
 
Im 41 and ciclothimic too. My life got 300% better when I flushed the meds and started the psychedelic microdosing way. It happened slowly over many months. It´s 8 years since then and I had been better and better. To me 99% of the meds for bipolar at least are wrong the 95% of the time. Im not saying it should work for you too or that yu should flush your meds tomorrow, Im just saying that psychiatric meds are deeply unwise, blunt and even evil and that you should take the responsability of your own health and start looking outside: Yoga, Tai Chi, all kind of martial arts, to learn about kundalini awakenings and all kind of alternative healing until you find which works for you.
 
TripSitterNZ said:
For LSD when your younger you have more energy to be able to stay up for over 24 hours as you get older takes longer to get back to full energy after such a long trip which is why i ended up liking short acting psychedelics these days.
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This shows how individual it actually is. I was more energetic when younger but also way less sensitive to the diff psychedelic's. Whatever was available, nowadays with the wide variety of RC's available. My No.1 choice would be ALD despite all the 2-c's and DOx version's the variety of tryptamine's on the market.

Maybe the I am missing out on some of the last family as they are said to be way eassier as Psilocybine. But I am biased after my mushroom and aMT that fam is not for me.

And I fall asleep on Lysergic's without problem. No need to wait out my trip or to use a benzo I was gone in no time.
 
I’m 44 and find that my ratio for bodyload to visuals has gone up over the decades. I tend to have really rough comeups now, when as a teen to twenty-something, no problemo. Mind you, i was eating pure Sand WoW back in the early 90s, not the 1ps and LADs and such of the RC world.
My take is that it individual for sure, but I am experiencing less pluses and more minuses. But I do still get good trips . . . If everything is set up correctly for the day, and the previous weeks have been smooth. Yep, stress and health (and/or age) can totally effect the trip, person depending.
 
lamanogaucha said:
@ G_Chem - Life throws all kinds of things at you -- good and bad -- when you least expect it. Sometimes, the bad can be traumatic enough to prevent a fulfilled and well-adjusted person from seeing "nothing but happiness and joy" for quite some time. People that suppress or can't feel distress have underlying problems that they are unwilling or unable to face.
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I can understand this more than most.. There’s a difference between having life shit on you and making decisions you later regret. In my experience psychedelics help greatly with the former but make a bitter pill to swallow for the latter. I don’t know the OP though and won’t go any further than that.

-GC
 
at 68 lysergic is just as strong, but weed is way stronger than when 17
 
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