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Too Much Empathy With the Wrong People

Vediog

Bluelighter
Joined
Mar 15, 2015
Messages
289
Last night I went to an event with DJs in the main room and rock/jam bands playing the smaller stage. Everything was cool for a while, mostly chilling in the band side, good vibes there. I had taken 2 ecstasy pills hours apart, and was feeling comfortable enough to add a psych on top, so I ate my capsule of miprocin. Again, feeling great for a while. But then something changed. The headliner came on and began blasting this hideous 500 bpm random noise hateful bullshit, and the crowd WENT NUTS. I was laughing about it at first, like this is just ridiculous nonsense.

I went back to the band side to enjoy some funky tunes. The people here are much cooler. As time goes on though, more and more of the "others" began coming over to my haven. The one that I think really set off my negative spiral was this young dude, all muscles, no shirt, jumping around and fist punching the air like it owed him money... during a particularly slow section of a song. After a few seconds of "raging" and nobody joining him, he got a seriously confused look on his face and made his exit, still jumping around, but now with a consternated look on his face.

Throughout the night I had been seeing signs of shady dealings, one in particular involving a dispute over coke sales. I sensed an undercurrent of impending violence. Many of the faces I saw filtering into the band room were straight out of "faces of meth". One chick with utterly destroyed teeth and skin was just bouncing up and down to make her tits wobble at 300 rpm. This whole picture I got, and frankly I colored with my own biases, was insanely negative and toxic to me. I began backtracking the imagined life choices of "rage guy" until I was nearly crying for him. I continued on this thought process for many minutes, trying to ignore the negativity that I felt, but eventually I worked my way into a near panic attack and made a hasty exit, not even saying goodbye to some of the friends I came with.

I spent some time in the car discussing the events with one of my closest friends through text messages and just waited to calm down enough to drive. Another friend had posted a Beatles song on Facebook, and this was exactly the change of pace I needed. I spent much of the ride home listening to Beatles songs and then Above & Beyond, to prove to myself that their is loving, beautiful, inspirational electronic music to counter the deplorable methy madness I had just experienced.

I took some psychic bruising last night, but I feel that I will come out stronger for it in the end. I will have to be much more careful with my psych use in public places from now on, a lesson I should have known already, but which has now been hammered home forcefully. I can only imagine the lasting damage if I had used a "deeper" tryptamine like psilacetin. My question now is, how do I deal with the horrible imagery and the negative emotions, both witnessed and imagined, that are stuck in my mind? What is there to integrate from this, or is it best to try to forget and move on? I feel like I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked back at me with hunger in its eyes.


EDIT: I want to add that I am glad that I waited until I was sober to write this. I fear that if I had spelled this out in my vulnerable state, that would have cemented the negativity and anxiety much more. They're still there, but much less immediate and threatening than before. I am truly sorry that the hippies had to be roped into that mess, it really ought to have been 2 separate events rather than trying to coexist.
 
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That's nuts, but I can definitely relate. Which is why I rarely find myself at scenes like that, anymore.

My question now is, how do I deal with the horrible imagery and the negative emotions, both witnessed and imagined, that are stuck in my mind? What is there to integrate from this, or is it best to try to forget and move on?

Experience is its own virtue. You use it as a frame of reference, and the more you try and fight what you saw the more it will show up in deeper places. Some people process these intense emotional experiences into artistic formats. That seems to help quite a few with integration.
 
There is nothing quite like a psychedelic to have your mind create all of these "sad lives" for the clubbers you saw. I always try to think these people are entirely different in real life. Sure "rage man" might love the gym and get into more unnecessary fights then you or I and "faces of meth girl" might have a drug addiction she keeps secrete but its best to envision these people as happy as that is how they most likely are. For me the worst is running into an obviously benzoed out female who can barely keep her memory straight enough to ask me for a cigarette... but i have a kind of connection to someone like that through my own experiences so it conjures up this "white knight" thing that i have to avoid. As unfortunate as it may seem you cant help people but especially if you do not know if they actually have an issue as you do not know them.

I may try to help "benzo girl" find her friends, i would never do anything to harm someone but at the same time their lives are not my problem. In the world you see a lot of stuff, couples fighting, people owing money, items breaking and the extreme emotions of these events can get to you but you must remember a few things. I feel a lot of people are generally happy, especially if they are out like that, you may not agree with the back story you created for them but odds are they dont mind their life or they wouldnt be partying in public. Also when you have that many people in an energetic environment mistakes will get made people will act a fool and others will pay a price, that is just life and you must accept that you can only save those you truly know, otherwise they will only take advantage of your kindness.

You seem like a caring person and if your young you will find ways to regulate the intense emotional response peoples sadness gives you because thats just how life is. I have wasted time trying to help people who i dont know and it was just that a waste of effort. Be happy for these people as you saw them at a club you saw them when they didnt care what you think and you got that effect from them but superimposed it onto their lives... its not that they dont care about their lives they just were not dressing them up to save your thoughts that all :)
 
^ I feel the same way. There's nothing wrong with the people you describe, and even if there is (i.e. people who struggle with a drug addiction), they shouldn't be "felt sorry for" or be the subject of maudlin so-called "empathy". Empathy is not just feeling sorry for someone...no one likes being felt sorry for, and rightly so. Empathy is one of mankind's better virtues, and is rooted in understanding another person's predicament based on your own human experience...not merely constructing a BS narrative while you're high on drugs.

One thing I've noticed about psychedelic drugs is that, while you're high on them, conventional drug use and the behavior associated with said use seems absolutely pathetic & stupid. I suppose this is one of the reasons why these drugs are sometimes useful for overcoming addictions. However, these thoughts are constructed when one is, well, HIGH ON DRUGS, and are absolutely subject to critical analyses & shouldn't be some excuse to arbitrarily judge your fellow humans.
 
time will fix this dilemma. every one is so different. maybe the guy throwing windmills was just blowing off steam after a long day. its more likely that most of the people you saw (that made you sad for them) were having a good time. if you are going to open your third eye, you are going to see some unfamiliar stuff. that doesnt mean its bad, just your perception is calling it bad. to trip in an unpredictable setting, and having a good time while doing it, takes luck or practice. deep down there must be a voice saying that everything is ok. thats the voice to listen to, because its most often right.
 
nah bro empathy is serotonin

we're just atoms brah

Bullshit. I've tried enough serotonergic drugs to know that, while they might enhance or intensify empathy in empathetic people, they cannot create empathy in an individual absolutely bereft of empathy. Psychopaths and other people without a theory of mind do not spontaneously become empathetic just by using molly.
 
I almost forgot about this thread. Quick update: I feel that no lasting damage was done and I look back on my distress that night with curiosity and fascination. I had posted mere hours after the incident, and it is interesting to have this mind set documented to go back and revisit. I realize now that my fantasies about these people I know nothing about are merely a construction built upon a framework of my own biases. I had never experienced a panic attack before this night, and didn't recognize that that was what I was feeling. Lesson learned, set & setting are absolutely critical. Acid for a jam band is great but a mushroom analog at a rave is just asking for trouble.

Sidenote: @ Burnt Offerings when I said empathy I meant it as really seeing things from the other's perspective, or my twisted imaginations of their perspective as it may be. I didn't mean pity or anything like that.
 
I appreciate you're returning with such an insightful retrospective. Others have had similar observations you could appreciate.

Stanislav Grof said:
In one of my early books I suggested that the potential significance of LSD and other psychedelics for psychiatry and psychology was comparable to the value the microscope has for biology or the telescope has for astronomy. My later experience with psychedelics only confirmed this initial impression. These substances function as unspecific amplifiers that increase the cathexis (energetic charge) associated with the deep unconscious contents of the psyche and make them available for conscious processing. This unique property of psychedelics makes it possible to study psychological undercurrents that govern our experiences and behaviours to a depth that cannot be matched by any other method and tool available in modern mainstream psychiatry and psychology. In addition, it offers unique opportunities for healing of emotional and psychosomatic disorders, for positive personality transformation, and consciousness evolution.
Foreword to the MAPS edition of LSD: My Problem Child (October 2005) by Dr. Albert Hofmann
 
been fortunate enough to only play with my significant other present.. so we dont make any stupid moves with others around...
 
OP, in more ways than one; it's your fault.
You were there. You chose to come. It's not like strangers you've never met before were expecting you to come and therefore switched up the BPM to bullshit mode. Thats their scene, not yours and you were in their company and not just that of your friends. Sometimes our egos get in the way and we feel ultimately like we belong more than others when the reality is, everyone belongs as much as each other. You being at a bad event was a choice you made, and you didn't make the choice to leave sooner. Instead you decided to fold like a losing hand at poker and judge others for doing their thing. Sure, we've all seen Mr. Dickhead at raves and gigs. But that's Mr. Dickhead's way of expressing himself and whether you like it or not, unless you can preach to him about changing his ways, he will always be like that.

It's your responsibility to find safe non-threatening environments for you to have a good time in. If that's scouting the lineup for the next gig you go to and even stalking their Facebook pages to see what the audience is like or even watch videos if you can filmed by their media teams, you'll get a better perspective on what to do next. You found this particular situation offensive and upsetting because it goes against YOUR cultural narrative but the world doesn't revolve around YOUR very stance on life, the world is a multidimensional platter of different realms of realities and consciousness. It's like getting a classical piano player to attend a rave and then it be okay for that man to spend his night mocking the men and women who went there to rave. The event was never a classical event. So therefore, the man in this example either puts up with it or disappears to his own places where he finds his own people and his own shared beliefs.

Don't blame others. This was solely your fault. Just be more careful next time. And don't take psychedelics in unknown territory whereby you cannot determine or even control with much clarity or ability what might happen next or whether your environment will turn round to bite you in the ass. Just like all the scientists in the sixties said; it's all about set and setting.

You are accountable for those variables.
Hope I helped.
 
One chick with utterly destroyed teeth and skin was just bouncing up and down to make her tits wobble at 300 rpm.

Classic meth head 8)


I had a bad comeup at the nightclub event i went to, around an hour and a half after ingesting a 150µg LSD tab i started to feel a bad vibe in the smokers. Surrounded by body builders on GHB and shard i began to feel a sense of vulnerability. However grounding myself and coming to the realization that they are not here to hurt, they;re just normal people also here to have a good time.

Perhaps you shouldn't take psychs in such an environment.
 
Yea man sounds like you caught some bad vibes and held on to them when u analyzed these people's lives . Also why go to a show with music and a scene u don't enjoy ? I have been there but yea I just do me and though some thoughts of others behavior and existence comes to mind but I let it slide by. I prefer enjoying the show. Maybe with time or a change in place u will have a better time. Hope you do, happy tripping brothah
 
I was reading something a while ago about how chemical processes in our brains affect the levels of empathy we can feel, but I forgot which hormone or neurotransmitter it was, I think GABA, if you have too much of it you feel too much empathy in cases where it's not beneficial or normal to feel it.

Lately I start to really see how separate body and soul are, and how hormonal imbalances and neurotransmitter deficits almost completely influence the way we are as a person.
If you have all kinds of deficits and imbalances it's nearly impossible to show the person you really are inside.

It's not completely off topic, all I'm trying to say is, your overly emphatic reaction has a lot to do with flooding of certain brain chemicals.
 
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