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Anxiety due to psychedelic drug use? -PLEASE Help! It's destroying my relationship!

H

honeybee

Greenlighter
Joined
Oct 10, 2012
Messages
5
Okay so on the 12th of last month I started having healthy questions and doubts about my relationship (I was pms-ing, mind you) and I was wondering if I really loved my boyfriend of 8 months, wanted to be with him forever etc. etc. These thoughts didn't bug me and I dealt with them like a regular human being. Was happy as could be and as happy with him as ever.
Three days later we did mushrooms together and I had a bad trip. (Still pms-ing) I've been tripping for a year but this was my first extremely negative experience, however I've had plenty of stressful/very anxious trips. There was just a complete disconnect, I felt NO feelings other than fear and anxiety. Felt like I didn't love him and like I *HAD* to break up with him and was screaming and crying due to it. I came down from the mushrooms and felt fine all week, although still troubled from the trip.
Exactly a week later we did coke at his cabin (really shitty coke by the way) and I had an anxiety attack. Began heavily questioning my love for him and that disconnect was back hundred fold. I felt like I didn't love him, like I had to end things. But I didn't tell him about it - he was asleep. Instead I threw up all night and tried to remember how to breathe.
The next few days I was dealing with my anxiety, feeling out of sorts, sometimes out of love. One night, about three days after the anxiety attack... I had another one shortly after I had smoked some pot. I woke him up in the middle of the night freaking out on him. Telling him I was scared and felt sick and confused and out of love. We talked it through and decided to work on it together.
I felt fine for about the next 3 days or so, at which time he left to go on tour with his band for 3 weeks.

After a few days of him being gone (and me feeling pretty good) I began feeling confused and depressed and like I needed space from him, simply to isolate myself and deal with my doubts and depression. The anxiety attacks came back in full and I got to a point where I couldn't even shower, let alone leave the house. I'd have two or three attacks a day. Finally, one night, during a particularly bad attack, I called him and told him I need a break, or to break up, or to simply be alone. Knowing full well the whole time that it felt so wrong and I didn't WANT to be without him. We fought until I realized that I couldn't do it and agreed to stay together.

He gave me a few days to myself to sort out my head, during which time I had more anxiety attacks and began missing him like crazy - yet still feeling depersonalized, disconnected and out of love.

The fact that I couldn't (and still sometimes can't) feel anything for him scares and upsets me. It sends me into a state of panic. I obsess over the thoughts until they kill me, running myself into the ground. Wondering if I actually love him, doubting that I do, wondering if I want to be with him at all. It all makes me so sad and scared and nothing feels real until I am happy. And when I am happy, I feel love for him. I feel back to almost normal.

Yesterday I went to the doctors and she told me do NOT take any medication for it, avoid drugs and start taking vitamins. She told me that it is a drug induced anxiety, that what I'm feeling is natural and it will go away with both time, and with a sober mind.

I'm in the midst of an anxiety attack right now. Feeling numb and loveless, no passion, no emotion. Nothing beyond fear and panic and anxiety. I'm obsessing over my thoughts and my lovelessness that I ***HOPE*** is stemmed from the bad mushroom trip and the anxiety that I've been thrown into. But of course I worry that it's not even anxiety and that I'm simply just out of love and have to stop forcing the relationship. These thoughts and doubts hurt me and scare me and have been making me so depressed.

Yet I will almost always feel love for him when I'm not depressed/ridden with anxiety.

I guess bottom line is I was just looking for some opinions. Or answers.
What do you think of the situation? Is it anxiety? Is it due to mushrooms? Will I get better? Will I feel like myself again? Will I love him fully again? Will these doubts go away?

I feel absolutely crazy and broken and the only time I feel hope is when I'm talking to him about what I'm going through. (He knows in full what I'm battling and is wholly supportive and determined to stand by me)
He tells me he hopes to marry me some day. Sometimes that thought fills me with happiness and excitement, sometimes it sends me spiraling into a panic attack.

What do you think!?

(SO sorry for the length, thanks for those of you who take the time to read/respond!! Really need some help)
 
I think the trip could have either shaken you up and simply left you emotionally worked up...Or, the trip may have shown you a feeling which you had before but you hadn't confronted fully. Maybe you consciously repressed the feeling of needing space or to break up prior to the trip and then the trip brought the walls down so to say and forced you to quit suppressing it...? just an idea. Only you have the answers obviously.

If you are meant to stay together, as in the root is in anxiety and not so much the connection between you two, then you will definitely grow past the questioning. I'm no love expert though lol perhaps this questioning is a natural process in relationships and the drugs just brought on a certain magnification of the emotions relevant to those questions. If so, that should settle within the month...quit doing coke for sure I'd suggest, that's anxiety waiting to happen.
Perhaps take a smoking break as well, caffeine break..?

Meditation is what you need my friend :-) read on zazen to start I'd suggest. If you learn to clear your mind it will be much easier to sort through and integrate your emotions and life exps. It is the attachment of the mind and self to its thoughts and emotions which often seem to obscure ones own perception of the given thought or emotion. Zazen can help you to see that– You are not only your thoughts/emotions but also the silent medium on which they're painted.

To get in touch with the silent observer of reality within the being is to be able to be free from the duality of action/reaction ever present in the wandering mind. By this I mean that as long as you are attached to your troubling emotions you are bound to react to their uneasiness(anxiety). I think you need some inner silence to give you a clearer view of what's right for you. And when you are clear (even if just for a moment in zen trance) Then applying yourself and resolving any issues (in this case understanding what's right in your relationship, as well as the anxiety responses you're getting) will be greatly achievable. The journey to any destination reachable begins with just one step. Just get clear headed as to choose where you're stepping wisely! :-)

Best of progressions, sorry to ramble :-P
 
Reading you have been tripping for the last year, I take it you use some here and there more than others. My advice is usually the same when anxiety hits, you need a good break from all drugs. Especially stimulants, and surely the stuff that gives your mind a hurl. Getting your headspace and back on track, and maby your bf needs the same. Relationships during drug use usually fails in my opinion and by experience looking at others and personal experience.

Take a break from all drugs - get your normal head back in place - then if you like in some weeks or a month do something you might enjoy it again! Drugs are not free - why take them for a bad experience!
 
I feel obligated to mirror ThoughtsUnThought's recommendation of meditation. While going through intense feelings of being trapped in my life (not that I wanted to "leave my life", more a physical feeling of being trapped in my life and what I was doing with it) meditation helped me more than anything, and, to be honest, more than I ever thought that it could. I thank my mother, a lifelong meditation practitioner, for telling me about her experience living in an ashram for years, as it is what got me into meditation during this time. It took me a while to be able to fully integrate myself into the practice, but I guess that's why it's called a "practice". Whatever you choose to do, I'm sending my love in hopes that the effect is as good as possible.
 
Don't use drugs for a while and allow the course of the relationship to sort itself out one way or another. Don't push yourself in either direction; "go with the flow". Otherwise, those anxiety attacks could turn into panic attacks, which are far more unpleasant and intensely physical.
 
Thanks for all of the opinions and help guys! I think I've got my issue not resolved, but at least figured out. I've got anxiety/ROCD (Relationship OCD) which is making me very depressed. Turns out OCD, Anxiety and depression go hand in hand in hand. I've been drug free (pot included) AND coffee free for about 3 weeks now. (Minus one cup of coffee a week and a half ago)
I'm seeing a therapist who is helping me sort through this and feel I am slowly on the road to recovery. It's a LOT easier to tackle this now that I've got a diagnosis. I'm taking baby steps! Taking it day by day. I have good days and bad days. Way more bad days than I'd like. But acceptance is getting easier and I think that's the first step to recovering. I'm involved in hot yoga and will be taking art exploration as well as meditation classes at a local counseling and mental health clinic. Thanks again for all of your advice! It helped to keep me sane, even just knowing that there were people out there who cared.
 
Thanks for updating, Honeybee. It's always good to hear how people's journey's are coming along after they post about a difficult time they're having. There are heaps of people around who care and will listen to you.

What you are experiencing sounds like it's very emotionally taxing. It takes a lot of courage to face such big questions as the ones you posed in your original post.

I remember the rollercoaster ride I had years ago when I had an amicable separation from the girl with whom I had my first long term relationship. It sounds like a cliche, but we really did grow apart. It was hard for both of us to recognise and admit the fact. We tried and tried to make the relationship work but eventually saw that it wasn't going to work in the long term.

My current relationship has no work involved at all because we understand each other. The only reason that this present partnership has worked out so smoothly is because both her and I previously had difficult relationships, and from those we learned about ourselves and exactly what we were looking for in a partner.

Relationships that run their course and dissolve are not meaningless. They are precious and that person who was in your life will always be special to you because you taught each other so much.

Good luck with everything. I hope you're feeling better:)
 
Often times people forget how efficacious alternative methods to deal with these issues are. Like counseling, therapy, yoga, exercise, meditation, staying productive and accomplishing goals, it works far better than any drug i've tried, psychedelics or not.

Sometimes our lives can be far too chaotic to introduce something thats just going to mix things up more (like psychedelics), It's inspiring to see others seeking this route. When the time is right again for tripping, if it ever comes, you will know it. Until then, go with the flow, and make as much progress as possible doing what you are doing. Taking psychedelics whenever I've been taking care of myself and my life/priorities, seems to be a far more effective use of them. When you are most in tune with what you are experiencing, want to do, and how your life is going, the altered perspective of psychedelics can be a profoundly useful tool for seeing things from different angles. Its when you lose interest in bettering your life from what you take from the experience, and keep tripping, thats where trouble starts imho.

Thats not to say difficult experiences are inherently bad, they are just a whole lot more useful when you are psychologically, and emotionally resilient enough to find something useful & keep perspective in even the most rocky trips.

Good luck on your journey. Its a difficult path, but worth taking in the long run. <3
 
Chill on the drugs and just think about what you thought about while tripping. Typically I find that stuff I think while tripping has some grain of truth in it and is really good at showing me where I've been hiding from myself.
 
That idea troubled me for some time - since the attacks began, really. But I've realized it's entirely ROCD and it's a personal problem that I must recover from, rather than a problem within the relationship.
 
I just wanted to add my two cents to this honey.

Every time I trip- I see people for who they REALLY are. I have tripped around my g/f's of the time, and when that happened, I had to end it. I saw them for who they were, and realized I couldnt be with this person the rest of my life. If you have felt that- I would think its true.

Just my thought...
 
Thanks LSDreamer! I could certainly understand that. I'd imagine that would be a difficult thing to experience during a trip.
I know, however, that I could happily and easily spend my life with this man. As an update on my situation, I can feel myself pulling out of it. The OCD gets easier and easier to cope with every day. Therapy is helping, meditation and exercise both help a lot. My head is starting to feel awfully clear! :)
 
LSDreamer13 said:
I just wanted to add my two cents to this honey.

Every time I trip- I see people for who they REALLY are. I have tripped around my g/f's of the time, and when that happened, I had to end it. I saw them for who they were, and realized I couldnt be with this person the rest of my life. If you have felt that- I would think its true.

Just my thought...
Click to expand...

This happened to me once many years ago. I told him he was a dick and went home. The words came out of my mouth before I could catch myself. I never went out with that guy again. But is sorta ruined my trip. lol
 
Thanks! Thanks for all of the advice. I'm still getting a hang of the meditating as I've never done it before, but I've come to find it makes a world of difference. All of your advice really helped and moved/motivated me!
 
I didn't read the whole thread so i apologize. my only advice is that you should consider your psychadelic wisdom as "sacred," or something that most people will never experience. try not to let it influence your regular life too much. especially that of personal relationships. most likely, your partner will have no idea what you experienced and learned in such a mystical state of mind. Try to adapt what you learned from being on psychadelics to that of the real world. apply it in a practical way. psychadelics teach us things that most of the world are not meant to learn...so be careful expressing or carrying out those ideas to the general public, like your girlfriend.
 
honeybee said:
Thanks! Thanks for all of the advice. I'm still getting a hang of the meditating as I've never done it before, but I've come to find it makes a world of difference. All of your advice really helped and moved/motivated me!
Click to expand...

*like*

(to used to facebook!)
 
Sounds like a pretty healthy path you've chosen there. Meditation has certainly helped me a lot over the years.

Sounded like you needed a while to integrate the feelings you had on the first trip you mentioned, then ended up taking more drugs before things we're resolved. That can definitely be a recipe for anxiety. Glad to see things are working out for you.

When & if you do decide to trip again (I'm not necessarily recommending this) make sure to give yourself enough time to integrate the feelings that come up before delving back into that realm.

Hope the yoga & meditation are going well!
 
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