Nervous about upcoming trip for a couple of reasons

[RhythmSpring]

I have plans to do mushrooms with an old girl friend (not girlfriend) on Friday. She's been on SSRIs for years. The only music she listens to is industrial, and her favorite movie genre is horror flicks. She's smart and cool and loves animals, but she definitely has some unaddressed issues lurking. She's been on Prozac, and she discontinued yesterday (Monday). She sees the trip, as far as she's willing to admit, anyway, as recreational. This will be her first real time doing a psychedelic. (She did mushrooms once before but it was a small amount and she was still on Prozac.)

Me, I'm relatively experienced and take these things very seriously. I understand that my psyche is put in a vulnerable place for my trips, and my trips are almost always geared toward self-healing. I am usually careful about who I trip around for this reason. Also, when I trip, I often get a virtually unstoppable urge to vocalize, whether it's beatboxing, singing, talking, yelling like a kung fu master, or making hilarious attempts at guttural throat singing. Or playing the didgeridoo. My last trip on 4-aco-dmt had me making these retching noises that felt extremely cathartic to make, kind of like purging without the nausea. Not something I'd want to subject just anyone to.

The setting: Her mom's house, at night, with her mom sleeping, so we better keep it quiet. : / I really want to trip for my own well being, and I want her to trip for her well being, around someone relatively experienced like me. But I'm not sure it will be the optimal experience for me. The last thing I want to have is my psychedelic freedom stifled. Plus, some dark stuff might come up for her, and I don't know if I'll be able to deal with it and have a productive experience for myself at the same time.

Any thoughts?

 

[Thorns Have Roses]

How has her fluoxetine taper been going? I'd be worried about emotional instability due to withdrawal, more so if she quit cold turkey.

I think her darkness might not be an issue, I mean for a lot of people that kinda negativity (taste in art) is casual stuff and not something that's gonna roughen up a trip. Of course you have a better feel for her than I.

vocalize, whether it's beatboxing, singing, talking, yelling like a kung fu master, or making hilarious attempts at guttural throat singing. Or playing the didgeridoo.

Ha, I'd totally trip with you. Sounds interesting.

 

[RobotRipping]

lol sounds like you'd be crazy to trip with. I'd have to break your didgeridoo by the end of a 8 hour trip though.

As for your friend, it does not sound like a good idea at all for her to trip. Yes tripping can heal or be cathartic but if she's not ready to deal with underlying issues, mushrooms will force her to and she may reject the trip which will cause at the very least anxiety and at worst a severely bad trip. If she's all for getting in there and figuring out what's wrong underneath the surface and you can help guide her through her issues then well it's risky but has a possibility of a good outcome.

The problem i see is the set and setting. Especially since you seem to be a noisy tripper, this could cause the girl to have extra anxiety or for yourself to. You want to be in a safe setting with no interference or possibility for such. My advice is to not go through with this at this time and at the very least, take severe precautions if you do. Have some seroquel and benzos around and dose on the light side.

The darkness isn't necessarily an issue, people with such minds trip very well IME, the problem is only with unresolved, underlying issues she may have and the fact that the set and setting could also cause issues. If she's up for willingly facing them, staring them in the eye and letting go, then she's ready for it; if not, it could be a mess. Mushrooms are unpredictable as it is.

 

[cashmunny]

Prozac has a long half life in the body. And it's biologically active metabolite norfluoxetine has a very long half life (16 days). So she would have to off of Prozac for several weeks to be clear of it.

As someone who has personally struggled with substance abuse and depression my entire adult life I cringe everytime I read posts on here about people with mental illness taking recreational drugs like LSD. I know it's been used theraputically for depression. But I've also seen it make people worse.

 

[RhythmSpring]

Wow, I keep forgetting that half life means when the substance is only HALF out of your body, not completely eliminated.

cashmunny- That's good to know about norfluoxetine.

Is there a chart somewhere on the internet that shows various anti-depressants and how long it takes for each one and their metabolites to be virtually clear of the body?

 

[sekio]

You can look up the half lives on Wikipedia.

A rule of thumb is to wait 2 weeks from your last antidepressant dose to ensure they've "washed out".

 

[cashmunny]

Paxil has the shortest half life and Prozac the longest with the rest lying in between. In matters such as this it's important to consider the biologically active metabolites as well, as in the case of norfluoxetine. Like someone else said wiki has all this info.

I'm not sure how they would interact. It may be benign. I think with some recreational drugs like MDMA taking an SSRI will actually diminish the effects. That may be the case with LSD. There are these reports on Erowid, seems like LSD plus Lithium is a big no-no.

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_health3.shtml


Having a benzodiazepine on hand might be good.

 

[RobotRipping]

the side effects of mixing a 5ht2a psych and an SSRI like prozac are minimal when both are used together and even less so when discontinued, despite the long half life. It may alter the trip slightly but won't blunt it like MDMA.

personally i think if you're on SSRIs you shouldn't be tripping anyway because obviously your mental state is in need of repair, though that's not always the case.

LSD and SSRIs will work fine but yeah always check for interactions as things like lithium do not mix well with certain psychedelics.

LSD does not have to be a recreational drug either, i'd argue for the most part, it's up to the user whether it's recreational or not. i found the mescaline analogues and mescaline itself to not be recreational whatsoever, i took them not for fun but for the experience because they certainly weren't fun. LSD is like that most of the time too, though it is indeed fun at times too but still, these aren't recreational drugs, you don't get fucked up on them or high and feel amazing, it's not like shooting heroin.

If you have any psychological isues, psychs will hit you over the head with them and not allow you to escape them. You'll have to encounter yourself. You can't run from yourself with psychs, if you want to blunt your emotions, there are benzos, opiates, and other downers. if you want to do other things there are other drugs that are far more recreational than psychedelics are.

 

[RhythmSpring]

personally i think if you're on SSRIs you shouldn't be tripping anyway because obviously your mental state is in need of repair, though that's not always the case.

I hate this mentality. It creates a catch-22, because often psychedelics are wonderful at contributing to psychological well-being (duh). I can't tell you how many times I've read, "Taking such and such psychedelic brought me out of a month/year/life long depression." *Everyone's* mental state is in need of repair. Taking SSRIs is just one approach to fixing that.

And to clarify- we were planning on doing shrooms, not LSD.

Anyway, it looks like we're not going to do it anyway. There have been a lot of obstacles coming up.

 

[farlig]

The setting would be my biggest problem. Tripping at her mothers house with her sleeping there is a bad idea if you ask me. It would definitely be a source of concern to know that you need to keep it down or she might wake up and discover what's going on. After all, it might be hard to control during a trip. It's a bad start for the trip right from the get-go. I wouldn't recommend it, especially since it's her first time. Find a better place or time to do it.

 

[Mitchi]

If she hasn't had MDMA before, I would start with that. If something is lurking just beneath the surface it won't be so bad if it comes up, given the MDMA-nature

 

[RobotRipping]

I hate this mentality. It creates a catch-22, because often psychedelics are wonderful at contributing to psychological well-being (duh). I can't tell you how many times I've read, "Taking such and such psychedelic brought me out of a month/year/life long depression." *Everyone's* mental state is in need of repair. Taking SSRIs is just one approach to fixing that.

And to clarify- we were planning on doing shrooms, not LSD.

Anyway, it looks like we're not going to do it anyway. There have been a lot of obstacles coming up.

no offense there bucko but i was replying to the posters above me. I already addressed your OP above.

psychedelics can help but there are big risks and you must understand that. If you do not, then you should not use them. I get what you're saying but you never know with some people, sometimes the person you least suspect ends up in a psych ward and then you feel responsible for that shit. SSRIs to me are bullshit medications that don't even work anyway, so IMO a psychedelic is a much better medicine but at the same time, you can't deny that there are big risks involved. I don't know the girl, or her experience with psychedelics. If she's a full blown psychonaut then you wouldn't' be asking this question in the first place so i assume she doesn't have much experience. Mushrooms can be a dark force and if she has some shit bubbling under the surface, it could result in disaster. You don't know how many reports i've read of people killing themselves specifically on mushrooms.

either way i didn't say go through with it or not, i told you if you were going to then be cautious. Read my original post. I just offered my opinion, that's all.

 

[pofacedhoe]

ssri's block mdma/mushrooms. the effect on mood of ssri withdrawal is very unpleasant. add that to a trip= uh oh.

good luck its your life. personally it sounds like a bad mix overall. but maybe it will go the other way. trips are unpredictable. BUT get a place where there is no-one else around. you want trip freedom at least. make sure her mother is a deep sleeper

 

[webbykevin]

if you are committed to do shrooms under the circumstances you outlined in you OP and cannot be persuaded otherwise then my advice would be to keep the dose relatively low, 2 grams maximum, just my 2 cents worth.