May 10, 2025 • 50 mins
In this powerful episode, Preston opens up about the night he took shrooms for the first time — and how it sent him into a downward spiral that lasted for six terrifying months.
He shares his experience with:
- Constant panic attacks
- Insomnia and waking in full sweats
- Manual breathing and intense health anxiety
- A frightening descent into Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder (DPDR)
This isn’t just a bad trip — it’s a story of survival, mental health, and the unexpected consequences of psychedelics. Whether you’ve experienced something similar or are curious about the risks, this episode offers insight, honesty, and hope.
🎧 New episodes every other week — subscribe and leave a review if this resonated.
#mentalhealth #badtrip #dpdr #panicdisorder #psilocybin #psychedelicawareness #healingjourney #anxietyrecovery #multispectivepodcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Weed and trims have been the only drugs I've taken.
The beginning of the trip wasnot bad.
I think the one thing that Iremember them talking about was
not to look at yourself in amirror while you're tripping
because that can cause kind ofego death.
(00:24):
Holy shit, we were like trappedin a mental loop.
All I could focus on was howloud my breathing was.
It was weird.
It was scary.
Everything felt like it wasgoing so slow, so fast.
I just couldn't tell what wasreal.
That thought carried on for sixmonths after the fact.
(00:50):
It definitely opened me up toexistential thinking.
SPEAKER_00 (00:58):
Welcome to Multispective.
I would love to just hear alittle bit about sort of where
it all begins for you, yourbackground, where you're from,
your childhood.
SPEAKER_01 (01:07):
All right.
So I'm in a pretty small town inPennsylvania, Connie Lake.
It is quite an unfortunate placeto be living.
Like, I mean, it's nice.
It's safe.
Just the people around herearen't the best to be around.
You know what I mean?
Not too kind.
So, yeah, I'm out here.
(01:27):
Why
SPEAKER_02 (01:28):
so?
SPEAKER_01 (01:28):
In
SPEAKER_00 (01:29):
what way?
SPEAKER_01 (01:30):
To be completely honest, most of them are pretty
bigoted, like racist,homophobic, just, and it's like
in a big cluster of people.
They're all pretty much, I'm nottrying to be, what's the word,
biased, I guess, against peoplehere.
But yeah, a lot of the peopleI've met and tried to make
connections with ended up beingnot.
SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
Hmm.
Is it a very white dominant areathat you're in?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (01:57):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (01:58):
Are you a minority?
Where are you from originally?
SPEAKER_01 (02:00):
I'm not a minority.
I'm from here, but I'm gaymyself, so I know that I just
wouldn't want anybody to be...
upset by other people's actionsor words and not a big fan of
that.
SPEAKER_00 (02:16):
Have you found yourself being marginalized or
being treated a certain way?
Oh,
SPEAKER_01 (02:20):
yeah, most definitely.
I was more closeted growing up.
I didn't really know how to comeout to friends or family.
It was a very terrifying thing.
And my family not knowing that Iwas gay, I don't know.
They didn't make me feel like itwas really safe to come out.
I came out to my mom, my dad, mygrandma.
That was like two years ago.
And I mean, the response wasbetter than expected because of
(02:42):
like stuff I've heard them sayin the past before I came out.
Like for an example, we'd bewatching like a football game
and a RuPaul drag racecommercial would come up and it
would not be a good situationfor them.
I feel like they were offendedby seeing that on TV.
They would say it would just belike turn this shit off or you
know, stuff in that context.
(03:03):
It made me feel not too safe tobe myself, express myself.
SPEAKER_00 (03:07):
So how did you sort of build up that courage to Bye.
to tell them finally?
I
SPEAKER_01 (03:13):
honestly think the shrooms did that for me.
Like the fear of feeling what Ifelt was scarier than the
thought of being gay to me afterthat, I guess.
SPEAKER_00 (03:23):
You mentioned that you were closeted for a while
and perhaps went through thatphase of like, okay, now I'm
having to come to terms withthis sort of like reality.
How was that for you?
Like, at what point was it likean overnight thing where you're
like, all right, I accept it.
This is where I stand.
This is who I am.
Or was it a slow progress oftrying to fight it for a while
(03:45):
with yourself?
SPEAKER_01 (03:46):
It was a pretty slow process.
There would be times where I'vehad people question if I was gay
or not, and I'd just be like,no.
I just can't say it.
I can't let these people knowbecause I don't know what their
perception of me will be afterthis.
Not that it matters anymore tome.
I think the turning point waswhenever I...
(04:08):
wanted to get into relationshipswith other men and I didn't want
to hide it from my mom and Ididn't want it to be like a big
deal.
Her finding out, I just, I feltlike I needed to tell her, um,
just so I was more comfortablewith myself and comfortable,
like sharing that side of myselfwith somebody I'm close with.
So
SPEAKER_00 (04:27):
yeah.
How did they take it at the end?
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
My mom was surprised.
He was confused.
Um, for the most part, and ittook, I feel like, a little bit
for her to process because, Imean, not knowing your son's gay
and then just randomly, I'm gay,you know what I mean?
But no, she's been verysupportive and understanding
about it, and I can pretty muchtell her anything, so that's
(04:53):
important
SPEAKER_00 (04:54):
to me.
That's really cool, and I feellike there's so much power in
that as well.
I think, of course, this is notto say to rush anyone or to tell
anyone here that's listening togo ahead and do it, but
sometimes Sometimes it's theanticipation that's the hardest
part.
Sometimes the reality of justgoing out there and doing it,
you realize at the end of theday, my mom's going to love me
(05:14):
through it.
And there are definitely storiesof maybe parents who just can't
accept it for a while and theyneed a little bit longer.
Say if your mom was like, Ican't accept this.
Your mom and dad, family waslike, nope, I can't do it.
I just can't accept it.
Would you still kind of sit herewith me today and say, no, I'm
glad I said what I have to say?
SPEAKER_01 (05:34):
Yeah, for sure.
I feel like I'm not as closewith my family as I want to be.
Even though I can talk to my momand stuff, I don't feel as close
to them as I would want to.
So like, I feel like theiropinions wouldn't matter as much
to me because I mean, I'm doingit for me.
And like, it's with no intent tohurt anybody else or upset
anybody else.
It's just for my benefit.
(05:54):
You know, I'm not going tosuppress myself, even if it's
just my mom and dad.
Like, I'm not going to suppressmyself for that.
So
SPEAKER_00 (06:01):
I love it.
I love it, Preston.
Now tell me a little bit aboutlike the role that shrooms had
on this whole process for you.
Walk me through this from thebeginning.
Where and how you were firstintroduced to it, what kind of
attracted you or appealed you tothis world
SPEAKER_01 (06:18):
of psychedelics?
So it was like the end, well,not the end of quarantine, but
beginning of 2021.
I was already smoking weedwhenever I was, I think I
started whenever I was 16.
And I wasn't on any medicationfor my anxiety or anything.
anything and I feel like weedgave me this illusion that it
was like it healed me I guessfrom like the trauma and the
(06:41):
anxiety that I had like growingup and it was it was a weird
feeling like smoking completelydepleted all like the OCD
rituals that I had like before Isat on the toilet I'd have to
wipe it off with a Clorox wipeor something because I was
scared I was going to getcontaminated by sitting on a Or
like being in a dirty house.
(07:02):
I grew up with not a lot ofmoney and most of my family
didn't have a lot of moneyeither.
And certain things would grossme out.
So like say if I didn't feelcomfortable in somebody's house
because it was dirty, if theymade food, I would purposely
waste the food so I didn't haveto eat it because I was scared I
was going to get sick.
Stuff like that.
I started smoking weed and thatstuff completely stopped.
(07:23):
I wasn't afraid to eat food.
I wasn't afraid to sit on dirtytoilet or like not wash my hands
a billion times.
SPEAKER_00 (07:29):
Was this like prescribed for you or was it
just something you tookrecreationally and then realized
wow this is
SPEAKER_01 (07:35):
yeah recreationally um i started it because i kind
of wanted to just like follow inmy friends footsteps and not
seem like or not feel like i wasmissing out on something i
wanted to understand like whatpeople saw and we like at first
i grew up uh clearly straightedge and i was like no weed no
cigarettes no alcohol whateverand then once i tried weed i was
(07:59):
like shit I don't know likesomething about it definitely
opened my mind up a little bitmore because where I've lived
like I said like people wereracist phobic um and I kind of
found myself like following inthose footsteps just because I
felt like I needed to fit in Ifelt like I needed people to
relate to you know what I meaneven if they weren't the
(08:19):
greatest people that was what Iwas surrounded by and uh a lot
of bullying a lot of stuff likethat so I just felt like I had
to kind of open my mind up alittle bit and weed helped me do
that it helped me realize thatit really didn't cost anything
to be kind to people.
SPEAKER_00 (08:33):
So you decide from weed, the next thing you took
was shrooms?
SPEAKER_01 (08:38):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Because of the original fear ofweed that I had, like not
wanting to do it because I wasscared of what being high felt
like.
Once I found out what being highfelt like, I felt like I had
this sort of space to not be asafraid of drugs.
Weed and shrooms have been theonly drugs I've taken.
SPEAKER_00 (08:58):
Did you do any weeding before getting into
psychedelics, into shrooms,knowing that they're going to
have completely differenteffects?
Weed is, you know, you're stillvery much in your senses and
aware of everything with weed.
Did you do any reading or didjust sort of have that first
experience and
SPEAKER_01 (09:17):
can remember correctly I think I've watched a
documentary might have been onNetflix but it was like all
these celebrities talking abouttheir trips and their
experiences with their trips andI think it was just called take
a trip it's like things not todo on psychedelics and some
people explain their stories andThat was really all the research
I did.
I saw it and I was like, okay, Imean, I think I could handle it
(09:41):
for the most part, which turnedout not to be so true.
I think the one thing that Iremember them talking about was
not to look at yourself in amirror while you're tripping
because that can cause, I guess,like a kind of ego death or
whatever.
Right.
Yeah.
Some kind of bad effect to thetrip.
SPEAKER_02 (10:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:00):
And I didn't listen to that, unfortunately.
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
Okay.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:05):
And I feel like that might have triggered something.
SPEAKER_00 (10:07):
So would you say it was that the very first time
that you took shrooms when allhell broke loose for you or all
hell broke loose on that veryfirst trip?
SPEAKER_01 (10:18):
Yeah, all hell broke loose on that very first trip.
UNKNOWN (10:21):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (10:21):
I had this friend named Travis that I met in high
school, and I dropped out ofhigh school in 10th grade, and I
hadn't talked to Travis or seenTravis since freshman year, and
this was whenever I was supposedto be, I think, a junior.
And I think he reached out to meand asked if we could hang out,
and I think that's what openedmy mind up to taking the
(10:44):
shrooms, just hearing his storyas well.
He knew somebody we could getthem from, and we...
Took them together.
I think I ate mine on a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich
because the smell was disgustingand I could not bear to take it
by itself.
SPEAKER_00 (11:01):
Interesting.
A
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
foul smell.
SPEAKER_00 (11:04):
Now, how do people typically take it?
What's the typical way of takingit?
SPEAKER_01 (11:07):
I've heard people, they put it into tea or eat it
or...
cook it into things spaghettipizza stuff like that
SPEAKER_00 (11:17):
but and is it usually like a healthy dose or
not a healthy dose a typicaldose would be like one mushroom
or a
SPEAKER_01 (11:24):
bunch i don't know like how many how much
psilocybin is in one singularmushroom so i'm not like
completely sure about that but iknow that The amount I took was
definitely not a safe amount tobe taking.
Well, at least for the firsttrip.
SPEAKER_00 (11:42):
For the first trip.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (11:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:44):
So you put it on a PB&J sandwich.
Yep.
And you had the whole thing.
And did your friend at any pointwarn you like, hey, look, it's
your first time, maybe just slowit down, have a little bit less?
Or was he like, nah, go for it,everything's going to be fine?
SPEAKER_01 (12:00):
I feel like he was also slightly inexperienced with
the shrooms.
He's taken them before he'sdone...
think he's told me acid was thefirst drug that he took and that
remember how that story went forhim but um i i knew that i felt
safe enough around him becausehe wasn't an ignorant person
he's never been ignorant he'snever been um close-minded or
(12:25):
anything, so I felt like, okay,this is a person that I would
feel safe possibly doing themwith for the first time.
I think we both took about thesame amount.
He took stems of the mushroomsand I took the caps.
I guess the caps are more potentthan the stems, so I got the
shit end of the stick on thatpart.
SPEAKER_00 (12:44):
What do you recall?
How long did it take before ithit you guys and what happened
thereafter?
SPEAKER_01 (12:50):
I remember we took them and then It was beginning
of January, so it was freezingcold out.
We went for this short littlewalk around where I was living
at the time.
We were just looking up at thetrees, waiting to see if the
trees would warp or move orwhatever.
We noticed that they werewarping and moving.
It wasn't scary to me at all.
(13:12):
I remember I felt very giddy,giggly, excited, motivated.
The beginning of the trip wasnot bad.
We ended up walking back Myhouse.
And the heater was on.
And the moment I felt Trip fullysit in was when I transitioned
from being outside in the cold,walking into the warmth.
(13:35):
It was the craziest feeling.
I don't know.
It felt like I kind of justwalked through Jell-O or
something.
It was nuts.
And then I remember...
We were laughing aboutsomething.
I was like looking on my phonescreen, like at my front camera,
like to see if anything lookeddifferent.
And my face like looked beetred.
My eyes were super dilated andit kind of freaked me out.
(13:57):
So I like shied away fromlooking at myself for half of
the beginning of the trip.
And then I think I think wecouldn't decide what we wanted
to do.
Like while we were on theshrooms and we got in this loop
of like, what do we do?
What do we do?
And then it turned into thislike flight.
panic of like holy shit we'relike the best way to put it was
(14:18):
we were like trapped in a mentalloop like we couldn't get out of
like not knowing what we weregonna do so we basically kind of
just sat there and i think wetried to put on a movie and the
thing that freaked me out likeuh with the hallucinations was
whatever movie we were watchingi forgot what it was the actors
faces in the movies started toresemble like my family members
(14:41):
and they started i don't know itwas It was a freaky experience.
The actors looked nothing likethey actually do.
It was like they were morphinginto my family members.
And I couldn't comprehend thatbecause I thought shrooms would
be like, oh, I'm seeing thingskind of wiggle and move and
wave.
But it was like a fullperspective visual change.
(15:02):
Nothing looked...
Right.
Would be the best way to put it.
Nothing looked right.
SPEAKER_00 (15:07):
Were you kind of already, you mentioned that you
were in that negative, like thatloop of what do we do?
So do you feel like that kind ofmindset transitioned into like
when you were watching thatmovie, you kind of stayed in
that negative kind of mind, likethat zone, right?
Yeah.
UNKNOWN (15:22):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (15:22):
So instead of seeing those actors and seeing your
family members' faces on theseactors, instead of feeling like,
wow, that's really cool, that'sso fascinating, you're already
in this negative zone.
So you're like, that's freakingme out.
That's not okay.
SPEAKER_01 (15:36):
Yeah.
It was weird because...
I think the thing that set thenegative tone with the actors
morphing into my family memberswas I think it might have been
family members that caused mesome kind of trauma.
I think it was...
my brain trying to show me liketrying to weed out things weed
(15:59):
out memories subconsciously andI kind of I got stuck in this
like feeling I was well I wasdiagnosed with CPTSD it's
complex PTSD and just from likepast childhood trauma and it
like kind of built its way upinto adulthood and like the way
I react and respond to things Ifeel like it was partially
(16:22):
because of the trauma and Idon't know.
I feel like the trip wasdefinitely trying to...
show me something about myselfor show me
SPEAKER_00 (16:31):
something
SPEAKER_01 (16:32):
i was forgetting like suppressed memories i don't
SPEAKER_00 (16:34):
know right things started resurfacing at that
point
SPEAKER_01 (16:38):
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (16:38):
and the thing is like your friend is equally as
high so he's not equipped or inthe state of mind to you know
talk you through it so you'rekind of just starting to work
yourself up to a really reallyreally strong negative kind of
trip
SPEAKER_01 (16:54):
yeah i think we were both definitely in the same i
mean we were in the sameheadspace for for sure with the
mind or the time loop feelingbut um there was this point in
time where i started gettinglike hyper aware of my breathing
like it was the only thing icould hear over the movie or
whatever music we were listeningto or whatever we were doing
(17:15):
like all i could focus on waslike how loud my breathing was
and um i think the hyperawareness of my breathing made
me freak out because I was like,I can't stop focusing on my
breathing.
Like I was, um, like how webreathe automatically.
I was manually breathing and Icouldn't stop.
I just could not stop.
(17:36):
I felt like I had no controlover, uh, the attention I had to
my breath.
I had no control over justregular things that our body
does automatically.
It was weird.
It was scary.
Everything felt like it wasgoing so slow, so fast.
It was the weirdest
SPEAKER_02 (17:52):
headspace to be in.
SPEAKER_01 (17:53):
I remember standing up to get a bottle of water to
see if I could try and groundmyself, just get something to
drink, hydrate myself.
As soon as I stood up, I turnedaround to, I think, ask Travis,
if you wanted a bottle of water.
And I see myself sitting on thebed.
I stand up, turn around, and seemyself still sitting on the edge
(18:17):
of the bed talking to Travis.
And I was just like, I died.
I thought I died.
It was the freakiest thing ever.
And that is what led into thebreathing thing.
And I couldn't tell if I had anout-of-body experience, if I was
hallucinating, if...
I died or if I was a ghost.
I don't know.
Like that was my thought processat the time.
(18:38):
I was very paranoid, veryconfused as to like how how this
is even happening.
I've never experienced somethinglike that in my life.
I remember like walking around.
I had my like hands over my headtrying to like control my
breathing.
And I was just like walkingaround my kitchen in circles,
waiting and waiting and waitinguntil I could like process
whatever I saw.
SPEAKER_00 (18:58):
Did you have the ability at that point to to
converse with yourself to tellyourself, look, I'm tripping.
I know I've just taken this.
This is supposed to happen.
I
SPEAKER_01 (19:07):
feel like this was before I started going to
therapy, like actually partakingin therapy.
So I didn't really have manygrounding methods except for
like, okay, breathe in, breatheout.
And I think I was just like atthat point hyperventilating and
there was like no control overhow I was like perceiving myself
(19:31):
in reality at that point.
It was kind of just like, Thethought that I had was, I'm
going to be stuck like this.
I felt like I was going to befeeling that fear ever.
Even though that was anirrational thought, that thought
carried on for six months afterthe fact.
(19:51):
It was the worst thought tohave.
Like, I'm stuck.
SPEAKER_00 (19:56):
Six months.
SPEAKER_01 (19:58):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (19:59):
And was it constant for six months?
SPEAKER_01 (20:01):
Yeah.
So, like, what helped me bringmyself out of the trip?
I ate a bowl of cereal, but Iate, like, I ate it dry.
And it was weird because itdidn't taste like, I think it
was like Honey Nut Cheerios orsomething.
It didn't taste like Honey NutCheerios.
It tasted like rocks.
Like, I couldn't perceivereality at all.
(20:23):
Like...
The taste of things, the smellof things, like, how things
sounded, everything was justdistorted, like, all my senses.
And the taste of the Cheerioswas so nasty that I threw all of
it up.
I think I, like, tricked myselfinto believing that if I threw
up the shrooms with everythingelse that it would stop, or it
would slow down.
And then once I did that, I kindof just felt like I was high at
(20:44):
that point, and it was, like,less of a, God, I'm terrified
kind of thing, you know what Imean?
But later that night after thewhole incident, I...
Remember, me and Travis werejust bawling our eyes out.
We didn't understand what wasgoing on.
I feel like it really toyed withour emotions.
And that's when I think we bothdecided to stop smoking weed
(21:06):
because any type of high isprobably going to end up
freaking us out.
SPEAKER_00 (21:11):
Was Travis also in this for six months or did he
get out of it like at a normal,however long it usually takes?
I don't know, four hours, threehours, something like that?
I
SPEAKER_01 (21:23):
think like four to six is like the normal trip.
Right.
Um, but like the amount ofstreams that I took, I feel
like, I don't know if thatchanges the length of like the
trip or anything, but the amountof, shrooms that I took was a
pretty, like, what they callheroic dose.
I feel like if I took maybe alesser dose, I would have got
(21:45):
out of it quicker.
And he took the stems, so Idon't know if our trips were,
like, entirely different or not,but I know that he struggled
with, like, a visual trail.
Like, if you move your eyes,it's, like, type of blur.
Like, you're kind of blurred.
Along with, like, that visual,there's this thing called visual
snow as well.
It's, like, where your eyesconstantly have, like, these
(22:07):
What they call floaters.
Like these little...
I don't know if you've ever seenlittle worm things in your
vision if you look up at the
SPEAKER_02 (22:14):
sun.
SPEAKER_01 (22:16):
But we both had those for a very long time.
It was very prevalent and it...
It was to the point where it wasalmost irritating.
No matter how much amount oflight I was in, it was too much
for my eyes.
We stayed inside for themajority of that six months.
We tried to go out and go on carrides or do whatever to ground
us, but we were both prettytaken aback by that whole
(22:36):
situation.
And I feel like it's kind ofaffected us both mentally.
In the long run, I feel like westill deal with the anxiety left
over from that because it was apretty traumatizing thing for
both of us.
The best way to put it,everything felt off for the six
months.
Like nothing was reallyenjoyable.
Things were veryoverstimulating.
It just felt like my senses wereshot.
(22:57):
And I know that he can relate tothat as well.
SPEAKER_00 (23:00):
And in those six months, were you sort of like in
and out of it?
So every once in a while, likeyou would kind of function
normally, but then you wouldhave like something that would
trigger and then you would getreally, really paranoid.
Or was it?
literally constant for sixmonths?
SPEAKER_01 (23:14):
I'd say it was definitely gradual, but it
persisted pretty much daily.
So after we did the shrooms, Iended up moving with my mom.
So it was just me and my mom atthe time in the one house that I
took the shrooms in.
We ended up having to movebecause of money issues and
stuff.
And we moved into this trailercourt.
And I've never lived in atrailer court like It's kind of
(23:37):
like beat down area and I didn'tfeel like super comfortable.
I remember my main concern wasthat there was a bullet hole in
the window and we checked thehouse out, but we couldn't
really find any other place tolive.
So we kind of had to settle forthat.
There was like black mold andstuff in the corner.
There was the floor was kind ofsinking in, but we really had no
but to kind of just accept thatthis is where we're at.
(24:00):
And I feel like.
after having such alife-changing moment and then
moving houses especially intoone that's not deemed to myself
like safe or comfortable itdidn't feel like home um i feel
like that triggered the panicdisorder i didn't feel like i
had a place to express myself ora place to feel comfortable at
(24:22):
that moment in time you
SPEAKER_00 (24:24):
did you at some point tell your mom about it
like you know i need help andhow did that how did that go for
you
SPEAKER_01 (24:30):
the night that i did the shrooms i remember Yeah.
she called me and asked if meand Travis wanted food and I was
like tripping and I just Ididn't know how to tell her I
was tripping so I was like yeahyeah I was like shaking I
probably sounded like I wasqueeking out and I asked her if
she could bring home some foodand then when she got home I
(24:51):
told her that I did them and Iwas I was terrified she was
gonna be pissed because at thatpoint I was like still slightly
tripping and I didn't want herto freak out and cause me to
have another bad trip but I toldher and I told her I just needed
a minute to chill out like ifshe's upset with me just talk to
me about it later because Ican't I can't handle it but in
(25:13):
the process of moving and stuffseeing that bullet hole in the
window and like seeing howrackety the house we were moving
into was I told her like I don'tfeel good about moving in there
I felt like there was bad vibesour landlord told us The last
people that lived there foundknives, like, under the carpet.
There was, like, a girl thatlived there that was doing
(25:35):
witchcraft.
And that freaked me the hellout.
Like, I was...
I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (25:40):
Just hearing that...
Last thing I hear
SPEAKER_01 (25:42):
in that moment.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm not, like, againstwitchcraft or anything.
Like, tarot cards, reading,like, crystals, all that stuff.
Like, I'm not really against anyof that.
But just, like...
Having knives near the carpet isnot the best vibe.
So I remember I had a secondpanic attack in the place that
we were living before we moved.
(26:02):
And I was like, I can't, I can'tmove.
I can't, I don't want to move.
And I remember I was so workedup that I was like throwing up
and freaking out.
Like there's, there's no way Icould convince my mom not to
move out into that place justbecause of the situation we were
in at the time.
So it was like, there's nochoice.
Being there, it felt like aneternity being in that place.
(26:24):
It was only, I think we livedthere for about a year, but like
six months out of that year, Igot like all my stuff situated.
I started feeling like slightlymore comfortable being in the
house, like having my room andmy music stuff set up and like
everything I needed.
It felt like I had more of aspace.
I remember one night I tried tosmoke weed again and It started
(26:48):
to make my heart race.
It never did that before I didthe shrooms.
I never had any anxiety with theweed beforehand, but it started
to make my heart race.
I feel like I was trippingagain.
We didn't do that to me.
I feel like the shroomstraumatized me in a way that
transmuted into like whateverother drugs I'm going to try are
going to freak me out.
And I can't do these again.
(27:08):
And I had a panic attack thatlasted 20 minutes.
I was trying to get myself tofall asleep.
I put on like calmingfrequencies and music and stuff
on my TV to try to get me tochill out.
And I eventually fell asleep.
But then I woke up and my heartwas still pounding out of my
chest like two hours later inthe the disorder started.
(27:29):
I was not familiar with thatfeeling at all.
My heart...
I could hear...
My heart pumping.
I could feel it just runningthrough my veins like this, this
cold.
I was I was in a cold sweat, hotand cold feeling like going
throughout my arms and my chest.
Like I thought I thought I wasdying again.
(27:49):
Like it felt like I did theshrooms again.
I remember I woke my mom up andI was like, I don't know what is
going on with me.
My heart is racing.
I can't get it to stop.
I can't breathe.
She sat there and tried to talkme through it and like.
My heart would not stop racing.
It kept racing.
It just felt like endless panic.
And the only thing that I coulddo, sleep.
Try and sleep for like an hour.
(28:10):
Take a nap.
Do something that would slow itdown.
And yeah, shut down thatfeeling.
And it never stopped.
Once I finally got it to subsidea little bit, I was kind of
freaked out.
Like, I didn't want that tohappen again.
And I think the fear of ithappening to me again was what
caused...
it to happen over and over andover again.
It was like, I have a panicattack.
(28:31):
Okay, I'm good, but when is mynext one?
And then I tried to startcontrolling my breathing by just
in, out, slowly, regularmeditation kind of stuff.
Focusing on my breathing, I feellike Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
(29:11):
um that gradually sort of wentaway um but it it was it was
always kind of lingering ididn't i didn't know when i was
gonna start thinking about mybreathing again or whenever i
was gonna start obsessing itwould happen at like at times
where i was trying to be socialor at times where i was doing
(29:31):
something that was important tome like making my music or
having a conversation
SPEAKER_00 (29:35):
you're looking for a distraction to stop you from
focusing on the breathing butAnything that you try to focus
your mind on other than yourbreathing brings you back to
your breathing.
So it's just this kind of likeback and forth.
It's just like it sounds like amental jail.
SPEAKER_01 (29:54):
Yes, yes.
That's the best way to put it.
I didn't feel like I had anytype of freedom.
Like I felt like there's no wayin hell that I was going to be
able to enjoy my life again ifI'm going to be stuck focusing
on my breathing.
I can't tune into anything elseif, you know, like something
that's supposed to be automaticand something that...
brings you life breathing youknow what i mean like i was
(30:15):
afraid um it led into me havinginsomnia for the first two
months of that six whole monthswhere i would wake up focused on
my breathing immediately likei'd wake up soaked in sweat i'd
immediately be panicking like ifeel like it had this weird
effect on my dreams like um i'dhave The best way to put it was
(30:38):
like, imagine you fell asleepfor like an hour, but the dream
that you just had felt likethree hours or four hours long.
It was the weirdest experience.
I couldn't even put it intowords.
It was like, I just couldn'ttell what was real.
Like, I couldn't tell thedifference between my reality
and whatever I was dreamingabout.
(30:59):
It just felt like I wasconstantly in this state of deja
vu or like...
Fight or flight, constantly.
Those are the best two words toput to that feeling for me.
SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
So were you also getting visual and auditory
hallucinations at this time?
So
SPEAKER_01 (31:20):
visual-wise, it would be...
So I remember we had a hallwaythat led to my room, and it had
these wood planks painted overwith white down the middle,
and...
You could see, like, the linesbetween the planks kind of,
like, wiggle.
And the floor was kind of, like,this weird kind of wooden
pattern.
And that would move as well.
It just...
(31:41):
I couldn't focus my attention onone thing or the other.
Like I said, I could not gooutside.
The sun was too bright.
Trees were still wiggling.
The grass was too green for myeyes to comprehend.
It was like all my human senseswere just stripped down to a
nerve, the best way to put it.
SPEAKER_00 (31:59):
Did you at any point think, or did your mom think, or
did Travis think, to take you toa doctor during that time?
SPEAKER_01 (32:06):
There would be times where I'd wake up panicking with
my heart racing, and it wouldjust be so fast.
There was no way to convince methat I was not having a heart
attack at all.
It caused me chest pains, chesttightness.
I'd wake my mom up in the middleof the night before she had to
go to work or something and belike, I need to go to the ER.
I'm having a heart attack.
(32:27):
Something is severely wrong.
This keeps happening and I can'tget it to stop.
Will you take me to thehospital?
Most of the time, people thoughtI was over-exaggerating it or
being dramatic.
And not to say my mom wasn'tsupportive because she helped me
a lot through most of my mentalstruggles and stuff, which I
appreciate.
But this was a feeling thatnobody around me really
(32:47):
understood.
It was such a weird thing to tryto explain to people.
I tried to talk to people aboutit and they'd ask me, what do
you mean you don't feel real.
Like, what does that even mean?
And it's like, that's the bestway to put it.
Like, I don't feel real.
Like, I don't feel like I'm inmy body.
I don't feel like I'm safe.
Like, I was stuck in this mentalprison.
SPEAKER_00 (33:07):
I remember reading a couple of posts some time ago,
some similar experience wheresomeone had taken some
hallucinogen and tripped reallyhard on it.
They said that they tookanti-psychotic meds.
They actually went to thedoctors and were prescribed
anti-psychotic meds and foundthat that was not actually
helpful.
If anything, it kind of didworse for them.
(33:29):
But then when they got intoanti-anxiety meds, they found
that to be really helpful.
Have you ever tested or triedany kind of medication for this?
SPEAKER_01 (33:38):
At first, whenever I was freaking out, the first time
I finally was able to convincemy mom to get me to the hospital
and that I was not justover-exaggerating or being
dramatic, we went there.
I talked to some of the peopleat the ER.
They checked my heart rate.
They did an EKG.
I believe they did a brain scan.
They did everything and theytold me that there was nothing
(33:59):
physically wrong with me andthat I should go to a
psychiatrist.
So I did that.
She was my my old psychiatristwas the one who Let me know
that, hey, you do have OCD.
You have signs of autism orAsperger's.
You have persistent depressionor PDD, persistent depressive
disorder.
(34:20):
It was just like a wide array ofthings that like, okay, I kind
of figured like something was upmentally, but I didn't know it
was going to be this wholeboatload of things like thrown
onto me like that.
But she prescribed me with anantipsychotic because she
thought that maybe that wouldslow down the existential
thoughts and the obsessions withmy breathing and stuff and I
(34:41):
remember I started to take thatI took it maybe two for two days
and on the second day it made mepretty irritable it made me like
slightly violent which wasterrifying because I am in no
way ever a violent person orconfrontational or anything like
that I'm just too anxious andcouldn't do that but so I did
(35:01):
that and I was like okay I haveto stop this because I already
feel out of control and I don'tneed something else to add to
that you know what I mean so Istop that and for about a year I
was like no meds I'm not takingmedicine I'm gonna try vitamins
I'm gonna stay hydrated I'mgonna eat I'm gonna exercise do
whatever I can to like I wassaying earlier like
(35:21):
overstimulate my senses orwhatever like that the main
thing that helped and thenleading out of that It was
mostly just kind of thisleftover sense of impending doom
once I got over the breathingand the existential thinking.
I was at this standstill whereit was like, okay, I'm good now,
(35:45):
but will this feeling come back?
Will it hit me even harder?
Will it just reappear?
I was constantly on edge that itwas going to come back and that
I was going to be stuck likethat again.
I haven't done any psychedelicssince then.
I have...
Started to smoke weed again,which I'm fine with.
I don't panic.
(36:05):
I'm on Zoloft for milligramsright now, which is an
antidepressant, but also helpswith anxiety and OCD, I believe.
And it's definitely helped,like, a ton.
Before...
Well, after the whole shroomexperience, I've experimented
with weed a couple times, and itwould make me just the same
amount of anxious, and Icouldn't do it.
(36:26):
But then...
I slowly like kind of built thetolerance and taught myself how
to ground myself whenever I gottoo high or whenever I felt
anxious, even whenever I wassober.
So like I'm able to use thosecoping mechanisms and rational
thinking to kind of just bringme back down and realize like,
okay, you're high.
(36:46):
smoked weed, you're not dying.
Nothing's going
SPEAKER_02 (36:49):
on.
SPEAKER_01 (36:50):
And then adding the Zoloft to that, I have no
problem with weed whatsoeveranymore.
SPEAKER_00 (36:55):
How did you sort of get by without working or
basically daily tasks andresponsibilities?
SPEAKER_01 (37:00):
I honestly just kind of had to keep getting it
through to my parents and myfriends and my grandparents that
I'm seriously strugglingmentally and I can't work right
now.
I need your guys' support.
And the way that they supportedme was letting me me live with
them letting me like leech offof them unfortunately like I
(37:21):
hate to have other people spendmoney on me or have me be their
main priority but like I reallyneeded that time to do nothing
heal to try and research and tryand rest as much as I could to
get that feeling to go becauseif I didn't if I overworked
myself if I push myself too hardI don't know if I would be
(37:41):
mentally still here.
SPEAKER_00 (37:44):
You mentioned research.
So what was some of the thingsthat you read about at the time?
Did you look for communities?
Were you looking for justinformation people who've been
through something?
Were you very keenly aware atthat point that this was a
direct result of the shrooms?
Um, and so were you typing thatwhen you were searching about
it?
SPEAKER_01 (38:01):
Yeah, I, um, I think I went, I think this was the
reason that I downloaded, I readit in the first place because I
know that they have like so manyniche, uh, subreddits and stuff
for like mental health anythingyou're looking for it's on there
so like I went on the anxietysubreddit and I typed out I did
shrooms so and so months agowhatever and I still feel like
(38:24):
I'm tripping what is wrong withme like and then a few people
came and reached out to me andtold me that it sounded like I
was dealing with what is calledderealization depersonalization
disorder or just DPDR.
And that helped me dig my waythrough what I thought was me
dying or me going crazy and turnit into something that people
(38:45):
experience.
What I learned is that it's notanything other than your brain
trying to protect itself fromtraumatic situations.
And then when I found that out,it kind of Calmed me to know
that, like, I'm not dying.
There's nothing actually wrongwith my brain or my body.
Like, it's anxiety.
It's fueled by...
(39:06):
thinking about it.
If you're thinking about it,thinking, I don't feel real.
If you're telling people, Idon't feel real, you're not
going to be able to get yourselfback in your body and your mind.
SPEAKER_00 (39:15):
Is this a fully properly diagnosed condition,
DPDR?
SPEAKER_01 (39:20):
I know that it could be a symptom of anxiety, but I'm
not sure if it has its owndiagnosis.
But yeah, it goes hand in handwith OCD, anxiety, BPD, bipolar,
anything that can cause you tofeel immense stress or feel I
don't know.
If you don't feel safe, ifyou've had traumatic
(39:41):
experiences, your brain is mostlikely going to have you
dissociate from that, whatever'sstressing you out.
And that's basically what it wasfor me.
I think living in the place thatI was living in at the time and
dealing with the processing oflike, what the hell did the
shrooms do to me?
Am I anxious?
(40:01):
Am I going crazy?
What is going on?
I just, I felt like I had tojuggle all the possibilities and
like drop everyone that wasn'tthe right answer.
And the answer to me was it wasdefinitely anxiety and OCD.
SPEAKER_00 (40:12):
Interesting.
So like, do you feel like youwould have had this DPDR
regardless of the shrooms, likethat it was bound to sort of
come back to you at some pointbecause of your childhood trauma
and then you have a mixing withyour anxiety and OCD that was
already existing in you?
Or do you feel like that wasonly triggered because of the
(40:33):
shrooms?
SPEAKER_01 (40:35):
I know that both sides of my family, my mom and
my dad, there are a variation ofmental illnesses and stuff.
And some are more extreme thanthe other.
Like on my dad's side, I believethat there's like Addictive
personality on my mom's side,OCD.
And then I think depressioncomes from kind of both of my
parents.
So like most of the stuff I'veexperienced on top of already
(40:58):
generational trauma, having thatin my blood already and then
being traumatized as a child,like in different ways, just
mental, sexual trauma.
emotional like just all over theplace that was like my childhood
no matter if I did the shroomsor not I feel like those things
kind of would have definitelybeen brought up either way but I
(41:20):
feel like the shrooms helped meget it over with quicker if
SPEAKER_00 (41:23):
all of those like repressed memories instead of it
slowly coming to you at a at apoint where maybe your mind is
ready to accept it.
It's just like all come crashingat once, which is not ideal.
But in a sense, the floodgatesjust being open right in that
moment gives you awareness ofwhat you need to know, but at
(41:44):
the same time, maybe not beingfully ready for
SPEAKER_01 (41:46):
it.
I was definitely not prepared todeal with that.
It definitely opened me up toexistential thinking, like, for
example, constantly questioning,like, how am I alive right now?
Like, how is my heart beating?
How am I conscious?
How am I conscious like at allhow does my brain produce
thoughts how does a muscle in myskull like help me walk and move
(42:08):
my fingers individually likestuff like that would always be
on my mind I was so hyperfocused on things that did not
matter like that don't haveanswers like the brain is an
insane thing and I feel likethat was my trigger was thinking
about like how the hell has mybrain not shut down from this
stress or how have I notactually died from this amount
of stress because this is anirreparable amount of stress.
SPEAKER_00 (42:31):
Can you walk me through how did it all come to
an end for you?
That final sixth month where youstarted to wean off of it.
How did that happen for you?
SPEAKER_01 (42:43):
Definitely moving out of that trailer I was living
in at the time.
Me and my mom talk all the time.
We're always talking to eachother.
But I felt like I wasn't gettingthis social...
needs I needed from just livingwith just my mom.
So like moving in with my buddyTravis and his ex helped me be
(43:04):
more social, helped me findthings that were like constantly
keeping me distracted and peopleto be around and things.
Being at that trailer, I wasisolated most of the time.
I didn't have much to do exceptfor think and panic and freak
out.
But yeah, living with Travis,there was a lot of people over
there all the time.
It was kind of overwhelming, butI feel like that's what kind of
(43:26):
grounded me and took me out ofthat was being overwhelmed by
outside senses and not beingoverwhelmed by the fear that I'm
going to die or something'swrong with my brain.
It just gave me that breathingroom again.
And I find myself to this daystill coping in that way.
I feel like I'm almostcompletely over the
derealization.
I feel pretty attuned to myselfand the things around me again.
(43:47):
But I've learned that I don'tknow if this is the best way to
cope, but kind of just...
purposefully overstimulatingyourself like daily I listen to
tons of music like I dig and digthrough Spotify to just find
like new music or anything thatI haven't heard before I will
click on it and listen to it andany art that I'm not familiar
(44:11):
with I'll dig into that too likejust kind of overloading your
senses with things that likeinspire you or motivate you
SPEAKER_02 (44:18):
or
SPEAKER_01 (44:19):
even just going for a walk with headphones on
drinking water eating somethinglike just keep kind of trying to
get that stimulation thatdopamine yeah
SPEAKER_00 (44:28):
what a story i mean like that that's crazy to me
because you really really do seeon the internet very split down
the middle experiences onshrooms a lot of people are like
yeah it's a great experience youknow it really opens up your
mind to the world and you knowto to life beyond us um but then
you also do hear the other sideso you know after what you've
experienced um what kind ofmessage or insight can you share
(44:51):
with our listeners today anyonethat might be thinking or
wanting to do this what What doyou have to say to them today?
SPEAKER_01 (44:56):
I'd say if you have any predisposition to
schizophrenia, BPD, any anxietydisorders whatsoever, I'd say
hold back.
I'm not a professional in anyway about psychedelics except
for what I know about myexperience and how to avoid what
(45:17):
happened to me.
So I'd say...
Do your research.
Definitely don't look intomirrors.
Don't go on social media whileyou're tripping.
Do something that keeps you intune with what is actually
around you.
Don't do it around people thatyou don't feel safe with.
(45:38):
Definitely.
If you're doing it for the firsttime, do not do it alone and
make sure you feel comfortablewith it.
If you feel any type of wayabout it, like if, say you go
and buy shrooms or something, ifyou get like a gut-wrenching
feeling that you don't feel safedoing this, if you feel anxious
doing it, that's the feelingyou're going to have the whole
trip.
Unless you know how to cope andcalm yourself down, I'd say
just...
(45:58):
Be cautious.
That's about it, really.
And just take care of yourself.
Spend time with people that youfeel you can be open with
because that's a huge factor.
SPEAKER_00 (46:07):
Yeah, and I'd probably also add to that as
well.
Really stick to very, very smalldoses.
You can always have one smalllittle piece extra later on if
you're not feeling it ratherthan it being the other way
around where you've just takentoo much and now you just have
to deal with it, right?
Last question.
Is there anything that someoneor anyone can do if they have
(46:27):
taken it and they're having abad trip or they're not having a
good time.
Is there anything that someonecan do in that very moment to
kind of bring it down a notch?
SPEAKER_01 (46:35):
I'd say definitely.
Well, for me, it was kind ofdifficult to get myself think
rationally.
So my best advice would be tothis is something that I do
sober if I'm feeling anxious orstressed out.
But my therapist taught me it'scalled bilateral stimulation.
You put your hands like this,tap back and forth.
(46:58):
And it's like, keep your handssteady.
And it, I think it focuses onthe vagus nerve that's in your
brain and it controls like a lotof anxious feelings, any
tension, any, anything you'refeeling that relates to stress
in your body.
This or even tapping yourfingers like this.
(47:19):
Like if you don't want to be, ifyou're in public and panicking,
you don't want to be like this,freaking out, but this tap on
your legs and anything, um,going for a walk, like using
both sides of your brain andyour body definitely creates
that balance for sure.
SPEAKER_00 (47:35):
Wow.
Preston, thank you so much forsharing your story and being
vulnerable on air with us.
I couldn't have been easy to, toshare as well.
So thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_01 (47:42):
I appreciate you for having me.
I hope that, uh, this helpspeople.
UNKNOWN (47:47):
Bye.
SPEAKER_00 (47:50):
If you enjoyed the episode and would like to help
support the show, please followand subscribe.
You can rate and review yourfeedback on any of our platforms
listed in the description.
I'd like to recognize our guestswho are vulnerable and open to
share their life experienceswith us.
Thank you for showing us we'rehuman.
Also, a thank you to our teamwho worked so hard behind the
scenes to make it happen.
(48:12):
The show would be nothingwithout you.
I'm Jenica, host and writer ofthe show, and you're listening
to...
multi-spective.
Weed and trims have been the only drugs I've taken.
The beginning of the trip wasnot bad.
I think the one thing that Iremember them talking about was
not to look at yourself in amirror while you're tripping
because that can cause kind ofego death.
(00:24):
Holy shit, we were like trappedin a mental loop.
All I could focus on was howloud my breathing was.
It was weird.
It was scary.
Everything felt like it wasgoing so slow, so fast.
I just couldn't tell what wasreal.
That thought carried on for sixmonths after the fact.
(00:50):
It definitely opened me up toexistential thinking.
SPEAKER_00 (00:58):
Welcome to Multispective.
I would love to just hear alittle bit about sort of where
it all begins for you, yourbackground, where you're from,
your childhood.
SPEAKER_01 (01:07):
All right.
So I'm in a pretty small town inPennsylvania, Connie Lake.
It is quite an unfortunate placeto be living.
Like, I mean, it's nice.
It's safe.
Just the people around herearen't the best to be around.
You know what I mean?
Not too kind.
So, yeah, I'm out here.
(01:27):
Why
SPEAKER_02 (01:28):
so?
SPEAKER_01 (01:28):
In
SPEAKER_00 (01:29):
what way?
SPEAKER_01 (01:30):
To be completely honest, most of them are pretty
bigoted, like racist,homophobic, just, and it's like
in a big cluster of people.
They're all pretty much, I'm nottrying to be, what's the word,
biased, I guess, against peoplehere.
But yeah, a lot of the peopleI've met and tried to make
connections with ended up beingnot.
SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
Hmm.
Is it a very white dominant areathat you're in?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (01:57):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (01:58):
Are you a minority?
Where are you from originally?
SPEAKER_01 (02:00):
I'm not a minority.
I'm from here, but I'm gaymyself, so I know that I just
wouldn't want anybody to be...
upset by other people's actionsor words and not a big fan of
that.
SPEAKER_00 (02:16):
Have you found yourself being marginalized or
being treated a certain way?
Oh,
SPEAKER_01 (02:20):
yeah, most definitely.
I was more closeted growing up.
I didn't really know how to comeout to friends or family.
It was a very terrifying thing.
And my family not knowing that Iwas gay, I don't know.
They didn't make me feel like itwas really safe to come out.
I came out to my mom, my dad, mygrandma.
That was like two years ago.
And I mean, the response wasbetter than expected because of
(02:42):
like stuff I've heard them sayin the past before I came out.
Like for an example, we'd bewatching like a football game
and a RuPaul drag racecommercial would come up and it
would not be a good situationfor them.
I feel like they were offendedby seeing that on TV.
They would say it would just belike turn this shit off or you
know, stuff in that context.
(03:03):
It made me feel not too safe tobe myself, express myself.
SPEAKER_00 (03:07):
So how did you sort of build up that courage to Bye.
to tell them finally?
I
SPEAKER_01 (03:13):
honestly think the shrooms did that for me.
Like the fear of feeling what Ifelt was scarier than the
thought of being gay to me afterthat, I guess.
SPEAKER_00 (03:23):
You mentioned that you were closeted for a while
and perhaps went through thatphase of like, okay, now I'm
having to come to terms withthis sort of like reality.
How was that for you?
Like, at what point was it likean overnight thing where you're
like, all right, I accept it.
This is where I stand.
This is who I am.
Or was it a slow progress oftrying to fight it for a while
(03:45):
with yourself?
SPEAKER_01 (03:46):
It was a pretty slow process.
There would be times where I'vehad people question if I was gay
or not, and I'd just be like,no.
I just can't say it.
I can't let these people knowbecause I don't know what their
perception of me will be afterthis.
Not that it matters anymore tome.
I think the turning point waswhenever I...
(04:08):
wanted to get into relationshipswith other men and I didn't want
to hide it from my mom and Ididn't want it to be like a big
deal.
Her finding out, I just, I feltlike I needed to tell her, um,
just so I was more comfortablewith myself and comfortable,
like sharing that side of myselfwith somebody I'm close with.
So
SPEAKER_00 (04:27):
yeah.
How did they take it at the end?
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
My mom was surprised.
He was confused.
Um, for the most part, and ittook, I feel like, a little bit
for her to process because, Imean, not knowing your son's gay
and then just randomly, I'm gay,you know what I mean?
But no, she's been verysupportive and understanding
about it, and I can pretty muchtell her anything, so that's
(04:53):
important
SPEAKER_00 (04:54):
to me.
That's really cool, and I feellike there's so much power in
that as well.
I think, of course, this is notto say to rush anyone or to tell
anyone here that's listening togo ahead and do it, but
sometimes Sometimes it's theanticipation that's the hardest
part.
Sometimes the reality of justgoing out there and doing it,
you realize at the end of theday, my mom's going to love me
(05:14):
through it.
And there are definitely storiesof maybe parents who just can't
accept it for a while and theyneed a little bit longer.
Say if your mom was like, Ican't accept this.
Your mom and dad, family waslike, nope, I can't do it.
I just can't accept it.
Would you still kind of sit herewith me today and say, no, I'm
glad I said what I have to say?
SPEAKER_01 (05:34):
Yeah, for sure.
I feel like I'm not as closewith my family as I want to be.
Even though I can talk to my momand stuff, I don't feel as close
to them as I would want to.
So like, I feel like theiropinions wouldn't matter as much
to me because I mean, I'm doingit for me.
And like, it's with no intent tohurt anybody else or upset
anybody else.
It's just for my benefit.
(05:54):
You know, I'm not going tosuppress myself, even if it's
just my mom and dad.
Like, I'm not going to suppressmyself for that.
So
SPEAKER_00 (06:01):
I love it.
I love it, Preston.
Now tell me a little bit aboutlike the role that shrooms had
on this whole process for you.
Walk me through this from thebeginning.
Where and how you were firstintroduced to it, what kind of
attracted you or appealed you tothis world
SPEAKER_01 (06:18):
of psychedelics?
So it was like the end, well,not the end of quarantine, but
beginning of 2021.
I was already smoking weedwhenever I was, I think I
started whenever I was 16.
And I wasn't on any medicationfor my anxiety or anything.
anything and I feel like weedgave me this illusion that it
was like it healed me I guessfrom like the trauma and the
(06:41):
anxiety that I had like growingup and it was it was a weird
feeling like smoking completelydepleted all like the OCD
rituals that I had like before Isat on the toilet I'd have to
wipe it off with a Clorox wipeor something because I was
scared I was going to getcontaminated by sitting on a Or
like being in a dirty house.
(07:02):
I grew up with not a lot ofmoney and most of my family
didn't have a lot of moneyeither.
And certain things would grossme out.
So like say if I didn't feelcomfortable in somebody's house
because it was dirty, if theymade food, I would purposely
waste the food so I didn't haveto eat it because I was scared I
was going to get sick.
Stuff like that.
I started smoking weed and thatstuff completely stopped.
(07:23):
I wasn't afraid to eat food.
I wasn't afraid to sit on dirtytoilet or like not wash my hands
a billion times.
SPEAKER_00 (07:29):
Was this like prescribed for you or was it
just something you tookrecreationally and then realized
wow this is
SPEAKER_01 (07:35):
yeah recreationally um i started it because i kind
of wanted to just like follow inmy friends footsteps and not
seem like or not feel like i wasmissing out on something i
wanted to understand like whatpeople saw and we like at first
i grew up uh clearly straightedge and i was like no weed no
cigarettes no alcohol whateverand then once i tried weed i was
(07:59):
like shit I don't know likesomething about it definitely
opened my mind up a little bitmore because where I've lived
like I said like people wereracist phobic um and I kind of
found myself like following inthose footsteps just because I
felt like I needed to fit in Ifelt like I needed people to
relate to you know what I meaneven if they weren't the
(08:19):
greatest people that was what Iwas surrounded by and uh a lot
of bullying a lot of stuff likethat so I just felt like I had
to kind of open my mind up alittle bit and weed helped me do
that it helped me realize thatit really didn't cost anything
to be kind to people.
SPEAKER_00 (08:33):
So you decide from weed, the next thing you took
was shrooms?
SPEAKER_01 (08:38):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Because of the original fear ofweed that I had, like not
wanting to do it because I wasscared of what being high felt
like.
Once I found out what being highfelt like, I felt like I had
this sort of space to not be asafraid of drugs.
Weed and shrooms have been theonly drugs I've taken.
SPEAKER_00 (08:58):
Did you do any weeding before getting into
psychedelics, into shrooms,knowing that they're going to
have completely differenteffects?
Weed is, you know, you're stillvery much in your senses and
aware of everything with weed.
Did you do any reading or didjust sort of have that first
experience and
SPEAKER_01 (09:17):
can remember correctly I think I've watched a
documentary might have been onNetflix but it was like all
these celebrities talking abouttheir trips and their
experiences with their trips andI think it was just called take
a trip it's like things not todo on psychedelics and some
people explain their stories andThat was really all the research
I did.
I saw it and I was like, okay, Imean, I think I could handle it
(09:41):
for the most part, which turnedout not to be so true.
I think the one thing that Iremember them talking about was
not to look at yourself in amirror while you're tripping
because that can cause, I guess,like a kind of ego death or
whatever.
Right.
Yeah.
Some kind of bad effect to thetrip.
SPEAKER_02 (10:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:00):
And I didn't listen to that, unfortunately.
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
Okay.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:05):
And I feel like that might have triggered something.
SPEAKER_00 (10:07):
So would you say it was that the very first time
that you took shrooms when allhell broke loose for you or all
hell broke loose on that veryfirst trip?
SPEAKER_01 (10:18):
Yeah, all hell broke loose on that very first trip.
UNKNOWN (10:21):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (10:21):
I had this friend named Travis that I met in high
school, and I dropped out ofhigh school in 10th grade, and I
hadn't talked to Travis or seenTravis since freshman year, and
this was whenever I was supposedto be, I think, a junior.
And I think he reached out to meand asked if we could hang out,
and I think that's what openedmy mind up to taking the
(10:44):
shrooms, just hearing his storyas well.
He knew somebody we could getthem from, and we...
Took them together.
I think I ate mine on a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich
because the smell was disgustingand I could not bear to take it
by itself.
SPEAKER_00 (11:01):
Interesting.
A
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
foul smell.
SPEAKER_00 (11:04):
Now, how do people typically take it?
What's the typical way of takingit?
SPEAKER_01 (11:07):
I've heard people, they put it into tea or eat it
or...
cook it into things spaghettipizza stuff like that
SPEAKER_00 (11:17):
but and is it usually like a healthy dose or
not a healthy dose a typicaldose would be like one mushroom
or a
SPEAKER_01 (11:24):
bunch i don't know like how many how much
psilocybin is in one singularmushroom so i'm not like
completely sure about that but iknow that The amount I took was
definitely not a safe amount tobe taking.
Well, at least for the firsttrip.
SPEAKER_00 (11:42):
For the first trip.
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (11:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:44):
So you put it on a PB&J sandwich.
Yep.
And you had the whole thing.
And did your friend at any pointwarn you like, hey, look, it's
your first time, maybe just slowit down, have a little bit less?
Or was he like, nah, go for it,everything's going to be fine?
SPEAKER_01 (12:00):
I feel like he was also slightly inexperienced with
the shrooms.
He's taken them before he'sdone...
think he's told me acid was thefirst drug that he took and that
remember how that story went forhim but um i i knew that i felt
safe enough around him becausehe wasn't an ignorant person
he's never been ignorant he'snever been um close-minded or
(12:25):
anything, so I felt like, okay,this is a person that I would
feel safe possibly doing themwith for the first time.
I think we both took about thesame amount.
He took stems of the mushroomsand I took the caps.
I guess the caps are more potentthan the stems, so I got the
shit end of the stick on thatpart.
SPEAKER_00 (12:44):
What do you recall?
How long did it take before ithit you guys and what happened
thereafter?
SPEAKER_01 (12:50):
I remember we took them and then It was beginning
of January, so it was freezingcold out.
We went for this short littlewalk around where I was living
at the time.
We were just looking up at thetrees, waiting to see if the
trees would warp or move orwhatever.
We noticed that they werewarping and moving.
It wasn't scary to me at all.
(13:12):
I remember I felt very giddy,giggly, excited, motivated.
The beginning of the trip wasnot bad.
We ended up walking back Myhouse.
And the heater was on.
And the moment I felt Trip fullysit in was when I transitioned
from being outside in the cold,walking into the warmth.
(13:35):
It was the craziest feeling.
I don't know.
It felt like I kind of justwalked through Jell-O or
something.
It was nuts.
And then I remember...
We were laughing aboutsomething.
I was like looking on my phonescreen, like at my front camera,
like to see if anything lookeddifferent.
And my face like looked beetred.
My eyes were super dilated andit kind of freaked me out.
(13:57):
So I like shied away fromlooking at myself for half of
the beginning of the trip.
And then I think I think wecouldn't decide what we wanted
to do.
Like while we were on theshrooms and we got in this loop
of like, what do we do?
What do we do?
And then it turned into thislike flight.
panic of like holy shit we'relike the best way to put it was
(14:18):
we were like trapped in a mentalloop like we couldn't get out of
like not knowing what we weregonna do so we basically kind of
just sat there and i think wetried to put on a movie and the
thing that freaked me out likeuh with the hallucinations was
whatever movie we were watchingi forgot what it was the actors
faces in the movies started toresemble like my family members
(14:41):
and they started i don't know itwas It was a freaky experience.
The actors looked nothing likethey actually do.
It was like they were morphinginto my family members.
And I couldn't comprehend thatbecause I thought shrooms would
be like, oh, I'm seeing thingskind of wiggle and move and
wave.
But it was like a fullperspective visual change.
(15:02):
Nothing looked...
Right.
Would be the best way to put it.
Nothing looked right.
SPEAKER_00 (15:07):
Were you kind of already, you mentioned that you
were in that negative, like thatloop of what do we do?
So do you feel like that kind ofmindset transitioned into like
when you were watching thatmovie, you kind of stayed in
that negative kind of mind, likethat zone, right?
Yeah.
UNKNOWN (15:22):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (15:22):
So instead of seeing those actors and seeing your
family members' faces on theseactors, instead of feeling like,
wow, that's really cool, that'sso fascinating, you're already
in this negative zone.
So you're like, that's freakingme out.
That's not okay.
SPEAKER_01 (15:36):
Yeah.
It was weird because...
I think the thing that set thenegative tone with the actors
morphing into my family memberswas I think it might have been
family members that caused mesome kind of trauma.
I think it was...
my brain trying to show me liketrying to weed out things weed
(15:59):
out memories subconsciously andI kind of I got stuck in this
like feeling I was well I wasdiagnosed with CPTSD it's
complex PTSD and just from likepast childhood trauma and it
like kind of built its way upinto adulthood and like the way
I react and respond to things Ifeel like it was partially
(16:22):
because of the trauma and Idon't know.
I feel like the trip wasdefinitely trying to...
show me something about myselfor show me
SPEAKER_00 (16:31):
something
SPEAKER_01 (16:32):
i was forgetting like suppressed memories i don't
SPEAKER_00 (16:34):
know right things started resurfacing at that
point
SPEAKER_01 (16:38):
yeah
SPEAKER_00 (16:38):
and the thing is like your friend is equally as
high so he's not equipped or inthe state of mind to you know
talk you through it so you'rekind of just starting to work
yourself up to a really reallyreally strong negative kind of
trip
SPEAKER_01 (16:54):
yeah i think we were both definitely in the same i
mean we were in the sameheadspace for for sure with the
mind or the time loop feelingbut um there was this point in
time where i started gettinglike hyper aware of my breathing
like it was the only thing icould hear over the movie or
whatever music we were listeningto or whatever we were doing
(17:15):
like all i could focus on waslike how loud my breathing was
and um i think the hyperawareness of my breathing made
me freak out because I was like,I can't stop focusing on my
breathing.
Like I was, um, like how webreathe automatically.
I was manually breathing and Icouldn't stop.
I just could not stop.
(17:36):
I felt like I had no controlover, uh, the attention I had to
my breath.
I had no control over justregular things that our body
does automatically.
It was weird.
It was scary.
Everything felt like it wasgoing so slow, so fast.
It was the weirdest
SPEAKER_02 (17:52):
headspace to be in.
SPEAKER_01 (17:53):
I remember standing up to get a bottle of water to
see if I could try and groundmyself, just get something to
drink, hydrate myself.
As soon as I stood up, I turnedaround to, I think, ask Travis,
if you wanted a bottle of water.
And I see myself sitting on thebed.
I stand up, turn around, and seemyself still sitting on the edge
(18:17):
of the bed talking to Travis.
And I was just like, I died.
I thought I died.
It was the freakiest thing ever.
And that is what led into thebreathing thing.
And I couldn't tell if I had anout-of-body experience, if I was
hallucinating, if...
I died or if I was a ghost.
I don't know.
Like that was my thought processat the time.
(18:38):
I was very paranoid, veryconfused as to like how how this
is even happening.
I've never experienced somethinglike that in my life.
I remember like walking around.
I had my like hands over my headtrying to like control my
breathing.
And I was just like walkingaround my kitchen in circles,
waiting and waiting and waitinguntil I could like process
whatever I saw.
SPEAKER_00 (18:58):
Did you have the ability at that point to to
converse with yourself to tellyourself, look, I'm tripping.
I know I've just taken this.
This is supposed to happen.
I
SPEAKER_01 (19:07):
feel like this was before I started going to
therapy, like actually partakingin therapy.
So I didn't really have manygrounding methods except for
like, okay, breathe in, breatheout.
And I think I was just like atthat point hyperventilating and
there was like no control overhow I was like perceiving myself
(19:31):
in reality at that point.
It was kind of just like, Thethought that I had was, I'm
going to be stuck like this.
I felt like I was going to befeeling that fear ever.
Even though that was anirrational thought, that thought
carried on for six months afterthe fact.
(19:51):
It was the worst thought tohave.
Like, I'm stuck.
SPEAKER_00 (19:56):
Six months.
SPEAKER_01 (19:58):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (19:59):
And was it constant for six months?
SPEAKER_01 (20:01):
Yeah.
So, like, what helped me bringmyself out of the trip?
I ate a bowl of cereal, but Iate, like, I ate it dry.
And it was weird because itdidn't taste like, I think it
was like Honey Nut Cheerios orsomething.
It didn't taste like Honey NutCheerios.
It tasted like rocks.
Like, I couldn't perceivereality at all.
(20:23):
Like...
The taste of things, the smellof things, like, how things
sounded, everything was justdistorted, like, all my senses.
And the taste of the Cheerioswas so nasty that I threw all of
it up.
I think I, like, tricked myselfinto believing that if I threw
up the shrooms with everythingelse that it would stop, or it
would slow down.
And then once I did that, I kindof just felt like I was high at
(20:44):
that point, and it was, like,less of a, God, I'm terrified
kind of thing, you know what Imean?
But later that night after thewhole incident, I...
Remember, me and Travis werejust bawling our eyes out.
We didn't understand what wasgoing on.
I feel like it really toyed withour emotions.
And that's when I think we bothdecided to stop smoking weed
(21:06):
because any type of high isprobably going to end up
freaking us out.
SPEAKER_00 (21:11):
Was Travis also in this for six months or did he
get out of it like at a normal,however long it usually takes?
I don't know, four hours, threehours, something like that?
I
SPEAKER_01 (21:23):
think like four to six is like the normal trip.
Right.
Um, but like the amount ofstreams that I took, I feel
like, I don't know if thatchanges the length of like the
trip or anything, but the amountof, shrooms that I took was a
pretty, like, what they callheroic dose.
I feel like if I took maybe alesser dose, I would have got
(21:45):
out of it quicker.
And he took the stems, so Idon't know if our trips were,
like, entirely different or not,but I know that he struggled
with, like, a visual trail.
Like, if you move your eyes,it's, like, type of blur.
Like, you're kind of blurred.
Along with, like, that visual,there's this thing called visual
snow as well.
It's, like, where your eyesconstantly have, like, these
(22:07):
What they call floaters.
Like these little...
I don't know if you've ever seenlittle worm things in your
vision if you look up at the
SPEAKER_02 (22:14):
sun.
SPEAKER_01 (22:16):
But we both had those for a very long time.
It was very prevalent and it...
It was to the point where it wasalmost irritating.
No matter how much amount oflight I was in, it was too much
for my eyes.
We stayed inside for themajority of that six months.
We tried to go out and go on carrides or do whatever to ground
us, but we were both prettytaken aback by that whole
(22:36):
situation.
And I feel like it's kind ofaffected us both mentally.
In the long run, I feel like westill deal with the anxiety left
over from that because it was apretty traumatizing thing for
both of us.
The best way to put it,everything felt off for the six
months.
Like nothing was reallyenjoyable.
Things were veryoverstimulating.
It just felt like my senses wereshot.
(22:57):
And I know that he can relate tothat as well.
SPEAKER_00 (23:00):
And in those six months, were you sort of like in
and out of it?
So every once in a while, likeyou would kind of function
normally, but then you wouldhave like something that would
trigger and then you would getreally, really paranoid.
Or was it?
literally constant for sixmonths?
SPEAKER_01 (23:14):
I'd say it was definitely gradual, but it
persisted pretty much daily.
So after we did the shrooms, Iended up moving with my mom.
So it was just me and my mom atthe time in the one house that I
took the shrooms in.
We ended up having to movebecause of money issues and
stuff.
And we moved into this trailercourt.
And I've never lived in atrailer court like It's kind of
(23:37):
like beat down area and I didn'tfeel like super comfortable.
I remember my main concern wasthat there was a bullet hole in
the window and we checked thehouse out, but we couldn't
really find any other place tolive.
So we kind of had to settle forthat.
There was like black mold andstuff in the corner.
There was the floor was kind ofsinking in, but we really had no
but to kind of just accept thatthis is where we're at.
(24:00):
And I feel like.
after having such alife-changing moment and then
moving houses especially intoone that's not deemed to myself
like safe or comfortable itdidn't feel like home um i feel
like that triggered the panicdisorder i didn't feel like i
had a place to express myself ora place to feel comfortable at
(24:22):
that moment in time you
SPEAKER_00 (24:24):
did you at some point tell your mom about it
like you know i need help andhow did that how did that go for
you
SPEAKER_01 (24:30):
the night that i did the shrooms i remember Yeah.
she called me and asked if meand Travis wanted food and I was
like tripping and I just Ididn't know how to tell her I
was tripping so I was like yeahyeah I was like shaking I
probably sounded like I wasqueeking out and I asked her if
she could bring home some foodand then when she got home I
(24:51):
told her that I did them and Iwas I was terrified she was
gonna be pissed because at thatpoint I was like still slightly
tripping and I didn't want herto freak out and cause me to
have another bad trip but I toldher and I told her I just needed
a minute to chill out like ifshe's upset with me just talk to
me about it later because Ican't I can't handle it but in
(25:13):
the process of moving and stuffseeing that bullet hole in the
window and like seeing howrackety the house we were moving
into was I told her like I don'tfeel good about moving in there
I felt like there was bad vibesour landlord told us The last
people that lived there foundknives, like, under the carpet.
There was, like, a girl thatlived there that was doing
(25:35):
witchcraft.
And that freaked me the hellout.
Like, I was...
I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (25:40):
Just hearing that...
Last thing I hear
SPEAKER_01 (25:42):
in that moment.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm not, like, againstwitchcraft or anything.
Like, tarot cards, reading,like, crystals, all that stuff.
Like, I'm not really against anyof that.
But just, like...
Having knives near the carpet isnot the best vibe.
So I remember I had a secondpanic attack in the place that
we were living before we moved.
(26:02):
And I was like, I can't, I can'tmove.
I can't, I don't want to move.
And I remember I was so workedup that I was like throwing up
and freaking out.
Like there's, there's no way Icould convince my mom not to
move out into that place justbecause of the situation we were
in at the time.
So it was like, there's nochoice.
Being there, it felt like aneternity being in that place.
(26:24):
It was only, I think we livedthere for about a year, but like
six months out of that year, Igot like all my stuff situated.
I started feeling like slightlymore comfortable being in the
house, like having my room andmy music stuff set up and like
everything I needed.
It felt like I had more of aspace.
I remember one night I tried tosmoke weed again and It started
(26:48):
to make my heart race.
It never did that before I didthe shrooms.
I never had any anxiety with theweed beforehand, but it started
to make my heart race.
I feel like I was trippingagain.
We didn't do that to me.
I feel like the shroomstraumatized me in a way that
transmuted into like whateverother drugs I'm going to try are
going to freak me out.
And I can't do these again.
(27:08):
And I had a panic attack thatlasted 20 minutes.
I was trying to get myself tofall asleep.
I put on like calmingfrequencies and music and stuff
on my TV to try to get me tochill out.
And I eventually fell asleep.
But then I woke up and my heartwas still pounding out of my
chest like two hours later inthe the disorder started.
(27:29):
I was not familiar with thatfeeling at all.
My heart...
I could hear...
My heart pumping.
I could feel it just runningthrough my veins like this, this
cold.
I was I was in a cold sweat, hotand cold feeling like going
throughout my arms and my chest.
Like I thought I thought I wasdying again.
(27:49):
Like it felt like I did theshrooms again.
I remember I woke my mom up andI was like, I don't know what is
going on with me.
My heart is racing.
I can't get it to stop.
I can't breathe.
She sat there and tried to talkme through it and like.
My heart would not stop racing.
It kept racing.
It just felt like endless panic.
And the only thing that I coulddo, sleep.
Try and sleep for like an hour.
(28:10):
Take a nap.
Do something that would slow itdown.
And yeah, shut down thatfeeling.
And it never stopped.
Once I finally got it to subsidea little bit, I was kind of
freaked out.
Like, I didn't want that tohappen again.
And I think the fear of ithappening to me again was what
caused...
it to happen over and over andover again.
It was like, I have a panicattack.
(28:31):
Okay, I'm good, but when is mynext one?
And then I tried to startcontrolling my breathing by just
in, out, slowly, regularmeditation kind of stuff.
Focusing on my breathing, I feellike Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
(29:11):
um that gradually sort of wentaway um but it it was it was
always kind of lingering ididn't i didn't know when i was
gonna start thinking about mybreathing again or whenever i
was gonna start obsessing itwould happen at like at times
where i was trying to be socialor at times where i was doing
(29:31):
something that was important tome like making my music or
having a conversation
SPEAKER_00 (29:35):
you're looking for a distraction to stop you from
focusing on the breathing butAnything that you try to focus
your mind on other than yourbreathing brings you back to
your breathing.
So it's just this kind of likeback and forth.
It's just like it sounds like amental jail.
SPEAKER_01 (29:54):
Yes, yes.
That's the best way to put it.
I didn't feel like I had anytype of freedom.
Like I felt like there's no wayin hell that I was going to be
able to enjoy my life again ifI'm going to be stuck focusing
on my breathing.
I can't tune into anything elseif, you know, like something
that's supposed to be automaticand something that...
brings you life breathing youknow what i mean like i was
(30:15):
afraid um it led into me havinginsomnia for the first two
months of that six whole monthswhere i would wake up focused on
my breathing immediately likei'd wake up soaked in sweat i'd
immediately be panicking like ifeel like it had this weird
effect on my dreams like um i'dhave The best way to put it was
(30:38):
like, imagine you fell asleepfor like an hour, but the dream
that you just had felt likethree hours or four hours long.
It was the weirdest experience.
I couldn't even put it intowords.
It was like, I just couldn'ttell what was real.
Like, I couldn't tell thedifference between my reality
and whatever I was dreamingabout.
(30:59):
It just felt like I wasconstantly in this state of deja
vu or like...
Fight or flight, constantly.
Those are the best two words toput to that feeling for me.
SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
So were you also getting visual and auditory
hallucinations at this time?
So
SPEAKER_01 (31:20):
visual-wise, it would be...
So I remember we had a hallwaythat led to my room, and it had
these wood planks painted overwith white down the middle,
and...
You could see, like, the linesbetween the planks kind of,
like, wiggle.
And the floor was kind of, like,this weird kind of wooden
pattern.
And that would move as well.
It just...
(31:41):
I couldn't focus my attention onone thing or the other.
Like I said, I could not gooutside.
The sun was too bright.
Trees were still wiggling.
The grass was too green for myeyes to comprehend.
It was like all my human senseswere just stripped down to a
nerve, the best way to put it.
SPEAKER_00 (31:59):
Did you at any point think, or did your mom think, or
did Travis think, to take you toa doctor during that time?
SPEAKER_01 (32:06):
There would be times where I'd wake up panicking with
my heart racing, and it wouldjust be so fast.
There was no way to convince methat I was not having a heart
attack at all.
It caused me chest pains, chesttightness.
I'd wake my mom up in the middleof the night before she had to
go to work or something and belike, I need to go to the ER.
I'm having a heart attack.
(32:27):
Something is severely wrong.
This keeps happening and I can'tget it to stop.
Will you take me to thehospital?
Most of the time, people thoughtI was over-exaggerating it or
being dramatic.
And not to say my mom wasn'tsupportive because she helped me
a lot through most of my mentalstruggles and stuff, which I
appreciate.
But this was a feeling thatnobody around me really
(32:47):
understood.
It was such a weird thing to tryto explain to people.
I tried to talk to people aboutit and they'd ask me, what do
you mean you don't feel real.
Like, what does that even mean?
And it's like, that's the bestway to put it.
Like, I don't feel real.
Like, I don't feel like I'm inmy body.
I don't feel like I'm safe.
Like, I was stuck in this mentalprison.
SPEAKER_00 (33:07):
I remember reading a couple of posts some time ago,
some similar experience wheresomeone had taken some
hallucinogen and tripped reallyhard on it.
They said that they tookanti-psychotic meds.
They actually went to thedoctors and were prescribed
anti-psychotic meds and foundthat that was not actually
helpful.
If anything, it kind of didworse for them.
(33:29):
But then when they got intoanti-anxiety meds, they found
that to be really helpful.
Have you ever tested or triedany kind of medication for this?
SPEAKER_01 (33:38):
At first, whenever I was freaking out, the first time
I finally was able to convincemy mom to get me to the hospital
and that I was not justover-exaggerating or being
dramatic, we went there.
I talked to some of the peopleat the ER.
They checked my heart rate.
They did an EKG.
I believe they did a brain scan.
They did everything and theytold me that there was nothing
(33:59):
physically wrong with me andthat I should go to a
psychiatrist.
So I did that.
She was my my old psychiatristwas the one who Let me know
that, hey, you do have OCD.
You have signs of autism orAsperger's.
You have persistent depressionor PDD, persistent depressive
disorder.
(34:20):
It was just like a wide array ofthings that like, okay, I kind
of figured like something was upmentally, but I didn't know it
was going to be this wholeboatload of things like thrown
onto me like that.
But she prescribed me with anantipsychotic because she
thought that maybe that wouldslow down the existential
thoughts and the obsessions withmy breathing and stuff and I
(34:41):
remember I started to take thatI took it maybe two for two days
and on the second day it made mepretty irritable it made me like
slightly violent which wasterrifying because I am in no
way ever a violent person orconfrontational or anything like
that I'm just too anxious andcouldn't do that but so I did
(35:01):
that and I was like okay I haveto stop this because I already
feel out of control and I don'tneed something else to add to
that you know what I mean so Istop that and for about a year I
was like no meds I'm not takingmedicine I'm gonna try vitamins
I'm gonna stay hydrated I'mgonna eat I'm gonna exercise do
whatever I can to like I wassaying earlier like
(35:21):
overstimulate my senses orwhatever like that the main
thing that helped and thenleading out of that It was
mostly just kind of thisleftover sense of impending doom
once I got over the breathingand the existential thinking.
I was at this standstill whereit was like, okay, I'm good now,
(35:45):
but will this feeling come back?
Will it hit me even harder?
Will it just reappear?
I was constantly on edge that itwas going to come back and that
I was going to be stuck likethat again.
I haven't done any psychedelicssince then.
I have...
Started to smoke weed again,which I'm fine with.
I don't panic.
(36:05):
I'm on Zoloft for milligramsright now, which is an
antidepressant, but also helpswith anxiety and OCD, I believe.
And it's definitely helped,like, a ton.
Before...
Well, after the whole shroomexperience, I've experimented
with weed a couple times, and itwould make me just the same
amount of anxious, and Icouldn't do it.
(36:26):
But then...
I slowly like kind of built thetolerance and taught myself how
to ground myself whenever I gottoo high or whenever I felt
anxious, even whenever I wassober.
So like I'm able to use thosecoping mechanisms and rational
thinking to kind of just bringme back down and realize like,
okay, you're high.
(36:46):
smoked weed, you're not dying.
Nothing's going
SPEAKER_02 (36:49):
on.
SPEAKER_01 (36:50):
And then adding the Zoloft to that, I have no
problem with weed whatsoeveranymore.
SPEAKER_00 (36:55):
How did you sort of get by without working or
basically daily tasks andresponsibilities?
SPEAKER_01 (37:00):
I honestly just kind of had to keep getting it
through to my parents and myfriends and my grandparents that
I'm seriously strugglingmentally and I can't work right
now.
I need your guys' support.
And the way that they supportedme was letting me me live with
them letting me like leech offof them unfortunately like I
(37:21):
hate to have other people spendmoney on me or have me be their
main priority but like I reallyneeded that time to do nothing
heal to try and research and tryand rest as much as I could to
get that feeling to go becauseif I didn't if I overworked
myself if I push myself too hardI don't know if I would be
(37:41):
mentally still here.
SPEAKER_00 (37:44):
You mentioned research.
So what was some of the thingsthat you read about at the time?
Did you look for communities?
Were you looking for justinformation people who've been
through something?
Were you very keenly aware atthat point that this was a
direct result of the shrooms?
Um, and so were you typing thatwhen you were searching about
it?
SPEAKER_01 (38:01):
Yeah, I, um, I think I went, I think this was the
reason that I downloaded, I readit in the first place because I
know that they have like so manyniche, uh, subreddits and stuff
for like mental health anythingyou're looking for it's on there
so like I went on the anxietysubreddit and I typed out I did
shrooms so and so months agowhatever and I still feel like
(38:24):
I'm tripping what is wrong withme like and then a few people
came and reached out to me andtold me that it sounded like I
was dealing with what is calledderealization depersonalization
disorder or just DPDR.
And that helped me dig my waythrough what I thought was me
dying or me going crazy and turnit into something that people
(38:45):
experience.
What I learned is that it's notanything other than your brain
trying to protect itself fromtraumatic situations.
And then when I found that out,it kind of Calmed me to know
that, like, I'm not dying.
There's nothing actually wrongwith my brain or my body.
Like, it's anxiety.
It's fueled by...
(39:06):
thinking about it.
If you're thinking about it,thinking, I don't feel real.
If you're telling people, Idon't feel real, you're not
going to be able to get yourselfback in your body and your mind.
SPEAKER_00 (39:15):
Is this a fully properly diagnosed condition,
DPDR?
SPEAKER_01 (39:20):
I know that it could be a symptom of anxiety, but I'm
not sure if it has its owndiagnosis.
But yeah, it goes hand in handwith OCD, anxiety, BPD, bipolar,
anything that can cause you tofeel immense stress or feel I
don't know.
If you don't feel safe, ifyou've had traumatic
(39:41):
experiences, your brain is mostlikely going to have you
dissociate from that, whatever'sstressing you out.
And that's basically what it wasfor me.
I think living in the place thatI was living in at the time and
dealing with the processing oflike, what the hell did the
shrooms do to me?
Am I anxious?
(40:01):
Am I going crazy?
What is going on?
I just, I felt like I had tojuggle all the possibilities and
like drop everyone that wasn'tthe right answer.
And the answer to me was it wasdefinitely anxiety and OCD.
SPEAKER_00 (40:12):
Interesting.
So like, do you feel like youwould have had this DPDR
regardless of the shrooms, likethat it was bound to sort of
come back to you at some pointbecause of your childhood trauma
and then you have a mixing withyour anxiety and OCD that was
already existing in you?
Or do you feel like that wasonly triggered because of the
(40:33):
shrooms?
SPEAKER_01 (40:35):
I know that both sides of my family, my mom and
my dad, there are a variation ofmental illnesses and stuff.
And some are more extreme thanthe other.
Like on my dad's side, I believethat there's like Addictive
personality on my mom's side,OCD.
And then I think depressioncomes from kind of both of my
parents.
So like most of the stuff I'veexperienced on top of already
(40:58):
generational trauma, having thatin my blood already and then
being traumatized as a child,like in different ways, just
mental, sexual trauma.
emotional like just all over theplace that was like my childhood
no matter if I did the shroomsor not I feel like those things
kind of would have definitelybeen brought up either way but I
(41:20):
feel like the shrooms helped meget it over with quicker if
SPEAKER_00 (41:23):
all of those like repressed memories instead of it
slowly coming to you at a at apoint where maybe your mind is
ready to accept it.
It's just like all come crashingat once, which is not ideal.
But in a sense, the floodgatesjust being open right in that
moment gives you awareness ofwhat you need to know, but at
(41:44):
the same time, maybe not beingfully ready for
SPEAKER_01 (41:46):
it.
I was definitely not prepared todeal with that.
It definitely opened me up toexistential thinking, like, for
example, constantly questioning,like, how am I alive right now?
Like, how is my heart beating?
How am I conscious?
How am I conscious like at allhow does my brain produce
thoughts how does a muscle in myskull like help me walk and move
(42:08):
my fingers individually likestuff like that would always be
on my mind I was so hyperfocused on things that did not
matter like that don't haveanswers like the brain is an
insane thing and I feel likethat was my trigger was thinking
about like how the hell has mybrain not shut down from this
stress or how have I notactually died from this amount
of stress because this is anirreparable amount of stress.
SPEAKER_00 (42:31):
Can you walk me through how did it all come to
an end for you?
That final sixth month where youstarted to wean off of it.
How did that happen for you?
SPEAKER_01 (42:43):
Definitely moving out of that trailer I was living
in at the time.
Me and my mom talk all the time.
We're always talking to eachother.
But I felt like I wasn't gettingthis social...
needs I needed from just livingwith just my mom.
So like moving in with my buddyTravis and his ex helped me be
(43:04):
more social, helped me findthings that were like constantly
keeping me distracted and peopleto be around and things.
Being at that trailer, I wasisolated most of the time.
I didn't have much to do exceptfor think and panic and freak
out.
But yeah, living with Travis,there was a lot of people over
there all the time.
It was kind of overwhelming, butI feel like that's what kind of
(43:26):
grounded me and took me out ofthat was being overwhelmed by
outside senses and not beingoverwhelmed by the fear that I'm
going to die or something'swrong with my brain.
It just gave me that breathingroom again.
And I find myself to this daystill coping in that way.
I feel like I'm almostcompletely over the
derealization.
I feel pretty attuned to myselfand the things around me again.
(43:47):
But I've learned that I don'tknow if this is the best way to
cope, but kind of just...
purposefully overstimulatingyourself like daily I listen to
tons of music like I dig and digthrough Spotify to just find
like new music or anything thatI haven't heard before I will
click on it and listen to it andany art that I'm not familiar
(44:11):
with I'll dig into that too likejust kind of overloading your
senses with things that likeinspire you or motivate you
SPEAKER_02 (44:18):
or
SPEAKER_01 (44:19):
even just going for a walk with headphones on
drinking water eating somethinglike just keep kind of trying to
get that stimulation thatdopamine yeah
SPEAKER_00 (44:28):
what a story i mean like that that's crazy to me
because you really really do seeon the internet very split down
the middle experiences onshrooms a lot of people are like
yeah it's a great experience youknow it really opens up your
mind to the world and you knowto to life beyond us um but then
you also do hear the other sideso you know after what you've
experienced um what kind ofmessage or insight can you share
(44:51):
with our listeners today anyonethat might be thinking or
wanting to do this what What doyou have to say to them today?
SPEAKER_01 (44:56):
I'd say if you have any predisposition to
schizophrenia, BPD, any anxietydisorders whatsoever, I'd say
hold back.
I'm not a professional in anyway about psychedelics except
for what I know about myexperience and how to avoid what
(45:17):
happened to me.
So I'd say...
Do your research.
Definitely don't look intomirrors.
Don't go on social media whileyou're tripping.
Do something that keeps you intune with what is actually
around you.
Don't do it around people thatyou don't feel safe with.
(45:38):
Definitely.
If you're doing it for the firsttime, do not do it alone and
make sure you feel comfortablewith it.
If you feel any type of wayabout it, like if, say you go
and buy shrooms or something, ifyou get like a gut-wrenching
feeling that you don't feel safedoing this, if you feel anxious
doing it, that's the feelingyou're going to have the whole
trip.
Unless you know how to cope andcalm yourself down, I'd say
just...
(45:58):
Be cautious.
That's about it, really.
And just take care of yourself.
Spend time with people that youfeel you can be open with
because that's a huge factor.
SPEAKER_00 (46:07):
Yeah, and I'd probably also add to that as
well.
Really stick to very, very smalldoses.
You can always have one smalllittle piece extra later on if
you're not feeling it ratherthan it being the other way
around where you've just takentoo much and now you just have
to deal with it, right?
Last question.
Is there anything that someoneor anyone can do if they have
(46:27):
taken it and they're having abad trip or they're not having a
good time.
Is there anything that someonecan do in that very moment to
kind of bring it down a notch?
SPEAKER_01 (46:35):
I'd say definitely.
Well, for me, it was kind ofdifficult to get myself think
rationally.
So my best advice would be tothis is something that I do
sober if I'm feeling anxious orstressed out.
But my therapist taught me it'scalled bilateral stimulation.
You put your hands like this,tap back and forth.
(46:58):
And it's like, keep your handssteady.
And it, I think it focuses onthe vagus nerve that's in your
brain and it controls like a lotof anxious feelings, any
tension, any, anything you'refeeling that relates to stress
in your body.
This or even tapping yourfingers like this.
(47:19):
Like if you don't want to be, ifyou're in public and panicking,
you don't want to be like this,freaking out, but this tap on
your legs and anything, um,going for a walk, like using
both sides of your brain andyour body definitely creates
that balance for sure.
SPEAKER_00 (47:35):
Wow.
Preston, thank you so much forsharing your story and being
vulnerable on air with us.
I couldn't have been easy to, toshare as well.
So thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_01 (47:42):
I appreciate you for having me.
I hope that, uh, this helpspeople.
UNKNOWN (47:47):
Bye.
SPEAKER_00 (47:50):
If you enjoyed the episode and would like to help
support the show, please followand subscribe.
You can rate and review yourfeedback on any of our platforms
listed in the description.
I'd like to recognize our guestswho are vulnerable and open to
share their life experienceswith us.
Thank you for showing us we'rehuman.
Also, a thank you to our teamwho worked so hard behind the
scenes to make it happen.
(48:12):
The show would be nothingwithout you.
I'm Jenica, host and writer ofthe show, and you're listening
to...
multi-spective.
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