Drugs?

[aerosol]

Dang. Lots to reply to here. I hate leaving people hanging, but I probably won't be able to reply until sometime over the weekend.

 

[n4^_xd]

I feel agitated about this thread. Probably because I also struggle with anxiety and when I get really deep in it I dream of altering with chemicals just to check out. I don't though. I don't because I sense I have the potential to become a real addicted mess. I don't know if my sense is right, but I sense that about you too, aerosol. I just felt agitated as I read your original request for drug recommendations and what you said around it. I felt agitated as I read your defenses against and resistance to the idea of seeing a therapist. I feel worried that you have set yourself on a path and that it's going to be a destructive one.

Maybe I'm worried about myself. Maybe I'm reliving my childhood seeing what my mom did to relieve her own anxiety and feeling uncomfortable and scared in it's presence. Maybe I'm just an anxious worrywart.

I don't think drugs are your solution, unless they are diagnosed for something that can be identified as being off kilter in your chemistry and the medications have some evidence to rectify that imbalance. I think drugs to take the edge off are just the first skips down a warped yellow brick road and Oz isn't pretty.

See a therapist. Be open to the possibility that they don't think you're weird and you just think they'll think you're weird because you really think therapy will be hard and taking drugs is easier. I don't think you'll find it easier in the long run. Take the hard road. I think it will be far shorter than the road you seem to want to walk down.

Agreed. Great post. +1

 

[Poetic Justice]

Drugs = Might work but come with a whole heap of other problems

Therapist = Might work but is expensive and comes with a social stigma that you may or may not care about

Exercise = Will work. Will make you fitter. Will make you healthier. Will make you happier. Can be done completely free. No negative consequences.

The question is, do you want the easy option or the option that will work?

 

[n4^_xd]

Drugs = Might work but come with a whole heap of other problems

Therapist = Might work but is expensive and comes with a social stigma that you may or may not care about

Exercise = Will work. Will make you fitter. Will make you healthier. Will make you happier. Can be done completely free. No negative consequences.

The question is, do you want the easy option or the option that will work?

Yeah that is true about exercise, Army psychologists did a study about certain activities and their correlation to de-stress us soldiers. They found out that exercise is not only effective, but that the effects last longer than say playing video games, and exercise cannot be over done in regard to making it a destressor. But there can be negative consequences, poor form will cause those though.

 

[Poetic Justice]

Yeah that is true about exercise, Army psychologists did a study about certain activities and their correlation to de-stress us soldiers. They found out that exercise is not only effective, but that the effects last longer than say playing video games, and exercise cannot be over done in regard to making it a destressor. But there can be negative consequences, poor form will cause those though.

yeah, not warming up first, falling over and stuff like that can injure you. It's assumed you would do it right though.

It's sort of like saying a drug doesn't have any side effects. Well, maybe it doesn't if you take the proper dosage but if you took 300 of them at the same time I bet it would

 

[donkeybals]

Drugs = Might work but come with a whole heap of other problems

Therapist = Might work but is expensive and comes with a social stigma that you may or may not care about

Exercise = Will work. Will make you fitter. Will make you healthier. Will make you happier. Can be done completely free. No negative consequences.

The question is, do you want the easy option or the option that will work?

My vote is for all of them.

 

[aerosol]

do you have any special reason to believe that what you're feeling is not normal and healthy?

Well, most other people seem to not have this problem, and it is affecting me negatively so that makes it unhealthy.

many people seem to believe or to have been taught that every case of psychic pain or anguish requires professional treatment or medication of some kind. i think manageable amounts of anxiety can really help to remind us to listen carefully to the truth of our thoughts and feelings, to pay attention to ourselves, to learn and grow. it can be very motivational. people seem to see this kind of discomfort as something highly undesirable to be escaped from by any means, rather than an opportunity to examine their ideas and to develop personally. i really believe that unless it becomes disorderly, it's a perfectly healthy and good part of being human. whether they're right or wrong (and it's OK to change our minds and decide we were wrong), emotions can provide us with a lot of very useful information about our responses to things, what is good for us individually, and what may not be. embrace your anxiety as a tool of your humanity and make it work for you.

Yeah, I agree. I feel like my anxiety helps me in many ways. It keeps me alert an focused and motivated. But sometimes it gets out of control. I just wish I could walk into a room full of people and not be bothered by it, for example. Last week was first week of class and I was sitting on needles. I absolutely hate it when the teacher insists on everyone doing their own introduction. Stupid.

 

[aerosol]

What's stopping them from just slapping a tax on it like they do with practically everything else?

That's true, but my theory is that they worry about people using it to self-medicate (--> no need for prescription drugs) and to feel better and happier in general. It's just easier to profit off of unhappy people.

 

[Edith]

[MENTION=1425]Korg[/MENTION]
very nice description of a salvia trip

i felt similar things with salvia

certainly not to be taken lightly

never felt a reason to feel fear with the mushrooms though
unless i was around people with the bad bad vibes

I only took 30x and I suck at bongs so I didn't feel it as much as other people I was doing it with did. I did feel like gravity was completely fucked though, like I was in a shoe box and someone was turning it and turning it.

I went to sleep after a while though because I was really tired.

Someone I was doing it with went into different galaxies and dimensions and shit, and was talking about how the table had a different reality to itself. He also smeared his own saliva all over his face and dribbled a lot.

 

[aerosol]

Thanks.

Well, my advice would be to clench your jaw, go out there, and practice. You seem really nice, I'd want to chit chat with you. Unless of course you said or did anything that was in the slightest bit awkward. At that point I'd run away shouting "freak of nature" to the whole world.

Heey, thanks. What do you mean by "awkward" exactly? I'm probably pretty awkward. Maybe not the things I say, just how I act.

 

[aerosol]

@aerosol
It doesn't have to manifest the same exact way. During the day, I feel fine. I'm able to get stuff done and focus on things..I'm not prone to moodiness, either... it's just when I try to relax, my brain won't stop analyzing every little thing and then formulating new worries for the future.. literally making my heart race so that I am very alert and unable to rest. There are lots of different symptoms of anxiety.

It could be part of your personality to fret and have lots of that type of energy.. It's just the wanting to escape by using substances as a coping mechanism that makes me wonder if it's anxiety. Just a suggestion.. I just identified with what you described in the OP. I'm clearly not certified to diagnose these things in other people..

What in particular do you fret about? Do you notice a pattern in your fretting?

Energy is energy, you could try to use it constructively, channel it into something else.
Do you have any creative outlets? I guess that was what I was trying to suggest in my previous post. Personally, I'm at the point where I'm trying to take that energy and turn it into something beneficial--so instead of slacking off and procrastinating about all my responsibilities, I'm pushing myself out of my comfort zone to work within a schedule to the best of my ability... We could compete to see who pulls it off better, but it'd probably only give me one more thing to fret over. lulz

Most of the time I don't feel like I need to escape it. But if something shitty happens it gets real bad. I had something happen to me regarding classes and registration which lead to my schedule being completely f*cked up (school at 9 am on a saturday? really?) and no faculty person from school gave a shit. My hate for people deepened. Then something amazing happened! The head dean understood my situation and let me enroll into better classes, eventhough we were already one week into classes.

Creative outlet... not really. I try to write but that doesn't work. I like to exercise to burn some energy.

Hmm, i fret about... people. trying my hardest to avoid them so that they wont judge me or create conflict or misunderstandings. I guess the pattern is people. I think I assume everyone is my enemy until someone proves me wrong. I'd be more neat to assume everyone is my friend until someone proves me wrong.

 

[aerosol]

I feel agitated about this thread. Probably because I also struggle with anxiety and when I get really deep in it I dream of altering with chemicals just to check out. I don't though. I don't because I sense I have the potential to become a real addicted mess. I don't know if my sense is right, but I sense that about you too, aerosol. I just felt agitated as I read your original request for drug recommendations and what you said around it. I felt agitated as I read your defenses against and resistance to the idea of seeing a therapist. I feel worried that you have set yourself on a path and that it's going to be a destructive one.

Maybe I'm worried about myself. Maybe I'm reliving my childhood seeing what my mom did to relieve her own anxiety and feeling uncomfortable and scared in it's presence. Maybe I'm just an anxious worrywart.

I don't think drugs are your solution, unless they are diagnosed for something that can be identified as being off kilter in your chemistry and the medications have some evidence to rectify that imbalance. I think drugs to take the edge off are just the first skips down a warped yellow brick road and Oz isn't pretty.

See a therapist. Be open to the possibility that they don't think you're weird and you just think they'll think you're weird because you really think therapy will be hard and taking drugs is easier. I don't think you'll find it easier in the long run. Take the hard road. I think it will be far shorter than the road you seem to want to walk down.

I like that you care. Most of the time I'll be fine, but then sometimes it'll get bad. And that's when I'm depressed and don't really care too much what happens. I dunno if I'd get easily addicted to drugs, but who knows.

Honestly, I was in a bad place when I posted this thread. I touched on it a little, but yeah -- I had to deal with the most stupid people ever and I felt so sad and lonely because humanity had failed me once again. That feeling is always lingering there, but most of the time I'm okay. I think the loneliness is what sets off he anxiety most of the time. So the reason for my bad feelings goes: my student loan money came in late and I had to register for crappy classes, beliving I could add and drop classes once classes started. That was not true. I was stuck wih the shittiest schedule known to mankind and nobody was willing to help or even treat me nicely. I talked to my "advisor" (and I use that term very lightly) and she basically yelled at me for "not having my priorities straight". Really? Then I had to deal with admissions people who literally hung up on me after me asking 2 generic questions in a normal, calm voice. Do I deserve that? I am so so deeply dissapointed by people and how stupid they are. There's more to the story, but it's long and boring. Then I'll get into that mood and telling people only makes it worse because their responses will make me realize that they're the same in the sense that they don't understand my sensitivy, my high sense of integrity, or my nontolerance for bullshit. I know I probably seem like an evil bitch to them, but what they don't see is that my behavior is justified most of the time.

Ehhh... yah. That was my story. Take care of yourself and I'll do the same.

 

[Bird]

Man, what kind of salvia were you guys smoking? I took a few rips of that about ten years ago and it was like my entire identity / ego disintegrated into an infinite number of particles, each one containing a completely independent identity with a personal history, set of beliefs and unique voice. It felt as if they'd been congealed into a unified mass my entire life - stabilized by some neurological process and tethered to the singular entity that was "me" and salvia pull a thread that unraveled the whole thing in one brilliant existential explosion.They started screaming at me (which was odd since I didn't sense there was an actual 'me' to be screamed at) and arguing amonst themselves; a vast kaleidoscope of different vocalizations colliding together inside of my skull psychologically browbeating me and saying the most abusive shit ever. On top of that, there were these threatening comments like:

"You set us free, now we're never going home. We're going to live in your head forever. You fucked up."
"Can you hear me, boy?......Hey, I said can you hear me, boy?!"

So I responded:

"what?"

"CAN'T YOU HEAR ME SCREAMING INTO YOUR MOTHER FUCKING EAR?!?!"

Then they started talking to themselves like:

"He set us free. He'll never be the same now."
"No, leave him alone. He's alright."
"No way. He fucked up. He's done for!!"

Then they all started laughing and chanting and saying:

"we're free! we're free! We got him to set us free!!"


...it was just pure madness. Then I actually became each entity for a microsecond, jumping from one to another to another - thousands of identities in fractions of a second but somehow able to experience the totality and life history of each one. I was terrified I'd never get back to the "me" that I thought I originally was. About ten minutes later, it started to subside and all the voices start re-congealing; like they were getting sucked back down a drain at the bottom of which they'd be fuzed back together. As this was happening they were saying:

"We have to go home but don't ever forget we're here. We're always going to be watching you. We're always going to be here waiting for you to set us free again. Don't ever forget it."


So I don't know what you guys are talking about with this mild shit. For me, it was anything but mild - it was actually pretty terrifying.

Welcome to the world of mental illness.

 

[subwayrider]

[MENTION=2926]Bird[/MENTION]
Is that what it feels like for you? They showed us this video in my Psych class about people with schizophrenia, and how they made these "schizo-goggles" that you wear to see what a schizophrenic person might see when they have a hallucination. Scary.

 

[Sriracha]

I am proud to say ... I have never done drugs. (surprising...yes I know, I actually do have brain cells)

 

[subwayrider]

[MENTION=4423]Sriracha[/MENTION]

That's probably a good thing. Some of them are really, really bad for you.

 

[Sriracha]

[MENTION=4423]Sriracha[/MENTION]

That's probably a good thing. Some of them are really, really bad for you.

I'm totally aware. You wanna talk about Juvenile Court and how Meth can take yer chirrens away?

 

[barbad0s]

Smoked weed liek twice, that's about it.

 

[subwayrider]

I'm totally aware. You wanna talk about Juvenile Court and how Meth can take yer chirrens away?

No...?

 

[subwayrider]

Drugs = Might work but come with a whole heap of other problems

Therapist = Might work but is expensive and comes with a social stigma that you may or may not care about

Exercise = Will work. Will make you fitter. Will make you healthier. Will make you happier. Can be done completely free. No negative consequences.

The question is, do you want the easy option or the option that will work?

My vote is for all of them.

All at the same time? If so, count me in!