079 Months of Paranoia and Panic from One Night of Shrooms

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Weed and trims have been the only drugs I've taken. The beginning of the trip was not bad. I think the one thing that I remember them talking about was not to look at yourself in a mirror while you're tripping because that can cause kind of ego death. Holy shit, we were like trapped in a mental loop. All I could focus on was how loud my breathing was. It was weird. It was scary. Everything felt like it was going so slow, so fast. I just couldn't tell what was real. That thought carried on for six months after the fact. It definitely opened me up to existential thinking.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Welcome to Multispective. I would love to just hear a little bit about sort of where it all begins for you, your background, where you're from, your childhood.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

All right. So I'm in a pretty small town in Pennsylvania, Connie Lake. It is quite an unfortunate place to be living. Like, I mean, it's nice. It's safe. Just the people around here aren't the best to be around. You know what I mean? Not too kind. So, yeah, I'm out here. Why

SPEAKER_02 1:28

so?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

In

SPEAKER_00 1:29

what way?

SPEAKER_01 1:30

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 not trying to be, what's the word, biased, I guess, against people here. But yeah, a lot of the people I've met and tried to make connections with ended up being not.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Hmm. Is it a very white dominant area that you're in? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Are you a minority? Where are you from originally?

SPEAKER_01 2:00

I'm not a minority. I'm from here, but I'm gay myself, so I know that I just wouldn't want anybody to be... upset by other people's actions or words and not a big fan of that.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Have you found yourself being marginalized or being treated a certain way? Oh,

SPEAKER_01 2:20

yeah, most definitely. I was more closeted growing up. I didn't really know how to come out to friends or family. It was a very terrifying thing. And my family not knowing that I was gay, I don't know. They didn't make me feel like it was really safe to come out. I came out to my mom, my dad, my grandma. That was like two years ago. And I mean, the response was better than expected because of like stuff I've heard them say in the past before I came out. Like for an example, we'd be watching like a football game and a RuPaul drag race commercial would come up and it would not be a good situation for them. I feel like they were offended by seeing that on TV. They would say it would just be like turn this shit off or you know, stuff in that context. It made me feel not too safe to be myself, express myself.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

So how did you sort of build up that courage to Bye. to tell them finally? I

SPEAKER_01 3:13

honestly think the shrooms did that for me. Like the fear of feeling what I felt was scarier than the thought of being gay to me after that, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

You mentioned that you were closeted for a while and perhaps went through that phase of like, okay, now I'm having to come to terms with this sort of like reality. How was that for you? Like, at what point was it like an 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 of trying to fight it for a while with yourself?

SPEAKER_01 3:46

It was a pretty slow process. There would be times where I've had 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 know because I don't know what their perception of me will be after this. Not that it matters anymore to me. I think the turning point was whenever I... wanted to get into relationships with other men and I didn't want to hide it from my mom and I didn't want it to be like a big deal. Her finding out, I just, I felt like I needed to tell her, um, just so I was more comfortable with myself and comfortable, like sharing that side of myself with somebody I'm close with. So

SPEAKER_00 4:27

yeah. How did they take it at the end?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

My mom was surprised. He was confused. Um, for the most part, and it took, I feel like, a little bit for her to process because, I mean, not knowing your son's gay and then just randomly, I'm gay, you know what I mean? But no, she's been very supportive and understanding about it, and I can pretty much tell her anything, so that's important

SPEAKER_00 4:54

to me. That's really cool, and I feel like there's so much power in that as well. I think, of course, this is not to say to rush anyone or to tell anyone here that's listening to go ahead and do it, but sometimes Sometimes it's the anticipation that's the hardest part. Sometimes the reality of just going out there and doing it, you realize at the end of the day, my mom's going to love me through it. And there are definitely stories of maybe parents who just can't accept it for a while and they need a little bit longer. Say if your mom was like, I can't accept this. Your mom and dad, family was like, nope, I can't do it. I just can't accept it. Would you still kind of sit here with me today and say, no, I'm glad I said what I have to say?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah, for sure. I feel like I'm not as close with my family as I want to be. Even though I can talk to my mom and stuff, I don't feel as close to them as I would want to. So like, I feel like their opinions wouldn't matter as much to me because I mean, I'm doing it for me. And like, it's with no intent to hurt anybody else or upset anybody else. It's just for my benefit. You know, I'm not going to suppress myself, even if it's just my mom and dad. Like, I'm not going to suppress myself for that. So

SPEAKER_00 6:01

I love it. I love it, Preston. Now tell me a little bit about like the role that shrooms had on this whole process for you. Walk me through this from the beginning. Where and how you were first introduced to it, what kind of attracted you or appealed you to this world

SPEAKER_01 6:18

of psychedelics? So it was like the end, well, not the end of quarantine, but beginning of 2021. I was already smoking weed whenever I was, I think I started whenever I was 16. And I wasn't on any medication for my anxiety or anything. anything and I feel like weed gave me this illusion that it was like it healed me I guess from like the trauma and the anxiety that I had like growing up and it was it was a weird feeling like smoking completely depleted all like the OCD rituals that I had like before I sat on the toilet I'd have to wipe it off with a Clorox wipe or something because I was scared I was going to get contaminated by sitting on a Or like being in a dirty house. I grew up with not a lot of money and most of my family didn't have a lot of money either. And certain things would gross me out. So like say if I didn't feel comfortable in somebody's house because it was dirty, if they made food, I would purposely waste the food so I didn't have to eat it because I was scared I was going to get sick. Stuff like that. I started smoking weed and that stuff completely stopped. I wasn't afraid to eat food. I wasn't afraid to sit on dirty toilet or like not wash my hands a billion times.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Was this like prescribed for you or was it just something you took recreationally and then realized wow this is

SPEAKER_01 7:35

yeah recreationally um i started it because i kind of wanted to just like follow in my friends footsteps and not seem like or not feel like i was missing out on something i wanted to understand like what people saw and we like at first i grew up uh clearly straight edge and i was like no weed no cigarettes no alcohol whatever and then once i tried weed i was like shit I don't know like something about it definitely opened my mind up a little bit more because where I've lived like I said like people were racist phobic um and I kind of found myself like following in those footsteps just because I felt like I needed to fit in I felt like I needed people to relate to you know what I mean even if they weren't the greatest people that was what I was surrounded by and uh a lot of bullying a lot of stuff like that so I just felt like I had to kind of open my mind up a little bit and weed helped me do that it helped me realize that it really didn't cost anything to be kind to people.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

So you decide from weed, the next thing you took was shrooms?

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Because of the original fear of weed that I had, like not wanting to do it because I was scared of what being high felt like. Once I found out what being high felt like, I felt like I had this sort of space to not be as afraid of drugs. Weed and shrooms have been the only drugs I've taken.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Did you do any weeding before getting into psychedelics, into shrooms, knowing that they're going to have completely different effects? Weed is, you know, you're still very much in your senses and aware of everything with weed. Did you do any reading or did just sort of have that first experience and

SPEAKER_01 9:17

can remember correctly I think I've watched a documentary might have been on Netflix but it was like all these celebrities talking about their trips and their experiences with their trips and I think it was just called take a trip it's like things not to do on psychedelics and some people explain their stories and That was really all the research I did. I saw it and I was like, okay, I mean, I think I could handle it for the most part, which turned out not to be so true. I think the one thing that I remember them talking about was not to look at yourself in a mirror 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 the trip.

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 all hell broke loose for you or all hell broke loose on that very first 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 of high school in 10th grade, and I hadn't talked to Travis or seen Travis since freshman year, and this was whenever I was supposed to be, I think, a junior. And I think he reached out to me and asked if we could hang out, and I think that's what opened my mind up to taking the shrooms, just hearing his story as well. He knew somebody we could get them from, and we... Took them together. I think I ate mine on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because the smell was disgusting and 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 taking it?

SPEAKER_01 11:07

I've heard people, they put it into tea or eat it or... cook it into things spaghetti pizza stuff like that

SPEAKER_00 11:17

but and is it usually like a healthy dose or not a healthy dose a typical dose 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 singular mushroom so i'm not like completely sure about that but i know that The amount I took was definitely not a safe amount to be taking. Well, at least for the first trip.

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 point warn you like, hey, look, it's your first time, maybe just slow it 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's done... think he's told me acid was the first drug that he took and that remember how that story went for him but um i i knew that i felt safe enough around him because he wasn't an ignorant person he's never been ignorant he's never been um close-minded or anything, so I felt like, okay, this is a person that I would feel safe possibly doing them with for the first time. I think we both took about the same amount. He took stems of the mushrooms and I took the caps. I guess the caps are more potent than the stems, so I got the shit end of the stick on that part.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

What do you recall? How long did it take before it hit 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 freezing cold out. We went for this short little walk around where I was living at the time. We were just looking up at the trees, waiting to see if the trees would warp or move or whatever. We noticed that they were warping and moving. It wasn't scary to me at all. I remember I felt very giddy, giggly, excited, motivated. The beginning of the trip was not bad. We ended up walking back My house. And the heater was on. And the moment I felt Trip fully sit in was when I transitioned from being outside in the cold, walking into the warmth. It was the craziest feeling. I don't know. It felt like I kind of just walked through Jell-O or something. It was nuts. And then I remember... We were laughing about something. I was like looking on my phone screen, like at my front camera, like to see if anything looked different. And my face like looked beet red. My eyes were super dilated and it kind of freaked me out. So I like shied away from looking at myself for half of the beginning of the trip. And then I think I think we couldn't decide what we wanted to do. Like while we were on the shrooms and we got in this loop of like, what do we do? What do we do? And then it turned into this like flight. panic of like holy shit we're like the best way to put it was we were like trapped in a mental loop like we couldn't get out of like not knowing what we were gonna do so we basically kind of just sat there and i think we tried to put on a movie and the thing that freaked me out like uh with the hallucinations was whatever movie we were watching i forgot what it was the actors faces in the movies started to resemble like my family members and they started i don't know it was It was a freaky experience. The actors looked nothing like they actually do. It was like they were morphing into my family members. And I couldn't comprehend that because I thought shrooms would be like, oh, I'm seeing things kind of wiggle and move and wave. But it was like a full perspective visual change. 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 that loop of what do we do? So do you feel like that kind of mindset transitioned into like when you were watching that movie, you kind of stayed in that negative kind of mind, like that zone, right? Yeah.

UNKNOWN 15:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

So instead of seeing those actors and seeing your family members' faces on these actors, instead of feeling like, wow, that's really cool, that's so fascinating, you're already in this negative zone. So you're like, that's freaking me out. That's not okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Yeah. It was weird because... I think the thing that set the negative tone with the actors morphing into my family members was I think it might have been family members that caused me some kind of trauma. I think it was... my brain trying to show me like trying to weed out things weed out memories subconsciously and I kind of I got stuck in this like feeling I was well I was diagnosed with CPTSD it's complex PTSD and just from like past childhood trauma and it like kind of built its way up into adulthood and like the way I react and respond to things I feel like it was partially because of the trauma and I don't know. I feel like the trip was definitely trying to... show me something about myself or 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 in the state of mind to you know talk you through it so you're kind of just starting to work yourself up to a really really really 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 same headspace for for sure with the mind or the time loop feeling but um there was this point in time where i started getting like hyper aware of my breathing like it was the only thing i could hear over the movie or whatever music we were listening to or whatever we were doing like all i could focus on was like how loud my breathing was and um i think the hyper awareness 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 we breathe automatically. I was manually breathing and I couldn't stop. I just could not stop. I felt like I had no control over, uh, the attention I had to my breath. I had no control over just regular things that our body does automatically. It was weird. It was scary. Everything felt like it was going 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 ground myself, just get something to drink, hydrate myself. As soon as I stood up, I turned around to, I think, ask Travis, if you wanted a bottle of water. And I see myself sitting on the bed. I stand up, turn around, and see myself still sitting on the edge 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 the breathing thing. And I couldn't tell if I had an out-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 process at the time. I was very paranoid, very confused as to like how how this is even happening. I've never experienced something like that in my life. I remember like walking around. I had my like hands over my head trying to like control my breathing. And I was just like walking around my kitchen in circles, waiting and waiting and waiting until 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 tell yourself, 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 partaking in therapy. So I didn't really have many grounding methods except for like, okay, breathe in, breathe out. And I think I was just like at that point hyperventilating and there was like no control over how I was like perceiving myself in reality at that point. It was kind of just like, The thought that I had was, I'm going to be stuck like this. I felt like I was going to be feeling that fear ever. Even though that was an irrational thought, that thought carried on for six months after the fact. It was the worst thought to have. 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 bring myself out of the trip? I ate a bowl of cereal, but I ate, like, I ate it dry. And it was weird because it didn't taste like, I think it was like Honey Nut Cheerios or something. It didn't taste like Honey Nut Cheerios. It tasted like rocks. Like, I couldn't perceive reality at all. Like... The taste of things, the smell of things, like, how things sounded, everything was just distorted, like, all my senses. And the taste of the Cheerios was so nasty that I threw all of it up. I think I, like, tricked myself into believing that if I threw up the shrooms with everything else that it would stop, or it would slow down. And then once I did that, I kind of just felt like I was high at that point, and it was, like, less of a, God, I'm terrified kind of thing, you know what I mean? But later that night after the whole incident, I... Remember, me and Travis were just bawling our eyes out. We didn't understand what was going on. I feel like it really toyed with our emotions. And that's when I think we both decided to stop smoking weed because any type of high is probably 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, three hours, something like that? I

SPEAKER_01 21:23

think like four to six is like the normal trip. Right. Um, but like the amount of streams that I took, I feel like, I don't know if that changes the length of like the trip or anything, but the amount of, shrooms that I took was a pretty, like, what they call heroic dose. I feel like if I took maybe a lesser dose, I would have got out of it quicker. And he took the stems, so I don'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 eyes constantly have, like, these What they call floaters. Like these little... I don't know if you've ever seen little 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 was almost irritating. No matter how much amount of light I was in, it was too much for my eyes. We stayed inside for the majority of that six months. We tried to go out and go on car rides or do whatever to ground us, but we were both pretty taken aback by that whole situation. And I feel like it's kind of affected us both mentally. In the long run, I feel like we still deal with the anxiety left over from that because it was a pretty traumatizing thing for both of us. The best way to put it, everything felt off for the six months. Like nothing was really enjoyable. Things were very overstimulating. It just felt like my senses were shot. And I know that he can relate to that 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, like you would kind of function normally, but then you would have like something that would trigger and then you would get really, really paranoid. Or was it? literally constant for six months?

SPEAKER_01 23:14

I'd say it was definitely gradual, but it persisted pretty much daily. So after we did the shrooms, I ended up moving with my mom. So it was just me and my mom at the time in the one house that I took the shrooms in. We ended up having to move because of money issues and stuff. And we moved into this trailer court. And I've never lived in a trailer court like It's kind of like beat down area and I didn't feel like super comfortable. I remember my main concern was that there was a bullet hole in the window and we checked the house out, but we couldn't really find any other place to live. So we kind of had to settle for that. There was like black mold and stuff in the corner. There was the floor was kind of sinking in, but we really had no but to kind of just accept that this is where we're at. And I feel like. after having such a life-changing moment and then moving houses especially into one that's not deemed to myself like safe or comfortable it didn't feel like home um i feel like that triggered the panic disorder i didn't feel like i had a place to express myself or a place to feel comfortable at 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 and how 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 me and Travis wanted food and I was like tripping and I just I didn't know how to tell her I was tripping so I was like yeah yeah I was like shaking I probably sounded like I was queeking out and I asked her if she could bring home some food and then when she got home I told her that I did them and I was I was terrified she was gonna be pissed because at that point I was like still slightly tripping and I didn't want her to freak out and cause me to have another bad trip but I told her and I told her I just needed a minute to chill out like if she's upset with me just talk to me about it later because I can't I can't handle it but in the process of moving and stuff seeing that bullet hole in the window and like seeing how rackety the house we were moving into was I told her like I don't feel good about moving in there I felt like there was bad vibes our landlord told us The last people that lived there found knives, like, under the carpet. There was, like, a girl that lived there that was doing witchcraft. And that freaked me the hell out. 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, against witchcraft or anything. Like, tarot cards, reading, like, crystals, all that stuff. Like, I'm not really against any of that. But just, like... Having knives near the carpet is not the best vibe. So I remember I had a second panic attack in the place that we were living before we moved. And I was like, I can't, I can't move. I can't, I don't want to move. And I remember I was so worked up that I was like throwing up and freaking out. Like there's, there's no way I could convince my mom not to move out into that place just because of the situation we were in at the time. So it was like, there's no choice. Being there, it felt like an eternity being in that place. It was only, I think we lived there for about a year, but like six months out of that year, I got like all my stuff situated. I started feeling like slightly more comfortable being in the house, like having my room and my music stuff set up and like everything I needed. It felt like I had more of a space. I remember one night I tried to smoke weed again and It started to make my heart race. It never did that before I did the shrooms. I never had any anxiety with the weed beforehand, but it started to make my heart race. I feel like I was tripping again. We didn't do that to me. I feel like the shrooms traumatized me in a way that transmuted into like whatever other drugs I'm going to try are going to freak me out. And I can't do these again. And I had a panic attack that lasted 20 minutes. I was trying to get myself to fall asleep. I put on like calming frequencies and music and stuff on my TV to try to get me to chill out. And I eventually fell asleep. But then I woke up and my heart was still pounding out of my chest like two hours later in the the disorder started. I was not familiar with that feeling at all. My heart... I could hear... My heart pumping. I could feel it just running through my veins like this, this cold. I was I was in a cold sweat, hot and cold feeling like going throughout my arms and my chest. Like I thought I thought I was dying again. Like it felt like I did the shrooms again. I remember I woke my mom up and I 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 talk me 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 could do, sleep. Try and sleep for like an hour. Take a nap. Do something that would slow it down. And yeah, shut down that feeling. And it never stopped. Once I finally got it to subside a little bit, I was kind of freaked out. Like, I didn't want that to happen again. And I think the fear of it happening to me again was what caused... it to happen over and over and over again. It was like, I have a panic attack. Okay, I'm good, but when is my next one? And then I tried to start controlling my breathing by just in, out, slowly, regular meditation kind of stuff. Focusing on my breathing, I feel like Mm-hmm. Yeah. um that gradually sort of went away um but it it was it was always kind of lingering i didn't i didn't know when i was gonna start thinking about my breathing again or whenever i was gonna start obsessing it would happen at like at times where i was trying to be social or at times where i was doing something that was important to me 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 but Anything that you try to focus your mind on other than your breathing brings you back to your breathing. So it's just this kind of like back and forth. It's just like it sounds like a mental jail.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Yes, yes. That's the best way to put it. I didn't feel like I had any type of freedom. Like I felt like there's no way in hell that I was going to be able to enjoy my life again if I'm going to be stuck focusing on my breathing. I can't tune into anything else if, you know, like something that's supposed to be automatic and something that... brings you life breathing you know what i mean like i was afraid um it led into me having insomnia for the first two months of that six whole months where i would wake up focused on my breathing immediately like i'd wake up soaked in sweat i'd immediately be panicking like i feel like it had this weird effect on my dreams like um i'd have The best way to put it was like, imagine you fell asleep for like an hour, but the dream that you just had felt like three hours or four hours long. It was the weirdest experience. I couldn't even put it into words. It was like, I just couldn't tell what was real. Like, I couldn't tell the difference between my reality and whatever I was dreaming about. It just felt like I was constantly in this state of deja vu or like... Fight or flight, constantly. Those are the best two words to put 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 hallway that led to my room, and it had these wood planks painted over with white down the middle, and... You could see, like, the lines between 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... I couldn't focus my attention on one thing or the other. Like I said, I could not go outside. The sun was too bright. Trees were still wiggling. The grass was too green for my eyes to comprehend. It was like all my human senses were 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 to a doctor during that time?

SPEAKER_01 32:06

There would be times where I'd wake up panicking with my heart racing, and it would just be so fast. There was no way to convince me that I was not having a heart attack at all. It caused me chest pains, chest tightness. I'd wake my mom up in the middle of the night before she had to go to work or something and be like, I need to go to the ER. I'm having a heart attack. Something is severely wrong. This keeps happening and I can't get it to stop. Will you take me to the hospital? Most of the time, people thought I was over-exaggerating it or being dramatic. And not to say my mom wasn't supportive because she helped me a lot through most of my mental struggles and stuff, which I appreciate. But this was a feeling that nobody around me really understood. It was such a weird thing to try to explain to people. I tried to talk to people about it 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 best way to put it. Like, I don't feel real. Like, I don't feel like I'm in my body. I don't feel like I'm safe. Like, I was stuck in this mental prison.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

I remember reading a couple of posts some time ago, some similar experience where someone had taken some hallucinogen and tripped really hard on it. They said that they took anti-psychotic meds. They actually went to the doctors and were prescribed anti-psychotic meds and found that that was not actually helpful. If anything, it kind of did worse for them. But then when they got into anti-anxiety meds, they found that to be really helpful. Have you ever tested or tried any kind of medication for this?

SPEAKER_01 33:38

At first, whenever I was freaking out, the first time I finally was able to convince my mom to get me to the hospital and that I was not just over-exaggerating or being dramatic, we went there. I talked to some of the people at the ER. They checked my heart rate. They did an EKG. I believe they did a brain scan. They did everything and they told me that there was nothing physically wrong with me and that I should go to a psychiatrist. So I did that. She was my my old psychiatrist was the one who Let me know that, hey, you do have OCD. You have signs of autism or Asperger's. You have persistent depression or PDD, persistent depressive disorder. It was just like a wide array of things that like, okay, I kind of figured like something was up mentally, but I didn't know it was going to be this whole boatload of things like thrown onto me like that. But she prescribed me with an antipsychotic because she thought that maybe that would slow down the existential thoughts and the obsessions with my breathing and stuff and I remember I started to take that I took it maybe two for two days and on the second day it made me pretty irritable it made me like slightly violent which was terrifying because I am in no way ever a violent person or confrontational or anything like that I'm just too anxious and couldn't do that but so I did that and I was like okay I have to stop this because I already feel out of control and I don't need something else to add to that you know what I mean so I stop that and for about a year I was like no meds I'm not taking medicine I'm gonna try vitamins I'm gonna stay hydrated I'm gonna eat I'm gonna exercise do whatever I can to like I was saying earlier like overstimulate my senses or whatever like that the main thing that helped and then leading out of that It was mostly just kind of this leftover sense of impending doom once I got over the breathing and the existential thinking. I was at this standstill where it was like, okay, I'm good now, but will this feeling come back? Will it hit me even harder? Will it just reappear? I was constantly on edge that it was going to come back and that I was going to be stuck like that again. I haven't done any psychedelics since then. I have... Started to smoke weed again, which I'm fine with. I don't panic. I'm on Zoloft for milligrams right now, which is an antidepressant, but also helps with anxiety and OCD, I believe. And it's definitely helped, like, a ton. Before... Well, after the whole shroom experience, I've experimented with weed a couple times, and it would make me just the same amount of anxious, and I couldn't do it. But then... I slowly like kind of built the tolerance and taught myself how to ground myself whenever I got too high or whenever I felt anxious, even whenever I was sober. So like I'm able to use those coping mechanisms and rational thinking to kind of just bring me back down and realize like, okay, you're high. 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 whatsoever anymore.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

How did you sort of get by without working or basically daily tasks and responsibilities?

SPEAKER_01 37:00

I honestly just kind of had to keep getting it through to my parents and my friends and my grandparents that I'm seriously struggling mentally and I can't work right now. I need your guys' support. And the way that they supported me was letting me me live with them letting me like leech off of them unfortunately like I hate to have other people spend money on me or have me be their main priority but like I really needed that time to do nothing heal to try and research and try and rest as much as I could to get that feeling to go because if I didn't if I overworked myself if I push myself too hard I don't know if I would be mentally still here.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

You mentioned research. So what was some of the things that you read about at the time? Did you look for communities? Were you looking for just information people who've been through something? Were you very keenly aware at that point that this was a direct result of the shrooms? Um, and so were you typing that when 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 read it in the first place because I know that they have like so many niche, uh, subreddits and stuff for like mental health anything you're looking for it's on there so like I went on the anxiety subreddit and I typed out I did shrooms so and so months ago whatever and I still feel like I'm tripping what is wrong with me like and then a few people came and reached out to me and told me that it sounded like I was dealing with what is called derealization depersonalization disorder or just DPDR. And that helped me dig my way through what I thought was me dying or me going crazy and turn it into something that people experience. What I learned is that it's not anything other than your brain trying to protect itself from traumatic 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 wrong with my brain or my body. Like, it's anxiety. It's fueled by... thinking about it. If you're thinking about it, thinking, I don't feel real. If you're telling people, I don't feel real, you're not going to be able to get yourself back 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 own diagnosis. But yeah, it goes hand in hand with OCD, anxiety, BPD, bipolar, anything that can cause you to feel immense stress or feel I don't know. If you don't feel safe, if you've had traumatic experiences, your brain is most likely going to have you dissociate from that, whatever's stressing you out. And that's basically what it was for me. I think living in the place that I was living in at the time and dealing with the processing of like, what the hell did the shrooms do to me? Am I anxious? Am I going crazy? What is going on? I just, I felt like I had to juggle all the possibilities and like drop everyone that wasn't the right answer. And the answer to me was it was definitely anxiety and OCD.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Interesting. So like, do you feel like you would have had this DPDR regardless of the shrooms, like that it was bound to sort of come back to you at some point because of your childhood trauma and then you have a mixing with your anxiety and OCD that was already existing in you? Or do you feel like that was only triggered because of the shrooms?

SPEAKER_01 40:35

I know that both sides of my family, my mom and my dad, there are a variation of mental illnesses and stuff. And some are more extreme than the other. Like on my dad's side, I believe that there's like Addictive personality on my mom's side, OCD. And then I think depression comes from kind of both of my parents. So like most of the stuff I've experienced on top of already generational trauma, having that in my blood already and then being traumatized as a child, like in different ways, just mental, sexual trauma. emotional like just all over the place that was like my childhood no matter if I did the shrooms or not I feel like those things kind of would have definitely been brought up either way but I feel like the shrooms helped me get 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 a point where maybe your mind is ready to accept it. It's just like all come crashing at once, which is not ideal. But in a sense, the floodgates just being open right in that moment gives you awareness of what you need to know, but at the same time, maybe not being fully ready for

SPEAKER_01 41:46

it. I was definitely not prepared to deal with that. It definitely opened me up to existential 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 all how does my brain produce thoughts how does a muscle in my skull like help me walk and move my fingers individually like stuff like that would always be on my mind I was so hyper focused on things that did not matter like that don't have answers like the brain is an insane thing and I feel like that was my trigger was thinking about like how the hell has my brain not shut down from this stress or how have I not actually died from this amount of stress because this is an irreparable 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 you started 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 each other. But I felt like I wasn't getting this social... needs I needed from just living with just my mom. So like moving in with my buddy Travis and his ex helped me be more social, helped me find things that were like constantly keeping me distracted and people to be around and things. Being at that trailer, I was isolated most of the time. I didn't have much to do except for 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, but I feel like that's what kind of grounded me and took me out of that was being overwhelmed by outside senses and not being overwhelmed by the fear that I'm going to die or something's wrong with my brain. It just gave me that breathing room again. And I find myself to this day still coping in that way. I feel like I'm almost completely over the derealization. I feel pretty attuned to myself and the things around me again. But I've learned that I don't know if this is the best way to cope, but kind of just... purposefully overstimulating yourself like daily I listen to tons of music like I dig and dig through Spotify to just find like new music or anything that I haven't heard before I will click on it and listen to it and any art that I'm not familiar with I'll dig into that too like just kind of overloading your senses with things that like inspire 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 something like just keep kind of trying to get that stimulation that dopamine yeah

SPEAKER_00 44:28

what a story i mean like that that's crazy to me because you really really do see on the internet very split down the middle experiences on shrooms a lot of people are like yeah it's a great experience you know it really opens up your mind to the world and you know to to life beyond us um but then you also do hear the other side so you know after what you've experienced um what kind of message or insight can you share with our listeners today anyone that might be thinking or wanting to do this what What do you have to say to them today?

SPEAKER_01 44:56

I'd say if you have any predisposition to schizophrenia, BPD, any anxiety disorders whatsoever, I'd say hold back. I'm not a professional in any way about psychedelics except for what I know about my experience and how to avoid what happened to me. So I'd say... Do your research. Definitely don't look into mirrors. Don't go on social media while you're tripping. Do something that keeps you in tune with what is actually around you. Don't do it around people that you don't feel safe with. Definitely. If you're doing it for the first time, do not do it alone and make sure you feel comfortable with it. If you feel any type of way about it, like if, say you go and buy shrooms or something, if you get like a gut-wrenching feeling that you don't feel safe doing this, if you feel anxious doing it, that's the feeling you're going to have the whole trip. Unless you know how to cope and calm yourself down, I'd say just... Be cautious. That's about it, really. And just take care of yourself. Spend time with people that you feel 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 small doses. You can always have one small little piece extra later on if you're not feeling it rather than it being the other way around where you've just taken too much and now you just have to deal with it, right? Last question. Is there anything that someone or anyone can do if they have taken it and they're having a bad trip or they're not having a good time. Is there anything that someone can 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 of difficult to get myself think rationally. So my best advice would be to this is something that I do sober if I'm feeling anxious or stressed out. But my therapist taught me it's called bilateral stimulation. You put your hands like this, tap back and forth. And it's like, keep your hands steady. And it, I think it focuses on the vagus nerve that's in your brain and it controls like a lot of anxious feelings, any tension, any, anything you're feeling that relates to stress in your body. This or even tapping your fingers like this. Like if you don't want to be, if you'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 and your body definitely creates that balance for sure.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

Wow. Preston, thank you so much for sharing your story and being vulnerable on air with us. I couldn't have been easy to, to share as well. So thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

I appreciate you for having me. I hope that, uh, this helps people.

UNKNOWN 47:47

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

If you enjoyed the episode and would like to help support the show, please follow and subscribe. You can rate and review your feedback on any of our platforms listed in the description. I'd like to recognize our guests who are vulnerable and open to share their life experiences with us. Thank you for showing us we're human. Also, a thank you to our team who worked so hard behind the scenes to make it happen. The show would be nothing without you. I'm Jenica, host and writer of the show, and you're listening to... multi-spective.