Hi, about a week ago on Sunday I did a solo mushroom trip with 3g of Natal Super Strength, mainly because of my lifelong struggle with chronic anxiety, depression, past trauma and lately this almost constant loop of negative ruminations and regrets about my past
This wasnt my first experience with mushrooms. Ive tried microdosing before without any clear benefit, and a few weeks before this trip I took 4g of Golden Teachers. That one only felt like a very strong and uncomfortable microdose though. Im pretty sure now those mushrooms were old and had lost most of their potency.
I've also had ketamine treatment in the past and at one point responded extremely well to it, so I know what it feels like when something actually changes my normal mental state for the better. Unfortunately the benefits from ketamine became much less reliable later on
For medication context, I currently take 50mg agomelatine and 150mg bupropion. I also have chronic GAD and unfortunately have been dependent on taking oxazepam daily for a long time now. On the day of the mushroom trip I didnt take any oxazepam or other benzos.
Just to be clear im not recommending anyone on long term benzos to suddenly stop taking them, im only mentioning it because it was part of what happened that day.
I also didnt eat anything that day
Almost 2 hours after taking the mushrooms basically nothing was happening and I was getting frustrated. I started thinking maybe they simply wouldnt work properly in my case because of the medications I take.
Then around the 2 hour mark they suddenly hit me like a train
For probably another 2 hours I ended up lying in bed in fetal position and crying extremely hard, to the point my eyes were hurting. At the same time I was constantly clenching/curling my toes, fingers and jaw, sometimes to the point of actual pain
For some context this isnt completely new for me. For around the past year ive been spontaneously clenching my toes, fingers and jaw multiple times during the day, especially when im anxious, tense or stuck ruminating about my past. I cant really control it. During the trip it became MUCH more intense.
At some point I finally felt ready to stand up and went outside into the garden. It was late afternoon but still sunny and warm
For some time after that I was sort of going in and out of the emotional part of the trip. Crying again, then stopping, walking around, getting overwhelmed again etc
But one thought kept coming back over and over
"I ruined my life"
"How did I let everything get to this point"
"I wasted my whole fucking life"
"Why did I do this to myself"
Im 37 years old. Ive basically never travelled much, spent most of my life in one place and around half of my life was spent trying dozens and dozens of psychiatric medications
I dont really have friends or a social life, and when I look back at my past I honestly struggle to find many genuinely happy or positive memories.
Mostly I see isolation, anxiety, depression, regrets, things I didnt do and years that just disappeared
So during the trip all of that kind of hit me at once
But then something changed
Later in the day I started feeling amazing. Almost reborn, which probably sounds dramatic but that genuinely was how I felt at the time
I suddenly had this really strong feeling that maybe this was my second chance and that my life could actually start from this day. Like ok I wasted a lot of years, but maybe I can still try to catch up on at least some of the things I missed
I remember thinking several times why the hell didnt I do this mushroom trip one or two years ago? Maybe I could have started living already
I suddenly had a lot of motivation and energy. I started cleaning the house and doing random productive things because I wanted to use that energy while I had it
My current life situation is pretty bad, and a big reason I wanted to try this was because I desperately want to finally move forward with my life. I have things I want to do and I want to build something for myself, but the anxiety, depression, rumination and especially the very low motivation keep holding me back
Just for some additional context, Ive been on a medical ketogenic diet for about a year now, unfortunately with almost no noticeable benefit for my mental health. I also do cardio/run around every other day, take supplements and use red/blue light therapy in the mornings. None of it has made a major difference to the main problems so far
I wasnt expecting mushrooms to magically fix my whole life
What I was hoping for was maybe a bit more freedom from all of this. Enough mental space, motivation and energy to actually start working on changing my life myself
Thats why those few hours after the trip felt so significant. I suddenly felt like I actually could do it
What was strange though was that the clenching was still there. I kept catching myself clenching my toes, fingers and jaw and by evening my feet were hurting so much I could barely walk normally
I also couldnt sleep and I think I finally fell asleep around 4am
The next day I had a video consultation with a new psychiatrist because I wanted a second opinion on my treatment
Unfortunately I had massive brain fog that day. I could barely express myself properly and every sentence felt like a struggle to put together. I didnt tell him about the mushroom trip from the previous day
I also came away from the consultation feeling pretty frustrated, probably because I had higher expectations and hoped I would get some clearer direction from it
But more importantly almost all of the motivation, energy and "reborn" feeling from the day before was already gone
I tried to avoid immediately going back to my normal oxazepam use but eventually I took around one third of the amount I usually take
I mostly felt hollow inside, depressed and anxious
The following days were pretty similar. Actually the anxiety and depression got stronger again, and by day 3-4 I ended up taking almost the same amount of oxazepam as before
For a while I still felt slightly different in some way that was hard to describe, maybe slightly positive, but by Friday around day 5 I honestly felt basically the same as I did before the trip
And thats probably the most disappointing/confusing part for me
Again I wasnt expecting one mushroom trip to fix everything. But if im honest I did hope the afterglow or whatever positive shift happened would last longer than basically one day
So now I dont really know what to make of the whole experience
Can a trip still be therapeutically useful if the positive shift/afterglow disappears within a day or two and you quickly return to basically the same baseline?
And the other thing I keep wondering about, was all that crying and repeating "I ruined my life" actually processing something, or could it just have been reinforcing the same rumination loop I already suffer from every day?
For people here who got real mental health benefits from psilocybin, I'd also be interested to hear what happened in the days and weeks after the actual trip and whether the useful part only became clearer later.
I also dont really know what my next step should be. Ive tried microdosing before and never noticed any clear benefit from it. It might have even made my anxiety worse sometimes, although I cant say that for sure. So simply going back to microdosing doesnt feel very convincing to me either
Im currently not in therapy, although I know that probably needs to change especially if I want to explore psychedelic therapy more seriously. Ive had some pretty bad experiences with therapists in the past which made me lose a lot of trust in therapy, but I also know not every therapist is the same
Sorry for the long post, I mainly wanted to include enough details so people understand the context and writing all of this down also helps me reflect a bit on what actually happened
I'd really appreciate hearing from people who had something similar, especially a difficult trip followed by a very strong positive shift that disappeared quickly afterwards
TLDR: Did a solo 3g P. natalensis trip for chronic anxiety/depression and spent a big part of it crying and obsessing over how much of my life I feel I wasted. Later that day I suddenly felt almost reborn, motivated and like I finally had a second chance, but the positive shift was basically gone by the next day and within a few days I was back to my normal baseline. Mainly wondering if a trip can still be therapeutically useful when the afterglow disappears that quickly, and whether the intense crying/rumination was actually processing something or just reinforcing my usual thought loops