A weird message time travelling from 2021→2006...

No the world doesn't end in 2012, but it does, for the most part, suck
more. I would probably also think it extremely weird and possibly scary
to receive a written msg coming from a 2021 version of me, because
writing has always been scary, and for me in 2021, it still is.

But this is not a letter of reprimanding or judging, because fuck all that
shit. Instead, maybe it will contain some insight.

In '06, Portland, I know that I had a lot of friends. They may not have
been the *best* types of friends to have (I end up weeding out the shitty
people in favour of true friends a couple years later), but after 18+ years
of being a loner in Seattle, having any friends at all was awesome. The
feeling of finally belonging. I spent my life going to a goth show one
night, a rave the next night, and house parties the night after that. And
although in '06 I had what felt like chronic fatigue, it was only a fraction
as bad as it is presently in 2021, where a day spent doing something as
basic as errands can require 2 days of sleep recovery afterwards. But
nevermind in '06, almost every day was a fucking party. It was some of
the most fun I recall ever having.

Through all of it, I was, and have continued to be, smart enough to stay
clear of the hard shit like meth and heroin... and also fuck cocaine,
because my ex was the worst cokehead ever. Duh. I was just drinking,
getting stoned, and only doing rave drugs like E and acid. Except in late
'06, I'm about to try shrooms. And I'll be assuming that they're gonna
work the same way as the acid I've already done with friends, and that I'll
have a fun trip. Unfortunately it will be a huge mistake.

I won't do the "smart tripper" things, like check Erowid about how they
will work on my brain, how many I should start with, about whether it's
possible to OD on them, and to make sure my setting feels safe and I
have a trip sitter I can trust. Instead I'll just go home with my roommate
and *try* to eat (because mushrooms are gross I'll have to mix them into
Thai food) what he gives me, even though he is an enthusiastic
psychonaut (and also a religious freak). I won't even pay attention to
how many he gives me. I'll later find out (after the damage is done), that
he lets me consume an entire eighth, and on my first time ever.

Sure, I'll end up enjoying the first few minutes of it when it first hits. We
both laugh at shit, stare at the ceiling, he puts on the band Psychic TV,
then Depeche Mode. But the problem then is that the trip starts peaking.
I'll go to my room alone to try and clear my head. But alone is bad. I'll
start having seedlets of thoughts enter my brain about whether it's
possible to OD on shrooms. Have I taken too many? I hadn't read the
literature thoroughly, if at all. I'll start to feel sick. It tastes like there's
blood in my mouth and feels like my stomach is digesting me from the
inside.

Then I'll look in the mirror. MIRROR BAD!! I look awful: like I died. I'll
glance at my arms and see cuts all over them. Have I died, did I kill
myself? What's happening? I thought I was on shrooms. It's just a bad
trip, right? I can control those, just concentrate on beautiful things. But
why isn't it working like usual? Maybe I did OD. My roommate should
know what to do. So I'll go back to the living room (so difficult to walk!)
and ask him. How will he respond to my honest, and very reasonable
question?

By LAUGHING IN MY FACE.

This will feel scarier than it ever would to someone who has not
experienced a bad mushroom trip before, a lot scarier.

But what about my boyfriend? Maybe just maybe he's done shrooms
before, I simply haven't asked yet. Although he has to work in the
morning, if he cares enough about me, he will answer the phone and
help me. So I'll dial him as I freak out on the couch. It'll be possibly 3am
(2021 me can't remember exactly the time this occurs), but he's
trustworthy right? When he answers I'll try to ask him this: "Hi, I think I
need your help, I'm on shrooms right now but I don't know how much I
ate. Do you know if it's possible to OD on them?" but his response will
be: "IDK I haven't done them before. Sorry. Night."
With nobody giving me a straight answer, I'll come to the conclusion that
I might be better off at the hospital. Or at least, outside getting fresh air
and dialing a nurse. When I take my phone with me outside, my
roommate will demand to know what I'm doing. I won't realise it at this
time, but later he'll end up telling me that at this moment he is also
having a bad trip, and that when I tell him I want to call the hospital, it'll
trigger him to fear authorities finding out that he gave me shrooms and
end up arresting him and whatever.
But to me, my altered consciousness will interpret his response as, "NO!
YOU CAN'T LEAVE, DON'T GO ANYWHERE, STAY INSIDE!" and being
grabbed against my will and forced on the couch.

I'll feel disgusting, like I've been violated or something, and won't be able
to move from shock/fear. I'll slump down to the floor as my roommate
sits on top of my head. Right now he'll be reminding me of my ex, yes,
the sociopathic cokehead ex. Even his fucking socks smell like my ex's
socks. Why is he my ex? He's fucking evil. He's Satan.

I'll then look around at my surroundings. All the cool lights I have, the
goth and street punk party pad decor, all look like a crime scene. There
is caution tape surrounding everything. The Darth Vader mask on the
wall is a demon looking down at me menacingly. There's a demon taking
the form of my ex, sitting on top of me. My ferret in his cage is no longer
my ferret. The woman's face on the CD cover on the wall across from
me is swirling around and also glaring at me. I did something wrong. I
can hear a clock ticking, echoing and getting slower. My bones are
broken. I died and I've gone to Hell.

How the fuck have I died? I don't remember dying. Had I gotten in a car
accident on the way back home? Had I OD'd on something at a rave?
Had I gone out with my boyfriend but drank too much and died of alcohol
poisoning? I won't be able to tell. Only that Hell is real, it feels exactly
like waking life, except heavier and a thousand times worse, and that I'm
stuck in it.

But in '06, I didn't believe in hell. I was proudly agnostic, with all my faith
in science. I knew all spiritual experiences were just a product of the
mind, even the few out of body experiences I had had years prior. It's
just chemicals in the brain, right? Even before being simply agnostic, I
was into Wicca. Wiccans don't believe in hell, or in the devil. So why am
I now in Hell with him right next to me? Was everything I've held to be
the absolute truth, all a lie? At this point I will end up peeing myself
(something that hasn't happened since <preschool!), since the body I'll
currently be feeling isn't actually a real body, anyway. It's probably not
real pee either, cuz I'm dead. I can't move and my body's been crushed.

At some point shortly thereafter, Satan will climb off me to look me in the
face. He'll have horns, glowing reptilian eyes, and a snake tongue. As I
question in my mind (cuz I'll be too scared to speak out loud... Elective
mutism?) what the hell is happening, Satan telepathically responds,
mocking me. All the shameful feelings and judgement of growing up
catholic, although I know I no longer believed any of it, came flooding
back. God gave up on me because I became a pagan feminist sinner,
and my time to be alive was over. There was no forgiveness,
repentance, or whatever; I had my 1 chance and I blew it, so god
discarded me and let Satan have me. I now get to spend eternity in my
own personal Hell consisting of the last place I had been in before I died.
Oh yeah and Hell is eternity. I end up experiencing what that feels like.
Nothing is scarier or more full of despair.

Instead of God reviewing my life with me, Satan does. He'll mock me the
entire time. He'll flip through photos of me and my friends, of all the boys
I've ever been with, he will shapeshift into those boys too. He will even
repeat lines those boys said to me at X point in time that no one should
have been able to know without having been there. Mocking my foolish
decisions to date them. He'll tell me how he put all these occult symbols
on earth that were secretly demonic and that I had fallen for them all.
That being female was evil. The music I listened to was all satanic. The
science I lived for was all satanic. Everything. And it was too late for me.

He's able to conjure up every bad experience I felt while growing up

such as being cold and starving, menstrual pain, and having to live with
my awful asshole stepdad, whom of course he impersonates. If I try to
resist anything, physically or in my mind, he knows and twists up my
body, making the feelings worse. If I "give in", it lessens, but if I give in
expecting the pain to lessen, he holds a tighter grip out of spite. He's
somehow 3 steps ahead of each thought before I'm able to think it.

At some point, I can't even remember how anymore, I will end up being
able to make it back to my room. The trip's intensity will have weakened
a lot, but of course, "Satan" follows me. Dawn approaches and I'll settle
with the very somber "fact" that I'm dead and spending my eternity with
Satan, and even if it still feels like waking life did, including the need to
sleep, I'm still dead.

I'll decide to take a bath before sleeping. Because it's still in Hell, I half
expect paranormal things to happen such as Satan appearing in the
bathtub, but luckily he does not. He's passed out on my bed. Before I
can sleep, I try to see if I can contact the living world. So I call my ex's
old work (from Hell) to see what happens, of course no one answers. I
then text/email my mom telling her that I'm in Hell and (because she's
catholic) to please pray for me.

Days and weeks will pass after this horrible "near death experience",
and I'll slowly be able to convince myself that it had all been just a very
bad trip and that I should NEVER take that much again. However, this
doesn't stop the fact that I pretty much have PTSD from it now. I have
sleep paralysis and out of body experiences almost every night after. I
leave my body in a "dream" to enter the bathroom and return to find a
demon in the form of an ex-friend, hissing at me. It won't leave and I
can't wake up until I attempt to call my Christian roommate from my cell
via dreamstate. Another time I'll wake up from a scary dream to find
myself in sleep paralysis with an incubus disguised as my same ex,
trying to seduce/possess me. Other times still, I'll find myself thrown out
of bed and kicked to the floor by an invisible entity, only to wake back up
in my bed. And still more times I'll have hypnagogic hallucinations of
"evil" symbols, scary voices, intimidating figures standing over me.

And still, I'll try one last time to do shrooms. This time I'll think, "I'll be
EXTRA CAREFUL", and specify to the shroom dealer that I only want a
tiny amount because last time my trip was bad, and this time I'll take it
with ecstasy to make it happier. I'll also be at a friend's house
surrounded by people I trust. And this time I did the research: I KNOW I
can't overdose/die from shrooms. We'll even watch one of my fave
movies (5th Element). It'll be foolproof, right?

Wrong. "Satan" returns, this time in the form of a friend/acquaintance,

mocking me for being foolish enough to think I had been alive the whole
time. NO, DUMBASS. You're still in Hell! Let's play a guessing game that
totally makes fun of you since you're too mute with fear to speak.
Meanwhile, more demons made out of curly spiky claw shaped things
come out of the TV. You're fucked for eternity. Even after this trip wears
down and you go upstairs to your friend's room, she stamps DOOM on
your hand, branding you as a permanent resident of Hell. They all laugh
at you, the dead fool. Being more sure than ever that you're in Hell,
despite now feeling "sober" again, you msg your mom on MySpace and
explain everything, apologizing and asking for prayers again.
Even better, two days later you come down with the flu, are bedridden
for weeks, and end up with bronchitis.

You'll swear never ever again to touch shrooms. Not even if someone
puts a gun to your head. Later, you decide to make a pact with yourself
that should everyone survive 2012, you *might* celebrate and ease
yourself back into psychedelics again, just never SHROOMS.
Well sadly we survived 2012, and at the time of writing, circa 2021, I
have yet to touch another psychedelic. I also don't plan to do so in any
foreseeable future.

But thanks to the shrooms, the damage has been done. For several
months at least. You still get sleep paralysis fairly regularly. You sense
*demons* around your home, even when you move to a new apartment.
You feel psychically attacked on a regular basis. Even though you seem
to be "doing well" by starting up school again, you can't even drink
caffeine in the morning without having a panic attack in class. You get
contact highs and start tripping if someone else is tripping. You can't
even take E with your new boyfriend without having an anxiety-ridden
bad trip, or crying. You feel like you're losing your mind and developing
schizophrenia, and devote hours of research on it.
It gets so bad that you can't even sleep without passing out drunk, or
having to mix benadryl with vicodin. After months of nightmares, nothing
helps until you finally see a naturopath who prescribes you a
homeopathic remedy. Idk how it helped, but trust me it DOES. The
flashbacks stop, sleep paralysis becomes few and far between (and are
also very controllable), and instead of spontaneous out of body
experiences on the regular, now they are really hard to achieve when
you try to have them voluntarily! And there's no more need to take
anything strong just to sleep.

Now, if earlier in 2006, had I known ALL this information, I would have
avoided the shrooms. If someone asks me to this day, do I recommend
trying shrooms, even if I am of the type to see benefit in trying
(responsibly) anything just once, for shrooms I will say, NO. But ironically
enough, for how much they have ended up traumatizing me during this
current timeline I live in now, I think the experience helped me learn who
and what I really am.

In 2006, at age 20-21, I had no idea what I was or really if I had a

purpose to my life (except might as well try and make it fun), other than
feeling like an outsider from the future stuck in primitive 21st century
earth, who also has an affinity for space, science, robots and aliens. I
don't end up discovering what I truly am until about age 24-25. It ends up
making so much sense and is pretty badass. I realize I have an inner
light, and nothing can fuck with me. All those things that happened on
the shrooms, don't scare me now. If I were to encounter anything like
that now, I know how to fight it. I know back then in 2006 I couldn't,
because I didn't know my inner strength or what I really stood for. I'm not
even scared of death now. I'm still more or less agnostic, but a lot more
spiritual. And I'm more of a fighter than I ever was before.

So although I deeply regret ever taking those shrooms, and I never will
do so again, I'm still ever so slightly thankful to have grown from it.