Magic Mushrooms/Marijuana and depression for Aspies

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Around one and a half years ago I took 1/8 of magic mushrooms and smoked pot on the same trip. The mushroom trip was pretty cool although kind of made me feel strange but I was managing.....until I smoked weed with my buddies on the same trip..then everything blew up and i lost control of my mind. I freaked out, started seeing s**t that wasnt there and screamed cus i was deathly terrified and felt my mental functioning decreasing with every passing minute. Imagine that you are a huge body builder but with every passing minuete your muscles and strength decreased until you were just a skeleton.....thats how i felt. at the very end, I didnt even have a consciousness, I was essentially just an animal made of instincts. I could not make thoughts, I simpley existed and saw and moved around much like how an animal or a insect does. I remember staring at the door knob and recognizing it but I didnt have the slightest clue as to its function and that if I turned it it would open the door. I remember that I was just a bunch of basic animal insticnts running on feelings of hunger, sexual feelings, anxiety of new things and feelings of being alone...so I wanted food, I wanted sex, i got scared and anxious when my neighbor came over (like how a bird or some wild animal runs away when a person gets near)

I have been smoking weed for a year before that and was fine with ti but after a HORRIFYING mushroom trip (I took 1/8 which was apparently way to much for the first time), a lot of things became apparent to me with the insights the mushrooms gave me. After the trip I was horribly depressed and would have killed myself if there was a gun around, thank God there wasnt.

I realized what I had been doing all my life, acting normal and trying to fit in and be accepted...but I had been failing to get past the acquaintance stage with 98% of people I knew, I had been blocking out all the failures and not even letting it afftect me in the past.,.. I realized that I was deathly afraid of being alone because I have been alone most of my life except for my parents, brother, grandmother, aunt and 4 or 5 friends. even with my family I never really connected fully because neither they nor I realized that I had aspergers (im more on the mild side), plus i suspect both my parents have it to some degree also....so our social interactions are very aspie like and not how normal families interact.

After the whole mushroom ordeal ive been in depression and feel like my perception of the world has changed. My ability to speak and 'act normal' (using learned social skills) have diminished greatly, my physical movements are more robotic and preceise, my attention span is gone, my thought patterns are very logical and to the point (small talk is non existant for me, just question and answer mostly), im much quieter, my mind wanders and i daydream and think more, my anxiety is off the charts and OCD like symptoms have increased.....I am no medical whiz and I only recently figured out that I have aspergers (became more apparent after the mushroom trip when my behaviours changed) so I really dont know whats going on with me.

Could the depression have just amplified my asperger-like behaviours because I no longer have the will power and effort to "act normal" and fit in with NT's better anymore? Or is it possible that I had "mild aspergers" before and the physcadellics have triggered it to be more full blown (like it was dormant before and I released it) ? I notice that im more talkative and less ocd like when Im less anxious but i feel like im more awkward now than before the mushroom trip.

Anybody who is experienced with this kind of sstuff, what are your thoughts? i'd like to gather some opinions and talk to my therapist about it so I can go about treating this correctly...

Wow this post resonates with me. I had a very similar experience after taking mushrooms for the second time. (My first time was amazingly awesome!)

It opened my mind to some disturbing insights and I too became more withdrawn after. I think it had a profound role in shaping the direction of my thought process. Like you I smoked weed at the same time and yes that is supposed to amplify it.
For me personally it did some psychological damage for sure.
After that I hated being high and eventually stopped smoking weed for good.

Mushrooms are too intense. And too unpredictable. After all they are poisonous. It's worse than glue sniffing. Thinking about it now makes me want to wretch.

I've never heard of psychedelics triggering autism. I suppose anything is possible.

I don't know about mushrooms or marijuana, but I've found that depression just made my differences worse and more hindering, and did all sorts of bad crap to my life.

From what I've learned, depression and asperger's just do not mix well. do not. at all.

My drug experiences have often challenged me, but changed me for the better. Be careful.

the one time i did 'shrums, every person in the room had some variety of a bad trip. one guy took off yelling and screaming and didn't return for 4 hours, one guys sharpened his knives and started vaguely threatening us, one girl sobbed and called her mom. for myself, i was trying to help everyone and i couldn't. it was devastating to me that i could no longer reach anybody.

we had tried ti 'shrums because everyone insists that it is the one single drug that can't give you a bad trip. WRONG. any drug can give you a bad trip if you are in the wrong mindset or depressed or emotionally labile or depressed.

and some people just don't react well to mind-altering substances. i tried weed a few times, and it was always really bad. one time i thought i was living in a comic book, frame by frame. every couple of seconds my brain felt like it was taking a flash photograph of my surroundings, and i could sense the edges of the frame around me. it may sound fun, but it was not. i was in mental pain and seriously questioning whether i existed.

OP, maybe drugs just don't agree with your mental state at this time. i could definitely see some drugs exacerbating depression or kick-starting a massive life-changing episode. i don't think drugs can cause autism, but i can see how some symptoms could possibly be exacerbated for some people. but you sound more like you are ready for a life change. this is sort of an existential crisis for you, it seems like.

Last edited by hyperlexian on 19 Nov 2010, 12:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

They can trigger dormant psychological conditions... or so I've heard.
But I don't think autism could be triggered per say since it's a developmental disorder.

I feel like after doing mushrooms
I am a way better person
I have done them over 40 times had 2 or 3 bad trips
I found I am a Lion/Snake spirit animal as my hands turned into scaly claws
I have done many drugs and Mushrooms and weed and acid were my favorites
I feel like they opened me up and I could see the world more candidly
I could see possibilities that werent there before
I will stop now as this could turn in to a novel based on my love for recounting trips and drug experiences
All I know is without drugs the world would be a much harder place

Well, you can no longer say that your 3rd-eye blind. What you are describing is what I refer to as an awakening.

I've tried Pot at a New Year's Eve party, one year. I never felt the same afterwards, for a long time. Two years later, I was diagnosed with clinical depression. Never again, did I go near the green stuff.

I have always had positive experiences using the entheogens.

This. Some people just don't cope well with particular drugs. I can't do MDMA even though I have friends who can handle it perfectly well, but I also know people who cannot do pot or schrooms whereas I can do so with ease. As well, the concepts of "set" and "setting" are important...you need to do them in a place and with people that you are absolutely comfortable with, and you have to be in the right mindset. When you are having a trip, you can't be depressed or unsure of anything...even if you're seeing things or tripping out you have to have the ability to take everything in as valuable or educational in a way instead of being scared by it. I went on an extremely postitive, spiritual trip this weekend after I made a positive life change, because I realized in order to promote this change I have to expand upon my ideas. In a similar light, if you are in a negative state, you're going to have a negative trip.

I can see the phenomenon you are describing clearly though. It sounds like you were in a negative mindstate during you trip and allowed these thoughts to spiral out of control and lead to a depression which promoted your feelings of inadequacy and led to your behaviours. I am very sorry this happened to you, but fortunately, there are ways out. Cognitive behvioural therapy, mindfulness programs, and depression support groups...as well as groups for people on the spectrum, can all help to improve your confidence and help you through this journey. Ask your therapist about therapies like these. Best of luck to you.

Mushrooms - If your going to do mushrooms and you want to feel the therapeutic affects, you have to take a large dosage. That's what I've heard what an aspie should do. When I did a small dose of mushrooms the trip was enlightening but I had a feeling like an alien was telling me "make sure you come back!" I still havn't forgot that and I plan to have a high dose in the future. When a good opportunity comes by to get mushrooms I will definitely take it.

Also I predicted the future on mushrooms, simply by believing it would happen... which was awesome very spiritual. People with Aspergers should be allowed a prescription of mushrooms once a week, it helps so many of us.

LSD - there's basically "angel" & "devil" acid... you want the angel-type quality, & you should space out the doses, & stay with a group of very good friends. Devil acid is very scary but it's kind-of like dying and being reborn when you come back to reality your so grateful for it! I find it teaches me to live in the present moment, but also imagine my future self and what small changes in routine I can make for a happier future.

Using angel acid you also really learn to use your third eye, because you can know what someone is saying simply by paying attention to their facial expression or something it's incredible.

Weed - I find some strains of weed slow me down which feels AMAZING! while others make me think too quickly between subjects.

DMT - I havn't tried this, I plan to try it before Dec. 21 2012.

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Halo 3 got me addicted to weed, after I smoke i'm way better at certain coognative things. Under the influence of psychedelics I'm better at skateboarding & other sports which require better physical movement planning & cool people enjoy being around me more because I talk about interesting things.

I have done mushrooms a lot and it was within a few months.......I would like to trip again but I have to wait till some things in my life are figured out or I would be risking a bad trip. As far as acid intrestingly enough I find it a lot easier to control my trip with that, with shrooms if anything is off about my setting(environment you trip in) a bad or unpleasent trip is bound to happen even if I try and fight it. I actually had a pretty bad mushroom trip......I think there was something off about my mood or maybe someone else who was there at the times mood. And then I tried watching the movie The Wall(a really trippy mind f*cking movie with music from Pink Floyds album The Wall). Yeah not a good time and it took me a while to recover......it did not cause an increase in my mental issues but it caused me to take up smoking ciggerettes agian after I had quit smoking for about a month.

As for marijuana I actually use that to help with my depression, anxiety, PTSD and some aspergers related issues....I mean I don't have occasional bouts of depression I always either feel depressed or numb sometimes there are hints of other feelings but nothing substantial. When the depression is bad I get pretty suicidal I mean when I start thinking about what to do in life I start looking at suicide like a valid option to consider.....and marijuana seems to decrease the depression so it does not get to that point. But this is what works for me.........some people experiance anxiety, paranoia and worsened depression from cannabis and so it obviously is not a good idea for them. BUt yeah in my case anti-depressants do that to me.

I've smoked pot for over half my life and tripped many times (shrooms, acid, mescaline). I've never had a bad trip. Your state of mind when you do drugs is very important. Many drugs -especially halucinogens- amplify your mental state. Tripping when you are depressed or anxious is asking for a bad trip. I've actually found pot to be more unpredictable; some people feel like they're mentally wrapped in cotton and others feel like they're being introduced to all the answers of the universe at once. I'm somewhere in the middle.

I agree with the above comment that you experienced an awakening. You didn't realize how autistic you were, and the psychedelics gave you insight.

Some people on WP report a similar experience of depression and executive dysfunction after being given such a sudden insight--being diagnosed, for instance. Or thinking they have been "passing" as NT all their lives only to have people tell them they always knew they were different. They report becoming "more autistic" for a time, as they become hyper-aware of their own behavior that was previously invisible to them, and also unwilling to engage socially because they realize just how badly they'd been messing up before.