a cumulative self-analysis of past trips

let me preface by saying this will not be brief, i like to write and explore many of my thoughts that way. skimming is appropriate.

i have retrograde amnesia from electroconvulsive therapy for treatment resistant depression, so my memories are incomplete and missing large chunks. i used to be afraid that i only had the capacity to remember two years at a time, like some kind of extended version of a 50 First Dates situation, but now i know that wasn't ever really the case (although stem cells from pregnancy did help better my memory in general, and returned some of my lost memories). i also smoke boatloads of weed, so that doesn't help.

that being said, i do remember some of my psilocybin trips, as most of them were after the ECT (although i never remember how much i took). my very first was taken pre-ECT in a house full of immature, arguing roommates, including my then-boyfriend. after seeing a horrifying, demonic face form in the glass of a window and laughing hysterically at it and at my boyfriend who was trying to tell me off somehow, i went to lie down on the cement in the backyard and laugh to myself as my roommates argued and yelled at each other. everything was just so damn funny, and i had no loss or disconnection from ego but was able to perceive my situation in life as some kind of cosmic hilarity, from which i later took that i was not in an environment that fostered any kind of health or growth.

but i did not go up from there.

after doing some scandalous shit i won't mention (let's just say i didn't respect myself, so the respect of others was unlikely), i got with this narcissistic psycho (although to be fair i had narcissistic tendencies and my sanity had often been in question) and one of the first nights i spent with him, i took shrooms and molly, which only connected me to him in ways that were not healthy. he was super into psychedelics, and unfortunately it was with him (and also with some random other friends that we met along the way) that i undertook most of my trips. i don't remember much of those, which is curious because they were post-ECT, and i remember feeling in awe with the universe and myself. but they were always tinted with paranoia, fear, shame, guilt--all the negative feelings i felt always but tried to hide (i was basically letting myself be mind-controlled by the dude, a fact which i only allowed myself to consider when i was almost black-out drunk--so no wonder nothing good happened here). was it because of who i was with and the place that i was at as a person? yeah that seems almost inarguable at this point. but why did i forget so much of it? repression? is that even real or psychobabble (although also to be fair, i did at least seem to repress a lot of things, and blacked out while drinking quite often so maybe i was prone to a kind of self-induced forgetting? self-induced amnesia? maybe)? was it because the mushrooms had already shown me that i was not where i was meant to be, or did i just never take enough to have the kind of mystical experience that separates the ego, removes the self, and creates a lasting impression?

after i had a child with medical issues that required living in and next to the hospital and with no more money because of bad life choices, i straightened up. figured out i couldn't be with the dude disrespecting me and expect our child to be any better than him, and that i had to take care of myself to take care of my family. dumped him, got a lot of threats and shit for it, and it was during that time that i took mushrooms by myself for the first time. i'd had to go to our home all the way out in bumfuck nowhere to clean and visit the pets and decided to take one small mushroom (okay so i remember kiiiind of how much, one time). i don't remember the whole trip, just the major points. i did end up cleaning, but i also saw all outlines between separate things and creatures blur while i was petting my dog, and when i was heading back to the hospital and probably coming down a door opened in my head and a voice spoke and i instantly and somehow unquestionably knew it was the voice of the universe, and it told me that there was a hole in my heart that i was trying to fill with cigarettes and alcohol and approval and sorrow and all of my other addictions and vices and that all i had to do was fill that hole with love, true and unconditional and complete love for myself and for everything that i was a part of. 

i'm still working on that last part. i haven't gotten to do anything since, it's been over two years, and i'm hoping to have another experience soon to further explore and cement that knowledge in my head. but resources are hard to come by and so is time, so the opportunity has yet to present itself. for now, i try to make sense of what experience i have. still no antidepressants for about seven years now, just self-medicating with weed for anxiety, but i've gone back to school and after dropping out 3-4 times (who knows anymore) i am getting all As and am more inspired and curious than ever before. the going is still rough but i've come far, man! and sometimes, when i contemplate long enough, i can get myself to a state mentally where everything's boundary lines blur, nowhere near as much but at least a little. i guess that's pretty good, all things considered.