Experience: LSD (Unknown dosage) - My experiences with LSD and anorexia/bulemia

I used to be REALLY eating-disordered– like, starve-myself-to-death eating disordered. I wouldn’t eat anything except celery basically, and when I did I would throw it up ASAP. It began taking over my life, I was obsessed with food and starving and getting smaller, and eventually my parents forced me into a program. They would weigh me once a week and I had to go to a dietitian and a counselor every week, and a physician every month to make sure I was getting healthier (or at the very least, not getting unhealthier.) For a few months, I tried to trick the program, I would chug a TON of water (I’m talking 1-2 GALLONS, enough to get water poisoning if I didn’t throw it all up afterwards). before my weigh-ins so that the scale looked like I was maintaining weight, when in reality I was still losing. My relationships with all of my friends and family deteriorated so much because I was so angry all the time about being put in treatment– and just angry in general.

I went to summer camp on the condition that I would be weighed in every week and that if I lost weight I would go home. After the first week, I hadn’t water-dosed before the weigh in (they didn’t tell me when it was supposed to be) and since I had lost weight they sent me back home. My doctors told me that if I didn’t start cooperating they would put me in in-patient treatment until I gained back all of the weight I had lost from my eating disorder (this scared me SO much because I had lost about 60 lbs and that seemed like a LOT of weight to me– I was already afraid of my body AS IS, and at this point of time I would rather die than live in a doctor’s office for what I thought would be for ever (as I absolutely REFUSED to gain back 60 pounds). I became completely hopeless– so hopeless I didn’t even try to kill myself because I couldn’t bother to get out of bed. I ate when I needed to– followed my meal plan because that was the only thing going on in my life any more and I was too tired to resist any more. Gradually, things started improving and I began to realize how horribly the eating disorder had affected my life. I still didn’t eat normally, I still didn’t eat ANY grains or fat, but I started to EAT, at least. One day, I dropped acid (I later learned it wasn’t even REAL LSD, it was some designer drug) for the first time with one of my friends and had a HORRIBLE trip. She ordered Chinese food and up until I needed to eat everything had been going fine. Once I started trying to eat, the food was nasty and it looked really fatty and greasy, I was trying to eat with chopsticks but they were bending all over the place and I thought I was spilling the food all over myself. It was absolutely terrifying, it looked like everything was starving– the walls, my friend, myself, her cat, the chair, the TV, Buddy the Elf (we were watching Elf– not the best movie to watch while tripping hard). Everything just looked grotesque dirty and awful. I think my friend was able to tell I was having a bad trip, but I didn’t want to act too weird and ruin her trip too so I didn’t ask for help or anything. Eventually I pulled myself out of it and had a decent time, by the end of the trip we were just hanging out and smoking weed. At the time, I didn’t realize the food was what started my bad trip, but in retrospect I realize that it definitely was.

After that trip I figured I’d try it again at my house (more familiar surroundings, and REAL acid this time) and see if things went better. My dad made me some stir fry for me, I was in the basement and I started feeling kinda anxious but I couldn’t tell why. I started analyzing my surroundings and trying to figure out where the bad vibes were coming from. I quickly realized that there was nothing wrong with the room, or my TV, or the drugs or the music, but that stir fry sitting there was just bothering the FUCK out of me because I knew I had to eat it eventually and I REALLY didn’t want to. I started feeling very angry at my eating disorder for trying to take over my trip, for taking over my last trip, and for taking over two years of my life. I was angry that it took over my body, my mind, and that it had destroyed my soul. I took that stir fry, and I ate the fuck out of it, and I FORCED myself to enjoy it because I wasn’t going to let the eating disorder win any more.

Well, halfway through the stir fry (only took like 10 seconds to eat it all because I was so determined) I realized it was actually pretty good. I realized that my dad is a damn good cook, and my soul overflowed with love for him. The love I felt spread to encompass everything and everybody I knew, EVEN myself (which was something I had always hated) and my body (which was what the hate manifested itself in.) I looked in the mirror, picked out all of my faults and realized that they were only there because I had been treating myself so badly. I knew that a lot of damage had already been done– my heart was working at such an inconsistent pace, I was dehydrated, my skin looked awful and discolored (it had turned yellow because I had such a bad iron deficiency). There were permanent scars on my body from cutting, damaged teeth from vomiting, thinned hair because it had started falling out. I knew that not everything could be fixed, but I decided that I would be persistent to bring myself back into a healthy state.

It was really hard to get where I am now. Dropping acid did not by any means ‘fix’ my eating disorder– I’ll take all of the credit for that. It brought out a different side of me– one that was always there but was being suffocated by doubt, fear, and hate. I was already on my way towards recovery, but LSD ‘scared me straight’ for lack of a better term, and it reminded me of an ability I thought I had lost forever– the capacity to love.

Looking at where I am now, and where I've been, and how far I've come . . . It makes me think that mine is a pretty happy story. I mean, I think that for my age-- because of all the struggles I've had, I've become a lot more aware of the world and I think that I've figured a lot of things out that I wouldn't have without going through what I've gone through: for example, I have a lot of empathy now that I used to lack. During and before my eating disorder I thought that most feelings were weakness. I suppressed them, and that's why they manifested themselves in the way that they did. I hurt myself to avoid conflict with others-- when I was sad or angry I took those emotions out on myself rather than expressing them in a healthy way. Now, its a lot easier for me to understand other peoples emotions, or at least appreciate them and try to understand. Everybody has feelings-- when you don't acknowledge them in a healthy way they'll come out in a healthy way. I'm also a lot more patient with people because I realize that sometimes it takes a long time to figure things out, sometimes you hurt a lot of people really badly in the process. C'est la vie. If the person figures things out, they will come back and apologize. If they don't, that's unfortunate for them-- they are probably hurting more than I am. I've learned a lot about myself and about how I deal with things-- I have a tendency to take shortcuts and try to fulfill my needs in an unhealthy way rather than a healthy one-- when I get depressed I stop taking care of my body and when I stop taking care of my body I get more depressed, so now I know that exercise and wholesome eating is something I need to keep tabs on. Now, I'm more aware of when I feel bad and I try to pinpoint what it is that makes me feel bad rather than blaming myself. Now, I know I have a really addictive personality (starving and cutting was a very very hard habit to break), so I take strong notice of even very subtle warning signs of emotional or compulsive eating, drug use, gambling, exercising, dieting etc. All in all, I think I've figured a lot out about myself through this experience, and it happened a lot faster than I think it happens for most people. If I hadn't had an eating disorder, I would have destroyed myself some other way because the fact is that starving wasn't REALLY about being skinny, or pretty, or anything material. It was about trying to see how far I could stretch my ability to handle pain until I died. It was about unhappiness, it was about a tornado of feelings that I was trying to suffocate. I'm glad I hit rock bottom-- the only place to go was up. I think that ironically the only reason I stopped being a pessimist was because I thought that my life was going nowhere anyways. It became a lot easier to turn around when I didn't have anything left to lose. At any rate, I'm only 16 now. Most people live till like 85, so I've got a long time to go. If I don’t, the happiness I feel now is more than enough to compensate for what I’ve gone through. I think that even if I died now, it would be a happy ending.

Submitted by - Anonymous Disregardeverythingisay reader

Effects present (first trip, most likely an nbome)

• Emotion enhancement - "Once I started trying to eat, the food was nasty and it looked really fatty and greasy"
• Drifting - "I was trying to eat with chopsticks but they were bending all over the place"
• Transformations - "it looked like everything was starving– the walls, my friend, myself, her cat, the chair, the TV, Buddy the Elf (we were watching Elf– not the best movie to watch while tripping hard)." "Everything just looked grotesque dirty and awful."

Effects present (second trip, LSD)

• Anxiety - "I was in the basement and I started feeling kinda anxious but I couldn’t tell why."
• Emotion enhancement - "I quickly realized that there was nothing wrong with the room, or my TV, or the drugs or the music, but that stir fry sitting there was just bothering the FUCK out of me because I knew I had to eat it eventually and I REALLY didn’t want to."
• Introspection - " I started feeling very angry at my eating disorder for trying to take over my trip, for taking over my last trip, and for taking over two years of my life. I was angry that it took over my body, my mind, and that it had destroyed my soul. I took that stir fry, and I ate the fuck out of it, and I FORCED myself to enjoy it because I wasn’t going to let the eating disorder win any more." " I realized that my dad is a damn good cook, and my soul overflowed with love for him." "The love I felt spread to encompass everything and everybody I knew, EVEN myself (which was something I had always hated) and my body (which was what the hate manifested itself in.) I looked in the mirror, picked out all of my faults and realized that they were only there because I had been treating myself so badly."