Post-Traumatic Growth Journal

[SenseOrgan]

Thanks guys!

Very impressive session today. Initially 80% of the previous dose. After an hour had the 20% added, which turned out to be an excellent idea. The little boy experienced a lot of connection and love today. How happy I am to have found PSIP and T! Very special and positive to experience as a little boy, what it is like to be securely attached to an adult. No fear of rejection, judgment, or anything else. Only love. It is shocking to experience how unusual that is. Fortunately, I could let a lot in, although there was also a moment when I expressed that I don't deserve it. Nevertheless I squeezed her hand, scared to lose the connection again.

Never in my 27-year career have I been able to work with a therapist on the level of attachment trauma, other than with words that landed nowhere. PSIP is really of a different order. It lands because they are new experiences. Experiences of a child.

[dollyvee]

Amazing SO!

[Chart]

 
Indeed! So content to hear your description, SO.
 

[SenseOrgan]

Thank you! What a gift this is. What a gift!

Today I'm in the botanical garden to relax a bit. Yesterday I went, but it was closed. My eye catches a plant. There is no sign with a name on it. I recognize it. My psychedelic journey started with it in 2007. It's Tabernanthe iboga. It was a solo trip, in which I met the lonely boy and the sitter literally wasn't there with me. Only many many years later I understood what I had encountered. Now I am here and the boy finally found love. Only in connection. This touches my heart. Full circle...

A friend checked the picture I took with a species recognition tool. Iboga.

[Chart]

Indeed, there is no such thing as coincidence.
(why is there no emoji of a shaman guiding an initiate across the astral plane? :-)

[SenseOrgan]

Just came back from my first PSIP session with cannabis. The start was almost 6 hours ago and I still haven't fully landed from the 6 hits I took.

Wat just happened was unlike I have ever experienced. What started out as sensations of having my hands in ice or boiling water, shifted into a painfully tight neck. It was as if my head was directed, almost as if somebody with a strong hand had grabbed me there and was moving it very slowly but very firmly. It happened on it's own. The only thing I did was not interfere. I don't think I even could have. My normal agency was shoved aside. Something else was steering. It was my own body, yet it wasn't me doing it. Very slow but incredibly powerful movements. Primal movements, like those of a salamander. Organic. Fluent. Determined. Resolute.

Meanwhile I was going away every other second or so. Away to nowhere. Not existing. T tried to have me describe it, but I could not describe not existing. There is not a there there with properties to reference.

I was squirming on the floor. Or rather I was being squirmed. It came in waves of 30, 20, 15 minutes according to T. I kept forgetting she was there unless she reminded me, which she kept doing.

Several times I was maneuvered into stuck positions, in which I had trouble breathing. It gave me a sensation of choking. I could not get enough air. I was terrified of choking. I thought I was going to die. T reminded me she was there. This helped to stay with it for a short while. It was very scary.

I was away most of the time. It rapidly alternated with being here. Flashes of a second, maybe. I could not make myself stay. This process was beyond my control.

It was such a strange phenomenon, yet I was okay with it being behind the wheel, with not knowing what the * was happening.

At some point T slowly started wrapping up the session. I was still mostly gone, nowhere near capable of functioning. It was already 2-2.5 hours after the start. To her it was as if we had a normal conversation. I was mostly not there. It was getting scary. I became very scared to be stuck here forever. Like a schizophrenic. Reality had lost its sense of being reliably true. Very dangerous terrain in which I was drifting off. I was starting to become a bit paranoid. Stopped trusting my T.

It was really hard to land. Physical exercises, some sweet cake and a massage device could not bring me back. I stayed away mostly. I was loosing faith in a return. I think I was right in picking up on T wanting to end the session. But I was still far away. I could not land. Eventually she did not let me walk back, but brought me with her car. I think I could have barely made it on my own. She gave me some benzos I could take if too scared or unable to sleep.

I still haven't landed, but I keep getting closer to it as time passes. The movements have long since stopped. I'm no longer scared. Mainly tired and blurry, zoned out. I already took care of the munchies by going to the shop and buying cheese cake and chips.

In between the waves I realized the absurdity of what was happening. It was also very funny to me somehow. Until the next wave started. I had enough of this exhausting process, but I had no say in it. It kept going until it was done.

I feel like my body worked extremely hard. I feel relieved on some level. Like my system is lighter, after an intense workout.

T did some suggestions on how to proceed with therapy. I felt a lot of resistance towards going here again. I have a sense there will be no reasonable okay life around whatever it is that has been set in motion. Like I basically have no choice if I want something else than the impossible road I've been on my whole life. It does not lead via the comfort zone. Apparently I need some time to get used to the realization this is what my discomfort zone feels like and more of this is in store.

Hopefully a good night sleep. Going home tomorrow. I worked incredibly hard this week. The speed with which all of it is happening is insane.

Cannabis was really different from ketamine. Brain stem stuff, comes to mind.

T says it's state 4, so dissociation. I had no clue. She was very surprised I never experienced dissociation in my normal life. Apparently the block was total. There is something very scary completely tucked away from consciousness. Well, it is no longer fully hidden. I feel like I made a journey to some far away part of my system.

Ketamine is more helpful for resourcing, cannabis for dissolving dissociation. So the latter is likely the be more challenging.

Apart from the fear that came up from time to time, the movements themselves had not much of a feeling tone to it. Physically often painful. Never over the top. Something feels benign about it. Familiar.

I am intimidated. And intrigued. I hope I can make myself explore more of this. It feels important. Like dealing with something at the only level that is going to have real effect on my existence. A crossroad. I may need help saying yes to this. I think I need to step further into the unknown. I barely know what I'm talking about. Yet I seem to know damn well this is running away or facing it. I don't want to be running. And I'm scared of the danger I sensed. Another day at the PSIP office. Time for some recovery time!!!

[Chart]

SenseOrgan, how very intense. What you describe makes me think of so many things. Thank you again for sharing all this.
With you in sprit.
 

[Desert Flower]

Wishing you a safe landing and wishing you well SenseOrgan.

[dollyvee]

This sounds very intense SO. As an outsider, it sounds like it could be some kind of birth trauma? With the hands pushing your neck, the going away and coming back. Just my two cents tho!

I hope you find your way back and I'm glad your t was there with you.

[SenseOrgan]

Chart, Desert Flower, dollyvee
Thanks for being here and for your support! I appreciate it a lot!

@dollyvee
Yeah, it could be. T seems to suspect the same. The thought came to me before this one, during the first ketamine session in which my body made a lot of involuntary movements too. I may never know. If so, the knowing is not in my cortex, but in older structures. I think I "went" there. The whole thing is nothing out of the ordinary with PSIP by the way. Involuntary movements that come in waves. T confirmed this is what goes on in PSIP, when I wondered what on earth just happened after wave number one. I expected more convulsion-type movements, which did happen with ketamine. These were slow.

I just came home. If it wasn't a crazy movie already, it is now. I followed the protocol I came up with to keep any bed bug out that might have hitch hiked with me. Small chance, but still! My mom had put some clothes and bags in the shed. I put everything I carried and everything I was wearing in there. Some electronics had to go into separate bags to come with. The cases are now in zip lock bags in the freezer for 4 days. Going to look for a dryer to put my clothes in tomorrow. Need my jacket. It's proper winter here too.

The opening scene of a movie... A tired looking man enters a shed stuffed full of chaos. In the tiny open spot he starts putting the stuff he carries into bags and closing them. He strips down naked in the cold and puts those clothes in bags too. And so forth. I keep ending up in the strangest situations!

I'm happy to be home. Something is still way off with my focus/awareness. It's the same thing, but tuned down a bit. It nevertheless persists. I'm worried. Not acutely scared like I was before. Worried that I'm stuck with this. I'm not tripping or seeing or thinking weird stuff or anything. I don't think so myself at least... It's hard to describe what's going on.

PSIP is inherently destabilizing, I knew that beforehand. The way that it is in me still surprises me. I was expecting more emotional type dysregulation. This is not that. It's a bit like my brain is partially stuck in cannabis mode. Or I'm dissociating. I keep landing in the moment, after apparently having checked out in some way. Every minute or so. It's 32 hours after I took those puffs. That's not a good sign in any conventional sense of the word. I remember from my aya experiences that I had derealization/depersonalization for a couple of days. It went away eventually. I'm hoping this is something along the same lines.

I went very deep yesterday. I was contacting the foundation of what makes me me and came close to a very scary place. I'm shaken up, to say the least. My entire system could be realigning at the moment. Brain stem, limbic, cognition. And how one influences the other and how things are processed. Writing alternative coding while the machine is running. Something like that. I feel like a have a lot of processing and resting to do. I'm going to sleep a lot. And a friend has offered I can stay with him for a bit. Sounds like a good idea to not dive into isolation. At all, and not in this state in particular. I hope to be interacting here again soon. I don't feel okay about my monologue-ing of late. It's all I could muster during that mad week. 

[Chart]

SenseOrgan, please don't be self-conscious about your writing. You have shared so much during such an intense experience. I, for one, am honored and immensely impressed that you have done and shared all this. Please feel good about everything you have just done because it WAS good, for you and for others.
Thank you.
 

[Desert Flower]

SenseOrgan, what a tremendous roller coaster ride that was! I'm amazed at how you pulled through. 

I hope it will bring you the growth and possibly breakthrough you are looking for.

[dollyvee]

SO I feel like I've this "stuck brain" that you're referring to before, and it was probably after recreational cannabis funnily enough. I see it as a new "mode"" that your brain has entered. For me, I liked it, but the "old stuff" was knocking at the door, wanting things to go back perhaps to the way they were in there (to a certain extent I think) and wanting to undo the insight. Again, it wasn't through PSIP, just recreationally. Maybe if I had the preparation of a PSIP session, that would have not been there, but to me, I think the new mode can be a good thing - it undoes the "pain identity" and allows a new one (new attachment) to be created. Did your t ever suggest Dan Brown's visualization video around attachment?

I've had involuntary movements before when I listen to Solfreggio frequencies before bed. I've tried to research why this comes up, but haven't really found anything. My woo woo explanation is that it activates your ephemeral body/energy body in a way that relates to your physical body. How what when where why I don't know, but have had some pretty intense dreams after.

Perhaps your m could shed some light on your birth for you and see if it makes any sense?

Thank you for sharing your experiences, it's so interesting to hear!

Sending you support 

[SenseOrgan]

Chart
Thank you for saying that Chart. It's been great to see you show up here in the midst of this roller coaster ride. It's a big deal to feel safe enough for a stream of consciousness on a forum. At least for me. At some point it just started going and I thought it would be okay here. I feel safe and seen here. Thank you!

Desert Flower
Thank you! Totally nuts. It's been a bit much to handle. I still feel broken open, not re-assembled, or something like it. Still in a non-ordinary state of some sort. A pinch more normalcy than yesterday. I just slept for 13 hours. Looks like this is going to take some time. It's great to see you here again. Interacting about what happened feels good at the moment.

dollyvee
I just wrote the below part, when your reply showed up. The overlap is striking. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with cannabis and for your support! It is a great help. Part of me is writing now, in this state, because things may resort back to "normal" at some point and something can be closed again.

T hasn't suggested Dan Brown's video, but I'm interested. I'll look into it. Thank you.

Involuntary movements are fascinating! The substances only block the blocking (by the mind). They are not inducing the movements. It's wild you went there with the Solfreggio frequencies! Tell me more, if you want! I know a guy who went for a sound healing session post PSIP. This induced a PSIP wave. Certain frequencies may block the blocking like a psychedelic can. T has ordered a tuning fork. She may be thinking along the same lines. There is a there there. It may be less strange when you realize how certain music can move us. Also composed of frequencies. There seems to be something playing out on another level simultaneously. I don't like to put it into words, but if I'd have to I'd say a reckoning on a soul level or something like it. Very very deep and fundamental to who or what you are, what you're doing here. Dealing with the theme of this lifetime unobscured. Not shot into the cosmos, like psychedelics are known for, but deep inside the body. According to Saj Razvi, cannabis has an unrivaled power to land us into our body (and dissolve dissociation). The movements seem to be stuck energy (I'm thinking about Somatic Experiencing here). Little thoughts came up for me during. I've trained for many years to not go there, so that may be part of it. This is wild! 

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I haven't opened up to anybody like I did this week in PSIP. Never trusted anyone to be so vulnerable and let go. It was met with endless patience and kindness. It is a shock to my system. Deliberate, calculated, yet still surprising and overwhelming. My old balance is off. That's good. It was my stuckness and isolation too. It's asking much of me to have faith my system will find a new stable place. I've used a tremendous amount of letting go into confusion and discomfort in the past seven years or so. I want a break. It may have been the training which facilitated me going so deep with PSIP. T seems to be really amazed how deep I went right from the start. I am too. I had cultivated the intention to connect and to trust in whatever would come. But I had no way of knowing to what degree that would help.

Watching all those PSIP vids was therapy in it's own right. I often saw myself. It was incredibly validating and normalizing. It definitively lowered my barriers. I was fully okay with letting my body take over. T was amazing in making me feel safe and connected. It is a very powerful experience to shift into primary consciousness and to have somebody there with you that you can trust. The loneliness and the defense are the same. It was a significant part of my identity. It looks like an important part of that has been shattered in the presence of love.

[SenseOrgan]

This afternoon I went to the super market to get some food. I hadn't eaten properly in a few days due to traveling and PSIP. It struck me that "dissociation" acted up in this environment. Big time. Or I noticed it more. I kept landing in the here and now after blinking out for a second or two. It took significant effort to function. It did feel more like still being stoned than experiencing the effects of the session. Disconcerting.

Currently it's nearly 55 hours after the session. I've been on my own for hours. I've had a proper meal and took vitamins. It feels like I'm close to functioning normally. This too seemed to come in waves. Very long ones. It's a big relief to experience my brain functioning "normally" at the moment. I was starting to dread I had broken it. I've experienced this fear on a psychedelic before, but while I was on it, never so long after that. A few hits of cannabis! Granted, after a whole lot of other intense stuff, but still. It's been some of the hardest hitting experiences I had.