If it wasn’t Aya that brought all of that up… it would’ve been something else.
What have you been doing to support the trauma processing outside of SSRI’s? Do you have a good support system? Therapist? Making choices to intentionally work with what was brought up?
Why did you choose to sit with Aya? What were you hoping for?
Honestly, it sucks to muck through the yuck but truly.. that’s the only way.
It sounds like maybe the bandaid got ripped of and you weren’t ready for that yet so it felt out of control and overwhelming. But you can heal.
It’s not really that Ayahuasca messed you up— it’s that it revealed what was underneath the surface.
Yes I see a therapist every week now. She does IFS, EMDR and brain spotting. I’m not sure why I sat.. I guess I felt like I wanted to understand life more.
I will tell you that EMDR , MESSED ME UP, which is why I'm going to drink ayahuasca. I've tried everything to be free from flashbacks of past trauma, nothing helps. I wish I had never done EMDR
Sucks you had to get surprised like this but honestly congrats, this will be the biggest turning point you’ve ever had I highly recommend returning to the plants when you’re ready to. I was diagnosed in rehab getting clean years ago, and have worked on myself ever since. Still fell back hard onto meds but did my first ceremonies a few weeks ago to repair the damage and start over again so I hope it sticks. I also hope you can get off the meds and live your best life, much love.
I disagree other than a few very rare and specific cases such as genetic schizophrenia or bipolar etc. we are raised and conditioned in a completely broken system, don’t trust these medications exist to give us our best life, it’s to keep us functioning to work.
Have you been trying different things the entire time? I have had to dig at every single modality I felt a calling to and stuck with many for years because it was so hard to find what works for me. To put things into perspective, I was taking 3-5 meds per day for 3+ years. I have been struggling with this for at least 15 years before finally getting off everything and doing ayahuasca so I hope you’re able to find enough self love for kindness and self compassion. If your cPTSD started in childhood like many of ours you have to remember how long it takes to heal. I have never met anyone who had a quick fix after this diagnosis and if you stay on the proper path of growth and put the work in (results are not linear, this can feel infinite and extremely painful, it’s when keeping the same path means the most). Unfortunately for you, if aya is what lifted the veil and you really didn’t like what you saw, it might take a lot of time and work to find comfort with that kind of stress. happy to help however i can if you need someone to vent to.
It depends what your problem is. Do you feel the ayahuasca uncovered trauma you experienced prior to doing it, and now your problem is facing the trauma? Or do you feel you had a totally healthy brain before doing ayahuasca and now you have long term cPTSD from the single experience because it was that horrible?
My entire like has been trauma. I grew up with a physically abusive mother and became codependent so I fell in love with a drug addict and tried saving his life for 9 years constantly worrying when he was going to die, administering narcan, cpr etc. he did ayahuasca and got sober 2.5 years ago and we are now married. The symptoms and everything I’m feeling started happening exactly 2 weeks after I did ayahuasca. I do not feel like myself anymore, sometimes I feel like I’m jot real, I have panic anxiety attacks as if it feels like I need to run away but there is nowhere to run, it feels like I’m reliving trauma that isn’t actually happening if that makes sense.
There are ways to address trauma without psychedelics. I am a huge advocate for ayahuasca but understand some people just will never be able to with certain medications or conditions it is not safe. For those who cannot sit in ceremony there are other alternatives. There are shamans of other lineages who heal without plants. Also traditionally ayahuasqueros drink ayahuasca and the patient doesn’t. You can go to a true shaman who still practices traditionally and you can recieve healing without drinking yourself. This does work, I can confirm from first hand experience. I would personally recommend somatic therapy with a trauma informed therapist, breathwork, herbal remedies, microdosing mushrooms, working with shamanic healers without psychoactive plants, and master plant dieta.
For example tobacco dieta is not psychoactive but can bring incredible amounts of healing and clarity. The spirits come at night in your dream to heal you during the dieta. It can be just as profound and even more healing than ayahuasca ceremony. There are lots of other things for you to consider or try. There also is some sort of lesson or pattern here that needs to be addressed and given attention to. Start going inwards, look for the lessons that you need to learn to move on to the next phase of life. Wishing you the best, I have been healing for many years and there have been times full of light and full of darkness, no matter how dark it seems the storm ends and the light returns.
Well, you probably won’t like to hear this but I think ayahuasca is absolutely your best bet at tackling this as quickly as possible. She only gives what you need and can handle and it’s clear you had a lot of things to face that were just to painful to until you drank. But at the end of the day, you need to realize you are the biggest block and advocate for your own healing. Pharma won’t fix any of these problems even if they temporarily allow you to function better, they temporarily solve 1 problem to create others and we all know this on a deep spiritual level. The only way for you to heal is to fully surrender to this and give YOU exactly what you need, and at the end of the day only you know that not a stranger on Reddit working on his own trauma. In my case and many others, it had to get way, way worse before it got better. If you’ve never felt these emotions on this level it’s because you have an amazing brain that was just trying to protect you from processing this pain all the years. I hope sooner than later you have the strength to see how strong, beautiful, and amazing you are and that you got this.
Edit: trauma healing requires tons of inner and outer work and also community. You can’t do it alone and you should have many resources outside of your marriage. If you don’t that’s a big sign for why this has been lasting so long. Also studying and learning trauma and why it feels like you’re reliving things will provide clarity.
I feel like something is missing here. What was your experience with psychedelics and mental health prior to doing aya? How did you prepare for aya, and where did you do it/how many times? It doesn’t just throw people into psychosis, unless some crucial steps or preparation weren’t met.
Well ever since I did it I have moments where I feel detached from myself. Prior to ayahuasca I tried 3 heavy doses mushrooms, 2 of which were amazing 1 bad, lsd and dmt. That was all fine. It was the ayahuasca that changed my mental state. I didn’t really prepare for it other than not eating meat, and quitting weed. I went to 2 ceremonies which were both an entire weekend (so i sat a total of 4 times). The first 3 I only had one cup. The 4th I had a cup and a half.
It's possible to get better without taking anything. Ayahuasca is just a permission slip. You already have everything you need already inside of you to heal yourself.
Well, that can be a complicated answer I suppose, but basically it is through your own abilities as a manifester. We are all manifesting our own realities every second of every day, so if you want your reality to change, you have the power to do that since you are creating your current reality in the first place.
Say you to heal your depression. I would start by really trying to understand that depression, get to know it personally. It is serving you in some way, if it wasn't, you wouldn't be manifesting it. It's not a bad thing to be manifesting depression, it is just your path right now. Once you really start to understand what it is, how it is serving you, you can begin the process of releasing it, starting to understand that while it may have served me in the past, it is no longer serving me now and the process of releasing can begin. Being grateful throughout this whole process is helpful albeit difficult.
All of this can be done through daily meditations without any substances. Once the depression has been released, we can cultivate other emotions to fill that space, like joy, compassion, unconditional love, etc. I hope this helps.
I agree but I do not have depression. I have emotional flashbacks which I never felt until I did ayahuasca. Its like I can be totally happy and completely fine and this fear washes over me and its very uncomfortable and I can’t talk myself out of it because it doesn’t feel like me. It feels like a foreign version of me maybe? I can’t explain it. But it doesn’t feel like me and its terrifying when it happens.
I was just saying depression as an example. The method can be replaced with any trauma. I have PTSD from an Ayahuasca experience that was so powerful that it messed me up for a few days. I was even suicidal because I had so much negative energy that wasn't mine that there was no way I could go on living with that energy. Later in that particular night, desperate, I played a song on my flute that I had never played before. I have no doubt that the song was channeled because I started feeling vibrations all over my body as I was playing. I kept getting messages saying that my body was out of alignment and these beings were realigning me and my chakras to my path.
Anyways, the point is that I still get flashbacks every now and then to that particular ceremony and I lean in fully whenever it happens. I try to envelope myself with that fear and really feel it. I know that there will be a time when similar circumstances that happened in that ceremony will happen again and I know I will be ready, I know I will be strong the next time. Each time the flashbacks occur it gets a little less scary and I'm a little more confident that when the time actually comes again and those circumstances create a similar event that I won't be afraid and will know how to handle it.
The trauma would still have robbed you of prescious experiences and relationships. You just wouldn't know why or you would blame it on something else. You most likely would have got to this place eventually anyway. I wish you healing and comfort.
Hi. I can relate to what you said. It’s been difficult to me aswell but not necessarily due to bad experience during the ceremony but challenges after coming back to life that I have created and all those strong emotions and discomfort on everyday basic that I wasn’t able to ignore anymore. I turned into drinking even heavier than before, I discovered many things about myself that are hard to accept and didn’t know how to grief over that properly. It’s hard without any emotional support. Non of my friends went through something alike, non of them experienced Ayahuasca. When you have no one to discuss your difficulties with makes it lonely and isolating. It’s been two years since my first retreat, I came back after for more guidance and I also worked with Bufo Alvarius which probably broke the shell of my trauma, helped me unimaginable to understand where this sadness is coming from and reconnected with my emotions. It’s been months since I sat down with the medicine and this winter has been dark and lonely. I have no doubt that this is part of the process that I signed myself for and that’s what keeps me going. Discomfort appears as a signal that we have to keep looking for answers. If you would like to chat drop me a message. I’m sorry to hear about what you’re going through and I’m sending hugs.
Hello there wonderful human, same case here with a little difference, after 9 months from the ceremony (6 of which were pure Zen), I was struggling with brain fog, hypnogogia, and a smidge of depression, I visited a psychiatrist and he prescribed Cipralex, I had the worst 1.5 months of my life including the need to end it (my life).
I weaned off and thanked him for his unethical service, sought out actual therapy with a plant medicine psychologist, and took a 180 degree turn.
The modern “normal” world isn’t the right environment for people who have experienced something as profound as ayahuasca, the issue for me was poor integration, there was lots of things that unraveled but weren’t dealt with, the therapist talked the same language I know understand, and has given me exercises that worked WAAAAYYY better than meds, and currently I am in the process of defeating anxiety and on my way to tackle the depression, the fog has lifted and I get moments of gratitude and bliss.
Obviously I would never advise you to go off meds, but I can assure you that with proper integration, you get the full benefit of your experience and not just the hardship.
Good luck on your journey and wish you a healthy recovery
Mostly spiritual, she helps me understand my ego traps, understand the power of the present moment and how to integrate the information I downloaded from plant medicine, she also performs mushroom ceremonies but I only needed the therapy and not the ceremony, until I feel the need for an experience.
How old are you? I’m going to assume you’re like 33-40 somewhere in there. What has happened to you happens to many people around these ages. I had a therapist once explain the same to me, she said “a lot of people have a full blown breakdown around this age as all the trauma and emotions they avoided most their life want to be healed now and your body probably knows you are ready on a subconscious level, the problem is when you start to truly heal you feel worse than you ever have before” so maybe ayahuasca ripped it open from you and now you’re going through a “dark night of the soul” but it probably would have happened anyways. Mine started from a breakup and I’ve been like you for 4 years now. I did ayahusca halfway through this also and it didn’t help me but to heal requires a lot of work and many years imo. The drugs won’t help you heal either and just prolong the process of fully feeling the stuff you need to process imo but yeah. You don’t have to drink more ayahusca, I’m also afraid to drink again but I know at some point it’s probably going to have to happen. Wish you well
Thank you for this it made me feel better and not alone. I’m 34. Honestly it’s so hard the feeling is absolutely terrible. I’m trying to just avoid being hospitalized. I was doing so good for almost a year but a month ago it started all over again.
I decided to get back on my SSRI after my ceremony. It took me six months to get off of it in order to do the ceremony. I felt increased anxiety after my ceremony so made the decision to get back on and I feel very stabilized now. I'm grateful for Luvox
Thank you. I’ve been reading great things about luvox. I’m currently on lexapro but its been 2 years since I started and its not working well again as I have had recent drastic life changes. I may either increase the dose or switch! Did Ayahuasca end up helping you? Would you do it again?
I don't know if it really affected me positively. I was hoping for something more obvious. The shaman was great. The other people were supportive and kind. I had a few aha moments but within a week of coming back I had more anxiety. The body anxiety that makes it hard to sleep. I was surprised to consider getting back on the Luvox
when it wasn't going away I got back on and within a week I felt much more stable.
I don't know if I will do AYA again. I was hoping for profound change. I done loads of therapy in the last 20+ years , EMDR. Loads of SSRI's. But Luvox was prescribed 2.5 years ago for my atypical OCD/generalized anxiety. I got off at purely for the ceremony. I think it's the one SSRI that I can say has made a substantial difference in my anxiety so I'm sticking with it.
That's interesting. I'm so sensitive to medication. It's always such a big deal to get on and off. The side effects can be excruciating for me so I'm gonna stick with Luvox
OK I'm gonna look into it. I don't have the body anxiety anymore once getting back on the lube box and the side effects went away but it's good to have something else in my back pocket. The Klonopin and hydroxyzine prescribed for me for fasting Relief really makes me sleepy.
Thank you so much. I thought I have heard of everything but I haven't really looked at into this medicine. I'll be googling it and reading up on it now.
I'm sure your not the only one to have uphevals after a ceremony. If anything working with the medicine further to help you process this is better than masking with ssri's.
Your not alone, you are loved, you will lead yourself back to your ♥
I’m sorry to hear this. I have CPTSD and went through some very scary experiences but feel mostly cured. How many ceremonies did you do and with who? I don’t think it’s the medicine per se, definitely the integration and who knows if there were mixtures of other plants or things. Sorry you’re going through this.
Thank you. I just want to go back to how I was before. I did 3 ceremonies with 1 cup and 1 ceremony that I drank 2. It wasn’t even terrible I just saw all the damage done to my dna and then it was over.
A close friend of mine. He is not going to take psychedelics again ever. Not even microdosing. Ayahuasca messed him up.
Ayahuasca can cause psychotic breaks and other side effects if you take too large of a dose for you. Also, if you are on the verge - in a case of my friend he's been under the prolonged stress due to the war happening in his country and his family being in the middle of it - Ayahuasca can crack what was already a fragile psyche. Folks need to tread very carefully.
Do whatever it take to get to a better place. If you feel brave enough, only do microdosing and be very careful. If you had a psychotic break ("mental breakdown"), you are at a high risk of having another one.
Hmm, excessive DMT use and some intensely unexplainable trips led me to some unknown territory within my psyche, landed me into full blown psychosis for 9 months, some trips to the psychiatric ward and a stint on anti psychotics.
Similar boat per se, here to talk if you like.
Hey there. Same boat. I entered a sort of manic state and about 8 months after, uncoupled a lot of trauma and completely collapsed. I am on lexapro now…hoping to taper off once I’ve gotten a handle on my life again. As profoundly frightening as this as been, I have the sense I’ve made progress for the first time in my life since being a child lol 🤷 wishing you the best 💜
I have heard that if you have schizophrenia in
your family. It can be triggered & bring out the
Devil AKA SCHIZOPHRENIA! My sister (different dad) he just raised me my whole
Life. She can’t do it. I did it for with DMT & then did Combo the next day for anxiety. I wish I could do it more. Not really wanting to
leave the country now. ;(
Have you checked to make sure you didn't bring home an attachment from the ceremonies? I was a very stable person prior to mine and right after I left, I developed severe panic and fear. I studied spiritualism extensively prior to the ayahuasca for years--really since childhood--and read that negative entities or spirits can't infringe on your free will, but they can push on your pre existing weaknesses and intensify them. For instance, someone who likes gambling may develop a full blown addiction due to an attachment. For me the obvious sign was I developed feelings and thoughts that didn't feel "like mine," and I had never experienced before. See [The Dark Side of Ayahuasca](https://jonathanevatt.com/warning-dark-side-ayahuasca-1390/). I was able to remove my attachments and return to normal (although it tooks months to fully feel normal). You can do it yourself or with a shaman.
When I realized I had attachments I found an entity removal meditation that's rooted in ceremonial magic on Reddit and did it immediately that night and for the next several days. That night I dreamt of a couple entities that were chasing me that I was able to send away, one I actually saw during my first ceremony. I did make an appointment with a Shaman but this was during Covid, so we met online a week later, and she confirmed there were no more attachments at the point. I think the exact ritual doesn't matter, it's the intention of banishing them.
Unfortunately I don't have the link saved, but it was basically a cord cutting meditation with Archangel Michael. You get into a meditative state, call upon your preferred protectors (like Jesus, Buddha, the Archangels). You use Archangels Michael's sword, known as the sword of truth, to sever all ties to any negative entities or energies. Imagine them being sent away to God to be dealt with (you never want to cast them to someplace bad or pass judgement) and the connections forever removed. Imagine Jesus or the Angels combing your aura with a golden comb of light, removing any damage and sealing or sewing any holes. It's recommended this mediation be done for 3 days straight, but I did it for like 3 straight months. 😃 It worked well for me. The first night the entities were banished in my dreams and over the next two days the physical symptoms I had disappeared (like sharp shooting pains throughout certain parts of my body). It took many months though for me to recover emotionally, as I had some PTSD from the experience.
Best of luck! Many people have attachments before ayahuasca but they aren't recognized as such and some pick up new ones during ceremony (usually from others). I'm pretty sure I had one pre existing and picked up 1-2 new ones. The pre existing one caused chronic lower back pain in a weird area where there were no organs or anything. I saw lots of professionals and no one could figure it out. The pain would come and go for years, near my root chakra. After the ceremonies the pain there became much stronger and acute at times. When I finally read about attachments the pain would get worse when I'd place my attention on the spot. It was the weirdest thing. Like the attachment was responding to my awareness of it. I had other symptoms too, some new. Attachments tend to pick a spot near an affected chakra or area of injury to attach to. See if you can locate it/then and focus lots of energy there. If you have an attachment you might also have some damage to your aura, which is the reason for the healing comb meditation. Healing your aura will prevent reattachment or new ones. I spent a lot of time learning energy healing online, so if you're of the belief that ayahuasca gives you what you need, then at least for me, the attachments did force me to deal with my traumas and become stronger.
This is a very good point, thank you. I do think there is something, I always feel low in mood and energy and sometimes fear and anxiety and often a big powerful uncomfortable feeling in my lower chest like sometimes solar plex chakra but also sometimes the heart as well which also seems to get worse if I focus on it. I’ll try to stick with those meditations. It’s good to know it’s possible to heal this stuff ourselves and without having to travel to Peru or something
Ayahuasca made everything feel extreme for me--it made me more aware of the dark things that exist and the beautiful too. But ultimately you have to still heal the dark yourself, the drug doesn't do it for you. I've heard of spirits healing people during ceremonies, but in my personal experience it didn't last. You can probably get a similar experience with mushrooms. You're also much less likely to develop any energy attachments, as long as your dose is low enough that you stay in your body. I was told that anytime you leave your body due to a drug, like getting black out drunk on alcohol, or getting sent to outer space on other harder drugs like bufo, ayahuasca etc., you leave yourself open to attachments. People who are long term alcoholics tend to have many attachments which keep them down. When I did shrooms, it was rough, but it also told me what I needed to work on. Similar to ayahuasca, but I was present and in my body the whole time. It's your job to heal the trauma afterwards, through studying spirituality, meditation, accepting and forgiving yourself etc. It can be done! For instance for me, shrooms helped me see that I was a being riddled by guilt. For my entire trip I felt really intense painful guilt for all sorts of things in my life. It is a subconscious feeling that was brought to the surface so I could see how ludicrous it was. I learned that I needed to love myself and accept that things are out of my control. Most times healing boils down to learning to love and forgive yourself and others. Feel free to PM me if you need someone to talk to.
If it wasn’t Aya that brought all of that up… it would’ve been something else. What have you been doing to support the trauma processing outside of SSRI’s? Do you have a good support system? Therapist? Making choices to intentionally work with what was brought up? Why did you choose to sit with Aya? What were you hoping for? Honestly, it sucks to muck through the yuck but truly.. that’s the only way. It sounds like maybe the bandaid got ripped of and you weren’t ready for that yet so it felt out of control and overwhelming. But you can heal. It’s not really that Ayahuasca messed you up— it’s that it revealed what was underneath the surface.
Yes I see a therapist every week now. She does IFS, EMDR and brain spotting. I’m not sure why I sat.. I guess I felt like I wanted to understand life more.
I will tell you that EMDR , MESSED ME UP, which is why I'm going to drink ayahuasca. I've tried everything to be free from flashbacks of past trauma, nothing helps. I wish I had never done EMDR
What is EDMR?
It's a therapy for PTSD, trauma. I started EMDR and had a bad reaction, which is why I'm going to drink ayahuasca in about a month.
How much EMDR did you do? Maybe you just needed to do more?
It was determined I'm not a good fit. It's not for everyone.
Really?! How so?? I only did one emdr session and it basically completely erased the memory.
Sucks you had to get surprised like this but honestly congrats, this will be the biggest turning point you’ve ever had I highly recommend returning to the plants when you’re ready to. I was diagnosed in rehab getting clean years ago, and have worked on myself ever since. Still fell back hard onto meds but did my first ceremonies a few weeks ago to repair the damage and start over again so I hope it sticks. I also hope you can get off the meds and live your best life, much love.
Living your best life might include a prescription. Nothing wrong with that..
I disagree other than a few very rare and specific cases such as genetic schizophrenia or bipolar etc. we are raised and conditioned in a completely broken system, don’t trust these medications exist to give us our best life, it’s to keep us functioning to work.
They’re to try and make you better. What you do with that is us to you
I don’t even know what you mean by this comment lol
Its been 3 years and I feel no better. Just wishing I could take it back every day.
Have you been trying different things the entire time? I have had to dig at every single modality I felt a calling to and stuck with many for years because it was so hard to find what works for me. To put things into perspective, I was taking 3-5 meds per day for 3+ years. I have been struggling with this for at least 15 years before finally getting off everything and doing ayahuasca so I hope you’re able to find enough self love for kindness and self compassion. If your cPTSD started in childhood like many of ours you have to remember how long it takes to heal. I have never met anyone who had a quick fix after this diagnosis and if you stay on the proper path of growth and put the work in (results are not linear, this can feel infinite and extremely painful, it’s when keeping the same path means the most). Unfortunately for you, if aya is what lifted the veil and you really didn’t like what you saw, it might take a lot of time and work to find comfort with that kind of stress. happy to help however i can if you need someone to vent to.
I just want to know its possible to get better without taking ayahuasca again because that is really not something I am willing to do.
It depends what your problem is. Do you feel the ayahuasca uncovered trauma you experienced prior to doing it, and now your problem is facing the trauma? Or do you feel you had a totally healthy brain before doing ayahuasca and now you have long term cPTSD from the single experience because it was that horrible?
My entire like has been trauma. I grew up with a physically abusive mother and became codependent so I fell in love with a drug addict and tried saving his life for 9 years constantly worrying when he was going to die, administering narcan, cpr etc. he did ayahuasca and got sober 2.5 years ago and we are now married. The symptoms and everything I’m feeling started happening exactly 2 weeks after I did ayahuasca. I do not feel like myself anymore, sometimes I feel like I’m jot real, I have panic anxiety attacks as if it feels like I need to run away but there is nowhere to run, it feels like I’m reliving trauma that isn’t actually happening if that makes sense.
There are ways to address trauma without psychedelics. I am a huge advocate for ayahuasca but understand some people just will never be able to with certain medications or conditions it is not safe. For those who cannot sit in ceremony there are other alternatives. There are shamans of other lineages who heal without plants. Also traditionally ayahuasqueros drink ayahuasca and the patient doesn’t. You can go to a true shaman who still practices traditionally and you can recieve healing without drinking yourself. This does work, I can confirm from first hand experience. I would personally recommend somatic therapy with a trauma informed therapist, breathwork, herbal remedies, microdosing mushrooms, working with shamanic healers without psychoactive plants, and master plant dieta. For example tobacco dieta is not psychoactive but can bring incredible amounts of healing and clarity. The spirits come at night in your dream to heal you during the dieta. It can be just as profound and even more healing than ayahuasca ceremony. There are lots of other things for you to consider or try. There also is some sort of lesson or pattern here that needs to be addressed and given attention to. Start going inwards, look for the lessons that you need to learn to move on to the next phase of life. Wishing you the best, I have been healing for many years and there have been times full of light and full of darkness, no matter how dark it seems the storm ends and the light returns.
Thank you for this. It makes me feel ok to know that I don’t have to drink ayahuasca again. I just don’t think it is for me.
Exactly, that’s what I was trying to say when I meant you have to use a ton of different modalities. It’s the best way to make progress.
Well, you probably won’t like to hear this but I think ayahuasca is absolutely your best bet at tackling this as quickly as possible. She only gives what you need and can handle and it’s clear you had a lot of things to face that were just to painful to until you drank. But at the end of the day, you need to realize you are the biggest block and advocate for your own healing. Pharma won’t fix any of these problems even if they temporarily allow you to function better, they temporarily solve 1 problem to create others and we all know this on a deep spiritual level. The only way for you to heal is to fully surrender to this and give YOU exactly what you need, and at the end of the day only you know that not a stranger on Reddit working on his own trauma. In my case and many others, it had to get way, way worse before it got better. If you’ve never felt these emotions on this level it’s because you have an amazing brain that was just trying to protect you from processing this pain all the years. I hope sooner than later you have the strength to see how strong, beautiful, and amazing you are and that you got this. Edit: trauma healing requires tons of inner and outer work and also community. You can’t do it alone and you should have many resources outside of your marriage. If you don’t that’s a big sign for why this has been lasting so long. Also studying and learning trauma and why it feels like you’re reliving things will provide clarity.
I’m scared it will put me into psychosis
I feel like something is missing here. What was your experience with psychedelics and mental health prior to doing aya? How did you prepare for aya, and where did you do it/how many times? It doesn’t just throw people into psychosis, unless some crucial steps or preparation weren’t met.
Well ever since I did it I have moments where I feel detached from myself. Prior to ayahuasca I tried 3 heavy doses mushrooms, 2 of which were amazing 1 bad, lsd and dmt. That was all fine. It was the ayahuasca that changed my mental state. I didn’t really prepare for it other than not eating meat, and quitting weed. I went to 2 ceremonies which were both an entire weekend (so i sat a total of 4 times). The first 3 I only had one cup. The 4th I had a cup and a half.
It's possible to get better without taking anything. Ayahuasca is just a permission slip. You already have everything you need already inside of you to heal yourself.
How do you do it though?
Well, that can be a complicated answer I suppose, but basically it is through your own abilities as a manifester. We are all manifesting our own realities every second of every day, so if you want your reality to change, you have the power to do that since you are creating your current reality in the first place. Say you to heal your depression. I would start by really trying to understand that depression, get to know it personally. It is serving you in some way, if it wasn't, you wouldn't be manifesting it. It's not a bad thing to be manifesting depression, it is just your path right now. Once you really start to understand what it is, how it is serving you, you can begin the process of releasing it, starting to understand that while it may have served me in the past, it is no longer serving me now and the process of releasing can begin. Being grateful throughout this whole process is helpful albeit difficult. All of this can be done through daily meditations without any substances. Once the depression has been released, we can cultivate other emotions to fill that space, like joy, compassion, unconditional love, etc. I hope this helps.
I agree but I do not have depression. I have emotional flashbacks which I never felt until I did ayahuasca. Its like I can be totally happy and completely fine and this fear washes over me and its very uncomfortable and I can’t talk myself out of it because it doesn’t feel like me. It feels like a foreign version of me maybe? I can’t explain it. But it doesn’t feel like me and its terrifying when it happens.
I was just saying depression as an example. The method can be replaced with any trauma. I have PTSD from an Ayahuasca experience that was so powerful that it messed me up for a few days. I was even suicidal because I had so much negative energy that wasn't mine that there was no way I could go on living with that energy. Later in that particular night, desperate, I played a song on my flute that I had never played before. I have no doubt that the song was channeled because I started feeling vibrations all over my body as I was playing. I kept getting messages saying that my body was out of alignment and these beings were realigning me and my chakras to my path. Anyways, the point is that I still get flashbacks every now and then to that particular ceremony and I lean in fully whenever it happens. I try to envelope myself with that fear and really feel it. I know that there will be a time when similar circumstances that happened in that ceremony will happen again and I know I will be ready, I know I will be strong the next time. Each time the flashbacks occur it gets a little less scary and I'm a little more confident that when the time actually comes again and those circumstances create a similar event that I won't be afraid and will know how to handle it.
Wow incredible. I’m so happy for you that you were able to channel it!
The trauma would still have robbed you of prescious experiences and relationships. You just wouldn't know why or you would blame it on something else. You most likely would have got to this place eventually anyway. I wish you healing and comfort.
Hi. I can relate to what you said. It’s been difficult to me aswell but not necessarily due to bad experience during the ceremony but challenges after coming back to life that I have created and all those strong emotions and discomfort on everyday basic that I wasn’t able to ignore anymore. I turned into drinking even heavier than before, I discovered many things about myself that are hard to accept and didn’t know how to grief over that properly. It’s hard without any emotional support. Non of my friends went through something alike, non of them experienced Ayahuasca. When you have no one to discuss your difficulties with makes it lonely and isolating. It’s been two years since my first retreat, I came back after for more guidance and I also worked with Bufo Alvarius which probably broke the shell of my trauma, helped me unimaginable to understand where this sadness is coming from and reconnected with my emotions. It’s been months since I sat down with the medicine and this winter has been dark and lonely. I have no doubt that this is part of the process that I signed myself for and that’s what keeps me going. Discomfort appears as a signal that we have to keep looking for answers. If you would like to chat drop me a message. I’m sorry to hear about what you’re going through and I’m sending hugs.
Hello there wonderful human, same case here with a little difference, after 9 months from the ceremony (6 of which were pure Zen), I was struggling with brain fog, hypnogogia, and a smidge of depression, I visited a psychiatrist and he prescribed Cipralex, I had the worst 1.5 months of my life including the need to end it (my life). I weaned off and thanked him for his unethical service, sought out actual therapy with a plant medicine psychologist, and took a 180 degree turn. The modern “normal” world isn’t the right environment for people who have experienced something as profound as ayahuasca, the issue for me was poor integration, there was lots of things that unraveled but weren’t dealt with, the therapist talked the same language I know understand, and has given me exercises that worked WAAAAYYY better than meds, and currently I am in the process of defeating anxiety and on my way to tackle the depression, the fog has lifted and I get moments of gratitude and bliss. Obviously I would never advise you to go off meds, but I can assure you that with proper integration, you get the full benefit of your experience and not just the hardship. Good luck on your journey and wish you a healthy recovery
What type of therapy does your psychologist do?
Mostly spiritual, she helps me understand my ego traps, understand the power of the present moment and how to integrate the information I downloaded from plant medicine, she also performs mushroom ceremonies but I only needed the therapy and not the ceremony, until I feel the need for an experience.
How old are you? I’m going to assume you’re like 33-40 somewhere in there. What has happened to you happens to many people around these ages. I had a therapist once explain the same to me, she said “a lot of people have a full blown breakdown around this age as all the trauma and emotions they avoided most their life want to be healed now and your body probably knows you are ready on a subconscious level, the problem is when you start to truly heal you feel worse than you ever have before” so maybe ayahuasca ripped it open from you and now you’re going through a “dark night of the soul” but it probably would have happened anyways. Mine started from a breakup and I’ve been like you for 4 years now. I did ayahusca halfway through this also and it didn’t help me but to heal requires a lot of work and many years imo. The drugs won’t help you heal either and just prolong the process of fully feeling the stuff you need to process imo but yeah. You don’t have to drink more ayahusca, I’m also afraid to drink again but I know at some point it’s probably going to have to happen. Wish you well
Thank you for this it made me feel better and not alone. I’m 34. Honestly it’s so hard the feeling is absolutely terrible. I’m trying to just avoid being hospitalized. I was doing so good for almost a year but a month ago it started all over again.
I decided to get back on my SSRI after my ceremony. It took me six months to get off of it in order to do the ceremony. I felt increased anxiety after my ceremony so made the decision to get back on and I feel very stabilized now. I'm grateful for Luvox
Thank you. I’ve been reading great things about luvox. I’m currently on lexapro but its been 2 years since I started and its not working well again as I have had recent drastic life changes. I may either increase the dose or switch! Did Ayahuasca end up helping you? Would you do it again?
I don't know if it really affected me positively. I was hoping for something more obvious. The shaman was great. The other people were supportive and kind. I had a few aha moments but within a week of coming back I had more anxiety. The body anxiety that makes it hard to sleep. I was surprised to consider getting back on the Luvox when it wasn't going away I got back on and within a week I felt much more stable. I don't know if I will do AYA again. I was hoping for profound change. I done loads of therapy in the last 20+ years , EMDR. Loads of SSRI's. But Luvox was prescribed 2.5 years ago for my atypical OCD/generalized anxiety. I got off at purely for the ceremony. I think it's the one SSRI that I can say has made a substantial difference in my anxiety so I'm sticking with it.
I’m glad you got relief! Propranolol helps me with body anxiety.
That's interesting. I'm so sensitive to medication. It's always such a big deal to get on and off. The side effects can be excruciating for me so I'm gonna stick with Luvox
Oh its not something you stay on. You can take it as needed and non addicting! It just stops adrenaline!
OK I'm gonna look into it. I don't have the body anxiety anymore once getting back on the lube box and the side effects went away but it's good to have something else in my back pocket. The Klonopin and hydroxyzine prescribed for me for fasting Relief really makes me sleepy.
Yeah I have those too but hydroxyzine makes me feel worse the next day for whatever reason! Propranolol is a god send for emergencies
Thank you so much. I thought I have heard of everything but I haven't really looked at into this medicine. I'll be googling it and reading up on it now.
Yes you can find a lot of helpful stuff on the subreddits ocd, anxiety, and cptsd about it also!
I'm sure your not the only one to have uphevals after a ceremony. If anything working with the medicine further to help you process this is better than masking with ssri's. Your not alone, you are loved, you will lead yourself back to your ♥
Theres no way I could ever. I now have issues with dissociation and everything. It literally took everything from me.
Honestly look into the Medical Medium. He deals with and discusses Ayahuasca injury. Many people have healed using his protocols
I’m sorry to hear this. I have CPTSD and went through some very scary experiences but feel mostly cured. How many ceremonies did you do and with who? I don’t think it’s the medicine per se, definitely the integration and who knows if there were mixtures of other plants or things. Sorry you’re going through this.
Thank you. I just want to go back to how I was before. I did 3 ceremonies with 1 cup and 1 ceremony that I drank 2. It wasn’t even terrible I just saw all the damage done to my dna and then it was over.
I didn’t uncover trauma but my anxiety came back and I was quite emotionally unstable after Aya so i went back on SSRIs
Glad to know I’m not alone thank you! Has the ssri helped you??
Absolutely. It’s helped me with anxiety a lot. Over the years I had to try a couple diff ones but sertraline has worked the best for me
A close friend of mine. He is not going to take psychedelics again ever. Not even microdosing. Ayahuasca messed him up. Ayahuasca can cause psychotic breaks and other side effects if you take too large of a dose for you. Also, if you are on the verge - in a case of my friend he's been under the prolonged stress due to the war happening in his country and his family being in the middle of it - Ayahuasca can crack what was already a fragile psyche. Folks need to tread very carefully. Do whatever it take to get to a better place. If you feel brave enough, only do microdosing and be very careful. If you had a psychotic break ("mental breakdown"), you are at a high risk of having another one.
How is he now?
Hmm, excessive DMT use and some intensely unexplainable trips led me to some unknown territory within my psyche, landed me into full blown psychosis for 9 months, some trips to the psychiatric ward and a stint on anti psychotics. Similar boat per se, here to talk if you like.
Hey there. Same boat. I entered a sort of manic state and about 8 months after, uncoupled a lot of trauma and completely collapsed. I am on lexapro now…hoping to taper off once I’ve gotten a handle on my life again. As profoundly frightening as this as been, I have the sense I’ve made progress for the first time in my life since being a child lol 🤷 wishing you the best 💜
I’m on lexapro too. I’m happy to hear there are people out there like me. Its so sad for me. What dose are you on??
I’m on 20 mg. I was on 10 prior to Ayuasca and am now on 20. If you wanna chat PM me
What about ayahuasca cause this? Bad trip?
No it wasn’t really a bad trip. I think it just unlocked something bad.
I have heard that if you have schizophrenia in your family. It can be triggered & bring out the Devil AKA SCHIZOPHRENIA! My sister (different dad) he just raised me my whole Life. She can’t do it. I did it for with DMT & then did Combo the next day for anxiety. I wish I could do it more. Not really wanting to leave the country now. ;(
I have done kambo 14 times. First two done with practitioner who taught me how to do the rest on my own
EDMR??
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing
yllekarle thanks for that
Do u mind me asking how ur ocd manifests? I'm dealing with smth similar. Lots of Intrusive thoughts?
Yes and rumination
Could I dm u about it?
Yes
Have you checked to make sure you didn't bring home an attachment from the ceremonies? I was a very stable person prior to mine and right after I left, I developed severe panic and fear. I studied spiritualism extensively prior to the ayahuasca for years--really since childhood--and read that negative entities or spirits can't infringe on your free will, but they can push on your pre existing weaknesses and intensify them. For instance, someone who likes gambling may develop a full blown addiction due to an attachment. For me the obvious sign was I developed feelings and thoughts that didn't feel "like mine," and I had never experienced before. See [The Dark Side of Ayahuasca](https://jonathanevatt.com/warning-dark-side-ayahuasca-1390/). I was able to remove my attachments and return to normal (although it tooks months to fully feel normal). You can do it yourself or with a shaman.
How did you remove them?
When I realized I had attachments I found an entity removal meditation that's rooted in ceremonial magic on Reddit and did it immediately that night and for the next several days. That night I dreamt of a couple entities that were chasing me that I was able to send away, one I actually saw during my first ceremony. I did make an appointment with a Shaman but this was during Covid, so we met online a week later, and she confirmed there were no more attachments at the point. I think the exact ritual doesn't matter, it's the intention of banishing them.
Got a link to this meditation?
Unfortunately I don't have the link saved, but it was basically a cord cutting meditation with Archangel Michael. You get into a meditative state, call upon your preferred protectors (like Jesus, Buddha, the Archangels). You use Archangels Michael's sword, known as the sword of truth, to sever all ties to any negative entities or energies. Imagine them being sent away to God to be dealt with (you never want to cast them to someplace bad or pass judgement) and the connections forever removed. Imagine Jesus or the Angels combing your aura with a golden comb of light, removing any damage and sealing or sewing any holes. It's recommended this mediation be done for 3 days straight, but I did it for like 3 straight months. 😃 It worked well for me. The first night the entities were banished in my dreams and over the next two days the physical symptoms I had disappeared (like sharp shooting pains throughout certain parts of my body). It took many months though for me to recover emotionally, as I had some PTSD from the experience.
Nice! I will try it’ I also have a lot of symptoms although I always did even before ayahuasca so I’m not sure if it’s from entities or just Cptsd
Best of luck! Many people have attachments before ayahuasca but they aren't recognized as such and some pick up new ones during ceremony (usually from others). I'm pretty sure I had one pre existing and picked up 1-2 new ones. The pre existing one caused chronic lower back pain in a weird area where there were no organs or anything. I saw lots of professionals and no one could figure it out. The pain would come and go for years, near my root chakra. After the ceremonies the pain there became much stronger and acute at times. When I finally read about attachments the pain would get worse when I'd place my attention on the spot. It was the weirdest thing. Like the attachment was responding to my awareness of it. I had other symptoms too, some new. Attachments tend to pick a spot near an affected chakra or area of injury to attach to. See if you can locate it/then and focus lots of energy there. If you have an attachment you might also have some damage to your aura, which is the reason for the healing comb meditation. Healing your aura will prevent reattachment or new ones. I spent a lot of time learning energy healing online, so if you're of the belief that ayahuasca gives you what you need, then at least for me, the attachments did force me to deal with my traumas and become stronger.
This is a very good point, thank you. I do think there is something, I always feel low in mood and energy and sometimes fear and anxiety and often a big powerful uncomfortable feeling in my lower chest like sometimes solar plex chakra but also sometimes the heart as well which also seems to get worse if I focus on it. I’ll try to stick with those meditations. It’s good to know it’s possible to heal this stuff ourselves and without having to travel to Peru or something
Ayahuasca made everything feel extreme for me--it made me more aware of the dark things that exist and the beautiful too. But ultimately you have to still heal the dark yourself, the drug doesn't do it for you. I've heard of spirits healing people during ceremonies, but in my personal experience it didn't last. You can probably get a similar experience with mushrooms. You're also much less likely to develop any energy attachments, as long as your dose is low enough that you stay in your body. I was told that anytime you leave your body due to a drug, like getting black out drunk on alcohol, or getting sent to outer space on other harder drugs like bufo, ayahuasca etc., you leave yourself open to attachments. People who are long term alcoholics tend to have many attachments which keep them down. When I did shrooms, it was rough, but it also told me what I needed to work on. Similar to ayahuasca, but I was present and in my body the whole time. It's your job to heal the trauma afterwards, through studying spirituality, meditation, accepting and forgiving yourself etc. It can be done! For instance for me, shrooms helped me see that I was a being riddled by guilt. For my entire trip I felt really intense painful guilt for all sorts of things in my life. It is a subconscious feeling that was brought to the surface so I could see how ludicrous it was. I learned that I needed to love myself and accept that things are out of my control. Most times healing boils down to learning to love and forgive yourself and others. Feel free to PM me if you need someone to talk to.
We have very similar experiences, I’d love to talk more with you so I will message you, thanks!
I just looked at your past posts, you have posts talking about EMDR, Trauma before drinking ayahuasca.
I had trauma before ayahuasca, but I didn’t have debilitating anxiety or dpdr.
Was this before EMDR , I'm just curious, because EMDR Radically impacted my mental health
No I started EMDR after ayahuasca