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but at this party I was a little drunk, and people were being adventurous, and my friend slid up to me and was like 'do u want to eat this strip of paper' and I was like... okay you know what? YOLO. YO-goddamn-LO. I ate the paper and then sat waiting, kind of autistically. 2/

The party was on, and I didn't really know 'how' to party; I wasn't very good at interacting with the public-school-secular world yet. I had no idea what LSD was like either, I knew almost nothing about it at all. It was supposed to make your world wiggly, right? 3/

I went to the bathroom and felt relief from the pounding music noise. I was sitting on the toilet and looked up and saw that the towel was moving. I was like, that's kinda weird. In the mirror, my face was moving too. I went back out to the party and sat rigidly in the corner. 4/

And then a compulsive, inescapable introspection slowly fell over me. The music and chatter became oppressive, and my inner world began to grow huge and dark. I was like, oh. fuck. I needed to escape. The party was in a tiny apartment in a strange place, and it was loud. 5/

I wanted to be alone, in the quiet, to focus and manage all of this terrifying inner landscape rolling out inside of me and screaming at me to look at it. I ended up outside on the porch. It was raining, and my friends were very concerned about me. I was concerned about me. 6/

I was on the porch floor and clung onto the railings and sobbed loudly through it. I asked my friends to leave me alone, and they said no. I asked if they thought maybe I was going to hurt myself, and they said yes. I was like, okay this seems sensible, and tried to ignore them.

They said we should go for a walk, and bundled me up and ushered me outside the front door. It was dark, and I waited for the first chance I got and ran around the corner and dove into a bush. They chased after me, calling my name, but I really, really wanted to be alone.

Eventually it turned into a small search party for me that I easily evaded; I was barefoot, in black thigh-high stockings somehow and a big puffy jacket, and ran down the sidewalk past all the yellow lights into nowhere. 'YOU'RE OKAY. YOU'RE OKAY' i muttered to myself.

5:27 AM · Feb 16, 2021

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I realized I was going insane. My mind was utterly beyond my control, and this filled me with a calm, pervasive dread. I focused very hard as my feet padded rhythmically on the bubbling moonlit sidewalk. I needed to get my mind under control.

I found a big suburban pond and sat down next to it, wondering idly if killing myself would be a good idea. I wasn't *me* anymore. I couldn't find myself in my own mind. Every time I noticed I was noticing the effects of the drug, I then noticed *that* part of me was affected too

I needed to find the part of me that was *me*, that rested comfortably above all of this nonsense, that was like 'Ah yes Aella, what a silly experience you're having on this new drug.' Except the problem was this part wasn't there at all; there was no escape anywhere for me.

I kept scratching the side of my left wrist, hoping the pain would orient me. It didn't help. I sat there for a long time, staring at the cold water, taking layers of skin, and desperately trying to think myself sober. It was like running the wrong way on an escalator.

After the intensity of it all faded a little bit, I vaguely realized I was very cold, and in a stroke of incredible luck I managed to find my way back. They'd all been looking for me; this time when I told them I needed to be alone, they set me up in a bedroom with a cat.

I stared at the cat for a long time as I came down. I texted my partner at the time, "this is exceedingly uncomfortable". I slowly returned to myself, and eventually was pieced back together enough to join the sunrise leftovers of the party.