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This is a great resource to anyone interested in psychedelics in general. I've only done psychedelics twice in my lifetime, both with the same friend, and both times NOT in ideal scenarios (because we were both tripping without a sober person trip-sitting us). I would like to warn anyone interested that *tripping is risky if you suffer from high anxiety or OCD*.

My first trip was an incredible experience, I couldn't wait for my next chance to trip. Unfortunately, my second trip went south very fast; I became very anxious and I started having fears that I would unreasonably kill myself or murder my friend. What I didn't know at the time was that I suffered from "Harm OCD" and that the psychedelics were magnifying my OCD tenfold, and thus triggered a horrendous panic attack that wouldn't end until the effects of the drugs wore off.




I've tripped dozens of times on lsd, shrooms, dmt and a few RCs. I'm also suffering from such fears during the comeup. after it it's usually smooth sailing. but during my 50 to 100 trips i never actually did anything harmful in any way. so that's that. but it's really annoying.


gotta build a relationship with it. once the two of you have had a heart to heart and accepted each other, you can start smoothing things out.

talking about the fear, natch.


I haven’t tried shrooms but had a similarly horrifying bad trip on weed brownies at my parents’ place a few years ago. My dad had just gotten into baking them and insisted I have two (BIG mistake) and I spent the next 6-or-so hours cycling through panic attacks and hallucinations while absolutely convinced I had murdered my parents earlier that evening.

Gotta say, my ole man knows how to make a potent pot brownie.


Do you ever feel that way normally?

I've felt it a bunch of times, but I've worked through it with meditation (without drugs)...

I think psychedelics just bring out deeper parts of the mind. I don't do them anymore, but I used to, so I have some experience. I'm not a teetotaler, I still drink alcohol and smoke weed sometimes, but I'm done with psychedelics for the time being.


Yeah, I had been experiencing it for years before I ever tried psychedelics, I just didn't know it was something "real".

Before I knew what it was, if I had an episode of "harm OCD", I would sometimes feel physically ill and excuse myself to the bathroom and repeatedly splash water on my face until the feeling went away. Sometimes I'd keep my hands behind my back on purpose (the idea being that I would harm someone with my hands).

Since learning what it is, I'm more easily able to dispel it when it arises. Simply knowing "oh, this is OCD" is powerful enough for me to get on with my life. For the record, I completely abstain from psychedelics or any recreational drugs now (with the exception of coffee, and light alcohol at social gatherings).


Sounds familiar, what is harm OCD?


> Harm OCD is a subset of classic obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). The condition is characterized by having aggressive, intrusive thoughts of doing violence to someone, as well as the responses the person uses to cope with these thoughts... OCD makes the individual feel that they can’t trust their own mind. Wherein someone without OCD could have a violent thought and recognize that it is simply a thought, a person with OCD who has the Harm OCD subset worries that just having the thought is somehow meaningful.

https://centerforanxietydisorders.com/what-is-harm-ocd/




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