I had turned into some sort of stellar object.
As if the whole universe had collapsed into a single, mind-negating mother sun, rotating on its axis at an angle. A shifting, glowing, oozing, shimmering, dark, wet plasma of purple-green tint.
[This is the futile attempt of fitting a near-death experience into words. Stylized to be somewhat entertaining. Otherwise accurate, as much as it can be, across dimensions, and 13 years later.]
Most fucked up: the “sound”. A soul-shattering, rumbling roar of all-corrupting pressure waves, wiping any remainder of meaning from the faces of physics and reason. At least from first person listening position.
I watch myself, trying to perceive as little of myself as I can, for fear of going star-mad.
‘Rotating’ was an understatement. I’m spinning. At least now I am.
Am I picking up speed? Oh noes.
I refuse.
But spin faster.
The fucking sound.
And faster
As if the whole thing wasn’t enough without some bullshit rotational trajectory.
I’m scared squared.
Star-fear turns star-overwhelm.
And faster.
It just keeps going.
I fold my star-self into some inexistent corner to not interact with any of this.
It’s useless.
And faster.
A wobble adds to the rotation. I seem to overextend my own axis.
“The limit!”.
I think as we pass it.
And faster.
And faster.
And fucking faster.
I’m losing control.
The spin-wobble is raging.
And faster.
I start shaking, on top of everything.
Limitation and boundary start raping each other for a practical joke.
And faster?
Time to get violent.
I feel like I might explode.
And faster.
I have to admit, I kinda want to.
Faster.
A light beam shoots out of me.
It’s beautiful. And horrible.
And faster.
Another.
My surface starts breaking up.
And faster.
Everything starts to overlap in spasmic terror.
I blind myself.
This must be it.
Holy fuck.
Orgasmic saturation.
Time stops.
But no explosion.
Instead, I collapse neither inwards, nor backwards, but somehow into myself,
in a direction impossible to point to. After a split-second of blissful eternity, I
open my eyes. And find myself in a hospital bed, fully dressed.
It’s loud.
A homeless dude is screaming and shitting himself next to me while a group of male nurses fixate him in standing position. I consider enjoying not to be him. But I’m busy failing to process what just happened.
I challenge the definition of being present, it’s a formality at best. But enough for the crude baseline teleogy of not wanting to stay here.
In a moment of quiet, I casually put up the hood of my hoodie, get up and and walk out. No one stops me.
I half walk, half stumble forward, in what I hope is the direction of home. My vision is a morphing tunnel, as I try not to faint.
Checking bus maps for directions fails to yield any. After a while, I stop remembering what happens next. Apparently I actually make it to my door. Only to faint again and go back to the hospital. But I make it, ultimately.
[…]
Careful with SSRI/SNRI antidepressants, kids. Their therapeutic potential is disputed, especially weighed against their known list of side effects[0]
A 2018 meta-analysis of 522 studies fails to establish efficacy, with a mean 1.97 point increase on the 52 point Hamilton scale (3.85 percentage points) over placebo.
This low number seems to result out of their potential benefits being limited to a small subset of depressed patients, about 15%, according to another meta-analysis of 232 studies from 2022.
So if you really think you need them, make sure you’re in those 15%.
How? No idea. Ask your doc. Not that she/he would have any way to determine without trying a bunch on you until one seems to work. Based on subjective impression. Or not. Good luck.
Outside of this annoying science stuff- I definitely don’t recommend being as mentally inverted as me, and dosing them up under your own supervision, even when they seem to have no effect whatsoever, at all.
No matter how depressed you are. And maybe ask your psychiatrist if they really need to send you home with a 100 pack of pills in a state of questionable judgement and struggle to care for life.
And if you really feel the need to experience serotonine syndrome, try not to have it on a set of stairs. With metal edges. To collapse backwards onto. I’m confident there are better options.
And while I know it’s annoying- but be good to yourself. And stay safe. One love.
I tried about 7 or 8 different versions, to make sure I don’t miss any of these side-effects from first person view. One of my favorites was the hyper-realistic dreams I got from Amitryptiline, especially the one where I was dissecting dead unicorns, suspended in wells of pink goo, in front of the Cathedral of Chaos™, with Diablo himself.
Still seems like an actual memory in my head. Still gives me a chuckle.
Being distracted for a moment and suddenly weighing 10kg more was also cool, magical.
Ah, the list is long, and great. Maybe you should try them after all.