It begun for me after smoking weed one night - in a flash I was outside my body with an extreme panic attack and the sudden belief that I was inside essentially a game. This first panic attack lasted around an hour or two. It was horrendous. Your PTSD is something you can manage, I have it too. It gets better and weaker as the years go on. For myself, this all happened 18 years ago but it made me a stronger person.

Marijuana actually triggers panic attacks in a similar way for me. None of the other psychedelics trigger it as bad as marijuana. Even then it’s a different type of management if it’s from shrooms or lsd. The marijuana one feels psychotic with short term memory loss vs just experiencing a different reality.

Any time you feel the onset of a panic attack, tell yourself it’s just a panic attack. Make yourself think of a happy thought and stay with it. Repeat a mantra in your head “Everything will be alright in the end, if it’s not alright, it’s not the end”. Try to go up and down the alphabet, maybe skipping letters - every 2 letters at a time; a, c, e, g… And backwards. Multiply numbers, etc. And do not smoke bongs, smoke only single skin joints which aren’t packed. These are a few of my techniques.

Cannabis is a very strong (and often unpleasant) psychedelic for someone I know — rivaling LSD if not stronger. I’ve heard of this being true for other people too; I wonder how common it is.

This is why I can only smoke the tiniest bit. And only a couple of times a year - it’s not the same as LSD or mushrooms, but it’s just as intense what it does to my mind.

This is true for me, mainly because the major effect of psychedelic drugs for me is completely 'internal' to my mind. Actually most of my trips are basically just extensions of the last one because I just revert to the same (psychotic) thought patterns. It's a pretty awful place to be which ultimately led to me getting PTSD after smoking a joint and believing some awful stuff about my existence.

You're not the only one, how many of us out there?

Seems like we were the only ones!

I wouldn't have been surprised if there was more though. I think the kind of people on here probably think too much/overanalyze stuff to begin with and my impression is that trait doesn't mix super well with psychedelics.

At least I feel like the fundamental cause of my PTSD inducing trips is wanting to explain the inexplicable.

Hope everything's going well for you though. I think it's especially hard to have this kind of PTSD because people don't take it very seriously and it's either socially embarrassing or triggering to try and talk about it to begin with.

Mine was a long time ago now (~7 years), I was pretty horribly messed up and dysfunctional for the first 2-3 years but I'm mostly okay now. I have HPPD too but that's also mostly subsided, and things only flare up for me if I go without sleep or am under a lot of stress.

Hope you're doing alright too!

I also take Buspirone, which I've found helps a ton with general anxiety.

I can share the sentiment. I got stuck in a few loops on psychedelics and it was tumultuous to say the least. Overall it was a net positive effect but it’s certainly not the only way for “enlightenment.” It’s perhaps the most masochist path to enlightenment. Perhaps Alan Watts said that.

Well we have to learn not to lie to ourselves, one way or another.

Ain't that the truth.

Dang, this did give me a panic attack. The sort of thing OP describes is my greatest fear, and I have a hard time dealing with the fact that it really happens to some people.

To be fair, I suffered anxiety since I was 7 or 8yrs old and had a shitty start at life. That snapping experience was a long time coming for me. Don’t be worrying it will happen to you, cause it’s pointless unless it has happened and it’s not worth the worry.