Aripiprazole was basically MDMA 2.0, with constant come-up and come-downs on an irregular basis over the course of the day, for 3 subjective years.
The first 3 days I felt like I was on a rocket and then on day 4 I realised that my life until that point had been a lie.
I had never experienced joy. Nothing compared to the wellbeing and sense of calm and openness to the universe I had on day 4 and for the next fortnight.
I have dodgy dopamine receptors, so I get very easily addicted to things. The mechanism of addiction to anything is dopamine. Aripiprazole bypasses the entire dopamine system and binds directly to your receptors, so for me it was every addiction rolled in one and then multiplied by 100, immediately.
I knew that I would rather die than have this med taken away from me.
It sent me crazy initially but over time it made me insane.
As well as being the missing piece to my entire life, it made me feel at one with god. I didn’t have visual hallucinations outside of ‘Van Gogh vision’ (my sight looked like a Van Gogh painting; 4D), but I felt a constant abiding warmth. Fate (the ship) was within me, and I could do no wrong. Everything about my cage was curated by this benevolent force. Even if I killed myself, it would be for the purpose. James was inconsequential and just a vehicle.
My thoughts felt like silken sand. I could feel them flow through my brain and it was so incredibly pleasurable. Or they were like an angle grinder in my cheekbones, sawing at my skull. Or I could feel the molecule moving up and down my spinal column like razorblades, in the place of dopamine.
I swear I could feel these things, because the molecule size is larger. Either that or I was feeling electric jolts from seizures, but I could literally feel billions of tiny particles moving like sand through an hourglass, across my entire skull and sometimes out through my fingertips. I could *feel* the energy of the universe, and my own life force.
I was also in utter, abject agony at every second. I was ecstatic and in so so so much pain. The shooting barbs up and down my spinal column. The ever increasing intensity of the steel wool in my skull. If I didn't’ constantly meditate with the knives I would feel like I was going to explode or kill myself at any moment.
Utterly ecstatic and could never let it go. 3 years for me. Time dilation and only sleeping an hour a night.
I still don’t know how I managed to stop. It was more addictive than opioids, cocaine, stimulants, alcohol, nicotine and caffein combined (I’ve been addicted to half and tried them all). One dose and I was gone.
I am certain I flush this drug ultra rapidly so was in a constant state of withdrawal, not just because of the drug leaving my system but because of the unusual dopaminergic activation curve. I’ll draw a picture.
I literally got to observe motivation in its ‘pure’ form, without object or target. This was a chemical craving caused by the thing that alleviated it, and it had in a way bypassed all conscious thought by taking the place of the molecule we use to think: dopamine. This thing *was* my thoughts.
My mind was quiet and I was sharp. When thoughts came out, they fell like silken sand and I could feel them just pouring onto the page in complete form. It was orgasmic.
Aripiprazole actually woke me up with an orgasm once. It had me collapse on the floor in full body ecstasy. It had me in constant seizure and pain but also had be living at one with the universe. I was the ship; I was one with what most would call God or Fate. I was everything and I was love and compassion and I was absolute; nothing I could think could be wrong.
So this was heaven in a pill. And it put me in touch with god. And it was killing me. And I have absolutely no idea how I managed to stop.
It was the buddhism that saved me. The meditator.
He knew that no joy came from these cravings. And ari was craving itself. It had to go, even if it meant killing god.
I chose to kill god to stay with my family; it beat doing things the other way round.
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