DOSE:	1.0 g	smoked	Salvia divinorum	(dried)
		smoked	Cannabis

BODY WEIGHT:

106 lb

I’m getting too old for this stuff. I’m only eighteen but I have experienced a wide range of drugs and a few addictions. I feel old. It was when I found mushrooms that I began to feel really old. I grew them and ate them often, and discovered the secrets of the universe, even if I forgot them the next day. I thought I was so grown up. Then came the bad trip. Twenty potent little Mexican mushrooms, twisted and albino with potency threw my mind into something unspeakably terrible. If it wasn’t for my boyfriend, I’d be alive, but not myself. I’d be insane, and he’d probably be locked up. I almost ruined both our lives that night.

I get mushroom flash backs now, and sometimes even smoking too much pot is too intense for me. For a girl who used to kick back and chain smoke fat blunts every day, I hardly smoke at all now, once an evening, or twice if I’m visiting a friend. But as much as that trip struck fear into my very soul, it also hardened me. But my mind was not ready to trip again.

Salvia would be the second drug I ever intentionally did without researching first. Normally I’m all over the Internet about a drug I want to try, or at least I was. But this Salvia really just came out of nowhere, or it kind of did.

I almost think God was warning me the day before I smoked Salvia, because I was talking to one of my high school/college friends on the Internet and he said he had ordered and tried some Salvia. As far as I know, he has never actually “tripped out” on a drug before, be he said he think he was on this stuff, and it ruled because it only lasted 20 minutes. I was skeptical, but I told him I thought it was cool.

The next day I was alone and bored and went and visited my friend (We’ll call him Nick). He told me he ordered a huge bag of Salvia leaves and asked if I wanted to try. We smoked a joint, I dropped him home, and said I was going to come back later and try that stuff. He told me to bring my glass bong. I went over later and he led me into the woods by his house. We sat on a log by the pond. We were alone and it was pleasant. I like Nick; he’s always been generous to me. I took the first hit of the bong, and ripped it like I usually do when I smoke pot. He told me to hold it in so I did. By the time I exhaled, I was light headed and giggly. Suddenly the scenery changed. It shifted and moved, till the forest closed in on itself and all I could see were the same pattern of leaves. I was frightened. My body hurt and it felt twitchy. I could no longer see my body, or Nick.

“When does this stop?” I asked. I had a very hard time speaking. “What do you mean?” he asked. He obviously didn’t know I was tripping out. The tone in his voice was very nervous. I panicked. Maybe I never smoked that shit in the first place, I thought. Maybe I’m just going insane. Maybe my mind just snapped and I’m going schizophrenic like people sometimes do. I wanted to cry. And I’m sure Nick thought I was insane. I was very embarrassed by what was going on, but I knew I had to look past the embarrassment and do whatever I needed to do to get out of this safely and as quickly as possible. I needed to ride it out. Ride it out or stay insane forever. I couldn’t see Nick, but my basic instinct knew he was the one who was protecting me so I wrapped my arms around his neck and climbed closer too him. Everything hurt so much “When does it end!?”
Then, it stopped.

I was just sitting on Nick’s lap in the middle of the woods on a log. I jumped off his lap “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?” I demanded. By now, he had smoked the rest of the Salvia in the bong. He looked different than before. We had a few laughs, smoked a bong of pot, but his sense of humor had changed too, and every once in a while he’d say something off colored, or even frighten me. I became very uncomfortable after a while of being there; alone with this guy who is supposed to be my friend but is giving me the look the way a snake looks at a mouse. The Salvia, on him, was unappealing and frightening. I drove him home.

I zoned out a few times, especially when I was saying goodbye to him and I couldn’t stop looking out my car door at this water bottle I had crushed. As I drove around to wear off the pot high, sometimes the world seemed surreal and objects seemed huge.

That night, I told my boyfriend, and gave my bag of Salvia Nick had given as a present (before I smoked it) to him. He says it was foolish of me to have tried tripping out, especially since my mind has become fragile with the mushroom abuse. That I already see specks of light in the dark, I already space out and have nightmares and panic attacks, what more could I want? To die? To become a vegetable? He said he didn’t save my life that night, forcing me to vomit up the mushrooms, so I could go insane some other way.

The bag of Salvia is folded up in a box, under the bed now. We might sell it. We might destroy it. But I think I’d like to keep it. Maybe I’ll try it again someday, but I will wait until my wounds heal, if they ever do.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 24450
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jun 13, 2003	Views: 23,407
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Salvia divinorum (44) : First Times (2), Bad Trips (6), Small Group (2-9) (17)