hsphaven

So I begin the next chapter of my disturbing saga. I’ve been thinking lately I just cannot get better in this city. I stopped having all those trippy experiences at night, but I still felt like rubbish the next day. I was depressed, I had no motivation to do anything and I felt like I was being crushed by this heavy cloud which wanted to release rain but couldn’t. I wondered whether 5G was impacting my sleep and health. I wanted to get as far away from civilisation as I could get, so I started looking for houses to rent in the country, and thought about going back to the farm I did a working holiday at a few years ago. I stayed in a church, a beautiful piece of architecture, which the owners had build at the bottom of their property. Other people would book it for functions, though, such as the ayahuasca ceremony I wrote about here. There is no where else on the property I can stay while other people are using the church. I thought about just booking the church permanently and living there (it’s only $25 a night, and $50 weekends and is completely self-contained), but I didn’t want to “hog” the church and prevent the ayahuasca group from having ceremonies there. So I went to message the leader on Facebook to ask if he was still running ceremonies at the farm. I then noticed he hadn’t posted anything for a while and I wasn’t sure if he was still using Facebook. I then searched his organisation on Google to find a contact number. Their website had disappeared, but what I did find was this article. I was shocked to learn a man, who I think I actually knew, had died at one of the ceremonies. The leader is now facing criminal charges for negligent manslaughter because they didn’t call an ambulance when he became extremely unwell.

That man was almost me as well. That night was one of the worst nights of my life. I was dissociating, freaking out, struggling to breathe, feeling like I was going to die and moaning in agony. I was surrounded by “helpers”, the leader’s inner circle who are meant to help people who get into trouble with the substance. I asked them to call an ambulance but they did not. They just moaned with me and told me to surrender, to surrender to death even. I remember at that point thinking that I’d fallen into a cult. This mentality that it’s your “process” and you need to “ride it out” to heal, as the article mentioned, is something that’s indoctrinated into you by the group. You can be on the cusp of death, and they’re still saying it. Ayahuasca is said to help people heal from trauma, but the ayahuasca itself can be very traumatic and even lethal for some people. Often when I’m falling asleep at night now I feel like I’m dying. I wonder if it’s some kind of post-traumatic stress from my night on the ayahuasca.

I have all these mixed feelings about that ayahuasca group. I actually got quite attached to a few of the group members (Stockholm Syndrome, some might argue). I believed my terrible experience with the ayahuasca was unique to me. I didn’t blame them at all for it and I actually believed they were there for me during my darkest hour, that they saw me in a way no one else had, and they were helping me. I was really upset when we all parted ways and I missed them. I believe they may have meant well, but their “medicine” ceremonies were just as bizarre as the article made them out to be. Yes, we all dress up wearing white. Apparently an ambulance was eventually called the night Anton died, but by the time they arrived he was long dead. Below is a quote from the article:

Ambulance officer Brett Murray told the coroner of his frustration that, despite dozens of people on the scene who had witnessed the death of the 46-year-old man, they all seemed “preoccupied with whatever they were doing”. Antonovich died of a tear in his oesophagus.

Some at the retreat had their faces painted while others were doing a “rhythmic type of movement” that Murray struggled to describe, having never seen anything like it before. They were mostly dressed in white, the court heard.

“It was weird,” Murray told the inquest. “We couldn’t establish any information. While we were working, we were trying to just say: ‘People, tell us something, who is this, what is this, what’s going on?’”

I remember at times feeling the same lonely feeling that night I took ayahuasca. At one point I was just left on the ground outside alone while others passed me to use the toilet block, completely ignoring me.

Dozens of people attend the events and there are only about 8 helpers, from what I remember. In South America apparently they have a guide/helper per person. I don’t even know if any of the “helpers” are trained in first aid. There were some concerns that Anton may need to go to hospital, but apparently some thought his severe physical symptoms were “normal”. I don’t know why they didn’t call an ambulance for him, or for me. I suspect they didn’t want to get into trouble as ayahuasca is illegal here. Everyone on the farm also seemed pretty anti-Western medicine.

I am not big on Western medicine too and find myself torn between the tribal, shamanic, spiritual world and the medical world. In fact as I write this I sit in a hospital. That night, when I discovered that article, I was so distressed I took a few tablets of diazepam, but I still couldn’t sleep. I then took to the bottle again, and I took to it hard. I called Lifeline as I felt I might overdose again and they sent emergency responders to my house. I was so intoxicated I couldn’t get up off the ground by the door. I was taken to the nearest hospital and was a mess. I needed to use the toilet but I nearly fell over and the paramedics had to catch me. Next time I had to be wheelchaired there.

The doctor wanted to do some blood tests. I kicked and wailed. He was a nice doctor. He tried to reassure me and the nurse offered to hold my hand but I was still hysterical.

“We need to do the blood tests as you are extremely intoxicated and can’t tell us exactly what you’ve taken” he said. “If you don’t let us we will need to give you something to sedate you.”

“Where’s Lore? Where’s Lore?” I kept screaming.

The doctor finally managed to do the blood test. He also left a cannula in my arm which they later used to give me fluids because they thought I was dehydrated.

“Anton should have been here!” I exclaimed in my drunken state. “They just let him die!”

The staff said my speech was rapid and wanted to give me some medication. They also wanted me to speak to somebody from the psych department to assess me but I refused to talk to him. I said I didn’t need to talk to a psych person. I kept trying to leave the hospital both to avoid the psych person and because I was getting overwhelmed by all the noise but they would call a code and stop me leaving. I freaked out when he came. Thankfully I had a kind nurse with me who said I found talking to psych people extremely distressing, and he went away.

My NDIS worker, who I was meant to see that day, came to visit me in the hospital. He found me lying on the bed kicking the rails screaming that my whole body was vibrating. I was so scared I had damaged my body, like the last overdose did. They told me it was probably the alcohol coming out of my system. I was given some more diazepam and some olanzapine, which I initially protested, but they said they use diazapam to help with alcohol withdrawal. My NDIS worker thought it was a good idea so I agreed, especially after they tracked down an olanzapine tablet especially for me as I don’t like the wafers. The psych person saw me in this state and decided to put an assessment order on me and send me to the closest psych ward. For once I was taken seriously and I feel he did the right thing. I was taken there in an ambulance. In the ambulance the staff member showed me the form for the assessment order. In it it said I was a danger to myself and I exhibited psychotic symptoms, wanting to leave the city because of 5G.

I was so sedated and tired from not sleeping that I crashed once I was given a room in the psych ward. I forgot to turn my phone off, as I usually do, and didn’t even brush my teeth. I just fell asleep and slept all night.

Today I saw the psychiatrist and shared with her about what I had been experiencing. She decided to make me a voluntary patient. While most people would be relieved, I’m honestly a bit unsure how I feel about it. I asked if I could stay a week or so but as usual they just want to boot me out the door. She said I could stay only a few days. I wish I had of refused to speak with her. You can never be honest with these people.  The system seems to take pleasure in reading what people want and then refusing to satisfy it. Every time it triggers my old trauma of being invisible. Of being in grave trouble and no one helping me or seeing how bad it is.

I have now become mute. Nothing good comes from talking. No one listens to you. No one listened to me at the ayahuasca ceremony when I asked them to call an ambulance, and no one listens to you or takes you seriously at hospital when you open up about what’s happening to you and ask for their help. I’ve come to trust no one and have retreated into my own little world.

On the one hand I feel the guardians at the ayahuasca ceremony put themselves before the wellbeing of their participants and that was wrong. Ayahuasca is dangerous and I feel like booking the church at the farm permanently so they can’t have another ceremony there again, though I’m not sure how I’d feel about staying there again. But I still believe Lore is a good person who means well, and I don’t want to see him imprisoned. I’ve been listening to a lot of spiritual music, such as this song here called SHAMANIC BREATHING- Session 6: The path of Vulnerability (new edit), Light of your Grace, MAMA, Akaal, and Asatoma (one of the songs played at the ceremony) to bring me back to who I am. The ayahuasca community were like family to me. They said I never had to be alone anymore because I had them. Sometimes I cry, and sometimes I dance, though the bones in my head click, probably from TMJ, which is super annoying.

When I lie on my left side now my pulse is pounding in my ear, like what happened to my right ear when I overdosed earlier in the year. I’m really hoping I haven’t fucked up my good ear now. I feel absolutely hideous.