I've been smoking off and on since freshman year of college back in '05. The weed out here is way different now. I had my first depersonalization panic attack around November of 2017. I have had many less severe attacks since then, but I have much better control over them now. That first one changed me, though. I have not been the same since. Like many of you said, I legit thought I was going to die that night (philosophically speaking, part of me did). My girl and I ate some fruit roll-up edibles.
Sidebar: it was only my second time doing edibles, and I didn't know you had to microdose them shyts. That explains why the first time I did edibles in 2012, I threw up all over a hotel bathroom, and shat myself. For years, I thought it was just the drank that did that to me, but it was definitely the edibles in hindsight. I was popping them shyts like regular candy.
Anyway, back to the panic attack story... My girl and I went to the grocery store after the edibles, and when we got back to the crib, we started smoking. Again, I didn't understand edibles, so I didn't know they take a long time to kick in. I didn't feel high at the time, so I thought it was cool to smoke. During the smoke sesh, I was lying on my back, and started having hallucinations of being in a grave plot. Then, my girl and I started kissing, and she started to turn into my ex. They look vaguely alike in some ways, but it was like she became her. Then, on my last puff, I started coughing uncontrollably.
I stood up abruptly from the bed and started fanning myself, because I felt like I was going to vomit. My girl thought I was playing around at first, but then realized I was serious. I walked into the living room, and I started to feel what I can only describe as the pain of every being in the world. The illusion of separation started to break, as did the concept of time. I looked my gf dead in her eyes and said something like, "we have to go, now!" She later told me that she saw a different person in my eyes, and at that moment, she knew I wasn't "me". I began to walk downstairs and I heard a deep voice, clear as day, saying seemingly random words. I ended up outside with no shoes on in November. My girl convinced me to come back upstairs because she feared the police would see me spazzing with no shoes. We got back upstairs, and I started breaking down even more. I was holding her for dear life telling her, "just love me...I just need you to love me."
She got me into some shoes and a jacket and took me back outside, where we took a walk. That walk seemed like at least 8 hours, but it was only about 1 hour in this reality. I felt like a mentally challenged person with her as my caretaker. Every time I heard or saw a siren, I asked her, "is that for me?" Again, I swore that I was gonna die that night. She kept reassuring me, like "you're not gonna die", but in my mind I knew I was going to die. We ended up at a bus station where we took the bus back home. When we got to our building, she started having her own panic attack. Luckily, I was starting to come down from mine. I took care of her, and we ended up having sex, which made it much better.
I find that grounding yourself in the lower chakras helps manage depersonalization very well by tethering you back to your body. You can do this with sex, masturbation, alcohol, or food (if you're not feeling nauseous). Also, once you learn to control it more, you can redirect and transmute that scary energy into a better and more pleasurable high experience. Also, as other brehs have said, we almost always grind CBD flower together with the THC flower. It still gets me high with a much lower chance of freaking out.
As for edibles, I still have to microdose the shyt out of them, and I don't even like them that much. They bring too much uncertainty. Dispensary edibles are ok, because once you figure out how strong they are, you know the whole batch is gonna be that way. However, buying edibles from randoms is the worst. You literally never know how that shyt is gonna hit you.
Ironically, I have smoked way more since my depersonalization than before. Part of me likes going to that place, although I still get scared sometimes.
