These are The Consequences.
The real ones I'm living with now, that is. Not the scientific potential ones. The ones I experience. I want to tell you what it's like, but it's quite hard to.
I've been off drugs for a long time now. But I'm still living with the effects of them. And I think I probably always will. I don't mind too much really, after all, it could have been so much worse. I could be Dead. And I'm not. But I didn't get off all too lightly.
I have Flashbacks. These are a waking nightmare, quite literally. I can't pinpoint what causes them, I strongly suspect the Pills, as these are what I did the most of. But the Magic Mushrooms and the LSD probably play a part, although I didn't take them anything like as much as the Pills. The truth is, I'll never really know. And I'll never really know the full extent of what these Flashbacks will do until I experience it.
Probably the most horrific one happened about 2 years ago. I now know what triggered it, which is helpful and means I can go some way to avoiding another one like it. Certain music has triggered them since too, so I have to avoid it. Certain smells and sights can do it too. There are quite a few things I have to avoid, actually. This one was definitely music. I was out in a sort of clubby pub with some friends. Nothing special, just a little one local to me. And not being a drinker, I was there purely to catch up with friends, and have a chat. I was fine. Normal. Sober. I talked to a friend about their new bike, it was a Fireblade. I went to the bar and got another drink. A Coke.
I remember hearing some music I hadn't heard for a long time, music like the kind of music we used to listen to at the raves. I was standing opposite the bar, my crash helmet on the table and the glass of coke in my hand. I remember starting to feel dizzy. Someone was talking to me, at this point I still knew who they were, but I couldn't hear what they were saying to me, I could only hear the music. Soon, I couldn't hear what anyone was saying to me. I remember recognising the funny sort of buzzing feeling in my legs, it felt just like taking a pill. The feeling of something rushing through your body, speeding everything up. I put down my drink, worried I had been spiked. (I hadn't.) Then it hit me. It's a Flashback. Get Out Of Here.
What happened next I've had to reconstruct a lot of, it became a blank. The most frightening part was getting on the Bike. I could clearly feel the effects of the drug, even though there was no way I had any of that drug in my system and hadn't for a number of years. For some reason, this seemed a good time to get on the Bike and go home. Probably the stupidest thing I could have done. I knew I had a Flashback coming and I had to get away from people. I thought if I got on the Bike it would go away. It didn't.
Once I was on the road, my mind cleared for a short while, I remember one part of the journey. Only one little flash of memory, a little scene like a picture. A petrol station on the left and a mini roundabout. I remember nothing else. I don't know what I did. I could have hit someone and to this day, have no idea.
I remember opening the door to my flat and sitting down on the stairs. I remember wishing the room would stop bloody changing shape and colour, it was making me feel sick.
I remember very little else.
I was told that I was sat on the sofa, when my partner at the time came home and asked me what was wrong. Someone had told him I'd rushed off. I told him "flashback" and then asked him who the hell he was. I yelled at him, and tried to hit him. He says I then "disappeared", off into my own head just staring around the room, looking confused. I was constantly asking where I was, and asking for friends who I haven't seen for a long time, friends who would have come raving with me. Some of whom are now dead.
Another friend came into the house, someone who had been at the pub and was worried. I tried to throw things at him and told him to get out, I didn't know him. I flashed in and out of reality, sometimes I knew where I was, and that I was going through a particularly vicious flashback, sometimes I didn't. I thought I should be in an abandoned warehouse in East London somewhere, and couldn't understand how I'd come to be in a little flat somewhere surrounded by people I couldn't recognise, and I was scared. Bloody scared. I didn't know who these people were, or what they wanted with me. I imagined the worst.
It lasted three hours.
When I came round, I understood. I could remember bits of it, I could remember how my mind just couldn't make the connection between what I saw and what I felt. Above all I could remember the fear. Or the Terror. I think Terror might be a better word.
I've crashed bikes, I've closed two lanes of a major motorway crashing a bike. That was pretty scary, sitting in the ambulance was pretty bloody scary. The Flashback was a whole new level of Terror. I cannot put it into words for you, suffice to say I would wish it upon no one. Close your eyes and try to imagine it, try to imagine not knowing who you are, who anyone around you is, or where you are. Try to imagine that the people around you are there to kill you, and it's totally real. It's not abstract in any way. There is a real life gun pointed at your real life head, and you have no idea why. That's sort of what it's like. It's pure Terror.
And I might well be stuck with it forever.
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My History - How Flashbacks affect others
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