2020 Feels Like a Bad Trip

My first and second year of college were what we might call my Experimental Phase. I don’t mean sexually. These were the years I decided I was going to sate my curiosity about drugs. I’d been a good girl in high school, only got drunk once before my eighteenth birthday and never tried anything more hardcore than mixing Ibuprofen with Tylenol. I spent far too much of my freshman year smoking weed (before it was legal) and trying every hallucinogen I could get my hands on. This all cumulated in a much-needed wakeup call when I was twenty, landing me in the hospital with enough LSD in my blood to have an orca seeing stars. Fortunately, I was fine and managed to avoid any legal trouble but the bad trip is something I’ll always remember. 

The day in question was a whole host of bad decisions that came together to make one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had. First, I drove myself down to my hometown knowing full well I was planning on getting high and my car would be my only way home. This wouldn’t have been a terrible decision… if not for the fact the friend I was with decided it would be a great idea to do this drug I was not familiar with in a public setting. We went to Denny’s and let the paper sit on our tongues while we were waiting for our food. It was 9 in the morning. Let me reiterate: I was not smart. Nothing about this was smart. 

The effects kicked in while we were walking around an outdoor mall. At first it was fine, fun even. I remember being dazzled by the lights as we walked and feeling both at peace and excited—which was a big deal for me at the time. But as we continued to walk, things started to spiral. I was starting to have trouble seeing what was actually there, in favor of weird black-and-white images that glued themselves to my vision and kept making me stumble and walk into things. It very quickly became clear I wasn’t going to be able to get myself home and that made me panic which likely made the experience worse. 

As things escalated and reality disappeared around me, I kept telling myself to calm down. I kept thinking “surely, this is the worst of it. I’ll turn the corner soon and be okay.” But that didn’t happen. My visions kept getting more and more surreal, the world around me becoming more and more frightening and my ability to navigate the very public place we were in continued to disappear. 

2020 feels like those moments. It feels like I’m caught in a bad trip, watching the world around me crumble into something I wouldn’t have even been able to imagine a year ago. The pandemic hit, and I assumed this was the worst of it and we’d turn the corner within a few weeks. As of writing this, I’ve been out of work for three months and will be lucky to get back to it in the next two. Then, the protests began. And though I, as a Black woman, know how important this fight is, the battle has left me exhausted both mentally and physically. Surely that’s the worst of it right? No. We have the removal of rights that literally save the lives of my trans friends during a month that is supposed to be theirs. All of this while we discuss the possibility of a second wave of the pandemic. 

This has to be the worst of it. We have to be turning the corner. 

At one point during this episode, my friend asked if I was okay. I looked at her, realized I couldn’t actually see her and, in trying to say no, found I had literally forgotten how to speak. My friend, fortunately got the message and called an ambulance. 

I don’t remember much of what happened following that. I have vague memories of being struggling against people I’m assuming were EMTs before I woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed several hours later, aware enough to know where I was but still very out of it. It would be about a week before my head felt truly clear again. 

We’re not turning the corner of this surreal reality any time soon. And even when we start to come back to some semblance of normal, the effects of this year will remain. The reality is, there is no going back. Like LSD still making me loopy for days after it first entered my bloodstream, 2020 will linger for years to come. 

While I was panicking that day, wondering if I was going to die or reach enlightenment, there was one more thing I kept saying to myself: no matter how long this lasts, it has to end. One day, this will be a memory. Eventually, it’ll be something I’ll look back on. And though, I didn’t know then if it would be with laughs or terror, I was right. That horrible experience is a memory now. A memory of a traumatic event that left me forever changed. This is our traumatic event. This is our wake-up call. I don’t know if we’re going to reach enlightenment or die. But I do know things will never be the same after this trip. And maybe they shouldn’t be.