Question: Hi, four weeks ago I decided to take a pill of a natural psychedelic (containing LSA as active substance). I never had it before and in general I am not a drug user, I took them from my holiday in Amsterdam. The experience was highly traumatic, I experienced a near-death experience, I was convincedI was dying and I had a panic attack, feeling my soul was going out of my body. My boyfriend that was with me took me to the hospital, they check and my blood pressure and heart rate were normal. After that day it has been hard for me to live. I had a panic attack one week after that event, I started being scared of myself, having suicidal thoughts, not feeling like anything in life can make me happy anymore (I had a great life before, a loving relationship and my own business, nothing excites me anymore), on Monday I went to the gym and while walking back I felt huge vertigo and a feeling like falling down, as if I didn't have control of my body anymore (a feeling I had during the psychedelic experience) that made me almost have a second panic attack. Today I had an appointment for a scan and I asked my boyfriend to take me and to be there with me the whole time. I feel depersonalisation, as if everything around me was not real, and the whole time I was feeling scared of interacting with people because I didn't know if I would have started acting weird or panicking again. I am scared of being around people, I constantly feel muscle tension and anxiety (I tried to take a cbd pill yesterday and it didn't help, today I took Rescue Remedy, which is bach flowers for anxiety and it didn't help). Every day I am getting more and more scared of myself, I don't know what is happening to me, I have never had panic attacks before and I am scared that my life, my business and my relationship can fall over because of this. I am just scared that I will never go back to normal and this thought is killing me. I feel unworthy of anything and a lot of bad thoughts often come to my mind. If it might be relevant, when I was 18 to 20 I had a strong social anxiety, that I overcame working on myself and never consulting anyone. When I was 20 I started having eating disorders (light anorexia and bulimia and strong binge eating disorder) and I was prescribed with Lyrica (for generalized anxiety disorder) and was diagnosed with Cyclothymia. I stopped taking Lyrica at 26 because I felt like I was getting in control of my life after university and I started working on myself, doing physical activity, journaling etc... Of everything i have ever experienced on a psychological level, this is by far the worse and it's really hard to live like this. Less that one year ago my dad died after a long illness (15 years of Parkinson) and it felt like I was coping well with it, but after that trip, where I experienced death, I saw him when he was in the hospital and I experienced how he was feeling at the time, now I feel constantly anxious, as if I didn't deserve to be loved for all the mistakes I did in my life (like, when I was 18-27 I started partying a lot and becoming extremely superficial in order to escape the pain I was feeling for seeing my dad in pain, that was killing me inside and after so many years I feel like I am now facing the guilt of my whole life, when I tried to never stay close to him, and I just feel like I dont deserve love and I am a bad person).

Jim LaPierre Says...:

Thank you for sharing so much of yourself and your experience with me. By any standard, what you experienced was traumatic and as such, it continues to limit and hurt you. This is not the first time you've wrestled with copious amounts of anxiety but the biggest problem with having a panic attack is that we then develop anxiety around when the next panic attack will hut. A few suggestions: If/when you experience a panic attack, the very first thing you should do is be still, breathe deeply, and tell yourself, "I am going to feel much better in a few minutes." Panic attacks feel like a heart attack and they feel like they last forever but in truth they last typically 5-15 minutes for the worst of it. Telling yourself you'll feel better doesn't mean you'll feel good - the idea is that you're going to be ok and by telling yourself this you insert a healthy perspective into something that simply feels debilitating and lethal. I HIGHLY recommend that you see a therapist who specializes in trauma recovery and you would very likely be an excellent candidate for EMDR therapy after a stabilizing brief course of therapy. Please email me if I can answer questions or be helpful. Best, Jim

Question: Hi. I don't usually come to others for help. If I do then I go to close family members. I am a 16 year old guy. My mind is really screwed up right now though. I'm dealing with a lot. Family issues, work, school, a girl I like who I have known my entire life. I believe that I have trust issues. I've been screwed over a lot in my past. I've also been lied to so much. I do believe in god. I do believe that everything happens for a reason, but I am so paranoid. I also have a suspicious mind or something. Every day I live in fear of what will happen for anything. Negative thoughts possess me everyday and they never go away. Especially when it comes to the girl. I feel as if she will be taken away from me or something just like many other things. It is hard for me to trust anyone really. There is so much, but I don't know you well enough to tell you. I'm sorry, but I don't feel comfortable just telling you everything through a website. I'm just trying to find an answer to end all this pain. My mom has helped me a decent amount, but there is still so much. I'm a Junior Firefighter, and I am also becoming an EMT. So I am usually the one helping people, but this just hurts too much. I saw this website, and I figured I'd give it a shot. Reply when you can.

Jim LaPierre Says...:

Hey there - thanks for reaching out to me. I totally understand not wanting to share your whole story via a website. Trust issues are tough - most of us (and by us I mean guys like you and me that have gone through a lot of painful experiences) really struggle to trust. It's personal and it's vulnerable and after a while it just feels like a chance that's not worth taking.

As a therapist, I don't ask people to trust me. I point out that it's vital that they be able to trust themselves and anything that interferes with that needs to change.

Being a junior fire fighter and going for your EMT...that tells me that you're giving to others what you want to receive. Good news - the best of us in the healing and helping professions are just like you. We have personal reasons for doing what we do professionally and the best of us are effective because we got the help we needed.

I'm glad to hear your mom has been helpful - here's my best suggestion:

Talk with mom about seeing a therapist (or other person you feel you could trust) and ask her to allow you the right to confidentiality (as a minor she can insist on hearing what you tell a therapist)

If your mom is agreeable, you can then know that by law, your confidence will be kept.

You refer to yourself as "paranoid" which in most cases is just how people tell me they're really anxious and/or afraid

I get it - your past has taught you to expect that things will go wrong.

Please take good care of yourself - please consider that at least in my case it was worth it to choose to trust someone - the pressure of holding it all in just gets to be too much.

Write to me again if I can offer suggestions or be otherwise helpful

Even though weve never met - I care - even though we don't know each other - I've been through tough times and I was a total mess at 16 (bet you're doing better than I was). Please be good to you and if you're willing to take it on faith - I promise - it gets better. Best, Jim

Question: Dear Dr LaPierre, Thank you for offering your advice on the internet. Sometimes it's much easier to seek help this way, especially when some experiences are embarrassing to tell. I have an ongoing fear of home invasion that started 14 years ago. It has got worse, and I have been experiencing ghastly nightmares and panic attacks for the last five years. My home has been broken into several times, in fact this is what embarrasses me the most. I can't talk about it because not only do I see disbelief in the eyes of others, but I feel that the sheer number of times must indicate something is wrong with me. Yet I don't know what I could have done to prevent any of these events. The first time, I was 19 years old, and studying in a town away from my parents. My father was (and is) emotionally abusive, controlling, and incredibly frightening. That day he decided to turn up unannounced, but I wasn't home. He was paying my rent, so he believed it was his right to break into my little one room flat by kicking a hole through the front door. When I got back that evening I felt such fear and shock that I called my mother, who told me they had "visited". Strangely enough, that didn't help at all. It nearly felt worse. I got the door fixed, but I had no idea how to fix myself. I felt awful, and angry, and guilty for the anger, because they were paying for my rent, after all. The second time, I was 26, and I had my own place. A large flat I rented in a rather nice part of town. It was the middle of the afternoon on my day off from work, and I was indulging myself to a day in pyjamas, expecting no one, lying on my bed reading Jane Austen with a cup of tea. I heard a loud knock on the front door, and was suddenly caught in a moment of indecision. Do I answer or just let it go? I wasn't dressed adequately, and besides, I was expecting no one. But before I'd even made up my mind, I heard more noises. Someone was prying the door open with a crow bar. I froze, then got up, but it was so quick, that he was inside my home in an instant. Luckily, the corridor led straight to my living room, and he walked past my bedroom door to get there first. I didn't know what to do. I knew the police wouldn't get there in time, but I knew my friend and neighbour was home. I hid behind the bedroom door and dialed his number. Whispering as quietly as I have ever whispered, but panicking too, I asked him to come round. At first he couldn't even hear me... then he wouldn't believe me... that was the worst. I wasn't speaking normally... I was deliberately skipping superficial words because I was afraid I'd be heard, talking like an old fashioned telegraph. Then he felt it in my voice. Less than a minute later, he got to the building and the burglar heard him open the door downstairs. All the while the intruder had been making muffled noises in the living room and I could hear heavy footsteps. I thought I was going to die because I hadn't dared make my presence known... I was literally in a weird frozen state, like calm and panicked at the same time. I don't know how to explain. All these thoughts were rushing through my mind, such as, when he opens the bedroom door he's going to be surprised, his reaction will be unpredictable, he might panic too and kill me. Apart from that phone call, I couldn't move. I wasn't breathing normally, because I feared he'd hear my breath. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would give me away. I was afraid my phone would ring, but I couldn't turn it off, because it wasn't on silent mode and he would have heard the "off" jingle. I wanted to break it. Even removing the battery was more noise than I could risk. When the intruder heard my friend on the stairs, he walked out. I heard him walk past my bedroom and out the front door. My friend started shouting at one point, he told me it was after they'd walked past each other on the stairs, when he saw my door broken in, the lock was on the floor, and there were wood chips everywhere. I still couldn't come out of hiding. He had to come and get me where I was. That's when I collapsed, shaking, as if the frozen state had kept me up, and then it snapped, leaving me drained of all my energy and I just cried and cried and kept shaking with spasms. We called the police but nothing had been stolen so they did nothing. A few months later, two detectives did show up at my friend's place, because he was an eye witness, and admitted the procedure hadn't been respected, because they'd forgotten to show him photographs of potential suspects. Four months later, I got back from a sleepover to find the door broken in again. This time my laptop had gone, and the cables of my desktop were partially unplugged, which makes me think whoever it was must have been interrupted by something. I waited for the police to get there before I dared go inside, because I was afraid the burglar might still be inside. The police were horrible about it. They were brutal, and dishonest. I don't know why. Maybe they were fed up because I was sobbing. I don't know. They just wanted to know what was missing, but they wouldn't let me check properly. I only noticed my laptop was missing after they left. One of them said to another in front of me "if there's nothing missing, we'll say nothing happened". I couldn't believe it. My door had a gaping hole in it, where the "new" and supposedly "secure" lock had been, with wood chips everywhere again. My friend's theory is that they were worried about not having followed the procedure the first time. I had gone straight back to work the first time, but I wasn't myself. This was too much, and my doctor told me to take a month off. I was working in a bank, and I needed to be efficient. So I didn't take the medical advice... and burned out. I lost my job. I hate myself so much. That job was so important to me... banks were no longer recruiting where I lived, and I desperately needed to hang on, but I wasn't strong enough. I was weak. I was a bit dead. I'm so ashamed. I decided to move out of my flat, but without a job, I was living on my savings. I didn't feel up to going to any interviews, because something was very wrong. I wasn't "me" anymore. So I got a small room and went back to school. I had to do something, but I didn't want to "betray" an employer. So I chose to read law at university instead. It was nice, because I could go to class and just learn. It was so much easier than going to a job, because I didn't have to pretend, or smile too much, or be criticized for looking like an empty shell. I actually did very well. I passed the first year with excellent grades. It was the second year, during the mid term exams, that it happened again. I ran home between two sessions for lunch and a 20 minute nap (I wasn't sleeping well). Just as I lay my head down, I heard someone try to insert a key in my lock. I froze again. Being a coward was becoming a habit! It wouldn't turn, because my own key was in the lock. Then I heard the door knob shake and rattle angrily, and my landlord's voice yelling "I can't get in! Something's stuck". I ran to the door then, in anger and disbelief. I never missed a month's rent in my life and it's absolutely illegal for a landlord to enter a tenant's flat. When I opened the door, his jaw dropped. He mumbled an angry excuse, then his wife turned up behind him, just as surprised as her husband, with my mail in her hands. I asked how long they'd been doing this. They wouldn't answer. I told them this was unacceptable, but I had an exam to go to. It was the hardest exam I ever took in my life. My brain was in a state of trauma and anger. I wanted to press charges, but I couldn't bring myself to go back to the police. I started closing the blinds and putting toothpaste on the light switch, to be sure no one had visited my room in my absence! It sounds like madness... I found the toothpaste smeared on the wall THREE times before I actually dared to do something. I was a ghost. I felt completely naked all the time. Exposed. Lifeless. I felt like I had no intimacy anymore. I started staying home to defend it from intrusion and dropped out of school. I felt like an animal. As though I had no control over anything. Then I did the opposite. I left my room for long periods of time, staying at my boyfriend's instead. My friend, who is a social worker, tried to help. He called the landlord, and told him we were taking him to court, and stated my rights. In France, where I live, home intrusion is a criminal offense, whether you're the landlord or not. But the result was not what I expected. My landlord got angry. He changed the locks and stole and destroyed all my belongings. Everything I owned. I was so broken by then that I couldn't do anything. I still haven't, and it happened two years ago. It's too late now. I hate myself for not reacting, being so inefficient, and pathetic. Letting him get away with it is awful. Now I'm dead inside. I still feel naked and exposed. My diaries, all my papers, photographs, everything is gone, and it's all been taken by a man I fear and hate. I feel dirty, and ashamed. My deepest secrets, my dreams, my silly teenage thoughts were in those diaries. He was a nosey, disgusting landlord, who enjoyed letting himself into his tenants' flats, so I know he combed through everything I ever owned and probably read all my stuff. Now I have lost everything. My belongings, and my soul. I'm living with my boyfriend and haven't been able to work. I'm especially ashamed of that. I have a fear of doors... it's not agoraphobia. I can go out. But I keep having nightmares about doors. I lock them, and they open, or turn into flimsy useless little things, people walk through them, keys don't work, I wake up in sweat and cry. If someone knocks or rings the door bell I freeze, it's like receiving a physical blow in the chest. I start shaking uncontrollably, every time. And I cry. A lot. Now I feel like mental case. I don't know what's wrong with me. People have experienced much worse and they get over it. I would be ever so grateful for any advice. I cannot afford therapy at all. We hardly make ends meet as it is, because I'm such a useless burden. It's like I'm drowning, and you're my last resort. Sorry for such a long and boring question. Thank you so much for reading it.

Jim LaPierre Says...:

Your judgment is harsh and unwarranted. I’m confident you’d never judge another person the way you are judging you. Your words show a person who is sensitive and kind to others. Too often, we who have great empathy for others lack compassion for ourselves.

Your fears are grounded in reality and experience. They are not irrational nor are they trite. You experienced recurring intrusion. You were both physically and emotionally vulnerable in dangerous situations. It is unfair that you should be ashamed of this.

You’re making an invalid comparison between yourself and how you believe most people would react in your situation and this is the thing I most want to challenge you on because it feels like the assumptions you’re making are not realistic. I can tell you that most people in your situation would have done exactly what you did – they would be paralyzed by fear.

You have redirected the anger and hatred that you have for your intruders at yourself and this constitutes a great injustice. To be angry at them feels empty and powerless to you. To be angry at you is familiar and continuing to reject you is an alternative to acknowledging and grieving how much you were hurt and violated.

Feeling safe and secure within ourselves and our environments is the most basic of human needs. This was taken from you. It’s time to take it back. Please write. Please use any form of expression to empty what you’re holding in – draw it on paper, put it on a canvas, sing it, scream it but stop clinging to it.

Write more to me. Tell me what you’d say to someone you love who feels similarly. Tell me what your willingness is to be compassionate to you. There is nothing that will make this all better but there are countless things that can make them better.

You can be better – despite not knowing you, I know that. Resilience is the greatest form of strength. It’s time to get back up. I believe you can do it and I thank you for the honor of bearing witness. Write me more. Best, Jim

Question: I don’t know what to do and I am worried that no one understands how bad I feel. I am maxed out on all my 4 credit cards and I am still not done my shopping. This sounds like normal holiday stress I know but I am losing sleep over this and I can’t shake off this feeling of dread no matter how many gifts I get. My inlaws make a very big deal of Christmas and there is a big list of people I need to buy for. We have good jobs so we are expected to give lots of expensive gifts but we are actually having financial problems that we do not want to talk about and my husband and I are having some problems. His is the kind of family where you have to pretend that everything is OK even when your world is falling down on you. I think I am having mini panic attacks whenever I think about this because my heart starts pounding and I can feel my neck vein throbbing in a scary way. I know rationally that I can get through this and by February all will be OK but I am at the end of myself right now. I can’t sleep, can’t eat and I feel like I am losing my mind.

Jim LaPierre Says...:

Hi there and thank you for writing. My heart goes out to you for what you're experiencing - my first thought was, "Good God, does this happen every year?" I encourage you to step back when all of this is over (early January) and ask yourself, "Am I willing to go through that again?" I understand pretending and I know that it takes a lot out of us. I encourage folks to be genuine, to make hard decisions, because otherwise life is a series of things we just need to get through.

To lower your anxiety - consider this - you're angry. Anyone would be. The demands are unhealthy and you resent them. Just as addiction and mental illness can make a person's life unmanageable, so too can unreasonable demands of family.

I hope you find joy in the season in spite of all of this and I hope you choose to care more for you.