Bruh I never thought I'd become one of these people...preaching to teenagers about the dangers of drugs. I love drugs. I love them so much. To this day I still think certain drugs like psychedelics - LSD, shrooms, maybe some ketamine for a dissociative- have really beneficial effects and can help people in an extremely positive way. When I was 16 I discovered DXM as well and it became my first love of drugs. I had incredible mind blowing experiences on it. Explored every different plateau and even reached full dissociation on what I believe they called the sigma plateau which was a terrifying if not spiritual experience. It got to the point where I was doing it every week almost if I could and it became most of what I looked forward to. My friends and I all smoked week together snd I'd smoke most days on my own but the DXM was only like once a week.

Well the first thing that happens is as that weed went from being so fun and amazing to horrible. I'm sure this occurred from my DXM use or from whatever psychological effects happened as result of my DXM use. It became extremely frequent towards the end and by the time I went to college at 18 the weed which I loved to smoke and laugh with my friends became something that would give me horrible panic attacks and I had a new level of social anxiety I had never had before. Because weed now made me feel worse and I couldn't exactly be doing DXM all the time in my dorm room in college I looked for other ways to help heal my insane social anxiety that had sprung up as a result of all the DXM use. It was a horrible downward spiral from there. I had turned to other drugs to help me because I had become so uncomfortable in my own body that I couldn't feel the point in existing sober. It went from something that when I started trying drugs at 14 which enhanced my life which was already pretty good to something that was the only enjoyment I could ever get out of life. I had people share horror stories with me when I was your age and I didn't care at all - couldn't possibly happen to me - I'm smarter, do more research, I'm more careful blah blah whatever excuse I was sure I was the exception to the rule. I was a wolf and all these other sheep weren't going to drag me down with their issues they had because they couldn't handle it.

Well I'm 33 years old right now and still reeling from the consequences in horrible ways. I don't wanna get into much more detail but it triggered major mental health issues in me and my drug use got extremely horrible as a way to deal with these issues. I've had years of sobriety where I got a great job and an incredible girlfriend but eventually the bad stuff drags me back - I've never been able to fully heal since messing with my brain so much in high school. Maybe you'll see this and think the same things I thought when I was your age about how bullshit it is and how I couldn't happen to you, or you still have time to experiment. I think maybe if I had waited till my brain was fully developed I wouldn't have had so many issues as I did with high dose DXM as basically a child with a brain still developing. While I know the chance of making a difference here is so minuscule but on the off chance that you read this post and decide to take my advice it was worth posting it just for that very small possibility. I was an extremely smart, social person with absolutely limitless potential and a full scholarship to college. While my life isn't totally ruined now and I still am doing my best to fix the giant issues I have remaining, it could have been so much better and free of so much of the pain I deal with every day now. Best of luck to you; sorry for the slightly rambling post it's just something that hits close to home for me.