Written in their own words, the story of someone who healed from Childhood Sexual Abuse using psychedelics. Please note the following article contains references to sexual abuse.
The road to my recovery didn’t begin until I started using psychedelics. I knew there was something wrong with me for a reason, but I didn’t know why for a long time. Then when I started remembering I couldn’t seem to get any recovery from traditional psychotherapy which I had been in and out of for a number of years. Funnily enough it was my eldest son that introduced me to the idea of psychedelics. Initially the idea of taking psychedelics frightened me. The reason was because I had bought the ' All drugs are bad ' message driven into me by society all these years. ‘You will lose your mind, be addicted forever blah blah blah.’ At this point I had no idea that psilocybin mushrooms had been used for thousands of years. MDMA had been used for years in relationship counselling, LSD has been recognised for its therapeutic effects.
After some extensive research it was time to give it a go. Starting off with psilocybin truffles I decided to take very small quantities, a practise known as microdosing. A while later I managed to get hold of some LSD which was fantastic. Psilocybin mushrooms ended up my main microdosing drug of choice as they were easier for me to acquire. I then started a regular microdosing regime. This opened a can of worms. Very gently more and more memories started to make themselves known. Basically, I think I may have re traumatised myself at this point. Don’t get me wrong, the experience of microdosing is great, but if you have any repressed emotions and memories they will come up. A few months of microdosing, and on the build up to Xmas, I thought I was losing my mind. Painful flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, addictive behaviours became unbearable. These flashbacks and memories have occurred throughout my life during stressful times but now it was almost every day. The can was open, and every worm wanted to come out.
At this point I decided to have a proper trip, a substantial amount of psilocybin to try and heal. I was really nervous, and still get nervous before taking psychedelics, I think it’s good to have a healthy respect. So called bad trips can and do happen, but I don’t view them as bad, I view these trips as trauma trying to get reprocessed. Herein lies the problem. If you decide to trip on your own and it happens to reveal bad memories, they will need talking through with a therapist in order for you to integrate them. Ideally with someone trained in psychedelic therapy. Anyway, to cut a long story short I tripped a few times on my own. Although I had a good time and I felt I was always learning from them these trips, they revealed more memories I wasn’t managing to process. The answer to recovery was coming through loud and clear every time "You need to reconnect with yourself and the community" - but I still wasn’t recovering.
Moving on now to just before my summer holidays, I was in a terrible place and nobody on the planet, bar me, knew about it. I was yet to come out of the traumatic experience closet. We went on holiday, I was suicidal, getting drunk all the time to mask how I felt. When we came back, I broke down to my wife, the story started to come out. I continued microdosing but I think it was making matters worse. At times I honestly thought I was going mad, my attempt to fix my mental health on my own was failing.
Moving on now to following Xmas and the extra stress of this festive period started to break the camel’s back. It was at this time I attended a psychedelic integration circle and found a therapist I could work with. Traditional psychotherapy wasn’t working for me. Like I said, I had been in and out of traditional psychotherapy for years, I needed to really open up and this was my last resort. It was at this point my healing journey started to take place. Having discussed with my therapist various approaches to recovery we both agreed to start an MDMA assisted therapy program, as I was probably suffering from complex PTSD. I started the program and straight away got the same answer, reconnect!! This time though I felt different. it was helping me get to grips with the emotion of the traumas. Never before had I been able to talk in such depth and with such feeling about what happened. My brain started to allow more memories to come through and start to be processed. Before I could start to reconnect, I had to go through the horrible bit. This horrible bit is the dangerous bit, this is when the grieving could really start, the endless crying and mixed emotions. I started to tell other people, family and close friends what happened. This was something that took a lot, and then I would think that people would think I’m one of them monsters. There is a myth that all people that are abused abuse others, well this certainly isn’t true in my case and many others. I felt I could feel their suspicion it was depressing. At times I thought "Yes, I’ve recovered." but then it would start again.
Three MDMA sessions in, huge progress, but still not recovered. I was back in that dark place again, thinking I was losing my mind. I just wanted to die. At this point its summertime again, I’m trying to push my wife away, how much more of my moods can she take. So, to me it was best if she could find someone else to give her the life she deserves. Anyway, the suicidal thoughts passed - and remember, if you are reading this and you have suicidal thoughts, they do always pass. Just keep talking to someone. It passed, and I booked an emergency session with my therapist, thankfully she could fit me in. This time it was different, I was much more focused and determined. Instead of putting on the eye
shades and listening to music, I opted to talk all the way through. We talked for 8 hours, I felt sorry having to put my therapist through this, listening to me repeat areas of the traumas over and over and having to experience my ordeal. To me this is the session that really started my recovery. I managed to look the dirty bastard in the eye, feel the emotions I felt at the time. It was uncomfortable.
More memories are coming back; the puzzle is coming together. It feels now a real shift has happened and its grip on me is breaking. Writing this brought back emotions. I’m unashamed to say it made me cry, but that’s OK, I’m good with that now. Big respect to all the psychedelic therapists out there risking their career and freedom to help people like me.
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