Dear All
Psychedelics - DMT, AYAhuasca, Psilocybin mushrooms and ketamine, have proven benefits if taken properly and supervised.
The way they help trauma survivors, is varied, but they cause almost instant formation of new neurons and branching, in the emotional centres, and the prefrontal cortex..
Apart from roles in treatment resistant depression, and effectively treating addiction, they have excellent results with cPTSD people.
What these drugs do, is provide a level of relief that equate to years of therapy, in around 7-10 days. And they don't do it by making the person relive the trauma.
If you want me to explain this in more detail, please let me know. I can give you research links too.
What i like about this treatment, is it is cheap, and effective. In some US states it is legal, and Canada is changing it's laws. It is also legal in Portugal, and NL (magic truffles).
Slim
Just wanted to add some articles as I'm starting to come across a lot of buzz about psilocybin. Again, not suggesting anyone try any illegal substance, just trying to provide information based on those psychedeics are in clinical trials, look like they will be legalized in the near future (e.g., MDMA) or already have been legalized (marijuana), and will be a viable/safe/effective option for relational trauma survivors.
Why Massachusetts Should Legalize Magic Mushrooms (https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2020/02/06/legalize-magic-mushrooms-massachusetts/), by Spencer Buell, Feb 6, 2020 - We're at a cultural and scientific inflection point, rapidly and radically reconsidering what we thought we knew about drugs such as psilocybin (the chemical that makes magic mushrooms magic), LSD, and even MDMA and Ketamine. While mainstream society over the past half-century has often dismissed them as the stuff of burnt-out hippies and party kids or condemned them as downright dangerous, both the medical establishment and Silicon Valley have begun to loudly advocate for their untapped and possibly revolutionary therapeutic potential.
Long-term follow-up of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for psychiatric and existential distress in patients with life-threatening cancer, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31916890) Journal of Psychopharmacology, Agin-Liebes, G et al., Jan 2020. - The present study adds to the emerging literature base suggesting that psilocybin-facilitated therapy may enhance the psychological, emotional, and spiritual well-being of patients with life-threatening cancer.
Potential therapeutic effects of psilocybin, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28585222) Neurotherapeutics,14(3):734-740. doi: 10.1007/s13311-017-0542-y. Johnson,M. & Griffiths, R. (2017) - Psilocybin and other 5-hydroxytryptamine2A agonist classic psychedelics have been used for centuries as sacraments within indigenous cultures. In the mid-twentieth century they were a focus within psychiatry as both probes of brain function and experimental therapeutics. By the late 1960s and early 1970s these scientific inquires fell out of favor because classic psychedelics were being used outside of medical research and in association with the emerging counter culture. However, in the twenty-first century, scientific interest in classic psychedelics has returned and grown as a result of several promising studies, validating earlier research.
The following links were sent to me by a mental health professional and friend:
Cancer patients
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27909164
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31916890
Drug and Alcohol
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27441452
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31084460
Depression
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29119217
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27210031
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29119217
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31649304
Interesting article about psilocybin I came across today - Get Ready for Pharmaceutical-Grade Magic Mushroom Pills (https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/9355vd/get-ready-for-pharmaceutical-grade-magic-mushroom-pills-v27n2) by S. Love, Vice, 27 May 2020.
I located a dispensary in Vancouver and I am now a member. Not gonna lie, a bit nervous about the whole idea, but there is a LOT of info so going to start by reading it all.
This dispensary only ships in Canada but the info is helpful so thought I would share the link: https://mushroomdispensary.com/
QuoteI've been taking ~.2g psilocybin 4 days on and three days off and notice a slow change. I feel I'm becoming more open (?) and that something is slowly chipping away in the background. Instead of being locked up, I think I'm more expressive as well, less worried about what people will think. It's in no way a psychedelic trip and function the same as I would without but am perhaps more self aware but also not an aha so this is what it's all about moment.
I copied this from another thread Dolly as I'm hoping you will carry on here sharing about your experience with psilocybin.
What you've described is reassuring to me because I don't want a high (it's one thing I'm not thrilled about with Ketamine). I just want to start feeling better, calmer, more open, etc., what you're describing. I feel like if I just take SSRIs and do therapy I will never get there.
Thanks for creating the thread Kizzie. I believe Colorado has legalized mushrooms and in many places the spores are legal to sell, it's just illegal to grow.
I'm not a very big "drug person" though I have experimented with a few recreationally. Not to shame anyone here, addiction and trauma probably go hand in hand and we do what we can. I think the memory of my mom doing cocaine off a mirror while I played in the next room with a friend was enough to keep me on the straight and narrow. But I always felt there was something to be gained from "natural" drugs like mushrooms since it's been used for thousands of years and I was interested in the experimental side. Tbh I had some larger recreational doses of mushrooms in my early twenties and it was amazing until it wasn't anymore.
I think I mentioned earlier that I saw a colleague, who was usually always stressed and anxious, on a job after he had tried microdosing and I could see a very noticeable difference in his personality for the better. He was more open, warm and seemed happy. After reading the Toxic book by Neil Nathan where he discusses Ketamine therapy as a tool to help rewire your brain/nervous system after mycotoxin damage, I wanted to try mushrooms and see if it had a similar effect.
I've been taking .2g or 200mg 4 days on and three days off. I think i still feel a residual "effect" when I don't take it which is interesting. I've taken It before work and there's no impairment or externally noticeable difference. I can carry out my job as before but my brain seems "on." I think I'm more self aware on those days and maybe with a heightened sensitivity but I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it's just processing stuff if it comes up but it doesn't feel uncontrollable.
I guess I thought I would be conscious of a change in my thinking but that doesn't seem to be what's happening - there's no aha meaning of life moment but that could just be what my experiences with larger doses were when I was younger. I do kind of feel like I'm more vocal or coming out of my shell. I guess there's just been this protection there (barrier?) and microdosing seems to be slowly chipping away at that I think. I think i really block out a lot of feelings and don't even realize I'm doing it. I had a moment at work where I didn't say something at the time, but it was very clear the next day what was going on and what I could say next time to assert some boundaries. I don't know if it's the MD but I just felt confident about it and less internal back and forth.
I did notice some sleep stuff in the beginning and that I was more sleepy. Psilocybin apparently affects your serotonin levels but it's even out now. I also like that it raises your BDNF which helps brain growth I believe but also helps with leptin resistance. Mycotoxins lower your BDNF and increase leptin resistance. I'm hoping this helps counteract that as I'm treating the mycotoxins.
Something I did read on a microdosing forum is that you have to put the work in and it just doesn't heal you. I've mentioned to t that I'm taking it and what my experiences are.
I'll keep this updated and if anyone has any questions let me know.
I just ordered some capsules of 'beginners psilocybin - 15 capsules of GOLDEN TEACHER, 50 mg and 25 mg
Most therapeutic variety; enhances spiritual awareness. Promotes compassion, forgiveness, love, pleasure, positivity, closed eye visuals. Reliable trip, medium potency. Users report psychologically beneficial enlightening experiences. Some visual and physical effects. Recommended for first time users.
I've been microdosing psilocybin approximately every third day since the end of June. I get my capsules from someone who I was referred to by a friend of My Person who is quite experienced with psychedelics. After making it clear that I did NOT want to hallucinate, I was advised to take what is referred to as a sub-perceptual dose, and was told that doing this regularly on that dosing schedule would have a cumulative helpful effect on my mental health. So far, that seems to be true. It's hard to describe. I don't feel very much from the dose on the day I take it, only perhaps a very tiny buzz of the kind one might get from a very small amount of alcohol or cannabis, and I've still had the same kinds of feelings and emotions and ups and downs as usual, but in general I have been feeling more able to tolerate them, less fearful of them, and less likely to engage in maladaptive coping methods.
I must qualify my positive remarks about psilocybin with the comment that it's one of a few different things I have been doing in recent months to feel better and be more functional, so it's hard to say whether the general improvement is from one thing or another thing, or a composite result from all my efforts. Also, I, of course, like all of us here, have been working on my mental health in many ways for many years, and who knows what progress in that actually looks like over the long term? So I'm not prepared to call psilocybin microdosing a life-changing miracle, but my experience so far does seem to indicate that it's worth doing.
As far as drawbacks are concerned, the ones I've experienced are minor. My dose doesn't make me "high" to the point where I'm impaired, but I do find that it's better to stay home and take it easy on dosing days. The most positive effects seem to happen on the days between doses, and on dosing days I sometimes feel a bit off. Sometimes a little dizzy, sometimes a little sleepy or physically low. Also, I seem to tend to dream much more vividly and busily since I started with psilocybin. I feel that this is important and will lead somewhere positive, but it's not always very pleasant.
Something I read about dosing in the beginning was you start out with a small dose and then increase until you feel impaired, then back off the dose to the last dose where you felt normal and not impaired. So, I started with 1 cap which was 100mg and didn't really feel anything. Then upped to 200mg. I haven't upped to 300mg yet as I feel like I would be impaired at that but will try it one day.
The caps I took were also pre made and mixed with cordyceps and niacin, which are supposed to help with the absorption (?) of the psilocybin. The caps were also a mix of African Transkei and Golden Teacher. I've taken 200mg of Golden Teacher after and didn't have the same feeling as the capsules. So, am curious about how the different strains affect me. As well, I think the niacin and cordyceps make a difference.
I also see the MD as part of treatment for neuroinflammation. I think overall, I will need to address mycotoxins and gut health too as I've been doing.
One thing I didn't mention above was that I feel like MD has helped with my executive dysfunction, that I want to get up and get moving, doing stuff. Although, that seemed to be more with the caps and not with just Golden Teacher which makes me wonder if each strain (and/or the additional mushrooms + niacin) have different effects.
Came across this post on Reddit and looking over the comments it's an interesting to see how md affects people. I guess it's going to bring up things from the past, good or bad.
From my personal experience, I wonder if the ways I learned to cope in my early 20s out in the world when I didn't know anything about trauma and was miles away from seeing that what happened in my family was abuse, as well as dealing with any potential hidden abuse, will be "unravelled?" I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing as it gave me some feeling of control in my life and autonomy when I didn't have any growing up, but I guess which also didn't deal with the underlying things that were there. I'm hoping that I have better coping mechanisms to deal with it now (maybe this is catastrophizing which happened in my family a lot).
https://www.reddit.com/r/microdosing/comments/wx9d8p/microdosing_psilocybin_has_made_me_afraid_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
dollyvee, if it helps, since I've been microdosing I've had things from the past come up in uncomfortable ways, and while that's not fun and does require emotional and somatic management, I haven't felt overwhelmed by it. This last week I had that experience especially strongly, and there were a few dark days when I was afraid that the progress I feel I've been making was illusory and that "nothing works, nothing will ever work". But I did my best to keep calm and carry on, and now I am back to feeling that I am progressing in a healthy direction. Of note to me is that during this bad patch I was able to remain functional even though nothing was making me feel better, and in particular that I did not fall into a prolonged self-destructive doomspiral of the kind that the feelings I was having would have almost certainly driven me to in the past. From my experience so far, I believe that rough patches are part of the process but so is an increased ability to understand and deal with them usefully instead of regression.
I got my capsules but am thinking now it might be best to not try them because I am not in a good place and don't want to makes things worse by adding MD into the mix. I'll wait and give the Ketamine assisted therapy a go first (if/when cleared to do so) and see if that helps lift me at least part way out of this anxiety and depression.
The clinic I am going to is working on a clinical trial with psilocybin assisted therapy with Health Canada so it may be I can get into that at some point a long the way. I'd be more confident to try it with knowledgeable professional helping me I think given the mental health issues I'm having at the moment.
That sounds like good self-care, Kizzie :thumbup: :hug:
Thanks Bach - it's good to relate to others who are trying this out as well and glad you were able to sit with what's going on. I do feel a lot of what you mentioned about microdosing. There's stuff coming up but it's almost like we're allowed to look at it in a new way with that distance there. For example, I've been emotional because I don't feel accepted/ that I will receive work in the future from someone I recently worked with which is a very familiar experience at work. This morning it popped into my head that it's also a very similar feeling of competing for my mom's attention/validation and feeling like I wouldn't receive it (and that I need it to survive). I don't think I've put those together before, work and mom, and my reaction to it is "oh" instead of feeling that hurt and pain that was there in the past.
It's interesting because I think the idea about unravelling is an old fear coming up, or a protector. I think I was in a different part writing that the other day. I felt like I had to be a very specific person who was in control in the world, with little understanding of my internal world, and everything was about survival.
Kizzie - I think that's valid to try and want to wait. I also wonder, because of the nature of your anxiety and how quickly it happened, if maybe there is something else going on? I have an internet friend who has a trauma/cptsd background and went through two years of DPDR, anhedonia, anxiety etc before finding out he had bartonella and mycotoxins. IMO it's easy to believe that this stuff is in our heads or trauma related because there is no mass awareness of the effects (even existance) of these things as relating to illness and neuropsychiatric conditions right now. Also, that this symptoms can be delayed after exposure and a lot of the time most people are not aware of any mycotoxins in the home. Just a thought because I think our nervous system can be aware that something's wrong on a neurotoxin level and we aren't able to discern why we are reacting that way on a conscious level. Really hoping the ketamine therapy helps.
I really like what you've said about the protector part of you reacting differently Dolly, that is, that the hurt/pain will not cause you to unravel as it has in the past. More of an "Oh" than "Run away!" response.
For me that is the belief I'm absolutely struggling with right now (I will unravel), and I know a few others here feel that way as well. It's like OK we've done the work of not being so dissociative but now we are essentially naked against the fear, we have no shields in place for these things we came to believe would destroy us, cause us to fall apart. What do we do now? The slow work of talk/somatic therapy or the quicker assisted learning that we will be OK, we can tolerate the pain, loss, etc., once we have access to all or more of ourselves instead of being caught in a tight little network of trauma? I choose the latter.
I do think the promise of therapy assisted by psilocybin and other psychedelics like Ketamine and MDMA is that they give us that access we take so long to get through to with other therapies. We can tap into other parts of our selves we couldn't get easily if at all at before, at least that's how what I've read seems to say. I'm 66 and have been working away at therapy for about 10 years and just now find myself able to acknowledge the abyss I've been so terrified of my whole life. My "What now?" question has left me looking at options like psychedelics so I'm reassured to read how you've reacted. The promise (my fervent hope) is that we can handle the abyss.
Dolly, on the subject of how quickly the anxiety came on I did ask my GP to do some tests to see if there is any underlying inflammatory disease. I told her about this link https://www.moleculeralabs.com/medication-is-not-working-for-anxiety which and she is running a few tests. "In some people, symptoms associated with anxiety disorders, like irrational fears, irritability and excessive worrying, may be caused by an infection-triggered autoimmune encephalopathy, rather than a psychiatric illness."
I just did the lab work yesterday and will talk with her on Tues. I'm almost hoping there will be something so I have an explanation (I like answers), but regardless we went through the gambit of SSRIs and I simply cannot take them anymore for whatever reason so am tapering off them altogether.
That's great they did that and it looks like it covers a wide gamut of bacterial and viral infections! Hopefully, it turns up something. Unfortunately, I don't think mold toxicity is something that most GPs test for or are really even aware of, but would be great if that changed.
If you're interested but will post it elsewhere as well:
https://www.courtneysnydermd.com/blog/mold-toxicity-depression-anxiety-fatigue-brain-fog-inattention
Quote from: Kizzie on August 27, 2022, 03:17:21 PM
I really like what you've said about the protector part of you reacting differently Dolly, that is, that the hurt/pain will not cause you to unravel as it has in the past. More of an "Oh" than "Run away!" response.
For me that is the belief I'm absolutely struggling with right now (I will unravel), and I know a few others here feel that way as well. It's like OK we've done the work of not being so dissociative but now we are essentially naked against the fear, we have no shields in place for these things we came to believe would destroy us, cause us to fall apart. What do we do now? The slow work of talk/somatic therapy or the quicker assisted learning that we will be OK, we can tolerate the pain, loss, etc., once we have access to all or more of ourselves instead of being caught in a tight little network of trauma? I choose the latter.
I do think the promise of therapy assisted by psilocybin and other psychedelics like Ketamine and MDMA is that they give us that access we take so long to get through to with other therapies. We can tap into other parts of our selves we couldn't get easily if at all at before, at least that's how what I've read seems to say. I'm 66 and have been working away at therapy for about 10 years and just now find myself able to acknowledge the abyss I've been so terrified of my whole life. My "What now?" question has left me looking at options like psychedelics so I'm reassured to read how you've reacted. The promise (my fervent hope) is that we can handle the abyss.
Just going over this thread and I only saw your post that came after this Kizzie.
I get the feeling that your describing I think and know that fear too I think. I wish I had an easy answer to give to help everyone. Like Bach mentioned as well, I think there's been a lot of stuff coming up the past week or so and I've been feeling the "old stuff and the residual fear" but I have been able to calm it and take a step back, seeing that it's coming up from old thinking in my family (and the generations before) that I've taken on. I think perhaps the MD has helped with all of this but it is a process, and I also find myself going back to IFS which has been very helpful for me to connect to what's going on internally. To get a handle on it, I am trying to remind myself that I am an adult and not that kid anymore, but it's difficult sometimes.
I also wanted to recommend the documentary, Dosed from 2019 (?), about a functioning heroin addict in Vancouver who undergoes psilocybin and ibogaine to treat her addiction. They show the whole process of taking it and her experiences. I found it really interesting to watch. There's another one called Dosed 2 but I don't know if it's out yet.
Another couple interesting talks:
Psychedelic Therapy with Roland Griffiths, PhD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFoJYcoMaKo
MDMA Assisted Therapy with Michael Mithoefer
https://www.podcastaddict.com/episode/116096612
I listened to the MDMA talk last night with Michael Mithoefer and it was really fascinating. He spoke about how people undergoing a psychedelic experience (at a correct dosage) will 70% of the time spontaneously start parts work (IFS).
He also mentioned the work of Stanislav Grof and I had a chance to look him up. I read a bit of When The Impossible Happens: Adventures in Non-Ordinary Reality and it was also fascinating. He was doing guided LSD sessions (and heliotrophic breathing which I'd never heard of before) in the 60s/70s/80s and the results were very surprising. He discusses memories surfacing in LSD sessions that were passed down through the mother to the child, and then the patient reliving those. To me, it sounds really close to the genetic passing down that Mark Woylnn describes in his book, It doesn't Start With You, only this was before the science existed to prove (or had shown) that things experienced by the parents were showing up in subsequent generations.
I also came across this but have not had a chance to look at it yet:
Psychedelic Integration: Psychotherapy for Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness
https://synergeticpress.com/catalog/psychedelic-integration-psychotherapy-for-non-ordinary-states-of-consciousness/
Also not sure if this has been shared yet:
Psychedelics and Psychotherapy - The Healing Potential of Expanded States
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Psychedelics-and-Psychotherapy/Tim-Read/9781644113325