Everyone knows I have depression and anxiety. It’s literally a personality trait at this point. I’ve built my entire brand off my mental health. I refused to take medication just because i’ve seen how it zombifies the people in my life who have been on medication. However, I was really tired of being that way all the time. I was in a new city and started a new job. I wanted to be able to enjoy all the changes without the distraction of wanting to die every single day. Someone in my family suggested psychedelic therapy. In short, I take the drug with a therapist and unpack whatever is wrong with me. I partied alot in my 20s, but I was never the take random drugs and party type of girl. I was too scared. It looked fun as fuck on TV but it was still a No for me. I figured that if it didn’t work, at least I get to finally try the drugs in a safe environment. I agreed. I did MDMA (Molly) in my first session and Shrooms in my second session. 6 weeks in between. I feel better. Am I completely healed? No. Did I gain enough clarity to know what my following steps can be to live a more intentional and healthy lifestyle?Absolutely. It changed my life for the better. I see why they don’t want this stuff on the market. It’s powerful what it does to your mind. Since I only took 2, I really can’t do my usual 5 bullet points in true romyboattt fashion. But I will be as descriptive as possible to the waviest trips I have ever been on.
So the sessions were exactly the same. The drugs were different but the set up was the same. Light breakfast. The therapist. The drug. Hydration. A comfortable setting and some very trippy music. Before you start your trip (waiting for the drug to hit), You set your intentions on what it is that you want to tap into, what do you want to work thru? That way when the drug hits, you can get to work. Just to be clear, you can’t escape what you feel. Psychedelics are designed to make you deal with stuff that you keep trying to ignore. You’re never going to be ready to deal with those feelings sober, it’s too scary. Sometimes you just have to take that leap and heal that pain and that trauma so you can be better for yourself and those around you.
MDMA (Molly)– trip lasted about 7 hours with taking another half dose in between.
Before- The things I wanted to deal with when I took MDMA were my depression, my mommy issues and my anxiety. I wanted to understand why depression would always “take the wheel”. I felt that I did all the right things to feel better (moving, working, self care) and depression still wanted full control of my life. Anxiety too. Like what are you even worried about, i’m fine. I also wanted to talk to my “old self”,find out why she left, why she didn’t come around much. I took the pill and watched a video that had to do with personalities and etc.
During- Once the drugs “hit” I went to sit down in my own space and anxiety was the first to show up. I’m like “girl why are you here?” I was safe. There was nothing wrong. So why? I yelled “Go away!” for about 5 minutes and it did. For the first time in, I don’t remember how many ages, I could take a deep breath without wanting to throw up. I stepped out and just took in the fresh air for a while, touched some grass and it was time to move on. I addressed my depression and told her I was okay and she didn’t have to drive anymore. I figured out within myself that the reason I held on to my depression was because I felt it was the only way people would like me, any attention was good attention. I built my whole brand off being the “sad girl” and I thought that if I showed people who I was outside of sadness, they wouldn’t like me as much. GIRL!!!! I also addressed my mommy issues, I was able to understand why my mom was how she was, forgive her and set healthy boundaries so we could have a relationship. I sent her a 4 minute voice note to tell her all this. I forgave my sister for the little things I was mad at her for. The hardest part was addressing my old self. It was like an out of body experience, I got to sit with her. I asked her where she had gone and she said, “You thought depression was cooler than me”. Being depressed was a better personality than being cool. I was terrified of being my true self in fear people wouldn’t like me. I let her stay a while. In between all this unpacking, I kept reading excerpts from my book and unpacking little things that I hadn’t fully dealt with. It was a phenomenal experience.
After- The downside you get reallllllllllly hot. (“pop a molly im sweatin is right”) and your jaw chatters alot so you wake up with pain and a sore jaw the next day. Besides that the next day, and the days that followed I had no anxiety and no depression. I was bored. It had been so long since I was just myself that not having anxiety or depression was boring to me. I didn’t know what to do. I was just existing. I wasn’t scared of what if. I had clarity on the things I wanted to do next. Mdma helped me have a clear mind to know what I needed to do to continue on my healing journey.
Shrooms– Trip lasted about 5 hours.
Before– Same set up. I wanted to work on my self love. Becoming a mom and the physical changes on my body really took a toll on me. My self hate was at an all time high and has been since I had a baby. I wanted to find that love within again. I wanted to acknowledge those around me who truly love and accept me and I wanted to see myself thru their eyes.
During– Yes, the walls and everything else really does wiggle. What you see on tv is real. It’s cool as hell lol. Anxiety came by as she always does and I immediately told her to leave. I put some blindfolds on and just sat in my mind for a little while. I saw kaleidoscopes, I saw oceans, I saw a boat. It was cool as fuck. When I came out of it I cried, oh my god I cried so much on shrooms. So many tears. I could barely talk because I just kept crying. It felt good though. I realized that in order to love myself, I had to understand my power as a woman. I was terrified but my therapist assured me that I was safe and that the only way to truly figure out what was going on, was truly getting inside my mind. I put the blindfolds on again, with an intention this time. I laid down and immediately saw my inner child… in a forest… I approached her and hugged her. I then saw all my other selves (teenage self, adult self, mom self, etc) and we had a group hug. Then all the special people in my life also showed up to hug me. We were still in this abandoned enchanted forest. When I took the blindfold off, I was hugging myself, I didn’t even notice when I moved my arms to do all that. I realized that I had deprived myself of so much love and physical touch because my self-hate deemed me unworthy and I also realized that this need for love and touch came from long before having my child. When I tried to unpack it with the therapist, I couldn’t form the words and I “went back in” (in -being in my mind) this time I saw myself completely naked in a forest sitting on a throne being worshiped by men. I saw myself naked in the way my body is now. Not the body I want, not the body I had but my body now, the one that I hate, the one that I am so mean to. That’s the body all these men were bowing down to. I felt like a queen. For the first time in forever I saw myself as beautiful. It was amazing. Then we went for a walk so I could exist in nature and I understand why snow white used to talk to animals LOL. The trees and the flowers and the sky looked more beautiful than ever. It helped me connect with myself and nature in a way I never thought possible.
After-I don’t really think there was a downside. It was cool as fuck to me. I just needed a nap after lol. after taking shrooms I realized that I am a woman and I needed to be intentional and exist in that. I needed to realize that I was powerful and the only people in society who didn’t think that are men. My body was different because I created a life. I had a son. I have the power to raise the greatest man in the world. I didn’t give myself enough credit for that because I wasn’t skinny with a small waist. I’m perfect the way I am because of why I look the way I do. It’s because I had a child, because I created a life, organs, eyeballs. I needed to remind myself daily that the girl I saw in the forest was exactly who I needed to see every time I looked in the mirror.
Psychedelics are amazing! Sometimes therapy isn’t enough and that’s okay. I am not saying don’t take antidepressants if they work for you. I’m just saying there’s other ways out there to help you heal. They didn’t FIX me. It’s not that my anxiety and depression are completely gone and i’m the happiest person in the world. They helped me because they didn’t numb my pain, which is what pills do. They don’t take the depression away, they just put away any type of feeling long enough for you to get work done. That wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to feel the pain, feel the trauma. I wanted to know exactly what was wrong so I knew exactly what to heal. I didn’t just want to numb the pain. I didn’t want to ignore it. I wanted to deal with it. Being on psychedelics is fun, depending on the setting. But when you do it thru therapy, it’s uncomfortable in all the best ways. Without this therapy, I think I would still be drowning in my sadness and letting it dominate my life. I recommend it to everyone who needs the clarity and who needs the push to work thru their traumas to be better for themselves and for those around them. There’s so much healing in psychedelic therapy. Finding a good therapist to help you thru these things is crucial. I am forever grateful for the guidance I received thru my trips. (let me know if you want to contact mine 😉 ) I want to heal, I want to be better and that has always been my intention. I didn’t want to keep being known as the depressed girl, the sad girl, the girl who only talks about how sad she is on social media. I wanted to show people that healing was possible, its a journey, but it’s possible. I wanted to be the girl on social media who USED TO be sad all the time but is not healing and feeling a little bit better. There’s a documentary you should watch on netflix- How to change your mind. It goes into a lot more description that my post does. This is just my experience. Psychedelics helped me in ways regular therapy and medication couldn’t. I needed a little extra help and that’s okay. I understand why big pharma says absolutely not cause look at all the healing one dose of this stuff can do lol. I’m just saying, if you’re going thru something and what you’ve tried isn’t working, maybe it’s time to explore other options. Next week ill start my journey with micro-dosing to help me out with being intentional and existing in my spaces. To help with my depression because i’m not ashamed of admitting that I will always have depression, it’s a medical condition with no cure but i’m not where I used to be 6 months ago and I have psychedelics to thank for that.
A Collection of Wavy Essays 