How an experimental treatment changed everything for me.
As a kid, I was an overachiever and straight as an arrow. I served in the military for 30 years, which seemed like where I was meant to be. I’d suffered from a major depressive disorder for a long time, ever since I was about 10 years old. But I was pushed into an even darker place when I was raped by a military colleague.
I didn’t seek out help afterward: People don’t get psychological counseling in the military because your medical records aren’t private, so your commander can look at them at any time and decide you’re not fit for active duty. I did report the guy who raped me, and he was given the choice of resigning or being court-martialed; he resigned immediately. But the military didn’t offer me help of any kind. To them, it was over. It was like, “He’s gone. Move on, soldier.” I loved serving my country, but I certainly paid a price.
Eventually I realized I had to try and find some happiness.
After the military, I moved back to my hometown, where I was an attorney at a civilian law firm. Then my sister was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, which was a huge blow. She and I were very close: We were only 18 months apart and we’d always shared a room as kids. She didn’t want cancer to define her, and rarely wanted to talk about it, but she fought a good fight.
When my sister got too weak to care for herself, she moved in with me. We lived together for about a year so I could look after her, as her condition slowly deteriorated. One night, I heard her struggling to breathe and rushed her to the emergency room; she was treated in the ICU, but was in terrible shape. We sat together and watched the Cubs win the World Series — she always loved baseball — and about two weeks later, we got a call from the hospital saying her brain was bleeding. Later that morning, she took her last breath.
My sister died in 2016, and the pain of losing her was almost unbearable. So I made a radical change. I purchased a farm, and got animals: baby doll sheep and chickens, and a couple of llamas who guard my sheep. But over time I realized that wasn’t healing me from all that I’d experienced; I was still wishing I were dead every day. Eventually I realized I had to try and find some happiness. I wasn’t going to give up.
I did seek professional help, but my first psychiatrist did nothing for me; we didn’t click and the medication he prescribed me didn’t fix anything. I still felt like a total mess. Luckily I eventually found a second therapist, who I connected with. And he had an unusual idea: I should try microdosing magic mushrooms.
I’d taken plenty of traditional antidepressants, but those drugs had never really helped. So at some point, my therapist brought up the research being done with mushrooms, LSD, and Ecstasy in terms of psychiatric treatment. He had plenty of experience in the field: He’d done studies on the effect of magic mushrooms and other hallucinogens on depression.
I’d never taken illegal drugs ever in my life — I was pee-tested my entire military career because I had a top-secret clearance. But my therapist explained that mushrooms aren’t addictive, and you can’t overdose. Plus, since the amount I’d be taking was a microdose, I wouldn’t see pink elephants or anything. I’d just take the pill and go about my day. And my therapist knew somebody that he could trust who had access to the mushrooms, so he could get them for me.
I was apprehensive at first, and then I realized, Why not? I’m 66 now, and I think about killing myself all the time. I was still holding onto all these negative thoughts about the rape: Why did my colleague single me out? It must be my fault. Those ideas had been floating around in my head for a long time.
Before I started, my therapist had me watch a couple of documentaries about this new use of unconventional drugs to treat mental illness. There was one about mushrooms that was really interesting, in terms of how they described the effect: Essentially, in non-scientific terms, it’s like there’s default settings in your brain in which the two hemispheres are connected by “lines” linking certain parts to others. When you take mushrooms, those lines connect new parts of your brain that normally aren’t connected. Essentially, you’re getting a chance to think differently. So in January 2023, after about six months of working with my second therapist, I started taking the mushroom capsules.
After I’d been on mushrooms for about two months, I still didn’t notice anything different. I just assumed they might not be working — or wouldn’t work for me. But then one day I realized, Wait, I haven’t been thinking about killing myself or having all these negative thoughts. It wasn’t like I was perfectly happy and I’d reached the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but I was just better.
Suddenly, I was having revelations about things that had plagued me practically my entire life.
So I said to my psychologist, “This is the weirdest thing, but I’m not asking God to kill me anymore.” And he laughed and he said, “Well, that’s the mushrooms.” He said that his patients had explained that it’s like nothing changes, but everything changes. And that just happens over time imperceptibly.
Before the mushrooms, I’d had four years of counseling and cognitive therapy, but I hadn’t made progress nearly as quickly as I did while microdosing. Before, I had always ended up at the idea that there was something wrong with me. Why didn’t I get married? Why didn’t this or that happen for me? It must be because I’m ugly or stupid. But finally, I was able to start chipping away at those thoughts. Suddenly, I was having revelations about things that had plagued me practically my entire life.
That first day I took the mushrooms, I was anxious, like, “Am I going to feel anything? Am I going to feel too much?” Because a lot of my life, I’d been numb. Intellectually I know I’m not a bad person, I know I’m not stupid — I have a doctorate, whatever that means about me. But emotionally, I just couldn’t recognize any of that; I couldn’t feel good about myself. Talking about my trauma with therapists hadn’t been hard, because I didn’t really feel it. The mushrooms allowed me to do more — to experience the emotions, as well as the intellectual side.
Other people noticed a change in me, too. Family and friends have made comments and at a recent checkup with my GI doctor, she mentioned that she couldn’t believe how different I seemed — that overall, I was in much better health, mentally and physically. I know that the mushrooms might have saved my life. Because I have firearms on my farm to protect my animals from predators, and who knows? You get to a certain point, and you’re irrational, and you pull the trigger. But obviously, I don’t feel that way now.
People can say it’s all hooey — they can say whatever they want. All I can say is that big pharma hasn’t helped me, but I started taking these mushrooms, and my life is different. I know there’s a change, because I’m not thinking about killing myself every day. I’m still struggling at times, and my depression isn’t entirely gone. I would give anything for one more day with my sister; I miss her very much. But the dark cloud isn’t hanging over me — and I’m thankful.
The author’s name has been changed to protect her privacy
