Am I trippin' or is this normal?

real-time process with me: is microdosing magic mushrooms working? + the privilege problem in managing mental illness + the fear of being unmedicated

a microdose

I’ve been taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds for 9 years. For a long time, they worked.

Until they didn’t.

Or at least until I finally decided to realize they no longer work for me anymore.

A couple months ago, after several episodes of debilitating and life ending thoughts, I slowly weaned off my prescribed medications and replaced them with an illegal substance — a capsule of crushed up psilocybe cubensis, also known as magic mushrooms. Believed to possibly help with treatment-resistant depression, I take one microdose each day, Monday thru Thursday. With the right tiny dosage, the idea is to consume too little to trigger hallucinations but enough to sharpen my mind.

Most days, I don’t feel much of anything. Then there’s the other days, like last week in yoga class. In the middle of plank pose, I stopped. I turned on my back and looked up.

Right above me, I studied a tapestry covering a skylight. It had a plethora of beautiful smooth lines and circular shapes, in shades of pinks and purples. We were in a windowless room, yet the lines in the textile moved, as if a gust of wind came in. The tapestry suddenly had a pulse.

While everyone’s arms were shaking to fatigue in plank, I was there limp, with my knees up, feet on the ground. I thought to myself:

“AM I TRIPPIN’!?”

Based on my tapestry observation, it sure sounds like it. But, I’m not totally sure and I’ll get to that in a bit. I’m processing that morning, and a couple other similar microdosing days. The answer has complexity, which is how mental illness works. The path to feeling better is never linear.

Before I explore this further, let’s take a step back.

---

Prior to microdosing, I associated mushrooms as fun psychedelics, not for medicinal or spiritual use even though it is used that way.

It’s not a drug I took often and I consumed it less than a handful of times. I debated on sharing my previous recreational use of it because I fear you’d find me less credible but it’s an important detail to process my perception of this substance.

I remember my first time with shrooms in 2002. As a freshman in college, I pulled out a ziploc baggie, stuffed the crunchy contents into my dorm dining hall hamburger, and slathered it with ketchup because I heard it tasted terrible. As I was chewing, I remember thinking, these little crunchy mushrooms taste like dusty death, how is this supposed to come out fun and beautiful?

I soon found out the hype. My friend and I rode into the campus arboretum and found ourselves appreciating the depths of our feelings, seeing the beauty in all of the world with colors more striking than we could have ever imagined, while watching the trees vibrate through our souls for the rest of the day.

(Yeah, I know. That description made me cringe too but it’s the best way I could describe it. Call me a hippie!)

Although that day was fun, taking hallucinogens wasn’t something I cared to do much, especially after I had unsavory experiences where I felt frightful and uneasy while consuming them at night.

Now, I don’t really dabble in other mind altering substances.

I don’t drink alcohol, which I’ve quit several years ago because it made my depression worse.

I don’t smoke, eat or consume marijuana, even though it is legal in the state I live in.

Because I have the perception that my mind is often fighting against me, I pretty much practice sober living.

---

With my latest low before the holidays, I was desperate to try something new to “fix” my mind.

I guess I was expecting that I wouldn’t feel much with the microdose, that it would just work in the background so I can operate like normal and go on with my day.

As I debated on taking shrooms, I thought of all the articles I’ve read about people’s experience who report a heightened sense of clarity and performance in their daily lives. I’ve read research, like the study from Johns Hopkins, which showed that treatment with psilocybin relieved major depressive disorder symptoms for patients. I loved the book A Really Good Day by Ayelet Waldman, who microdosed LSD for 30 days. My good friend uses it in sacred ceremonial spaces.

All signs led me here.

And now that I’ve been using it for two months, I’m still not really sure how I feel about its effectiveness, how it makes me feel, and what I’ll do with — or without it — moving forward.

---

wild mushrooms spotted in my yard :)

This is the best way I can describe my microdosing experience.

When I’m feeling the dose, like in that yoga class, it’s as if my mind was a giant funnel, filled with all the contents my brain usually carries, except the hole at the bottom is much tinier than usual. It’s so small that only one thought, one idea, one feeling can filter through at a time. I noticed the need to slow down. It was frustrating.

But then I asked myself, is this how I’m supposed to process thoughts?

It made me wonder. In a state of anxiety, is my mind a funnel with a giant crack and a gaping hole? Are all the thoughts just rushing in and out and all around, with no sense of order? I imagine my brain carrying a pile of crap, everything itching to escape but they’re all stuck at the opening trying to elbow their way down and out.

Then when I’m in a depressive episode, I live in numbness. When I’m microdosing, I too, feel a sense of numbness but it’s with a different depth. Or is it just me being high, similar to my college days?

In my depressive numbness, a filter is clogged and my mind and body cannot properly process thoughts and feelings — like they are all floating around aimlessly with no focus, with a sense of nothingness. With the microdose, however, it’s a heightened sense of filtering one thought, one feeling, one sense at a time. It’s not a crazy high, like the vibration of the trees on campus. But this body high does feel eerily similar.

Here’s an excerpt of something I wrote while I was feeling the microdose this week:

My mind feels blank, yet full. I feel still, but not necessarily stuck.

After writing this, I curled up in a ball on my couch and closed my eyes. I didn’t feel like I was asleep but I wasn’t awake either. Which brings me to the question again, “Was I tripping out?!”

So now I’m here full of questions and possibilities.

Maybe I can lessen the dose.

Maybe eat more before taking it.

Maybe I need to take it at night.

Maybe I’m just not built for hallucinogens.

If I stop taking the shrooms, then I’ll be without any type of mood medication. Maybe I’m too scared to be unmedicated.

Long pause.

That last maybe is a recent realization that has put me through the wringer. This possibility haunts me. I am currently processing that one.

I purchase shrooms from this company

---

I’ve written a few times about my attempts to work through my mental illness. I’ve spent years switching through various types of SSRIs and tinkering around with holistic treatments. I’ve spent thousands on alternative therapies like ketamine IV infusion therapy. I’ve been in 15 years of talk therapy. I’ve worked with a doctor who specializes in energy psychology to “tap” my anxiety away. I use a heart coherence tool. I eat a balanced diet, I exercise, I drink water, I sleep 8 hours a night, I meditate. Yada yada yada, you get the point.

Do these work? Maybe.

I’m full of maybes. I’m full of doubts. And I also recognize I’m full of privilege.

I have the privilege to process this, to make time to explore how I feel, to pay for these therapies, methods and medications — regulated or not. I have the ability to try when others do not have the time, money and resources to manage their mental illness. For my podcast, I recently interviewed

Julia L Wilkinson

, who writes the newsletter called Mental, where she shares her experience with her son’s suicide.

As I write, I keep thinking of Julia and Kyle. Here I am with the ability to try what’s out there. Meanwhile, most people, like Kyle, did not and do not have access to methods and therapies that could help them. And it saddens me. It angers me.

---

Over the past several months, I’ve been rethinking my illness.

Do I want to call it mental illness? Is it an illness with no cure?

Or is it not an illness at all and this is how I’m meant to feel?

All I know is that I feel my feels a lot. It affects me so greatly sometimes. And maybe that’s my power. I have a heightened sense of feeling.

And I have the privilege to feel it. To process it. To write down all the maybes and then decide, because I have choices.

I guess it doesn’t really matter if the shrooms work or not. Like the SSRIs, if I come to a point where I finally decide to realize they aren’t working for me, I have the opportunity to try something else. I just wish it was easier for others to do the same.

Thanks for reading.

---

Leave a comment to share what has worked for you. What hasn’t?

I’d love to exchange therapies, alternative methods, and medications that others have tried. If it didn’t work for you, maybe it could work for someone else.

Share it! Regulated, or not. Covered by insurance, or not. Free, or $$.

Do you know how to get access? Are there organizations that help people who may not have the means to try a method?