Truth is, I don’t much remember having post-traumatic stress disorder. Oh, I remember the story of it. I told it enough times, for long enough.
As a teenager, I was abused for four years by an older man. I nearly died. I developed full-on PTSD, with flashbacks and nightmares and crippling anxiety and suicidal depression. I used heroin to cope. I nearly died several times from overdose. I tried therapy. I tried medication, for the PTSD and the addiction. Sometimes those things helped a little, but nothing really worked. I was told the PTSD would never go away, that I could treat it and feel a little better here and there, but I’d always have it. That the rest of my life would be a long recovery from those four terrible years. And so I lived, for over a decade.
But I don’t remember having PTSD. Not really. Not anymore. I can’t feel it in my body now. That constant feeling of shaking just beneath my skin. The unending desire to scream. The snarling rage that would turn upon anything it could, even myself. I remember the story, like a script I read again and again until it became rote. But the PTSD itself? It’s gone.
What finally helped me, when nothing else worked? Psychedelics.
Alright, it wasn’t just popping random psychedelics at parties, though I’ve done that too. And it wasn’t only psychedelics. It was a combination of self-prescribed interventions, including yoga, meditation, creative writing, practicing gratitude, and taking selected psychedelics with intention.
I have written about how I used ketamine to taper off buprenorphine, a partial opioid agonist commonly prescribed for opioid use disorder. I have not yet found the words to describe my breakthrough experience drinking ayahuasca—a shamanic brew made from two Amazonian plants containing DMT and an MAOI—at a ceremony in upstate New York, officiated by a Colombian taita.
But before either of those experiences—at a time when I was no longer shooting heroin but still experienced unwelcome cravings, and still felt crippled by trauma—I began my healing with psilocybin microdosing.
It wasn’t the same as a psychedelic experience in which colors pop and trees take on patterns. It was more like a fog had been lifted from my eyes.
Psilocybin is the main active compound in “magic mushrooms.” At higher doses—think up to 4 grams of dried ‘shrooms—people can expect to experience visual distortions or visions, altered perceptions of sound and other senses, strange thoughts, and euphoria if things are going well; paranoia if not. Doses higher still might prompt out-of-body experiences, or the temporary loss of all sense of identity. Some may find such journeys deeply transformative or expansive; others may find them terrifying, or triggering of trauma symptoms.
The good news is, those of us who don’t want to risk forgetting who we are or falling into another dimension can experience the benefits of psilocybin in a much calmer way.
Microdosing is defined as a sub-perceptual dose, meaning not enough to trigger a psychedelic experience. A microdose of dried psilocybe cubensis—the psilocybin mushroom species most commonly found on the unregulated market in the United States, and the only one permitted under Oregon’s legal model—typically consists of about 50-100 mg, though some people have reported microdosing at up to 400 mg. Actual psilocybin dosages will vary, because individual mushrooms contain different amounts.
The first time I microdosed, I had not used psychedelic mushrooms at all for nearly 15 years. I was at an outdoor festival bedazzled with sunlight and trees. Almost immediately, I felt a heaviness lift from me, and I was able to recognize the beauty in the world around me. It wasn’t the same as a psychedelic experience in which colors pop and trees take on patterns. It was more like a fog had been lifted from my eyes, and I could notice what had always been right in front of me.
“In small amounts it’s much more subtle. It’s not shocking you.”
I was fortunate enough to find a pair of unauthorized mushroom growers who sell a line of purpose-built microdosing capsules and tinctures. One of them—we’ll call her Emily—agreed to speak with me for this story.
“Each capsule [or tincture] contains between 50 and 60 mg [of psilocybin mushrooms],” she told me. She and her partner add a variety of non-psychedelic mushroom species to the mix, saying these also bring health benefits in a number of areas.
“With the microdosing, being consistent is key,” Emily said. “Three days on and two days off is what we recommend… the reason is it’s an adaptogen, so your body will adapt quickly. Taking that break resets the system so it will work again. It will work regardless, but it works better that way.”
I microdosed on Emily and her partner’s regimen for about three months in the summer of 2021, before detoxing from all substances to prepare for my first ayahuasca ceremony. They’d told me that, unlike antidepressants, I wouldn’t necessarily have to keep taking them long-term, although they do have clients who report seeing significant benefits from continuing the regimen for months or years.
Emily also believes that high doses of mushrooms can be beneficial for some, but recognizes not everyone is ready for that experience. “In small amounts … it’s much more subtle … It’s not shocking you.”
I began taking the microdose in the morning on an empty stomach, as Emily and her partner suggested. I began to feel better in just about every area of my life almost immediately.
Morning sluggishness was replaced with energy. Hesitance to sit down and work on the novel I was writing was replaced by excitement and inspiration. When I visited or spoke with family members on the phone, I was overcome by feelings of warmth, love and a desire to share my excitement about my book or other plans, instead of just wanting to harp on past grievances. I started going outside more. Anxiety fell away into a serene, hopeful happiness.
The fear extinction study “has a clear analogy to PTSD,” said Woolley, a psychiatrist working with veterans living with PTSD.
Western medical models are slowly beginning to integrate some psychedelic medicines into care plans, especially ketamine, which is now widely prescribed for treatment-resistant depression and some other mental health conditions. But psilocybin is still classified as a Schedule I substance in the US, not recognized as having medical use.
Joshua Woolley, director of the Translational Psychedelic Research Program at the University of San Francisco, told Filter that mushrooms themselves are unlikely to gain research approval from the Food and Drug Administration any time soon. “They are too variable,” he said. “Different batches of the same mushroom or different parts of the same mushroom are too variable in psychedelic content … which the FDA hates … It has to be the same every time.”
However, relevant and highly promising studies have been conducted using synthetic psilocybin, as well as data gathered from people who self-administered mushrooms. An animal study currently in preprint found that larger doses of psilocybin helped enhance fear extinction: Essentially, when rodents associated a certain tone with pain, they began exhibiting fear responses every time they heard that tone; when given doses of psilocybin while hearing the tone, they no longer displayed the fear response.
Such evidence hints at how psilocybin might have helped me.
“PTSD is the difficulty in unlearning that association. The idea is that [psilocybin offers] some sort of enhancement of the learning process.”
The fear extinction study “has a clear analogy to PTSD,” said Woolley, who is also a staff psychiatrist at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, working with veterans living with PTSD.
“You go to Afghanistan and there’s an explosion,” he explained as illustration, “and you link the smells and the sights and the different things around at the time of the explosion, and you get fearful when you smell diesel fuel for example, even though when you come back to America, diesel fuel isn’t actually a dangerous thing for you.”
“PTSD is the difficulty in unlearning that association,” he continued. “The idea is that [psilocybin offers] some sort of enhancement of the learning process. The dendrites are sprouting, it’s a time of plasticity… That’s the hypothesis … that’s the working model for how psilocybin for PTSD could work.”
“We have worked with people that were severely suicidal that have taken our products and they now feel like life is worth living,” Emily said. She also related apparent impacts on other conditions. “We have seen people with severe alcoholism who, within six months come back and say [they] don’t even feel like drinking anymore … There was another girl [who was addicted to heroin] and has been microdosing for about a year. After the fourth month, she stopped doing heroin. She said because she continued with the microdosing, it has changed her life.”
Some research does support psilocybin’s positive impact in areas like alcohol use disorder, smoking cessation and opioid use disorder, among others. But so much of the information out there remains either preliminary or anecdotal, and there are reasons for that.
“Psychedelic work is hard to do across the board,” Woolley explained. “You have to get all this regulatory approval from the FDA and the [Drug Enforcement Administration]…The government hasn’t been funding psychedelics. Now that is kind of changing and they are beginning to fund it [but researchers are still] are having to rely largely on philanthropy and companies.”
When it comes to psilocybin and PTSD, he added, most studies “have been really focusing on MDMA for PTSD so there hasn’t been much appetite [for other psychedelics]. There hasn’t been much funding… It’s political or [financially] strategic; it’s not based on evidence or efficacy.”
Outside of clinical settings, however, humans have been eating mushrooms and experiencing their radical benefits for thousands of years.
Psychedelics were only one of many contributing factors. But I can’t neglect gratitude for the slow, happy shift that took place during my time with microdosing.
What I know is that my experiences with mushrooms and other psychedelics have changed my life, and that I’m not alone in that. I used to be someone who lived under the constant pressure of suicidal ideation, who could not function without injecting opioids, who felt permanently marred by trauma and isolated from everyone. I now enjoy a large community of friends, and spend my days storytelling and making art. Sometimes I feel sad, of course, but I’m able to recognize that as a passing emotion and not something I need to attach to.
Psychedelics were only one of many contributing factors to the change in my life. And I’ll admit that a lot of that change came from breakthrough experiences on high doses, when I was able to catch glimpses of other realities that allowed me to detach importance from my past trauma.
But I can’t neglect gratitude for the slow, happy shift that took place during my time with microdosing. The trauma energy that was stored in my body slipped away; I found myself able to go out and experience life without the constant terror that nagged at me for over 10 years. Now, I can engage with the art of living in this reality without being inundated with reminders of my past.
Photograph (cropped) by Patrick Ullrich via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 3.0
