MDMA for PTSD vs. Psilocybin for PTSD and Complex PTSD
I know a lot of people place a lot of hope in the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry to discover solutions to problems like PTSD or Complex PTSD using science and then program a path by which a PTSD sufferer might overcome their disease, but the FDA and Big Pharma are not in the business of finding, creating, or developing cures for disease. Indeed, the word “cure” has become so taboo that it has, at times, been actively censored and blocked by the likes of Google and Facebook at various times over the past decade. Today, the censorship of words like “cure” has become more nuanced and insidious. People are being taught to disbelieve and reject the idea of cures for PTSD and other serious mental health problems. But the truth is, there are ways to cure PTSD.
I just read today that the FDA voted NOT to approve MDMA for PTSD. That doesn’t surprise me because for most of my adult life I’ve been working around the FDA and their policies and helping other people do the same thing. Most people think the FDA is a government agency. It’s not. Most people also think that the FDA is there to protect the common man. It’s not. The FDA is there to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical industry. As such, it is not surprising that it would vote against a drug like MDMA that would cure PTSD.
Despite this roadblock against MDMA for PTSD, psilocybin for PTSD is another viable path to healing that rivals MDMA in its power and ability to release trauma from the body. Personally, I would work only with psilocybin as a treatment for PTSD because 1) I know it works 2) it’s more accessible and 3) it’s a naturally occurring thing that was designed specifically by a Higher Power to help us overcome trauma naturally.
What is PTSD?
PTSD can be conceptualized using a number of different models. Unfortunately, PTSD is often regarded as a mental health issue that only occurs as a result of going to war, but in reality, in women, for example, and in babies and children, childbirth is a common cause of PTSD. PTSD is a disorder that can buildup over time, though too. A number of seemingly “small” traumas can lead to the development of PTSD or even Complex PTSD over the course of time. Many people experience a difficult birthing process which means that most of us come into this world “primed” to develop PTSD.
Click here to read more about how we work with clients who are using psilocybin for birth trauma.
Can Complex PTSD be cured?
Yes…definitely! I’ve seen it happen, against all the odds. Complex PTSD is a buildup of trauma and a person with Complex PTSD can absolutely heal the trauma and become whole again using psilocybin. Complex PTSD requires a sustained course of treatment using psilocybin, but that’s also true for most people with the non-complex form of PTSD. People who have lived with trauma for many years may need to do a “Psilocybin Year” – macrodosing and microdosing to repair relationships using psilocybin, and to simply re-orient themselves to life without extreme anxiety and the constant threat of triggers.
Is it possible to cure PTSD?
It’s a huge tragedy, in my opinion, that people don’t know how to get rid of PTSD with psilocybin and that it isn’t common knowledge that “this is how you do it – that psilocybin cures PTSD”. They don’t even realize that it’s possible to overcome PTSD permanently and completely. I’ve suffered from PTSD myself and I can’t imagine trying to live my life with this kind of mental health issue on a permanent basis. It isn’t necessary to suffer with an emotional problem like this, but getting the word out about how to overcome PTSD and about how to get your life back after PTSD is a huge challenge. Most people believe that PTSD is a permanent condition and that the best you can do is medicate it. This is patently false. It is possible to cure PTSD and I’m proof of that.
Psilocybin not only can help to overcome PTSD, but it also helps patients put their lives back together after living sometimes for decades with a disorder that can destroy so many things. Psilocybin helps people make peace with who they are, their path, and why this was their chosen path. It’s a powerful, sacred medicine.
MDMA Alternatives for PTSD
If you have PTSD and you’ve been waiting for MDMA to be FDA approved, I’m sure it’s very disappointing to find out that things aren’t moving that way. But the reality is that there are many ways to cure PTSD. If you’ve only been recently diagnosed with this problem, you may not be aware of things like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing / EMDR or DreamLight.app. But chances are, if you’ve been struggling with PTSD for a while, you’ve probably maxed out what these systems can do for you in terms of overcoming PTSD. In that case, it’s time to move on to some other, more powerful PTSD treatment options like psilocybin or Ayahuasca.
Psilocybin is the gentlest and most effective treatment for PTSD that people can work with at home. If you’re looking to cure complex PTSD or PTSD due to severe trauma or ongoing trauma, you may need to work with psilocybin for several months to get rid of PTSD permanently. The psilocybin protocol that we use for PTSD involves doing a full-trip with a guide (for the first 1-3 sessions, but for up to 10 sessions for some individuals) every 3-4 days along with microdosing between trips. Most people are able to get through this protocol and get rid of PTSD symptoms within 3-6 months by following this protocol. Microdosing with psilocybin is sometimes also necessary between full trips with psilocybin. As the treatment progresses, PTSD symptoms are reduced step-by-step.
Progress with psilocybin for PTSD happens in stages, but each step in the process is massive in comparison with the amount of progress that a person can make while working with any type of talk therapy. With each step that a person takes, the body and the mind both feel better.
I remember, for example, a day when I did a psilocybin mushroom trip on the topic of hope. It was a rainy day and I went outside and sat down under a tree during the trip. As rain drops feel off the leaves above me and around me, I realized that I was afraid of hope. Hope, to me, had become like a big white “X” on the ground underneath a giant lead weight that was suspended precariously above it. One part of me would warn the other parts of me not to ever step on that white “X”. Ever. Inside my own mind, I made fun of “hope”. I called it “stupid”. If I had some hope in regard to something traumatic or a trigger, then I regarded myself as “stupid”.
So I had to relearn how to feel hope. I sat with the rain falling on me and I felt the power of this hopeless configuration that my unconscious mind was using to avoid pain, but I could also see how my unwillingness to feel hope was making it impossible for me to find solutions to my problems. I had to acknowledge that perhaps all of the hope in the world was not concentrated on that one white X and also, that standing near the white X, with a view of that white X might also constitute a form of hope that had value. Also, not all white X’s on the floor have a lead weight suspended above them.
By the time I did this psilocybin trip, which was perhaps 10 trips into the process of healing my own PTSD, I no longer simply thought these thoughts…I also felt them like a powerful resource of wisdom. In other words, I got to experience a sense of “knowing” that comes more from the body than it does from the mind through this experience with psilocybin for PTSD.
If you’re using psilocybin for PTSD though, it’s important to realize that sometimes, often, it takes more than one trip to get through a body of traumatic material. Men especially need to be aware that their autonomic nervous system is wired a bit differently than a woman’s autonomic nervous system. As a result, traumatic material can sometimes take longer to emerge and it can also sometimes take longer to release. When you take psilocybin mushrooms, though it’s like you’re meeting the shrooms for coffee to converse on the most important topics that impact your life. A typical mushroom trip lasts about 4-6 hours. Some topics that you might bring up to discuss with the mushrooms can be really complex. It may take longer than 4-6 hours to hash through that material. Anyone who works with psilocybin for PTSD should enter into the conversation with the shrooms with this in mind.
It’s still disappointing for me to hear that FDA approval of MDMA for PTSD didn’t happen, but I know that there are alternatives and in fact, some of the alternatives are better than MDMA. Many people say that the San Pedro cactus is a sacred medicine that’s very similar to MDMA in terms of how it helps you experience empathy. And Peyote is another option for those who can legally and respectfully gain access to this sacred medicine. Ayahuasca and Iboga / Ibogaine can also be used to release trauma and get rid of PTSD permanently.
Psilocybin for PTSD
Psilocybin is a medicine that connects the conscious thinking mind to the unconscious “felt sense” of our physical bodies so that our these two parts of us can work together. This “split” between conscious mind and unconscious “felt sense “ of the body is sometimes conceptualized as a left-brain, right-brain split, but essentially, we’re talking about the same thing. In any case, when we lose this connection to the “felt sense” of the physical body, we stop being able to “embody” our own bodies and our own lives. We may be able to think about things on a conscious level, but our lives become governed by trauma that lives in the body and that embodies the body on our behalf.
Psilocybin helps us experience the trauma as feelings that are sometimes powerful during a psilocybin trip, but not overwhelming. We can feel the feelings that we’ve been resisting and we can ride these emotions like waves until they subside and wash up at the shore for release when psilocybin is helping us through the process. The feeling of being traumatized is the story of the trauma as we would tell it to ourselves and psilocybin gives us the opportunity to give the feelings and the stories words. As we do this, the feelings and the stories become a golden source of meaning and wisdom whereas before, they were a source of pain, repetition, and an inability to move forward.
Maybe you were deadset on MDMA for PTSD, but now that FDA approval is no longer a possibility, you’re looking at new and different options. I always recommend to my clients that this type of “obstacle” is a form of “guidance” and to take it as such. Obstacles are frustrating, but usually, the obstacles that stand in our way toward reaching some goal are also leading us down a path that’s more important, that offers us greater growth, and that will allow us to connect up with other goals and aspirations later on. A person with PTSD who is weighted down with 1000 stones of trauma and who is constantly besieged by triggers doesn’t believe in such things. I’ve been there, so I know how it feels, but in fact, all of the people who might have sought out MDMA for PTSD are being given new a direction and new choices. In fact, there are so many ways to heal from PTSD. Psilocybin is just one of the medicines that works very well for this specific purpose.
How We Work with Psilocybin for PTSD
Once the body is cleared of trauma, as it turns out, it can feel what other people are feeling more easily. In other words, empathy is easier to experience when one’s own “felt sense” is under control. MDMA is a medicine that gives a person empathy toward the self as well as empathy toward others, but psilocybin does the same thing through a slightly different process and trajectory. Nonetheless though, because we’ve all been able to work through trauma using psilocybin, we can feel our clients and use this ability to feel to guide them through their process. That may sound fruit-loopy or hoax-y to anyone who is overwhelmed by trauma, but the people we work with are people who want to get their felt sense back so that they can feel their child or their grandchild or their spouse. They’re people who miss sharing in another person’s happiness and joy. PTSD and trauma makes people feel disconnected – their bodies get gummed up with trauma such that they can’t easily feel the present moment or other people.
When we take on a new client, our goal is to feel that client. We don’t have to know a lot about the client in order to feel the client. But once we make that connection, which is distinctively human and actually quite mundane – we use the connection to listen to the client’s trauma stories and put words to it as needed and to encourage the client to put words to it and find the narrative of their own experience.
Some of our clients do psilocybin microdosing and one of us can work as a psilocybin microdosing coach for those clients. Other clients do psilocybin macrodosing and full trips to overcome trauma. We work as online psilocybin guides for individuals who are working with psilocybin for PTSD at home.
Contact us at info@medicinassagradas.com for more information.