Rejecting Big Pharma With Medicinal Mushrooms

"Treatment-resistant depression” – that’s a scary cluster of words.

Mental illness is a silent shadow that makes life unbearably difficult for many of us and our loved ones. For five years, I tried every cocktail of expensive and laboratory-created pharmaceutical antidepressants that left me numb, disoriented, agitated, and/or suicidal. Nothing ever seemed to work; pharmaceutical medication was, for me, akin to putting a band aid over a deep laceration. It hid the problem for the time being, but the trauma, sickness, and significantly harmful neurological pathways continued to wrestle beneath the surface.

So I ditched the meds.  Now, years later, I practice going inwards, to where the hurt, the sickness, and the limiting ways of thinking wait for me. The only way to heal these daily demons is to surrender to them, and listen to what my heart tells me, without masking its messages with man-made drugs.

One thing that has aided me in my introspection is taking small doses of a fungus that contains a potent medicine called psilocybin. Microdosing is not like going on a “magic mushroom trip”; one takes just enough of this medicine to influence neurological pathways in a way that allow them to slow down and breathe in to their trauma. A quiet afternoon inside journaling, or a long walk through nature, can typically turn in to three therapy session’s worth of tough shadow work and personal acceptance with the addition of psilocybin.   

I find it crucial to only consume mind altering substances that have been vastly researched, written about, and proven to improve one’s quality of life. We are fine with consuming alcohol and tobacco, widely-normalized toxic substances which kill countless people each day – but the idea of eating a beneficial mushroom strikes fear or judgment in us. That’s okay! There are many misconceptions around psychedelics that can make them seem scary, intense, or something that only dirt-worshipping tree huggers may find interesting.

According to several reputable scientific studies, the addition to psilocybin to the non-pharmaceutical treatments of those with terminal cancer (Griffiths et al, 2016) and severe depression (Bolstridge et al, 2018) has been shown to reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, with the effects lasting well over six months after the initial dose was given. There have been no clinically cited instances of physical/emotional withdrawals from or detrimental negative reactions to psilocybin; if a patient did not like the effects of the psilocybin, they simply discontinued dosage and continued life as normal (If I stopped taking my pharmaceutical medication, I was left going through intense withdrawals for weeks).

To avoid writing an entire scientific review of psilocybin, I’ll cut things short and just say that whether you’ve always judged medicinal mushrooms as something for irresponsible drug users, or you use the substance in conjunction with alcohol and marijuana at parties, it’s time for a fresh perspective. The sanctity of earth’s medicine truly knows no bounds. If you have any questions about depression, mental illness recovery, or psilocybin, please feel free to reach out to me. To personally research the medicinal effects of psilocybin, use only peer-reviewed articles and studies, which can be found by searching psilocybin on google.scholar.com. 

Studies cited

Griffiths, Roland R, et al. “Psilocybin Produces Substantial and Sustained Decreases in Depression and Anxiety in Patients with Life-Threatening Cancer: A Randomized Double-Blind Trial.” Journal of Psychopharmacology, vol. 30, no. 12, 2016, pp. 1181–1197., doi:10.1177/0269881116675513.

Carhart-Harris, Robin L, et al. “Psilocybin for Treatment-Resistant Depression: FMRI-Measured Brain Mechanisms.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 13 Oct. 2017, www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-13282-7/.