Psilocybin for major depression granted Breakthrough Therapy by FDA
After several years of casual reading online and reading &quot;How to Change Your Mind&quot;, I decided to experiment with psilocybin.<p>What I did was borderline reckless. The substance is illegal.  Using it outside the context of carefully designed interventions has no evidence of improving the well-being over the long run. Despite these clear detractors, I feel sharing my experience may help others in their search for happiness.<p>My main concern was how to know if I was given the real thing or the right dose. I decided to go with dried, whole mushrooms and grind them up at home. For a month, I took around 150-250g every 3 days and took notes throughout the day. This helped me record how I was feeling (even on &#x27;off&#x27; days) to assess how it was affecting how I felt. This could be considered microdosing, but not quite as somedays I noticed a difference: I was more aware of my emotions and what happened throughout my day. Intense anger, sadness, joy, beauty, the whole thing. I noticed details details I had never noticed in my daily commute.<p>This could have been due to the journaling. My main objective was to see how the substance affected me. After concluding the trial a friend asked me &#x27;so, are you happier now?&#x27;. That was not the point. My takeaway was that the exercise made me more aware of my feelings - something I realized would be useful if I wanted to get to know myself better. After this, I was still scared to do a &#x27;full dose&#x27; and left it at that.<p>After around 6 months, I decided to try it out. Felt I needed supervision but my close ones thought I was crazy for wanting to do this. Stupidly, I did something riskier and went on trying to find a &#x27;healer&#x27; online. Luckily I found a nice lady (she had yelp reviews and all) who took care of me while I took 2g of dried shrooms. She didn&#x27;t seem to do anything special, just make sure I had a nice&#x2F;safe space to lie down while high. Again, the dosing was gradual: first 1g (4-5x what I had during the microdosing trial) then an extra one after a few hours.<p>It felt like I had meditated for years. My deepest hour-long meditation does not come even close. Everything was peaceful. I felt all sorts of emotions, as if a color wheel and tried them out one by one and switched between them: deep sorrow, bliss, intense anger and many more as well as quick transitions and mixes I can&#x27;t explain.<p>My life changed after this. I am a more conscientious coworker and husband. I am present. I am there for my loved ones. I love myself and stopped shaming myself for not working. I understood that the point of my life is just living it: no further instructions or expectations. This is something I needed to internalize and the session helped me.<p>After a few months I felt I had yet to discover more. Based on what I had read online, I knew the substance had the ability to make me feel other important things. I realized the lady just made me feel safe and I had already seen what 150mg-2g did to me, so I decided to do more on my own.<p>I locked myself up in my apartment, gave my best friend the key and told him to drop by just in case to check up on me. I worked my way up 1g at a time to 7.5g. I felt what many mention online. A quick way to summarize it is &#x27;we&#x27;. I felt what it feels to not be myself. My big conclusion was that the only thing I could do was be grateful. I have taken to this feeling daily after that session.<p>To be clear: I already had a daily meditation practice and a habit of journaling my gratitudes before the trips. The conclusions under the substance may have just been things I had already been exposed and intensely prioritized in my life. But there&#x27;s something about these experiences that made me feel more intensly and helped me internalize them - I &#x27;felt&#x27; the conclusions, not just &#x27;think&#x27; about them.<p>I am scared of the consequences of suggesting others to try this out. The feelings I experienced, the results I have seen in my personal life and the literature we have about this substance make me conclude that the risk is worth taking. Basic precautions can help mitigate the downside: small&#x2F;trial doses, safe environment and some reading about the substance worked for me.<p>When I read what is happening with these trials, I can&#x27;t help but hope we find a way to give this to everyone. I do not claim that what I did is safe or even desirable at scale. There&#x27;s a chance if 100 people do what I did, some may accelerate or trigger some form of mental illness or harm themselves (I did think &#x27;what if he kills himself?&#x27; (thinking about myself) and figured none of my loved ones would want to try shrooms if I did).<p>A world with more people who can feel &#x27;we&#x27; is filled with love and compassion. I believe psilocybin can help us.