Plant Medicine, thank you for saving my life.
In 2018, a horrific assault abroad, and the domino effect of responses to the assault, and to my survival, left me living in fear. The FBI helped to protect me physically, and the love of friends helped to protect me emotionally. Yet, even when my physical surroundings were secure, I struggled to feel safe.
My life, my work, and my very identity were torn apart by a traumatic event, the aftermath of which I am still battling today.
I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I thought my life was over. Not a waking minute of my life passed that wasn’t tinted by the horror of what had happened to me.
I called a friend in response to flowers and a note that read:
Samantha -
You are one of the most powerful, wonderful women I know. You are so strong and I am so proud of you.
xoxoxoxoxo
She picked up the phone, we exchanged greetings, and I told her:
“Your words, they were exactly what I needed to hear,” the words came out with a strain as I held back tears.
Her words gave me hope.
“I wish I could do more….I love you so much…you are so strong…I am so sorry this happened to you. How are you?” she said with such compassion felt through the distance.
She was across the country.
“I don’t know…I don’t even know what I need…I’m too nauseous to eat, because I can’t sleep, and I can’t sleep because I have constant flashbacks…the minute I start to doze off, I wake up from a night terror with my whole body in pain — muscles clenched. I feel so weak from it all that it is hard to even walk at times….” I trailed off.
“I’m so sorry…” she said. I felt the love and pain in her voice.
“Jon, he wanted me to tell you that you aren’t alone. After Iraq…he had similar symptoms and was diagnosed with PTSD…it got better…and it also takes a lot of work, “ she said with such hope and love.
This conversation is when I realized I had PTSD. Her partner, Jon, recognized my symptoms, before I could piece them together. I was formally diagnosed that same week.
5% of the United States is currently living with PTSD, and 8% of us will experience PTSD at some point in our lives. The numbers are likely much higher. Many survivors of trauma will never report or share their experience out of fear or shame or both. They are too often folded into statistics about things like death by suicide or overdoses.
One of life’s injustices is that It doesn’t matter who hurts you, you are ultimately responsible for healing your trauma. Humanity is interconnected, we are all a giant web, and each one of us impacts the whole through our actions. We all have a vested interest in supporting healing and its destigmatization. Trauma affects us all.
Different healing modalities work for different people. We need to make options accessible. We need to make the conversation open, and honest.
I tried so many things to grow through my trauma and heal. Some examples include CBT, EMDR, intensive trauma therapy, prescribed pharmaceuticals, mindfulness practices, psychedelic therapy, and so much more.
Healing requires commitment to a process.
It is hard to directly attribute a percentage of healing to a given healing method, yet psychedelic therapy punctuated periods of tremendous progress in my healing process.
I wasn’t leaving my home except for intensive trauma therapy at points, and I was so physically weak, I was driven the few short blocks.
After my first session, I started successfully completing my trauma therapy homework: Go outside at least once a day — even if it is just walking down your block.
Before my first session, I struggled immensely to complete this assignment. Sometimes I would try for hours, trapped in fear, and I would eventually give up for the day.
I started going outside. I felt safer. I felt seen and understood. I felt more hope, and more love. I felt more strength to push forward.
During my first psychedelic therapy session, my loved ones gathered around in a circle and together we all watched what played in my head day in and day out — a flashback to my assault. Except, this time instead of feeling alone and scared, I felt held and seen. My loved ones held one another and wept as they watched. I felt accepted and loved. I was silent for the entire session, I couldn’t speak.
I started going outside, and eating more. I felt more at ease.
There was still a long road ahead. My body still didn’t feel like my own. Not only was it physically weak, but it felt like it was physically mapped onto another geospatial plane.
During my second session, I felt and saw my body sync back together. My emotional and conscious self felt mapped to the physical reality of my body.
I felt whole again.
After the session, my muscle spasms and clenching decreased. I was able to start low-impact workouts. I ate more. I became stronger. As I completed my sessions alongside my intensive trauma therapy homework, I saw myself hitting new goals. Trauma therapy assignments related to eating, sleeping, minimizing stress, and physical exercise all improved.
Yet, I still couldn’t speak about the horrors I experienced without completely breaking down in tears.
During my third session, I spoke almost the entire time. Without fear or shame, I was able to completely share my experiences, recognize, and accept them. I accepted them as horrific things that should happen to no one. I recognized it wasn’t my fault. I was also able to see parts of myself that were still healing and still needed my focus, attention, and care.
After the session, I was able to share my story with select loved ones, and with my therapist who had been working with me patiently as I slowly brought words to my experience — session by session — over months that turned into years.
Plant Medicine, thank you for saving my life. Without you, I would most likely still be living with debilitating PTSD. Now, I am experiencing post-traumatic growth. I paint. I skip. I laugh. I love.
I want to live in a world where people can openly talk about trauma and seek and receive help and support.
This begins with allyship and committing to an open and honest conversation through sharing and holding space to share. I am sharing today, because I want to live the life, I want to see the world live.
A life where sharing the most vulnerable parts of ourselves is met with love, compassion, and support. Today’s world too often responds to mental health with shame, stigmatization, and cruelty. Those responses keep our selves, our loved ones, and our world sick. Changing the conversation, changes the health outcomes.
There is fear attached to openly sharing some of the most vulnerable parts of who I am, and what I have experienced. There is hope that in doing so others will feel free from the shame and stigmatization that not only limits, but prevents healing.
I want to live in a world where we can respond to mental health with emotional literacy as individuals, friends, families, community members, and as a society. We have physical first aid, but not emotional first aid. Our emotional states affect our physical states. Emotional pain can even be more dangerous because it is not always visible.
I hurt my back this week. I am slowly moving around and hunched over. People see me and they offer to help me with bags and support. I’ve been in much, much deeper pain, and no one knew to offer to help, because they couldn’t see it. It was so painful that I didn’t have words to express it. Sometimes people would be hard on me, make judgements, or say unkind things when I was trying my best while carrying tremendous weight. It is clear when your back can’t carry weight, but not your emotional state. Please remember you never know what someone else is carrying. Be kind.
When I did share, sometimes people referred to people who experienced similar things as broken or damaged. Sometimes they were even trying to brainstorm or help, and used those words in their explanations. They met vulnerability with underlying judgement.
The world would be so different if emotional first aid were taught like physical first aid. We would be far healthier as individuals and as a society.
When we offer physical first aid, but not emotional first aid, things are very broken.
I want to live in a world where people are not shamed or stigmatized for taking responsibility for their healing. Instead they are seen as loving, courageous, and strong. They are supported and given agency in their healing process.
I want to live in a world where access to healing modalities proven effective, like the use of plant medicines, are accessible and not stigmatized.
My psychedelic therapy occurred in a safe, secure, and sound setting. The person I worked with educated themselves using open source resources on the MAPS website, including their training manual.
There was pre-session and post-session care and integration. My provider, an experienced medical professional, courageously helped me and so many others live a healthy life, instead of a debilitated one. Yet their work requires immense bravery since it is not yet legal. You can help make it legal.
I am so grateful to plant medicine, my loved ones, friends, and allies. I am grateful to everyone who is shifting the conversation, and through it shifting our reality to a much healthier one.
Thank you plant medicine for so many things. Thank you for your healing qualities. Thank you for your medicinal properties.
Thank you for taking the conversation about healing from disconnected to interconnected.
“This movement was born as a response to the stigma in society about the use of psychoactive plants and therapy-assisted psychedelics.
We dream of a world where these substances are free from stigma and discrimination, for personal and collective healing.
We are organizing a global wave of gratitude for February 20, 2020, calling on people to “come out” with their stories of healing and transformation on that day, using the hashtag"
#ThankYouPlantMedicine
Hear other stories at: https://thankyouplantmedicine.com/
You can learn more about medical scientific literature, trials, and government hearings here.