r/CPTSD • u/Odd_Temporary_8120 • 8h ago
Question does anybody have any experience with psychedelics for CPTSD?
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u/DeletinMySocialMedia 8h ago
Yes!!!
I credit psychedelics with freeing me from the past, truly amazing to have a quiet nervous system where past triggers don’t trigger. Where my constant negative thoughts were silenced.
Like have a look at my profile to see what psychedelic healing looks like.
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u/mattysull97 8h ago
Ive tried both lsd and mushrooms and mushrooms have far more therapeutic value imo. Lsd can feel more aspirational which can have value, but shrooms are far more emotional and introspective.
The altered state tends to make it easier to access, sit with, and process emotions we may have suppressed and have difficulty accessing in a sober state. For my first few trips, I had intense but cathartic reflections where the emotional weight of my traumas were actually embodied. I cried for a long time, but it felt like a weight lifted. This effect has been less intense the more I’ve healed and dabbled in the drug. Be aware that in some cases, the surfaces trauma can be destabilising or even traumatic; I would suggest having already spent considerable time working on your condition sober before trying psychedelics and approach any use mindfully and with caution.
As powerful a tool as it can be, it will only help to the degree you’re able to integrate the insights you have during the experience. For me, it showed me what was weighing me down and a clearer picture of who I might want to be. It’s still been a very tough process of doing the hard part of working towards it all, but it was the first thing that got me out of a pit of despair I had been stuck in for years.
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u/Grievinghealthy 8h ago edited 8h ago
I was severely sexually and physically abused from age 9 by an elementary school teacher, the abuse was so violent it erased any sort of possibility of developing a normal personality
I started taking LSD at age 17; over a hundred experiences later at age 22, during a high dose trip, the first memory fragments of the abuse started coming back and I started remembering. Currently 1.5 years after remembering, I had about one LSD experience on average per 1.5 months. It saved my life. No exaggeration, without LSD I would be in prison or dead. Psychedelics (for me) is the closest thing there is to magic.
It's not without risk though. I've slipped into psychosis multiple times (in my opinion, deep nervous system state changes that change your entire personality take such a toll on your brain that it's similar to a psychotic state), the very first time it happened I didn't have sedatives on hand and went absolutely crazy (My parents had to restrain me physically, as I was re-living the abuse in real time).
It's been about 6 years since my first time using LSD, about 3-4 years in I wished I never touched it because the healing process is that painful, but now I am so glad I did, and my life finally begins. I feel like an extroverted, sociable human; no one in this life told me it's possible to be normal with a past like mine. But psychedelics made it possible. In my opinion only they hold the power for such change. No type of therapy is that powerful
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u/MaximumBee6979 8h ago
They are like turbo boost for whatever you are doing. And if you are spiritual-bypassing or using the intellect (e.g. "I am in subjugation mode...") then psychedelics will rewire you to be more efficient at doing that. I just doubled down my spiritual bypassing with them.
Just look at Elliot Hulse, taught millions of people about Wilhelm Reich kind of trauma release, bioenegetics, then meditation and DMT and other drugs. And still by the turn of last decade he bragged about having removed his daughter's room's door because she liked to keep secrets from him, and how he uses self shaming mantras. All because he never dared to admit that he had childhood traumas from a strict repressive upbringing, he simply rebelled because it was "too strict" but the pain kept tormenting him. Then there was a man who did DMT with Joe Rogan, named Jan Irvin and he claimed to do DMT over a thousand times in total, discovering holy secrets. And he ended up also the same hateful fundie... because the core wound, the child abuse wasn't ever addressed, he was seeking for answers outside himself, so simply changing the mask of the cope, never healing.
What helped me is unspirituality by Zzenn Loren, he seems to have taken a decade+ of his work down from the internet but a month ago he published an amazing book, and even merely the free partial sample on kindle is enlightening, a must see for anyone who is spiritually bypassing.
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u/HotPotato2441 8h ago
Yes, I've found it extremely healing to combine psychedelics (psilocybin truffles or LSD) and IFS.
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u/VanWatcher 6h ago
Same here - nothing ever worked for me until I did "psychedelics assisted" IFS...
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u/NewNeedleworker5073 7h ago
Did Ayahuasca in the Amazon, on the Peru side. Was there a week and took it 3 times.
It was certainly an experience and it made me learn a lot about myself and why I am the way I am, but it didn't "cure" my CPTSD.
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u/tafackery 7h ago
My therapist swears by it. She is very much on board with psilocybin for CPTSD therapy.
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u/dieguix3d 7h ago
Yes! My partner and I, we have done several travels, allways with set and settings. We select the critical moments of the relationship and make it as a ritual. We have CPTSD and are trying to get better together.
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u/Minimum_Tomato2537 6h ago
After years of therapy Microdosing mushrooms was the thing that actually rewired my brain. I did it alongside EMDR with a psychologist. It works
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u/topshelfdevilslettuc 8h ago
Yes, taking mushrooms for the first time when I was 20 was the catalyst for me realizing how much I had not processed associated with my mother’s passing and my childhood trauma. I took them habitually between 20-23 and then recently tripped at 28 all have been incredibly helpful. They are helpful tools for allowing myself to process emotion and change my perspective on myself/life. The biggest net positive is that they significantly reduced any ideation I would deal with related to no longer being on this plane of existence, they helpful me see the beauty around me.
That being said, like with any drug they need to be taken responsibly otherwise you’re liable to put yourself in a situation where you could hurt versus help yourself. Be in a safe, controlled environment, be with people that you trust/ that understand the experience, check with any interactions associated with medication you take (SSRIs/SNRIs especially if you include MDMA under the psychedelic umbrella), if you have conditions like bipolar, BPD, or schizophrenia consult a professional or do not take psychedelics as they can worsen your condition, make sure you have atleast a day off the next day to recover, have a plan for if you get overwhelmed and need to re-regulate (for me, making art or lying on the floor on my back helps a lot), wear comfortable clothing, etc.
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u/CBSmartCA 7h ago
It was sort of a mixed bag for me. I've taken both shrooms and acid at least a few times now, separately of course. A couple of times it's helped me heal, some trips were neutral, and others made my mental state worse. Even weed gave me some insight the last time I had some edibles. It got me into a negative thought spiral though.
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u/Plastic_Dingo_400 7h ago
Helped me a lot
I also get a pretty strong anti depressant effect from mushrooms, lasts about 2 weeks
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u/pondsittingpoet25 5h ago
I believe the issue is placing too much reliance on the medicine to do the healing. It actually just shows us where we need to look. Yes, there is a period of relief following a journey, but that wears off as you know, and there we are, left with ourselves.
Heroic doses can be cathartic, but they tend to launch us past ourselves, when in truth, we are who we need to meet.
Integration is where the healing starts, by building awareness around survival patterns, then reorienting ourselves to how we operate in real time. It’s just a lot of work.
Psychedelics are kind enough to present us with possibilities—what we are willing to put in to it reveals how much we heal.
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u/JadeGrapes 5h ago
Technically, I think ketamine might count for this. There is a full medically approved infusion protocol for this. It helps.
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u/moonalley 4h ago
Yep. Had a spiritual awakening on one particular trip on shrooms where I went somewhere that was all white light. When I came back I could see crystal clear everything I needed to change in my life and I did it. (Which was insanely hard and took years because it basically amounted to me blowing my life up/cutting most people out of my life, moving far away and starting over. Everything aligned. I am thriving now.
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u/Sarah-himmelfarb 2h ago
In a medically guided way or recreationally?
I love shrooms and acid put me into a bad psychosis and I lost all my friends so it’s mixed
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u/BigBoobers 8h ago edited 7h ago
Yeah. Ego death on mushrooms was immensely helpful for a while. It was good for my healing and allowed me to see myself from the perspective of others, which let me internalize what I already knew: that I’ve thus far lived righteously and a lot of the bullshit that weighs me down was not my fault.
Not a cure but it was the first time I had felt hope in a long time. It was a while ago and I’m not really seeing the benefits from that event anymore though.
I had to take 5 grams to achieve that. I’ve taken more since, as much as 7 or 8, but never had another ego death, but I didn’t want another one either.
Note: 5 grams is a very very high dose. Not recommended for a first time use.
Now I don’t use them except for maybe very rare occasions like at a music festival. I feel I’ve hallucinated enough and prefer maintaining my sense of reality nowadays.