What brought me to psychedelics - Part II of II

Reflections on antidepressants vs psychedelics

Photo by Nastya Dulhiier on Unsplash

It’s been a roller coaster of emotion since I withdrew from Cymbalta, the antidepressant I’ve taken for over seven years. For most of the past 30 years, I’ve taken over 50 different psychotropic medicines! Finally being completely off of them feels like victory, but with a heavy price. I’ve gone through such a quick series of mental shifts that the best way I can share what this withdrawal was like are the journal entries below.

One of the first difficulties I experienced was my health care provider’s complete lack of knowledge of the challenges in withdrawing from these medicines. I discovered that about half of the people who withdraw have serious side effects. I had to do my own research and explain that two weeks is not enough time. I requested that we take six months and made several reductions in dosage. I’ve included a few links to helpful YouTube videos at the end of this article.

This article has been particularly challenging to write. Writing about intense personal issues is of course painful. This is the point. One of the intentions of this newsletter is to find a way to take the biggest challenge I’ve had in life and turn it into a positive.

And now I’m addressing what brought me to psychedelics, the fact that antidepressants never truly cured depression. Even taking them faithfully every day, I still have had bouts of clinical depression (days, sometimes weeks when getting just about anything accomplished is close to impossible). Living in the waking nightmare which is depression is too painful to bear. Considering that in America about 25% of us are being prescribed these medicines, I know that I’m not alone. Depression is a huge issue for many of us.

My experiences with psychedelics have been mostly positive, however one dark, despairing trip on magic mushrooms taught me to reevaluate my outlook on them. The power of these substances requires them to be approached with a sense of reverence, which includes due caution. When addressing mental health issues both psychedelics and antidepressants require serious research and the use of your own intuition. Looking to other avenues first such as meditation, hypnosis, deep breathing exercises, and basically as many natural options as possible is the ideal. I’m not sold on using psychedelics as a panacea for emotional illness, especially not as a prescription for everyone.

In my opinion, there are some people who should never take psychedelics, especially those who have schizophrenia in the family background or anyone who cannot stand not being in control.

Psychedelics, Psychotropics and Psychic Healing

My goal is to bring my intentions/mindset to a place where I feel safe enough to try working with psychedelics again. As it is, I feel myself changing almost daily; as if I’ve been many personalities over the months since I stopped antidepressants.

With these medicines I almost always felt numb, as if there was a psychic veil over the world. By contrast, with psychedelics, I’ve felt expanded, elated, certain, and sometimes wildly optimistic. These emotions so contradict the feeling of being controlled that comes with antidepressants, the repression of all memories, both good and bad, and the general shutdown of so many parts of myself.

However, it would also have been incomprehensible to have lived without antidepressants. I didn’t have any of the emotional and moral support needed to negotiate this cold and mechanistic world most of us live in today. Antidepressants had to take the place of community, family, and even the sacred. This is a tall order for one medicine. 

Even having learned this, the hard way, I am still ambivalent about these medicines. At times, the best I could do, or probably any of us can do under extreme stress, is survive. Even if this means living as a semi-automaton for a period. But as a prescription for a lifetime such a numb, veiled, half-conscious world can become a horror. 

Some of my journal entries during withdrawal from antidepressants

June 10, 2023

Writing about myself, my inner struggle has been beyond challenging for me. In this age, when people are so quick to judge, censor, cancel, obliterate I’ve started a Substack to force myself to address a lifelong issue: negative thinking that cycles into depression. This act of bravery means a lot for me. I don’t consider myself brave. I would say I’m reflective, empathic, caring, many things but not brave, more on the anxious side.

Although my state of mind is usually treated with medicines called antidepressants, I believe this only masks the problem. These “medicines” can blunt the mind, the personality, the memories of the individual, especially when taken over an extended period. 

Having weaned away from these medicines after decades, I’m now facing memories I had repressed for so long. I’m now facing a journey to address them. 

My mantra has been: “I do not need to relive any event, whether good or bad.” I believe most of my life I felt I had to go back, relive the trauma and figure out what went wrong, how could I have avoided this experience? What I’ve learned time and time again is that this just can’t work. It’s an illogical impulse I’m overcoming. Each time I tell myself the above mantra, it gets a little easier.

I have had moments of self-doubt about stopping antidepressants, moments of overwhelming painful emotion, stuck moments that I thought I would never pull out of, but yet I have. With the help of my common law husband and my trip sitter I have been able to do so. And it’s been almost 4 months since I’ve withdrawn from my last antidepressant, Cymbalta.

July 10, 2023

Renewed. A filtered version of my former self. 

As if I put in a request for my higher self, the self that’s not constantly looking for meaning, the ultimate answers, a non self-loathing self, a self who can see the beauty in the prosaic. 

I feel freer. To have the chemical blinders on meant both losing the oppressive traumas of my past, but also the lovely, hold-on-to memories we all cherish. I had lost both without even realizing it. How much of this suppression of the past is chemical and how much is it my own effort to will the past away. 

Also, how much was I reacting appropriately to what are legitimately sad situations, living in a society that is almost unbearable, if you are a sensitive person.

July 30, 2023

After this surge of emotional ups and downs, I’m ecstatic to report that I feel more clear-headed and focused than I’ve felt in so long. I also feel more content, more self-accepting. I’m beginning to change lifelong habits of automatic negative thoughts. Even though I’ve thought I’m going to have to go back to antidepressants quite a few times over the last four months, I have not gone back. And at this moment, I don’t plan to ever go back on them.

Where I’m at today

Tumultuous. Confusing. Cathartic. These are some of the words I would use to describe the process of weaning from antidepressants after half of my lifetime being on them. Now I am glad I chose this path.  However, I admit that I had second thoughts about this decision many times. I felt deep despair, returning traumatic memories, sleeplessness, anxiety.

Today I’m feeling victorious. Even though I’ve experienced a roller coaster of emotions, I can say today I know that getting off these medicines was right for me. I feel more like myself, remember so much more about my past, and I’m feeling more whole. 

Psychedelics have helped me on this difficult journey. I look forward to where this unfamiliar road of me leads from here.

For more information on antidepressant withdrawal

The Antidepressant Story - BBC Panorama documentary

SurvivingAntidepressants.org Community Discussion

Mark Horowitz - Peer-Support Groups Were Right, Guidelines Were Wrong - Tapering Off Antidepressants

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