My Psychedelic Summer
Author’s note: this post is not directly related to startups, VC, or anything in the tech industry that I usually write about. I know that some people both inside and outside tech are curious about psychedelics, so I wanted to share my experiences. I also want to thank my loving wife for being so open with her experiences and encouraging me to write this.
“We might have landed a whale.” Justin’s voice was quivering with excitement.
I was so surprised; I could barely speak. It was the day of the third, and final, psilocybin trip of the retreat. My wife was having a breakthrough, he explained.
As an experienced facilitator at psilocybin retreats, Justin had told me that something like this was possible — but I didn’t believe it. I had long since given up hope that my wife could heal the deep emotional scars left by a childhood of neglect and poverty.
“She’s exhausted. She’s had an incredible trip. And she wants to see you,” Justin said.
After 7 years of a difficult marriage, I’d learned to be fearful when my wife really wants to see me. Was this different?
I had also taken a dose of psilocybin earlier in the day. Yet the emotional stakes of the moment were sobering. I tried to analyze the possibilities. Could she really be having a dramatic breakthrough? If so, could it last?
Welcome to my psychedelic summer.
Spoiler: yes, it was real. We’ll have to wait and see if it can last.
I’ve been interested in psychedelics for years. In 2011, I read a NY Times article about a study that showed how psilocybin dramatically helped terminally ill hospital patients struggling with facing death. After that, I noticed that institutions like Johns Hopkins were accumulating compelling evidence in support of the therapeutics benefits of psychedelics. It seemed like this might be a promising new treatment modality for other people — people with conditions like severe depression or PTSD — not someone like me.
Just before my wife and I were engaged in 2015, she went on an ayahuasca retreat in Brazil. I was intrigued by ayahuasca, a psychedelic made from plants native to South American that’s been used for at least 1000 years. However, I was busy with work so decided against going. Besides, I didn’t think I had much to gain beyond a satisfying my curiosity.
This July, my wife decided to do an ayahuasca retreat near our home in Miami. She asked me to come with her but told me she’d go even if I didn’t. I welcomed the opportunity. I didn’t have an expectation that I would benefit, but I wanted to support my wife. She had long been interested in mystical experiences. I knew that she was searching for something, although I wasn’t optimistic that she would find it.
Ironically, ayahuasca didn’t do much for my wife. She tried extra doses but didn’t feel anything. The first two times I took it, I felt a little — after a few hours, I felt a deep sense of calm. Although it was hard to get past the extreme physical discomfort (a common side effect) of the first hour.
The third time, I had a profound experience. I found that I was able to explore many of the emotionally-charged knots in my mind with an unusual sense of clarity. I made new connections between my feelings in the present and certain experiences in the past. This helped me to reframe some of the more vexing issues of my daily life in a more positive light. After the retreat, I found my daily anxiety levels dropped a few notches. Research has been piling up about ayahuasca’s therapeutic impact. After my experience, I’m not surprised.
My wife was not deterred by her minimal response and, instead, she explored options for additional help through another psychedelic. She found a week-long psilocybin (the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms”) retreat in late August in the Caribbean and said she was going. I didn’t have much hope that this psychedelic would be different, but I wanted to be a supportive husband. So I decided to join her.
We arrived to a retreat in a beautiful, island setting. Including my wife and I, there were 9 guests. Many had been there multiple times before — an encouraging indication of quality. The week was centered around 3 “dose days” where we each took psilocybin around noon and then experienced a trip for the next 4-6 hours. Before the doses and on the off days, there were group discussions sessions. The spirit was one of radical honesty. We each discussed the reasons we were there, which often involved extremely personal disclosures.
It seemed that the other guests were generally in search of experiencing the remarkable therapeutic benefits that psilocybin can unleash. I felt a little bit out of place — I was deeply curious about the experience of psilocybin and I wanted to support wife. I didn’t think that I needed therapy.
It’s not that I’m opposed to therapy. I’ve seen many therapists in my life. That said, it’s been almost 20 years since my last session. I’ve been able to forge a successful career and find deep joy and fulfillment in family life. So, I didn’t think I was much of a candidate for therapeutic benefit of psilocybin.
I was wrong.
The exceptional therapists at the retreat — technically, they called themselves “facilitators” — say that there are two types of traumas: small “t” trauma and big “T” trauma. Small t trauma is the type that builds slowly, such as the pain of being neglected by a parent. Nearly everyone has small t trauma of one sort or another. Big T Trauma is the type that happens from a particular event, like a bad car accident. Both types of traumas can be terribly damaging.
A digression. Please indulge a bit of self-therapy. I’ve experienced a big T Trauma.
It happened when I was an 18-year-old freshman at UVA. I was walking home one night in November. Suddenly and without provocation, three guys attacked me. I was blindsided with a punch to the face and then stumbled back. I was kicked in the face and then punched again. I struggled to get away, feeling hands grabbing me from behind. My shirt tore, giving me a brief opening. I sprinted away.
The kick came from a guy who had been an offensive lineman on the varsity football team. It broke my jaw, leaving two teeth inverted in my mouth.
Afterwards, I wanted justice. But it turned out that two of my assailants were the scions of wealthy and powerful families - one of whom had been an offensive lineman the year before on the varsity football team. With high-priced lawyers exerting pressure, they received slaps on the wrist from the local prosecutor.
Fearing lawsuits and pocketing large donations, the university administration wouldn’t expel them. Over 1.5 years after the incident, my assailants were still attending class at UVA as though nothing had happened. The university community was outraged. The student paper wrote dozens of editorials in support of my case. Local student activists organized a rally to call on the university to expel my assailants.1 There were TV cameras, a few dozen reporters, and hundreds of supportive fellow students..
I appreciated the support but struggled with how to handle my status on campus as a celebrity victim. I decided to take a year off after my sophomore year. Later, I decided to transfer and eventually attended Stanford for what would have been my senior year at UVA.
Stanford should have been a wonderful experience for me. But my first few years were melancholy and marked by depression. I struggled with the psychological wounds of the attack and the aftermath. A turning point was beginning to study psychology. It became my major, but, more importantly, it was a bridge to sound mental health. I studied cognitive behavioral therapy and practiced it on myself. I was able to develop a toolbox for coping with my trauma.
Does someone like me need therapy? A good rule of thumb is that if you have to struggle hard to restrain tears when describing something that happened to you, you can benefit from therapy.
Over the past 15-20 years, I would generally avoid discussing my attack in any detail. I knew it was impossible to be open about the brutality of the incident and the years of pain afterwards and not end up in tears. Still, I never thought that I might still be harboring an open wound. I suspect a lot of people are similar. Whether it’s from the big t or small t kind, trauma survivors must be pragmatic to function. We might be able to function at a high level, but there is still an undercurrent of pain lurking below the surface. The unresolved wound takes a toll, whether we want to admit it or not.
At the retreat, my breakthrough happened on the third dose day. I relived the experience of my attack and had a revelation. I was not letting myself admit the gravity of what happened. There’s a good chance my assailants would have killed me if I hadn’t escaped. Running away could easily have saved my life.
Over the years, I’ve often had the disturbing thought that maybe I shouldn’t have run from my assailants. Isn’t running away an act of cowardice? I’ve also been haunted by my decision to leave UVA. I’ve had more recurring dreams about this than I could possibly count.
Now, I can see that these questions came up because I was denying to myself the severity of the attack. Reflecting on what happened, it’s impossible to avoid feeling an extreme sense of vulnerability that is profoundly unsettling. It’s been easier to sweep those thoughts under the psychic rug than to confront them head-on.
The medicine of psilocybin helped me move towards embracing a radical acceptance of what happened. Am I fully at peace with admitting to myself the severity of the attack and the trauma that it caused me? Not entirely. But I’m a lot closer today than I was a few weeks ago.
If my experience was a breakthrough, then my wife had a BREAKTHROUGH.
Unlike ayahuasca, my wife had a compelling experience every time she took psilocybin. During the first dose and the second dose, she saw visions of golden snakes and other mythical creatures. Afterwards, she was unusually cheerful. I was happy to see this, but it wasn’t clear that anything profound was brewing.
The third dose was the highest. It triggered an onslaught of emotions and memories. She told me that she experienced stunningly clear visions of our years together. She saw the sadness of our painful marital difficulties. Then, almost miraculously, she felt like she relived the past, but with the dark clouds lifted. She felt pure love. She told me she felt love gushing out of her heart. A radiant joy and sense of connectedness that she had never felt before.
After many hours of feeling and processing this emotional torrent, she realized she needed to see me and share her experience.
When I saw her, she looked exhausted yet had a warm glow that reminded me of the moments after she gave birth to our first child. Her eyes were swollen from crying, but they were happy tears. It was a wonderful surprise. I had never seen her weeping like this. As long as I had known her, she would openly admit that she was incapable of feeling deep emotions — even after tragic events such as the death of her sister.
She was smiling, ready to talk with me with an openness that I had never before seen in her. It was beautiful. She wanted things to be different between us. I was so happy. It was hard to believe it was real, but it was.
Of course, it’s important to emphasize that psilocybin and psychedelics have different effects on different people. For those interested, it’s important to know that there are risks. It’s critical to get expert medical advice to evaluate if psychedelics can be helpful. If you decide to try out psychedelics, be sure to do it in a comfortable and professional setting.
Writing this, it’s hard to believe what has happened to me. Going into the retreat, I had no expectations that psychedelics could help my wife or my marriage, let alone help me with the trauma of my past.
While I don’t know how long any of these positive changes will last, I have a new sense of hope. I will cherish it.
The Washington Post article quoted the local prosecutor as saying "it was one of the worst cases of unprovoked attacks I've ever seen” — he told me, after the judicial case had been settled, that he regretted not making a more vigorous prosecution.