OCD and Psilocybin

Many of you that follow our podcast and Youtube channel “Mind Escape” know that I have suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder since my mid 20s. The first inkling I had that something was off was an awareness of compulsive thoughts surrounding my own mortality that I had never experienced before. My life, up to that point, was comprised of a happy childhood and teenage years with some Catholicism sprinkled in. I had faith there was a sky daddy watching out for me and I was almost certain there was life after death. I had never really researched Ontology and Teleology, or confronted the idea that maybe this is it. I wish I had the tools and knowledge I do today when my OCD was in the early stages because I feel like I could have prevented deeper damage. I would have been able to prevent my thought patterns from becoming a deeply engrained tangled mess, like a ball of yarn. The initial onset of OCD manifested into hypochondria. My personal analysis of why this occurred is once I became aware of my own mortality I set out to protect it at all costs and that must have activated my amygdala or my fight or flight response. Somehow, by worrying and obsessively thinking about my health constantly it created a negative feedback loop in my mind. This loop I refer to a lot on our podcast I believe is the mechanism behind OCD. It was like I opened an undesirable door in my mind I could never close. I also believe there is an addictive aspect to OCD and by that I mean I became addicted to trying to control my environment and even people around me to help me try to obtain some level of normalcy. The hypochondriac phase then manifested into specific compulsions and fears that I do my best to suppress, work on, and understand to this day. I must point out I have seen many psychologists, psychiatrists, sleep experts, and other professionals to seek help. I have also taken, at some point or another, all the conventional medicines they prescribe to people with OCD and depression. I know people that swear by certain combinations of medications and different types of therapy like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is awesome. For some reason my OCD was resistant to those conventional medicines and therapies except for CBT. I revisited CBT later on under different circumstances and had good results. Some of the conventional treatments I tried even made me feel worse or more depressed. My philosophy has always been the more tools or options the better and I felt like I was running out of those options with no end to my OCD in sight. One day I just decided to stop everything I was doing and taking and do some deep thinking about what was going on in my mind. This is when the idea popped in my head that OCD is a thought loop or mind virus that embeds itself in the mind like a tangled ball of yarn. The more time that passes, the more it embeds itself deeper into your psyche and neural connections and the bigger the ball gets. I was told over and over by different doctors that this was a chemical imbalance or something inherently wrong with my brain chemistry, but if you listen to our podcast you know science is an ever evolving process that has changed a ton even since my diagnosis 13years ago. Things that were true regarding neurology and psychiatry then are no longer true today. We now know more about neural plasticity, cognition, and the mind in general. 

So here is where the Psilocybin comes into the picture. I have always had a great relationship with Psilocybin, THC, and CBD. On the Trip Report episodes we did for our podcast recently I opened up about my psilocybin experiences starting in high school and how they evolved over the years. Looking back, I realized at the time of the onset of my OCD I had abandoned my connection to psychedelics and was abusing cocaine and going to bars regularly. I normally do not drink much, if at all. I believe my drinking and going to bars was connected to my cocaine use during those two years. My memory has always been my greatest asset. It is usually a blessing or a curse (this time it was a blessing) and something clicked in my head and I revisited how I felt after previous psilocybin and psychedelic experiences. A majority of them were overwhelmingly positive and introspective. I also remembered the mental reset and fresh outlook that comes either during the come down or next day and can last weeks sometimes thereafter. My first thought was I need to find psilocybin mushrooms. They have always been my favorite psychedelic. I have a long history and connection with them. During my many experiences prior to my OCD onset I would have moments where I felt like I was going home. I also had the archetypal feeling of that realm being more real than real. I ended up contacting an old friend and was able to find 7 dried grams of psilocybin which was enough for 2 macro doses. I remember taking roughly 3.5 grams and initially thinking what did I do? This is common before coming up on psychedelics, and as I came up that dissipated and I was heading home again. I remember smoking some cannabis when I was coming down and thought for last 6hrs I had completely forgotten that I had OCD. I was just pure consciousness and being. For the first time in 2years I felt better. I took a step forward as opposed to the slow steady retreat into darkness and chaos that I had become accustomed to. I, of course, had my own questions….

Did the fact that I had a good rapport with psilocybin in my earlier years mean I was self medicating?

Was my OCD dormant in me all along? 

Did taking a two year break from psychedelics along with abusing other substances allow my OCD to take over?

Was my OCD going to manifest regardless? 

What is the connection between people in their mid 20s and the onset of mental illness? 

I believe I was self medicating and the lack of psychedelic experiences created a vacuum in my mind. I suspect overusing cocaine and alcohol and not taking care of my physical and mental being allowed my OCD to fill that gap. I also think the fact that so many people in their mid 20s develop mental illness is somehow connected to the frontal cortex, which is not fully developed until you are roughly 25years old. Psilocybin and psychedelics are not some silver bullet, and there is no cure for OCD. I will always have it. That being said, psilocybin helped reset my mind. Psilocybin in combination with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helped me start to unravel the ball of yarn in my mind. Macro doses of psilocybin helped me break the thought loop and allowed me to view myself from outside of my day to day consciousness. That reset mixed with analyzing your feelings and emotions in CBT has done more to help me heal far more than anything else I tried. My philosophy has always been everyone is different and people respond to different types of treatments. Psilocybin is a tool that should be added to the toolbox as an option. There has been a psychedelic renaissance recently, and with all the research MAPS and certain colleges are doing there is a big push to make psychedelics a legal option for mental illness treatment. They have had positive results with PTSD patients using MDMA, OCD patients using psilocybin, end of life patients using psilocybin, and depression patients using ketamine. This is no surprise, as some of these substances have been used since before the invention of civilization. After talking with Dr. Rick Strassman and Tom Lane (both of whom are authors and psychedelic researchers) on our podcast it solidified what I already suspected that there is a spiritual aspect that accompanies the effects of these compounds. This spiritual component aides in the healing and it can not be overlooked. I have learned to channel some of my obsessive energy into productive and creative ventures. This is my journey and I will never recommend anyone do or try psychedelics, especially since they are illegal in most places in the world and people susceptible to schizophrenia or psychosis should consult a doctor first. I hope that the legal status of psychedelics changes soon and they become a very real option that can be integrated intelligently and with the proper reverence and historical importance. I have accepted I will always have OCD, but no matter how dark the night is, there is always hope with the dawning of a new day.