How Ayahuasca Helped Me Puke My Way to Better Mental Health
Navigating life’s ups and downs with a more peaceful mind
I grew up in rural Wisconsin, where people think pot and psychedelics are bad, but it’s totally normal to drink and take meds to blunt your feelings.
By my twenties, I was doing talk therapy and downing different antidepressants, like the rest of the American population. The thinking went that if you could just get the right mental illness diagnosis, implement the right thought pattern, and find the right medication, all your issues would magically float away on a sea of serotonin.
After years of naming and blaming in therapy, all I knew was that I had anger, anxiety, and dysthymia — the feeling where you aren’t so depressed that you’re curled up in a fetal position, but you don’t really enjoy the sunshine either.
After being on an anti-depressant medication that gave me insomnia and made my hair fall out, I cried uncle—no more pharma for me. I was also tired of talking about my mental health.
Then I discovered ayahuasca through a chance conversation with a stranger in a coffee shop. A few years and several serendipities later, I was in a dark room with fifteen other people, ready to drink the South American brew.
