TW : mention of s*xual and substance abuse
I recently held an Ask Me Anything on my IG stories and one of my followers asked me “I wanna hear more about your journey with mushies through to readiness to motherhood” and I realised the answer deserved a whole blog post. Plus it’s Gemini season and my resolution for this transit is to get back to regular blogging (I’m aiming for once a week). Content creators, take notes : ask your followers what they want to hear about if you’re stuck on topics ! Make a list of prompts/ideas in your notes app. Get creating. You’ve got this.
Anyway, I’d already written a post on my IG about my experience of using psilocybin back in January (when Venus was in Aquarius lol) which you can check out here : https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm80iRpMbus/ , but here’s a more specific focus on how this experience pertains to my current state of parent-to-be.
So the background context is I was s*xually abused aged 10 by my primary school teacher and then repressed that memory until EMDR therapy bought it back up when I was in my mid twenties. This created all the symptoms usually found in adolescents/adults with childhood SA experience, including a very self-destructive relationship with my body and substance abuse.
From day one, my periods were absolute hell – vomiting from the strength of the cramps and being fully su*cidal every month like clockwork, a week before they started. I went on a continuous hormonal pill aged 21 because I was exhausted from the physical and psychological pain. That was magical, because it turned my whole reproductive system off completely. I could experience total detachment from my body’s ebbs and flows. My womb did not exist and it was delicious. But I was aware that this was a chemical break and not a perennial solution for my body. I underwent multiple Endometriosis scans in my early 20s but they couldn’t find any physical traces of it despite all the symptoms existing.
I started EMDR therapy at 23 and my therapist said at the time that she thought that one day, I’d be able to come off that pill and have normal, painless periods again. That the trauma had lodged itself in my reproductive organs, because the body keeps the score, but that we could heal it. I didn’t believe her at the time, but she was right. I was able to come off that pill aged 25, once I’d finished our EMDR cycle together, and have normal, painless periods.
I’ve always loved children, I started working babysitting jobs as a teenager and have now (at nearly 30) almost 15 years experience working with children and adolescents. I moved from private babysitting to collective daycare centers while I got my diploma in childcare and child psychology, and ran after-school programs in primary schools for another few years after graduating. Then I burnt out during COVID and got fed up with living in a big city center and moved out to the middle of nowhere to become a full time Astrologer but that’s another story, for another time.
But I always thought I loved other people’s children and wouldn’t ever have my own. Due to the SA trauma, I had always been terrified of pregnancy, childbirth, the idea of something alien being inside of me, all of the medical interventions involved in perinatal care… I thought I could never do it, it seemed absolutely impossible for my nervous system to undergo. Also I’d never met anyone who made me want to have their kids, quite the opposite – my dysregulated nervous system picked out the worst partners as chaos felt familiar.
Finishing EMDR therapy at 25 enabled me to get clean from my daily drug habits, as being in my body was safe again, I no longer needed substances to check out. I could have periods and feel my body ebb and flow and it was safe. If EMDR was the prep work to bring my nervous system back down to a neutral level, psilocybin was what grew me a new brain. When I talk about “finishing” EMDR, I mean it had brought my PTSD levels down from an “active” 63/70 on the PCL-5 test down to an “inactive” 17/70.
I started taking it once every 2-3 months from 26 to 27, when I got pregnant. I took it nearly always with my partner / baby daddy, who was on a similar healing journey, and sometimes with my chosen sisters. All my trips were as conscious or as silly as I (and all my inner Parts) needed that time. They were all accompanied by integration sessions afterwards, in spoken form with my trip partners or in written form with myself (and my Selves). So many of our trips were just crying and processing and letting our Exiled parts speak out. Some were just pure joyful, creative celebrations of the world and our existence here.
Western “traditional” medicine seeks only to suppress the painful symptoms, not heal the roots of the issue. I could have kept taking hormones to suppress the functioning of my reproductive system so as to not have to feel the symptoms and address the issue for the rest of my life. But that’s not growth or healing. That’s surviving. It served me for the time I needed it and I don’t look down on it. It enabled me to catch my breath and prepare for the healing work. I’m aware of my privilege in being able to access both nervous system regulation therapy like EMDR and plant medicine like psilocybin.
My main goal with psilocybin was to connect to my inner child, and give her the time and space she’d been denied previously. I was also aware of how her pain had lodged into my throat and root chakras, so I bought my awareness there. Trips spent twerking, singing, shouting, dancing, walking, stretching, spinning, laughing. Lots of painting, and baking. Lots of hikes aka “adventures”. Lots of just feeling, and allowing myself to feel.
My last trip was December 2022, during which I had the sudden revelation that I was ready (as ready as anyone could ever be, no one is ever completely ready for anything, the trick is to just do it anyway) to get pregnant. I cried from the sheer release of no longer feeling pure fear around this. I’d gotten with my current fiancee / baby daddy to be the summer after having finished the EMDR sessions – he’d been in my life as a friend for the last 8 years but my previously f*cked up nervous system had never seen him as a potential partner because he’s a very safe person and we didn’t know about safe people. We’d talked about maybe having kids together someday but he knew it would have to be when I was fully ready.
Anyway, I got pregnant in January 2023 LOL I’m aware of how insufferable that is for people who’ve suffered from infertility issues for years etc – I literally announced to the Universe that I was ready and bam next ovulation I was pregnant. I’d been off the pill for about a year then and we hadn’t been using any protection since. Maybe it’s sheer random luck, maybe it’s witchcraft aka the strength of my relationship with my subconscious these days – who knows.
As always kids, use your plant medicine responsibly and don’t take a trip alone until you’re a really seasoned traveller. Listen to what your body needs and check in with your inner child. Stay safe and use your common sense. Be aware of the legal guidelines of your country. But also watch Fantastic Fungi and How To Change Your Mind (available on your fave streaming platform) and educate yourself about why psychedelics were shut down as medicine in the 50’s (hint : it has something to do with capitalism).
I hope this has answered your question my dear 🙂
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