Finding a therapist was the first step toward healing. The licensed social worker who diagnosed my PTSD, though supportive and a valuable resource, could not accompany me in the direction where we both felt I needed to go. Through my research I came into contact with a collective of therapists practicing a somatic psychology technique that allows the patient to access and clear suppressed emotional energy the tissues of the body store as a result of past trauma, whether conscious or unconscious. This technique is amplified and catalyzed by mind-enhancing medicines such as ketamine, cannabis, and in certain clinical trials, MDMA. 

My new therapist, a member of this group, wanted to first explore what my nervous system had done with the traumatic experience I had gone through, and how my psyche had weathered it. The symptoms and dreams kicked up by my illness could be read as distress signals from my body and my psyche.

Trauma is an experience where your natural reaction is no, but that no is overridden, causing fear for your life or the life of someone you care about. My initial sessions were an inventory, through an exhaustive series of questionnaires, of the traumatizing events in my life, which gave my new therapist insight into what might be causing my symptoms.

The body-oriented therapy technique my therapist taught me goes by many names, including SomatoEmotional Release, containment, and somatic experiencing. It involves slowing down and containing the sensations in your physical body and simultaneously paying attention to your emotional body to discover what suppressed emotion has been held there. The watchwords of this process are to notice what’s happening in the body and allow it to happen without coping with the experience, which is our usual response. 

As you experience that suppressed emotion, the memory of the event that caused it becomes available to the conscious mind and can be discharged from the body. The story associated with that event, which usually involves some commentary about your value, can be brought to consciousness and cleared. This discharge is a physical discharge from the nervous system and the tissues of the body. It can take the form of shimmering to violent shaking, heat release, tingling, and/or release of numbness. The body may tighten and then release, and with this release, tightness and pain leave the body and a great sense of well-being and relief floods in.

I began to come to these sessions having taken a light dose of edible medical marijuana, which allowed me greater access to what was unconscious, or disassociated, in my psyche. Thus amplified, the somatic technique gave me some marginal relief. I started to get clues as to where my symptoms were coming from and why I had so much pain in my body.

I asked my therapist how long it would take to clear the trauma I was dealing with using the somatic technique. He estimated that with cannabis as a catalyst, it would take between four and five years. He explained that according to the research in the clinical trials, MDMA is by far the most effective catalyst, allowing a release of long-held, dissociated traumatic material from the body relatively rapidly, yet in a very comprehensive and deep way. Somatic therapy without a catalyst at all or using ketamine and/or cannabis is also effective, but the healing or integrating process is just much slower and not as profound.

Meanwhile, as the traumatic material in my nervous system was becoming more evident at a conscious level, I was struggling to work and support myself. Though healing and wholeness seemed within reach for the first time in my life, I was in a state of crisis and I craved relief and stability. With all the impatience of a little girl still strapped to a table and wanting to run free, I knew I couldn’t wait for the “slow boat to China” method with this therapy, as it slowly dissipated my symptoms over the coming years. 

When I told my therapist that I wanted to try MDMA as a catalyst in our sessions together, my desire presented him with an ethical quandary. On one hand, he believed in the power of this drug and was interested in working with me to explore how it could help a patient who had gone through such profound and uninterrupted early-childhood trauma. On the other hand, could he allow a severely traumatized patient to ingest a powerful drug that was illegal, outside the confines of clinical trials? In addition to the legal risk he’d be exposing himself to, he wanted to be sure he was equipped to adequately support someone like me through such intensive work.

Desperate for relief and change, I decided I was ready to start MDMA therapy with or without his help. Knowing this, he chose to assist and accompany me. This brave therapist and others like him risk their professional lives to help people like me, people suffering from PTSD, who can’t wait until the drug is legalized to have a chance at a lifeline.

Most of what is sold as MDMA is actually some combination of meth, Benzedrine and other unwholesome compounds. I procured pure MDMA from a reputable chemist, and at my therapist’s suggestion I had the drug tested for purity using a Marquis reagent testing kit (this can be purchased online). Purity is key for the therapy process to be effective.

 Medicine in hand and a trusted guide at my side, I was now ready to begin my healing journey.