The skin is so thin, the current of blue streams that are your veins flow rapidly beneath it and are begging to burst free.
“Freedom will be yours soon, and you will flow wildly and freely, the way you are meant to be,” you say.
The knife is too dull though. Breaking
out the hunting knives, you try knife after knife. Not a single one
penetrates your skin. You give up, not on the act alone, but on the
method. Your mission still remains. If you cannot slit, you will saw. It
was ignorant of you to think this would be painless anyhow, foolish
beyond belief. But you do not remember how to believe, you just pine to
bleed. Taking one last look at your loyal dog, you start sawing. Take a
second to take this in, just like the blade serrating your skin.
The above is actually an account of my
own experience with depression, after two years of failed
anti-depressants, various herbs and counselors. Up until the very night I
was introduced to the healing benefits of psilocybin, I slept with a
knife in the drawer next to me. I sat on the floor at three AM night
after night in the dark, knife in my lap. I do not know how much longer I
could have gone. Lyme disease had taken me to the edge, to the gap
between the walking dead and the already dead. The valley of the shadow
of death.
Psychedelic mushrooms saved my life, and
I know I am not the only one. The next day, after experimenting with
the mushrooms, I took the knife downstairs and never looked back. My
depression is non-existent now, along with the countless anti-depressant
pills that used to flood my night stand. I can truly stand here today,
and say with every ounce of my being, that psilocybin
saved my life.
Alright, let’s get to the alarming facts
right off the bat –although quite frankly, they are all pretty
alarming. With more than 350 million people suffering from depression
across the globe, it is a no brainer that antidepressants are the number
one drug prescribed by doctors
“The truth is that
even experts aren’t really sure how antidepressants work. There’s just a
whole lot we don’t know about how the brain functions. [5]”
Perhaps that last sentence should be,
“There’s just a whole lot we don’t know about how the antidepressants we
prescribe so freely function.” How does anyone develop a pill without
knowing how it will work in the brain? Do they just take their best
guess and throw chemicals together, hoping it works when they use humans
as guinea pigs? Admitting you do not know everything is a highly
respectable act, except when you still continue to alter the brains of
human beings without knowing the consequences after doing so.
The answer to how psychedelic mushrooms
containing Psilocybin function in the brain to treat depression is far
more simple and clear cut. There is an actual answer, as opposed to a
slew of “educated” guesses. In depressed individuals, there is over
activity in the anterior cingulate cortex. Psilocybin possesses the
power to switch off the over activity in this part of the brain. [7]
Then, rather than increasing levels of serotonin in the
brain, Psilocybin binds to serotonin receptors and mimics them, causing
the brain to function as if it has more serotonin without actually
altering the levels themselves. This last part is a crucial defining
fact in deciding between the safety of antidepressants and psychedelic
mushrooms in treating depression.
A serious and potentially fatal syndrome
called ‘Serotonin Syndrome,’ which occurs when serotonin levels become
too high, can occur from taking antidepressants. Many render this rare,
but considering antidepressants increase the chemical serotonin in the
brain, developing serotonin syndrome is a possibility to consider; as
‘rare’ is not a synonym for ‘nonexistent.’ Psychedelic mushrooms, on
the other hand, do not put you at risk of developing serotonin syndrome
because Psilocybin merely mimics serotonin receptors rather than
actually increasing serotonin levels.
While psychedelic mushrooms take
approximately three hours to work, most antidepressants take two to four
weeks to start working, because increasing levels of neurotransmitters
is a gradual process [6]. Something about the fact that chemicals are
unnaturally building up in your brain is a cause for slight concern,
much less the fact that doctors and chemists are unsure of how exactly
these antidepressants work. Messing with chemicals and
neurotransmitters in the brain without having a firm grip of how you are
doing so does not seem rational, logical, or humane. However, most of
us are conditioned from birth to trust our doctors and pharmaceutical
companies.
There are not any noted side effects of
psychedelic mushrooms, other than the ones you experience while under
the influence of them. The laundry list of potential side effects from
taking antidepressants includes:
- Immune system problems: SSRI antidepressants cause serotonin to
remain in the nerve junctions longer, interfering with immune cell
signaling and T cell growth.
- Still births are twice as likely if the mother is on antidepressants
- There is a 40% higher risk of birth defects, such as cleft palate, if the mother is on antidepressants while pregnant.
- 45% higher risk of having a stroke, as antidepressants affect the blood clotting process
- Heart disease
- Sudden cardiac death: your risk of sudden death doubles while on antidepressants.
- Chest pains
- Rapid heart beats
- Headaches and migraines
- Stiff neck
- Difficulty urinating
- Excessive perspiration
- Insomnia for some, chronic fatigue for others
- Loss of appetite
- Agitation
- Shaking
- Vertigo
- Dry mouth
- Constipation
- Diarrhea
- Blurred vision
- Erectile dysfunction
- Inability to orgasm
- Low sex drive
- And let’s not forget, serotonin syndrome
Close to a million lives are lost yearly
due to suicide from depression, which comes out to three thousand
suicide deaths a day [2]. Unfortunately, that alarming fact alone cannot
wake the medical world up to see what they are doing is incorrect, and
not working. From the outside looking in, one must admit it appears as
if they are selfishly denying people the right to proper, harmless
treatments such as Psilocybin containing mushrooms. Why would anyone do
such a thing? That is a question we must continually ask ourselves in
this day and age, as sincere concern for the public appears to be
obsolete in various situations.
Death rates from antidepressants range
around forty-thousand annually. Suicidal thoughts and feelings, as well
as violent behavior are ironically common side effects of
antidepressants. Even more ironic, is the fact that your risk for
suicide is twice as high when taking SSRI antidepressants. Death rates
from antidepressants are also 32% higher in females [3].
No valid evidence exists to confirm any
deaths from magic mushrooms; and deaths from acute poisoning from such
mushrooms has not been recorded in medical literature. However, it is
imperative to remember there are actually poisonous mushrooms that are
entirely different from the typical Psilocybin psychedelic mushrooms
referred to in this text. In fact, blindly ingesting the wrong mushroom
can prove to be fatal.
All in all, from chemistry explained, to
side effects to no side effects, to forty thousand deaths a year to
zero deaths a year, it is clear that psychedelic mushrooms can be a more
appropriate, safe approach for treating depression. One can only hope
for a world where one day we can go to a psychedelic psychologist, take
psychedelic mushrooms in a controlled setting, and come out three hours
later relieved of depression. Can you imagine? No more monthly doctor
fees. No more monthly prescription fees. No more taking a pill a day. No
more withdrawals. No more side effects.
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