I Cured My Anxiety With Magic Mushrooms and MDMA Therapy. Here’s What Happened.

These drugs are being fast-tracked to legality for therapy. I couldn’t wait that long.

I’d tried all sorts to cure my social anxiety. From self-directed therapy, hypnotherapy and comfort zone stretching to working as a nightclub doorman and TV actor. But it wasn’t until I read about MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and the benefits of psychedelics that I found my full cure.

There are two currently illegal drugs in clinical trials at the world’s top universities at this time of writing. MDMA, the main component of Ecstacy pills, is in phase 3. Psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, is in phase 2. They’re different drugs with different effects and therapeutic uses, but combining self-therapy and these drugs pulled me out of an anxiety that had plagued me for almost forty years, and it happened within weeks.

In fact, I made more progress in a few sessions than I had done in ten years of other methods. I’ve never felt better or happier. I’m in disbelief that I could have got in trouble with the law for it. Moronic politics has to catch up.

I’d never done either drug before, so I was a little nervous. I read about uses and effects of mushrooms, LSD, Ayahuasca and MDMA, and decided that the easiest and most risk-free first option was MDMA. I’d be going it alone with my own therapy knowledge, with no one to go to if I had a bad experience. MDMA looked the way forward.

Love. Softness. Beauty. Compassion. Gentleness. The music sounded unbelievably beautiful. My bed cover felt lighter and softer than I could’ve ever imagined. I wondered why I’d never done this before. I was floating on air.

Sourcing pure MDMA isn’t necessarily easy. It’s definitely not legal. I managed to obtain one gram through a friend of a friend, and measured it out into a therapeutic dose, plus a half dose ready in case I wanted to extend the session, and a quarter dose in case I wanted to extend beyond that.

I had a plan. I would spend the first hour or two enjoying the drug and relaxing into it. Then the work would start using a simplified IFL (Internal Family Systems) based self-therapy, or any other method I saw fit, if my brain was clear enough to do that. I had an eye mask and some ambient music. I took the dose, lay on my bed with a favourite album on, and waited.

It took about forty minutes until I felt something. Initially, it was anxiety – I could feel something happening but still didn’t know what to expect. And then, very suddenly, it hit me. Wow.

Love. Softness. Beauty. Compassion. Gentleness. The music sounded unbelievably beautiful. My bed cover felt lighter and softer than I could’ve ever imagined. I wondered why I’d never done this before. I spoke out loud. I’d never found the sound of my own voice beautiful before. I always hated it. I was floating on air.

I wanted it to never end. I played one song over and over again in disbelief about how beautiful it was. But then, after a while, I stuck to my plan and told myself the work had to begin.

I put on the ambient instrumental music, closed my eyes, and asked myself what needed to be done.

“Hello” came a childlike voice from my mouth. I wasn’t expecting that. And again. “Hello”.

I knew theories of the inner child and how it is said we all have one still within us, and how if that child is still frightened then the anxiety can persevere into adulthood. I never took it literally, assuming it was more of a useful model to base therapy on. But here he was, talking to me.

It was time for that child to learn that he wouldn’t be punished anymore, whatever he did. And the way to learn that was to misbehave, and get away with it.

That child got out of bed, taking my body with him. He stripped down to his boxers – probably because MDMA causes body temperature to rise so much. I walked around my bedroom, catching a glimpse of my almost naked body in the full-length mirror. It stood and moved like a young child. And this child was up to mischief.

As a child in the 80s, it was legal and very common to get a smack for misbehaving. My parents were far from abusive and I’m grateful for being brought up the way I was. They remain gentle and generous to this day. But I was also a naughty child and got a regular smack on the back of the hand. It’s nothing to an adult, but as a 4-year-old child with a giant parent towering over you, angry and asking you to hold out your wrist for a painful smack, it’s terrifying.

Often it happened when I’d done nothing wrong. My siblings knew I was the naughty child and could easily get away with things by blaming me, and my parents would believe them. I don’t blame them. It normally was me. I became nervous of everything. I could get punished at any time whether I’d done something wrong or not.

I found a selfie the next day of me amongst this mess, topless and with toilet roll wrapped around my head and a huge cheeky grin.

But right there in my bedroom years later and on MDMA, I was realising that I was still scared of being punished for doing anything even slightly wrong. This was a big part of my anxiety. It was time for that child to learn that he wouldn’t be punished anymore, whatever he did. And the way to learn that was to misbehave, and get away with it.

My bedroom wall still has the pen marks from that day, from me drawing on the walls just like I did as a child. I urinated in my laundry basket. I held my wrist up for a smack and cried, feeling the fear all over again – but softened by the gentleness of the MDMA. The smack, of course, never came, and the tears turned to safe relief, and a little celebration. Muscles relaxed that had been pulling tight for years.

That evening I took both of the repeater doses I’d measured out. I’d made a den out of my bed, wrapping electrical tape around the sides, and hanging socks and gloves from the tape. When I woke up in it the next morning, I found all my bank cards stuck to the tape, hanging by the mattress. A toilet roll had been thrown around the room, unravelling everywhere. It looked like the crime scene of a very naughty boy. And he hadn’t got in any trouble.

I found a selfie the next day of me amongst this mess, topless and with toilet roll wrapped around my head and a huge cheeky grin. I felt amazing.

There’s a lot spoken of MDMA comedowns, but if you dose correctly and drink enough water, instead of a comedown you’re more likely to get an afterglow. That’s what I got. I felt incredible. The anxiety was lifting. So, so much history felt like it had been put right in that one evening. I couldn’t wait to do it again.

Unfortunately, I didn’t. It’s recommended to wait at least two weeks between sessions, but I’d made so much progress and still felt like I had more to make. I was impatient and three days later, I did it again.

This time wasn’t quite so therapeutic in the same way. It was useful still – it was the first time my internal bullshit detector was switched on and some real truths hit me about my life. It’s easier to face them in the softly-softly gentle haze of MDMA. I realised how I lived in a reality of my beliefs, and they weren’t necessarily useful. I knew that already from therapy research, but it never truly became clear until then.

What amazes me the most is how there was such a distinct split between the two people in that conversation. The child who was hurting, and the adult who was trying to heal. Both were me. The child didn’t even know the name of his adult self.

But my inexperience of psychedelic and drug therapy also derailed me slightly. Back came the child’s voice, first with the “hello”. Always first with the hello. We had a chat for a while, and I asked what else had hurt him. It became apparent that someone had really hurt this poor child, and I asked who, dreading that I’d pull up a repressed memory that would be hard to deal with after the drug had worn off. “The man with the big tummy” was the reply.

I spent a lot of time trying to work out who that could have been, and what he’d done. I was convinced that I had been somehow abused by a man with a big tummy, but even with the drug easily inducing a whole plethora of childhood memories, I never got an answer.

The next few days were difficult. Who was this man with the big tummy? What had he done? It must have been something pretty bad. I’d taken the drug too soon after the first session and there was no afterglow. I felt progress had been made in some ways, but now I would have to live with the knowledge that I may have been abused, and without ever knowing how or who. It was a weird situation.

I had enough of the drug left for one more session, plus a half dose left over. This time I waited the full two weeks, and entered the session with the hopes of getting answers about the man with the big tummy.

Again, I was the naughty child, but this time, I cleared up after myself. Rebelling didn’t feel so necessary. I almost urinated in the laundry again, but instead used the toilet. The child was growing up.

It was time to ask the question about the man with the big tummy. Even with the beauty and love for myself induced by the drug, I was a little nervous. As I lay on the bed I asked, and I got an answer.

My hand raised up above me, my finger outstretched, and then pointed back at myself. It was me. I was the man with the big tummy, and that child wasn’t happy with me. I was so relieved, but also shocked. I wasn’t particularly fat, but could absolutely see the big tummy compared to how I was as a child.

What amazes me the most is how there was such a distinct split between the two people in that conversation. The child who was hurting, and the adult who was trying to heal. Both were me. The child didn’t even know the name of his adult self.

The next day, in the beauty of the afterglow, I drove around the moors enjoying the views in a completely new light, and at that moment I wanted to live forever.

I promised that child he was safe and he wouldn’t get punished anymore. He was free to play. He wouldn’t be hurt anymore. The man with the big tummy would look after him now.

My final MDMA session came to a close. The next day, in the beauty of the afterglow, I drove around the moors enjoying the views in a completely new light, and at that moment I wanted to live forever. Life was good, after all.

I was already feeling so much better. I couldn’t believe it. The reports of the amazing benefits of MDMA assisted psychotherapy were all true. My anxiety was a fraction of what it was. But I knew I had more work to do.

Soon after, I booked in to two Ayahuasca ceremonies at a retreat in the Netherlands. Those two days will require a piece dedicated to that experience alone, but the crazy internal journeys, including an eleven-hour trip, worked further wonders. I left with new understandings of my life and my family history, and with a new direction in my life. My social anxiety had all but disappeared. I felt incredible.

But again, I knew there was still work to do.

I didn’t feel I knew the direction to take, and I think perhaps MDMA assisted therapy works better with a focus, so instead I opted for psilocybin via magic truffles ordered in from the Netherlands. Mushrooms or truffles are thought to give you the experience you need and you don’t need a focus or plan. If you have one, it’ll likely be ignored anyway.

You will confront what you need to confront and you can’t bullshit your way out of it. There’s nowhere and no way to hide… I wouldn’t wish a bad trip on anyone. It was hell.

I brewed up the truffles into a tea and drank it down, with a playlist lined up from the Johns Hopkins research for psilocybin therapy and the beautiful playlist at the Ayahuasca retreat.

Psilocybin works very differently to MDMA. There’s no gentle softy-softy nothing-can-feel-bad protective gown of gentle magic wrapped around you. You will confront what you need to confront and you can’t bullshit your way out of it. There’s nowhere and no way to hide.

I found myself on a beanbag by the mirror under a blanket. Psilocybin changes your vision at will and in the mirror there I was, a huge baby. I had flashbacks to crawling through the corridor in the house I was as a toddler – the edges were blurred out as if those bits weren’t encoded into my memory. I had flashbacks of being a child. Then a teenager. It became clear this was a journey very much about growing up.

The small toilet room had become some kind of pink bubblegum hippopotamus. The sound of the urine hitting the water came out like circus music. I laughed and laughed.

With the child finally healed by the MDMA and a new direction in life presented to me by the Ayahuasca, I was now able to grow up, and had to, to move forward. By the end of the the session I felt strangely like an adult, possibly for the first time. There was no urinating in the laundry or drawing on the walls this time.

The journey also gave me another clear message: Get fit. I had a notepad with me for things that the mushrooms told me were essential, and get fit was at the top.

The next session, two weeks later, started with a double dose of truffles. I thought after all the sessions so far, I was ready to go deeper. I was wrong.

I wouldn’t wish a bad trip on anyone. It was hell. It began with a vision of a friend of my sister, a nurse, who I hadn’t seen or thought about for years. Then I couldn’t breathe. A never-ending loop of panic set in, the same experience over and over again for what seemed like an eternity. It was horrible.

I knew my housemate was home and I could possibly ask him for help. But I didn’t know if he’d know how to react. Would he call an ambulance? I’d end up in all sorts of trouble. The loops continued. I had a vision of soldiers on the streets of London with Boris Johnson addressing the nation in front of two British Union flags. Nothing I tried helped to get me out of it.

There was one moment of temporary relief when I used the toilet. The small toilet room had become some kind of pink bubblegum hippopotamus. The sound of the urine hitting the water came out like circus music. I laughed and laughed. Then I went back to my room and the hell began all over again.

Luckily, I’d done my research. I knew that MDMA was compatible with psilocybin, and decided to take that to soften the experience. At first I couldn’t find it. My room the next morning was the sorry sight of a person desperately searching for the drugs to escape the bad trip. The MDMA, however, worked.

I asked myself if it was possible to degrade myself any more, and realised I was wetting myself.

As it took effect, the bad trip stopped. My attention turned to my housemate, gaming in his room. I realised at that moment that I could certainly have gone to him. He would do anyone to help anyone. He’s an unbelievably kind man. I hadn’t really been able to look past his messiness, noise and disorganisation before. But now I could see what a lovely person he was underneath. My notebook reads “Be nice to your housemate, he is amazing. Stop being a shit to him.” I had used “your housemate” as I couldn’t even remember his name.

The notepad also reads, in bigger letters: “Get fit!”

The trip had turned around, thanks to the MDMA. I looked myself in the mirror and learned that I could rely on myself after all. I was doing something very brave and potentially terrifying, but had saved myself by taking the relevant precautions, which had worked perfectly.

I took my clothes off as the MDMA raised my body temperature, reached for my electric shaver, and shaved chunks out of my beard. I didn’t know why. I just went with it. Then my hair. I sat on the bed, took a sip of water, and poured the rest over my head. The cold jolted me round for a second, but then I was back in the psychedelic experience.

I returned to the mirror to a sorry sight. I had big chunks missing from my hair and beard. Clumps of hair stuck to my face and chest by the water that had soaked me. I’ve never seen anyone look so terrible in my whole life. I asked myself if it was possible to degrade myself any more, and realised I was wetting myself. I was on the surface at a low far lower than I could ever have imagined.

But the therapy was working. Through the messy, dishevelled, mess of a face of this soaking wet naked man who was wetting himself, I saw strength behind the eyes. I didn’t care how bad I looked. I looked beautiful. The MDMA saw to that, but my mind was accepting it. I would never care about my appearance again. I would never look that bad again. I hope.

I dried off and shaved off the rest of my hair and beard. It was like a metaphor for shaving off my old mask that I no longer needed. The combination of the psilocybin and MDMA had worked a treat. My mind was healing fast, and my relationship with my housemate improved infinitely overnight. I didn’t need to pretend to like him anymore. I genuinely did and still do.

Travel is known to be good for confidence, and I’d travelled across the universe and back.

A couple more mushroom journeys went well, with more improvements made. Each time, the message to get fit was getting stronger on the notepad, and I still wasn’t listening. The last one says “HOW MANY TIMES? GET FIT NOW!” I decided to listen and started running.

At one point in a journey, out of nowhere, a price of a cryptocurrency was revealed to me to buy at. I thought nothing of it as it was so low. The next day there was a crash and it dipped just £3 below that price – and this is a thousand dollar coin at times. I didn’t buy. Buying investments based on mushroom trips seemed mad. But this had another significant effect.

When Covid-19 hit the news and reached the U.K., and Boris Johnson addressed the nation backed by two British Union flags, and the news turned to the NHS and our nurses, it all seemed a bit scarily prophetic, especially with the pinpoint accurate cryptocurrency revelation. I can see why people can believe that mushrooms pull in information from mystical realms and the like, but I put it down to a mix of coincidence and a few cues I’d consciously missed but had, deep down, worked out.

That all became horribly relevant for my next trip, which again turned bad. The Coronavirus related anxiety-filled world wasn’t the best place to try a bigger dose again. This time, I had no MDMA get out of jail free card. It was terrifying. I saw the rise of the far right, wars across the world and alien insects peering at me accusingly.

I was convinced that I would end up in a concentration camp and that I’d never see my family or girlfriend again. Because of the other things that had come eerily true, I believed it was inevitable. It felt like it went on for an eternity. I thought that my messages to get fit weren’t to keep me safe from the Coronavirus, but for the aftermath. It was truly terrifying.

I was on edge for a week or two after that. I was worried I’d undone all the hard work and given myself anxiety again. I haven’t taken mushrooms since. But after the mess in my mind eventually settled down, I was better than ever before. I’d lived through a dystopian nightmare and survived. I’d stared back at insectoid aliens. I’d done it all, and come out the other side safely. There is little in the world that is comparatively scary. Travel is known to be good for confidence, and I’d travelled across the universe and back.

My old social fears seem so, so insignificant now. I can’t quite believe that was me.

I’ve never been happier. My friends, the ones I’ve told, think I’m a bit crazy for doing it. But I no longer care. My social anxiety has gone.

But what next?

I still feel I have work to do. Who doesn’t? I will return to Ayahuasca for more learnings. I will do a further session of MDMA to check everything is ok with the work I have done there. I’ll take mushrooms again, but probably only with a pre-measured safe dose of MDMA in reach.

Some research says that these experiences have beneficial effects for six months. It’s now eight since the Ayahuasca experience and ten since the first session on MDMA. It’s less than six since the final mushroom session. I don’t think anything will match the monthlong afterglow of the Ayahuasca or the beautiful days post MDMA, but in general, I’ve never been happier. My friends, the ones I’ve told, think I’m a bit crazy for doing it. But I no longer care. My social anxiety has gone.

If it ever tries to make an appearance again, I know what to do.

One year after my psychedelic healing experiences, I wrote an update about how I’d been affected in the long term. You can read it here:

For more information I recommend the MAPS website here