i’m planning a trip — not to paris or rome — not that kind of trip. this will be a journey to explore my inner world with the help of psilocybin (magic mushrooms).
i was diagnosed with als over 18 months ago and, since then, the disease has relentlessly progressed. a friend told me about psilocybin as a potential end-of-life therapy. i knew nothing at all about it; although i came of age in the 1970s, i never dabbled in hallucinogens.
psilocybin works by activating serotonin receptors, most often in the prefrontal cortex. this part of the brain affects mood, cognition, and perception.
this will be a therapeutic journey for me, not recreational. the treatment involves pre-session therapy, therapy during the psilocybin experience and an integration process afterward. i am working with an experienced psychiatrist.
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“i assumed he would get some medication for his understandable depression and anxiety. but that kind of care wasn’t on the roster — not for the patient, and not for my mom, the caregiver,” writes jim’s daughter, suzanne.
jim westover, at right, with his wife joanne and daughter suzanne. suzanne was a late ‘surprise.’ supplied
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there are few acronyms in the english language more loaded and paralyzing than als. my father was given this diagnosis, like a punch to the gut, in his 83rd year.
until then, he was living a dream retirement. his sunset years had been spent on the golf green, or watching the waves from the crow’s nest of the holland america line cruises he loved. he and my mother were vital, vivacious. my friends gasped at the revelation of their chronological ages.
i was my parents’ late-in-life surprise – an unexpected biological child after years of infertility and two adopted sons. my father, i think, never quite got over the miracle. at first a reticent third-time parent, he soon concluded that having a daughter was the icing on life’s cake. he lit up when i walked in the room. proud didn’t begin to cover it. i took it for granted that i would always have this special, almost super-human ability. my very existence was enough to make him happy.
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als resources