The retreat

 Thanks to everyone who has been really supportive of my retreat & psilocybin experience; it’s been very encouraging. So this post - which you’re most welcome to skip - is more of a journaling experience for me, because I wanted something down on ‘paper’s for me to refer back to at some point. Last time I talked a lot about anxiety, and I wanted to expand upon that to show what it’s like in my mind.

First of all, I have an inner narrator. Which means I say, inside my head, everything that I think. So I have a voice that says directly to me “do I want some tea? Why yes I do, let’s go and make some”. I can’t not think without it. I think like that all the time. So before I write anything I listen to a real voice dictating to me - it’s a real voice in my head, which sounds a bit woo-woo, but it’s how I think. Just imagine talking to yourself - I do that all the time, just in my head. I have lots of spoken conversations with myself all the time, often two or three happening at once. EVERYTHING has to be thought before I can do it.

So let’s say I have a friend over. I have to think about asking her if she wants tea for example. Is this the right moment to ask? What should I say? “Tea?” “Would you like a cuppa?” “Want some tea?” Are all variations and I have to decide (in my narration in my mind” which question to ask. So then I put the kettle on. I have to think “shall I wait here until the kettle is boiled, or go back and chat for a few moments?” That has to be a debate - I CANT not do it. So I stay in the kitchen. Next I have to decide which mug to give them. I have a dozen or more mugs and each one - EACH ONE - has to be considered. Usually I discount all my many Everton mugs but all the others have to be thought about, and I have to work out which is the ‘proper’ one to make their tea in. Then I have to get the teabags out, by opening the tin. I’m faced with an array of teabags. I cannot just pick one at random. Once I’ve picked on and put it in the mug, I have to add the water, but to what level? Do they want a lot of milk, little milk etc. and I fill the mug accordingly. Then stir and then decide do I get the milk out the fridge first or take out the tea bag. If I decide to take the teabags out I then have to decide if I bring the mugs to the fridge, or bring the milk to the mugs. Then I have to think “can I do anything in that 4 foot trip?”. Maybe pick up a spoon, put it in the dishwasher and then get the milk. How much milk? What does “not much milk” mean? What does “quite milky” mean? Is the tea the right shade? If it’s too much I start again. 2 teaspoons of sugar. Ok, well, level, rounded, heaped? (I’m writing it here obviously, but that’s the narration and conversation I have in my mind)

Oh, and obviously I have to pick just the right spoon out of the drawer. I can’t just pick the first one obviously. There IS a right spoon. Once I’ve got that, stir and take the tea back. Do I give them the mug, or put it down. If I put it down; where? On the table, the side, close to them or further away? Each option is considered until I decide. Then they have their tea.

Later on I have to work out if enough time has passed before offering another mug of tea. Do I use the same mug, or a different one?

It’s actually quite a quick process to do all that thinking and internal narration. At the same time of course I’m also thinking about the other conversations going on in my mind, because those narrations don’t stop. One conversation and set of thoughts might be about Lucy, or football, or putting a shopping list together. But they’re all happening, so my mind is never silent. Now, you’re probably thinking “just make the tea!” But my mind doesn’t work like that. I don’t think it’s much by the way of anxiety, I’m not worried about my friend not liking the tea (ok, just a bit!) but each step has to be considered. When I only have one tea bag left in the tin and I’m going to replenish the tin, do I leave that last teabag at the bottom and put the others on top, or do I take that last bag out, and put it on top of the new ones? Is it fair on the other teabags if they get taken before the ‘old’ one? Madness. Anxiety, OCD? No idea. And it’s like that for everything.

I used to think of the conversations as being parallel but I think it’s a bit more like this:

So I’m thinking about what to write next. Shall I give more examples, or is

Everton are doing crap right now. We could end up being relegated with a

I should think about sorting out the garden. Is it too late in the year to start

What shall I have for supper? Have I got anything in the fridge, or shall I go to

going to get really boring for people, and did I repeat what I said in the last

brand new stadium for gods sake. We are going to look like a laughing stock

or shall I just ignore it until next year? If I do some gardening, shall I prune

Tesco? And what do I fancy for supper anyway? Shall I decide now or when I

post? Do I sound entirely mad to everyone right now?

if we get relegated? If we do get relegated, maybe I’ll see them more often?

the roses or cut the grass?

It’s a bit like that. Only I was writing in sentences here, it’s usually a lot more fragmented than that. So while I’m making tea I’m thinking, and quite possibly carrying on a conversation with my friend. Now, scale up from making tea to sending a WhatsApp message. Each word has to be considered, ambiguities checked, grammar checked, spellchecked and am I being clear in what I want to say? It can take me a good few minutes to write a single line. I’ll often start all over again until I get it right. Then scale up further to “more important” things; the amount of thinking goes exponentially.

The only way around that is to be impulsive. I had to buy a new kettle the other day. I could have spent hours in a conversation about that in my head, but instead I went online and bought pretty much the first one I saw with virtually no consideration. After I get it and start using it the conversation goes on in my head about is it the right kettle? Should I have looked at options? So I have those thoughts anyway.

Oddly this doesn’t happen at all in a work environment. I know what I have to do, how to do it, and I also know I’m very, very good at what I do. I don’t think that’s egotistical because I’ve been self employed for 30 years and if I wasn’t very good that wouldn’t have happened. I don’t have a single doubt about it. I can just be like a regular person I guess.

So as I think I said the other day, the first time I took MDMA the silence in my brain was profound. I had never experienced that before, and it was blissful and shocking at the same time - having a single thought that I could follow through, finish and move onto something else was a new, novel and exciting thing. As well as being just ‘happy’. It was an oasis of silence. I’ve since explored that in more detail on other trips - if I start having a thought I don’t like I can just stop it. Which is weird. Looking back it was one of the most significant experiences I’ve ever had.

Of course, there are plenty of times when I do just react instantly to something. If Everton scores a goal (not often at the moment) I can just feel it, but I think that’s more instinct than anything else. Usually I have to think something through before I decide how I feel about it. I really don’t trust my emotions at all - due to previous trauma at a young age perhaps, certainly since the death of my beloved grandmother. Emotions are not to be trusted, they have to be kept under lock and key at all times. If I do open up at all it’s because I really, really trust you. My therapist (who is brilliant btw) says that I’m far too cerebral for my own good. I find it very hard to ‘feel’, I have to think.

So on this weird journey that I’m undertaking I have to find those emotions and just experience them, without understanding them first, and I don’t really know how to do that. It’s a lot easier if I’ve taken something though. I can remember things much easier, and I can attach and explore the emotions surrounding the thought. I’m hopeful that psilocybin will create new connections making it much more possible, and that those will remain afterwards. I’ve spent a lot of time reading academic papers, watching documentaries, chatting on forums and, obviously thinking a lot.

Even when I’m asleep I have vivid dreams, and I can usually remember them the next day. Then of course I have to consider the dream or nightmare to see where it came from; what happened in the preceding day to invoke that dream in particular, and I can usually work it out.

But it would to lovely to be able to stop thinking quite as much as I do. Psilocybin can make long lasting changes to the way people think so that’s one of the many reasons I’m going to try it in a controlled environment. I have tried ‘medical’ solutions such as anti-depressants and anti anxiety drugs but they have never really worked well. I’m really not concerned about possibly coming back ‘different’ in some way - quite the opposite in fact!

So, that’s another brain dump. Well done if you made it all the way through! As always, I’d welcome thoughts and comments.