psychiatric reform

1_Wg3hpA1MDRHbn_aodlDFNg — Illustration by @magic.theatre.studio/Instagram

Switching gears along the Yarra River, I pedal faster and faster, heading nowhere in particular. My face just crashed into a party of flies and now I’m swallowing wings. Sinking into my surroundings — the wind, ripples in the water, parrots overhead — with no thoughts of all the elses and elsewheres I could be, I’m tripping.

This microdose feels like a half tab. Which isn’t necessarily bad, except I can’t focus. I can’t sit still. I can’t read the lines of a book without being bombarded by my own. I can’t write. All I can do is keep going and going. Moving through. This is not what I anticipated for a Wednesday morning. Continue reading “Why I quit microdosing” →

Moving from psychedelic routine to spot-treatment, originally published on Medium

Screen Shot 2019-03-04 at 2.06.50 PM — Kristina Johnson

Fifteen micrograms of acid, on a sliver of paper, washed down with a glass of water. This is my medicine of choice.

I microdosed 1P-LSD from April to December 2017 following a regimen: one day on, threeish days off. It’s been over a year since I stopped that routine and tapered my dosing to as-needed for mood support.

Eight months is a bit longer than most ~microdosing experts~ recommend. Online sources typically suggest six weeks or three months, but that’s mostly speculative. Any recommendations for continued psychedelic use (and all psychiatric medicine?) are relatively inexpert given our still premature understanding of the brain. When it comes to intimate psychological issues, there is no single cure for what has complex—and largely unknown—causes. No one knows which precise treatment or prescription will work for anyone. Especially in people with discreet or hard-to-diagnose issues, who experience difficulty communicating, or who are especially young or old. It’s all an experiment. That’s what the medical community has been doing, as well as a few rogue individuals.

Testing, and reflecting. Continue reading “Dosing after microdosing” →