A Diagnosis Changed Everything, Then Psilocybin Did Too
After a stage 3 diagnosis, a session helped me stop fighting the reality of death and start living the time I have.
I received the diagnosis on a Tuesday. By the following month I had stopped being able to speak honestly with my family — everything came out wrong, either too bleak or falsely cheerful — and I had started dreading the mornings because waking up meant remembering.
My oncologist mentioned, carefully, that there was a study. The session itself was six hours. What I can say is that somewhere in the middle of it I stopped running. I had been running from the diagnosis every waking hour for four months — and then I simply put down what I had been carrying.
What came after the running stopped was not peace, exactly. It was more like permission. Permission to acknowledge that I was frightened. Permission to love my family without performing health for them. Permission to notice what mattered to me in the time I have.
That was nine months ago. My treatment is ongoing. The diagnosis hasn't changed. But I sleep most nights now, and I say true things to the people I love, and sometimes I think that is enough.
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