Sarah’s Fireside Story
Sarah had been living with OCD since childhood, but it wasn’t until her mid-30s that she finally received a diagnosis. Sarah describes OCD as akin to walking through cement; moving through everyday life can be overwhelming and exhausting. After receiving her diagnosis, Sarah took the route of traditional talk therapy. She was also seeing a psychiatrist and was prescribed several different medications. But the combination of therapy and medication was not doing much to relieve her symptoms.
Sarah had used psychedelics recreationally with friends in her early twenties, however later in life she moved away from psychedelics and began heavily using substances such as alcohol, cocaine, and pills to self-medicate. For Sarah, this period of her life was particularly difficult, as the use of drugs and alcohol began to affect her health, family life, and relationships. Five years ago, Sarah made the choice to become sober, but her OCD was still making daily life challenging. She had heard about using psilocybin therapeutically, and out of desperation decided to see if micro-dosing might help.
Small doses of psilocybin mushrooms seemed to help manage some of her symptoms, but she felt that a higher dose might give her more relief. On the evening of one of her doses, Sarah decided to take about four grams. As a frequent user of mushrooms, Sarah felt that she knew what to expect, however she began to experience a trip that she was unprepared for:
“It was like everything kind of came crashing down all at once. I was hyperventilating, and didn’t know what to do with these feelings, and I was feeling very afraid and overwhelmed”.
That’s when Sarah called Fireside.
Sarah stated that her conversation with the Fireside volunteer allowed her to not be overwhelmed by what was coming up, but instead gave her the support she needed to sit with these difficult feelings.
“They really helped me re-center and reminded me that it was okay to have those feelings, and that none of this was dangerous and I was okay. Calling Fireside really made what had been I think my most challenging trip to date a lot easier to deal with”.
Sarah stated that if she had not called Fireside that night, it may have changed her outlook on using psilocybin to manage her OCD and cause her to stop using it altogether. While she knows that psilocybin is a treatment that works for her, the cost of psychedelic-assisted therapy prohibits her from accessing those services. Fireside provides Sarah with a way to continue using psychedelics for her treatment of OCD in a way that she can afford and that works for her lifestyle.
“Calling Fireside that night helped turn [my experience] into a positive, and I'm not sure that I could have done that entirely on my own. I’m grateful for you guys, and this just works for me more than anything else I’ve ever done”.
Are you interested in sharing your Fireside Story?
Please send an email to Sam@FiresideProject.org