How I’m healing from Sexual Trauma thru Psychadelic Assisted Psychotherapy
By: Olivia Young
Tags: Psychology, Psychedelics, Trauma Recovery, Psychadelic, Trauma

The last year has been trying, to put it generously. My soul went searching, but wasn’t necessarily prepared for its findings — Or was I? Looking back, I’ve spent my whole life preparing for the truths I buried deep in my subconscious. Our brains can’t hold what we can’t handle. This was too much for me. Until last September when I shared this post, without further explanation. Over the past year, I’ve dug deep into my psyche to remember and integrate my findings. I’m finally ready to tell my story: not as a victim, but as a survivor. The wounds heal but the scars never disappear and I refuse to enable this cycle of shame by staying silent. Please note the words below may be triggering. Proceed as you are ready. And if you too are suffering, know that I am with you, entirely. And I am empowered Finally to help eliminate this cycling. This is where my story begins.

Last Summer I was dating a man who asked me, after the first time we connected intimately, “Did something happen to you?” I vehemently denied it. But he piqued my curiosity. He grew up in a wartime country, and was working through his own PTSD with MDMA assisted psychotherapy. I’ve never been a recreational drug user, besides alcohol — sparingly. Hell, I don’t even drink regular coffee. But they say the medicine calls you when you’re ready. It wasn’t long after that I dove head first into my journey with 5MEO-DMT.

Friends well versed in the medicine world thought I was wild to jump in so deep, but I’ve always done my own thing. I showed up, with the intention to open my heart and reconnect to my body. We said a prayer, I smoked the toad medicine, passed out and woke up. But the 20-minute psychoactive experience wasn’t clear to me. The drug is meant to break down your ego, clear your chakras, and release fear. During the experience, I saw potent imagery of faces and places I’d blocked from memory, but with no explanation. It was beautiful and emotional, but the faces concerned me. I left wondering, did something happen to me?

I’ve often had recurring dreams: waking up in a shower naked; stuck in a dark room, crying; a hand signaling to be quiet; staring out a circular window, wishing I could fly. But most of my upbringing is void of memory. And as I grew up, I got good at suffering, being resilient, moving like a machine. I could handle anything. But I’ve always had the memories buried inside me. Now that I remember, I have more self- compassion and understanding as to why I’ve been running most of my life to both lose me and find me. Along the way, self-love became both my mission and journey. We teach what we need to learn personally. The nightmares weren’t random, but I wasn’t ready to understand them until September 12, 2020, the day I began my internal journey.

Five days after 5MEO-DMT, I was privy to another opportunity to join a medicine journey with MDMA and Psilocybin assisted group therapy. To clarify, a short summary of the current medical studies: MDMA is being used in clinical trials in tandem with assisted psychotherapy to treat PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. While memories of the experience may fade, PTSD debilitates, compromising physical, mental, emotional wellbeing, and sufferers continue to live in a “fight or flight,” highly anxious, post traumatic state. MDMA boosts serotonin, allowing sufferers to revisit painful suppressed memories with a sense of ease. When paired with psilocybin, the two substances work together to open the subconscious while maintaining a sense of well-being. At first I declined. I was scared. But that fear was what I needed to lean up against to get here. I arrived, shy, but ready to face whatever was inside. Little did I know it would change my life. But really my life was changed years prior.

Session One

The medicine fed me exactly what I needed, clarity of what happened when I was 17.

“_______ raped you.”

My friends’ father raped me during a high school party at their house. My friend was gay, but not openly. I was his beard. But his father was always inappropriate with me. The party was out by the pool, but his dad made it clear that no one was allowed inside the house except my friend and me. I popped inside to grab Kit Kat bites, while my classmates drank vodka red bull solo cups outside. The father was in the kitchen. I put my cup down and turned around and something was dropped in it. We chatted before I blacked out. He raped me and dragged me into the guest bathroom shower, unresponsive. He thought I was dead and left me there, water beating down on my lifeless body. I died inside that night. His son found me, pants-less and put me to bed. I woke up by sunrise and walked out, never to return to that house again. I forgot what happened but my body always remembered. After the memory, the MDMA also explained, “That’s why you dated ______ years later.” That’s the extra wounding, the repeating of patterns, trauma bonds, that attract us to doppelgängers of perpetrators from our past. Ever heard of an abused woman leaving her abuser only to go back to another abuser? It’s what she’s used to. Horrifying. But the memories were just beginning. That one was closest to the surface.

Imagine waking up at 34 and realizing your whole life has been a lie. That you’ve been unable to curate relationships, trust anyone, because someone trusted took your pride. So what did I do? I cried. I cried for myself and for all those suffering from the same shame and pain. I cried for my body and how long I’ve disassociated and I cried for my family. But I knew there was more suffering. The medicine only reveals what you’re ready to see. Medicine work is less drug and more integration. If you don’t “do the work” following the sessions, the medicine is less effective. MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy protocol involves ongoing talk therapy and it isn’t recommended that you revisit the medicine for at least a month following your last session.

And then I dug deeper. This time one:one with two therapists. And again the medicine read me a rap sheet. The deeper I went, the more I discovered, and for the months in between sessions I tried to make sense of all that I’d seen, unseen, and now remembered. Imagine watching a horror film of your worst nightmares only to realize you star in every scene?

The Sessions Continue

I learned how to fly when I was age five — dissociating out of my body and into my mind, where I was safer. That was the first time unwelcome hands touched me: a music teacher, preschool.

Age 21, my neighbor took me on a motorcycle ride. I didn’t realize he was coked out of his mind or that he had plans for an abandoned parking lot nearby where he assaulted and choked me. Explaining why I’ve always been sensitive to anything close to my neck.

At age six, my innocence was taken from me. Explaining why I’ve long been haunted by the memory of waking up at a sleepover party, crying hysterically. A vivid image of a pillow over my head, silencing me, leaving my body to interpret sex to be playing dead so I could leave. I didn’t have the language to describe what happened, too young and shy to say anything. But my body remembered it perfectly, so much so that my boyfriend years later shared the same name and birthday as the perpetrator. I went back to the crime scene, emotionally. My body craved familiarity. Trauma does that to you, conscious or unconsciously.

Age twelve, in an educational setting, he didn’t touch me. But told me how special I was repeatedly, as he touched himself under his desk visibly. I was frozen, too afraid to leave.

Each therapy revealed more detail to me as to why I chose relationships that didn’t feel right. I continued to go back to a man who resembled someone who had raped me becauseI was subconsciously repeating my own history. Furthermore — perpetrators smell the vulnerability of sexual assault survivors. Because my experiences started young, subsequent men could smell it on me. I had less boundaries because when you are violated, boundaries become void in everything.

IT CONTINUES

With the few previous therapies, I wasn’t yet ready to see what was lurking just before I turned 14; the event that made me angry, body-shaming, hating everything. It happened just after a family tragedy. I was extra vulnerable and quite naive. I started hanging out with the new girl who lived by me, unable to see the depth of wounding disguised by her family’s glitzy activities, and pageantry. Abuse and alcoholism hid behind walls of their perfectionism and I was roped in, dare I say her parents were grooming me. I was afraid of her stepdad but without reason, until the night he played footsie with me under the table. Later he raped me. But first he defamed me. I had my period. “Dirty Jew” is what he named me. He threatened to kill me if I told anybody. I waited for my mom to pick me up, and didn’t say anything. From that moment, I turned my anger inward, to my body, and to my family.

My parents did everything to protect me, but they couldn’t, so I blamed them relentlessly. And my body? It was no longer a part of me. My period hasn’t been regular since that evening. When I got home, I threw up everything — suffered from anorexia + bulimia for years, anything to rid me of the shame I was carrying. Textbook PTSD, always on the defense, I started seeking outside to distract me (thru exercise, relationships, food), anything to fill my empty. And sweating, habitually. Staring in a mirror at Bikram yoga daily in 110 degrees, wearing long sleeves, to cover the disgust of the body that carried and now defined me. I haven’t slept much my whole life. I’m almost 35. But after remembering, I no longer wonder why I hardened.

Nothing can hurt you if you can’t feel anything.

And yet the hardest thing I’ve done to date, is fly home last week to tell my parents everything: To tell them they aren’t to blame, they did everything to protect me, but life had other plans for me, that time after time, men who they knew and trusted, violated me, that my innocence was stolen from me, before I even knew the word’s meaning. They received my truth wholeheartedly, with deep sadness but now more understanding as to why most of my life I’ve been disconnected and angry, hating my body, stuck in my ego, trying to prove that I was worthy. When I was 14, my mom took me to every specialist to determine what was wrong with me. I stayed silent. A better question would have been “what happened to me?” Imagine telling your parents who worried constantly that you were violated by men they knew, who ARE fathers. And sadly, my story is not unique. And these are just pieces of the entirety of memories.

So what do you do when you wake up just shy of 35 and realize that the majority of your life you’ve felt dead inside? You grieve. I’ve been grieving the lost time, the inability to harvest healthy relationships because I didn’t trust anyone including myself. I grieved the self-blame, and blaming of my family, my mom specifically, for not being able to protect me. And grieve shaming my mind and body, operating on autopilot, at low points, borderline suicidal. Existing, not living, yet still able to “thrive” as far as society defines. I costumed my internal hell well, disguising and distracting by “doing,” overcompensating with grit, to prove I was worthy, after being made to feel unworthy repeatedly. My pain radiated so deep, but as time passed, I forgot the memories. A shell of myself, I compromised my physical health, dissociated.

And after the grief, you begin to heal, you grow and the silver lining eventually appears: the grace and gratitude for being alive, for surviving and finally understanding why I was so hard on me. I became both my Pain and my Power. I even had enough clarity to create my own medicine: boxing and yoga to move and breathe the trauma out of me, my self prescribed remedy, practicing resilience daily, as early as age 15. This modality became box + flow, a business to share my method and mentality, before even remembering my story.

Grief becomes growth. You integrate. And eventually forgive. Myself first. That took time.

AM I OK?

A loaded question. Grief, and fear never die entirely. But YES. I finally feel free from the shame thrust upon me. I can’t change the past but now live presently. It’s a journey but I’m finally able to share with clarity, void of fear of how my words are received. It’s just Truth with a capital T. Over the past year, I’ve asked myself repeatedly, Who Am I without all this wounding? Now realizing this is my opportunity to experience life with clear eyes, to create and co-create the love and life of my dreams, that the suffering starts and ends with me. That’s what I’ve been working on, love: of myself, my family, more understanding.

Therapy helps. I’ve found healers to help regulate every part of me. My body has suffered severely from PTSD: GI + digestive issues, hypothyroidism, hormonal deficiencies, PCOS and adrenal fatigue. So I’m picking up the pieces of a life shattered too early, determined to turn a mess into a mosaic. “The more you have been hurt, the more you have to move through.” Clearly flow thru the fight is my mantra for good reason. I’ve been training my whole life and I’ve spent three decades of detachment and finally know why. This is my opportunity to thrive — I’m excited.

WHY NOW?

Because its time to further open a dialogue that has long suffered from silencing. Because my big brother just had his first child and friends have children that are close to the age when I was first violated. Every child I see reminds me of Young Olivia. They deserve safety. Because I am just one of hundreds of millions in pain, long silenced in this fucked up game of hurt people hurting people. And because I have no shame. Maybe by sharing, others will feel safe. I’m tired of fighting, I want my life to flow, and now that I know, I’m coming back home To reclaim all of me. Everything I needed was always inside. I know my truth and hope to help others face their own.

“What I learned for sure was that holding the shame was the greatest burden of all. When you have nothing to be ashamed of, when you know who you are and what you stand for, you stand in wisdom.” -Oprah

This is my beginning, not my ending and will be the first of many shares from me. If you feel so inclined, please SHARE my story. The more we talk openly, the less opportunity for suffering. You are not alone. Let me be proof that you can get through anything. Some sources and resources that have helped me, below.

Love always, Olivia

Your Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk

How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan

Waking the Tiger by Dr. Peter Levine

How to do the Work Dr. Nicole LaPera

A Radical Awakening by Dr. Shefali

5MEO-DMT

MAPS : MDMA Assisted Psychotherapy Resources

PTSD

Dissociation

Holotropic Breathwork

Bodywork / Energy Work