Psilocybin as an adjunctive treatment for chronic depression -- my anecdotes and experiences.

Hello! Let me open with a disclaimer: I am not advocating that anyone commit any crimes. The cultivation and ingestion of psilocybin is illegal in the US in most (all?) states. With the disclaimer out of the way...

My wife suffers from severe, chronic, treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, and possible/probable bipolar disorder.

She's attempted suicide multiple times, been through many inpatient hospitalizations, and tried just about every SSRI, SNRI, atypical antipsychotic available, and did over a year of ketamine infusions. None of it had a lasting effect. I was close to giving up hope.

Earlier this year, I was talking with one of her friends and she mentioned clinical studies into psilocybin for depression treatment. My wife met the exclusion criteria for every study I could find, so I took matters into my own hands: I grew my own fucking mushrooms. The process was surprisingly easy. You can find plenty of resources on doing so on the internet, and actually possessing the spores or liquid culture is legal in 47 states, so you can readily purchase them online from reputable sellers.

However, it's a lengthy process -- it took several months to cultivate and harvest our first batch. It required minimal day to day intervention, just patience.

A second disclaimer at this point: I am not an expert in any of this and have limited personal experience with hallucinogenic drugs. The objective here was not fun, it was medicinal.

A "standard" dose for most people to have an interesting experience would be about 1-2 grams of dried mushrooms. 5+ grams would be considered a very high dose with extreme hallucinations likely resulting. We started with 1 gram. No effect whatsoever. 2 grams. Nothing. 3 grams: Nothing. Research: SSRIs and SNRIs can inhibit the effects significantly.

We tried again a few days later with 7 grams. Mild visual hallucinations, followed by about 8-10 hours of crying. Subsequent attempts had similar effects. Some hallucination, lots of crying. Some trips she described as "cathartic", some she described as "awful". Her depression lifted somewhat, but the bad trips could easily make it worse for a few days afterwards.

Since then, we've adapted our approach to her taking a half gram every 3-5 days. It's a sub-hallucinogenic dose (even to someone who isn't taking SSRIs/SNRIs), but not quite a "micro" dose. To make it more palatable, I grind the mushrooms up with a mortar and pestle and melt some dark chocolate, then mix the powder into the chocolate and make little mushroom chocolate bars.

Her depression is largely gone. She's still suffering from some physical ailments and isn't necessarily happy or in the best headspace from day to day, but since then, she hadn't had a single suicidal breakdown. I no longer have to worry about leaving her home alone to go to the grocery store or run other errands. I can do my job. I don't even lock the safe where the knives and dangerous medications are located anymore, most of the time (although she's not aware it's not locked, and I still lock it if she's going to be home alone). She had made no significant changes to her medication -- she is still taking her normal cocktail of antidepressants and mood stabilizers. That's why I say "adjunctive" -- this isn't a replacement or a cure, it's merely another concurrent avenue of treatment, albeit one that is not well-studied and unfortunately not legal. For what it's worth, we shared what we were doing with her psychiatrist and he said it was a great idea and asked me to bring him mushrooms next time we visit him, so at least one medical professional is enthusiastically on board.

If things go really well for a long enough period of time, she may consider reducing or tapering off of some of her medications, but for now, stability is our goal.

I am currently cultivating a different strain of psilocybin-producing mushrooms that anecdotally results in "happier" trips, so once those are ready to harvest sometime in February we'll see where we're at.

Also, for anyone curious... the "mushroom chocolate" you may see advertised or sold in various marijuana dispensaries or the like are not actually psilocybin. They generally contain an unregulated research chemical that mimics the psychoactive effects of psilocybin. One company's product recently ended up with a bunch of people hospitalized after having seizures (and I believe a few people died) as a result of a "bad batch". I would not recommend those as an alternative if you're interested in going down this road -- you really don't know what you're getting. That's the reason they can manufacture and sell them: It doesn't contain the substance that's actually illegal, which is also the substance you want them to have.

Obviously, everyone's depression has different pathologies and presentations, and what works for one person may not work for another. But I have seen great results from psilocybin in my completely unscientific science experiment with a sample size of 1. That's not to say that the depression may not return as bad as ever or worse, but for now... it's helping.

Happy to answer questions, and moderators please keep me in check if I'm veering into "no-no" territory with anything from a legal perspective.