When I first heard Michael Pollan’s interview on Fresh Air, then read his book, I knew I was onto something. I would read articles on Medium about microdosing LSD and wonder if I had the balls to ask friends to ask friends until I found someone I knew that knew how to get some. But we live in Trump’s America, and my husband is a legal resident, not a U.S. citizen. Doing something illegal and putting my family at risk wouldn’t be worth it.
During this time, the Chaplain and I were deep in talks about if, how, and when I should pursue trying psychedelics for personal development, spiritual breakthrough, and relief from depression and anxiety. We started with a fuzzy goal of wanting to make it happen by around my 40th birthday.
I wiki’d where it was legal to use psilocybin, a substance that has shown real promise for treating depression and anxiety. I came up with two places that seemed like they might work. I started with Jamaica. I was specifically looking for a guided retreat. I wanted it to be a safe, purposeful experience, and I wanted to get as much bang for my buck as I could. The retreats offered in Jamaica sounded amazing – a week long, with three different psilocybin experiences during the week with a day in between each one. The cost was about two grand, not including airfare. But cost aside, I wasn’t sure if I was prepared to leave my family for that long. Or if I even needed to do it three times.
Given the specs of the Jamaica retreat, I knew it would require waiting and saving, which I was OK with. But I was feeling very stuck. So now that I had an idea about the legality of it, I just searched, “guided psilocybin retreats” and up popped the Netherlands. Instead of saying, “Yes! It’s legal!,” the Netherlands chooses a more subtle approach of allowing it without condoning it. The retreats in the Netherlands were significantly shorter (a weekend) and significantly cheaper (even with airfare). Also, an important factor for me – they offered women’s-only retreats.
So, reading Furiously Happy opened me up to reading more books about anxiety.
I decided to acknowledge anxiety as the uncool friend who never leaves you alone when I had my third kid. My first inkling that I was the nervous type was a day in my high school cafeteria when a guy friend suggested I was a little too uptight (*shrug* I probably was). But until now, besides the general work I’ve been doing to better understand what makes me tick and how I can cope better with my life, I had never done any reading specific to anxiety.
In typical over-achiever fashion, before I’d even finished Furiously Happy, I chose three MORE anxiety titles, for a total of four, and planned an anxiety book-reading binge. This whole time, I had a nagging feeling that an anxiety book binge was a bad idea.
When I first came across the term “gateway book,” it gave me great hope. My firstborn is not a reader. According to him, he doesn’t enjoy reading even a little. He does the bare minimum required of him for school. And I keep hoping that someday, a gateway book will break through to him and help him love reading.
As I mentioned last week, after reading Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, by Jenny Lawson, on the recommendation of my friend, Janeen, I realized even people who love to read can find gateway books into new subjects or genres.
Since I’ve been writing about the books I’m reading, I’ve noticed a pattern where often, I start a book and am slow to engage with it. It has happened enough times in the past few months that I’m starting to think it’s a reflection of me and not the books.
Furiously Happy was no exception. I started reading, and at first, a lot of the humor fell flat. I kept thinking, “Why is she cursing at me? I don’t even know her!” But as I got to know Lawson through the book, the laughs came more easily, and my respect for her grew.
I came across Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, by Peter Scazzero, at my parents’ house on a visit over the summer. A year ago, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second glance.
When I asked my dad about it, I was a little surprised when he lit up and started talking. He sent me my own copy, and I started reading it. I think I was only a few paragraphs in when I started looking for a pencil.
My mom always told me I had a sensitive heart.
As a kid I was full of raw emotions and felt other people’s pain as my own. I cried freely when I saw others hurting and was easily moved.
The movie My Girl came out in 1991. I think I saw it the summer I was 12 or 13 – it was on VHS by then. *smile* I remember settling down in the living room of my grandma’s house to watch it one day with my cousins.
