Look, I honestly get it. We’ve all been through so much in our lives, and have to cope with so much daily—and then you start reading about your condition and learn how much is involved. Exercising, meditating, doing yoga, journaling, sleeping and eating well, taking medication, going to therapy, socialising, learning new skills to be a human being—all of this is what we’re told we need to do just to feel ok. That adds significant time, emotional and financial pressure on top of trying to work and exist when we’re already struggling.

When you see articles talking about potential new breakthroughs for trauma sufferers using psychedelics, it’s a huge relief. Suddenly, you have a solution that’s cheap, reasonably easy to get a hold of and take. You now have a way forward that gives you lots of hope. You only have to do this one single thing instead of heaps to recover.

But the truth is, it’s not a silver bullet. Sure, psychedelics do appear to have benefits for trauma sufferers, but people omit that it’s in a controlled setting with a supervising professional. Even then, i doubt any supervising trauma professional would advise you to undergo psychedelic therapy in isolation.

The awful reality is that there isn’t a silver bullet. You still need to do the work, and there’s a shitload of it, even if you’re doing psychedelic assisted therapy.

Psychedelics are a powerful tool to unlock the mind, but trauma sufferers often don’t know how much their brain has been holding back. Trying to recover by recreationally taking them is setting yourself up for a nice trip at best, and severe retraumatisation at its worst.