"A month later, I woke up on a work trip in a hotel room alone in Oakland, California, with my hands trembling, and an unshakeable feeling that I was being chased by a pack of wild animals. I was having a mental breakdown. This feeling did not cease for months. Repairing myself from that breakdown took years. In many ways, it is ongoing."
"There were the ones to keep me calm enough to not feel like I was about to die at any moment: benzodiazepines such as Klonopin; kratom, a plant from south-east Asia that has opioid-like properties. There were the ones meant to restabilize me into something like a functioning human: antidepressants and mood stabilizers and antipsychotics. And then there were the fun ones the LSD and ketamine and 2C-B and MDMA that helped me envision a newly healed self, and thus a future."
On 12 August 2017, I ran from the car that James Alex Fields plowed into a crowd of anti-racist organizers in Charlottesville; other people's blood splattered on me and I feared for my life. A month later I experienced a mental breakdown in Oakland, waking with trembling hands and a persistent feeling of being chased; recovery took years and remains ongoing. I used benzodiazepines and kratom to quell panic, antidepressants, mood stabilizers and antipsychotics to regain functioning, and psychedelic or entactogenic substances such as LSD, ketamine, 2C-B and MDMA to imagine healing and a future. I observed deep unfairness in how society treats drug users, with wealthier users receiving praise and access to innovative treatments while many others face homelessness, illness and death.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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