My ibogaine experience with Tyler (part three)

Note: If you haven’t read the first two parts, I would start there… My ibogaine experience with Tyler (part one)

The next few days were a little rough. Although ibogaine removes your withdrawal… It just felt like it had a lot of work still to do on me. I had to take more ibogaine throughout the week, because I was feeling sick still. It felt like someone was ripping a scab off my brain and my heart. And what I was left with was just raw, new tissue. I remember having conversations with myself for hours, about questioning whether I was going to make it through this process. If I was going to be successful. I had two little girls relying on me. I had my friends hoping this last attempt would stick… My family I don’t think even knew what was going on really.

I didn’t think I could do it..

I couldn’t imagine it.. Though I’ve done it before. I’ve done it a million times. I was an expert at quitting. But what I hate is that first month or two. It’s horrible. It’s crawling out of your skin, 24 hours a day. It’s not sleeping. It’s panicking.. It’s not knowing who you are, or what body you’re in. It’s uncomfortable. It’s being severely, severely, severely depressed. It’s literally hating life, and everything within it. I don’t wish these feelings upon anyone.

It almost feels like you have to re-learn how to operate your body and mind. Nothing feels natural. Your own skin doesn’t feel natural. It feels like you’re looking at the world with different eyes. And I’m not talking about a different perspective.. But literally, like different eyeballs. My eyes would move differently.

The fast lane

Thank god ibogaine lets you skip the line. Or rather, just lets you go through it much more quickly. You see, ordinarily, when you quit opiates or any drug, you’re left with your same old thinking. Same old neural pathways and dendrites connecting them. And by now, those paths are deep grooves within your brain.

Neuroplasticity

It’s the idea that the brain can evolve and adapt to internal and external events, stressors, etc. There’s three proteins that modulate this neuroplasticity in the brain, and ibogaine acts on receptors that affect all three proteins, according to studies like this. One study calls ibogaine a “psychoplastogen” for its ability to rapidly promote neurogenesis. Human trials still need to be conducted and reviewed of course, but these are promising results.. And they’re just scratching the surface, regarding what this molecule can do. If you want to learn more about ibogaine, I recommend this link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/ibogaine

It seems to wipe out all the neural pathways in your brain. So everything is new. It’s like being reborn, but you retain all your memories. Your behavior patterns have to be recreated. Thus lies the magic in this substance. You can choose new ones with a clear head. It’s hard to imagine, but picture you walk outside, and you see the blue sky, the green grass, the brown bark on the trees, the colors, the smells… Everything is as if you are experiencing it for the first time.

I couldn’t eat meat after this, so for days Teresa was cutting up fruit for me, and I would eat plates of it. There wasn’t enough in the grocery store. One of my favorite memories of when I do ibogaine, is how everything tastes and smells afterwards.. It’s like your tasting it finally, without any preconceived notion of liking it or not, or knowing what it tasted like even.. And putting that first strawberry in my mouth, was incredible. Like an explosion or fireworks going off in your brain. It was almost too much sensory data.

Visiting time

After a few days, I was getting that unbelievable pull to be with my daughters again, like the first time I did ibogaine. But I couldn’t leave yet. I could barely walk. So the girls’ nanny was nice enough to bring them over to visit The Hippy Dome for a few hours. Again, I broke down crying when I saw them. It was like I was away from them for years. They had fun with all the animals there. But they left, because I clearly had some more work to do, as I lay in the bed, trying to make it through this process of rebirth.

On the last day, I can’t remember how long I was there.. Maybe 5 days? Unclear.. But I remember I was leaving a day early. For some reason, after the ibogaine is wearing off, and I can walk confidently, etc.. I get excited and impatient to get out of the place I was doing the ceremony, and to see my family, and to start my new life…. so on and so forth.

Off to Del Mar (I think)

So I was paying for the nanny and the girls to stay at a hotel the weekend I was coming home. They decided to stay a few more days, and I met them there. Tyler and Teresa went with us as well, and got their own room at this wonderful hotel in Del Mar, California. They weren’t leaving to go back to Florida till the next day anyways. I’m not even sure if it was Del Mar.. It was one of the beach towns..

We stayed at the hotel for a couple days I believe. But when I got home, things started feeling a little off.

Microdosing? Or Macrodosing…

I wasn’t feeling right for whatever reason, and this is to be expected. What I just had gone through was transforming and draining and …. so many things. Before I went to the Hippy Dome, I had already been microdosing psilocybin for about a year I think. I have mixed emotions about microdosing. I do believe it helped alleviate my mood, every time I took it. But that was usually because instead of 300mg, I would take 600mg, because then I would get that giggle, that familiar aura.. I wouldn’t trip obviously, but it was enough to make me smile. Seriously though, this is the perfect advertisement for an antidepressant. It literally and in real-time (not 4-8 wks later) puts a smile on your face.

I just don’t know about the “true” micro-dose levels, if it’s beneficial. But when I took enough to give me a giggle, again, it’s hands down the best anti-depressant you’ll ever mess with. It was for me, at least. And I’m a connoisseur when it comes to psychiatric medications. Going to as many treatment facilities and hospitals as I have, I was basically used as a guinea pig for drugs that, honestly, it felt like no one really gave a shit about the trials and the data. And you might as well have transported me back in time to 1935 and gave me a lobotomy. Because that’s what these drugs do.

Psychiatric medication rant

I’ve been on probably close to 50-60 different psychiatric medications in my life. And not just for a couple days. Many anti-depressants/anti-psychotics/and more – I was on for months, if not years. You might as well have been injecting me with phenobarbital all day long and letting me swim in an Ambien pool to sleep. Which is only a part of the concoction that an Orange County (California) rehab doctor had me on for 90 days. I was also taking Wellbutrin, and Neurontin (which is Gabapentin) the entire time, (and continued to for awhile after… while taking heroin and meth-amphetamines).

Do they seriously think that kind of treatment is beneficial? I was drooling for 6 hrs out of the day usually. Couldn’t keep my eyes open, but I was supposed to be learning from group therapy, or some lecture in a hall…

Willing participant

And don’t get me wrong… I didn’t complain. In fact, I probably asked for some of the drugs. Sometime in the early 2000’s, I was in another rehab, in the mountains by the Mexican border, here in Southern California. It was actually my favorite of all treatment centers. I frequented often.

Modus operandi

I got pretty comfortable with them, and vice versa. The doctor was a bit strange, as was the manager… but the rest of the staff – such amazing, caring people. They all went through hard times, but they were there, dedicating their lives to try and prevent idiots like me from going down their path. The cooks… were awesome. They would make whatever breakfast you wanted, every morning… Rehabs generally don’t have good food. So this was a perk…