This hits home. My survival technique was to punt on first down. Even if I knew I was in the right, it wasn't worth the energy and outcome of the fight. I've had so many in depth conversations about things that normally would be very much outside of my comfort zone before MDMA. Either: scared of being vulnerable, scared of being laughed at or disregarded, or that my opinion wasn't worth rocking the boat. Fucking baby boomers that grew up internalizing all of it, showing no emotion, not expressing love, etc. ravaged a bunch of current 30-45 year olds. Of course I know my dad loves me. Does he say it? No. Did that somehow stick in my craw? yes. But now, it's all good. I can't expend energy over three words that I already know the answer too.
With my wife and our baby, I tried for so long to suppress it and be stoic and the rock. Very successfully for 3-4 years. Shit catches up. Since the journey, I have talked more about our daughter than the last 5 years combined. I let loose of A LOT of guilt/shame/grief. Her death was the "main intent" of the journey. Once the magic pill hit, I can't explain it, but I started thinking about my daughter. I felt a warm sensation on my right side. I FELT her. She was telling me that "she's ok" "she knows she is loved" "she's real", etc. Really fucking powerful stuff for me and my wellbeing. Unbeknownst to me, at the time I "felt" her, a butterfly was flying around and rested on me. I had no idea it was happening, but my therapist caught video of it as it went down (just because he thought it was unique and powerful). He doesn't film our session. I'm not perfect. I'm not healed. I have a lot of work to do, but this is the most hopeful I've ever been. Can't wait to go back.
As if Oklahoma isn't bad enough, they are about to enact a law (my understanding from my therapist) that charges therapists 5k a year for their license, take 10% of all earnings, and make the therapists upload their notes to a common database. So that will fuck mental help up even more. Who would want to have their deepest and darkest on a server that anyone can hack into? Embarrassing. My therapist is considering giving up his PhD and license to avoid it. No license or PhD would make it illegal for him to carry out a "journey".