Chloe's Journey: 3 Questions
A chemical engineer talks about healing her anxiety and childhood trauma with LSD and becoming the person "who sits and listens to birds chirp"
When I first ventured into the world of #psychedelictok, aka the psychedelic niche on the popular video-sharing app TikTok, it didn’t take long for me to stumble across Chloe. Chloe shares informative, science-focused videos about psychedelic medicine, complemented by her personal experience, with her growing number of followers.
A chemical engineer by background, Chloe also works at one of the biggest psychedelics manufacturers, Psygen, for her day job. Read on to learn about her incredible experiences with psychedelics and why she’s so excited about molecular innovation (and many other things) in the field.
What tangible impact have psychedelic journeys had on your life? How have they changed you?
The biggest gift that psychedelics have given me is by far and away the gift of being present.
I’ve always struggled with crippling anxiety and due to early childhood trauma and have always been very dissociative. Because of that, I was rarely ever present in my life. My head was either in the clouds or caught in an anxious thought loop. I would drift away in conversations; my friends and family would notice exactly when they lost me. A large chunk of my childhood memories was a black box.
I’ve spent a lot of time working through the anxiety and dissociation and have made tremendous progress even before psychedelics, however, it was psychedelics that made the most profound difference. It was like I crossed a line of healing and never looked back. Psychedelics completely and irrevocably changed the way that I look at the world around me. They’ve shown me tremendous amounts of beauty.
It was one of my first LSD trips, time slowed down and it was like seeing the world in high definition, colors have never been so bright, and sounds so beautiful. I remember listening to the birds chirp and communicate with each other and the flowers were so vibrant. My inner voice took me through this journey of what I had been missing while I was stuck in my own mind. It kept on telling me that love and the present moment are the most important thing. I’ve never experienced so much wonder, awe and love for nature and life.
It’s been two years since my first LSD journey, and I still see colors as brighter and now I’m the type of person that sits and listens to the birds chirp. I’ve found so much love and enjoyment in the present moment and in nature. I’m far more present in conversations and life in general. It truly is so much harder to feel depressed and anxious when you are busy appreciating the beauty of everything around you.
Psychedelics have allowed me to address some of the root causes of the anxiety, something that SSRIs never did for me. I’m not perfect, I still have my moments. But psychedelics truly gave me a part of my life back. A huge piece that I was missing out on due to fear, anxiety, and dissociation. They gave me beauty, peace, stillness, hope, and healing. This is something I truly hope that many people can experience in their lives. It has profoundly changed me for the better.
You work for a psychedelics company and have great insight into the space. What are you most excited about in this industry?
This is a difficult question because there is SO much going on and there’s a lot to be excited about! I think there are two main themes that I’m passionate about and that is pharmaceutical innovation and expanding the scope of psychedelic medicine beyond mental health.
What we are seeing in the industry is that companies are gravitating toward New Chemical Entities (“NCE”s). There are two reasons for this: one because you can’t patent the classic psychedelics – you can only get a patent for the drug in a specific indication or disease and unfortunately, with the way the pharmaceutical industry works, it’s not the most profitable. The second reason is to be innovative, to create designer drugs that improve effectiveness and reduce side effects. I believe in 10-20 years from now we will have a lot more unique psychedelic medicine available. Perhaps derivatives of psilocybin that are longer or shorter lasting, Ibogaine derivatives without the risk of fatal arrythmias (MindMed already has a drug in trial for this called 18-MC). While I am a huge supporter of plant medicine and traditional practice, not all psychedelics occur in nature and as this industry becomes larger, synthetics are a sustainable solution for many of the endangered psychedelic plant species while perhaps negating some of the challenges and side effects of what already currently exists.
I really think we are just scratching the surface of what psychedelics can do. Research is showing us that psychedelics may also help with diseases outside of mental health and that psychedelic medicines may be a solution to help us live longer, healthier lives. For example, Algernon is currently investigating the use of an IV DMT microdose for use in post-stroke recovery. DMT helps to promote structural and functional neuroplasticity and a recent pre-clinical rat study showed that rats treated with DMT recovered motor function more quickly and to a greater extent in comparison to the control group that did not receive DMT (1). Eleusis is investigating microdosing LSD in the prevention of Alzheimer’s and the Beckley Institute is also evaluating LSD microdoses in chronic pain. LSD changes your perception of pain making it more bearable and shifting it to the background of your awareness rather than numbing it. This could be a major breakthrough for the opioid crisis. I am beyond excited to see these trials progress and if successful, it can save lives or add a lot of quality to someone’s life.
Nardai, Sándor, et al. "N, N-dimethyltryptamine reduces infarct size and improves functional recovery following transient focal brain ischemia in rats." Experimental Neurology 327 (2020): 113245.
What are some myths about psychedelic medicines that we need to move past? Any previous judgments you've overcome yourself?
The “war on drugs” / psychedelic prohibition in the 1960s onwards did so much damage to the public perception of psychedelics. There was a lot of harmful, false propaganda. Prior to the criminalization of LSD there were over 1000 studies on the compound, many of which demonstrated its safety and efficacy. LSD was already showing great potential in mental health and addiction. Some even say that criminalizing LSD was one of the greatest medical oversights/mistakes of all time as it shut down so much important research in the field.
As a result of this propaganda, many people fear these compounds and believe that LSD or psilocybin mushrooms will make you go crazy, jump out of a window, etc., which is not the case. LSD and psilocybin are “unicorn drugs” in the sense that they have an exceptional safety profile – the effective dose is so much lower than a toxic dose, such that it is actually very difficult to “overdose” or cause yourself harm from a toxicological perspective. Now, saying that, these compounds should be respected and used appropriately. We have a long way to go, there needs to be a lot of education centered around helping people understand how these compounds work and what they actually feel like; who should or should not take them, harm reduction etc., and we are making headway here, which is really exciting to me.
My younger self, especially being an athlete, harshly judged people that “did drugs” including psychedelics. There is a massive stigma around it that I am now fighting to change. It’s always been crazy to me that it is socially normal to drink alcohol to the point of severe intoxication or blacking out but it’s illegal to do psilocybin mushrooms and connect deeply to yourself and others. I really think we need to detach “psychedelics” from the category of being a “criminal drug” in the same way that we associate opiates, crack etc. Once I tried psychedelics for myself, not only was it the most transformative experience of my life, it took away all judgment for psychedelic use and made me so much more open-minded. I look back and can’t believe how judgemental I used to be.
Another misconception that is important to note with psychedelic medicine is that “psychedelics are a cure for mental illness”. This is both true and false! I’ll explain… The results of the FDA clinical trials have been outstanding. We’re seeing people with depression and PTSD have two or three treatment sessions in conjunction with therapy and around two-thirds of participants are no longer exhibiting symptoms of PTSD and depression. It’s truly remarkable.
What I’ve been noticing is that many people put the expectation on one or two treatments curing them and when the healing doesn’t happen and the pain doesn’t go away immediately, they get discouraged. Sometimes you can have massive perspective shifts during those trips that do heal you immediately, but often it’s the integration and applying the lessons after the journeys when the healing really does begin. Plus, sometimes someone needs one treatment, and other times someone may need 20 psychedelic journeys. And as we ebb and flow through life there will always be challenges that we need to overcome. So, I do believe that saying “two psychedelic journeys will cure you forever” can be misleading. I believe we are all on a lifelong growth journey that never really ends. But the beautiful point I’m trying to make here is that you, yourself are the cure. Psychedelics help you to address the root cause and put you into a mental and emotional state where you are more in-tune with your higher self, more susceptible to learning new habits, and it is easier to face/ heal trauma. But in the end, you must take the lessons and learn, heal, grow, transform. And this is so powerful! These psychedelic journeys are not always easy, but if you approach your healing with courage, self-love, and patience and keep taking steps forward, then you will heal, and it can completely change your life.
You can find Chloe on TikTok and Instagram @chloedeutscher. Chloe offers coaching for those looking to get started with psychedelics or who would like support throughout their psychedelic and healing journey. She specializes in microdosing, psilocybin mushrooms, and LSD.