When things get worse before they get better

Lessons from a tumultuous year post-Ibogaine

There’s a part of you that is flawed. The roots lie in your brain chemistry. They may be genetic. With the right care and time, you can learn to manage your flaws and construct a life worth living, despite your mental illness.

I never bought this narrative around mental illness dominating our culture. For years, I had the stubborn hypothesis, the conviction, that my mental illnesses were not the result of flawed neurochemistry. I believed that if I gained insight into the real origins, I’d find permanent recovery. This belief kept me going and led me to plant medicine when psychiatrists wanted to medicate my depression and therapists were telling me to accept that my eating disorder may be a companion for the rest of my life.

The path of root cause healing differs from that of symptom management. In symptom management, you try to mute the symptoms to make life more enjoyable. In root cause healing, you listen carefully to the symptoms and investigate their origin. These investigations may require altered states of consciousness when root causes are buried in your subconscious. The process of unearthing them can amplify symptoms in the short run, which, to the uneducated eye, may look like things aren’t working (or getting worse).

There are no shortcuts, not even with psychedelics. Root cause healing requires patience. It’s a roller coaster, but unlike symptom management, it has catalytic events and a marked beginning and end. Wherever you are on that roller coaster, I’m here today to remind you to trust the process, and to trust that freedom is possible for you.

It’s been one year since I journeyed with the root medicine Ibogaine. It’s root medicine in the literal sense (the compound is extracted from the rootbark Iboga) and figuratively (it takes you straight to the roots of your suffering). While other medicines such as Ayahuasca may reveal answers piece by piece, Iboga reveals the full puzzle in one journey. This process is long, intense, and why Iboga is often called the “Mount Everest of psychedelics”.

Three years into the medicine path, I’d overcome depression and PTSD but still reverted back to disordered eating every once in a while when life got too spicy. I sensed that this medicine would help me put a bow on my eating disorder, for good. And it did, but not in the way I imagined.

After my journey, I felt on top of the world. The neurological reset paired with the profound clarity that arose made me feel invincible. I returned eager to integrate and implement new habits. My appetite was reset, cravings that had plagued me in the weeks leading up to the retreat were gone. This will be the time I’ll become my best, healthiest self, I thought.

Boosted by the medicine, I set out to achieve the final step of my recovery: the return to my original, pre-eating disorder body. I decided the best way to do this would be by going Keto. After seeing a Yogi influencer on Instagram eating eggs and bacon after an intermittent fast, I began eating eggs and bacon and intermittent fasting. I worked out more and ate less. It felt easy and energizing. Within weeks, my system rebelled and I relapsed.

The next day, to my astonishment, I woke up without the shame and earth-shattering despair that usually accompanied relapses. Instead, I had absolute clarity about what had just happened and what I had to do next: never, never, never-ever control my food again. I’d fallen victim to thoughts from the ego disguising themselves as acts of self-love. It was Iboga’s final lesson: do not let your ego trick you into thinking it is your heart. Any act of control always stems from your ego’s effort to manage its fears. The heart never controls, it trusts.

As I’d done many times before, I removed all restriction. This time it was permanent, though. I ate boundlessly, gained all the weight I’d lost back, and felt free. The weight didn’t bother me. The relapse didn’t bother me. I knew it all had to happen for me to see the pattern and cut the cord.

Less than six months later, I was so unequivocally certain that this episode had marked the official end of my eating disorder that I got a tattoo to symbolize my recovery. Within days of the tattoo appointment, I had a terrifying, two-day-long exorcism. It was not pretty. I felt possessed. I was crying, screaming, and in physical pain, ready to check myself into a psych ward. Until suddenly, on Day 3, it was all gone. I woke up feeling more myself than ever before.

I have no doubts that what was leaving me was the final residue of the eating disorder. I chose surrender over control and carved it into my skin. Anything still begging to control me had no option but to leave. Once I surrendered, I slowly returned to the physical shape I’d always dreamed of, without effort or intention. But this time, it didn’t matter. I no longer cared for it. My heart had already won.

Healing is not linear. Don’t expect a sudden or even constant, gradual transformation after your journey. Sometimes, things have to get worse before they get better. It’s not uncommon to metabolize dark energy post-ceremony. It’s usually things on their way out. This can happen within days, weeks, or months of your journey, as in my case.

When you’re in free fall, remind yourself of the bigger picture. Any relapse in thought or behavior patterns is an invitation to investigate and course correct. Your symptoms are your guide. They are the language of your soul, as Carl Jung says.

〰️ An excellent book on Iboga, “the root of all healing”

〰️ Read more about psychedelic intergation here

〰️ Amanda Siebert interviews me about my Ibogaine journey

〰️ We now have a psychedelic Chat GPT at our disposal

〰️ Tricycle Day has become my favorite newsletter for bite-size psychedelic news — they interviewed me recently, sign up to get the feature into your inbox this Sunday

“When the symptoms get worse, that’s when the healing begins.” — Eastern proverb