Magic mushrooms for OCD??

[rachael1234]

After hearing a few people talk about recriational drugs I thought I'd try to find out a little more about this. For me, magic mushrooms are the only substance (and Ive tried them all!) to help. Whilst on a trip (even v mild) my symptoms vanish, and remain under wraps for 3-4 days afterwards. Having discovered this I typed 'magic mushrooms + OCD' into google and found masses of info on their potential to help, even a study reported by the BBC, and many pages on the use of psilocybin (the active ingredient in mushrooms) for treating OCD such as http://www.maps.org/research/psilo/azproto.html
There are clinical trials going on in the US (such as the one in the web address above) and I was just wondering if anybody else has any experience like this or knows of any UK trials?
(Ps I am NOT advocating the use of drugs-as most people will hopefully realise what works for one person may be DISASTEROUS for another, but since the research has been broadly publisised anyhow for anybody to read I thought it would be ok to ask)

 

[SilentType]

Damn I definitely wouldn't be eating any shrooms if I had OCD....

Peace

 

[paulmm]

its true

psilocybin mushrooms do help get rid of OCD symptoms, as does ibogaine, lsd, mescaline (peyote), and other tryptamines.

The Native American Church uses mescaline and peyote to help alcoholics stop drinking because it is a compulsive behavior and mescaline blocks the desire to perform compulsions.

Rich people, actors, actresses, etc. travel to Africa to undergo Ibogaine treatment to stop heroin, cocaine, and alcohol addictions because it, too, helps interrupt compulsive behavior.

These drugs have all been shown to help with OCD symptoms, though psilocybin (the active alkaloid drug in psilocin mushroom) is the most efficient. Studies are being done now to isolate the chemicals that help to release medication for OCD.


Now for my personal experiences:

Psilocybin Mushrooms: I have a compulsion to knock on wood whenever I feel the slightest bit anxious, guilty, etc. and while on psilocybin mushrooms, I was still doing this. However, my obsessions came and I was able to walk through them and rationalize my thoughts, something I am rarely able to do because of my OCD. I have read about people taking mushrooms and then not performing a single compulsion for MONTHS.

LSD: I've taken LSD a few times, and at the time of one of my trips, I was obsessing a lot about the possibility of breaking my probation and going to jail. I would knock on wood compulsively for minutes at a time whenever I would think about breaking probation. When I was tripping on LSD, I didn't worry about it at all and finally felt like I controlled my own fate, and was able to keep myself from breaking probation.

People need to remember that all drugs legal and illegal are just chemicals. Just because a drug is illegal doesn't make it any more or less dangerous than legal drugs. There are many many legal drugs that will kill you a lot faster than any illegal drugs. There are also many illegal drugs that are also legal in some contexts. A popular example - it takes 10,000 hits of LSD to cause death in 50% of humans. If someone took just 100 tylenols, their liver would shut down and they would die. 60 pounds of mushrooms is possibly lethal, but if somebody was to eat just 6 ounces of many over the counter drugs, they would drop dead. The two most frightening trips I've ever been on have been with legal drugs - Salvia Divinorum and DXM (cough syrup). Just because those in power don't think illegal drugs can be helpful doesn't mean you should listen. But because illegal drugs are not regulated, be very very careful with them and do a lot of research before taking any.

 

[ritualista]

I'm not a diagnosed OCD, but I definitely have tormenting obsessive thoughts.
I have used LSD 6 times and mushrooms once. During the first stage of the trip I've always had the urge to grab my thoughts and obsessively control my mind, but at one point during every one of the trips I've come to a point were it is useless to try so I am forced to free myself from myself (paradoxical, isn't it? forced to be free...) and be in a world that seems completely new, no recurrent patterns of thoughts and no habits.
After a trip, I have no or little symptoms for about one or two months. I feel as if new obsessive patterns are being created during that month until they build up to a point where I am obsessive again.

Even if one trip is not a permanent cure, I feel it gives me a lot of insight into how my obsessions work so that I am more able to deal with them. At least I know that the obsessions are not inevitable.

 

[ritualista]

It's about learning to live with nothing. Obsessive compulsive disorder happens because we have to hold on to something stable. Sometimes that stable thing isn't so stable, but we already built our lives around it, so in order to change the problem we have to change all the system and that terrifies us.
A trip like LSD or mushrooms will take away the things you hold on to, so you will have to learn to live without those things.