‘I felt more joy than I thought possible’
Steve struggled with depression for 30 years. Traditional antidepressants numbed both his highs and lows, leaving him feeling like a “functional zombie”.
Things finally changed when he volunteered for a psilocybin trial at Imperial College London.
“With the first dose, I felt joy like I’ve never experienced – and more like myself than I’ve ever felt… It took from not knowing myself at all to having a sense of what my place was in the greater scheme of things,” he said.
The second dose was much more challenging, but “therapeutically more useful,” as it forced him to deal with suppressed emotions.
“The drug gives us part of a healing process. It exposes you to different possibilities – another way of being,” Steve explains.