Going on a trip while the kids are at grandma's

✨ 🌈 🤩 and motherhood

“I’ve never seen rocks like this in my life!”

I got the following question from a reader:

I would LOVE to hear from other moms about psychedelic experiences- how it changed them if at all, did it affect their mothering? (my experience did), did they feel compelled to spend $$ to do it with a guide or did they try it on their own? Who was present? What was their childcare??) I tried mushrooms last year and it was AMAZING, I’ve been dying to do it again.

I reached out to some witches who partake to ask about their experiences, philosophies and practices. In addition to those who have taken mushies in motherhood, I also spoke with a few moms who sometimes take MDMA, aka molly. Of course, drugs like this are illegal in most places and can be dangerous, but if you happen to do so, please party safely. You can buy kits online (shipped discreetly) that test your gear for fentanyl and other bad stuff. You don’t want your kids to have a crazy story for their memoirs about how their seemingly-responsible mom went to a concert one night and never came home.

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A mom of three kids in elementary school who took her first post-kids trip earlier this spring:

What made you decide to take mushrooms now? 

I listened to Sam Harris’ podcast “Making Sense.” He was interviewing Roland Griffiths, who started the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins. They had a conversation about mindfulness, meditation practices, psychedelics and the intersection of those. The way they talked about psychedelics was a kind of shortcut, a way to see some of what you see through super-advanced meditation and mindfulness through pharmacological means.

My friends and I rented an Airbnb for the weekend. I didn’t want to be around kids. I wanted to be pretty immersed in the experience, not distracted, not worried about how fucked up I was. I was away from my day-to-day family responsibilities and stresses and in a safe environment. Going with two friends, one of whom is a nurse and wasn’t going to trip, it felt like all the stars were aligned.  Being at a lovely calm place with people I was comfortable with; you couldn’t ask for a better setup than that.

How did you find your druggie mom friends?

I knew one friend was at least open to the idea of it because she had done drugs at a concert. I was not worried about judgment. If the answer was, “Fuck no, I would never do that,” that wouldn’t have bothered me. That’s totally cool and fair for people to feel that way.

How did you get your drugs?

Since pot’s become legal where I live and there is more research about the utility of psychedelics for mental health issues, it seemed low risk to ask people who you know if they’re engaged in another thing. I asked a guy I know, a casual acquaintance. He was like, “I can get that easy, no big deal.”  I would have felt comfortable asking anyone I know who smokes pot.

How was your trip?

It was awesome. I picked up all these rocks by the lake when I was tripping. They’re sitting in my office/workout area. I look at them, and I think how dull they look compared to when I collected them. A couple of them seemed like this vibrant purple with turquoise spots at the time. “I’ve never seen rocks like this in my life!” Now I’m like, “They just look like rocks.”

I tried not to have super high expectations. I wanted to be open to what the experience had to offer. My mantra going in was “trust and surrender.” I talked to my therapist about it in advance, so I felt comfortable with the setup. I felt a little bit of nervousness in terms of “I don’t know exactly what to expect.” I had heard stories about people encountering something scary in the moment, but it’s a thing to be investigated and interrogated, so I felt prepared for that.

When I meditate and close my eyes and try to get into some sort of mindfulness, I try to recreate the feeling of the hour or so when I had a sleep mask on, when I felt like this massive expansive world opened up.  I try to keep a little piece of that when I look at the rocks. I remember what those colors were. I try to tap into that on a daily basis.

I definitely want to do it again. Next time I would pay somebody to do a guided thing to feel more comfortable. Dosing was a little like, “I don’t really know.” I would like to try it again with someone with practice at that in an even more trusted environment.

It feels like five years ago, this conversation wouldn’t have been happening. It feels like something about middle age, 2023, maybe it’s COVID, or maybe it’s pot being increasingly legal. Something has made this more salient, and I’ve been curious about what other people are getting to get out of the experience. 

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A mom of a second-grader:

When did you first take something harder than weed after you became a mom?

I had a lot of hesitancy to get into harder drugs after becoming a parent. Postpartum, my anxiety spiked super intensely. It altered my brain, and I’m still managing it to this day. That’s not a great mindset to go into psychedelics with. MDMA can really help take the edge off, but it doesn’t give the insights the other psychedelics can give. I wasn’t ready to let down my guard.

Set and setting are so important. If it’s not the right setting, it can heighten anxiety and make things really tense and uncomfortable. I didn’t need that because I was already living that.

I have a lot of reservations post-parenthood about letting down my guard and letting go of some control. I can’t remember the first time rolling after having my son, but I do know that some of my times post-parenthood have felt so good because I’m doing it for me. I’m so off duty right now. My kid is in good hands somewhere with a babysitter or parent, and I’m not needed back for another 15 hours.

MDMA is my drug of choice. I continue to have clarity of mind, but it drops me into my heart in a way that is such good medicine for me. In concept, it makes me a better parent. It helps the fist of my mind unclench a little bit.

90% of the time, it’s at a concert. I think if I were really looking for a therapeutic experience, that’s where I might turn to mushrooms to get some cosmic intergalactic wisdom. LSD can be too much of a head trip for me and my anxiety colors the experience there.

For me, mushrooms are not a great concert drug because the visuals are so intense. I want to be lying on the grass staring at the sky. I don’t want to be in a crowd of people. The last time I took mushrooms, it wrecked my stomach, and I had to run to a bathroom and shit my brains out. That’s not how I want this experience to go.

How is the comedown the next day?

I’m usually tired the next day. It can be hard to plug into parenting the next day, but I also feel like I’m really calm and lenient.  My agenda gets thrown out the window. I’m a little more present. Pretty tired but also feeling satisfied. I had my time.

You recently relocated from the West Coast to the Midwest. How has it been finding ‘your people’?

There are some folks I’ve made casual comments to. Some neighbor we were trick or treating with, I said, “Next year we should eat some mushrooms and go trick or treating ’cause this shit is wild.” It was a jokey moment, but it didn’t lead to further conversation. I’m testing the waters in those ways where I can laugh it off in case they’re like, “Damn, lady!” We’re going to Seattle to see Phish and see friends, so I still have access to that group of people.

I prefer to have these experiences with my husband. He’s always looking out for me or checking in with me. If we’re in a concert in the middle of a crowd, and I really want some water, he’ll go get it. He’s a super steady rock for me. I had a really gnarly experience at a show a couple of years ago. I was managing it myself internally. I told him, “I want you to know I’m having this experience, but I don’t want to influence your experience. I just want you to know the zone I’m in.” He was really great about checking in.

How do you know when it’s a good time to take something vs. abstaining?

If I’m going home to a sitter or have something going on the next day, that can be part of it. I’m usually pretty good at, like, “You know, I need to have a really feet-on-the-ground experience.” Having gone to all these shows sober, pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding and having an amazing time at most of them, I feel really confident that I don’t need these experiences in order to have a good time at a show. Sometimes these drugs give me a boost of energy which I really need because I’m an old lady who goes to bed at 10. I’m pretty good at assessing my mental state and understanding upcoming obligations. I’m comfortable turning it down.

You have your degree in counseling psychology: Did you study hallucinogens much in school?

Back in 2008, I wrote a final paper about MDMA-assisted psychotherapy well before it was talked about in wider circles. All of my reference sources were underground folks or folks who had been doing it before MDMA was illegal. I have some reservations about the really fast uptick in interest. I think there’s a lot of co-opting and commercialization. I think there are a lot of folks who probably shouldn’t be guides in psychedelic journeys who are getting certified in it. I’ve been having a lot more fear lately around fentanyl. Powders scare the shit out of me these days. So whoever is going to hand me a little baggie with some powder in it, and it’s MDMA, I need to know who this person is. I need to know if they’ve taken this same batch at a different time.  As a parent, I don’t want to make a stupid decision and have my kid not have a parent due to fucking fentanyl.

What do you think you’ll tell your kid eventually about drugs? 

We were admonished by our son because we put a peanut butter and jelly snack bar in his lunch, and it’s a nut-free school. We might have a kid who is really hardcore say-no-to-drugs type. But as he gets older, I also want to be thinking about his friends who have different backgrounds from him and possible interactions with authorities around those illegal substances.

Is there anything you want to try in the future you haven’t before? 

I’ve never done ayahuasca. I have folks I can ask who can get me into some circle doing that. But for me, that is asking for some really specific “My brain is going to get blown open” scenario.  Most people say it’s amazing, but I want a little valve release. I don’t need access to the secrets of the world.

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A mom of two: 

Tell me about your first post-kids trip.

I’ve only done mushrooms once. I do not think a day goes by that I haven’t thought about the experience, thinking, “How am I going to do that again?”

I just kept hearing about psychedelics, including from a friend of mine who’s very straight-laced, very type-A, a scientist, a marathon runner, and kind of obsessive about her hobbies. She was the last person I would have expected to be like, “I tried mushrooms, and it was so amazing.” 

My sister-in-law took my kids for the night. My husband’s good friend gave me actual mushrooms. I had all these insights. My husband was like, “I could take it or leave it,” so I haven’t had the chance to try it again. If do it with a friend, I don’t want to be responsible for somebody else. 

What insights did you get?

The biggest one that stood out to me was that “You will know what you need to know when you need to know it.” I am usually very anxious for the next thing.  It felt very calming and super comforting to know if you don’t know the answer, it’s not time to know.

I was looking at photos on my phone at one point. There was a photo of me and my two girls, who are 11 and almost 9. They were really little in the picture. I was looking more at the picture of my little one and then was like, “Why aren’t you looking at the older one?” We clash a lot more; we have a lot of personality traits in common. I had this deep knowledge that “You’re not seeing her fully because you’re not seeing yourself. You’re going to have to get right with yourself before you can deeply connect with her in the way you need to.”

When we picked the kids up the next day, my older child had some sort of meltdown, which she is prone to. We went to the basement and I was with her. She was just sad, she wanted me to hold her, she wanted to call my mother. My daughter is sitting on my lap, my mom is saying all the right things, and she’s calming down slowly. The next day my sister-in-law called me specifically to say, “I noticed how you were with your daughter yesterday; you were so good with her. You were just listening and there for her and giving her what she needed.” It’s weird to me that she noticed that. I felt a significant energy change from the way I was acting. I wonder if she sensed that too.

I really felt like I went on a trip. In seven hours, I felt like I’d been gone for a month. I saw the world with fresh eyes. For the whole week after, I felt like I was floating. I felt like everybody would do this, there would be no war. 

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A mom of two young kids: 

When was the first time you took MDMA? 

The first time was with my husband, who has tried everything under the sun. He was a Hunter S. Thompson stan, “Do what you need to do to live the best life!” type. I am not. I was the president of SADD for two years in high school. I’m risk averse when it comes to my health and safety, and he wasn’t. I said I want to try it, but I’m too afraid of all these outside situations. So one day, I did it, and he didn’t, and we walked around our neighborhood in the city, and it was awesome. It was the most freeing feeling. He was like, “You’re safe, you’re fine.” If I was like, “What’s that shadow?” he was constantly tethering me. What I liked most about it is that I never get to unhook myself from responsibility.

When did you do it post-kids?

My husband had made contact with the person who had molly, who put him in contact with the dealer, making it less scary to go through this chain of people. He could go to a guy he felt he could trust, which made our drug use much easier.

I definitely was done breastfeeding. It was a year into the pandemic, and it was our ten-year anniversary. The kids were at my parents’ house, and he got molly for us to just release and relax. We just took a “dip” and walked around our sleepy suburb and had the best time. That kind of early dating, “we’re just here having a good time” feel.

We’d come back and dance around our garage. I bring out disco lights in the garage, and I plug in my playlist. We have a swing set in our backyard, and it’s so fun to swing, and we call it floating. We have a hammock. Our backyard is so sensory all of a sudden.

We went to see Roger Waters recently, and my husband did molly and I didn’t—it was super political and dark. It was too much. That’s something I don’t want to do.

How do you find your people?

I am very private about my private doings. A friend was with us, and I said something to the effect of “I’ve done molly,” and another friend was interested to hear more about it, which opened things up. Based on their past stories, I had known my friend had more experience with drugs. Recently, it came up with somebody in my Wednesday moms group. I had two cocktails and said, “I’ve done molly,” and they were like, “Wait, what?” I said, “Well. I don’t go to raves, I don’t not-know how I’m getting home, and I don’t put myself in a position where I’m not completely bodyguarded.” One friend was like, “I think I want to, but I’m worried my anxiety is too much,” without a judgy side eye to me. Whereas there are some others who are like, “What????” I am quickly like, “Whatever, haha, deflect, deflect.” You don’t have to agree with me. “Good for you, not for me.”

A friend and I go and rent cabins together and roll and dance around, and sometimes when I talk about this, some people are like, “What are you doing?! I could never, that’s crazy.” Others are like, “I want that.”  To unlock mom-me, which I never get to do.

What are your guardrails for being as safe as you can be when you roll? 

In the beginning, I’d do the same amount my husband was doing, and that was too much. I was also drinking wine. You take some, and you don’t feel like anything is helping, and let’s just take a little more. It took a lot of trial and error. I’d have tummy troubles or vomit right away, and I’d feel great, but I had a really uncomfortable time. It didn’t have to be that way. It’s like someone lactose-intolerant eating ice cream.

If I’m doing molly, I’m drinking a ton of water, I’m not about adding more drinks. Which I used to— “Let’s kick it up a bit.” My body was like, “Stop it! We will expel what we don’t need.”

I don’t feel shitty the next day same way as when I drink alcohol. What I like is when I do molly I can have a fun three hours and go to bed, and I wake up fine. Even my dreams aren’t fucked up. I like how weirdly specific it is for it being like, “I’m just going to lose my brain for a little bit.” It’s really freeing.

I dove deep into the MDMA Reddit in an incognito window. I was so afraid of someone might see me doing it. “Would they take away my kids?” I learned about the testing kits and what it should look like. I’m very much a researcher. We do it every three or four months.

Do you and your husband have a lot of crazy molly sex? 

No. We’ll sit on the couch and talk to each other in a way we don’t talk anymore. “I’m just going to tell you everything for now.” We’ll walk and talk and may hold hands. Especially early on, I was like, “I have to go to the bathroom!! Don’t touch me!!!”

Do you think you’ll tell the kids about this someday?

I probably will when they are in their 20s or when they’re going to college. “Be smart! Here’s what you want to know.” But I assume I’ll tell them as a cautionary tale. “If you’re going to do it, here’s what you need to know: don’t lose your friends, someone has to be in charge, make sure you have a ride ready. Most importantly, you have to be safe if you’re going to be dumb.” 

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