23. Life Updates: Moving To Wisconsin, Mental Health Treatments, Psychedelics, & Starting My Ph.D

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to a chat with Uma, with me, your host, Uma R. Chatterjee. On this podcast, I bring together all of my roles as a neuroscientist, researcher, board certified mental health peer specialist, mental health advocate, community builder, and a survivor with lived experience to bring you honest and unfiltered conversations, exploring our true human experiences in their fullest form. Every week, I'm bringing you conversations bridging the gap on all things neuroscience, psychology, mental health, lived experience, advocacy, psychedelics, and more. This is a space for raw unfiltered truth, to truly explore ourselves for who we are and how we are. I cannot wait to connect with you, answer all of your questions and co-create this with you. Welcome to a chat with Uma. Hello, beautiful friends, and welcome back to another episode of a chat with Uma. Today, you have me for a solo episode, which is honestly pretty wild to me, because for anyone who's been here since the beginning of the show starting, I started off with a decent number of solo episodes, and the real purpose of that was to set a framework for the rest of the show, so that everything could be built on that framework and foundation. Just I felt like I needed to put as much of my story and background and my identities and experiences into context to kind of inform and really solidify the vantage point of the show, or at least that being a starting point and everything coming from there. And then, you know, I just kind of envisioned the show mostly being interviews and updates about research, and lived experience and advocacy, and really creating conversations with other people, and that definitely has happened in this continuing to happen. Like, so far, the guests who have come on the show were just so fucking amazing, and I have, I think like eight interviews, just like ready to be released, and then even more on the docket, which I'm so grateful and so excited. And I could just like keep releasing interviews and I will, but the reason that you have a solo episode today is because, one number one, I am just getting so many messages and questions and comments from the amazing humans, all of you in this community, just asking me questions, and a lot of it has to do with my experience right now, and I mean, I guess from just me always sharing, y'all know I've been going through a lot of change and a lot of newness and just, you know, sharing bits and pieces here and there, trying to kind of be honest and open about my experience. And I've just gotten so many questions that it just feels like, come on here and answer. And then, so I figured maybe I'd have a solo coming up soon, and I put out some question boxes on Instagram, just curious what your questions were, so maybe we can make it and ask me anything, and there were some awesome questions that, you know, our research related or just, you know, more factually related, but so many of the questions were like the same thing, of just asking me how I am and what I'm up to and just honestly like life update vibes. So I'm here to do exactly that because I realize that this community, the beautiful humans that you are, like this space we created is really founded on just continued openness and honesty and processing and sharing and just being, and that's definitely a value to me, and like I love doing it, and I do do it, apparently, and sometimes it's just bursting out of me and I just kinda do it, like follow my instincts and do it. And what's so beautiful is now that's kind of what you expect and hold me to, and I love that because I might've been telling myself a story, I guess, that I did too many solos or not too many, but like you had your piece, Ooma, like you said everything and now like step back, and you're showing me that both ends, like the interviews are amazing and so valuable and they're going to, just these conversations are being had in ways that I have not heard them done before, which is kind of the point of me having a show and having conversations my way and just bringing out and highlighting the magic and wisdom in humans in the ways in which I do and then other people do it their way. That's beautiful, but and and this space is also to continue to just speak and be and have this honest space for all of us. So thank you for seeing that in me and reflecting that back to me and just being here for all of it and allowing me and giving me permission to continue taking up space as well 'cause I think you've been listening to the show and you hear my stream of consciousness about everything that I deal with, you know, that I really, really struggle to take up space and this is you challenge me to do so. So here I am and here is a solo episode and today is just gonna be a life update, really just a high level life update and everything through this summer, through my move across the country for the next part which is starting my PhD and everything to do with mental health, physical health, integration, recovery, realizations, a bunch of stuff. And also splashes some questions that are not related to kind of a life update in there just to keep things fun too. But here is this solo, just a few quick announcements before we get into the episode. So number one, I am super excited to share that now on my website because of just being asked about many of the events and resources that I've partaken in and the recordings I have of just things I've said and done like I just have had the privilege and honor of being a part of a lot of different beautiful resources of other people and myself. I finally got my life together and put a decent amount of it all in one space on my website. So for much of the events that are publicly accessible and the webinars, seminars, talks, town halls, just anything like that, they're kind of all in one place with some descriptors about what they are which are now all on my website which will also be linked in the show notes. So if you are interested in learning more about my research, my advocacy, just different parts of my lived experience and just catching up on some of the events that were live and you were able to attend, then head on over to that link and check it all out. Everything that is free and that's accessible that I could think of is on that. And honestly, I'm probably missing some stuff, but it's a good place to start. And I think I particularly wanna highlight my breaking convention talk. So I gave a talk at breaking convention which is the largest psychedelic conference in Europe and I shared my research and in sharing my research and giving that 30 minute talk. I also shared a lot about my lived experience and how that informed my research on the potential effects of psychedelics and psychedelic assisted therapy for PTSD on Comorbid OCD. So that's one of my favorite things on the website. There's also just really amazing collaborations with other advocates, especially through the International OCD Foundation. There is my talk with Dr. Ben Rein and the aspiring scientist Coalition talking all about my journey as a non-traditional student and how I developed research from my own lived experience and how I somehow became a neuroscientist. So all of that and so much more is all on that page, linked in the show notes. I hope you love it and check it out and let me know if there's anything you have questions about or anything that you wanna hear more about. And another announcement that I have is based on the fact that so many of you beautiful humans have reached out and have asked how you can support me in my work. And I just first and foremost, I have to say that just being here and tuning into the podcast, sharing the podcast, just sharing my work, my content, my research and really just engaging with me and being part of this community is such a beautiful way to support me and thank you for already doing that if you're here. But a number of y'all had asked me just in different ways and different forms of how you can support my work. And I honestly didn't know how to answer that question and I have finally taken a second to start a coffee or coffee, I don't know how to pronounce it, but basically it is just a way for y'all to support me on a one time or a monthly basis if my content and my work is of support to you in any way and you'd like to just support me back and this is in no way shape or form something that is expected at all. It is just open if you feel called to do so and it's really just me opening myself up to the support that you all have offered me And so thank you for inspiring me to be open to receive and if this resonates at all It's linked in the show notes and if not then thank you so much for just being here and supporting me as you do Which is already more than enough and I'm just really grateful for you acknowledging the work and the labor that goes into creating this and You know, I do the podcast and all of my advocacy and all of you know many of my roles Just on my own time because I believe in this work so much I believe in normalizing the human experience and bringing Zero-cost education and conversations to y'all because It this should be accessible. This should be accessible. And that's my goal. That's my hope. That's my dream And I'm here doing this. I Do absorb the costs of everything that I'm doing thus far. I'm a one man team and I'm so I love doing all this It's a lot though and so I just really appreciate y'all seeing that acknowledging that and offering any support So it'll be linked in the show notes if it calls to you at all All right, so the life update da da da It's not that dramatic or Maybe it is that dramatic because everything is dramatic or nothing's dramatic at all depending on how you look at it But I digress. Okay, so I guess to sort of like conceptualize and build upon previous episodes and kind of what I've shared so far And of course if this is you just tuning in right now and you have no idea what I'm talking about well check out previous episodes I have different versions of life updates and kind of Come to reality moments that I share in real time and that's I think a huge reason why this kind of episode was being asked to be made because I've done it before so yeah pretty much I Decided really wrong this year that I am going indeed going to start This PhD and try it out as I keep telling myself try it out So with that came a huge decision to not only start the next chapter of my life As a neuroscience PhD student, but that also meant Moving across the country from Dallas, Texas where I've lived or did live for 16 Really really long years like you can hear it in my voice like Did not want to be there was there out of necessity and yes, it was my choice, but my choice was Very much rooted in necessity and what felt like the safest option and there is no perfect decisions in life I think we all know this but it felt like the most supportive decision for a while because I was deeply deeply sick and after being in the thick of all my sickness both physically with being in active cancer treatment being in treatment for several chronic illnesses that we're starting to be treated for the first time and we're just really really Loud for lack of a better term and being deeply in the process of treatment and recovery for severe mental illness starting OCD treatment PTSD treatment Getting you know in a sense it was just like tearing so many blocks of My old way of functioning and living and being down like a very unsustainable frail version and then starting to rebuild and Really I share all of this because yes, I was in Texas for 16 years in match of that was my childhood and my early adolescence The period of time that I was extremely sick and then there were I would say so I'm 27. I was diagnosed with cancer 22 so for like the last five-ish years It's really been I mean partially because of school because I went back to school and I I mean I earned two degrees after like leaving school and But failing out with a one-point A through GPA so getting that first degree back at the original institution where I started at the University of Texas Adolesse made sense at the same time. It was the pandemic. So That made things hard and Again was still confined to living there to get the degree from that school Also, I was still in the thick of very intensive cancer treatment and being very heavily monitored going through radiation Getting checked all the time Everything I just mentioned. I was in intensive treatment Psychologically all the things then At the end of my bachelors I kind of had the option to move and At that time I had been applying to psychology like clinical psychology PhD programs like long story short This is all like in previous episodes, but I thought that that is what I should do because I didn't I wanted to be involved with mental health research and treatment, but thought that That was the only way I could because I didn't believe in the ability for me to be a neuroscientist, but you know Here we are Anyway, I could have left, but I didn't I had said technically but faith to do my master's in neuroscience Which was also at UTT because it's the only school I applied to that wasn't a clinical psychology program also though it was sort of informed by not just the degree, but not a benefit was in Being extremely sick and going through a fok time of misdiagnosis and mistreatment. I It took me a long time to find providers that finally knew what they were doing and were treating me properly and I got really close to like Deathly situations because of misdiagnosis and you know metastases of my cancer as a result of Not being treated properly by certain doctors and being missed in certain ways so I found like and I created a team of Different doctors who were helping me with all of my things and I finally trusted them They were finally the right fit and things were going better than they had ever been and it felt at the time both for my doctors perspective and my own that it just wasn't ideal to try to Or to like disrupt that and go find new care in Kind of precarious time where things were touching go So I didn't and it did serve me well to continue my care and I guess to make that more specific. I had My cancer doctor and his whole team I had a hematologist for some severe iron issues. I have a clinical dermatologist for basically autoimmune disease I have called hydrogen and it is superativa which is Heurific and is basically like crones, but on the outside of your body which I finally started getting More helpful treatment from or for with a doctor I finally found and Gosh what am I missing my primary care physician who was overseeing all of it chronic pain care which was in process and Honestly, I can't remember the other ones, but there's like nine and then also my main psychologist who was not doing OCD treatment, but I had been seeing for years and was finally a good fit to help me overall with my treatment so Those are some of the basics and yeah, I was just It was safer for me to stay and Dallas At least I was telling myself till I finished my master's which was two more years and then I graduated this May and Before May I got into and decided to go to the PhD program that I Now just started at the University of Wisconsin medicine So I knew that if I went here I would be moving across the country and That was a difficult decision to make for many many reasons and that's all detailed in previous episodes as well That'll be linked in the show notes if you're interested And you could also just scroll down and it's kind of obvious what episodes there, but you know I it's one thing to decide to go and do it is another thing to actually do the thing and it's that's kind of where this life Updates coming from so I graduated in May and the hope the dream and the plan was to have a solid three months of resting and taking a break replenishing and Finding ways to take care of myself and nourish myself and kind of Set a new foundation in baseline before Starting this extremely intensive PhD and like effectively just replicating my past Really maladaptive Copied mechanisms and behaviors and just having the summer as a gift to do that and I already knew that the summer would have a few instances of like still working. We're not a few but like I guess working to a certain degree with Many of the roles that I still had and then also just like the number of conferences that I went to present at and that I participated in heavily it had a lot of duties around But still compared to my life life in general and before I graduated it was supposed to be a break and the reality was it wasn't for most of it. I also knew about myself that my typical my systems typical way of coping is to just overwork and to be busy and it just really really struggles number one having idle hands but number two just needing to be present like it just feels unsafe and so without be wanting to but feeling like I didn't have choice and kind of just following my instincts and autopilot like I just worked and worked and worked and I put my energy into anything that required it of me or didn't even require it of me but could use it of me and could be greatly benefit benefited of me and not to say that it didn't work like those things did benefit but at what expense mine and I take full responsibility for it and I I'm still talking about it because it's it's really really difficult and it's more of a there it's more of a pervasive and insidious like hidden problem to have and I know I'm not the only one who has it and it's even worse when it's you know still rewarded and lauded by people society and by in a more granular way the different things that like I was actually involved in because it did benefit those things and so it gets complicated because it feels like I'm doing the quote-unquote right thing but was the quote-unquote right thing for me? no and yet it happened and I can't change that but I am being honest about it because it does inform my life update so basically I graduated May and I re were moving at the end of July to Madison and my program started at the end of August and the reason that we moved at the end of July was not because we wanted to move at the end of July if I had it my way we would have been in Madison the second I graduated but these are a thing and when we renewed our lease on our apartment at the beginning of the year first of all I didn't even know where we were moving so it was taking a leap of faith and thank goodness I didn't renew for the whole year even though it was a lot cheaper because I was like I have to we have to move even if I don't get it anywhere we both by we I mean me and my husband have wanted to I guess that's an important part to say before I move on we have wanted to move since we met which was like eight years ago and we've been together like seven years ago we our values let us to not want to be in Dallas for or even Texas for a very long time and for all the reasons I said we stayed and thank I mean thank you to him for staying I mean in his own values for me but nonetheless we wanted to leave so irrespective if I was getting in somewhere we just had to get out of there but it was only the faith not that being said because of lease renewal things it was like five hundred dollars more a month to end our lease at six months versus seven meaning we chose the end of July for that purpose and it sucks but that's what that's what ended up happening so we were in Texas through most of the summer and like I told you I just kept myself really busy without intending to and just overworking and not getting a break and traveling doing all the conferences it was amazing I saw people I love I got to do amazing things all the beautiful parts and it was just exhausting and then and then we get to the actual move so thus far I have shared all the reasons why I wanted to move why I wanted to get out of Texas all of that and so I shared more of the positive side at least the positive side that I had access to at the time but I feel like what mostly plagued me amongst considering the move and like engaging the move and anticipating the move was the all the horrible stuff which for me was number one it was an active choice to abandon at least the way my system interpreted as abandon the safety that I had cultivated and created and curated and found in my health care in my you know just feeling used to my environment as much as I hated my environment it was just comfortable because I was used to it and it felt safer even though I hated it and I feel like that's a metaphor and really an experience that so many people can relate to outside of this situation just comfort feeling safe even though our values don't align with it at all but for me that like really really amplified and because of just feeling generally unsafe in my system and my body and my life I and my system cling to safety and for that that meant continuousness and lack of change even though it didn't align with my values and so I knew that about myself and I was looking at this move as this monumental thing that was gonna happen and I was fucking petrified and the closer we got you know as the month got closer I just like all I could do was anticipate how hard the move was gonna be for me because I'm abandoning all this safety I have to find all these new doctors I have to literally like physically engage in the move which as a Spoonie as somewhat of chronic illness as someone who is you know really like who struggles with physical limitations and bandwidth and stamina and all of that like as much as I have improved like I still struggle on the chronic pain like the fact that I am so aware that moving is extremely difficult physically and it takes a toll as much as you know I have support by people in my life who help so much like the fact that I want to contribute to my own move but it's gonna onset this that and the other thing and just like also particularly with OCD OCD does not do well with change and a huge onset of relapse and trigger is moving and I know that and so and also just like moving from apartments like to another apartment has been like such a massive struggle for me like literally our last apartment so we moved to this complex right before I started school again like great for the pandemic at the end of 2019 and we first lived in one unit that was smaller and then when we got married and we just like wanted a needed more space for what we were doing at home all the time we wanted a bigger unit and so within the same apartment complex after like a year and a half we moved from one unit to the other and they're literally exactly the same except it's a different unit and it's a little bit bigger and has the exact same fixtures the exact same like layout plus some like rooms but it's almost exactly the same and I massively struggled with that move and I'm not saying like I the only one moving is hard for but like I know moving isn't really fun for anybody and change can be hard for anyone but it's just one of those things for me that I extremely struggle with and I did it but anyway just to illustrate the point that like moving from one apartment to another within the same apartment complex was extremely difficult for me and took a lot of work to transition now I'm moving across the country and the reality is I other than when I was 11 moving from New York to Texas again I was 11 I never moved like I never made a big move like I left home as soon as I turned 18 but I stayed in the Metroplex in the Dallas Metroplex and I moved in many different apartments but they were all in the same Metroplex like I never left the way a lot of other people had left as much as I wanted to so this was my first time doing anything like that and I had no trust in myself to cope that's the reality of it like I spent all of my time if I wasn't working like honestly in retrospect what it was was the work was me avoiding the crippling fear I had of moving and this monumental thing I made it out to be and the fact that it represented that I'm taking a leap of faith to try this program and I'm making such a huge life decision and like all the interests of thoughts and fears that go with making a choice toward my values even though like I really have so much doubt about myself and my capabilities and it's just I was terrified of the move to sum it up just terrified for so many reasons health mental physical related like just not believing in my ability to cope and so I was just afraid of what I expected to be the inevitable and I was just sitting and festering in my lack of ability to trust myself to cope through all of that and was just in the anticipation of it all so the only choices I had or I felt like I had or I had access to as much as I tried to do things differently and I was in therapy working on trying to do things differently but really what I mostly had access to other than the awareness of all of this was just working to avoid or channel my energy into something or to just feel this angst of and I just like didn't feel anything positive about moving. And it really, really sucked. And it made things feel worse than they were. And I had an epiphany of the fact that none of this was gonna change. I wasn't gonna feel any differently until maybe when we moved. And kind of like resisting that feeling wasn't gonna do shit for me. So all I really tried to do was accept it. Just accept how I felt physically and emotionally. And accept my fears, accept that it was happening, own the choice, and just accept that it, I mean, the possibility that it'll happen, to be honest, it's more like I just accepted that it will happen. And one could argue that sitting in uncertainty might have been more helpful. But for me, what I had access to was just accepting the realities. And it's complex and nuanced. Like some things are helpful to just accept that they will happen, like to prepare for them. And some things it's helpful I feel too, accept the possibility, but not just fully believe it will and open the possibility to be different. So, you know, in the intercomplex interplay of my mental and physical health. Like I just lean toward accepting things will happen and accepting it part of the experience. And it's not indicative of the overall worthiness or judgment of the experience of moving. So, that's mostly what I did. And then the move happened and, you know, to recap that. It was packing up our whole apartment, which really started happening after, I mean, I was traveling a lot this summer, like I said. So after the final conference I went to, the International OCD Foundation Conference, getting back like the second week of July, it became like just trying to pack at a decent rate, not overwhelming ourselves through July. And then loading up our truck, our U-Haul, and driving to Wisconsin the last day of July, the first day of August. And I mean, for my parts of the moving, I definitely procrastinated because I really was just in such avoidance of the experience. But luckily my husband did and understood so much of what I was going through and did what he could to pack a lot of it. And then I really just picked up this lack at the end. So that happened. It was difficult. It was extremely stressful trying to find a place to live. And that's not anything new to anyone moving. It's just my ability to handle. Stress is not the best if you haven't gotten yet. But that's just the reality of it for me or it was at that point. So just moving and then we made the drive across the country. And it was really, really surreal. I actually had my brother with us 'cause he was really, really kind. And he came up from where he lives, southern like in Southern Texas. And he drove up and then he helped us load up our truck alongside another one of our dear friends who helped us too. And then me and my husband and my brother, we all drove a combination of the truck, the moving truck and the car and our doggy to Madison. It was a, I think like 16 to 18 hour overall truck if we went nonstop from Dallas to Madison. So luckily we broken up into two days and we were really, really lucky to have a dear friend who lived in St. Louis and has a house and let us stay with her and her family and her pets, which was just really, really amazing. Shout out to you, you know who you are. And so we made day one the drive from Dallas to St. Louis and we stayed the night there. And then the next day we made it from St. Louis to Madison. And the drive was a lot, it was really smooth. It was really easy, took turns like between, so my husband drove the U-Haul the whole time 'cause I'm pretty sure me and my brother would not be able to handle it. It was full with all our stuff and then me and my brother took turns driving our car with beans, our dog in the car and I took turns between driving and then like keeping my husband company in the U-Haul. And so it was pretty nice, it was pretty out of control. And we got to Madison and I guess really, that's where a lot of the life of data is because I've now been here a month. It was four weeks ago, just a couple of days ago and it's been wild. It's been really wild. So I actually debated recording this multiple times over the last week, a few weeks. And I'm glad I'm doing it now. There's no perfect time to do it, but I'm glad I'm doing it now because it had like a month to reflect and like really make that transition. I don't feel like I'm completely necessarily in transition, but really just like feel into the transition, experience it and there's been a lot of reflection. So I'm really at this point of change right now with starting the program. But so we got here August 1st and typical like moving in a situation, you know, like all the unpacking, it's like the equal and opposite of like all the unpacking unloading, reconfiguring our space, which we have a really awesome apartment here. It was really, really hard to find, but we got something that works pretty well for us. There's no perfect way to live, but it's pretty awesome and I have my office, which is what you're seeing if you see this video and my husband has his office and it's just, it's really nice. It's actually, it feels more like a home, which we knew we weren't gonna get like some sort of permanent home, straight by moving here, but it feels more homely than an apartment because it's kind of like, it's an apartment and that we rented, but it's kind of set up like a condo and we actually have a front yard and like stairs and it's really nice, but we moved here and it felt good. It felt good to have this space to settle it in though it took a while, which of course it does moving, but honestly it wasn't as hard as I, it had been for me number one and two, as hard as I thought it would be. And most of the pain and suffering was the anticipation of the move and the fear of the move rather than the actual move. The different level of struggle that's come from here is what I'll get into next, which is, well, okay, so I was coming from a place of just overwork and distraction and really just being very disconnected for myself and just being busy, just being busy to cope. And then I get here and my gosh, first and foremost, it is so beautiful here. Like this city is a freaking oasis. Like it doesn't feel real. I kept saying we kept saying to each other like the first week or two of living here, like this feels like, like a haze. This feels like a dream. Like this does not feel like this is a real life. And it just took a while to settle in and like we actually get to live here because like I said, we have not wanted to live in Dallas pretty much the whole time we've known each other and just didn't resonate at all. And anytime we could get away and go anywhere, I thought it was more beautiful, more connected to nature, more present, you know, not frying in a thousand degrees outside with different forms of nature and movement and all the things. Like we relished in taking trips to beautiful places like that and it would just be so sad to come back and it just felt temporary and felt like this, you know, heaviness that weighed on us that like all of that was temporary. I mean, of course being in a single, the existential life is temporary, but anyway, you get what I need. But this time we're here and it's like this natural conditioning of like waiting for the other shoe to drop or like waiting to leave and for this to be taken away or for us to leave it and for the foreseeable future we're not and that was really interesting to settle into. That being said, amongst all of that beauty, like I was just, the depression was just really sinking in and I don't just mean like the feelings, like the emotions of depression, like yes duh of course, but like with major pressure disorder and like the way it can fully depress our body by that like literal definition of like slow things down, blunt things like I just know my body, I know myself, like and the amount of just everything becomes slower and heavier physically and it's just, you know, sometimes I can attribute those symptoms to chronic illness flares, but then I address everything and it's just like nope, this is depression and of course it also was combined with like the worst thoughts and the numbness and all of it and so it was very interesting experiencing that in this new place that was so novel and that on some level I felt so much joy for being around and it really just showed me that I needed rest and I needed a break and I needed some kind of I needed an intervention. whether that was completely from within or external, which leads me to what I did. I know that anyone listening who has listened to pretty much any other episode and who knows any part of my story knows probably what the answer is going to be, but just to make it super clear. I utilize psychedelics completely autonomously, personal use in conversation with my providers, but nonetheless, I utilize them for their pharmacological effects for me. And so, I felt like it was necessary for me and time for me to have another experience, to have another treatment. And I really started, you know, this is all, by the way, like, again, recapped in several episodes. Please go listen to them if you have questions, but for me, especially after my intensive ketamine treatments, because I could not access them after the fact, and because they had too many side effects in the IV form, I knew, roughly speaking, that for the foreseeable future, I would be engaging in a medium-ish dose of a psychoplasogenic substance, particularly probably a psychedelic, to continue that aiding of my brain to retrain it, to engage in treatment, to just honestly, like this is not a scientific term, but to jostle it up. And that's what I needed. I honestly needed it a few weeks, if not months before I did do it, but I did not feel, like, I honestly, I really feel a lot of fear and nerves around doing it each time, which is so valid, because honestly, you probably should feel that way, with experiencing something of that magnitude. And I, while I had a lot of faith and belief and evidence for me that this would help me, it's also just, like, a huge amount of experience you commit to. And I just, a part of me felt like I just wanted to wait to have that in Wisconsin when I was a bit more settled, when I had some more time to integrate, and I could have this space to reckon with what might come up for me, and that window of just seeing and experiencing so much that comes up, which typically happens for me. So I waited, and then I got here, and I still kind of resisted, and I finally just, I had to do it, and I did. So this time, once again, as it has been the last few times, it was psilocybin, it was psilocybin mushrooms, psilocybin when it's metabolized, and I mean, to spare you all the details, basically, it was a day, and I took it, and typically I do it with a therapeutic intent, and so I lay in bed, and I experience it, and I have trusted humans around me, if I need them, but I typically don't call them, because that's just my mo, and I'm working on it, but really the details don't matter so much as what came forth for me. So it was about a little over a week being here. I had the experience, and what was really notable for me during the experience was, I, like I said, I was in my bed, and the way our, you know, bedroom set up, there's my bed, and then there's windows, and the windows are open to sun, and sunlight, and just beautiful trees, and it honestly looks like an oasis, because that's what medicine is, and what I remember experiencing, amongst a lot of what comes up for me, which is just a lot of purging, a lot of fear, just like fully facing the brunt of my intrusive thoughts and my fears, and my trauma, and all of it, which, you know, not fun, and definitely this is, if I, I just will add the disclaimer, as I always do, if it's not, I already assumed you're obvious, but this is just my personal experience, this is just what I do, and this is in no way, shape or form, any form of recommendation for anybody, please consult with your medical provider for making any decisions like this, and this is just for educational and anecdotal purposes only. Okay, getting out of the way. Typically for me, I just have a very painful experience. That, which is partially why I do not look forward to them, even though they have a net benefit for me, they're usually very painful, and, or, you know, necessary for me, but painful. And so, that I expected, but the way it showed up for me this time was different, because I was laying in this bed, and I could see the outside, I could see this beautiful world outside, that I just not really had appreciation for, like I did then, because what I realized now is like how much my environment in Texas really affected me in a, in a negative way, just can't, I mean, I don't blame it for my issues, but it definitely didn't help, and it definitely worsened them, especially not being able to engage with the environment outside, because it wasn't conducive. It's not conducive for most people in that heat. It's just not connected. It's just not very, like nature's not just very available, natural nature, and people are not connected to themselves or each other there. And so, I knew that logically, but then sitting in this bed and seeing the outside, and teen is beautiful world that I had not really experienced before. And what I felt was just this complete, like, rejection of that world. Like I felt like, it felt like it was burning me. That's what it felt like. Like it felt like it was burning my eyes, and I was not allowed to look at it, and I had to close my eyes and bury myself in my dark pillow and hide and be in the darkness, and I was not worthy of experiencing or feeling that beauty. Like I was just undeserving, and I did not belong here, and I just deserved to be in darkness and to suffer. And that was so interesting to witness, because it just brought forth this whole new level of self hatred and deprivation, and pain that I, I mean, I know about, it's not new. It's always like peeling back more onion layers for me, but that was the new facing of that that I had. And it was so, so sad. And I just remember seeing children outside, and seeing the people I love, like, around me at the time, and feeling like they all deserve whatever that means, that word deserve. It's such a weird word. What does it even, anyway, it felt like they deserved all of that, and I didn't. And that was just so telling for me, and just showed me why I, like partially why I was feeling this level of detachment and fear or I'm fully engaging with my environment around me, I just wasn't used to it. I'd never really done that. And even just in the last few years of my recovery, like looking at trees and being present is new for me, but that was in this very shitty environment, to be honest, and vacations were like, conditioned within me to be like places that were beautiful, but I did not deserve to be in or live or experience on a day-to-day basis. And then I was here, and this was like my new life for the foreseeable future. And it just felt like I didn't accept it, and I didn't, I wasn't allowing it, and my system couldn't do it, and I just had to work through that and watch that, and I can allege it to then be able to move through it. And so that was a huge part of my experience, and what I really came out of that with. And there was a lot more, but that's kind of what's really related to this integration and transition period for me. I'm really really glad I did the mushrooms when I did, because I luckily amongst like overworking myself the whole summer, I still had like four weeks from the time I moved to when my orientation for the PhD started, to not have responsibilities that were related to school, and to just have more space and freedom to exist and be an acclimate to this space. And so it just really started fostering this desire within me from my values and my true self to start slowly engaging with my environment. And that's a really complex and multifaceted thing for me, because it's not as simple as just go outside and like do things now, because there's a lot of things physically that I'm working through to be able to tolerate more pain and not dissociate as much, because I'm becoming more present and more engaged with life due to not doing compulsions or being fully traumatized all day long. That's a lot a lot of my recovery. And so it's actually like quite difficult to start being more present, and then feeling the fuller extent of my pain in my body and other things. So in conjunction with all of that, it's just my typical tendency, my body, typical tendency is to try to avoid the pain. And that's the rule being less present and more dissociated and less engaged. And here I am being called forth to be more engaged and to tolerate and grow my capacity for present. and let me tell you, it's so worth it. It's so difficult though. It's so difficult. And yet in that difficulty, I have had the opportunity to just try to engage with the World War and to take risks and for it to sometimes backfire and to just increase my tolerance and make capacity for feeling the full spectrum, which is never ever evolving process and something I talk about a lot. This has been really, really present for me in the last four weeks. And that's looked like starting to do things that have scared the shit out of me and really doing exposures is what that is for for my OCD and just overall just challenging so many fears and beliefs I have about myself. And you know, still finding evidence to my limitations but stretching and coping with facing those edges rather than just avoiding them and not even approaching them to begin with. So it's looked like learning how to kayak both in a tandem fashion and in a solo fashion because Madison has so many lakes and they're so beautiful and there's just so many water sports and kayaking is a really cool one. It's definitely difficult with arms, but it's so beautiful and so rewarding and it's also biking, which apparently it's the bike capital of North America here. So there are bike paths everywhere and holy shit I cannot put into worth how beautiful. The fields are, the paths are, this entire city, it's just, it's magic. And I have been really, really afraid of biking, especially electric biking. And so we first rented just like they have city renting like electric bikes everywhere and so I did that and then my husband surprised us both for our upcoming anniversary with, well he surprised me with bikes for both of us, ebikes, which was terrifying because that means like actually committing to utilizing said bikes and like writing them on actual roads and I have surprised the hell out of myself and it's been really, really, really difficult a lot of fear. A lot of tears like my hands, the amount of sweat that comes from them, like facing tears I never thought were possible and so quickly compared to what I thought would be in terms of like going up a hierarchy, but man I've done like 15 mile ride. It's like, it's, it's, it's wild. And just in general like going on more hikes we found these beautiful like this arboridum, these trees, just it's endless. Like I just, I can ramble forever, but like it's just so much engagement. And like it's, it's a wagon, this, a wagon to this part inside of me that I didn't know existed, but like year and four I suppose and just felt the loss of, which I've realized is a huge difference between me before here and me after here of like I want to engage with life more. Like I want to go and I want to challenge myself and I want to be outside and I want to feel, I want to feel even when it's pain. Like I, I want to feel more and I want to just do more, but not do it a productive way, do in like a presence and engaged way. And that is so new for me because honestly like it's, I just, like I don't want to sit into work a lot of the time. Like I want to go ride a bike, like even when I'm paying, like I want to just go kayak, I want to do things and that's so new for me because I thought I was a doer before. But my version of doing was like keeping busy and I'm not saying like I don't enjoy my work, like the cerebral work and you know all of the things I do on my computer and like all of the writing and the research and the advocacy and like of course I love that stuff and that stuff gives me so much passion. You can hear that in my voice, but I did it in such a way that like it was all I did and like I did it even when I was beyond my capacity because it was a version of an outlet to keep me divorced from being, but that's because being was really, really difficult for me before. But also being was not just difficult because it was hard for me as a person and in my recovery and yada, yada, yada, it was also because being where I was at the time sucked, like point blank period, it sucked. That area sucked, that way of life sucked, the way people engage with each other. I'm not saying it in a judgmental way, I'm just saying like that was not where like I belong in the way that like I'm starting to learn my personality and my interests and my way of engaging lies. I didn't know that within me because I had never been anywhere else and I'd also been so sick my whole life like I didn't have that childhood to like learn about my tendencies as a curious person. I didn't have data on like who I was or who I could be and then I come to an environment that meets me where I am and of course had I been met in periods of my life where I was far sicker than I am now. Of course I'm still in recovery, I'm still in treatment three times a week which I'll be getting to. But if I had been met at like my worst reports maybe those parts wouldn't have come out, maybe they would have, I don't know. But now that I'm here in this perfect storm or this perfect meeting of this world around me meeting me and me meeting life, it's just a world and an experience I never knew possible and I would never have known had I not moved here and had challenged those beliefs and allowed myself to start engaging and dug within myself with the aid of medicine to be able to find and confront that belief and start working with it. And I just, I've talked about it's an ever evolving spiral of journey of the gratitude of being alive and the finding parts of myself and finding purpose and all of that is true and now I've found more in a different way and a different like awakened part of me that I didn't even know existed and I know there's so much more like this is just the beginning and it's not like I just this is it and like I'm a whole person now like there's so much more and that's just the nature of life. But the fact that so much has come out is just wild and I never even knew it was possible and I'm so so so grateful and there's so much more to say about that but like I guess I'm just going to cap it at that rant with the presence and just the engagement with life and the activity and just like wanting to be alive and do more even amidst the really difficult periods days of like full blown anodonia depression consumed by OCD detached like there's still ways to actually engage in like state changes and I have more of a motivation like in those moments than ever before to engage in behavioral activation which I really sure like I just told myself like I am not a person who can do behavioral activation like that just doesn't work for me like I just have to sit and wallow and like I can't move I can't do and like now I have an environment around me that for whatever reason like I there's a part of me that still feels like it's worth trying which I did not have before and that also goes for like when I'm in all this chronic pain and I'm anyone with disabilities, anyone who's a spoonie understands like just constantly assessing our bandwidth and you know trying to predict when it's going to run out and how much we can do and kind of like doing math all the time and I always earn on the side of like I just need to I need to like call it because I don't want to be doing this anyway I'm forcing myself to do it and it's going to end and like now I have this motivation to like test my limits and I'm not saying that in like a challenging my limitations way or like I can believe my way out of limitations nothing like that at all it's just I the sole reason I'm doing things is not just because I'm forcing myself to it's because I want to and that lends me to experience more than I thought possible while still honoring my needs and it's just it's not even binary and it's wild and beautiful and I'm just grateful to share that transition and there's so much more to be experienced and grown and my gosh I didn't even talk about the farmer's market that's like I'm going to farmers markets now like I need to go outside and now I go to farmers markets and it's beautiful and it's actually pretty scary to make decisions and contamination fears and this sound the other thing but but I'm doing it and I'm just doing things I'm just doing things y'all and like I've said about 15 times before I am still deeply in recovery and that leads me to kind of another life update in terms of my current treatment and what I am doing and I'm about to do basically to sum it up for those I mean it's again all in previous episodes but up to this point in terms of hugely the things that affect me right now that I'm not fully in recovery for for various reasons OCD and PTSD their comorbidity add in make your depressive disorder and other things but mainly those two to three things I had I have not been an active OCD treatment the way I needed for the past year and a half because I saw two different therapists who then left the practices and couldn't take my insurance anymore and I needed to see someone who could treat both OCD and PTSD at the same time other RISME OCD treatment does not fully work. And yes, I recovered a decent amount enough to gain a lot of my functionality back, but there's still a lot that I struggle with as a result of how it would have, how it interacts with my PTSD and how the treatments go work inversely. And if you want to hear more about that, go to my mental health journey episodes. But because of that, I have not been an active treatment. I have just been in treatment for PTSD and general conditions, kind of trying to manage my OCD on my own to the best of my ability. And I knew I was moving here. I knew that my insurance was going to change and there's licensing issues and stuff like that. And so I was already having trouble finding someone else to treat me in Texas. So I was just hoping that I would find someone in Wisconsin and be able to start, even though it's extremely difficult to do this and also be in a PhD program. And to be quite frank, like the recommendation is for me to not and to just be in treatment with no distraction and for various reasons, that's just not the decision that we've come to. And I, and now instead full transparency, I am very lucky to in combination with my main therapist, we were able to find a therapist here in Wisconsin who treats and is a specialist for co-orbid OCD and PTSD, who is willing to see me starting now twice a week for intensive ERP for OCD, but also PTSD treatment as it latches on to the OCD and vice versa. So I'll be in that twice a week also seeing my long-term psychologist who is in Texas, but actually with her licensure is able to still see me in Wisconsin. I'm going to continue with her and together being in intensive treatment three days a week, just seeing how that affects me and if I can make progress in my recovery and be more present and less in distress. And I was going to say honestly, like be more recovered and be more healed, but I am really working on acceptance of my conditions while also striving for and hoping for recovery, but not setting myself up even more than I already do for disappointment about it still being difficult and being hard and not recovering more than I have and kind of being at the level functioning I am at now because I'm, many things to be true, I am so grateful for all that I've experienced recovery-wise and where I am now in life and I don't feel like I can go on this way for a whole lot longer in the current state and it's not in a way of emergency or anything to super worry about. It's just that I need help. I need help with my mental compulsions. I need help with the window of tolerance of engaging with exposures due to my severe history of trauma. I need help with pathological doubt in my PTSD treatment and I need someone who understands that. I'm really hopeful for this next iteration of treatment. I am very, very terrified of abandonment again because of the trajectory of my therapy in the past and the very real ending abruptly of treatment that was not in my control due to practices and insurance and you know, they were amazing people and they did the best I could with me, but I didn't get what I needed and I'm really, really afraid and yet I am putting forth my hope and my belief as difficult as it is to try again. So this is the first time on the podcast that you've been hearing me that I will be an active OCD treatment again. And that's not to say I obviously that I haven't been doing treatment like of course. I've been to ERP to the vestibuloy ability and ERP's lifestyle but to be an active treatment with a provider who hopefully understands the complexity of my conditions and can treat both and can parse out the differences and the overlap is what I need and I'm really hopeful and I will definitely be transparent and open about that through this process because I believe it's really, really important to raise awareness for especially this comorbidity but also like the complexities and nuances of navigating treatment in this way and I'm just hopeful that with multiple times a week it can make a difference enough to where I don't need to step up care and I also will be having specialists, probably not my own therapist but other specialists in this comorbidity coming on the podcast soon to talk about this because it's a very, very highly requested topic. My own research is on this and I can speak on it endlessly but I really want to bring on other people to have a more full-blown conversation on the complexities and nuances of this comorbidity and just treating OCD comorbidities in general and dispelling a lot of myths about PTSD and OCD and what they are and what they aren't and all of the things. So that's my therapy update. Y'all know me, I have like 50,000 things going on all the time and I actually have like a lot of new announcements and core projects and things happening that are going to be announced and do time but I'll save them for later and I'll just give you this last update which is the whole point of moving here starting my PhD program. That officially has kicked off this week and I waited of course the last minute to record this because I wanted to give you the freshest update possible and so I have a few days of data for you but of course this is going to change over time and I'm taking you for the ride because why would I do any other way. But yeah I had four weeks of relative presence and engagement and somewhat of a break, at least way more of a break than it was the months before and then started orientation for the PhD program at UW-Madison this week and it's been a lot of things. Most things in life for me as my husband says, I dread and feel so much angst and fear and darkness toward pretty much anything and especially when it comes to things that I actually want to do and enjoy and the reason I bring that up is because I have felt more than ever like this isn't new but it's been building just this darkness and fear around starting the program and it's definitely not one of like genuinely questioning more than I question everything at least like genuinely questioning if I want to do this like it's not a question of if my heart's here because I I don't know anything for certain but I feel like if I'm tuning into how I feel which my treatment experience is what psychedelics really have helped me with. When I tune into how I feel I know I'm here because my heart has led me here because I love this work I love learning I love research I love this program I love this institution like all of that is true and I feel so much fear because I care and because I have a lot of fear and interests of thoughts and self esteem issues and doubt about myself and my capabilities and all of that coming to ahead and like actually starting this program it's a lot to carry again it's a lot to face and I'm proud of myself for doing it and it's an everyday process but it's really up and down and it's really really stressful and I don't deal with stress very well but you know it's inherently a stressful process starting the program with just like going through orientation and really just being shared with like everything the the PhD entails which is like pretty much six plus years of like just so many milestones and work and qualify exams and classes and like all of the research and all of the all of the parts of it which we're going to get into another day like it's so worth talking about the different aspects and especially like taking all through the different phases of the PhD because it's it's a lot but just having all of that shared at once and then having to make so many decisions right at the front about like who we're rotating with in terms of like which labs are considering joining to do our thesis work in which is a huge decision and then you know figuring out schedules and you know it's it's just a lot of details and a lot of semantics that are really really overwhelming but in some like I just it just all really is hitting me and I'm also having so many like brief moments of excitement and invigoration and like honestly exesie about just how much I love this work like when I can have moments that I forget about my fears and I'm not just like thinking I'm just feeling like it's fucking amazing and then of course equally now is it the fears and the thoughts and their valid and their their and I'm not trying to like get rid of them but it's a lot and I'm grateful to feel more of the full spectrum of it but it's it's a lot and I've actually had like a lot of physical symptoms to of the stress I think which have been interesting in the last week and beyond all of that I think would have really been navigating other than the fear of like doing this, the crippling fear is I don't know like I for the first I feel this loss of the freedom that I perceive myself to have or have had in the last four weeks of just I get to wake up and I get to go outside and I get to be present and engage in all these activities for I'm just like catching up on just this life I didn't live for so long the so so so long it's been like an ongoing feeling of that for a while but especially being here in this fucking paradise like it feels like a loss like oh now I have to go like do this all day even though like what I do I love it but just feeling like especially in the worst versions of it where it's extremely toxic and you're working four times the amount of time you should you don't have nice you don't have weekends like projecting that that could might be my reality and kind of feeling like oh I'm just gonna like lose all that I just started to find like it was very binary extreme thinking and yeah it is sounded in a lot of reality and like horror stories and kind of like the PhD experience that is sold to most people as a foreground conclusion but I'm also going into this with a different I'm working really hard to change my operating system and to show up in a different way and to have boundaries within reason and also I mean I don't think I'm ever not gonna work hard like I am a hard freaking worker and even me at like 50% is sometimes I've been told like comparable to other people's hundred like it's just I am a hard worker it just is who I am like because I care about my work so like I want to be fourth all but like to the point of going far beyond my capacity and sacrificing my well-being I'm it's not binary and I can't you know be perfect about it but I really really intend to do this differently and so I think I was projecting my past tenancies and my past experiences onto this is gonna be my future as well as like everything that I've been told about what this typically is and I'm just working on not fully buying into my thoughts into the binary and allowing another possibility to exist and not just festering and trying to prevent this catastrophe happening and so that's I think a lot of what's been feeding my distress around this experience and it's nicer recognize that because it helps me ground into the reasons I'm here and the values that I'm bringing in and I really hope with the support I have around me and accountability and just checking myself in the awareness I have and you know y'all can help me accountable too just doing things differently and that might mean I'm not the overachiever like person the I don't know the golden pony that I inadvertently just like develop myself to be like around the environments I've been in and not feeding into the competition and the like hustle culture in the same way and just really acting from a place of dedication and love and also care for myself and that might mean looking different than it has been before and that needs to be okay because that's what I want that's what I value so I'll even at that but it's starting I've been in orientation so far this week there's been a pacing moments oh my gosh the labs I'm rotating in I can't want to tell you about them I'm starting my first rotation next week like the research of my dreams it's really now I'm like about finding a fit in a lab environment wise and like mentor wise and making sure that I could have my needs met and I can be the most effective in the environments I'm choosing from but like the research itself like I can not even believe I'm here it's just it's just like I'm giddy it's just exactly what I want and I get to study the biology of psychiatric illnesses particularly the ones I care about the most OCD and PTSD and looking at the effects of psychedelics and there's just so many opportunities here and I'm in a school so much bigger than I've ever been with the department so much bigger with resources so much bigger and I have so much more to say about that another episode but he let's just say that's just part of what I'm not committing to right now and it's up and down and it's a lot and I'm here for it all my gosh of course of course for over an hour and I feel like there's just so many more details and things I just didn't share and you know what that's okay because I think you get a picture that really this life update is about finding more parts of myself challenging our beliefs about reality and accepting accepting where we're at while also hoping for more and really toggling that balance and just more of what's possible in a non-linear non-binary way of recovery and presence and joy and just not knowing what we don't know about life and allowing ourselves to meet life and for life to meet us back and I think that's just how I conceptualize existing in recovery because I don't even want to just call it recovery it's recovery it's healing it's just existing it's just being like I didn't know I this is also new to me and to even be able to meet life as a privilege and for life to meet me is even a bigger one so that's kind of the sum of where I'm at and there's so much pain and joy and fear and excitement and bliss and horror and and all of the things and the whole full spectrum is so valid and normal and part of it and it just brings a full richness to our life to allow that and express that doesn't mean we need to like it but just expressing it and allowing it and I hope that is always this life update it's not just me talking about me the purpose of me sharing this is to normalize the processing of an expression of transition and healing and living and rebuilding and exploring and just the full breath of what can come in that and just normalizing the reflection on it all and being able to make meaning and move forward and evolve and pivot and really just creating a space where we all can just be brought back to ourselves in a connected accepting way because when we bring our when we bring our experience back to the truth of of what's really going on not just what's accepted and what's expected to say that's connecting with each other and the greater picture because in truth and in honesty is understanding and compassion and awareness and and connection to the human experience that we all have assuming you're a human listening to this and that's literally just the point of doing this and having this space and so I just really really hope that if nothing else this helps you feel safer to access and express the reality of yourself and to share yourself with whoever feels safe in your life and in this community the people you love people you trust with me and even just with yourself because with that so much more possibilities allowed so thank you for being here with this life update and I definitely touched on a lot of questions I got in this without directly acknowledging the questions so I know there'll be more and I will so happy to answer them but this just felt like just a overall life update on the things that have happened the last few months in this period of transition and growth so thank you for being here as always thank you for calling me forth to share myself and to continue to hold this space for not just me but for all of us to grow sharing my experience in this vehicle and this vessel and for you to meet me right back with you and your fullest self and I love you all so much thank you for being here and as always if you love this episode then please do me a favor and take just five seconds to go subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening because it really really supports me in being 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Give me a guest suggestions, tell me what you want to hear, what you want to be answered, and just keep doing this with me all. And I'm sending you so much love and I'm so grateful for your presence and support always. And I will see you next week on another episode of A Chat with Uma.