On Saturday, March 2nd, 2024, I got out of bed around 2am and ate three-point-something grams (gifted to me, by the way, by one of my Tam cohort mates before the program had even started).
Earlier, before going to bed that evening, I’d messaged my dear brother Malcolm (a great man, pay him a visit):
“Brother I got booted from the program for the poem incident.”
“CONGRATULATIONS!” Malcolm said. And then he sent me this.
As I waited for the mushrooms to come on, I scrolled Spotify for the right journey playlist. I started listening to one I’d used before, but it didn’t feel quite right for this occasion. Then I put on Malcolm’s recording. That was it. I put it on loop and listened to it nonstop for the next four hours, lying on the floor of the living room, a pillow clutched to my heart.
As a bit of formal Psychedelic Integration work, the following is my trip report:
The mushrooms told me that Daniel’s program sucks and everybody knows it. They said that Jess was carrying an intense and unintegrated burning rage from her sexual assault experience, and my poem and presence had re-triggered this terrible bind of rage and powerlessness. They said that she was unconsciously using Daniel to hurt me, and that he was happy to do so because, by kicking me out, he got to be the safe, loving, wise hero that he plays on Instagram. And they said that I had chosen all of this because, when I was a boy, my father had betrayed me in a similar way.
I might have been eleven years old. One day I mustered up the courage to express my despair and frustration to my father over his neglect and my discomfort with my soon-to-be stepmother. In response, he slapped me hard in the face.
When a child is betrayed like that they’ll take it on themselves.
“In a bid for safety, children link the unbound shame affect with the unbound image of incompetent badness. The two experiences cohere, and coherence is always safer than random chaos.”
– from Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame: Healing Right Brain Relational Trauma by Patricia A. DeYoung
But now, as an adult, I could see the betrayal for what it was and fully feel, witness and express the healthy aggression that I had for Daniel. I wrote him a short letter with my left hand. If he ever wants to read it, I’ll consider letting him have it for the low low price of $9,000.
I spent the morning talking about it all with my wife and watching movies. Particularly resonant was this scene from one of my all time favorites – Stand By Me:
“Suck my fat one you cheap dime store hood.” What a great line.
Next time, I think I’ll write about the conversations I had that weekend with a few cohort mates, in which I learned that Daniel’s betrayal went further than I had imagined.