5 people who used psychedelics to treat PTSD describe their experiences

• Psychedelics are being researched to target a variety of mental health illnesses.
• People with PTSD seem to benefit highly from psychedelics, according to some organizations.

Editor's note: This article mentions violence, suicidal ideation, and sexual assault.

When Nathan McGee closed his eyes, he felt a wave wash over him. He felt like a curious child.

"It was like pulling back curtains and exploring different avenues or aspects of what was going on inside my head," McGee told Insider.

He'd taken MDMA, a drug that distorts perception and creates feelings of euphoria, as a participant of a clinical trial studying the drug as a therapeutic treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

McGee, now 44 and living in Colorado, applied for the trial after a doctor diagnosed him with PTSD when he was 40.

Throughout his life, McGee felt overwhelmed, sometimes debilitated, by his emotions. He also experienced depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation.

"I would be there physically, but mentally I was looking at the world as if I didn't really belong," McGee said.

After three MDMA sessions throughout the trial, McGee said he no longer experiences PTSD symptoms like flashbacks, paralyzing emotions, and disassociation.

A mounting body of research suggests psychedelics like MDMA, psilocybin, DMT, and 5-MeO-DMT have the ability to rewire the brain and relieve anxiety, depression, and other mental health symptoms.

Insider interviewed five people, including McGee, who were diagnosed with or experiencing symptoms of PTSD and had used psychedelic drugs as treatments for their conditions. Psychedelic treatments for PTSD aren't yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but there's growing interest among patients and healthcare providers in using psychedelics as an alternative or last-resort treatment option for their illnesses.

Many of the people Insider spoke to found that after using the substances, they no longer felt PTSD symptoms that had affected their daily lives for years. Those who said they still had symptoms said the experience had improved their lives and mental health.

For this story, Insider reached out to two nonprofit organizations that work with patients with PTSD: the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which is developing MDMA-based treatments for PTSD, and Heroic Hearts, which works to connect veterans to ayahuasca and psilocybin ceremonies in countries like Mexico, where the practices aren't explicitly illegal.

Three of our five interviewees were veterans, a group that experiences PTSD at extremely high levels compared to civilians, according to data by the US Department of Veteran Affairs.

Some interviewees reported microdosing or otherwise partaking in unsupervised psychedelic experiences. Researchers studying these compounds for medical purposes say that self-medicating with powerful mind-inducing compounds is not without risk.

People tend to underestimate the challenging experiences psychedelics bring to the surface, said Marcela Ot'alora, a principal investigator for MDMA-assisted-therapy research at MAPS.

Ot'alora, who was a co-therapist in the first Spanish government-approved MDMA-assisted therapy study in Madrid, said she's worked with patients who came to her after having harmful psychedelic experiences.

"What we hope for, what we do in our research, is keep people safe," Ot'alora said. That, she said, includes understanding their backgrounds, race, and culture, as well as how trauma has impacted their lives.

Even among more structured trials, an increasing number of participants have begun to speak out about the negative experiences they've had related to their psychedelics experiences. Recently aired episodes of "Power Trip," a podcast from New York Magazine and Psymposia, detailed some of these experiences by MAPS clinical-trial participants.

MAPS, a nonprofit that's authorized by the FDA to study psychedelic treatment, is undertaking phase-three clinical trials of the therapy and believes it's close to receiving FDA approval for the treatment.

MAPS's director of communications, Betty Aldworth, pointed Insider to the organization's safety practices on its website and said that there are many inherent challenges to providing therapy treatments to patients with PTSD.

Aldworth added that MAPS has done and is continuing to do the work "to protect participant safety, and that includes training, oversight, participant education, and creating the conditions for culture of safety."

Here are the experiences of people who used psychedelics to treat their PTSD:

Crystal, a 37-year-old army vet, said a combination of psilocybin and MDMA helped her with addiction and sexual trauma

Crystal, a 37-year-old living in North Carolina, wanted to heal childhood and sexual trauma from her 16 years in the military as a special-operations sergeant and medic.

"I got to a point where I literally was too depressed to function while I was still on active duty and I was about to deploy," Crystal told Insider. She requested we not use her last name to protect her family's identity. "I knew that I was going to be a liability for my team."

While on leave in 2018, Crystal's doctor diagnosed her with PTSD. Antidepressants had barely any effect, and she went to a rehab facility for alcohol abuse.

Sobriety helped with suicidal ideation and depression, Crystal said, but she wanted an alternative to antidepressants for her PTSD symptoms. When she heard Dr. Gabor Mate mention ayahuasca, a brew made with DMT, on an episode of "The Tim Ferriss Show" about addiction and ADHD, it led Crystal down a rabbit hole of research.

During a Heroic Hearts retreat in Mexico, Crystal took a combination of psilocybin and MDMA.

As she lay among the other retreat participants, all listening to music while wearing eye masks, Crystal said her body began to shake uncontrollably.

But the feeling was pleasant and felt like it was literally warming her heart. She came away from the experience learning to savor those kinds of stirring physical sensations.

"That was so mind-blowing to me, just being in a space where I didn't have to feel guilty or bad or shameful for anything, but just feel connected," Crystal said.

Fei Fei Chen, 38, found her experience with ayahuasca to be a key part of treating her PTSD

Many of the participants Insider spoke to said that while their experiences with psychedelics had helped them overcome their PTSD or see growth in their mental well-being, it wasn't a one-and-done solution.

Fei Fei Chen, who worked as a paralegal and combat driver in the military between 2001 and 2005, told Insider that when she went on a retreat with Heroic Hearts in the spring of 2021, she and others had to abide by a strict diet that restricted caffeine, sugar, salt, alcohol, nicotine, or any kind of stimulant.

They also prepared for their trip mentally by journaling, talking in groups, and reflecting on what they wanted out of the experience.

"I think without that part, it wouldn't have been complete," she said.

Chen describes her experience during the ayahuasca ceremony as drifting "in and out of consciousness." When she came to, she said she "felt the medicine was moving inside of me."

First it moved up to her throat, and then it traveled down to her stomach and began to swirl around her pelvis.

"I'm telling you, this thing is alive," she said. "It's a consciousness traveling inside of me. And all I had to do was just be open and stay in a space of like appreciation. My mantra was just like, 'Thank you for healing me, thank you for showing me,' for like four hours."

Chen said she doesn't think psychedelics are a cure-all. Before going on the trip, she did talk therapy for around a year and then worked one-on-one with a coach to make sure she felt ready for the experience.

"I think healing should be multidisciplinary," she said."It's like a buffet of things — you shouldn't just eat one thing and hope that it will last forever."

Rudy Gonsior, 36, turned to psychedelics after a 'straight-edge' life

Rudy Gonsior, 36, a special forces operator of 18 years, told Insider that before going on an ayahuasca retreat in 2019, he had never done any illicit drugs.

"I was pretty much straight-edge all the way through, other than some of the classical experiences with alcohol," he said. "An altered state of mind was something that I've never experienced. So it was kind of a turn into a whole different world for me."

But earlier that year, he began to consider psychedelics as a possible treatment for his PTSD, after experiencing the end of his marriage and an emotional breakdown. He began to bury himself in research that had already been done on psychedelics.

"I was desperate," he said. "It was a real Hail Mary move for me. I didn't feel like I had anything else going for me at that point. I had done traditional talk therapy, I had been offered cornucopia of pharmaceuticals from VA, which I turned down because I saw what it had done to good friends of mine."

Gonsior said he was experiencing classic PTSD symptoms that many veterans go through, like waking up from a dream and feeling like he was still in the midst of combat, becoming aggravated at small things that shouldn't matter, and feeling suffocated and anxious in crowded spaces.

One night, he recalled, he found himself standing nude at his front door in the middle of the night, pistol in hand, because he thought someone was trying to break into his home.

"I had this idea in my head that like I was in Iraq and I was trying to protect my teammates and that basically our position was being overran," he said. "I didn't really come to complete consciousness until my wife at the time came to me as I was standing at the door."

Gonsior traveled with Heroic Hearts to experience ayahuasca ceremonies that he said relieved his service-related PTSD.

"Honestly, I feel really great," he said. "It's allowed me to really change a lot of the ways that I process experiences. I guess it's like having a whole new template to experience things."

Gonsior said he still has memories of combat, but he sees them in a different context.

"The things that occurred in the war, I'm OK with them. They are parts of me that I have grown into and I've been able to actually let them go."

Gonsior joked that there are "entire buckets of vomit" that he left at the retreat because they no longer served him.

"I was told I'm a good purger by the shaman," he said. "Apparently I vomit pretty hard core."

Lori Tipton, 42, tested out MDMA as part of a clinical trial organized by MAPS

Some participants said that one of the more difficult parts of undergoing such intense experiences is coming back home to everyday life, where it becomes all too easy to slip back into familiar routines, which is why support and reintegration is important.

Lori Tipton, 42, was one of the first people to take part in an FDA-cleared clinical trial of MDMA, organized by MAPS.

Tipton had severe and chronic PTSD and depression as a result of a variety of traumas in her life, including her brother's overdose death, a rape by someone she knew, and coming across three bodies after her mother had killed two people and then herself in a murder-suicide.

MDMA — administered in three sessions, prefaced by talk therapy and followed by "integration sessions" — made it easier for her to talk about her experiences, Tipton said. As she lay in a room with low lightning and soothing music alongside two trained professionals, Tipton says she felt safe as she talked through some of her traumas.

Tipton says her experience with MDMA worked to put her PTSD in remission.

She wrote a blog about her experience and shared it with her closest friends — all of whom were supportive. Her therapist was happy for her, too.

"I think in order for it to be as successful as possible, people have to be supported by their community. You can't just take a person that's been significantly traumatized, go through the therapy, and then put them right back into a traumatic lifestyle," she said.

"That's not going to serve them."