This is a re-rendering of a tweetstorm I had posted a while ago. The language reflects that reality and is very Twitter-y and speckled with hashtags. I’ll also note here that I’ve referenced my ex-partner to support the full expression of my story but I hold no judgment towards her when I reference her and request that you don’t judge her either based on this incomplete information.

A timeline of my psychedelic exploration in 2021

I began guided psychedelic exploration in April 2021 in a couple's therapy container aided by MDMA in an attempt to figure out if I and my partner wanted to be with each other in the long run. The quarantine had worn us out and we often found ourselves in triggered argumentative spaces. The MDMA created an open hearted space where we could discuss difficult things.

I did 2 couple's guided ceremonies, a month apart. In both, me and my partner were administered MDMA with a Psilocybin booster. MDMA opened the heart. Psilocybin helped me feel deeper into my body to ascertain my deepest truths.

At the end of these 2, I had a sense that I needed to explore a ceremony on my own.

Aug 4 2021: Group Psilocybin

Synchronistically, at this time, I hosted a friend's 40th birthday party at my home where we did a group Psilocybin experience with 15 odd folks.

In the group ceremony, I started off inside an aerial hammock with my eyes closed. A womb like container. The experience started with me seeing a black and white grid structure with defined polygonal boundaries, which gradually evolved into colors. Evolution of consciousness.

I experienced alternatively a sense of individuation-separation and a sense of agony that came with it and a sense of merger and pleasure that came with it. These two states eventually started flowing and I felt a sense of bliss at the joyous dance of the two.

This put me in a very playful, child-like state and I started whee-ing around in the hammock and gurgling like a baby. As I floated in this playful state, I suddenly felt a shift and a blood–curdling scream emerged through me, that reverberated through the house and the fields.

As this scream left my body, I could *feel* more into my hips and they felt open and less tight. Context: I have had hip related physical tightness issues (as many do in our age). I know now that the scream released some of my hip trauma. More later on this hip trauma.

A friend of mine ran into the room to check in on me. As I opened my eyes to see him and let him know I'm okay, I saw in his face – the face of my mother's father. I was pleased on seeing that and mentioned it to him and I felt more love towards him.

After this experience, I decided to venture out in search of my partner since I had said her name out loud a few times while I was in the hammock.

I found her and she took me near the pond and sat down with me. She wanted to take this opportunity to share more of the challenges she was feeling in our relationship. I sat there like a good kid listening. As I often did as a child, listening to my mother share her challenges.

At one point, I suddenly felt a sense of disgust & shame in my pelvis. I looked down and felt scared. I wondered out loud if I had had sex with someone. But I couldn't remember. She freaked out when she heard me say that out loud. So my attention went to placating her.

While attempting to stay connected to her, I noticed the tree behind her with its leaves. The leaves were calling to me. I perceived it as a sign that nature wanted me to explore it instead of feeling trapped listening to my partner. I stayed with my partner.

The ceremony ended. I felt a lot more loose in my hips for a few days after and that I could stand up more erect due to that. The link between physical and emotional trauma continues to fascinate me. Mind-body connection is real.

After this ceremony, my relationship worsened. We had a torrid month of August and were both often in a triggered space. We decided to take September off and I decided to go to India – my home.

Aug 28 2021: Solo MDMA/Psilocybin

Before flying out to India, I decided to do a 1-1 guided psychedelic ceremony with my brother-friend based in NYC. My intention was to use MDMA to mend my heart so I could enjoy my India trip. I had started feeling physical pain in my heart–chest region due to the arguments.

A few days prior to this ceremony, my partner and I had a huge explosive argument. In that triggered space, I remembered a song that my mom used to sing to me as a kid – a song that evoked motherly love and deep pain for me, simultaneously. A very confusing medley.

The song is "Chanda hai tu". In the movie containing the song, a woman gives up her son for adoption and then becomes his nanny. In one of the scenes, a person tries to rape her; the 11y old son sees it happening & kills the person.

I wondered if the confusing medley of emotions I felt had to do with watching the rape scene in this movie as a kid and being unable to separate the actress from my mother who used to sing the song to me.

As I sat down with my friend to initiate the ceremony, he asked me for my intention. What came up for me was "to strengthen my heart so much that I never have to reactively close it". I did not realize then how powerful an intention this was.

My friend said that he intended to guide me "back to where it all began". When he said that, I mentioned the song to him and asked him to play it at the right instant.

I started off with a dose of MDMA and started loosening up and getting very playful. Teasing my friend. Pushing him away, pulling him closer with what I said. I was feeling very heart open. I shared a lot of secret childhood sexual memories with him, mostly about girls I liked.

At some point, I asked him for the Psilocybin booster and IIRC for more MDMA. He gave me that and started playing the song.

Suddenly the flavor of the experience shifted. I was on my back and I started feeling this lust overtaking me. There was a childlike quality to the lust. I felt waves of sexual energy moving through my body. I started thrusting my hips upwards and feeling sweaty.

At first it felt good. Now I started panicking. I started yelling "enough! enough! enough!". It ended in a shuddering, bodily energetic orgasm. And I lay there shell shocked. Unable to comprehend what I had just experienced.

It was a very clear signal from my body that my mind still was scared to acknowledge. I turned to my brother-friend "my body is trying to say something. I don't know what it is saying. Can you please listen to my heart & find out?" I was too afraid to say the words myself.

He stepped up–bless his soul. He said "Viggie, I am afraid that you might have been a toy in the most literal sense for your mother"–referencing a line in the song where the mother sings "you are my moon, my sun, you are my toy". "That you might have been sexually abused".

I spent the next 2 days processing with my friend while before the flight back to 🇮🇳. I had not seen anything yet. It was all dark visually speaking. I was upset with him for a bit. He stayed strong and supportive through my process. "WTF am I gonna do with this information?"

I did not know if it was my mom. Given the physical positioning in the somatic psychedelic experience I had, I imagined it was some older woman riding me. I wanted to believe it wasn't my mom, but some aunt. I allowed myself to believe whatever made me feel safe.

Sep 2021: Investigations in India

I flew back to India. In India, I started working with #WimHof breathing which was something I had practiced before and I noticed how it helped me access the stuck trauma in my pelvis through my breath. The stuck trauma would then emerge as rage.

The rage had a very different flavor though. Historically, I had always fought my high propensity to getting annoyed. Always stifled it. Always afraid of it. This rage was from the same source but felt freer and enlivening. I started shadow boxing using #FightCamp to move it.

My friend gave me an audio called "advanced sexual healing for men". In it, a man spoke barely decipherable words with some eerie background music. I listened to it before bed. The 1st time I listened, I felt sexual rage in me. It was clearly working. Speaking to my subconscious.

I also felt challenged by some conditioning. My conscious mind believed strongly that childhood sexual abuse was a western phenomenon and that it did not happen in India. I also believed that it did not happen to men. Through internet research and reaching out and speaking to other male adult survivors, I was able to reverse this conditioning. In particular, I spoke with another Marathi guy from Mumbai who had a history of childhood sexual abuse which laid to rest any assumptions I had about the absence of the same in my community.

I had vivid dreams and started having crappy sleep, for the first time in life. Things were made worse because my relationship wasn't in a supportive place and a lot of my trauma wounds were active in my relationship.

One night, I had a dream where I was in this fancy new house somewhere. Exploring what appeared to be a kitchen. The kitchen had white cabinets and shelving. A coder-astrologer friend of mine was with me. He pointed at a corner. I looked at it.

It was the corner where the shelf, the wall and the bracket holding the shelf up met. I could see the shadows. In a moment of lucidity, I turned my head around till I found an angle where the shadows disappeared!

Something shifted in the fabric of spacetime and I was transported back into an old, rural house with a musty smell. I woke up and decided that it was important to go explore the village I used to go to as a kid. As I sat with it more, my first suspect became a neighbor-aunt.

I was gradually able to tell my cousin first. They were very supportive. And then I gained the courage to share with my mom, what was emerging for me. The suspicion that I was sexually abused as a child. Her response made it clear to me that it wasn't her. Phew.

In this process, I encountered #InternalFamilySystems and met one of my wounded inner children. He had a sweet face of a 7y old–my face. I asked him what he wanted to be called. He said "Captain" – after a cartoon that I used to watch as a kid – Captain Planet.

I sought my cousin's help to go to the village to explore what it felt like in my body to be in the presence of this neighbor-aunt. My plan was to get there, go over to her house. Walk around in the house. Talk to her and then check in with my wounded inner child.

My cousin moved their plans to make space for this (bless them!). We got to the village. As I was walking towards my village house, I noticed a panic in me. A panic that this was going to fail and not give me the confirmation I was seeking. I felt my lip upturn in sorrow.

In that moment I paused and I saw Captain's face with his lip upturned in sorrow. My cousin reflected to me that they felt child me too. A moment later, Captain disappeared and my connection to him became very weak.

I entered my neighbor's house. Started talking to my aunt. Walked around in her kitchen. I did not feel much. I gained no confirmation. As I walked away, I felt humbled. My aggressive mind that was seeking informational confirmation was humbled. It brought patience, and space.

Nov 2021: Ayahuasca

I did not have much success in my investigations in India. And through September and October 2021, I found myself like a pendulum swinging from “this definitely happened” to “how could this possibly be true”. Very unsettling place to be.

I was back in upstate NY by then. In the meanwhile, I had noticed a higher access to the empath within me via my connection to this wounded child (“Captain”). I decided to train my empath and recalled a NYer who claimed access to such skills. Coincidentally he happened to be doing a workshop in Kingston the first weekend I was back. I missed the workshop but serendipitously ran into him. I could feel the soul in his gaze from afar.

In conversation with him, I learnt he was also a Shaman and that he was hosting an Ayahuasca ceremony in Hudson Valley specifically themed on “healing the inner child” with a special healer from LA. I could feel his ability to see into me and knew I wanted to work with him.

I expressed excitement about joining the ceremony. He suggested that I wait for grounded certainty to emerge in me before signing up for it.

The more I have practiced waiting for grounded embodied certainty to emerge before acting, I have noticed the phenomenon of synchronicity at play. Signs emerging simultaneously in varied ways till the message is clear. And the action taken then is full of ease.

The ceremony day arrived. The medicine was to be served two nights. I met the healer from LA, felt attracted to her and learnt that she was an adult survivor too. Since then, I’ve been able to discern a flavor of attraction that indicates the presence of deep sexual abuse trauma.

I set the intention to recover sufficient memories - who, what, when - of the #childhoodsexualabuse so I’ll have full certainty and stop swinging wildly back and forth between “no way, it did not happen!” and “holy fuck! it did happen!”

As the medicine began to take effect on night 1, I noticed this lizard like energy emerge in me making me want to swivel my body from side to side like a 🦎 flick my tongue out, make clicking sounds and a desire to surreptitiously hurt everyone who walked by me.

The Shaman walked around giving second doses of the medicine. I requested more because the memories felt far away. He refused to serve medicine to the lizard that had come alive in me unless we agreed that it needed to be expelled, not integrated. I felt aghast at the thought.

My exposure to parts work or #InternalFamilySystems did not really allow for the possibility of expulsion. Wasn’t every part supposed to be integrated? And this energy felt so familiar in me. How dare he suggest that I expel it?

The Shaman asked me to get to know this part. I felt like a spoilt bratty King, denied. Think King Joffrey from Game of Thrones. With a metaphorical pen knife in my right hand, I sat slumped in my throne. Wanting to swipe it at every one who passed me. Frustrated, annoyed, bored.

I resigned to noticing this part.“If this part were gone, will I lose the part of me that is sexually kinky?!”, I wailed in despair. And my eyes narrowed into a “hmm, no”. The part slunk around behind another part of my psyche. It used different parts as shields, as I followed.

The more I noticed this “part”, I noticed how weak my right arm felt while also simultaneously getting the sense that my martial energy was in my right side. But very constricted and trapped. The next day, I felt a numbed out physical pain in my right arm.

I concluded, via conversation with the Shaman, that the abuse had created fertile grounds for a soul infection to develop in my pelvis region & a spirit had lodged itself in it and extended its tentacles all across the right side of my body constricting my martial potential.

This is the woowoo-est sense I have ever developed about anything. Yet it felt so right. Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary methods. I aligned with the Shaman that this “part” needed to be expelled, NOT integrated - a paradigm beyond the realms of western psychology as I understand it.

On the second night, I was started off on a stronger dose of the medicine. I started with a firm, martial resolve, seated with cross legged, determined to fight to recover my memories. As the medicine took over, I eased and was guided down onto my back. Exhale. No need to fight.

I breathed and held my stomach with my hands - a practice I had grown accustomed to, to work with belly shame via self love. I noticed an urge of my hands to move closer to my pelvis. The left hand felt welcome. The infected right hand, not so. I jerked it away.

The medicine began a gentle surgery on my right side. It was removing the vine that had wrapped all around the right side of my body. Slowly pulling it out. Right face, right shoulder, right arm, right torso, right hip. It was done.

I looked down. A shadowy stick figure hopped out of my pelvis, sat for a bit and then dissipated into thin air. The infection that had grown from my wound had been cleaned. The spirit that had lodged there was freed. My right hand was welcomed by my pelvis.

My hands reached down to hold my penis. For the very first time in my life, my hands interacted with my penis without any extractive desire, without wanting to use it for sexual pleasure but just holding it with kindness and care. I exhaled. The first memory came through.

It was my grandfather’s farmhouse in my mom’s village. He was sitting across from me. I could feel the shame in him. I was 5. Unsure about what I had just experienced. He has masturbated me. I had experienced my very first orgasm. It felt good. It felt disgusting. I felt ashamed.

A cocktail of emotions swirling in my torso. My psyche couldn’t handle it & whooshed it all away. I was left with emptiness.

A very familiar emptiness in my gut. What I have felt right before the urge to binge eat, to watch porn, to seek stimulation throughout life.

Clarity.

Feeling distraught and also knowing that it had to be him. Not some far off neighbor aunt. My favorite grandparent. Children who get abused develop extra love towards their abuser. I grabbed my bucket ready to puke. Nothing emerged.

I laid back down, feeling tears stuck in my throat. The feeling morphed and I felt my cheeks widen. I felt his cock in my mouth. Going in and out. My heart broke as the hope, that it was a one time event where he masturbated me, dissipated. I got up and spat out a gob of cum.

I wailed and let out a rage filled scream and called for the Shaman. He came and I sobbed into his shoulder - “it was my grandfather”. He consoled me - “it wasn’t your fault. You did not deserve it”. I lied back down with him next to me, holding his hand.

I felt my right hip beginning to vibrate. My butt cheeks clenched and unclenched rhythmically. Hips shook wildly releasing held trauma as memories of being sodomized emerged. My whole adult self reached back and saw child me bent over, frozen like lead with tears rolling down.

I stayed with my child self as the memory played out, feeling the presence of my grandfather’s right hand on my right hip that stored the trauma leading to chronic hip pain. I said “It’s not your fault. You didn’t deserve this. I’m here with you now and won’t leave.” I spat cum.

Memories kept emerging. I kept spitting gobs of metaphoric cum periodically. Swallowed and taken in from age 5–11. I must have spat 50 times. Feeling distraught, heartbroken, betrayed. The betrayal gave way to rage.

I felt the fire of death and destruction emerge from my pelvis and hips and engulf me from within and shoot out from my eyes, ears, nose, every pore of my skin and unleash upon the Universe, destroying it over and over and over. I felt rooted in my purpose. The destruction of the Universe.

The rage flames then lapped around me like the manes of a lion. And I was that lion sitting calmly on the plains of the Serengeti. Feeling the presence of rage but not needing to do anything about it. An expression of serene rage.

The journey came to a close. I exhaled.

Om Namah Shivaya |

If you are wondering whether you were sexually abused as a child and need support in gaining confirmation, please reach out at [email protected]. I’d be happy to share the essence of what I believe worked for me.