Healing childhood trauma with 2C-B: The gentle wrecking-ball of psychedelics.

Today I used 2C-B in a therapeutic context to fully process a memory that has haunted me for decades. It was the memory of a time I was sexually assaulted, as a child, in the basement of a house in London in the 1990s.

I knew this memory was rising up over the last three months. There were nightmares and an increased sense of anxiety. This was, in retrospect, a positive sign because it allowed me to draw my attention to the fact my body wanted to release a frozen psycho-emotional state. I used yoga to negotiate many of these feelings. Here's a drawing I made before the 2C-B session:

Already, the content of the memory was manifesting itself for me. Although the emotional core had yet to be defused.

Before I go on, let's place me in context:

As is becoming increasingly obvious, Britain (where I once lived) has been horrifically abusive to its children for the last few hundred years, this apparently reached breaking-point in the 1980s when some members of society decided to speak out against it. The BBC's facilitation of the abuse of thousands of children, and the rape of children by a British Prime Minister, being just two flagpole symptoms of such a society.

Only now is Britain remembering fully as a society. Perhaps the world is too. I'm here to help. I hope.

In this post I'd like to look at one tool that can be used by a survivor to re-visit and process traumatic episodes from the past.

This tool is called 2C-B.

If you're a chemist, 2C-B looks something (visually-metaphorically) like this:

If you're not a chemist, this tells you nothing about 2C-B. And, realistically, even if you're a chemist, you can't know the subjective experience of taking 2C-B without taking it. And so, we reach something of a classic impasse: As with all psychedelics, 2C-B cannot be easily distilled into words. But I will try.

First, it's well-known that 2C-B is a powerful tool in psychotherapy for the confrontation of internal psychological defences. In other words, it can be used to knock down the walls we build inside ourselves after a traumatic experience. It can often reveal the memory (or memories) your depression is depressing.

I, like many other survivors, have experienced 2C-B several times in safe sets and settings, with a clear intention. The result of these experiences is that it is possible to remember and integrate extremely traumatic material from childhood. Often material that was depressed for years. This act of 'depressing' causing, of course, the state known medically as: Depression.

As Friederika Meckel Fischer writes of 2C-B in Therapy With Substance:

"2C-B reveals the structure of resistance. This characterization is perhaps hard to understand. In the ascent phase you get a state of confusion which is hard to endure physically in your body... If you simply remain in this confused state and don't try to fight it, a memory pops up very suddenly on most occasions, giving you a sudden insight into why you feel uneasy. You realise why you protected yourself in this way –– it is mostly about memories and experiences that you would rather not have."

And, indeed, this has been my experience with 2C-B as well. It is an extremely potent antagonist of depressed material and, in contrast to MDMA, is subjectively more aggressive. However, once 2C-B has broken through the defences, the state gently transitions into astonishing calm and clarity.

And this, the astonishing calm and clarity, is your natural state. The one we were all in before the world's unspoken traumas were acted out on us unconsciously as children.

Although it is extremely difficult and challenging to process memories and emotions with 2C-B it is also extremely rewarding.

The reward is that you get to be yourself again. You get to love and connect with the innermost part of you; the part that was walled off by the pain you experienced in your past and, most likely, have been self-medicating with addictions, depression, projections, a 'career' or some other path to 'success' that society is selling you as an alternative to just being yourself. Others simply repeat what was done to them by 'acting out' their abuse on the next generation, or some other vulnerable and convenient container for disowned emotions. Maybe they vote for a war, run a bank, or simply allow themselves to be governed by abusers.

My journey began with the expected (although paradoxically, subjectively, unexpected) confusion. I was thrown straight into huge archetypal defence mechanisms. Reality-doubting mechanisms that hid the pain from me. And other dissociative mechanisms. Of course, while in these defences, I could not perceive them as defences.

And here is the challenge of 2C-B: To accept and breathe. To move through, meditatively, towards the calm open sky. As with all psychedelics, 2C-B is a non-specific amplifier of latent psychological processes. In other words, it amplifies what is already going on in your subconscious mind. And, for most people in our traumatised society, this is often not a pleasant experience.

In fact, for many people, it is precisely what their entire lives are structured around running from.

But, for me, and for others brave enough to take this journey. It is one of the ways out.

To be truly free, we must trust ourselves. And to trust ourselves we must know ourselves. And to know ourselves, we must remember.

Anything less is not to be a human being; but a ghost. A sleepwalker.

Some precautions: The 2C-B experience must be undertaken with caution. It is essential, as with all psychedelics, that a safe set and setting is established.

Set is the intention with which the substance is taken, and setting is the environment in which it is taken. This would typically include a therapist or close, open, trusted friend to be present and aware, and supportive. Often we can only go as deep as the people around us are prepared to go. Choose your sitter wisely. A typical dose is 15mg. But you should determine this with your therapist, or after extensive personal research.

I cried and shook as a friend held me. I finally got the support and comfort I never received at the time. And, most importantly, I was heard.

I was hurt. This happened.

Now I am heard. Now I am loved.

Now I let it go.

If you want to know more about 2C-B, I recommend Stanislav Grof's LSD Psychotherapy (which loosely applies to 2C-B also) or Friederika Meckel Fischer's Therapy With Substance.

Here are some more drawings from before the session. They speak more than words can about today's journey for me: