Hello from France!
Glad to be here! I'm good at making short stories long, so here I go.
My path has got some similarities with Amanita Dreamer's and Sarah's. I'm 42, I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome in 2014. I have a long story of struggling wth depression and social phobia from an early age, always refusing medication. I've spent many years living like a recluse, started a regular type of therapy in 2000, which hardly made a difference, started tai-chi in 2004, which allowed me to get rid of the social phobia quite quickly within just a few months. Little by little the depression stepped back, I started to feel like exploring the world, I started working in 2008, but I remained a chronic anxious gothic. I got gluten free in 2011, which allowed me to discover the mere joy of being alive and wearing colours and flowery shirts! In 2012, I dived some more into nutrition and alternative medicines: I started a naturopathy training in 2013, I learned a bit about anatomy, physiology, phytotherapy, aromatherapy... (I'm far from being sharp on all those topics).
I wrote my naturopathy end of term essay on autism (it's here:
https://naturopatypique.com/manifeste/). At th end of 2014, as I was starting to do some reading for that essay (microbiota, gut-brain-microbita axis, inflammation...), I also started to get interested in shamanism and psychedelics. Just a few videos on youtube about how working with "sacred medicines" is essential to spiritual growth can take you quite far! Even though I had been passionate about "spirituality" and esoterism since my teens, I knew barely anything about shamanism, ayahuasca or mushrooms. I discovered the world of psychedelic research, realizing I had nothing but predjudices about those substances.
I ended up tying together the themes of shamanism and psychedelics with autism in the last chapters of my naturopathy essay, pointing how shamans are suffering from what their people call a "shamanic disease" that requires a shamanic lifestyle in order to be treated, so that the "spirits" may be satisfied and pacified. The shamanic lifestyle allows special odd traits to become talents at the service of the community instead of disruptive disabilities. The shamanic lifestyle can be seen as a whole set of "biomedical treatments" (special diets, use of medicinal herbs, very ritualistic lifestyle, lots of time alone, prayers/meditation technics...) for youngsters who seem to display symptoms of what Western science calls autism, epilepsy, schizophrenia or severe depression.
So far I've had some experience with salvia divinorum (chewed, I'm a fan of Kathleen Harrison, who talks well of it) and psilocybes truffles (Maria Sabina's style kind of practice, rather than T. McKenna's) but I'm not very confortable talking of these on a public forums (French legislation..., of course) so, when speaking of psychedelics, I generaly prefer talking of what "experienced users say" or "from what science/shamans/psychonauts say...".
A few weeks ago, I started reading some stuff about datura. I just wanted to get some information on that plant that seems to be used in dangerous ways by some "witches" or shamans here in France (who seem to take Carlos Castaneda's writing as a serious reference) and, well, the more I read, the more I became aware of how much ignorant I was about the so called "toxic" plants kingdom. I started to look for information on flying ointments and I think this is how youtube ended up recommending me an Amanita Dreamer's video!
My naturopathy training definitely failed at teaching me about a very large part of the plant and fungi world. I feel like the "poison path" virus totally grabbed me!
I had come across my fist amanita muscarias a few years ago, picking up some naturaly dried up ones but not daring to do anything with them. A week ago, I picked my first fresh ones and had them dried well (a radiator can be quite effective and wooden sticks make a nice rack, so hat the mushrooms won't be in direct touch with the metal!). A second batch is drying at the moment. Just a few days ago I made my first decoction/tea with just 2 dried grams and 10cl of water, which reduced to 4,5cl and just one tea spoon of that makes me deliciously cozy for an hour or two (takes about an hour to kick in).
I've been struggling with perimenopause for 2 years, it brought back some serious mood issues plus some cognitive ones (attention and memory) and new sleep issues as well... I had just managed to finaly get all of those quite under "control" (with diet, medicinal herbs, electromagnetic hygiene...), I believed I was definitely freed from them and it's in full bloom again, just because of that hormonal transition.... so having one more medicine, and a powerful one, to add to my natural remedies shelf is really, really very much appreciated!!! It's also a new tool I'm willing to learn to use for shamanic work and that is pretty cool too!
My favorite thing is learning. Looking forward to do so!