When I was 14, I was a desperately lonely kid. I was born a fire sign into a family of water, a dreamer in a family of bankers, an artist in a blood bath. It would take me decades, 3 therapists, thousands of books, expatriation and cutting off all contact with my family to get over my early upbringing. The people who know me best still wonder how I made it. My therapists are relieved I dodged schizophrenia
When I was 14, there was only one source of joy in my life, and he was the most alive person I’d ever known. Talented beyond measure, fiery, funny, tender and sarcastic, he was 4 years older than me - and his fierceness could definitely be attributed to the fact we came from the same family. He was my "half" cousin - we shared a grandfather - and he was hungry for life, for art, for meaning, for power, for love. His charisma stopped every woman in her tracks, no matter her age. His boundless energy was an electric, eclectic wonder. Even his rage was beautiful, the roar of felines in the wild.
And to my surprise, he saw me. He saw my own light, the one I never believed existed. We stood back to back, and for years we fought our family. I felt that together we were invincible. We would finish each other’s sentences. We would read poetry for hours, swap books - finally reading became a not so solitary activity - he would play guitar for me, or piano, or violin. He would show me mysteries and wonders, and also - how to fight the world. To say that I loved him would be a paltry, laughable statement. I had no words at the time to express the depth of my affection, and I don’t think I ever will.
Clouds gathered, of course. We were too young and still too naive. The whole family whispered behind our backs, sibilant susurrations that started with sex. The whole family tried to break us, for sport. But they never could, and they never learned the truth either.
Unfortunately, there were a few chinks. His growth into manhood involved a generous serving of humiliation, because he was half-Arabic, and keenly aware of the swirls and eddies of power. If I was blind to one thing then, it was how devouring this thirst would become for him. He fell in with a wrong crowd - no, not what you think, not a street gang, but much worse - rich, cultured, vicious people who partied in yachts and indulged in all possible drugs. My cousin fell into a Pasolini movie, a Sodom of spoilt soulless monsters, and he raced to become one of them, so he would never again suffer under someone’s boot.
Until one day, the call came that he was dying of an overdose. The news was delivered with glee by my mother, who had never been able to break this one thing about me - my love for him. I don’t remember deciding to off myself if he didn’t make it - it was a foregone conclusion, something that never needed any thought. It was the method I pondered.
But he didn’t die. He dropped down to 40kgs, got all three hepatitises, some of his bone marrow died, he was half paralyzed for weeks, but he made it and passed all his degrees 3 years ahead of everyone, as he would, of course.
Then he became a banker at Goldman Sucks, a full-on shark, a fanged creature, and he married a vapid heiress. In a way, I lost him more then than if he had indeed died, but it was a slow, unremarkable agony - or climb, depending on your viewpoint, and I didn’t think to kill myself because of it. I didn’t think I would lose him. I was simply grateful he was alive.
Years later, I read The Great Gatsby, with no small amount of pain. My cousin was Gatsby, but a Gatsby who was not in love with Daisy. Who is Jay Gatsby without love? And who was I if I had to stop loving him?
I tiptoed out of his life. I still routinely find shards of this pain embedded in my skin, but the most visible trauma I held from this strange, foolish, devastating time of my life was my terror of "drugs". Even joints, even cigarettes would make me faint with despair - all I could hear was "You’ll die, you’ll die". It was an inconvenient condition for a Parisian.
For decades, I watched over drunk or high friends, I brought them home safely, I kept predators away. I didn’t know then I was hyper-vigilant, but I put it to good use. Because of course, I kept hanging out with junkies and alcoholics, replaying a Savior drama I never either lost or won. It was what it was. I watched them all check out of reality, furious, tetanized, fatalistic, watchful, careful. It never appealed to me. I found them weak for seeking such escapes, but I didn’t know anyone who didn’t, except the squarest of schoolmates. I belonged nowhere, so I became a watcher. Something became frozen in me, at my core. Sometimes, bits fall off like those videos of melting glaciers they show you as a warning that the earth is dying. They still do, and it’s been 25 years.
But something happened 3 years ago. No, my cousin didn’t come to me with a shaved head, renouncing the lures of this materialistic world, nor did he finally decide to elope with me as he had promised all those years - since there was no one as "perfect" as me.
My cousin is no longer in this story, except as a persistent ghost that can still stun me with the depth of feeling he evokes.
No, I met 2 hippies who were my parents’s generation, and they, also, saw me. I make a point of this because most people do not see others very clearly. Their own issues cloud their perceptions. The hippies I would soon call my adoptive parents had their own issues, but they were also wise enough to see how I had artificially crystallized my pain around the dreaded "drugs". And this is when the tide turned.
A friend of mine confessed she had been deeply autistic until she came to university and her housemates, not knowing what to do with someone who would neither talk to them nor look them in the eyes dosed her with magic mushrooms for A YEAR. This friend is now one of the most sensitive and talented actresses I know.
Whenever we saw couples fight, my adoptive parents would elbow each other "Should we give them MDMA?".
They explained to me that their marriage - a Japanese man, a French woman x would have never held 30 plus years if they hadn’t regularly taken LSD. Then of course, findings about PTSD started leaking out. I noticed, because Ike recently been diagnosed. Psychedelics could heal deep trauma.
My adoptive father told me gravely "I am sorry you feel so hurt. If you would ever choose to try, it would be my honor to accompany on this road."
Little by little my glacier was melting.
Then I met a man who was very like my cousin, down to the same birthday. The attraction between us caused a massive explosion, not least of all sexual. It was time to pick up my derailed adolescence. Sex and drugs. Drugs and sex. Ha! I had tried to not be banal, but it seems some rites of passage must be experienced.
My "parents" asked me whether I wanted to open my heart or my head first. For my first ever trip, I chose the heart - MDMA. I had never even smoked a cigarette, let alone weed. LSD followed, which came closer to magic than anything I’d ever experienced in my life. My adoptive father smiled like the Cheshire Cat and said "Yes, we knew all along this was your spirit medicine." I became aware that certain "spirit medicines" were for some people, not for others. To this day, I introduced 8 people to LSD, because I can tell now. One of them was so transformed she left her abusive boyfriend of 7 years the next day. I took mushrooms and floated in utter bliss, forgetting I was an "I" - I became part of the whole.
And then very soon after that, as if a dam had broken, taking all my fears away, I finally met my life partner. Sex, drugs and rock’n roll. Or rather Love, Spirit Medicines, Magic. Less catchy. So much truer.
I have no desire to try cocaine, heroin, amphetamines etc. I have to handle my conditions - panic syndrome, PTSD.
I never take spirit medicines in public. The set and setting have to be ideal - in nature, safe, with my partner, with the best food in town and gorgeous music. I fast and meditate before the trip. I am naked so put on mosquito spray. I dream and let go. I bring 5 bottles of water. I draw and dance. I eat mangoes and chocolate with my fingers, feeling the most primal of joys. The juice drips on my body and my lover drinks it. We watch the clouds and listen to the cicadas. We speak truth to each other - there is no lying with psychedelics, and no pain either. So often a deep, deep cleansing cry.
To this day, I find it the saddest thing that people should misuse those spirit medicines and take them in the wrong environments. We plan our trips every 3 months, more or less, for birthdays, Xmas (which I normally hate) and celebrations. We go away to 5 star hotels for 2 nights. Slowly, I restitch the pathways of joy in my brain. I am a changed woman. I bow in thanks that I was allowed a second chance.
