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Trauma and Ecstasy with Alex Abraham · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Trauma Theverist podcast Plus listeners can listen to episodes early
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Speaker 1: and ad free right now. Become a Plus listener by
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Speaker 1: going to Apple Podcasts, searching for the Trauma Theverist podcast
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Speaker 1: and signing up today. Welcome to the Trauma Nevers podcast,
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Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
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Speaker 1: who experienced trauma. My name is Got macpherson, and my
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Speaker 1: mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to inspire
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Speaker 1: each of us to help those around us. You ready, ready,
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Speaker 1: all right? So five four, three, two and one, our folks,
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Speaker 1: welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have us.
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Speaker 1: My guest today, Alex Abraham, Alex welcome.
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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited
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Speaker 2: to be here.
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Speaker 3: Awesome.
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Speaker 1: So. Alex has spent years researching, exploring, and experiencing firsthand
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Speaker 1: the therapeutic treatment options for healing from childhood sexual abuse.
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Speaker 1: His book, titled Trauma Ecstasy takes long, hard look at
1:03
Speaker 1: pain from the sudden, unexplained public floor discomfort that he
1:07
Speaker 1: experienced at the end of a trip abroad to the
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Speaker 1: deeply rooted anxiety and shame of a childhood robbed of innocence.
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Speaker 1: Congratulations on the book.
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Speaker 2: First off, thank you so much.
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Speaker 3: You're welcome.
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Speaker 1: And before we get going here, share with the listeners
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Speaker 1: where you're from originally and where you are currently.
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Speaker 2: So I grew up mostly in Virginia. You're Washington, DC,
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Speaker 2: and I live in Austin, Texas now and I'm liking
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Speaker 2: it and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for
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Speaker 2: a change.
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Speaker 1: I've never been there, all right, So, I mean this
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Speaker 1: is always intense talking about this stuff.
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Speaker 3: I mean, I've been doing this, You've.
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Speaker 1: Lived it, and it's how how did it start?
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Speaker 3: Alex? Did all this start?
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Speaker 2: So? It started when I was twenty three. I was
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Speaker 2: on a bike ride around the Netherlands, and off the
2:00
Speaker 2: bike there was sort of a tension in my pelvic floor,
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Speaker 2: like almost like a muscle clinching, and it just seemed
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Speaker 2: to get worse and worse. And at the time I
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Speaker 2: had no idea what was causing it, and I was
2:10
Speaker 2: pretty panicked. I was having trouble getting an erection, I
2:13
Speaker 2: was having trouble going in the bathroom. It was basically
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Speaker 2: like a clenched fist in my pelvic floor.
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Speaker 3: And sorry, let me excuse me.
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Speaker 1: So when you say pelvic floor, is that the groin
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Speaker 1: or something else.
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Speaker 2: It's basically a group of muscles really deep in sort
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Speaker 2: of your near your aus. It sort of controls, you know,
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Speaker 2: bowel movements, you're in you know, erection, and basically when
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Speaker 2: that's not when that's too tight, it makes things in
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Speaker 2: your body very difficult, Like nothing functions very well because
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Speaker 2: the pelvis is sort of the center of your body
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Speaker 2: and sort of the almost you know, center of control.
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Speaker 2: And so that makes going the bathroom and and uh,
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Speaker 2: you know, your erections and ejaculation frankly very challenging and
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Speaker 2: kind of clinched to tents and very unfun So.
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Speaker 1: You get off the bike, did you think, well, I've
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Speaker 1: been on a bike. Of course, this is natural. Something's
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Speaker 1: gonna be hurt down there.
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Speaker 2: What I was totally bewildered. I couldn't believe that I
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Speaker 2: didn't know what to do. It was inexplicable at the time.
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Speaker 2: And you know, so I started seeing all these doctors
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Speaker 2: and public for physical therapists, and I saw a lot
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Speaker 2: of urologists and they were kind of not very helpful.
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Speaker 2: They were mostly older males and they are just like,
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Speaker 2: what do you think is wrong with you? And they
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Speaker 2: would go in there and they would go in there
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Speaker 2: and do all these kind It was very uncomfortable and invasive,
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Speaker 2: and they would agree that like something was wrong down there,
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Speaker 2: Like it was clearly not the muscles were clearly not
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Speaker 2: firing and moving the way they were supposed to. But
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Speaker 2: they really had no idea what to do, and so
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Speaker 2: we talked a lot about stress. So, you know, I
3:52
Speaker 2: tried went to the sauna, I tried to meditate, I
3:55
Speaker 2: tried to sleep more, I tried to go on vacation,
3:57
Speaker 2: try to do yoga, all these kind of laxation techniques,
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Speaker 2: and really nothing was working at all. And I really
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Speaker 2: saw a very little improvement of the next four years.
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Speaker 1: And what were you, excuse me, what were during this time?
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Speaker 1: What were your symptoms.
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Speaker 2: I was having trouble going in the bathroom. I was
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Speaker 2: having pain defecating. I was having trouble getting a normal erection.
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Speaker 2: I was having pain with ejaculation. Uh, you know, I
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Speaker 2: was every time I urinated, frankly, extra urine was coming out.
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Speaker 2: And every time I went to the bathroom it felt
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Speaker 2: like I was incomplete emptying and it was just really
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Speaker 2: really sucked. And I was having a bunch of kind
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Speaker 2: of pain in my lower lower abdominal wall because that
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Speaker 2: sort of reverberates from the pelvic floor, and so all
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Speaker 2: that was happening at once, and you know, I was
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Speaker 2: having trouble sleeping because I kept having wake up to
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Speaker 2: go to the bathroom because I couldn't sort of rest
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Speaker 2: the muscles, and without them restling there, they were pushing
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Speaker 2: on my bladder and so it was really very unpleasant.
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Speaker 2: Like on a one to ten scale, it was like
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Speaker 2: a one. And so I I saw doing all these doctors.
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Speaker 2: I probably saw twenty different doctors around the country. I
5:04
Speaker 2: went to a clinic where they literally gave me a
5:07
Speaker 2: backscratch of like device to insert in there to try
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Speaker 2: to you know, relax the muscles. So really it was
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Speaker 2: really quite awful. I did a botox injection, I did
5:17
Speaker 2: a bunch of MRIs and testing on that nature. I
5:20
Speaker 2: even had a you know, they saw my hips were
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Speaker 2: not operating the way they were supposed to, and so
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Speaker 2: I had a small an anthropic anthroscopic hip surgery and
5:29
Speaker 2: that was not very pleasant either, and so it was
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Speaker 2: really shitty four years, to put it mildly, and I
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Speaker 2: even moved to New York to try to get treatment
5:36
Speaker 2: because I saw a doctor there who I thought was
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Speaker 2: going to help me, and he, you know, he said,
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Speaker 2: I have a bunch of physical therapists that can help
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Speaker 2: you here. You need to move here, and this is
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Speaker 2: during COVID and so after four years of that, he
5:46
Speaker 2: basically involuntarily discharged me and said he didn't know what
5:49
Speaker 2: to do, and so I was really desperate. At the
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Speaker 2: same time, I've been reading about psychedelic medicine. I never
5:55
Speaker 2: really crossed my mind that that's something I would do,
5:57
Speaker 2: but I've been reading about it from people like Tim Ferriss,
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Speaker 2: and so one day it hit me that I'm really
6:02
Speaker 2: anxious and I should try MDMA therapy, And so I
6:05
Speaker 2: tried the therapy and pretty quickly after a couple of sessions,
6:08
Speaker 2: became clear that I'd actually been badly sexually abused by
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Speaker 2: a teacher of mine when I was very young, six seven,
6:13
Speaker 2: eight years old and repressed the abuse in part because
6:16
Speaker 2: it was it was quite horrible even for that genre,
6:19
Speaker 2: and yeah, it was. It was a horrible situation and
6:22
Speaker 2: it really jolted me. But at that point, with psychedelic medisine,
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Speaker 2: I started using psychedelics MDMA and psilocybins started healing for
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Speaker 2: my abuse. Shake out all the somatic trauma on my
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Speaker 2: body and to start to try to reset my brain
6:35
Speaker 2: because I had a lot of emotional issues too. You know,
6:37
Speaker 2: I was angry all the time. I didn't have many friends.
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Speaker 2: I had really troubled with intimate connections.
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Speaker 3: But during this time, I.
6:47
Speaker 2: Would say it definitely gotten worse. But really my whole
6:50
Speaker 2: life I was struggling.
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Speaker 1: Okay, okay, during this time, Yeah, during this time that
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Speaker 1: you were seeking help for this situation, did anyone ask
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Speaker 1: about psychologic aspects or mental health aspects or was it
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Speaker 1: strictly addressing physicality?
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Speaker 2: I saw a lot of I was very Western of
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Speaker 2: my approach at this time, and so it was mostly
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Speaker 2: about physical aspects. There was you know, doctors are not
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Speaker 2: very trauma informed. They don't really understand the mind body connection.
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Speaker 2: And you know, so I saw some therapists, like you know,
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Speaker 2: talk therapists, and in retrospect, I think I picked ones
7:31
Speaker 2: that weren't very good because I didn't actually want to
7:34
Speaker 2: do anything about this at that time deep down. But
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Speaker 2: I think I was very unaware of the mind body connection,
7:40
Speaker 2: was very unaware of trauma generally, and I think I
7:43
Speaker 2: sought out practitioners who were also unaware, and so I
7:47
Speaker 2: think that combination was you know, they all talked about
7:50
Speaker 2: stress in sometimes anxiety, but the idea that this would
7:53
Speaker 2: stem from childhood trauma, I think never really came up
7:56
Speaker 2: in a big way. I think occasionally doctors might have asked,
7:59
Speaker 2: it's like checking off a box, but they never know.
8:01
Speaker 2: Whate ever pushed me on it. Uh, the physical therapists,
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Speaker 2: probably for physical therapists I worked on, never pushed me
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Speaker 2: on it. The uh, the therapists I worked with for
8:09
Speaker 2: talk therapy, we tried meditation exercises, and so again you know,
8:13
Speaker 2: obviously that's not totally incorrect, but it was very incomplete.
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Speaker 2: And so I until I started doing psychotic medicine, you know,
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Speaker 2: I really was very shut down. I just didn't show
8:24
Speaker 2: much emotion at all. I just was not very happy
8:26
Speaker 2: and very sort of like steady setting in like a
8:30
Speaker 2: bad way person. Just I didn't I didn't feel much,
8:33
Speaker 2: and so that really opened up my heart. But it
8:36
Speaker 2: was hard because when I when psychologics first opened me up,
8:39
Speaker 2: you know, all the negative emotions about myself, about my abuse,
8:42
Speaker 2: about my childhood all started pouring out, and so it
8:45
Speaker 2: was a very difficult couple of years well.
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Speaker 1: Let's so, so, let's go back to that first experience
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Speaker 1: where uh.
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Speaker 3: It became apparent that you had been abused. Sure, walk
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Speaker 3: us through there. How did that happen?
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Speaker 2: Sure? So, I've been working with a shaman and an
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Speaker 2: Austin at the time, and she knew that I'd been
9:06
Speaker 2: having a lot of PEBLC floor problems and she sort
9:08
Speaker 2: of cornered me when we were doing MDMA, and you know,
9:11
Speaker 2: I was very high, and she's like, so, Alex, what
9:13
Speaker 2: does your pelvis say happen to you? And I think
9:16
Speaker 2: she sifically asked my pelvis and not my brain, because
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Speaker 2: because I think the body always knows what's wrong. Like
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Speaker 2: I think if you really ask your body, you know,
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Speaker 2: what is what is the stemming from what is happening?
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Speaker 2: You know, it will tell you. It's the brain that
9:29
Speaker 2: sort of can trick us and sort of going all
9:32
Speaker 2: sorts of directions. But she unexpectedly you're not actually really
9:35
Speaker 2: supposed to ask questions like that in a psychedelic session.
9:38
Speaker 2: It's supposed to be guided by the patient. But we've
9:41
Speaker 2: been working out it long enough that I think she
9:42
Speaker 2: felt comfortable enough to try to go there. And so
9:45
Speaker 2: she went there and I was totally unprepared. You know,
9:47
Speaker 2: I was very high on medicine. I think I was
9:49
Speaker 2: also just ready it'd come up before that this might
9:52
Speaker 2: have happened. I decided that it didn't happen at that time.
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Speaker 2: But you know, when she asked me, I just I
9:57
Speaker 2: just flat out, flat out I was sexually abused by
9:59
Speaker 2: my music tea. And then everything started flying back pretty quickly.
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Speaker 2: It felt like I was being re traumatized in all
10:05
Speaker 2: the most invasive areas. Uh, you know I.
10:08
Speaker 3: Felt during that session.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt him and in all sorts of ways
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Speaker 2: that were unpleasant, and and all sorts of memories came
10:15
Speaker 2: back about his car and about you know, things he
10:18
Speaker 2: said and things he wore, and and you know, kind
10:22
Speaker 2: of context there. And it was a very scary day.
10:25
Speaker 2: I really felt destabilized. My mom had to come visit me,
10:29
Speaker 2: I had to have some friends come visit me. It
10:30
Speaker 2: was a very tough period, but I did get through it.
10:34
Speaker 2: And you know, it's honestly a very tough couple of years.
10:37
Speaker 2: But at this point I feel in a much better place. Obviously,
10:40
Speaker 2: I feel comfortable enough to talk about this experience, and uh,
10:43
Speaker 2: you know, but things definitely got worse before they got better.
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Speaker 2: And one thing I want to emphasize was psychedelic medicine
10:49
Speaker 2: is it is not a magic pill. It does not
10:51
Speaker 2: do the work for you, but it helps bring up
10:53
Speaker 2: stuff that you otherwise might have trouble bringing up around
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Speaker 2: you know, feelings, emotions, bad energy, like really somatic shaking.
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Speaker 2: And I think by doing all that and bringing it
11:03
Speaker 2: to the surface, you can feel that and let it go.
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Speaker 1: I would I could imagine how freakin' freaky that would
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Speaker 1: and scary that would be to realize that in that
11:14
Speaker 1: session under the influence of the psychedelics. Fortunately that shaman
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Speaker 1: was there when you came down. What was your response?
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Speaker 1: How did you react? Uh?
11:28
Speaker 2: You know, I was like, how am I going to
11:30
Speaker 2: tell people about this? You know, we discussed that I
11:32
Speaker 2: would tell my mom and I need to tell her
11:35
Speaker 2: and that she would probably be there support me. And
11:37
Speaker 2: I knew she'd be there to support me, and she was,
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Speaker 2: And you know how I'd tell my friends and what
11:41
Speaker 2: you know, what would happen now, and that you know,
11:44
Speaker 2: my Shama would be there for me. But it was
11:46
Speaker 2: a weird day. I remember I took an uber home
11:48
Speaker 2: that day because it was just me and her, and
11:50
Speaker 2: I remember I sat and I was watching television and
11:53
Speaker 2: I just it just almost seemed like a bad dream,
11:55
Speaker 2: like this, this did this, you know, Oh my god,
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Speaker 2: Like you know, like I just was done. And then
12:01
Speaker 2: I sent a rambling text to friends that was sort
12:04
Speaker 2: of incoherent and sort of like shocked, and you know,
12:07
Speaker 2: I went for a walk and I got a cheeseburger
12:09
Speaker 2: and was like like what do I do now? And
12:13
Speaker 2: but but really it took months to really sink in,
12:16
Speaker 2: like this really happened, like, oh my god, because there
12:19
Speaker 2: was a lot of shock, and then there was a
12:21
Speaker 2: lot of anger and that anger. It took a long
12:24
Speaker 2: time and I'm still working through it.
12:26
Speaker 3: How did you get to a point where.
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Speaker 1: You knew that's what really happened? There were you ever like, no,
12:37
Speaker 1: this couldn't have happened.
12:38
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, before that, there had been he'd come up
12:41
Speaker 2: before that he had done that to me, and I
12:43
Speaker 2: sort of decided that he hadn't. I told some people
12:46
Speaker 2: and then and then I was like, well, I'm not sure.
12:49
Speaker 2: I looked him up. He was still at a school
12:51
Speaker 2: in my county, but I knew he had driven me
12:54
Speaker 2: home a series of times, and some of the things afterwards, Uh,
12:58
Speaker 2: DUTs is. So I went to the police about this,
13:02
Speaker 2: and you know, he denied it, but there was a
13:04
Speaker 2: lot of circumstantial evidence. Uh. He admitted to drive me home,
13:07
Speaker 2: he admitted to give me lessons, and then I wrote
13:10
Speaker 2: an open letter to my school community naming him and
13:12
Speaker 2: explaining what had happened, and he didn't sue me or
13:15
Speaker 2: he didn't even respond, and the school system did it
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Speaker 2: for him, so you know, they they kind of protected him.
13:22
Speaker 2: So so that's all in the book too. But the
13:25
Speaker 2: point being is that I just knew it was true,
13:28
Speaker 2: and there was some other circumstantial evidence I probably can't
13:30
Speaker 2: get into, uh, but the point being is there was
13:32
Speaker 2: just a lot there. And you know, my parents knew
13:35
Speaker 2: he had driven me home for about a year and
13:36
Speaker 2: a half to go to a piano lessons or a
13:40
Speaker 2: house from school, and that's when the abuse mostly occurred,
13:45
Speaker 2: so and in his classrooms. So you know, it was
13:48
Speaker 2: not a good situation at all. But yeah, so I
13:52
Speaker 2: just I was really confident. I think once you once
13:54
Speaker 2: there's taste memory of something like that happening, or there's
13:57
Speaker 2: memory you know down there about that happening, it's hard
14:02
Speaker 2: to turn away. From that, you don't really tend to
14:04
Speaker 2: forget that or that that'd be hard to make up.
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Speaker 1: I think, so what happens next? How do you move
14:10
Speaker 1: forward with that? Would you do?
14:13
Speaker 2: I just kept working on it, you know, I had
14:15
Speaker 2: some friends come visit. I kept working with my shaman.
14:18
Speaker 2: I kept working with a body worker because I really
14:21
Speaker 2: was struggling with body issues and somatic problems in my
14:24
Speaker 2: pelvis and really throughout my body. You know, I couldn't
14:26
Speaker 2: lift my shoulder over my head without it kind of
14:28
Speaker 2: cracking and almost like frozen shoulder. And so that eventually
14:32
Speaker 2: that sort of thought out through psychedelic medicine. But then
14:36
Speaker 2: I also was doing EMDR, which is eye movement desensitization reprocessing.
14:40
Speaker 2: I joined a men's group for men who had been
14:42
Speaker 2: sexually abused in the Austin area, and I went there bicually.
14:45
Speaker 2: I started working with a somatic practitioner, like an intimacy coach.
14:50
Speaker 2: So all that was things I did to integrate my
14:52
Speaker 2: psychedelic experiences every time. And in in addition, you know,
14:55
Speaker 2: I tried to eat well, I tried to exercise, I
14:58
Speaker 2: tried to get enough sleep. I tried to journal well.
15:01
Speaker 2: So all these things will kind of helped me integrate
15:03
Speaker 2: these intense psychedelic experiences, both of MDMA Assistan psychotherapy and
15:07
Speaker 2: with psilocybin mushrooms. So I think those are the two
15:10
Speaker 2: main modalities I used the first couple of years, and
15:13
Speaker 2: they really helped transform me. You know, it took a while.
15:16
Speaker 2: There was a lot of anger. There was a lot
15:18
Speaker 2: of bad sessions in the beginning, a lot of yelling
15:21
Speaker 2: and screaming and sort of you know, even yelling that
15:24
Speaker 2: I wanted to die at various points. But eventually I
15:26
Speaker 2: did get through it, and I do think I'm most
15:28
Speaker 2: of the way on the other side at this point.
15:31
Speaker 3: Wow, so intense.
15:34
Speaker 1: So courageous of you too, to first You're welcome first
15:38
Speaker 1: of all, to come on here and talk about this stuff.
15:40
Speaker 1: I mean, so admirable, and I think it takes a
15:44
Speaker 1: lot of courage to do that. But to listen to
15:49
Speaker 1: you kind of enumerate all the different things that you
15:53
Speaker 1: did to get to try to get better is really admirable.
15:56
Speaker 1: I mean, you did so many things. Did you have
16:01
Speaker 1: someone close to you? You mentioned your mom and some friends,
16:03
Speaker 1: but was there someone especially close to you who was
16:06
Speaker 1: there as your major support system?
16:09
Speaker 2: I would say the biggest supporters from my mom and
16:11
Speaker 2: my Seanman. I was verry close to both of them there.
16:15
Speaker 2: They were kind of my brain trust, so to speak,
16:19
Speaker 2: and I think they were both really instrumental in me
16:21
Speaker 2: getting through this in different ways.
16:24
Speaker 1: So how do you get First of all, let me
16:28
Speaker 1: just remind everyone speaking with Alex Abraham, the book is
16:33
Speaker 1: called Trauma Ecstasy. So, Alex, how did you get to
16:36
Speaker 1: the point where you decided to write this book?
16:41
Speaker 2: Sure? So, honestly, initially, after my letter was sort of
16:45
Speaker 2: dismissed and my school system put out a statement saying
16:49
Speaker 2: that dismissing me and saying that he would be staying
16:52
Speaker 2: in his role and he won awards. So after that,
16:55
Speaker 2: I was pretty pissed. So I was not happy. And
16:58
Speaker 2: so initially the point of the book was to like,
17:01
Speaker 2: you know, bring documentation and try to you know, get
17:05
Speaker 2: him held accountable for his behavior. But over time it's
17:08
Speaker 2: sort of changed. You know, I really wanted to write
17:10
Speaker 2: the book to help other survivors of sexual abuse, because
17:13
Speaker 2: I do think this is something that men don't really
17:14
Speaker 2: talk about particular, and women too, you know, I think
17:18
Speaker 2: childhood sexual abuse is a really damaging thing and Psychedelics,
17:22
Speaker 2: I think are a new modality that can really help
17:24
Speaker 2: people in a way that say, you know, traditional therapy
17:27
Speaker 2: or even EMDR or a lot of the other modalities
17:30
Speaker 2: can't really touch. I do think psychedelics are the strongest
17:32
Speaker 2: modality for healing trauma. That's that's my belief. And so
17:36
Speaker 2: that would be number one. And then number two is
17:39
Speaker 2: I felt like it'd be good in therapeutic to have
17:41
Speaker 2: some documentation about this period in my life, and you know,
17:44
Speaker 2: have some sort of written record. You know, if I
17:47
Speaker 2: ever have kids, which is my intention, or grandchildren, it
17:50
Speaker 2: would be cool. You know, maybe they'll have it. They'll
17:52
Speaker 2: read the book at some point, although it's pretty graphic,
17:54
Speaker 2: so probably they want to wait until they are adults.
17:56
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think it'd be good to have and
17:58
Speaker 2: therapeutic to write in some ways. And then also I
18:01
Speaker 2: wasn't sure what I wanted to do next, and I
18:03
Speaker 2: thought the book could serve sort of a proof of
18:05
Speaker 2: work that you know, I'm a capable person. You know,
18:08
Speaker 2: I have the discipline to write a book. You know,
18:11
Speaker 2: this is something that I'm passionate about and something that
18:14
Speaker 2: I have some expertise in.
18:18
Speaker 1: You mentioned initially before you started working with psychedelics. You
18:26
Speaker 1: said you were there was some hesitancy there. Yeah, how
18:29
Speaker 1: did you get beyond that? How did you get over that? Uh?
18:34
Speaker 2: I think I started with MDMA therapy, and I had
18:37
Speaker 2: actually done MDMA a couple of times in college at parties,
18:40
Speaker 2: and so I think there was less of a hesitancy
18:42
Speaker 2: there than there would have been about mushrooms or LSC
18:45
Speaker 2: or ayahuasca, and that was the best place for me
18:47
Speaker 2: to start. I do think MDMA is a really good
18:49
Speaker 2: gentle place for people looking at dip their toes into
18:52
Speaker 2: psychedelic medicine and dip their toes into us using healing
18:56
Speaker 2: trauma through psychedelics. I think mushrooms and a sea can
19:00
Speaker 2: be kind of dark and disorienting and very kind of
19:03
Speaker 2: trippy in nature. But MGMA is much gentler, and it's
19:06
Speaker 2: always your friend, and it's really not a psychedelic in
19:08
Speaker 2: the classical sense, and that there's no it's not a hallucinogen.
19:13
Speaker 2: So I think that was a really good place for
19:14
Speaker 2: me to start, and so I had less trepidation about
19:17
Speaker 2: starting there. And I think also I was just kind
19:20
Speaker 2: of desperate, you know, I was unhappy, and even if
19:22
Speaker 2: I didn't say I was doing this to heal or abuse.
19:24
Speaker 2: I knew I was miserable, I knew I was anxious,
19:27
Speaker 2: And also, you know, I was a big fan. I
19:29
Speaker 2: am a big fan of Tim Ferriss. Tucker Max is
19:32
Speaker 2: someone as well that I've learned a lot from. And
19:34
Speaker 2: I think those two had both talked a lot about
19:36
Speaker 2: their experience with MGMA therapy and how much it helped them.
19:40
Speaker 2: And I could even see the change in them and
19:42
Speaker 2: sort of their public appearances from say, like you know,
19:46
Speaker 2: ten years earlier to now, and it was the change
19:48
Speaker 2: in that both of them is very evident. And so
19:51
Speaker 2: that sort of kind of convinced me to so some
19:54
Speaker 2: combination of desperation of pre prior experience and seeing people
19:59
Speaker 2: that I kind of I've had pre existing relationships with
20:01
Speaker 2: already change.
20:04
Speaker 3: It's one thing to like want to do.
20:09
Speaker 1: Psychedelics or in this case MDMA, but it's another thing
20:13
Speaker 1: to all go into it feeling that there's already something there,
20:20
Speaker 1: right because you like had said the abuse had come up,
20:23
Speaker 1: but you kind of repressed it. Did do you go
20:27
Speaker 1: into it thinking, oh my god, is something going to
20:30
Speaker 1: come up?
20:30
Speaker 3: Or is that going to come up? Or was that
20:33
Speaker 3: not even a thought as you entered that it's.
20:36
Speaker 2: A yeah, it's to clarify. It actually came up the
20:38
Speaker 2: fourth sessions when it really came up. Like I knew
20:41
Speaker 2: it was true, but after the second time I did MDMA,
20:43
Speaker 2: I thought it might have happened, and I decided it
20:45
Speaker 2: didn't happen. But before I started doing psychedelics, I really
20:48
Speaker 2: thought nothing. I didn't have any trauma, there was nothing
20:51
Speaker 2: wrong with me. I didn't know why I was going.
20:53
Speaker 2: I was like, this is a waste of time, and
20:55
Speaker 2: I almost didn't go. You know, I just was sort
20:57
Speaker 2: of like, well, I had very low expectations of what
21:00
Speaker 2: it was going to do for me. You know, it
21:01
Speaker 2: almost seemed kind of dumb, you know, I just, uh,
21:04
Speaker 2: it just I don't know. I just went, but I
21:07
Speaker 2: wasn't really sure why I was going. I told the
21:09
Speaker 2: facilitator that I thought my parents might not have been amazing,
21:12
Speaker 2: and that was the extent of what I said about it.
21:15
Speaker 2: But definitely, once I started doing medicine, stuff started to
21:17
Speaker 2: come up real quick, both around you know, anger I
21:20
Speaker 2: had toward my family, or shame and self loathing that
21:23
Speaker 2: I had, or things with women that I you know,
21:26
Speaker 2: like I hadn't. I hadn't had very many good connections
21:30
Speaker 2: with women really throughout my life, and I think a
21:33
Speaker 2: lot of that sent from my abuse. So so all
21:36
Speaker 2: that started coming up pretty quickly once I started doing
21:38
Speaker 2: medicine and I stopped thinking that. You know, I didn't
21:41
Speaker 2: have very much trauma once once I started doing medicine.
21:44
Speaker 1: You know, you talked about in part you wrote the
21:47
Speaker 1: book to help other men talk about sexual abuse, how
21:55
Speaker 1: difficult challenging was it for you to talk about this openly,
21:59
Speaker 1: to admit this.
22:01
Speaker 2: Uh, you know, it wasn't as difficult as I would
22:04
Speaker 2: have thought. I think that, you know, I was very young.
22:07
Speaker 2: I think I was six seven eight years old, and just, uh,
22:13
Speaker 2: I don't, you know, I never really blunt well, I
22:16
Speaker 2: have a lot of shame and self loathing about it,
22:18
Speaker 2: but I never really thought that, Uh well, I don't know,
22:23
Speaker 2: I don't that's a really good question. Why was it
22:27
Speaker 2: so difficult or why? You know, I think parts of
22:29
Speaker 2: it were very hard, but other parts of it. I
22:32
Speaker 2: just was sort of determined to get my story out there,
22:34
Speaker 2: and I really wanted to have something on record, and
22:37
Speaker 2: I really felt like I wanted to hold him accountable,
22:39
Speaker 2: and so that made me all very motivated to talk
22:41
Speaker 2: about it. And I just think also I'm a pretty direct,
22:44
Speaker 2: blunt person both to my I think credit and detriment,
22:48
Speaker 2: and I don't really tend to beat around the bush
22:50
Speaker 2: with this stuff, and I tend to, you know, say
22:53
Speaker 2: what I think. And so it felt it felt weird
22:56
Speaker 2: to you know, claim this didn't happen, or try to
22:58
Speaker 2: hide this. And also it was so all compassing from
23:00
Speaker 2: my life for a couple of years, you know, I
23:02
Speaker 2: really reoriented my life around therapy and around healing that
23:05
Speaker 2: like I couldn't I could not tell friends about it
23:08
Speaker 2: because they came to visit me and I had to
23:09
Speaker 2: go to therapy like during their visit, so so things
23:12
Speaker 2: like that. So I it's not really something I could
23:15
Speaker 2: have hidden very well. But in terms of in terms
23:18
Speaker 2: of I think what's been harder for me is, you know,
23:21
Speaker 2: the book is out now and there have been some
23:24
Speaker 2: negative reactions from people in various corners, not a ton,
23:28
Speaker 2: but some, and that's been a little harder. I have
23:30
Speaker 2: struggled with that more than then fear about talking about it,
23:33
Speaker 2: if that makes sense, just you know, hearing people being like, well,
23:36
Speaker 2: this isn't something I would read or or you know,
23:39
Speaker 2: I can't read this and that that hurts a little bit.
23:43
Speaker 1: Negative in terms of I can't read this because it's
23:48
Speaker 1: too hard.
23:48
Speaker 3: To read, or.
23:51
Speaker 2: I think so yeah, I mean this obviously subject makes
23:54
Speaker 2: a lot of people uncomfortable, and that's hard for me
23:56
Speaker 2: because you know, the subject is my life. You know,
24:00
Speaker 2: with this, this did happened, you know. Uh so I
24:02
Speaker 2: get that thanks can be called people uncomfortable, but you know,
24:05
Speaker 2: imagine living through it. You know that that would be
24:07
Speaker 2: really uncomfortable.
24:09
Speaker 1: Be really awful, horrific, But you know what you what
24:13
Speaker 1: you're doing is you will get through to uh you
24:19
Speaker 1: know specifically, I think men, not exclusively, but some men
24:22
Speaker 1: who have gone through this and don't want to talk
24:26
Speaker 1: about it. I mean, like I said, Alex, takes a
24:29
Speaker 1: lot of courage to do what you did, to to
24:33
Speaker 1: to even address it personally, and to go to the
24:38
Speaker 1: extent to seek out the different therapies and uh do
24:42
Speaker 1: what you did text a lot of takes a lot
24:44
Speaker 1: of guts, and to stand out and to write a
24:46
Speaker 1: pre You're welcome, and to write a freaking book and
24:48
Speaker 1: get on a podcast. It's gonna help a lot of people.
24:51
Speaker 1: And yes, there are gonna be people out there who
24:53
Speaker 1: are like, why are you doing this? I don't want
24:55
Speaker 1: to that's gonna don't read the reviews. Yeah they away
25:00
Speaker 1: from the reviews, but yeah, go ahead.
25:03
Speaker 2: The reviews have actually been really awesome on Amazon. I
25:06
Speaker 2: think it's been more people who won't won't you know,
25:08
Speaker 2: leave a review or read read the book period. I
25:11
Speaker 2: think people who have read it, you know, are open
25:13
Speaker 2: to reading it. The reviews have been quite good, to
25:15
Speaker 2: be honest, but I've had friends and family members and
25:19
Speaker 2: people who are just like like, I can't read this,
25:21
Speaker 2: or I can't recommend this, or I can't you know,
25:23
Speaker 2: I can't engage with this. And I get it, but
25:26
Speaker 2: you know, it is hard.
25:28
Speaker 1: What's been as we kind of wind down here in
25:32
Speaker 1: terms of the different therapies you've tried, and we've talked
25:34
Speaker 1: about MDMA when you reflect back and again you said
25:41
Speaker 1: you're still going through the healing process, right, it's not,
25:44
Speaker 1: you're done. But what's been helpful for you in this
25:48
Speaker 1: in this process of healing, in your journey of.
25:50
Speaker 2: Healing, Well, definitely the psychedelics for sure, but also the
25:55
Speaker 2: integration around them, you know, the energy kind of breath
25:58
Speaker 2: work that I do every week with the shaman, or
26:00
Speaker 2: that I did every week, and I think that's been
26:02
Speaker 2: most helpful in integrating my psychedelic experiences because I think
26:06
Speaker 2: what a lot of people do with psychedelics is they
26:08
Speaker 2: have this profound, uh, you know, peak experience, but they
26:11
Speaker 2: don't really integrate what came up for them. They focus
26:14
Speaker 2: more on the peak experience and not on you know,
26:16
Speaker 2: working through their you know, shadow or ego or or
26:20
Speaker 2: things that came up that they didn't like about themselves
26:23
Speaker 2: or others or trauma, and they focus more on you
26:25
Speaker 2: know what you know, the crazy uh hallucinations they had
26:29
Speaker 2: or whatever it is. And so I think that's what
26:32
Speaker 2: something I really try to focus on is trying to
26:34
Speaker 2: integrate these experiences in my life and trying to see
26:37
Speaker 2: how I can improve and and be my best self
26:40
Speaker 2: through psychedelic medicine.
26:42
Speaker 1: So when you say integrate, integrate, talk a little bit
26:46
Speaker 1: more about specifically what you mean by integrating those experiences.
26:49
Speaker 3: What does that mean?
26:50
Speaker 2: Sure, so I think, uh, you know, at times it
26:55
Speaker 2: can be very confusing and very visual, but other times,
26:58
Speaker 2: you know, the mushrooms me that you know, I have
27:00
Speaker 2: a lot of self esteem issues, you know, I don't
27:03
Speaker 2: really don't love myself. You know, I was really hurt
27:06
Speaker 2: by things my parents might have done, and you know,
27:09
Speaker 2: I think really looking at those in therapy versus you know,
27:13
Speaker 2: talking about the incredible dragons, I don't know, machine eles,
27:17
Speaker 2: whatever people talk about with these medicines, and really focusing
27:20
Speaker 2: on the on the trauma piece and on the healing
27:24
Speaker 2: piece and on you know, the things that came up
27:27
Speaker 2: about myself and you know, kind of the way interact
27:30
Speaker 2: with the world versus these peak spiritual or kind of
27:34
Speaker 2: almost thrill thrill seeking experiences. And the good thing for
27:38
Speaker 2: me is I think my early psychotic sessions were so
27:41
Speaker 2: horrible and so difficult, and I screamed so much it
27:44
Speaker 2: was really impossible to focus on anything else because it
27:47
Speaker 2: was so encompassing. You know, there was no there was
27:49
Speaker 2: no peak experience. There was just a lot of yelling.
27:51
Speaker 2: So so that made it easier in therapy to after
27:54
Speaker 2: to work through you know, what was I yelling about?
27:56
Speaker 2: What was coming up for me? You know, how can
27:58
Speaker 2: I work through that? How can I change the narrative
28:00
Speaker 2: on how I feel about myself? How can I move
28:04
Speaker 2: through you know, all the personality issues and all this
28:08
Speaker 2: sort of baggage that comes with being serially sexually abused
28:11
Speaker 2: as a kid.
28:13
Speaker 1: All right, So for those listening who are intrigued, interested
28:19
Speaker 1: maybe in finding a shaman or someone to work with,
28:24
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like you had an incredible experience
28:27
Speaker 1: working with that shaman.
28:28
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah.
28:30
Speaker 3: How does someone find their own person like that?
28:34
Speaker 2: I think it's very hard. I don't think these people
28:36
Speaker 2: grow on trees. Certainly, if you're in Austin, I'm happy
28:39
Speaker 2: to recommend several practitioners, but I do think I do
28:43
Speaker 2: think it's hard. Like I don't think there's an easy
28:45
Speaker 2: answer to find a psychedelic guide or an integration coach.
28:48
Speaker 2: But I do think that space is growing. But I
28:51
Speaker 2: definitely think in more progressive areas it's easier when that's
28:55
Speaker 2: in California or Austin or places like that. So I
28:59
Speaker 2: do think, but there isn't really I don't think it's
29:02
Speaker 2: something I can't I can't really give you a prescripture
29:05
Speaker 2: on that, but I will say the thing that matters
29:07
Speaker 2: most I think about that stuff. It's comfort level and
29:10
Speaker 2: trust and openness. And you know, people can have all
29:13
Speaker 2: the degrees they want or all the experience they want,
29:16
Speaker 2: but if you guys don't click or get along or connect.
29:19
Speaker 2: I just don't think it'll work. And vice versa too.
29:22
Speaker 2: If you know, even if someone's relatively young and inexperienced,
29:25
Speaker 2: if if you feel connected them and you feel like
29:28
Speaker 2: you can grow with them and you feel like they
29:30
Speaker 2: can help you, and then I really don't think you
29:32
Speaker 2: know where they where they studied or who they studied with,
29:35
Speaker 2: or how many years they spent in the struggle. Apprenticing
29:38
Speaker 2: really matters.
29:39
Speaker 1: Awesome, all right, Alex? How can people learn more about
29:43
Speaker 1: you and the book?
29:45
Speaker 3: Again?
29:45
Speaker 1: The book is called Trauma and Ecstasy. What's the best
29:47
Speaker 1: way for people to get in contact with you? And?
29:49
Speaker 1: Sure about that?
29:50
Speaker 2: Alex at Trauma and Ecstasy dot com or Alex dot
29:55
Speaker 2: l dot Abraham on Instagram. And I'm pretty easy to
29:58
Speaker 2: reach with those formats and I check them. So if
30:02
Speaker 2: you have any questions about the book, or about psychedelics
30:05
Speaker 2: or really about anything else, I'm happy to answer it.
30:07
Speaker 1: Awesome, great meeting you, Alex, Thanks again for for doing this,
30:11
Speaker 1: and uh kudos man for for writing a book and
30:16
Speaker 1: being willing to share your story.
30:18
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I really appreciate being here. Is
30:21
Speaker 2: great questions and great to be with you all.
30:23
Speaker 3: Right, man, Take care, m
30:47
Speaker 1: M m