A Mindful Approach to Dementia & Psychedelics: Our Shared Journey Series - How many lives can be helped with access to psychedelics and psychedelic therapy?
I just came from a memorial service where I am staying in Mexico. It is a community of all ages, although the majority are senior citizens. There is also a memory care area in one section of the community. Death may be more a natural part of life around here; at least people are closer to it.
In the month and a half since Henry and I have been here to see if this is a good fit for us as his Alzheimer’s progresses, I have heard of a few people who have passed away. One woman, born in South Africa, was relieved when her husband passed peacefully after suffering from Parkinson’s for many years.
Another woman in her 90s also passed quietly in her sleep after being bedridden with Alzheimer’s for many years. She had been a roommate with another woman with Alzheimer’s for the last 14 years. The roommate’s daughter, who lives in nearby San Miguel de Allende, was deeply saddened as she had grown close to her mother’s roommate. She also wondered, “How would her mother take this loss?”
You may be surprised to learn that the memorial service I attended was not for the death of an elderly person, but of a man in the prime of his life, married with two young children. It is his mother that lives here. The first week I arrived, she struck up a conversation with me. She impressed me with her joie de vivre and friendliness. I felt immediately welcomed. As a vibrant woman in her mid-80s, she represents the excitement about life that I hope to feel at her age!
So last night, when I heard there was to be a memorial service for her son this morning, I wanted to be sure to attend. I walked into the small interfaith chapel, nestled in the center of the community. Every seat in the cozy space was taken—close to fifty people. As I sat in the middle of a row, the support and community connection were palpable. It was as if I had walked into the bosom of love.
There were varying nationalities but all community members in the bonds of friendship and neighborly support. Those of different faiths, backgrounds, ethnicities, and orientations were all gathered in caring. These are just some of the ingredients that nourish connection. It was evident that these deep connections grow stronger year after year in this community.
In one of the first conversations I had with my new 80-something-year-old friend, she shared searing grief and suffering that she has lived with for so many years. That is the grief of a mother whose child has suffered sexual abuse. Thinking she was creating an exceptional and safe situation for her adolescent son by sending him to an elite boarding school, she learned—when her son was an adult—that he had been living with the trauma of sexual abuse ever since his boarding school days.
Trauma from sexual abuse can be a trauma that can destroy lives or, at the very least, remain part of the narrative throughout one’s life. In this case, the trauma brought mental health challenges over many years. Sadly, he took his own life.
As I step into the psychedelic space, I learn more and more about the potential healing power of psychedelics. This healing potential covers the gamut—from the trauma of sexual abuse to addiction to drug-resistant depression. So as I sat there on the bench during the memorial service, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “How many lives can be helped with access to psychedelics and psychedelic therapy? Does this need to continue to happen? How can we help relieve deep suffering? Did he need to die... or live in such pain for so many years?”
These queries motivate me to continue sharing as I, too, learn about the potential power of psychedelics—both from natural sources as well as synthetic ones. It is also part of the motivation behind this blog—to help de-stigmatize the understanding of psychedelics. I write sharing the personal journey of my husband and me, through the lens of mindfulness, and our path—one focused on dementia and caregiving. What I continually find is that suffering comes in many forms. When my heart breaks for my new friend, a mother who has lost her first-born, my heart breaks for the pain that she feels, pain that people feel, pain that I feel, and for things that cannot be changed.
Life, the nature of being human, carries with it much suffering. The First Noble Truth is that there is suffering. Witnessing the depth of suffering that was eloquently addressed in today’s memorial service, from a Christian perspective, was inspiring, hopeful, and steeped in faith. The idea of not if we suffer but when we suffer rings so true to me. What do we do? Not to compare different degrees of suffering or tragedies like my new friend’s son, but that we share and are connected in that suffering.
Mindfulness has been a practice that can hold pain and generate out love. Specifically, the practice of tonglen, in which love and compassion, being nourished and generated out, can not only hold the pain but, through compassion, transmute it—much like faith-based prayers of many religions—has been a practice I hold dear. Metta Bhavana, or Loving-Kindness meditation, is commonly practiced—not just in Buddhist meditation halls but also nowadays even in secular public schools, where students of all ages learn social and emotional skills as part of their education. In this practice, ultimately one generates understanding for those who otherwise may have been kept at a distance or held with disregard. Learning to connect to—those we love, those we may not know but with whom we interact, and those we may find difficult—while moving from the brain to the heart with deeper understanding, is a hopeful outcome of the practice.
Feeling broken and in deep pain may be familiar emotions to you. It is for me. There have been times throughout my life when these feelings are more acute than at others. Learning that you or a loved one has dementia can bring deep sorrow, confusion, and loss. As a caregiver, watching a loved one—whether it be your partner or spouse, or mother or father—is sad to witness. Suffering is real. The practice of mindfulness does not turn the heart away from suffering; rather, it has helped me hold the suffering, feel the suffering deeply, but be in that same bosom of love I felt earlier this morning at the memorial service. It is a connection from the ground of one’s essential nature—love and peace—a well-being steeped in positivity that is naturally self-nourishing while also outwardly generated in goodness and goodwill.
- Lauren Alderfer, PhD.
