In the fall of 2021, I sort of fell apart. The 20th anniversary of my sister Adrienne’s death hit me. Hard.

When I was 22 years old, I got custody of my then-eight-year-old half-sister Adrienne. We have the same mother but different biological fathers. Her dad died in a car accident before Adrienne was born, so she never knew him. Three days before her 50th birthday, our mother decided she didn’t want to be a mother anymore. Adrienne’s two-week Christmas vacation to visit me—her Sissy—turned into a permanent stay. Eventually, I sued our mother for full legal and physical custody in court and won.

I raised Adrienne all through my twenties. With 14 years between us, we made a deal: I was her parent first, then her sister, and one day I hoped to be her friend. We never quite got there. One month after her 15th birthday, Adrienne was diagnosed with stage four primary liver cancer. (Also known as hepatocellular carcinoma or HCC.) She lived 147 days with the diagnosis. She died on October 9, 2001. In 2019, I wrote a medical memoir about this time in my life titled Better Off Bald: A Life in 147 Days.

Over the years, I tried many things to cope with the grief of losing the most important person in my life. I attended various support groups. I went to several therapists. I also cycled through different antidepressants before sticking with Wellbutrin. But on the 20th anniversary, nothing seemed to work. I walked around in a daze, a shadow of my former self. I knew I needed a drastic change.

In early 2022, I stumbled across the New Science of Ancient Medicine Summit. I must have seen an ad or post on social media. I was intrigued when I saw one of the speakers was Tucker Max. Though I didn’t know him personally, I worked with his company, the now-defunct Scribe Media, on my first book. I wasn’t a typical client, an entrepreneur who needed help writing a book about her expertise. Instead, I was a memoir writer who wanted help getting my book over the finish line. Scribe assisted me with copy editing, proofreading, cover design, and the production aspects of publishing. Given my experience with Scribe and Tucker’s role as a co-founder, I was curious why he was speaking at an alternative medicine conference. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t fit with what I knew about him.

Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that I saw that post, clicked on the link, and signed up for the event. Maybe it was the help I so desperately needed.

Known for his brutal honesty, I wanted to know what Tucker Max had to say about healing trauma. I watched the entire session live. Tucker talked about why he decided to use MDMA to heal his trauma and his experience with it. I liked how he stressed that psychedelics are not an easy fix. He emphasized that healing trauma was a multi-year journey, and the integration of the medicine experience was more important than the experience itself. When Tucker offered his email to anyone who wanted to learn more about MDMA therapy, I reached out the next day. Little did I know that one email sent on March 9, 2022, would be the beginning of my ongoing healing journey.

Coming Up: How I healed my trauma: Part 2—MDMA

Resources

• Tucker Max: The Beginner’s Guide to Psychedelic Medicine (podcast episode)

• The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel A. van der Kolk

• Trust, Surrender, Receive by Anne Other

• How to do the work by Dr. Nicole LePera