I’m lying blindfolded on a single mattress in a candlelit room with seven people I barely know while calm instrumental music plays in the background. I’ve just sipped all of the murky tea I helped grind earlier, adding a squeeze of lemon and a slice of ginger to help the bitter taste and aid the digestion, and while I reach out for the blanket next to me and place it over my body to feel even more comfortable, a wave of nervous excitement runs over me. After inhaling countless fungi-related films and books, the moment I’d been building up to is finally here. There’s no turning back. I’m about to fall deep into a psilocybin trip that could last up to six hours.

And breathe…

I return to the intention I’d set myself in the weeks preceding this very moment: “Show me how to be kinder to myself.” I think of this mantra while grinding the mushroom truffles – otherwise known as psilocybin – then slowly stirring them in a cup of hot water. Around me sits a group of people I only met the day before but feel close to after some intense ice-breaking exercises. They, too, take a moment to sit quietly and reflect on why they’ve ended up at a Tangerine Retreat, a three-day psilocybin retreat in the Netherlands.

Although I can be impulsive, what led me here was far from a spur-of-the-moment act. It was a last-ditch attempt, after several years of struggling with negativity towards myself, mainly – and believe me, I understand how eye-rolling this may appear when there are larger issues happening in the world – towards my appearance.

I’d been brought up in the era of magazines heavily criticising even the figures of size 8 celebrities. I’d never felt a huge love for my appearance, but as I hit my mid-to-late 30s, I started to notice the wrinkles more and the layer of weight hanging around my waist. 

It was in my late 30s when I met W, the man who was to become my partner for three years. He was funny and smart, and we shared many of the same values. We were both smitten. I thought I’d met my match and many of friends felt the same. But after some months, tiny comments about my appearance started coming through. He would pull my hairband out, telling me I didn’t suit having my hair up. “Don’t ever do that again,” I told him once, but while I fought back his comments, many of them hung over me. I thought I’d always suited my hair tied up. Now every time I looked in the mirror, I questioned it. Now and again he would comment on what I ate, and a couple of times he tried picking so-called blemishes from my face. “W,” I would say. “There’s nothing to pick at; it’s just my face.” Another time I remember him asking “Why don’t you look like that anymore?” when he saw a picture of me taken a couple of years earlier. 

When W split up with me, he told me he had to be radically honest: it was down to not fancying me anymore, adding that he’d only fallen in a relationship with me as he was depressed following a previous breakup. This was a man who, at one point, was dizzyingly in love with me. Now he was explaining that what he saw as a lack of attractiveness was the reason he wanted to leave. I was mortified. If the person who had said they loved me was so repulsed by my looks, what did everyone else think of me, I thought. This became a train of thought I returned to constantly. 

The breakup led to an immediate drop in my confidence. I disliked looking in the mirror. I hated other people’s pictures of me. I would compare myself to everyone, generally classing myself as the ugliest woman in the room. On the Tube. At work. A pattern of disordered eating started. Although I threw myself into dating and met attractive and interesting men, I’d sit there thinking how I must be physically disappointing. If anyone didn’t want to see me again, I always put it down to my looks. Even when I dated a guy who told me I was attractive and loved my body, the words never sank in. There was still a barrier there; I still had W’s words echoing in the background and they overrode absolutely everything. 

I tried therapy for the first time to come to grips with the breakup, but I remained upset about my appearance. It was overbearing. I knew this wasn’t the most important thing in my life – I had a career I deeply cared about, I volunteered for vulnerable parts of society, I travelled, I was an active citizen with a fulfilling life – there was so much more going on, but this obsession and negativity was intrusive and overwhelming and I desperately wanted to shake it off.

That’s how I found myself trying to heal in a loft in the Netherlands. For the first hour or two after drinking my mushroom tea, all I see is a kaleidoscope of colour and little figures – like a retro computer game – running across my mind. I hear other people upset with trauma, letting out deep cries they’ve held inside for a long time. At first, my experience made me wonder why I’d come. I imagine telling everyone afterwards: “Well, erm… I just saw weird trippy things for, like, six hours.” Not exactly the release I was looking for. 

But after a while, I too am hit with intense sadness. I’m brought back to the death of a relative and find myself sobbing. I jog through my relationship with W and, despite the criticism, I recall the good times. Eventually, I feel a sense of clarity. His words, which had blighted my life for the past two years, didn’t matter. I could now let go. I realised a simple truth: only what I think of me is important. A huge ray of white light appears and stays over me while positive messages – You are enough. You’re bright and radiant. You are beautiful – come through. It sounds bizarre, but I’m pulsating with happiness. It’s like that old negativity has been plucked from me, and I’m being held by this feeling of abundance of joy and peace. 

As we remove the blindfolds and sing together, I feel only joy. Later, the group gathers for an inner circle to share our pain and the story of what happened. “I’m really sorry, but I’m just basking in light and joy right now,” I say. Perhaps I’m still experiencing the high. I return to my room and leave an upbeat message for a friend. Later, an image of myself pops up on my phone. Previously I would have berated myself and picked holes in my appearance; instead, I see it and move on. 

It’s now been months since the retreat, and I’m happy to say it’s been more of the same. I’m no longer radiating like I was in that room, nor is there a huge ego surrounding my looks, but I feel at peace. The negativity is no longer there and while I’m realistic that there’s no doubt going to be some level of dissatisfaction with my appearance as I age, for now it’s no longer consuming me. And I’ll be forever grateful for the power of a magic kind of mushroom.

The writer attended a three-day psychedelic retreat by Tangerine Retreats in the Netherlands.

Frame Of Mind is Stylist’s home for all things mental health and the mind. From expert advice on the small changes you can make to improve your wellbeing to first-person essays and features on topics ranging from autism to antidepressants, we’ll be exploring mental health in all its forms. You can check out the series home page to get started.

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