I took magic mushrooms to relieve the stress of motherhood.
Do you know that saying about the Sixties? If you remember them, you weren’t there?
My parents remember the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969, where Bob Dylan headlined. They popped by out of curiosity and left at 8 pm. My folks were — and still are — wonderfully straight.
Why am I telling you this? Because I want you to know that I was brought up as a sensible, law-abiding, rule-following citizen, and I was no hippy kid. So, what I’m about to admit may sound at odds with my upbringing and middle-class roots.
I have taken magic mushrooms. I enjoyed them. In fact, I liked them more than wine. And I am not alone. I know plenty of mothers of young children, like me, who have enjoyed a little psilocybin here and there. I’d go as far as to say the UK is in the early stages of a psychedelic renaissance. Over the past year, as a brand owner (Selfish Mother) and influencer on Instagram (@mollyjanegunn, 116,000 followers), I’ve noticed my online following of parents talking more freely about psilocybin, either overtly or by the subtle use of a red mushroom emoji as a code. I’ve also noticed the trend in school-run circles in Somerset, where I live.
These parents are most interested in microdosing mushrooms to keep calm and carry on. Many people I know take them — in mainly tiny amounts — as typically as you might take a paracetamol or pour a glass of wine. The view is they offer a unique way of decompressing. Depending on how much you take, there might be a lightness of being, a feeling of connection, clarity, laughter and a sense of calm. And, unlike booze, no hangover.
Then after a dinner party, for instance, mushroom chocolates or truffles — in which small amounts of magic mushrooms have been blended into chocolate — might be handed out instead of a bar of Green & Black’s. Or, at a festival, one might have a few mushroom oil “drops” from a pipette to accompany a cold shandy. Or one might pick a liberty cap mushroom in a field — when they are in season — and chew it while walking the dog.
The strength of the effects depends on how much one takes: too much, and you might feel so buzzy and fluffy that you can’t do much else but sink into the “journey”. For me, the interest was in microdosing as a substitute for alcohol. I have three children aged 12, 9 and 5, and heaven knows there were times when I needed a vice to get through chaotic family life — but I’m over the whole idea of “wine o’clock”.
Twelve years into parenting, I no longer want to drink like it’s a badge of honour, even when bonding with my mum’s friends. Aged 45, I find it hard to ignore that alcohol is an addictive depressant that is bad for my liver and skin and has unwanted calories that add to my midlife figure.
I’ve tried mushrooms in many forms, and the ones I responded to best were the drops. And many mothers I know, instead of glugging half a bottle of organic shiraz, are more likely to take a single drop of this tincture, a brown concentrated liquid mushroom extract mixed in small batches, often in a kitchen, by a “shaman”, apparently. The idea is that just one drop is the perfect way to bring lightness to an average evening at home without resorting to alcohol.
Typically, I might have had a drop at about 6 pm while cooking the family dinner, accompanied by a Brooklyn Brewery alcohol-free beer or my favourite Agua de Madre kefir water. Over the next few hours, I would generally feel relaxed and in tune with my children as we ate our family meal. Watching Lego Masters with my sons and then singing to my daughter to sleep would be typical. A drop of mushrooms during this time gave me patience and the ability to notice small wonders and be in their “zone”, and these benefits would bring something beautiful.
This starkly contrasts what would happen to me after too many glasses of wine, which brings out a laissez-faire side of me;