Navy SEAL veteran Chris Maddox was standing over the filled tub in his San Francisco hotel room, a knife in one hand and his phone set to dial 911 in the other, unable to decide on a course of action. His group was headed to Mexico the next morning to participate in a study to research the effects of psychedelic therapy on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) in special operations veterans.
But he didn’t think he could go through with it. Not just the trip to Mexico, but any of it anymore. After 12 years of multiple combat deployments, he had been medically retired with treatment-resistant PTSD and TBI, set adrift into the isolation of civilian life. Then, the study intake dredged up long-buried memories and feelings from his time in the military, and he sunk into a place where he felt hollow and undeserving….