I grew up in a really conservative, deeply religious (Protestant Christian) family. My parents loved me and did their best to raise me according to their beliefs, but their beliefs were both absurdly strict and also ridiculously unsupportable by the scientific evidence that, as a book- and science-obsessed teenager, I was absorbing at a rapid pace.
Given that I was quickly disbelieving everything I had been raised to believe, and given that I was also doing teenager things like partying with friends and experimenting with various substances, there was an incredible amount of tension and arguing taking place in my home. My relationship with my parents was appalling. We fought constantly. I hated their beliefs. I hated my upbringing. They had no idea how to deal with a son who had always really been a good kid - a fun companion for my dad and a really loving child with my mom (who is still one of the most adorable, kind, caring and wonderful people I've ever known).
One night, when I was perhaps 16 years old, I came home quite late. I was high on LSD - probably the latter part of the trip. I was walking around the side of my house to get to the back door, and I paused. I started thinking about my parents. And suddenly it all became clear to me - the reasons for why they were they way they were, and the centrality of love to it all. The fact that their strictness was rooted in their deeply felt fear that I could end up doomed to spend eternity in hell. That, and a dozen other insights about them and our relationship washed over me.
This moment completely transformed our relationship. It was like a fever had broken. I still utterly disbelieved in their Christian faith - but I no longer raged against it, or felt the need to argue with them about it. I accepted them. I realized they had grown up in an environment similar to mine, but had never been able to break free of it. Instead of anger at them for this, I felt compassion for them.
I recognized that I loved them, and they loved me.
I know I could have gotten there without the acid trip, but I firmly believe that it would have taken several more years at least. That moment of insight when I was 15 or 16 years old was the kind that sometimes doesn't dawn on people until they're 30. Sometimes it never does.
Incidentally, this is just one of many moments of change that are rooted in some of the experiences I've had with psychedelics. I also, for example, shed my existentialist fear of death. But that's a different story. ;)
Given that I was quickly disbelieving everything I had been raised to believe, and given that I was also doing teenager things like partying with friends and experimenting with various substances, there was an incredible amount of tension and arguing taking place in my home. My relationship with my parents was appalling. We fought constantly. I hated their beliefs. I hated my upbringing. They had no idea how to deal with a son who had always really been a good kid - a fun companion for my dad and a really loving child with my mom (who is still one of the most adorable, kind, caring and wonderful people I've ever known).
One night, when I was perhaps 16 years old, I came home quite late. I was high on LSD - probably the latter part of the trip. I was walking around the side of my house to get to the back door, and I paused. I started thinking about my parents. And suddenly it all became clear to me - the reasons for why they were they way they were, and the centrality of love to it all. The fact that their strictness was rooted in their deeply felt fear that I could end up doomed to spend eternity in hell. That, and a dozen other insights about them and our relationship washed over me.
This moment completely transformed our relationship. It was like a fever had broken. I still utterly disbelieved in their Christian faith - but I no longer raged against it, or felt the need to argue with them about it. I accepted them. I realized they had grown up in an environment similar to mine, but had never been able to break free of it. Instead of anger at them for this, I felt compassion for them.
I recognized that I loved them, and they loved me.
I know I could have gotten there without the acid trip, but I firmly believe that it would have taken several more years at least. That moment of insight when I was 15 or 16 years old was the kind that sometimes doesn't dawn on people until they're 30. Sometimes it never does.
Incidentally, this is just one of many moments of change that are rooted in some of the experiences I've had with psychedelics. I also, for example, shed my existentialist fear of death. But that's a different story. ;)