Why am I writing this blog?

Can I help others like me?

At the age of 43, I’ve just found out that I’m on the autism spectrum. This basic fact has provided a Rosetta Stone for my life, allowing me to connect my felt experience with a new understanding of my own brain’s ‘operating system’. I want to help you do the same.

This week, I went to a webinar for families of people on the autism spectrum. And on a particular part of the spectrum called “Pathological Demand Avoidant” (PDA). One by one, parents asked questions of the professionals on the call. And for each one, I had SO MUCH to say.

I had a lot to say because I felt I could relate to their kids, and I wanted to try to articulate what their kids’ felt experience may be. I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of gratitude from the parents on the call. One parent said they’d been wanting to have a conversation like this for years.

About a year ago, I was reading the writings of several people on the spectrum, and a lot of it was ringing a bell. A big bell. I was weeping as I read these articles, and I hadn’t cried much at all in 20 years or more. A dam was breaking inside me, as I realized there was this one simple shift in perspective that brought so much of my life into focus and coherence.

But a year before that, about two years ago, and about 5 months before the pandemic began, I was deep in a difficult depression. I had started to lose a sense of hope and prospect in my life. And I felt compelled to explore plant medicine as a way of facilitating a deeper inquiry into my psyche than I had access to with meditation or talk therapy. I researched every plant medicine I could, from entheogenic medicines like psilocybin mushrooms, Ayahuasca, MDMA, and 5-MEO-DMT, to less psychedelic plants like cannabis.

I started by trying microdoses of psilocybin mushrooms, which was very helpful for me. Whatever the mechanism of action of the psilocybin was in my brain, it was calming my nervous system and supporting a more optimistic view of my life. (Larger doses were a totally different experience.)

The hardest medicine for me to consider trying was cannabis. I had a particular impression of cannabis through the way my father used it (and hid that he was using it), and my family’s admonishments I not use it when I became sort of obsessed with it during high school. But it was now legal in Canada, and I felt I could try it within the safety guidelines that were already in place. I was feeling a distinct desire to try cannabis again, but this time for a more ‘adult’ application of anxiety and depression. I wanted to use cannabis not to get high, but to heal.

But the first night I tried a cannabis tincture, I had a profound experience of suddenly being able to have a deep, emotionally open discussion with my wife. I could look her in the eyes while we talked, and felt a new understanding of her emotional state.

Buoyed by that experience, I started systematically trying different cannabis chemovars, with different doses and ingestion methods. I made my own cannabis edibles, and titrated my doses carefully for each type of chemovar. When I got the dose wrong, especially with edibles, it was incredibly uncomfortable. But when I nailed the dose, it was transformational. Though cannabis was also a very different medicine at higher doses, I started feeling like I had a semblance of a daily, supportive medicine at the micro dose level.

As I studied autism more deeply, I started to feel there may be a deep connection between my experience with autism and my experience with cannabis. Autism seemed to be fundamentally a product of dis-regulation of various possible systems in the body (attention, digestion, sensory perception, emotion), and cannabis was stimulating a vast regulatory system in the body called the Endocannabinoid System (ECS).

This deep connection has only been reinforced for me over the past two years, as I’ve inquired deeply into my own ‘operating system’ through various kinds of therapy, and continued to refine the CBD-rich cannabis formulations I’ve made for myself. Each aspect in which I’ve found myself disregulated, has so far been directly impacted by taking cannabis. Sometimes the cannabis amplifies a sensation or emotion in a way I don’t want, especially with increasing THC content. But there seemed to be a reproducible benefit I experienced with moderate doses of various non-intoxicating CBD-rich cannabis chemovars. In cannabis, I had built myself my own personal medicine!

But I think this connection I’m perceiving between autism and disregulation, and hence cannabis and the ECS, goes much further. My quest for a greater sense of regulation in my life has extended into my human relationships as well. My relationships with family, colleagues, and friends have been vital in helping me introspect, and to feel supported enough to keep trying.

So I’m writing this blog to, hopefully, help other folks in my situation to find their own answers, and their own medicine. And if I can succeed in doing that for even a small number of folks, I will feel I’ve fulfilled a deep purpose in my life.