Eliza's story: from surviving to living

Eliza's own words

My mother was very young when I was born, and she was not ready to be a mother. She was very impulsive and emotionally unstable. She blamed and punished me for being honest, or simply for being myself, and sometimes she locked me out of our flat. We lived with my grandmother, and because the two of them argued constantly, my mother did not like that I loved my grandmother. She even told me that my grandmother did not love me and only wanted the worst for me. For as long as I can remember, she never showed me any feelings, except once, when she broke up with one of her boyfriends. That time she said that we only had each other, and she hugged me. When I was 8 years old, she met my stepfather and moved out. I stayed with my grandmother, which was a big trauma for me, and I blamed myself.

She told me again and again that she knew it was bad for me to live with my grandmother, because she was evil, and promised that I would move in with them when they had room. I developed a fear of my mother, as she was very mentally abusive, while at the same time I wanted to live with her and wanted her to love me most. My grandmother used my fear of my mother to control and “blackmail” me. When I was 13, my mother and stepfather moved into a big flat, where they turned the extra room into a storage room and said it would have been too small for me. As I went into my teenage years, my relationship with my grandmother began to get worse. When I was 16, my mother and stepfather sent me to Canada on my own, because they felt I was not on a good path. They told me I had no choice.

In Canada I lived with a wonderful family and actually wanted to stay there, which my parents offered at first. Because I missed home a lot and cried in the beginning, they told me I could not stay, because I did not know what I wanted. I moved home again when I was 18 and lived with my parents for the first time, until I lied to my mother about a very small thing out of fear of her. Because of that she said I had to move out, and so I moved back to my grandmother. A year later I moved back in with my mother and stepfather for another year, until I finished high school.

My father went abroad to work and did not contribute to my life. Many times my mother and grandmother told me to ask him for birthday presents, money and so on for myself. He now has another wife and a daughter, who is spoiled and gets the best of everything. I cannot even bear to spend time with his new family, and he makes me feel guilty about it and has said several times that I hurt him by it. In 2017, when I became very ill, both my parents refused to help me financially to get medicine, and it was my stepfather who helped.

In 2018 I had the last big trauma connected with my mother, when she said in front of family friends that she did not know why she even spent time with me. At that point I realised that I was not even a little stronger than I had been as a child, and it hurts me deeply that I cannot understand why I deserve such treatment. Throughout my childhood my mother also constantly criticised and humiliated me in front of other people I cared about. I believe that because of this I do not feel like a person who deserves love, who belongs and who deserves happiness.

For as long as I can remember, I have had really bad stomach cramps. When I was 13, I was diagnosed with coeliac disease and had a stomach ulcer. In 2012 I found out that I had hypothyroidism, which runs on my father's side of the family. I still had stomach pain and generally felt unwell. During the first period when I lived with my mother, it began to get worse, but my mother thought it was nothing. The second time, when I moved back again, it became really bad, and I started to have heavy gastrointestinal bleeding. I kept it secret until I could not be alone with it any longer and went to the hospital.

They began to investigate the problem but could not identify the cause. In 2017 I moved to Copenhagen, where I was finally diagnosed with Crohn's disease and started taking medication. I still have flare-ups and have been through three rounds of 8-week steroid (prednisolone) treatment, until I started on biological injections. This year I was told that there is already a certain amount of scarring in my intestines – not worrying yet. I struggle a lot with this, because I truly believe that my Crohn's disease comes from my inability to deal with my traumas, and I am sure that it is my soul that has to heal before my body can even begin to get better.

As a child I struggled for years with panic attacks and thought I was going to die, so I cried every night before I went to bed and prayed for one more day. I also had physical symptoms such as shortness of breath, a heavy chest and a fast heartbeat. Around 2016 I struggled with panic attacks again after an attempted break-in while I was home alone. Since that day I always feel panic when I am alone in the dark.

In relationships, too, I struggle a lot. I find it hard to let people come close to me, and many times, when someone begins to get close, I suddenly become irritated and pull away, and suddenly all the positive feelings I had for them are completely gone. I have also noticed a tendency to be more interested in people who are unavailable. In friendships, too, it often happens that I become overwhelmed by the connection and disappear.

I think my biggest struggle is that I feel I am just surviving, not living. I can never simply be in the moment and enjoy things, because I feel that something bad is going to come soon. I am not sure of myself and feel that I cannot survive on my own. I find it hard to trust people, and women in general, even though in many cases the connection was so good at the start that I developed close relationships with some of them, even putting them in a “mother role”. Perhaps I have problems with my own femininity as well as with accepting myself.

I do not feel I can be honest with people, and I think there have been very few people I have ever been able to be completely honest with. Mostly I am afraid of other people and avoid contact, while at the same time I long for company, support and understanding. I often feel that there is something wrong with me and that I do not belong. I don't think I know what love really means and what it is like to experience it. I can understand the reasons and make the connections between childhood trauma and my struggles today, but deep inside I feel that I am still the little girl who feels alone, and I cannot process and let go of the pain.

Finally, I struggle a lot with creativity. As a child my favourite thing was to draw, paint, model or just play with my imagination, but for the last 10 years, every time I try to do something creative, I have felt a terrible pressure. I think it is because, when my mother realised that I had a talent for it, she made me create gifts for every family member for Christmas, birthdays and so on. I know that at some point I simply could not do it any more, and ever since I have struggled even to start drawing or painting – and I also think it is because I find it impossible to be in the moment.

Eliza's own words

Around December 2022 I talked with my therapist. At the time I felt quite hopeless, not only about the future but also about the past and the present. My therapist was mentored by, and now works with, the well-known Hungarian-Jewish psychotherapist Andrew Feldmár, who has worked a lot with psychedelics in a therapeutic setting. It was from him that I first heard about sacred plant medicine and the wonders psychedelics can do for the human mind.

There has never been a time in therapy when I was not aware of my problems. Although therapy was helpful in general, I felt stuck and unable to actually deal with the “baggage” I had been carrying for the last 28 years. There is a big difference between knowing something with your everyday mind and KNOWING the same thing in an altered state of consciousness. I remember asking my therapist: “What do you do when you know your problems well but can't deal with them, and it feels as if you're stuck in an endless cycle of worry, living your life as if you were in a war zone?” He answered: “I learned a lot from mushrooms, and I try to remember those teachings in difficult times.”

In that moment I knew I had two options: 1) go away, simply to be with myself and let all the feelings come up until there is nothing left, or 2) psychedelics. As I felt that option one was rather unrealistic and would probably take years, or my whole life, I decided to look into psychedelics – and I already knew that sacred plant medicine was exactly what I needed. After a few days of research I found The Magic Garden's website, began reading all the information they had and listening to their music, and very quickly I felt a deep, trusting connection to this place, which was completely unknown to me. About a month later I was on my first retreat.

I remember stepping into the Roundhall of The Magic Garden, completely excited about it all and with an overwhelming feeling of fear. We started the sharing circle; the energy was quite intense, and I began to cry as I shared my story with the others. At that time I felt alone and separate from other people, as if it were my destiny to be misunderstood and left out. As I struggled with the feelings that came up while I was sharing, Jacob said to me: “Everyone has problems; you are not alone in this.”

In that moment I felt a little too proud, as if he were telling me that the pain I feel is not so serious, or not so “special” in a way. It was something I had heard for many years from my parents: “Why don't you get over yourself? That was a long time ago, move on!” My family never listened to my feelings, and so they never acknowledged them. My first ceremony completely transformed the meaning of Jacob's words, and I understood that pain and trauma are not something that separates us but rather something we all share. We are united by our pain, and in the end we are never alone.

When the morning of the ceremony comes, I feel extremely afraid. I listen to other participants sharing how calm they suddenly feel, and I can't relate to it at all. I still never can. Since my childhood I have struggled a lot with the thought of dying. It seems a perfectly likely possibility that I will die during the ceremony and never come back, but my life feels so empty and hopeless at that point that, after taking a realistic look at the way I live, death doesn't sound so bad after all.

The ceremony begins, and I am given the first round of the medicine. I remember not feeling much, and when Jacob offers the second round I don't hesitate at all – but while I am waiting for my second dose, I suddenly feel as if I am starting to take off. I am carried into another reality, which seems so much bigger and more intense than the reality I experience on an ordinary day. I feel so small. It feels as if I am being taken by a powerful tornado, and in that moment I realise that I have absolutely no control over the situation, and that the only thing left for me to do is to fasten my seatbelt, lean back and simply wait until the storm passes. It is a liberating but frightening feeling. Then it begins.

All the time I feel a terrible physical pain in my heart. Ecaterina comes to help me, and as she places her hand on my heart, I suddenly see a deep, dark, rocky abyss. I quickly realise that it is my heart. I want to look at it more closely, but at once I get the message from within that I am not ready yet. In that moment, though, I feel at one with my heart. I feel so much pain. In fact I feel all the pain I have ever felt in my life at once, and so I begin to cry. Yet I am not sad at all.

For the first time in my life I feel so “seen” and acknowledged. I feel that no one should ever have to feel the pain I feel. Then I realise how strong and beautiful I am, and how much respect I deserve for having come through the hard times. I feel my mother's pain, but I decide to put myself first and allow myself to explore my feelings for what they are, without trying to find excuses for my mother, father or grandmother – and so discrediting my own experience by letting them take up the space that is meant for me.

Eliza's own words

After this, the ceremony becomes an experience of letting go, which feels surprisingly easy. As time passes, I begin to hear the others around me as they come back from their journeys. At that point I am still very much in the process, and coming back seems a very distant future. Time goes on, and I find myself in a situation I had never prepared for: I am the last participant still travelling – and let me tell you, I am still travelling a lot. Being the last one “on the other side” sends me into a state of panic, and I feel trapped in this Other World with no way back to reality.

I remember listening to the others talking together and thinking that I will never be able to talk to another human being again. Of course I am not only able to – I am doing exactly that. Although I have always felt uncomfortable being close to other women, I quickly feel a connection with Ecaterina, and in the middle of my struggles I ask for her specifically. She stays with me for what feels like an eternity, and I keep asking her about my chances of ever coming back to normal.

As I struggle with my own perfectly fabricated personal hell, trying to escape back to reality, a realisation suddenly hits me: I have been alone since before I was born, and my only chance of surviving was to become my own comforter, which in the end meant that I always had to be in control of the situation. I understand that this is a coping strategy that kept me alive, but one that was slowly killing me as the years went by.

I became my own worst enemy, the only person who could drive me mad. The next thing I remember is seeing intestines in front of me with a glowing red area. “This is it,” I think: the way out is the way in, and I am ready to go in. As I come closer to the red area on the intestines, I see blue veins coming together in front of me, the flaming red area is gone, and I am finally back.

Interestingly, I was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease in 2012, which was identified as Crohn's disease in 2017. I have always had problems with my stomach and was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer as early as 2007. In 2013 my illness was so severe that my doctor told me not to plan too far ahead, and perhaps not to spend too much time planning my university years. I started treatment for Crohn's disease in 2017 and, by the end of 2022, had been through four rounds of steroid treatment, various biological injections and immunosuppressants; none of them worked.

For patients with Crohn's disease, how severe the illness is is usually measured by the calprotectin value, which shows the level of inflammation. The normal range for this value is below 50, and for five years my results varied between 1,500 and 2,000 without any real improvement. The reason I am writing all this down is that, after my first ceremony in The Magic Garden, this value fell to 500. It was a miracle.

Eliza's own words

Jacob, Ecaterina and the people of The Magic Garden showed me that there is a completely different way of looking at Life, one filled with compassion, love and understanding – and while my first experience shook me to my foundations, and I said straight away that I would never do it again, two months later I was on my second retreat.

Eliza's own words

Fast forward to today (May 2024): I have taken part in five retreats in all, and I believe the changes they have brought me are quite significant. I am still afraid for my life before every retreat, but unlike the first retreat, when I felt that even if I died it would be no worse than going on living an unhappy life, I now feel that I have so much good in my life, so much to live for, and that I really don't want to die now. The Magic Garden is giving me a new chance in life.

For the last ten years I have looked back on my life full of regret, thinking of all the things I could have been if I had had a different childhood and different parents. After my second retreat I understand that, while asking such questions is completely normal and in a way an important part of grieving, we don't actually need to look for answers to them. This is because it is actually never too late to change your life. I understand that the past is behind me, and although it will take a lot of work to be truly “reborn”, it can be done, and I can become the person I was always meant to be.

The power of the medicine is very strong, and it will take you by the hand and show you what you need to see, in a very gentle, caring and loving way. The experience itself has never been fun for me; on the contrary, I have been led into my personal Hell almost every single time I took part in a ceremony. But finding the courage to face your demons brings great rewards, and with every ceremony I am, without a doubt, becoming more and more “myself”. That doesn't mean I am not sad when I think about my childhood, but I now understand that whatever happened, it doesn't have to shape my present or my future.

Beyond the power of the medicine, the power of The Magic Garden is Jacob's attention to the participants, his wisdom, respect and care; Ecaterina's loving, motherly presence, which has always made me feel safe and has supported me through the hardest times; combined with the most amazing music they make together; and not least the helpers and the whole community of The Magic Garden – all of this is incredibly healing. In fact I believe that what they have created, with the intention of helping others and in the end healing the world, is stronger than the medicine itself – not to play down its power, but to express the power of the people and the music in The Magic Garden.

Many people, me included, never received love from their parents – at least not in the “right way”, in the sense that, of course, when you truly love someone, you love them in a way that is good for them, so they can be their authentic selves and feel safe, unconditionally. My own parents always had conditions, and very often I felt like a burden to them, even just for having simple needs, like going to the toilet at a moment when they were busy with something else, or coughing at night when they were asleep. So for years I suppressed everything and tried to be invisible.

My therapist has always told me that I live my life like someone travelling on a bus without a ticket, even though I have the same ticket as everyone else. We all have the right to live, to take up space and to enjoy the life the Universe gives us. Another important lesson was that not only does the Universe love me – otherwise I wouldn't be here – but it, the Universe, can also be my good mother, father and grandmother and help heal the deepest wounds. The Universe creates wonders for us every single day, and it is only up to us to see Life for what it really is and make the most of it.

In June 2023, in one of the integration sessions, Jacob says something like: “No one can prove that Life is not a dream, so what do you want to dream?” Even today I feel that this is a very powerful way of looking at Life, and while back then I thought to myself that I wished I could live my dream, I now feel much closer to being able to do it – by making decisions that feel right for me and trusting that the Universe will be there to catch me if I fall.

It is hard to express my gratitude and love for Jacob, Ecaterina and the team of The Magic Garden, and my friends often joke that I have become an “ambassador” for the place, speaking up for them at every chance I get. I simply don't believe I could have done the work I have done without them, and I truly thank my life for them. I can finally enjoy the Now, without being caught in the past or the future, and without losing myself in any intrusive thoughts that may come up.

I still have a long way to go and a lot of work ahead of me, but knowing that I have my Magic Garden family, who will be there to support me through the hardest experiences, I have no doubt that I am on the right path. If I could send everyone to The Magic Garden and get them to listen to their healing music, I would.

To finish, I want to share an experience from one of my recent ceremonies, in which I saw a picture of Alexanderplatz in Berlin. It is the platform for the regional train. Before I get a chance to look into it, it turns into a strange 2D painting, and the next moment it is a picture on someone's living-room wall. I wonder who lives there, and whether it is even relevant.

The next thing I know, the picture on the wall is gone, along with the living room; they are just a small part of a much bigger picture – and by much bigger I mean infinitely bigger. In fact it all suddenly seems irrelevant. Then I realise that every moment dies as soon as the next moment arrives, and that reality, the way we experience it, does not exist. Then I think to myself: if reality does not exist, then a reason to live an unhappy life cannot exist either.