Wow, today I received the news that, from July 1st 2023, the TGA have authorised the therapeutic access to Psilocybin and MDMA for those living with treatment-resistant Depression and PTSD. A huge amount of emotion is running through me. I am so grateful to Tania and Peter, founders of Mind Medicine Australia, for giving my voice and lived experience as a carer, and widow to suicide, a place to be heard.
I feel elated and at the same time a great deal of sadness that my beautiful husband Franco of 30 years couldn’t access psychedelic-assisted therapy in his lifetime. Franco – who lived with a severe form of treatment-resistant depression – endured an invisible pain that only those that suffer can truly understand. For him, just to exist, each day was a battle in and of itself and yet he held on that way for 3 long years in the hope that I would find his solution. As his full-time carer, I did everything I possibly could to help him. We tried everything. During the 36 months of his illness, Franco was administered 96 ECT’s, over 20 TMS’s and altogether prescribed 19 different antidepressants/anti-psychotic drugs. In the end, my husband took his own life, leaving behind his beautiful young daughter.
Our daughter grows up without a father – there’s nothing I can do to change this – but what I can tell her is that she can feel so proud of her Papa. That she can take pride in his perseverance and that through sharing his battle of treatment-resistant depression, his story has touched the lives of so many far and wide. Today, the TGA has made a monumental decision that will undoubtedly change the lives of so many for the better.
If one life can be saved through receiving access to psychedelic-assisted treatment, then my husband’s battle has not gone in vain. I know in my heart that tens of thousands of people will benefit from this decision. My daughter and I feel so proud of her father, the life that he lived and his story that we now share with world.
Vanessa