Mushrooms recently became a big part of my life, a life I would probably not have without them. I enjoy art projects that test my skills and my ability to learn and problem solve. Whether it is my yarnbombing projects, or working with plarn (plastic yarn), or my new venture into spore art, it all starts with me seeing something unique and challenging myself to recreate it in my own style.

My recent craft of mushroom art began a little differently. Suffering from a treatment resistant form of major depressive disorder that caused chronic pain, I was in a bad place, my pain defined me. I had tried many different anti-depressants and mood enhancers, and pain relievers and sometimes I would feel like I was getting out of my rut, but the pain always remained.

I was ready to give up and accept this as my life now, just find a way to cope and live with the pain. Then I heard of all the progress psilocybin or magic mushrooms have been making in the world of mental health, so I thought I would give it one more shot. With a surprising amount of resources for home mushroom growing, it was pretty easy to purchase the spores I needed to get started.

I set off to grow my own medicinal mushrooms and shortly after I began microdosing. In a very short time I started feeling much better, but the real test whether it was working would be to see if the pain was still there.
If the depression is causing my pain, then if I have cured the depression the pain should be gone right? so I stopped taking my pain medication one day, no tapering off just stopped cold turkey.

The pain medications wore off and the pain was gone, and it never came back. I was living with this chronic pain for over a decade and one day it was just gone. I felt like a different person, relief from chronic pain can feel like euphoria, I felt great. Mushrooms without a doubt saved my life and my mushroom art is a testament to what they can do, cure depression, relieve pain, and spark creativity.