S3 | E2 Marian Siljeholm

I'm joined by Norwegian-American multimedia journalist and photographer Marian Siljeholm. She reached out to a group we're both part of, looking for people with transformational MDMA experiences for a graduate project, and that's how we met. Marian is upfront that she's a relative newcomer to this space, but she came to it the hard way: through her own search for something that would finally work after a lifetime of therapy.

Marian tells the story of growing up in a home ruled by fear, and of the ways that stress showed up in her body for decades. She describes work as her "drug of choice," and the month when her relationship, her housing, her health, and her career all fell apart at once. A sleep specialist who admitted he couldn't help her handed her a business card and pointed her toward psychedelic-assisted therapy. She walks me through her first low-dose MDMA journey, the shift in her relationship with her mother, and the deep gratitude she felt afterward. She also tells me about her second, far more physical journey, in which she released years of stored pain.

We also talk about the reporting project that grew out of this. Marian interviewed 45 to 50 people across several continents, along with researchers and clinicians, including Judith Herman, who coined the term complex PTSD. We talk about why so many people with such different lives told the same story: nothing else worked, and this did. We dig into why complex PTSD still isn't in the DSM, why our system is built for pills and acute care rather than process, and what it would take to bring this work in responsibly. I also share some of my own experiences, including my frozen shoulder and the body work I've been doing.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How Marian found psychedelic-assisted therapy through an unexpected referral
• Why she couldn't think or talk her way out of a nervous system stuck in fight or flight
• What her first MDMA journey opened up, and why her second one built on it
• The gap between medicine that works and a system that isn't set up for it
• Complex PTSD, and why we need a shared language for trauma before we can have an informed conversation about the medicine
• Managing expectations, integration, and why it's a catalyst and not a quick fix
• Breathwork, rest, and what it means to finally feel at home in your body

You can find Marian's photography at mariansiljeholmphotography.com and on Instagram.