When I was much younger and experimenting with them, my favorite part of the trip was the mirror game. Other people saw goblins or monsters. I just saw myself as a woman, even without the aid of clothing, or makeup. I'd previously been able to do this prior to puberty ruining me by just squinting a little. Only drugs allowed it to happen by my early 20's. I didn't try them often, maybe 4 or 5 times in total that I can recollect. I didn't have a lot of money, or time, and it was risky acquiring them, and more risky ingesting someone's bathtub LSD. Plus Nancy Reagan told me to say no, so I only said yes occasionally.
Fast forward almost 20 years, I'd run from being trans, suppressed it, repressed and crammed the feelings out of my life by filling every waking minute with some kind of exhausting activity. I pounded metal in the gym to the point where there was nothing remotely feminine about my appearance. I'd experimented with every kind of facial hair which I used to reassert my maleness. Unfortunately my dysphoric crises were returning and at dangerous levels that I hadn't felt since about I was about 16.
At that point however, the person I saw in the mirror looked as far from female as a person could. The notion of transition seemed abhorrent to me. There was simply no way it could work. I imagined that if I tried it I'd spend the rest of my life being pointed at and mocked. I mocked myself for even considering it. I've since seen the same sentiment expressed hundreds of times by people who are afraid to try, nothing unique there.
I made a deliberate swing through Amsterdam on my way home after a business trip and went straight to a smart shop where I purchased a literal shopping bag full of shrooms from all over the world. In reality was really only like 10 grams or something because they're packaged so professionally and nicely in little plastic houses like fresh pasta. The unusual looking man behind the counter looked at me concernedly and asked, Do you intend to take these all at once? I said no, that my plan was to eat them non stop for the next few days. He reminded me of the Mr Clean man. All he was missing was the large gold hoop ear ring. He cautioned me that I should drink some orange juice if things seemed to be going too far, so when I finally checked into my hotel, I had a backpack, a bag of fungus and a bag of fruit and juices. I didn't intend to leave that room without an answer, one way or the other.
Between long sessions of personal philosophizing and fretting over the entirety of what might change and what I was certain would be lost in my hard won adult life should I actually proceed with my still crazy sounding plan, I would pop up and gaze quickly in the mirror. There was nothing, at least nothing good, nothing promising. Nothing allowed my brain to see the slightest potential from what it saw reflected back at it. If anything the situation seemed more grim than when I was clear headed.
Back in my 20's I'd have seen what I wanted to see after less than an hour, and it had been a lot longer than that. How long I didn't even know. At that point I was measuring time only by how many plastic houses remained in the big shopping bag. It was long enough that I was down to my last container. They were spindly little Hawaiian things that I'd never heard of before. Frankly I'd never known any of them by their proper names. It's not like I was a connoisseur of fungus. Truth be told I won't even eat normal mushrooms. I've had an admittedly irrational, but nonetheless real fear of them ever since seeing a midnight screening of Island of the Mushroom People as a small child. I'm certain I will die if I try.
But I ate the whole last box in one go. I was amazed I even got off on them because typically you can't trip for this period of time, at least I never had in the past, but I did. By this point it may have been a combination of psilocybin and sleep deprivation, psilosleep?
I moved into the bathroom for one last gaze. It was only about 4 steps total since this room, like most rooms in Amsterdam was only just slightly bigger than the tiny single bed that was in it. To my amazement it was working. I saw not a man, not a monster, but not really an attractive woman either. I saw a sad looking, very tired and somewhat desperate middle aged woman with a slight facial hair problem. I saw potential.
When I came down I ordered estrogen online and then put the whole episode out of my mind. I spent my last night walking all over Amsterdam by myself, and ate a wonderful curry, my first real food in days. Perhaps 10 days after returning home, the postman brought the plain little white box straight to my door, and handed it to me rather than leaving it in the street box, perhaps just to see what kind of person orders a package from whatever that exotic sounding little place is that InHouse ships from.
I deliberated strongly before taking that first pill, for just about 60 seconds. I haven't taken hallucinogens since. Part of me would like to. Part of me is afraid to lest I see that the person my brain permits me to see in the mirror now looks a lot worse than I think she does.
Don't mistakenly (or deliberately) imagine for a moment that drugs caused me to think I was transgender. They merely gave me the freedom and perhaps to some degree the will to act upon it. Very shortly after taking that first little DIY pill, I found a therapist I could work with, and an MD who could treat me professionally, and I've been working with both since 2008.
TLDR: don't take drugs, use drugs prudently where necessary, or beneficial.