Anna Ferguson

So that switching into like, okay, like we have to go to combat with another human being who is also doing the same dance that we're doing in our mind.

But I think that's where I kind of fell down a little bit in fighting is like,

My physicality, my body, everything, I was very fit.

I was trained to do what I needed to do.

But mentally, I did not have the tools to handle the kind of extreme.

extreme overwhelm of stress of getting into the ring to handle the person in front of me and that was kind of like my downfall in that I didn't enjoy it in the way that it became so terrifying to do that that I'd be throwing up beforehand I'd be crying shaking and at that time I was like something's seriously wrong with me if I can't do this now in hindsight I'm like oh it makes sense makes sense but

But at the time I wasn't educated on what that was actually going through.

Yeah, and I got sponsored by a gym over in Thailand.

I was like, right, I'm going to be a professional fighter.

I'm going to go over there.

I trained for about eight or nine months and, yeah, I just loved it.

I absolutely loved it.

I loved training I think more than I actually liked fighting and I actually ended up in Singapore before a fight.

And I went to a bookshop and I found a book on the shelf that had a very interesting graphic and it was called Acid Test.

And it was the first book I'd seen on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

And I read this book in like a day and I was like, that's it.

I've figured out how to heal trauma.

Yeah.

I'm going to go and study psychology and become an MDMA-assisted psychotherapist so I can help other people.

And so I kind of quit training and doing all of that stuff.