Trigger warning: The below article makes references to suicidal ideation.
In a recent interview, Vic Mensa was candid about his history of drug use for “creativity” and its impacts on him.
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For a cover story with Spin magazine, Mensa recalled how he began using mushrooms during his adolescent years but how things worsened with time as he started using drugs as a “creative crutch.” His usage eventually led to him pondering suicidal thoughts.
“The first drug I really felt dependent on was mushrooms,” Mensa told the outlet. “I started doing them abusively. Probably 100 times a year when I was like 19. But it wasn’t soul-searching. I started to lean on it as a creative crutch, and eventually it just stopped working and I started having bad trips — I would feel like my throat was closing and I was dying.”
He added, “In the pursuit of boosted creativity I started doing a lot of molly and ecstasy. I was going to the bathroom in the middle of a studio session and railing molly with the powder falling on the ground. And I’m rolling up a dollar bill, on my hands and knees railing it off the bathroom floor — definitely with piss mixed up in it. That stopped working, and just tanked my serotonin.”
Following this, Mensa expressed he proceeded to take Adderall after crashing from the effects of molly.
“When the molly crashed, I was so depressed and started snorting Adderall,” he said. “Then, that stopped working. I would use each drug to the max until it stopped working. And then I was feeling like I couldn’t create, because I needed these drugs, but the drugs weren’t working. And so I was hellbent on killing myself. I was on a full warpath of suicide.”
Mensa explained he reached a silver lining after attending an ayahuasca ceremony in San Diego.
“When I did that first ayahuasca ceremony, my question for the medicine was: ‘Why do I feel so much pain?” he revealed. “And I had a vision of seeing my mother’s blond hair from my 5-year-old eyes. A higher voice came to me and said, ‘I used to want blue eyes. That was the root of my pain.’ I thought that was so revealing. It’s the first place I can really pinpoint it to within this lifetime: a sense of unworthiness because of not looking like my parents.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline online or via phone at 1-800-273-8255 (for the deaf and hard of hearing, contact 1-800-799-4889).
