Eliza Dushku has been busy since stepping away from acting in 2017.
In a Boston Magazine profile published on Thursday, September 26, Dushku, 43, revealed she has become certified in psychedelic-assisted therapy and is working towards earning a master’s degree in counseling and clinical mental health. Additionally, she and her husband, Peter Palandjian, are funding clinical trials and research on the therapeutic use of psychedelics for trauma care.
“I had the means to shift directions and choose a course in my life that focused on healing myself so that I could help heal others,” Dushku told the outlet. “I would be remiss if I didn’t now share the transformation and the peace and the passion that I have. This is just absolutely so clearly my real calling, my real purpose.”
Dushku’s new passion sparked from using therapeutic psychedelics herself to recover from past traumas. “I found myself feeling so wholly unwell,” she stated. “So painfully vulnerable, raw, exposed — terrified and suffering from what was diagnosed as PTSD.”
She described feeling “reborn into the world in this safe and loving way” after her psychedelic use experience, adding, “I finally surrendered and began to feel a release and a sense of peace and security and calm whooshing through me.”
Dushku revealed that she had secretly been battling alcoholism and addiction from a young age while speaking at the New Hampshire Youth Summit on Opioid Awareness in March 2017. One year later, Dushku accused a stunt coordinator she worked with on the set of 1984’s True Lies of molesting her when she was just 12, which the individual denied.
In 2018, she also accused a costar from the CBS series Bull of sexual harassment. She was paid $9.5 million by the network and her character was later written off the show.
Today, she’s putting her focus into her work, which includes getting a question about the legalization of regulated therapeutic use of psychedelics on Massachusetts’ November 5 election ballot. “Everyone deserves access to therapeutic, healing modalities that could change their life,” she told Boston Magazine.
She added: “I just kept having these moments of thinking about where I’ve come from to where I am now. They say in 12-step recovery programs that if you get sober, you’re going to have this life beyond your wildest dreams. And it’s true. I have these moments where I’m like, ‘I really do.’”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
